PRETSCHINSTANSKOE KREPOST, a fortress in the government of Orenbourg, European Russia, on the Sacmara, and the principal of the line of forts on that river. The town is inhabited by Tartars. The preparation of birch tar is here a considerable employment. PRETTY, adj. & adv. Sax. præte; Belg. PRETTILY, adv. frait; i. e. Goth. frida, PRET TINESS, n. s. Spryda. Neat; pleas ing; elegant; beautiful or elegant without grandeur: used as a diminutive, contemptuously, and for a small, but not extremely small, number: as an adverb, in some degree: prettily is neatly; elegantly prettiness follows the senses of the adjective and adverb. How prettily the young swain seems to wash The hand was fair before. Shakspeare. Winter's Tale. Of these the idle Greeks have many pretty tales. Raleigh. Cut off the stalks of cucumbers, immediately after their bearing, close by the earth, and then cast a pretty quantity of earth upon the plant, and they will bear next year before the ordinary time. There is goodliness in the bodies of animals, as in the ox, greyhound, and stag; or majesty and stateliDess, as in the lion, horse, eagle, and cock; grave awfulness, as in mastiffs; or elegancy and prettiness, as in lesser dogs and most sort of birds; all which are several modes of beauty. More. Of this mixture we put a parcel into a crucible, and suffered it for a pretty while to continue red hot. Boyle. Those drops of prettiness, scatteringly sprinkled amongst the creatures, were designed to defecate and exalt our conceptions, not to inveigle or detain our passions. Id. A pretty task; and so I told the fool, Who needs must undertake to please by rule. Dryden A weazle, a pretty way off, stood leering at him. L'Estrange. Children, kept out of ill company, take a pride to behave themselves prettily, after the fashion of others. Locke. The world began to be pretty well stocked with people, and human industry drained those unhabitable places. Burnet. The pretty gentleman is the most complaisant creature in the world, and is always of my mind. These colours were faint and dilute, unless the light was trajected obliquely; for by that means they became pretty vivid. Newton. This writer every where insinuates, and, in one place, pretty plainly professes himself a sincere Christian. Atterbury. The copper halfpence are coined by the publick, and every piece worth pretty near the value of the copper. Swift. They found themselves involved in a train of mistakes, by taking up some pretty hypothesis in philosophy. Watts. The first attempts of this kind were pretty modest. Baker. PREVAIL', v. n. PREVAILING, adj. PREVAILMENT, n. s. PREVALENCE, or PREVALENCY, N. s. PREVALENT, adj. Fr. prevaloir; Lat. prevalere. To have power or effect; overcome; gain superiority; persuade;~ induce; gain influence: PREVALENTLY, adv.) prevailing is, dominant; efficacious,; having most influence: prevailment, prevalence, and prevalency, predominance; influence; power; superiority; efficacy: prevalent and prevalently correspond. With minds obdurate nothing prevaileth; as well they that preach, as they that read unto such, shall still have cause to complain with the prophets of old, Who will give credit unto our teaching? Hooker. They that were your enemies, are his, And have prevailed as much on him as you. Shakspeare. Messengers Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth. Id. Brennus told the Roman ambassadors that prevalent arms were as good as any title, and that valiant men might account to be their own as much as they could get. Raleigh. Nor is it hard for thee to preserve me amidst the unjust hatred and jealousness of too many, which thou hast suffered to prevail upon me. King Charles. The millennium prevailed long against the truth upon the strength of authority. Decay of Piety. I do not pretend that these arguments are demon.. strations of which the nature of this thing is not capable but they are such strong probabilities, as ought to prevail with all those who are not able to produce greater probabilities to the contrary. Wilkins. Michael and his angels prevalent encamping. Id. This custom makes the short-sighted bigots, and Locke. the warier scepticks, as far as it prevails. They are more in danger to go out of the way, who are marching under the conduct of a guide, that it is an hundred to one will mislead them, than he that has not yet taken a step, and is likelier to be prevailed on to enquire after the right way. Id. Probabilities, which cross men's appetites and prevailing passions, run the same fate: let never so much probability hang on one side of a covetous man's reasoning, and money on the other, it is easy to foresee which will outweigh. Id. A conquest how hard and how glorious! Pope. This kingdom could never prevail against the united Swift. power of England. Prevail upon some judicious friend to be your constant hearer, and allow him the utmost freedom. Id. PREVAR'ICATE, v. n. Į Fr. prevariquer; PREVARICATION, n. s. Lat. prævarico. To cavil; quibble; shuffle: quibbling; shuffling; cavil. Laws are either disannulled or quite prevaricated through change and alteration of times, yet they are Spenser. good in themselves. Whoever helped him to this citation, I desire he will never trust him more; for I would think better of himself, than that he would wilfully prevaricate. Stillingfleet. He prevaricates with his own understanding, and cannot seriously consider the strength, and discern the evidence of argumentations against his desires. South. Several Romans, taken prisoners by Hannibal, were released upon obliging themselves by an oath to return again to his camp; among these was one, who, thinking to elude the oath, went the same day back to the camp, on pretence of having forgot something; but this prevarication was so shocking to the Roman senate, that they ordered him to be delivered up to Hannibal. Addison. PREVARICATION, in the civil law, is where the informer colludes with the defendants, and so makes only a sham prosecution. PREVENE', v. a. Lat. prævenio. To go before; hinder; >pate; preoccupy: verbs are both of prevenient is, preceding; going before; hindering: prevent as a verb neuter is used by Bacon for to come after the time: preventer is either one who goes before or one who hinders: prevention, the act of preceding or hindering; anticipation; preoccupation; obstruction: preventive, hindering ill or good, taking of before the object: the adverb corresponds in sense. Prevent him with the blessings of goodness. Psalms. Mine eyes prevent the night-watches, that I might Id. cxix. 4. be occupied in thy words. Let thy grace, O Lord, always prevent and follow Common Prayer. Are we to forsake any true opinion, or to shun any requisite action, only because we have in the practice thereof been prevented by idolaters? us. Hooker. I do find it cowardly and vile, The same officer told us he came to conduct us, and that he had prevented the hour, because we might have the whole day before us for our business. Bacon. Strawberries watered with water, wherein hath been steeped sheep's dung, will prevent and come early. Id. Natural History. The archduke was the assailant and the prerenter, and had the fruit of his diligence and celerity. Bacon. Procuring a due degree of sweat and perspiration, is the best preventive of the gout. Arbuthnot. Soon thou shalt find, if thou but arm their hands, They'd prove the father from whose loins they came. PREVESA, a sea-port of Albania, situated at the entrance of the gulf of Arta. It has to the north a fine plain, containing a number of olive plantations, studded with well-built houses. To the west the ground rises, and renders the shore difficult of access. The inhabitants, chiefly Greeks, enjoy certain privileges, in consequence of stipulations between Great Britain and the Porte. Prevesa is built out of the ruins of the ancient Nicopolis, situated at a small distance to the north. It has a small harbour called Vathi, and carries on a good traffic in wood, oil, and fruit. Long one of the colonial possessions of Venice, this place was ceded to the Turks at the peace of Passarowitz in 1718, and remained in their hands until 1798, when it was occupied by the French. The following year it was taken by Ali Pacha, and a part of the inhabitants cruelly massacred. Population about 8000. Forty-five miles south by west of Joannina. PREVIOUS, adj. Į Lat. prævius. AntecePREVIOUSLY, adv. dent; going before; prior: antecedently. By this previous intimation we may gather some hopes, that the matter is not desperate. Burnet. Darting their stings, they previously declare Designed revenge, and fierce intent of war. Prior. It cannot be reconciled with perfect sincerity, as previously supposing some neglect of better informa tion. Fiddes. Sound from the mountain, previous to the storm, Rolls o'er the muttering earth. Thomson. PREVOT D'EXILES (Anthony Francis), a learned French writer, born at Hesdin in Artois, in 1697. While he was in the convent of St. Germains he wrote the greatest part of the Memoires d'un Homme de Qualité. In 1745 be composed his Histoire Generale des Voyages. Besides writing many other original pieces, he translated Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe, and Sir Charles Grandison, into French. In 1763 being attacked with an apoplectic fit in the forest of Chantilly, and being supposed dead, the curate of the parish ordered a surgeon to open his body, when the unfortunate victim of this rash operation cried out; but the wound was mortal. He only opened his eyes to behold his executioners, and to close them for ever. PREY, n. s. & v. a. Fr. proie; Lat. prada. Something to be devoured or seized; food or wealth gotten by violence; plunder: to prey is, to feed or live by violence; rob; waste. Hog in sloth, fox in stealth; lion in prey. Shakspeare. They pray continually unto their saint the commonwealth, or rather not pray to her, but prey on her: for they ride up and down on her, and make her their boots. Jove venom first infused in serpents fell, Id. May. A garrison supported itself, by the prey it took from the neighbourhood of Aylesbury. Clarendon. The whole included race his purposed prey. Milton. Sne sees herself the monster's prey, Language is too faint to show His rage of love; it preys upon his life; Pindar, that eagle, mounts the skies, On herds devoted to the god of day. Pope. Beset with every ill but that of fear. PRIAM, the last king of Troy, the son of Laomedon. He was carried into Greece after the wards ransomed, on which he obtained the name taking of that city by Hercules; but was afterof Priam, IIpiapos, Greek, signifying ransomed ; his former name being Podarces. At his return he rebuilt Ilium, and extended the bounds of the kingdom of Troy, which became very flourishing under his reign. He married Hecuba, the daughter of Cisseus, king of Thrace, by whom he had nineteen children; and among the rest Paris, who carried off Helen, and occasioned the ruin of Troy, which is supposed to have been sacked by the Greeks about 1184 B. C., when Priam was killed by Pyrrhus the son of Achilles at the foot of an altar where he had taken refuge, after a reign of fifty-two years. PRI'APISM, n. s. Fr. priapisme; Lat. priapismus. A preternatural tension. Lust causeth a flagrancy in the eyes and priapism. The person every night has a priapism in his sleep. PRIAPUS. [Gr. Ipiaros, item membrum virile; propter magnitudinem cujus cognominatus est Priapus.] In mythological painting and sculpture. The representations of this deity, held among the ancients to preside over gardens as well as over the genital parts of the sexes, are very numerous upon antique monuments, and are often found in situations which seem very inappropriate; whence it appears that the Greeks more particularly were apt to introduce and familiarise themselves with it. It is probable that they regarded the Priapus merely as an emblem of fecundity, and attached not to it (at least deemed it unnecessary to attach to it) any indecent or lascivious meaning. See PHALLUS. The original worshippers of this god, however (the people of Lampsacus), have been much belied if, in the festivals they held in his honor, they did not indulge in a good deal of licentiousness and impurity. The representations of this nature which have a religious object are extremely numerous, and, as well as the worship of Priapus, have been treated of at a considerable length, and depicted in the rare work of Mr. Knight, entitled an Account of the Remains of the Worship of Priapus, to which is added a Discourse thereon, as connected with the Mystic Theology of the Ancients, London, 1786, 4to. PRICE, n. s. & v. a. Fr. prix; Lat. prætium. Equivalent paid for any thing; value; rate of sale; reward to pay for or estimate. I will buy it of thee at a price; neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God, of that which cost me nothing. 2 Samuel xxiv. 24. Some shall pay the price of others guilt; Spenser. We stand in some jealousy, lest by thus overvaluing their sermons; they make the price and estimation of scripture, otherwise notified, to fall. Hooker. price of wheat. Locke. Sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed; What then? is the reward of virtue bread? That, vice may merit; 'tis the price of toil; The knave deserves it, when he tills the soil. Pope. PRICE (John), an English writer of great learning, who flourished in the seventeenth century. He resided several years at Paris, where he published some works, but returned to England in 1646. After travelling through various places, he settled at Florence, where he became à Roman Catholic, and the grand duke of Tuscany made him keeper of his medals, and professor of Greek. He published several works, in which he displayed great erudition; and died at Rome in 1676, or, as Dr. Watkins has it, in 1686. PRICE (Rev. Richard), D. D., LL. D., and F. R. S. of London, was born at Tynton in Glamorganshire, February 22d, 1723. His father was a dissenting minister at Bridgend in that county, and died in 1739. His mother dying in 1740, he came to London and attended Mr. Eames's academy, under the patronage of his uncle, the Rev. S. Price, who was a colleague of Dr. Watts for forty years. In 1744 he went to reside with Mr. Streatfield of Stoke Newington as his domestic chaplain, while he also regularly assisted Dr. Chandler at the Old Jewry. Having lived with Mr. Streatfield nearly thirteen years, on his death he in 1757 married Miss S. Blundell of Leicestershire. He then settled at Hackney, but, being soon after chosen minister at Newington Green, he lived there until the death of his wife in 1786, when he returned to Hackney. He was next chosen afternoon preacher at the meeting house in Jewry Street, but this he resigned on being elected pastor of the gravel-pit meeting at Hackney. In Febru ary, 1791, he was attacked with a nervous fever, and the stone, and died the 19th of April, 1791. He left his property to a sister and two nephews. His universal acquaintance with the sciences, and his usual application of them to the best purposes, are well known. Dr. Kippis, in his address at his funeral, observes, that ‘In consequence of his profound knowledge in mathematical calculations, he was qualified at a particular crisis for being of singular utility to his fellow citizens. A number of schemes for insurance for lives, and the benefit of survivorship, promising mighty advantages, were rising up in London. These ruinous schemes would have been carried to great excess had not Dr. Price stepped forward and dispelled the delusion.' With him Mr. Pitt's scheme of the sinking fund originated. When the earl of Shelburne was prime minister, he sought the assistance of Dr. Price in forming a scheme for paying off the national debt, and moved an introductory resolution on that subject in the house' of lords; but upon his being driven from office the scheme was abandoned. It was, however, communicated to the public by Dr. Price in a treatise, entitled The State of the Public Debts and Finances, at signing the preliminary Articles of Peace in January 1783; with a Plan for raising Money by Public Loans, and for redeeming the Public Debts. After this, when Mr. Pitt determined to introduce a bill into parliament for liquidating the national debt, he applied to Dr. Price for his advice, and received from him three separate plans; one of which, said by the Dr. to be the least efficient in its operation, was adopted by the minister, though without the slightest acknowledgment of his obligations. See SINKING FUND. In 1763 or 1764 he was chosen F. R. S. and contributed largely to the transactions of that learned body; in 1769 he received from Aberdeen a diploma creating him D. D.; and in 1783 the degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by the college of Yale in Connecticut. His works are, A Review of the Principal Question and Difficulties in Morals, 8vo., 1758; Dissertations on Providence, &c., 8vo., 1767; Observations on Reversionary Payments, &c., 8vo., 1771; Appeal on the National Debt, &c., 8vo., 1773; Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, 1776; on Materialism and Necessity, in a Correspondence between Dr. Price and Dr. Priestley, 1779; on Annuities, Assurances, Population, &c., 8vo., 1779; on the Population of England, 1780; on the Public Debts, Finances, Loans, &c., 8vo., 1783; on Reversionary Payments, 2 vols., 1783; on the Importance of the American Revolution, 1784; besides Sermons, and a variety of papers in the Philosophical Transactions, on astronomical and other philosophical subjects. To PRICK, v. a., v. n. & 】 Sax. pnician; Belg. PRICK'ER, n. s. [n. s. | priken; Dan. prikke; PRICK'ET, Swed. pricka. PRICK'LE, puncture; pierce; PRICK'LINESS, spur; goad;.form with PRICK'LOUSE, a point; fix by or hang PRICK'SONG, on a point; nominate PRICKLY, adj. by a mark or puncPRICK'PUNCH, î. S. ture; note down with 2 style; mark a tune; to pain; pierce with anguish or remorse; make acid: as a verb neuter, come on the spur; dress or adorn for show: a prick is a sharp pointed instrument of any kind; the puncture, spot, or mark, made with such an instrument; a point; fixed place or point of time or attainment; print of a hare's foot; a painful or remorseful thought: pricker, synonymous with prick, an instrument; also (not in use) a light horseman a pricket is a buck of the second year: prickle, a small sharp or thorny point: pricklouse, a foolish word of contempt for a tailor: pricksong, a song set to music: prickly, full of sharp points (prickliness corresponding): prickpunch is explained in the extract. There shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn. Ezekiel xxviii. 24. When they heard this, they were pricked in their hearts, and said, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Acts ii. 37. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. The cooks slice it into little gobbets, prick it on a Spenser. Now grins this goodly frame of temperance Fairly to rise, and her adorned head To prick of highest praise forth to advance. Leave her to heaven, Id. A fox catching hold of a bramble to break his fall, the prickles ran into his feet. L'Estrange. A taylor and his wife quarrelling, the woman in contempt called her husband pricklouse. Id. Pricker is vulgarly called an awl; yet, for joiners' it hath most commonly a square blade. Moron's Mechanical Exercises. Prickpunch is a piece of tempered steel, with a round point at one end, to prick a round mark in cold iron. Moxon. use, A greyhound hath pricked ears, but those of a hound hang down; for that the former hunts with his ears, the latter only with his nose. Grew. I caused the edges of two knives to be ground truly strait, and pricking their points into a board, so that their edges might look towards one another, and, meeting near their points, contain a rectilinear angle, I fastened their handles together with pitch, to make this angle invariable. Newton. The tuneful noise the sprightly courser hears, Paws the green turf, and pricks his trembling ears. Gay. If she pricked her finger, Jack laid the pin in the Arbuthnot's John Bull. Keep close to ears, and those let asses prick; "Tis nothing, nothing; if they bite and kick. Pope. His high courage pricked him forth to wed. Id. How did the humble swain detest way. His prickly beard, and hairy breast! Swift's Miscellanies. The buck is called the first year a fawn, the second year a pricket. Manwood. The flower's divine, where'er it grows; Neglect the prickles, and assume the rose. Watts. PRIDE, n. s. & v. a. Sax. priz or pnýd; Inordinate selfSwed. pryd; Goth. pried. esteem; ostentation; splendor; exultation; insolence; elevation; dignity of manner: to make proud; rate one's-self high. Whose lofty trees, yclad with summer's pride, Did spread so broad, that heaven's light did hide. Spenser. Pride hath no other glass To shew itself, but pride; for supple knees Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees. Shakspeare. |