George Herbert has a poem called _The Church Porch_ (six-line stanzas). It may be considered introductory to his poem entitled _The Church_ (Sapphic verse and sundry other metres). =Porcius=, son of Cato, of Utĭca (in Africa), and brother of Marcus. Both brothers were in love with Lucia; but the hot-headed, impulsive Marcus, being slain in battle, the sage and temperate Porcius was without a rival.--J. Addison, _Cato_ (1713). When Sheridan reproduced _Cato_, Wignell, who acted “Porcius,” omitted the prologue, and began at once with the lines, “The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers....” “The prologue! the prologue!” shouted the audience; and Wignell went on in the same tone, as if continuing his speech: Ladies and gentleman, there has not been A prologue spoken to this play for years-- And heavily on clouds brings on the day, The great, th’ important day, big with the fate Of Cato and of Rome. _History of the Stage._ =Porcupine= (_Peter_). William Cobbett, the politician, published _The Rushlight_ under this pseudonym in 1860. =Pornei´us= (3 _syl._), Fornication personified; one of the four sons of Anag´nus (_inchastity_), his brothers being Mæ´chus (_adultery_), Acath´arus, and Asel´gês (_lasciviousness_). He began the battle of Mansoul by encountering Parthen´ia (_maidenly chastity_), but “the martial maid” slew him with her spear. (Greek, _porneia_, “fornication.”). In maids his joy; now by a maid defied, His life he lost and all his former pride. With women would he live, now by a woman died. Phineas Fletcher, _The Purple Island_, xi. (1633). =Porphyrius=, in Dryden’s drama of _Tyrannic Love_. Valeria, daughter of Maximin, having killed herself for the love of Porphyrus, was on one occasion being carried off by the bearers, when she started up and boxed one of the bearers on the ears, saying to him: Hold! are you mad, you damned confounded dog? I am to rise and speak the epilogue. W. C. Russell, _Representative Actors_, 456. =Porphyro-Genitus= (“_born in the Porphyra_”), the title given to the kings of the Eastern empire, from the apartments called Porphyra, set apart for the empresses during confinement. There he found Irene, the empress, in travail, in a house anciently appointed for the empresses during childbirth. They call that house “Porphyra,” whence the name of the Porphyro-geniti came into the world.--See Selden, _Titles of Honor_, v. 61 (1614). =Porrex=, younger son of Gorboduc, a legendary king of Britain. He drove his elder brother, Ferrex, from the kingdom, and, when Ferrex returned with a large army, defeated and slew him. Porrex was murdered while “slumbering on his careful bed,” by his own mother, who stabbed[TN-104] him to the heart with a knife.”--Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, _Gorboduc_ (a tragedy, 1561-2).