=Pride’s Purge=, a violent invasion of parliamentary rights by Colonel Pride, in 1649. At the head of two regiments of soldiers he surrounded the House of Commons, seized forty-one of the members and shut out 160 others. None were allowed into the House but those most friendly to Cromwell. This fag-end went by the name of “the Rump.” =Pridwin= or PRIWEN, Prince Arthur’s shield. Arthur placed a golden helmet upon his head, on which was engraven the figure of a dragon; and on his shoulders his shield, called Priwen, upon which the picture of the blessed Mary, mother of God, was painted; then, girding on his Caliburn, which was an excellent sword, made in the isle of Avallon; he took in his right hand his lance, Ron, which was hard, broad, and fit for slaughter.--Geoffrey, _British History_, ix. 4 (1142). =Priest of Nature=, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). Lo! Newton, priest of nature, shines afar, Scans the wide world, and numbers every star. Campbell, _Pleasures of Hope_, i. (1799). =Prig=, a knavish beggar.--Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Beggars’ Bush_ (1622). _Prig_ (_Betsey_), an old monthly nurse, “the frequent pardner” of Mrs. Gamp; equally ignorant, equally vulgar, equally selfish, and brutal to her patients. “Betsey,” said Mrs. Gamp, filling her own glass, and passing the teapot [_of gin_], “I will now propoge a toast: ‘My frequent pardner, Betsey Prig.’” “Which, altering the name to Sairah Gamp, I drink,” said Mrs. Prig, “with love and tenderness.”--C. Dickens, _Martin Chuzzlewit_, xlix. (1843). =Prim´er= (_Peter_), a pedantic country schoolmaster, who believes himself to be the wisest of pedagogues.--Samuel Foote, _The Mayor of Garratt_ (1763). =Primitive Fathers= (_The_). The five apostolic fathers contemporary with the apostles (viz., Clement of Rome, Barnăbas, Hermas, Ignatius and Polycarp), and the nine following, who all lived in the first three centuries:--Justin, Theoph´ilus of Antioch, Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian of Carthage, Orĭgen, Gregory “Thaumatur´gus,” Dionysius of Alexandria and Tertullian. ⁂ For the “Fathers” of the fourth and fifth centuries see GREEK CHURCH, LATIN CHURCH. =Primrose= (_The Rev. Dr. Charles_), a clergyman rich in heavenly wisdom, but poor indeed in all worldly knowledge. Amiable, charitable, devout, but not without his literary vanity, especially on the Whistonian theory about second marriages. One admires his virtuous indignation against the “washes,” which he deliberately demolished with the poker. In his prosperity his chief “adventures were by the fireside, and all his migrations were from the blue bed to the brown.” _Mrs._ [_Deborah_] _Primrose_, the doctor’s wife, full of motherly vanity, and desirous to appear _genteel_. She could read without much spelling, prided herself on her housewifery, especially on her gooseberry wine, and was really proud of her excellent husband.