Byron has founded on this incident his poem entitled _The Prisoner of Chillon_, but has added two brothers, whom he supposes to be imprisoned with Françoise, and who die of hunger, suffering, and confinement. In fact, the poet mixes up Dantê’s tale about Count Ugolino with that of Françoise de Bonnivard, and has produced a powerful and affecting story, but it is not historic. =Prisoner of State= (_The_), Ernest de Fridberg. E. Sterling has a drama so called. (For the plot, see ERNEST DE FRIDBERG.) =Pritchard= (_William_), commander of H.M. sloop, the _Shark_.--Sir W. Scott, _Guy Mannering_ (time, George II.). =Priu´li=, a senator of Venice, of unbending pride. His daughter had been saved from the Adriatic by Jaffier, and gratitude led to love. As it was quite hopeless to expect Priuli to consent to the match, Belvidera eloped in the night, and married Jaffier. Priuli now discarded them both. Jaffier joined Pierre’s conspiracy to murder the Venetian senators, but in order to save his father-in-law, revealed to him the plot under the promise of a general free pardon. The promise was broken, and all the conspirators except Jaffier were condemned to death by torture. Jaffier stabbed Pierre, to save him from the wheel, and then killed himself. Belvidera went mad and died. Priuli lived on, a broken-down old man, sick of life, and begging to be left alone in some “place that’s fit for mourning.” “There, all leave me: Sparing no tears when you this tale relate, But bid all cruel fathers dread my fate.” T. Otway, _Venice Preserved_, v. the end (1682). =Privolvans=, the antagonists of the Subvolvans. These silly, ranting Privolvans Have every summer their campaigns, And muster like the warlike sons Of Rawhead and of Bloody-bones. S. Butler, _The Elephant in the Moon_, v. 85 (1754). =Probe= (1 _syl._), a priggish surgeon, who magnifies mole-hill ailments into mountain maladies, in order to enhance his skill and increase his charges. Thus, when Lord Foppington received a small flesh-wound in the arm from a foil, Probe drew a long face, frightened his lordship greatly, and pretended the consequences might be serious; but when Lord Foppington promised him £500 for a cure, he set his patient on his legs the next day.--Sheridan, _A Trip to Scarborough_ (1777).