=Procida= (_John of_), a tragedy by S. Knowles (1840). John of Procida was an Italian gentleman of the thirteenth century, a skillful physician, high in favor with King Fernando II., Conrad, Manfred, and Conrad´ine. The French invaded the island, put the last two monarchs to the sword, usurped the sovereignty, and made Charles d’Anjou king. The cruelty, licentiousness, and extortion of the French being quite unbearable, provoked a general rising of the Sicilians, and in one night (_Sicilian Vespers_, March 30, 1282), every Frenchman, Frenchwoman, and French child in the whole island was ruthlessly butchered. Procĭda lost his only son Fernando, who had just married Isoline (3 _syl._), the daughter of the French governor of Messina. Isoline died broken-hearted, and her father, the governor, was amongst the slain. The crown was given to John of Procida. =Procris=, the wife of Cephălos. Out of jealousy she crept into a wood to act as a spy upon her husband. Cephalos, hearing something move, discharged an arrow in the direction of the rustling, thinking it to be caused by some wild beast, and shot Procris. Jupiter, in pity, turned Procris into a star.--_Greek and Latin Mythology._ _The unerring dart of Procris._ Diana gave Procris a dart which never missed its aim, and after being discharged returned back to the shooter. =Procrus´tes= (3 _syl._), a highwayman of Attica, who used to place travellers on a bed; if they were too short he stretched them out till they fitted it, if too long he lopped off the redundant part. _Greek Mythology._ Critic, more cruel than Procrustes old, Who to his iron bed by torture fits Their nobler parts, the souls of suffering wits. Mallet, _Verbal Criticism_ (1734). =Proctor’s Dogs= or _Bull-Dogs_, the two “runners” or officials who accompany a university proctor in his rounds, to give chase to recalcitrant gownsmen. And he had breathed the proctor’s dogs [_was a member of Oxford or Cambridge University_]. Tennyson, prologue of _The Princess_ (1830). =Prodigal= (_The_), Albert VI. duke of Austria (1418, 1439-1463). =Prodigy of France= (_The_). Guillaume Budé was so called by Erasmus (1467-1540). =Prodigy of Learning= (_The_). Samuel Hahnemann, the German, was so called by J. P. Richter (1755-1843). =Professor= (_The_). The most important member of the party gathered about the social board in O. W. Holmes’s _Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_ (1858). =Profound= (_The_), Richard Middleton, an English scholastic divine (*-1304). =Profound Doctor= (_The_), Thomas Bradwardine, a schoolman. Also called “The Solid Docter”[TN-106] (*-1349). Ægidius de Columna, a Sicilian schoolman, was called “The Most Profound Doctor” (*-1316). =Progne= (2 _syl._), daughter of Pandīon, and sister of Philomēla. Prognê was changed into a swallow, and Philomela into a nightingale.--_Greek Mythology._ As Prognê or as Philomela mourns ... So Bradamant laments her absent knight.