"PERCY RELIQUES”—A celebrated collection of ancient ballads, edited by Bishop Percy, a man of great antiquarian knowledge and poetic taste. The publication of the "Percy Reliques" in the last century, introduced the taste for the antique, which was gratified to the utmost by Sir Walter Scott, and which has scarcely yet ceased to rage in some quarters. See pp. 75, 77, 80.

PHILIPS, BARCLAY-A living English writer, of whom nothing is known in this country. See p. 645.

PINDAR, PETER-See Wolcott.

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POPE, ALEXANDER-The poet of the time of Queen Anne; author of the "Dunciad," which has been styled the most perfect of satires. Born in London, 1688; died, 1744. See p. 539.

PRAED, WINTHROP MACKWORTH—An English poet, author of "Lillian," born in London about the year 1800. Little is known of Mr. Praed in this country, though it was here that his poems were first collected and published in a volume. His family is of the aristocracy of the city, where some of his surviving relations are still engaged in the business of banking. At Eton, Praed was highly distinguished for his literary talents. He was for some time the editor of "The Etonian," a piquant periodical published by the students. From Eton he went to Cambridge, where he won an unprecedented number of prizes for poems and epigrams in Greek, Latin, and English. On returning to London, he was associated with Thomas Babbington Macaulay in the editorship of “Knight's Quarterly Magazine," after the discontinuance of which he occasionally contributed to the "New Monthly." A few years before his death, Mr. Praed became a member of Parliament, but owing to his love of ease and society, obtained little distinction in that body.

Mr. N. P. Willis thus writes of the poet as he appeared in society: "We chance to have it in our power to say a word as to Mr. Praed's personal appearance, manners, etc. It was our good fortune when first in England (in 1834 or '35), to be a guest at the same hospitable country-house for several weeks. The party there assembled was somewhat a famous one-Miss Jane Porter, Miss Julia Pardoe, Krazinski (the Polish historian), Sir Gardiner Wilkinson (the Oriental traveler), venerable Lady Cork ('Lady Bellair' of D'Israeli's novel), and several persons more distinguished in society than in literature. Praed, we believe, had not been long married, but he was there with his wife. He was apparently about thirtyfive, tall, and of dark complexion, with a studious bend in his shoulders, and of irregular features strongly impressed with melancholy.

His manners were particularly reserved, though as unassuming as they could well be. His exquisitely beautiful poem of 'Lillian' was among the pet treasures of the lady of the house, and we had all been indulged with a sight of it, in a choicely bound manuscript copy-but it was hard to make him confess to any literary habits or standing. As a gentleman of ample means and retired life, the kind of notice drawn upon him by the admiration of this poem, seemed distasteful. His habits were very secluded. We only saw him at table and in the evening; and, for the rest of the day, he was away in the remote walks and woods of the extensive park around the mansion, apparently more fond of solitude than of any thing else. Mr. Praed's mind was one of wonderful readiness— rhythm and rhyme coming to him with the flow of an improvisatore. The ladies of the party made the events of every day the subjects of charades, epigrams, sonnets, etc., with the design of suggesting inspiration to his ready pen; and he was most brilliantly complying, with treasures for each in her turn."

Mr. Praed died on the 15th of July, 1839, without having accomplished any thing worthy the promise of his earlier years— another instance of Life's reversing the judgment of College. As a writer of agreeable trifles for the amusement of the drawing-room, he has had few superiors, and it is said that a large number of his impromptu effusions are still in the possession of his friends unpublished. Two editions of his poems have appeared in New York, one by Langley in 1844, and another by Redfield, a few years later. See pp. 50, 52, 313, 316.

PRIOR, MATTHEW-Born 1664; died 1721. A wit and poet of no small genius and good nature--one of the minor celebrities of the days of Queen Anne. His "Town and Country Mouse," written in ridicule of Dryden's famous "Hind and Panther," procured him the appointment of Secretary of Embassy at the Hague, and he subsequently rose to be embassador at Paris. Suffering disgrace with his patrons he was afterward recalled, and received a pension from the University of Oxford, up to the time of his death. See pp. 85, 200, 201, 202, 534, 535, 536, 537, 651, 652.

“PUNCH”—Commenced in July, 1841, making its appearance just at the close of the Whig ministry, under Lord Melbourne, and the accession of the Tories, headed by Sir Robert Peel. Originated by a circle of wits and literary men who frequented the "Shakspeare's Head,” a tavern in Wych-street, London. Mark Lemon, the landlord was, and still is, its editor. He is of Jewish descent, and had some reputation for ability with his pen, having been connected with other journals, and also written farces and dramatic pieces. Punch's

earliest contributors were Douglas Jerrold, Albert Smith, Gilbert Abbot a'Beckett Hood and Maginn-Thackeray's debût occurring in the third volume. It is said that one evening each week was especially devoted to a festive meeting of these writers, where, Lemon presiding, they deliberated as to the conduct and course of the periodical. "Punch," however, was at first not successful, and indeed on the point of being abandoned as a bad speculation, when Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, two aspiring printers, now extensive publishers, purchased it at the very moderate price of one hundred pounds, since which time it has continued their property, and a valuable one. In those days it presented a somewhat different appearance from the present, being more closely printed, finer type used, and the illustrations (with the exception of small, black, silhouette cuts, after the style of those in similar French publications), were comparatively scanty. Soon, however, "Punch" throve apace, amply meriting its success. To Henning's drawings (mostly those of a political nature), were added those of Leech, Kenny Meadows, Phiz (H. K. Browne), Gilbert, Alfred Crowquill (Forrester), and others—— Doyle's pencil not appearing till some years later. Chief of these gentlemen in possession of the peculiar artistic ability which has identified itself with "Punch" is unquestionably Mr. John Leech, of whom we shall subsequently speak, at greater length. He has remained constant to the journal from its first volume.

His

Jerrold's writings date from the commencement. Many essays and satiric sketches over fancy signatures, are from his pen. later and longer productions, extending through many volumes, are "Punch's Letters to his Son," "Punch's Complete Letter Writer," "Twelve Labors of Hercules," "Autobiography of Tom Thumb," "Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures," "Capsicum House for Young Ladies," "Our Little Bird," "Mrs. Benimble's Tea and Toast," "Miss Robinson Crusoe," and "Mrs. Bib's Baby," the last two of which were never completed. During the publication of the "Caudle Lectures," "Punch" reached the highest circulation it has attained. We have the authority of a personal friend of the author for the assertion that their heroine was no fictitious one. The lectures were immensely popular, Englishmen not being slow to recognize in Jerrold's caustic portraiture the features of a very formidable household reality. But with the ladies Mrs. Caudle proved no favorite, nor, in their judgment, did the "Breakfast-Table-Talk," of the Hen-pecked Husband (subsequently published in the Almanac of the current year), make amends for the writer's former productions.

Albert Smith's contributions to the pages of "Punch," were the "Physiologies of the London Medical Student," "London Idler," and "Evening Parties," with other miscellaneous matter. Much of the author's own personal experience is probably comprised in the for

mer, and his fellow-students and intimates at Middlesex Hospital were at no loss to identify the majority of the characters introduced. Mr. Smith's connection with "Punch" was not of long continuance. A severe criticism appearing subsequently in its columns, on his novel of the "Marchioness of Brinvilliers" (published in "Bentley's Miscellany," of which journal he was then editor), he, in retaliation, made an onslaught on "Punch" in another story, the "Pottleton Legacy," where it figures under the title of the Cracker.

Mr. Gilbert a'Beckett, who had before been engaged in many unsuccessful periodicals, found in "Punch" ample scope for his wit and extraordinary faculty of punning. In "The Comic Blackstone," "Political Dictionary," "Punch's Noy's Maxims," and the "Autobiography, and other papers relating to Mr. Briefless," he put his legal knowledge to a comic use. Many fugitive minor pieces have also proceeded from his pen, and he has but few equals in that grotesque form of hybrid poetry known as Macaronic. He is now a London magistrate, and par excellence, the punster of "Punch."

The Greek versions of sundry popular ballads, such as "The King · of the Cannibal Islands," were the work of Maginn. Hood's worldfamous "Song of the Shirt," first appeared in "Punch's" pages.

Thackeray has also been an industrious contributor, Commencing with "Miss Tickletoby's Lectures" (an idea afterward carried out in a somewhat different fashion by a'Beckett in his "Comic History of England"), he, besides miscellaneous writings, produced the

"Snob Papers," ""Jeames's Diary," " "Punch in the East," ""Punch's

Prose Novelists," "The Traveler in London," "Mr. Brown's Letters to a Young Man about Town," and "The Proser." Of the merits of these works it is unnecessary to speak. The "Book of Snobs" may rank with its author's most finished productions. "Jeames's Diary," suggested by the circumstance of a May-fair footman achieving sudden affluence by railroad speculations during the ruinously exciting period of 1846, may, however, be considered only a further carrying out of the original idea of "Charles Yellowplush." A ballad in it, "The Lines to my Sister's Portrait," is said, to use a vulgar, though expressive phrase, to have shut up Lord John Manners, who had achieved some small reputation as "one of the Young England poits." Thackeray parodied his style, and henceforth the voice of the minstrel was dumb in the land. Like Jerrold's "Caudle Lectures," of which many versions appeared at the London theaters, Jeames's adventures were dramatized. The "Prose Novelists" contain burlesque imitations of Bulwer, D'Israeli, Lever, James, Fennimore Cooper, and Mrs. Gore. The illustrations accompanying Thackeray's publications in "Punch," are by his own hand, as are also many other sketches scattered throughout the volumes. They may be generally distinguished by the insertion of a pair of spectacles in

the corner. His articles, too, frequently bear the signature "SPEC." Not until the commencement of 1855 did Thackeray relinquish his connection with "Punch." An allusion to this, from his pen, contained in an essay on the genius of Leech, and published in the "Westminster Review," was commented upon very bitterly by Jerrold, in a notice of the article which appeared in "Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper," of which he is editor.

During the last five years, other writers, among which may be enumerated the Mayhew brothers, Mr. Tom Taylor, Angus Reach, and Shirley Brooks, have found a field for their talents in "Punch.' Only Jerrold, a'Beckett, and the editor, Mark Lemon, remain of the original contributors. Its course has been a varied, but perfectly 'independent one, generally, however, following the lead of the almighty “Times," that glory and shame of English journalism, on political questions. In earlier days it was every way more democratic, and the continuous ridicule both of pen and pencil directed against Prince Albert, was said to have provoked so much resentment on the part of the Queen, that she proposed interference to prevent the artist Doyle supplying two frescos to the pavilion at Buckingham Palace. "Punch's" impartiality has been shown by attacks on the extremes and absurdities of all parties, and there can be little question that it has had considerable influence in producing political reform, and a large and liberal advocacy of all popular questions. In behalf of that great change of national policy, the repeal of the Corn Laws, "Punch" fought most vigorously, not, however, forgetting to bestow a few raps of his baton on the shoulders of the Premier whose wisdom or sense of expediency induced such sudden tergiversation as to bring it about. O'Connell's blatant and venal patriotism was held up to merited derision, which his less wary, but more honest followers in agitation, O'Brien, Meagher, and Mitchell, equally shared. Abolition (or at least modification) of the Game Laws, and of the penalty of death, found. championship in "Punch," though the latter was summarily dropped upon a change in public opinion, perhaps mainly induced by one of Carlyle's "Latter Day" pamphlets. Punch" has repeatedly experienced (and merited) the significant honor of being denied admission to the dominions of continental monarchs. Louis Philippe interdicted its presence in France, even (if we recollect aright) before the Spanish marriages had provoked its fiercest attacks-subsequently, however, withdrawing his royal veto. In Spain, Naples, the Papal Dominions, those of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, the hunch-backed jester has been often under ban as an unholy thing, or only tolerated in a mutilated form. Up to the commencement of the late war, strict measures of this kind were in operation upon the Russian frontier, but "Punch" now is freely accorded ingress in the Czar's dominions-