While the deathless muse their seal, and the like; or else publicly in the common hall, with the usual formalities observed in the court of judicature at Rome. They had besides, by virtue of their edicts, the power of ordering all things relating to the tribunes, taxes, contributions, and provisions of corn and money, &c. Their office lasted only a year. See CON PROCOPIUS, a celebrated Greek historian, born in Cæsarea, who acquired great reputation by his works in the reign of Justinian, and was secretary to Belisarius during all the wars carried on by that general, in Persia, Africa, and Italy. He at length became senator, obtained the title of illustrious, and was made prætor of Constantinople. Latin S procrastinor. To defer; delay; be dilatory: the noun substantive corresponds. SUL. Cowper.. PROCLAMATIONS are a branch of the king's prerogative (see PREROGATIVE); and have then a binding force, when,' as Sir Edward Coke observes, they are grounded upon and enforce the laws of the realm. For, though the making of laws is entirely the work of a distinct part, the legislative branch of the sovereign power, yet the manner, time, and circumstances of putting those laws into execution, must frequently be left to the discretion of the executive magistrate. And therefore his constitutions or edicts, concerning those points which we call proclamations, are binding upon the subject, where they do not either contradict the old laws, or tend to establish new ones, but only enforce the execution of such laws as are already in being, in such manner as the king shall judge necessary.' PROCLES, a king of Sparta, the son of Aristodemus and Argia, and the twin brother of Eurysthenes, who reigned jointly with him, and gave rise to the two royal families of Proclidæ and Eurysthenidæ, who governed Sparta for several centuries, exhibiting the singular political phenomena of a binarchy, or two hereditary kings governing with equal, but limited power. PROCLES, the son of Eucrates, a Carthaginian historian, who wrote some historical treatises, which are lost, except a few fragments preserved in the works of Pausanias.-Paus. iv. c. 35. PROCLIVITY, n. s. Lat. proclivitas, proclivis. Tendency: natural inclination; propension. He had such a dextrous proclivity as his teachers were fain to restrain his forwardness, that his brothers might keep pace with him. Wotton. PROCRASTINATE, v. a. & v. n. Į Hopeless and helpless doth Egeon wind, But to procrastinate his lifeless end. Shakspeare. voice within them, and they will certainly need no Let men seriously and attentively listen to that other medium to convince them, either of the error or danger of thus procrastinating their repentance. Decay of Piety. How desperate the hazard of such procrastination is, hath been convincingly demonstrated by better pens. Id. Set out early and resolutely without procrastinating Hammond. or looking back. and have several things to finish, which I put off to I procrastinate more than I did twenty years ago, Swift to Pope. twenty years hence. Procrastination is the thief of time, PRO'CREATE, v. a. Young. Fr. procreer; Lat. procreo, procreans. To generate; produce: procreant and procreative mean producing; The sensitive appetite may engender a proclivity to pregnant: procreation and procreativeness corsteal, but not a necessity to steal. Bramhall. PROCLUS, surnamed Diadocus, a Greek philosopher and mathematician, was born at Lysia, and lived about the year 500. He was the disciple of Syrianus. It is said that, when Vitalian laid siege to Constantinople, Proclus burnt his ships with large brazen specula. This philosopher was a Pagan, and wrote against the Christian religion. There are still extant his Commentaries on some of Plato's books, and others of his works written in Greek. PROCON'SUL, n. s. Latin proconsul. A Roman officer who governed a province with consular authority. Every child knoweth how dear the works of Homer were to Alexander, Virgil to Augustus, Ausonius to Gratian, who made him proconsul, Chaucer to Richard II., and Gower to Henry IV. Peacham. PROCONSULS were appointed out of the body of the senate; and usually as the year of any one's consulate expired, he was sent proconsul into some province. The proconsuls decided cases of equity and justice, either privately in thair prætorium or palace, where they received petitions, heard complaints, granted writs under responding. The temple-haunting martlet does approve, Hath made his pendant bed, and procreant cradle. Shakspeare. The inclosed warmth, which the earth hath stirred up by the heat of the sun, assisteth nature in the speedier procreation of those varieties which the earth bringeth forth. Raleigh. substances. These have the accurst privilege of propagating and not expiring, and have reconciled the procreativeness of corporeal, with the duration of incorporeal Decay of Piety. Neither her outside formed so fair, nor aught Milton. In procreation common to all kinds. The ordinary period of the human procreative faculty in males is sixty-five, in females forty-five. Hale. Since the earth retains her fruitful power, PROCRIS, a daughter of Pandion, or, according to others, of Erechtheus, king of Athens, and wife of Cephalus. See CEPHALUS. PROCRUSTES, in fabulous history, a famous robber of Attica, who was killed by Theseus, near the Cephisus. He used to tie travellers upon a bed; and, if their length exceeded that of his bed, he cut off their feet and as much of their legs as exceeded; but if they were shorter, he racked and stretched them till their length was equal to his own:—an emphatic emblem of bigotry. He is called by some Da I cannot proctor mine own cause so well Shakspeare. Antony and Cleopatra. From a scholar he became a fellow, and the president of the college, after he had received all the graces and degrees, the proctorship and the doctorship. Clarendon. The proctor sent his servitor to call him. Walter. I find him charging the inconveniences in the payment of tythes upon the clergy and proctors. Swift. PROCULEIUS, a Roman knight, who was very intimate with Augustus. He is justly famed for his fraternal affection to his brothers, Muræna and Scipio, with whom he divided his possessions, after they had forfeited their estates, and offended Augustus, by joining with Pompey the younger. He was sent by Augustus to queen Cleopatra, to persuade her to surrender to him, but failed. PROCURE', v. a. & v. n.) Fr. procurer; PROCURABLE, adj. Lat. procuro. Το PROCURACY, N. s. manage; transact PROCURATION, for another; obPROCURATOR, tain; forward; PROCURATOʻRIAL, adj. contrive; persuade; PROCUREMENT, n. 5. prevail on; to PROCU'RER, pimp procurable PROCU'RESS. Jis obtainable; to be acquired: procuracy and procuration, management or transaction of a thing, particularly for another procurator, he who so manages or transacts affairs: procuratorial, made by, or pertaining to a proctor: procurement is the act of procuring procurer, one who gains; obtains, or acquires, particularly for others; a pander: procuress, a bawd. They shall fear and tremble, for all the prosperity that I procure unto it. Jeremiah xxxiii. 9. I had in charge at my depart from France, As procurator for your excellence, To marry princess Marg 'ret for your grace. Shakspeare. Is it my lady mother? What unaccustomed cause procures her hither? Id. Proceed, Salinus, to procure my fall, And by the doom of death end woes and all. Id. Their undertaking with their dearest blood, If we procure not to ourselves more woe. Milton. Angling was, after tedious study, a moderator of passions, and a procurer of contentedness. Walton. Though it be a far more common and procurable liquor than the infusion of lignum nephriticum, it may yet be easily substituted in its room. We no other pains endure, Boyle. Than those that we ourselves procure. Dryden. Our author calls colouring, lena sororis, in plain English, the bawd of her sister, the design or drawing she clothes, she dresses her up, she paints her, she makes her appear more lovely than naturally she is, she procures for the design, and makes lovers for her. Id. age. All procuratorial exceptions ought to be made before contestation of suit, and not afterwards, as being dilatory exceptions, if a proctor was then made and constituted. Ayliffe. Those, who formerly were doubtful in this matter, and procuration of plain shells from this island, are upon strict and repeated inspection of these bodies, now convinced that these are the remains of seaanimals. Woodward's Natural History. PROCYON, in ancient astronomy, a star near the dog-star, before which it generally rises in July. Cicero calls it Anticanis, which signifies the same with προκύον. PRODANO (the ancient Prote), a small island of Greece, on the west coast of the Morea, and separated from it only by a narrow channel. It forms a small but secure bay, sixteen miles north by west of Navarin. Lat. 37° 10′ N. PRODICUS, a celebrated sophist and rhetorician of Cos, who flourished about A. A. C 396. He was sent ambassador by the Coans to Athens, where he taught publicly, and had among his pupils Socrates, Euripides, Theramenes, and Isocrates. He travelled through most towns of Greece, and made his auditors pay to hear his lectures. His writings were numerous; and among them was the well known beautiful episode of Hercules's Choice, when addressed by Pleasure and Virtue, when the hero became the votary of the latter goddess. Prodicus experienced the fate of his excellent pupil, Socrates, being at last put to death by the Athenians, on pretence that he corrupted the morals of their youth. Xenoph. Mem. PROD'IGAL, adj. PRODIGAL'ITY, N. s. Fr. prodigue; Lat. prodigus. Profuse; wasteful; expensive; lavish; with of before the object, and the noun substantive and adverb corresponding. Be now as prodigal of all dear grace, As nature was in making graces dear, When she did starve the general world beside, And prodigally gave them all to you. Shakspeare. A sweeter and lovelier gentleman, Framed in the prodigality of nature, The spacious world cannot again afford. Diogenes did beg more of a prodigal man than the rest; whereupon one said, see your baseness, that when you find a liberal mind, you will take most of him; no, said Diogenes, but I mean to beg of the rest again. Bacon. Id. Lest I should seem over prodigal in the praise of my countrymen, I will only present you with some few verses. Camden. We are not yet so wretched in our fortunes, Ben Jonson. It is prodigious to have thunder in a clear sky. Browne. Then ent'ring at the gate, Concealed in clouds, prodigious to relate, He mixed, unmarked, amongst the busy throng. Dryden. I do not mean absolutely according to philosophic exactness infinite, but only infinite or innumerable as to us, or their number prodigiously great. Ray on the Creation. They would seem prodigies of learning. Spectator. The party opposite to our settlement seem to be driven out of all human methods, and are reduced to the poor comfort of prodigies and old woman's fables. Addison. The Rhone enters the lake, and brings along with it a prodigious quantity of water. Id. I am prodigiously pleased with this joint volume. Pope. It is a scandal to Christianity that in towns, where there is a prodigious increase in the number of houses and inhabitants, so little care should be taken for churches. Swift. PROD'ITOR, n. s. Lat. proditor. A traitor. Not in use. Pieled priest, dost thou command me be shut out? I do, thou most usurping proditor. Shakspeare. Solid and conclusive characters are emergent from the mind, and start out of children when themselves least think of it; for nature is proditorious. Wotton on Education. Now proditorious wretch! what hast thou done, To make this barb'rous base assassinate? Daniel. PRODUCE', v. a. & n. s.) Fr. produire; PRODUCENT, n. s. Lat. produco. To exhibit or offer to notice; bring for(ward; bear; bring forth; cause; beget; generate; effect: as a noun PRODUCER, PRODUCIBLE, adj. PRODUCIBLENESS, n. s. PRODUCT, n. s. PRODUCTION, PRODUCTIVE, adj. substantive, that which is produced; amount; profit: producent and producer mean, one that offers or exhibits; one that generates or brings forth: producible, such as may be exhibited; may be made or generated: product, something yielded by nature; composition; work; effect; result; sum: production, the act of producing, or thing produced: productive, having efficient or generative power; fruitful. Produce your cause, saith the Lord; bring forth your strong reasons. Isaiah xli. 21. This soil produces all sorts of palm trees. Sandys. It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place, To be produced against the Moor. Shakspeare. Somewhat is produced of nothing; for lyes are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance. Bacon. By examining how I, that could contribute nothing to mine own being, should be here, I came to ask the same question for my father, and so am led in a direct line to a first producer that must be more than man. Suckling. Many warm expressions of the fathers are producible in this case. Decay of Piety. There is no reason producible to free the Christian children and idiots from the blame of not believing, which will not with equal force be producible for those heathers to whom the gospel was never revealed. Hammond. Id. Be thou my aid, my tuneful song inspire, And kindle with thy own productive fire. Observing in ourselves, that we can at pleasure move several parts of our bodies; the effects also, that natural bodies are able to produce in one another, occurring every moment to our senses, we both these ways get the idea of power. Locke. Whenever want of money, or want of desire in the consumer, makes the price low, that immediately reaches the first producer. Id. The landholder, having nothing but what the product of his land will yield, must take the market rate. Id. In Staffordshire, after their lands are marled, they sow it with barley, allowing three bushels to an acre. Its common produce is thirty bushels. Mortimer's Husbandry. If the productive fat of the marl be spent, it is not capable of being mended with new. Mortimer. Range in the same quarter the products of the same season. Spectator. This is turning nobility into a principle of virtue, and making it productive of merit, as it is understood to have been originally a reward of it. Id. That is accounted probable which has better arguments producible for it, than can be brought against South. It is generally known that he who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any other effect than that of producing a moral sentence or peevish exclamation. Johnson. PRO'EM, n. s. Old Fr. proëme; Lat. proamium; Gг. πрооíμov. Preface; introduction. One and the same proem, containing a general motive to provoke people to obedience of all and every one of these precepts, was prefixed before the decalogue. White. So glozed the tempter, and his proem tuned. Milton. Justinian has, in the proem to the digests, only prefixed the term of five years for studying the laws. Ayliffe. Thus much may serve by way of proem, Proceed we therefore to our poem. Swift's Miscellanies. ters of Proetus, king of Argos; who, preferring PROETIDES, in fabulous history, the daughthemselves to Juno, were struck with insanity, and believed themselves to be turned into cows. They soon infected the rest of the Argian women, but were cured by Melampus, who received one of these princesses, and two-thirds of Argos, for his reward. See MELAMPUS. Their names were Lysippe, Iphinoe or Ipponoe, and Iphianassa, or Cyrianassa. PROETUS, in fabulous history, a king of Argos; the son of Abas and Ocalea, and twin brother of Acrisius, with whom he is said to have quarrelled even in the womb. Their dissensions increased with their years, and, on Abas's death, they contended for the kingdom; but, Acrisius prevailing, Proetus retired to Iobates, king of Lycia, whose daughter, Sthenoboea, he married, by whom he had Megapenthes, and the Proetides. By Iobates's assistance, he took TirynHomer. Iliad. vi. PROFANE', adj. & v. a.` PROFANATION, PROFANE LY, PROFA'NER, n. s. PROFANE NESS, n. s. thus. Fr. profane; Lat. profanus. Irreverent to sacred things; polluted; impure; not sa cred: to pollute; violate; wrongly use: profanation, the act or habit of violating or treating irreverently things sacred: the adverb and other noun substantives corresponding. Pity the temple profaned of ungodly men. 2 Maccabees. He knew how bold men are to take even from God himself; how hardly that house would be kept from impious profanation he knew. Hooker. The argument which our Saviour useth against profaners of the temple, he taketh from the use whereunto it was with solemnity consecrated. Id. Profane fellow ! Were thou the son of Jupiter, and no more Others think I ought not to have translated Chaucer: they suppose a veneration due to his old language, and that it is little less than profanation and sacrilege to alter it. Id. How are festivals profaned? When they are not regarded, nor distinguished from common days; when they are made instruments of vice and vanity; when they are spent in luxury and debauchery; when our joy degenerates into sensuality, and we express Nelson. it by intemperance and excess. The universality of the deluge is attested by profane history; for the fame of it is gone through the earth, and there are records or traditions concerning it in all parts of this and the new found world. Burnet's Theory. These have caused the weak to stumble, and the profane to blaspheme, offending the one, and hardenSouth. ing the other. All profanation and invasion of things sacred is an offence against the eternal law of nature. Id. There are a lighter ludicrous sort of profaners, who use the scripture to furnish out their jests. Government of the Tongue. Edicts against immorality and profaneness, laws against oaths and execrations, we trample upon. Atterbury. That proud scholar, intending to erect altars to Broome. Virgil, speaks of Homer too profanely. PROFECTION, n. s. Lat. profectio. Advance; progression. This, with profection of the horoscope unto the seventh house or opposite signs, every seventh year Browne. oppresseth living creatures. PROFESS', v. a. & v. n.` PROFESSOR-SHIP. Fr. professer; declare or make an (open show of one's skill in any art or science; to declare openly; enter on a state of life by a public profession; declare friendship: professedly is, declaratively; according to one's own declaration: profession, declaration; act of declaring one's own party or opinion; calling; known pursuit; technically distinguished from a trade, and applied to divinity, physic, and law, as vocations: professional, relating to, or befitting a profession: professor, one who publicly declares himself of a particular party or opinion; or publicly teaches an art or science: professorship, his station or office. Profess unto the Lord, that I am come unto the country which the Lord śware unto our fathers. Deut. xxvi. 3. They profess that they know God, but in works they deny him. The professions of princes, when a crown is the Lesley. bait, are a slender security. Love well your father; Titus i. 16. To your professing bosoms I commit him. Shakspeare. If we confound arts with the abuse of them, we shall condemn all honest trades; for there are that deceive in all professions, and bury in forgetfulness all knowledge. Raleigh. When the holiness of the professors of religion is decayed, you may doubt the springing up of a new Bacon's Essays. sect. But Purbeck, as profest a huntress and a nun, I could not grant too much to men, that, being professedly my subjects, pretended religious strictness. King Charles. An ill Christian is the worst of all men; an ill professor the worst of all Christians; an ill minister the worst of all professors. Bp. Hall. The whole church of professors at Philippi to whom he writes was not made up wholly of the elect, sincere, and persevering Christians, but like the net, in Christ's parable, that caught both good and bad, and had no doubt some insincere persons, hypocrites, and Hammond. temporaries in it. Pretending first Wise to fly pain, professing next the spy: Milton. |