Deny us, for our good. So find we profit

By lofing of our prayers.

Ant. and Cleop, A. 2 Sc. i.

PRAYERS.

When maidens fue,

Men give like gods; but, when they weep and kneel,
All their petitions are as truly theirs,
As they themselves would owe them.

Measure for Measure, A. 1. Sc. 4

PRECISE MAN.

-Lord Angelo is precife;

Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confeffes
That his blood flows, or that his appetite
Is more to bread than ftone: hence fhall we fee,
If pow'r change purpofe, what our feemers be.
Ibid. A. 1. Sc. 3.

Upon his place,

And with full line of his authority,
Governs Lord Angelo: a man whofe blood
Is
very fnow-broth; one who never feels
The wanton ftings and motions of the sense;
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, ftudy and faft.

PRECEDENT.

Ibid. A. 1. Sc. 4.

It must not be; there is no power in Venice
Can alter a decree established.

"Twill be recorded for a precedent;

And many an error, by the fame example,
Will ruth into the state.

The Merchant of Venice, A. 4. S. i.

PREFERMENT.

'Tis the curfe of fervice;

Preferment goes. by letter and affection,

Not by the old gradation, where each fecond

Stood heir to the nrft.

Othello, A. 1. Sc. 1.

He that's proud, eats up himself. Pride is his own glafs, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed i'the praise.

Troil. and Cress. A. 2. Sc. 3•

PR ISON.

I have been studying how to compare
This prifon, where I live, unto the world;
And, for because the world is populous,
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it; yet I'll hammer on't.
My brain I'll prove the female to my foul;
My foul, the father: and thefe two beget
A generation of ftill-breeding thoughts:
And these fame thoughts people this little world,
In humour like the people of this world;
For no thought is contented-

I

Thoughts tending to content, flatter themselves,
That they are not the firft of fortune's flaves,
And shall not be the laft: (like filly beggars,
Who, fitting in the ftocks, refuge their hame,
That many have, and others muft fit there :)
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortune on the back
Of fuch as have before endur'd the like.
Thus play I: in one prifon many people,
And none contented. Sometimes am Ĩ king :
Then treafon makes me with myfelf- a beggar,
And fo I am. Then crushing penury
Perfuades me, I was better when a king;
Then am I king'd again; and by and by,
Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
And ftrait am nothing.- -But whate'er I am,
Nor I, nor any man, that but man is,
With nothing fhall be pleas'd, till he be eas'd
With being nothing.

King Richard II. A. 5. Sc. 10.

PRODIGIE S.
Give me leave

To tell you once again, that at my birth

The front of heav'n was full of fiery shapes;

The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds

Were

Were ftrangely clam'rous in the frighted fields.
Thefe figns have mark'd me extraordinary,
And all the courfes of my life do fhew

I am not in the roll of common men.

Henry IV. Part I. A.

3. Sc.-1.

PRODIGIES RIDICULE D.

-the earth fhook to fee the heav'ns on fire,

And not in fear of your nativity.

Difeafed nature oftentimes breaks forth

In ftrange eruptions; and the teeming Earth
Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vext,

By the imprisoning of unruly wind.

Within her womb; which, for enlargement ftriving,
Shakes the old beldam Earth, and topples down
High tow'rs and mofs-grown fteeples. At your birth
Our grandam Earth with this diftemperature
In paffion fhook.

One of my fex; no woman's face remember,
Save from my glafs mine own: nor have I feen
More that I may call men than you, good friend,
And my dear father. How features are abroad
I'm skillefs of; but, by my modefty,
(The jewel in my dower) I would not wish,
Any companion in the world but you ;
Nor can imagination form a fhape,,

Befides yourfelf, to like of.

Ibid.

The Tempest, A. 3. Sc. 1.

O heav'n! O earth! bear witnefs to this found,

And crown what I profefs with kind event,
If I fpeak true; if hollowly, invert
What beft is boded me to mifchief! I
Beyond all limit of what elfe ith' world,.
Do love, prize, honour you.

PROGNOSTICS

O F

WAR.

The bay-trees in our country all are wither'd,
And meteors fright the fixed ftars of heav'n;
The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth;
And lean-look'd prophets whifper fearful change:
Rich men look fad, and ruffians dance and leap;

N 2

Ibid.

The

The one, in fear to lofe what they enjoy;
Th' other, in hope t'enjoy by rage and war.

King Richard II. A. 2. Sc. 2.

PROMISE S.

Το

Promifing is the very air of the time; it opens the eyes of expectation. Performance is ever the duller for his act; and but in the plainer and fimpler kind of people, the deed of faying is quite out of use. promife, is moft courtly and fashionable. Performance is a kind of will, or teftament, which argues a great fickness in his judgement that makes it.

Timon of Athens, A. 5. Sc. z.

P ROSPERI T Y.

Profperity's the very bond of love,

Whofe fresh complexion, and whofe heart together,

Affliction alters.

The Winter's Tale, A.4. Sc. 3.

PROSTITUTE.,

'Tis the ftrumpet's plague

To beguile many, and be beguil'd by one.

Othello, A. 4. Sc. I.

PROTESTATION.

-were I crown'd the most imperial monarch,
Thereof moft worthy; were I the fairest youth
That ever made eye fwerve; had force and knowledge
More than was ever man's; I would not prize them
Without her love; for her employ them all;

Commend them, and condemn them, to her service,
Or to their own perdition.

The Winter's Tale, A. 4. Sc. 3.

PROVIDENCE.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philofophy.

Hamlet, A. 1. Sc. 5.

Rafhly

And prais'd be rafhnefs for it.-Let us know

Our indifcretion fometime ferves us well,

When our deep plots do fail and that should teach us

There

There is a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will. Ibid. A. 5. Sc. 2: -There is a special providence in the fall of a fparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come : the readinefs is all. Since no man knows aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes?

Ibid. A.

5. Sc. 2.

PROT E STATION O F LOVE.

True fwains in love, fhall in the world to come

Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes, Full of proteft, of oath and big compare,

Want fimiles, truth tired with iteration,

"As true as fteel, as plantage to the moon,
As fun to day, as turtle to her mate,

As iron to adamant, as earth to the center;"
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,
As truth's authentic author to be cited,
"As true as Troilus" fhall crown up the verfe,
And fanctify the numbers.

Troilus and Crefida, A. 3.

If I be falfe, or fwerve a hair from truth;
When time is old, and hath forgot itself;
When water-drops have worn the ftones of Troy,
And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up,

And mighty ftates characterlefs are grated

To dufty nothing; yet let memory,

Sc. 2.

From falfe to falfe, among falfe maids in love,
Upbraid my falfehood! When they have faid-as falfe
As air, as water, wind or fandy earth,

As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf,
Pard to the hind, or ftepdame to her fon;

Yea, let them fay, to ftick the heart of falsehood,
As falfe as Creid.

PUN CTUALITY.

I'll give thrice so much land

To any well-deferving friend;
But in the way of bargain, mark
I'll cavil on the ninth

ye me,

part of a hair.

Ibid.