PRYNNE, WILLIAM. 



PSYCHRISTUS, JACOBUS. 



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pursuits. The precise time of his death is not known. Prudentius 

 wrote several works in Latin verse. Two books are entitled 'Orations' 

 against Symrnachus, prefect of Rome, who had addressed a petition to 

 the emperor in the name of the senate of Rome for the re-establishment 

 of the temples and rites of the old religion. [Onosius.] Prudentius 

 exposes the absurdity and abominations of the heathen mythology, 

 and the corruption resulting from the want of a moral check, in which 

 the old heathen religion was deficient. Towards the end of the second, 

 he eloquently descants againt the cruel practice of gladiators' combats 

 for the amusement of the people ; and in order to show their brutalising 

 influence, he instances a vestal attending in the amphitheatre, and 

 witnessing the struggles aud agonies of the fallen gladiators in the 

 arena, exclaiming with joy that such sights were her delight, and 

 giving without compunction the signal to dispatch the fallen. Arnobius 

 (b. iv.) towards the end casts a similar reproach upon the vestals. 



Prudentius wrote also : a series of sacred hymns, which have consi- 

 derable poetical merit, and some of which have been inserted in the 

 Liturgy of the Roman Catholic church ; ' Psychomachia,' which is a 

 description of the struggles between passion and duty in the human 

 soul; and several books against the Marcionites and other heretics. 

 One of the best editions of the works of Prudentius is that of Parma, 

 2 vols. 4to, 1788. 



1'KYXNE, WILLIAM, an eminent compiler of records, and a distin 

 guished political character in the reign of Charles I. and during the 

 Commonwealth, was born in 1600, at Swainswick near Bath, and 

 received his early education in the grammar school of that city. He 

 became a commoner of Oriel in 1616, and took his Bachelor's degree 

 at Oxford in 1620. Soon after taking his degree, he removed to 

 Lincoln's Inn, in which Society he was called to the bar, and subse- 

 quently became bencher and reader. His name scarcely appears in 

 the Law Reports of his tune, and he never practised at the bar to any 

 considerable extent. He applied himself much to the study of contro- 

 versial divinity, and became a devoted follower of the well known 

 Puritan divine Dr. John Preston, who was at that time lecturer at 

 Lincoln's Inn. In accordance with the doctrines of the Puritans 

 respecting church government, he published, soon after he came to 

 Lincoln's Inn, several tracts against Arminianism and prelatical juris- 

 diction, by which, as well as by promoting and encouraging motions in 

 the superior courts for prohibitions to the High Commission Court, he 

 greatly exasperated Archbishop Laud and the clergy against him. 



In the year 1632 he published a virulent pamphlet called ' Histrio- 

 Mastrix, or a Scourge for Stage-Players,' in which he denounced in 

 coarse and scurrilous language the prevailing fashion of the day for 

 masques, interludes, and other similar entertainments. Amusements 

 of this kind being the favourite recreation of the court (the queen 

 herself having performed in a Pastoral at Somerset-house), Pryune's 

 book gave great offence, and the attorney-general prosecuted him for 

 it in the Star-Chamber. The court fined him 3000?., ordered him to 

 be expelled from the University of Oxford and the Society of Lincoln's 

 Inn, and degraded from the bar, to be set twice on the pillory, ami to 

 lose both hi* ears ; to have his book burned by the common hangman, 

 and to be imprisoned for life. In conformity with this atrocious 

 sentence, he was formally degraded in the University of Oxford, in 

 April 1634, and his name erased from tho lists. Three years after- 

 wards, while imprisoned in the Tower uuder the above sentence, he 

 published another pamphlet, entitled ' News from Ipswich,' reflecting 

 severely upon the hierarchy generally, and upon Laud and several of 

 the bishops in particular. For this publication he was again prosecuted 

 in the Star Chamber, and sentenced to pay a fine of 5000J., to be set 

 on the pillory, to be branded on both cheeks with the letters S. and L. 

 (Seditious Libeller), to lose the remainder of his ears, and to be closely 

 impri-oned for life in Caernarvon Castle. These outrageous sentences 

 were rigidly executed ; and the usual consequence of undue severity 

 appeared in the popular sympathy aud party spirit which it excited. 

 The Puritan friends of Prynne flocked to Caernarvon Castle in such 

 numbers, that it was thought necessary to change the scene of his 

 con finement ; and after he had been at Caernarvon about ten weeks, 

 he was illegally removed by a warrant from the lords of the council 

 to the castle of Mont Orgueil in the island of Jersey. Here he remained 

 until the beginning of the Long Parliament in 1641, when, upon his 

 petition to the House of Commons, he was released by a warrant from 

 the Speaker, and resolutions were passed declaring very truly both 

 the sentence* against him in the Star-Chamber to be contrary to law. 

 Clarendon and Anthony Wood describe the extraordinary demonstra- 

 tions of popular feeling in his favour on his landing at Southampton 

 and on his journey to London. (' History of the Rebellion,' vol. i., p. 

 199 ;' Athense Oxonienses,' vol. iii., p. 848.) 



Soon afterwards he was returned as a member of parliament for 

 Newport in Cornwall, and about the same time was made a bencher 

 at Lincoln's Inn. In 1643 lie was employed with Clement Walker by 

 the parliament to conduct the prosecution of Colonel Fiennes for 

 cowardice in surrendering the city of Bristol, and seems to have been 

 busily and cordially engaged in the proceedings of the Commons at 

 that eventful time. Serjeant Hyde having been dismissed from his 

 office of recorder of Bath, in consequence of the ordinances of parlia- 

 ment passed in September and October 1647, Prynne was elected 

 recorder by a considerable majority of the corporation. He took no 

 part in the violent proceedings of the later years of the Long Parlia- 



BIOO. DJV. vor,. iv. 



ment ; and immediately before the king's trial he was ordtred into 

 the custody of the serjeant-at-arms for "denying the supremacy of 

 parliament" in a pamphlet entitled ' The Memento." (Rush worth's 

 ' Collections,' vol. ii., p. 13S9.) On the 6th of December he was 

 arrested by the army, and, together with many of his party, ejected 

 from the House of Commons. From this time he became a bitter 

 enemy of Cromwell and the army party ; and, in consequence of his 

 writings against them, was again imprisoned for several years at 

 Dunster Castle in Somersetshire aiid Pendennis Castle in Cornwall. 

 Being expressly disabled by parliament " to officiate or be in any office 

 concerning the administration of justice within the Commonwealth," 

 he was, in September 1652, discharged from his office of recorder of 

 Bath, to which however he was again elected shortly after the 

 Restoration. (' Council Book of the Corporation of Bath.') In the 

 early part of the year 1660, having returned to his seat in the House 

 of Commons as an excluded member, he- is said, in a letter to General 

 Monk" (Wirnwood's 'Memorials,' vol. iii.), to have "exceedingly asserted 

 the king's right," but with so much of his characteristic bitterness and 

 imprudence that Monk sent for him and admonished him to be quiet. 

 Upon the dissolution of the parliament in March 1660, he was elected 

 to serve in the new parliament for the city of Bath. 



Soon after the Restoration he was appointed Keeper of the Records 

 in the Tower, an office for which his habits of study peculiarly fitted 

 him, and which furnished him with the opportunity of compiling his 

 laborious and useful collections respecting constitutional aud parlia- 

 mentary history. After this period his pragmatical disposition again 

 brought him into difficulty by the publication of a pamphlet against 

 the proposed bill for regulating corporations. This paper, being con- 

 sidered by the House of Commons to be a seditious libel, he was 

 reprimanded by the Speaker, and threatened with expulsion and 

 prosecution ; but upon his making a full confession aud recantation 

 no procediugs were taken against him. Ho died in Lincoln's Inn, in 

 October 1669. 



Prynne was a most laborious and voluminous writer. A catalogue 

 of his works (which consist of nearly 200 volumes) is given, after an 

 account of his life, in Wood's ' Athens,' vol. iii. p. 844, edit. Bliss. 

 They are justly characterised by Wood as displaying "great industry, 

 but little judgment." The most useful among them are his 'Calendar 

 of Parliamentary Writs,' and his 'Records.' The latter work, con- 

 sisting of 3 vols. folio, professed to illustrate and prove the supremacy 

 of the kings of England in all ecclesiastical afi'airs within the realm, 

 by records taken from the earliest periods of English history to the 

 reign of Elizabeth, but the author did not live to carry his design 

 farther than the reign of Henry III. 



PSALMANAZAR, GEORGE, was born about 1679. All that we 

 know of his early history is from his own memoirs, which were 

 published after his death ; but they do not tell us his true name nor 

 that of his native country, though it is generally believed that he was 

 a native of the south of France. (' Memoirs of , com- 

 monly known by the name of George Psalmanazar, a reputed native 

 of Formosa, written by himself,' London, 1765.) He was in his youth 

 a wandering adventurer. Sometimes he gave himself out for a 

 Japanese, and at others for a native of the island of Formosa ; at one 

 time professing to be a convert to Christianity, and at others to be 

 still a heathen. He travelled over several parts of Europe, France, 

 Germany, and the Netherlands ; was a soldier, a beggar, a menial, a 

 preceptor, a man of all trades, and was at last brought to England by 

 one Innes, a chaplain in a Scotch regiment stationed at Sluys. Inues 

 gave out that he had converted tho youth, and obtained some pro- 

 motion in consequence. Psalmanazar remained iu England, where he 

 continued for several years to act the part of an impostor, and pub- 

 lished a fabulous account of the island of Formosa, which imposed 

 upon the credulity of the public. His natural abilities and a certain 

 degree of information gained him several influential friends. At last, 

 when about thirty-two years of age, a moral change took place in him; 

 he grew ashamed of his dishonourable courses, became open to 

 religious conviction, and determined to reform. He applied himself 

 intensely to study, and after a time became engaged in literary pur- 

 suits, by which he earned an honest subsistence and considerable 

 reputation during the rest of his life. He died in London, iu 1753. 

 He wrote, for the large work styled the ' Universal History,' most of 

 the parts concerning ancient history, except that of Rome, and his 

 writings met with great success. He also wrote a volume of essays 

 on several scriptural subjects, a version of the Psalms, besides his own 

 memoirs already mentioned. He also wrote, for the ' Complete 

 System of Geography,' 1747, an article on the island of Formosa, 

 founded upon authentic information, as a reparation for the stories 

 which he had palmed upon the public in his former account. He 

 published also several works anonymously, one of which, entitled an 

 ' Essay on Miracles, by a Layman,' 8vo, 1793, enjoyed a considerable 

 reputation iu its day. Psalmanazar is the name that he assumed 

 when he began his wandering life and which he retained till his 

 death. 



PSYCHRISTUS, JACO'BUS (or PSYCHOCHRISTUS), a celebrated 

 physician of the 5th century. " He was very eminent," says Freind 

 (' Hist, of Physic '), " for his great insight into philosophy and physic, 

 which he learned from hia father Hesychius (who was also a physician), 

 and who had travelled into a great many countries in the pursuit of 



SB 



