Chapter Polexandre to POLYDORE of P by Brewer's Readers Handbook

N.B.—This character has led to the peerage three actresses: Miss Fenton (duchess of Bolton), Miss Bolton (lady Thurlow), and Miss Stephens (countess of Essex).

Mrs. C. Mathews says of Miss Fenton—

Both by singing and acting, the impression she made in “Polly” was most powerful.…Not a print-shop or fan-shop but exhibited her handsome figure in her “Polly’s” costume, which possessed all the characteristic simplicity of the modern quakeress, without one meretricious ornament.

Polonius, a garrulous old chamberlain of Denm ark, and father of Laertês and Ophelia; conceited, politic, and a courtier. Polonius conceals himself, to overhear what Hamlet says to his mother; and, making some unavoidable noise, startles the prince, who, thinking it is the king concealed, rushes blindly on the intruder, and kills him; but finds too late he has killed the chamberlain, and not Claudius as he hoped and expected.—Shakespeare: Hamlet (1596).

Polonius is a man bred in courts, exercised in business, stored with observations, confident of his knowledge, proud of his eloquence, and declining to dotage.—Dr. Johnson.

(Polonius was the great part of William Mynitt, 1710–1763.)

Soon after Munden retired from the stage, an admirer met him in Covent Garden. It was a wet day, and each carried an umbrella. The gentleman’s was an expensive silk one, and Joe’s an old gingham. “So you have left the stage,…and ‘Polonius,’ ‘Jemmy Jumps,’ ‘Old Dornton,’ and a dozen others have left the world with you? I wish you’d give me some trifle by way of memorial, Munden!” “Trifle, sir? I’ faith, sir, I’ve got nothing. But hold, yes, egad, suppose we exchange umbrellas.”—Theatrical Anecdotes.

Polwarth (Alick), one of Waverley’s servants.—Sir W. Scott: Waverley (time, George II.).

Poly-chronicon, one of those tedious chronicles running back to “creation,” to A.D. 1342. It is sub- divided into seven books, by Ralph Higden, who died in 1363.

Polycletos (in Latin, Polycletus), a statuary of Sicyon, who drew up a canon of the proportions of the several parts of the human body: as, twice round the thumb is once round the wrist; twice round the wrist is once round the neck; twice round the neck is once round the waist; once round the fist is the length of the foot; the two arms extended is the height of the body; six times the length of the foot, or eighteen thumbs, is also the height of the body.

Again, the thumb, the longest toe, and the nose should all be of the same length. The index finger should measure the breadth of the hand and foot, and twice the breadth should give the length. The hand, the foot, and the face should all be the same length. The nose should be one-third of the face; and, of course, the thumbs should be one-third the length of the hand. Gerard de Lairesse has given the exact measurements of every part of the human figure, according to the famous statues of “Antinous,” “Apollo Belvidere,” “Herculês,” and “Venus de Medici.”

Polycrates , tyrant of Samos. He was so f ortunate in everything, that Amasis king of Egypt advised him to part with something he highly prized. Whereupon Polycratês threw into the sea an engraved gem of extraordinary value. A few days afterwards, a fish was presented to the tyrant, in which this very gem was found. Amasis now renounced all friendship with him, as a man doomed by the gods; and not long after this, a satrap, having entrapped the too fortunate despot, put him to death by crucifixion. (See Fish And The Ring, p. 370.)—Herodotus, iii. 40.

Polydamas, a Thessalian athlete of enormous strength. He is said to have killed an angry lion, to have held by the heels a raging bull and thrown it helpless at his feet, to have stopped a chariot in full career, etc. One day, he attempted to sustain a falling rock, but was killed and buried by the huge mass.