Porridge Island, the slang name of an alley near St.
Martin’s-in-the-Fields, which was pulled down c. 1830
Politian, a distinguished poet and scholar in the time of the Italian
Renaissance; professor of Greek and Latin at Florence (1454-94)
Pompadour, Madame de, mistress of Louis XV., and virtually ruler of
France from 1745 till her death in 1764
Prior, Matthew, a wit and poet of the early eighteenth century whose
lyrics were pronounced by Thackeray to be “amongst the easiest, the
richest, the most charmingly humorous” in the English language,
Pudding, Jack, a clown who swallows black puddings, etc. Cp. Germ. Hans
Worst, Fr. Jean-potage
Pulci, a Florentine poet (noted for his humorous Sonnets), and friend of
Lorenzo de’ Medici (1432-84)
Pye--the immediate--Cibber--more remote--predecessor of Southey in the
Laureateship