PROCTER, ADELAIDE ANN (1825-1864).—­Poetess, eldest dau. of Bryan W.P. (q.v.).  Many of her poems were first pub. in Household Words and All the Year Round, and afterwards coll. under the title of Legends and Lyrics (1858), of which many ed. appeared.  In 1851 Miss P. became a Roman Catholic.  She took much interest in social questions affecting women.  She wrote the well-known songs, Cleansing Fires and The Lost Chord, and among her many hymns are, I do not ask, O Lord, that Life may be, and My God, I thank Thee who hast made.

PROCTER, BRYAN WALLER ("BARRY CORNWALL”) (1787-1874).—­Poet, b. at Leeds, and ed. at Harrow, went to London and practised successfully as a solicitor.  Thereafter he became a barrister, and was, 1832-61, a Commissioner of Lunacy.  By 1823 he had produced four vols. of poetry and a tragedy, Mirandola (1821).  His works include Dramatic Scenes (1819), A Sicilian Story, Marcian Colonna (1820), The Flood of Thessaly (1823), and English Songs (1832), which last will perhaps survive his other writings.  P. was the friend of most of his literary contemporaries, and was universally beloved.

PROUT, FATHER, (see MAHONY, F.S.).

PRYNNE, WILLIAM (1600-1669).—­Controversial writer, b. near Bath, ed. at Oxf., studied law at Lincoln’s Inn, of which he became a bencher, but soon became immersed in the writing of controversial pamphlets.  After the Unloveliness of Lovelocks and Health’s Sicknesse (1627-30) appeared his best known controversial work, Histrio-Mastix, or a Scourge for Stage Players (1633), a bitter attack on most of the popular amusements of the day.  It was punished with inhuman severity.  P. was brought before the Star Chamber, fined L5000, pilloried, and had both his ears cut off.  Undeterred by this he issued from his prison a fierce attack upon Laud and the hierarchy, for which he was again fined, pilloried, and branded on both cheeks with the letters S.L. (seditious libeller).  Removed to Carnarvon Castle he remained there until liberated in 1641 by the Long Parliament.  He soon after became a member of the House, and joined with extreme, but not inexcusable, rancour in the prosecution of Laud.  After this he turned his attention to the Independents, whom he hated scarcely less than the Prelatists, and was among those expelled from the House of Commons by Cromwell, whom he had opposed in regard to the execution of the King with such asperity that he again suffered imprisonment, from which he was released in 1652.  He supported the Restoration, and was by Charles II. appointed Keeper of the Records in the Tower.  Here he did good service by compiling the Calendar of Parliamentary Writs and Records.  He pub. in all about 200 books and pamphlets.