PRIER. s. (from pry.) One who inquires too narrowly.

PRIEST. s. (pnert, Saxon; prestre, Fr.) 1. One who officiates in sacred offices (Milton). 2. One of the second order in the hierarchy, above a deacon, below a bishop (Rowe). PRIEST, a person set apart for the performance of sacrifice, and other offices and ceremonies of religion. Before the promulgation of the law of Moses, the first-born of every family, the fathers, the princes, and the kings were priests. Thus Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, Melchizedec, Job, Isaac, and Jacob, offered themselves their own sacrifices. Among the Israelites, after their exodus from Egypt, the priesthood was confined to one tribe, and it consisted of three orders, the high-priest, priests, and levites. The priesthood was made hereditary in the family of Aaron, and the firstborn of the oldest branch of that family, if he had no legal blemish, was always the highpriest. This divine appointment was observed with considerable accuracy till the Jews fell under the dominion of the Romans, and had their faith corrupted by a false philosophy. Then, indeed, the high-priesthood was sometimes set up to sale; and instead of continuing for life, as it ought to have done, it seems, from some passages in the New Testament, to have been nothing more than an annual office. There is sufficient reason, however, to believe, that it was never disposed of but to some descendant of Aaron, capable of filling it, had the older branches been extinct.

It has been much disputed, whether in the Christian church there be any such officer as a priest, in the proper sense of the word. The church of Rome, which holds the propitiatory sacrifice of the mass, has of course her proper priesthood. In the church of England, the word priest is retained to denote the second order in her hierarchy, but, we believe, with very different significations, according to the different opinions entertained of the Lord's supper. Some few of her divines, of great learning, and of undoubted protestantism, maintain that the Lord's supper is a commemorative and eucharistical sacrifice. These consider all who are authorised to administer that sacrament as in the strictest sense priests. Others hold the Lord's supper to be a feast upon the one sacrifice, once offered on the cross; and these too must consider themselves as clothed with some kind of priesthood. Great numbers, however, of the English clergy, perhaps the majority, agree with the church of Scotland, in maintaining that the Lord's supper is a rite of no other moral import than the mere commemoration of the death of Christ. These cannot consider themselves as priests in the rigid sense of the word, but only as presbyters, of which the word priest is a contraction of the same import with elder.

PRIESTCRAFT. s. (priest and craft.) Religious fraud; management of wicked priests to gain power (Spectator).

PRIESTESS. s. (from priest.) A woman who officiated in heathen rites (Addison).

PRIESTHOOD. s. (from priest.) 1. The office and character of a priest (Whitgift). 2. The order of men set apart for holy offices (Dryden). 3. The second order in the hierar chy. PRIESTLEY (Joseph), an English philosopher and dissenting divine, born at Fieldhead, Yorkshire, 1733. He was educated at Daventry for the ministry among the orthodox dissenters, and took charge of a congregation at Needham market, Suffolk, and afterwards at Nantwich, Cheshire. He in process of time became a Socinian, and became in 1761, professor of belles lettres in Warrington academy, and after seven years' residence removed to Leeds, and two years after accepted the office of librarian to lord Shelburne. In this retreat the philosopher devoted himself to metaphysi cal and theological studies, and published various works; and when at last he separated from his patron he retired with an annual pension of 1501 to settle at Birmingham as pastor to an unitarian congregation in 1780. While here employed in advancing philosophy, and often engaged in theological and political disputes, he became the victim of popular fury. Some of his neighbours in celebrating the anniver sary of the French revolution in 1791, with extreme and highly censurable intemperance, excited a dreadful riot. The meeting houses were destroyed on this melancholy occasion, and among others, Dr. Priestley's house, library, manuscripts, and philosophical appara tus, were totally consumed; and though he recovered a compensation from the county, he quitted the place. He left England in 1794, and fixed his residence at Northumberland in Pennsylvania, where he died in 1804. His writings were very numerous, and on a great variety of topics, theological, political, polemical, philosophical. As a philosopher he will long class high. As a theologian he manifested much acumen and research; though with a most unphilosophical bias towards the notions he had imbibed. As a polemic, his reasonings were masterly, but often unfair and sophistical. As a man, his conduct in every relation was uniformly mild, conciliating, and exemplary.

His chief publications are, an examination of Dr. Reid's work on the human mind, Dr. Beattie's on truth, and Dr. Osborn's on common sense; disquisition on matter and spirit, in which he denied the soul's immateriality; experiments and observations on various kinds of air, 2 vols. 8vo, &c.; letters to bishop Newcome on the duration of Christ's ministry; history of the corruptions of Christianity, 2 vols. 8vo. a work of singular character, which brought on a controversy with Dr. Horsley; history of early opinions concerning the person of Christ, &c. He also published charts of history and biography; history of electricity; history and present state of discoveries relating to vision, light, and colours; lectures on the theory and history of language, and on the principles of oratory and criticism. His discoveries and improvements in the knowledge of chemistry were very great and important;

but he lived to see the general explosion of the doctrine of phlogiston, which he had so zealously established and defended.

PRIESTLINESS. s. (from priestly.) The appears see or manner of a priest.

PRIESTLY. a. (from priest.) Becoming a priest; sacerdotal; belonging to a priest. PRIESTRIDDEN. a. (priest and ridden). Managed or governed by priests (Swift).

To PRIEVE, for prove (Spenser). PRIG. s. A pert, conceited, saucy, pragmatical little fellow (Spectator).

PRILL. s. A birt or turbot (Ainsworth). PRIM. a. (by contraction from primitive.) Formal; precise; affectedly nice (Swift). To PRIM. v. a. (from the adj.) To deck up precisely; to form to an affected nicety. PRIME VIE. The first passages. The stomach and the intestinal tube are so called, and the lacteals the secundæ viæ.

PRIMACY. s. (primatie, French.) The chief ecclesiastical station (Clarendon).

PRIMAGE. s. The freight of a ship. PRIMAL. a. (primus, Latin.) First: not in use (Shakspeare).

PRIMARILY. ad. (from primary.) Originally; in the first intention; in the first place (Brown).

PRIMARINESS. s. (from primary.) The state of being first in act or intention (Norris). PRIMARY. a. (primarius, Latin.) 1. First in intention (Hammond). 2. Original; first (Raleigh). 3. First in dignity; chief; principal (Bentley).

PRIMARY PLANETS, those which revolve about the sun as their principal centre. See ASTRONOMY.

PRIMARY TEETH See TEETH. PRIMATE, the chief ecclesiastic, an archbishop. With us, the archbishop of Canterbury is styled primate of all England;" the archbishop of York, "primate of England." PRIMATES, in zoology, the first order in the Linnéan class mammalia; thus or dinarily characterised. Fore teeth cutting, upper four parallel (except in some species of bats, which have only two or none); tusks

solitary, or one on each side in each jaw; teats two, pectoral; feet two, which are hands; nails (usually) flattened, oval; food, fruits, except as to a few, which use animal food. The primates are remarkable for a nearer approach to the human form than is exhibited by the other quadrupeds. The bats, however, differ greatly from the rest. It consists of four genera, for which see MASTIOLOGY and ZOOLOGY. PRIMATESHIP. s. (from primate.) The dignity or office of a primate.

PRIME. s. (primus, Latin.) 1. The first part of the day; the dawn; the morning (Milton). 2. The beginning; the early days (Milton). 3. The best part (Swift). 4. The spring of life, the height of strength, health, or beauty (Dryden). 5. Spring (aller). 6. The height of perfection (Woodward). 7. The first canonical hour (Ains.). 8. The first part; the beginning: as, the prime of the moon.

PRIME. a. (primus, Latin.) 1. Early; blooming (Milton). 2. Principal; first rate (Clarendon). 3. First; original (Locke). 4. Excellent (Shakspeare).

To PRIME. v. a. (from the noun.) 1. To put in the first powder; to put powder in the pan of a gun (Boyle). 2. (primer, French, to begin.) To lay the ground on a canvass to be painted.

PRIMES, in arithmetic, denote the first divisions into which some whole or integer is divided. As, a minute, or prime minute, the 60th part of a degree; or the first place of decimals, being the 10th parts of units; or the first division of inches in duodecimals, being the 12th parts of inches; &c.

PRIME NUMBERS, are those which can only be measured by unity, or exactly divided without a remainder, 1 being the only aliquot part: as 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, &c. And they are otherwise called simple, or incomposite numbers. No even number is a prime, because every even number is divisible by 2. No number that ends with 0 or 5 is a prime, the former being divisible by 10, and the latter by 5. The following table contains all the prime numbers under 1000.

26

47

269,

63

367,

373, 379, 383, 389, 397

577, 587, 593, 599

571.

111

127

769,

863,

156

983, 991, 997

1170

All prime numbers (2 excepted) are contained in the four following forms: viz. 8x X 1, 8x+3, 8x+5, and 8x+7.

PRIME VERTICAL, is that vertical circle, or azimuth, which is perpendicular to the meridian, and passes through the east and west points of the horizon.

PRIME VERTICALS, in dialling, or PRIMEVERTICAL DIALS, are those that are project ed on the plane of the prime vertical circle, or on a plane parallel to it. These are otherwise called direct, erect, north, or south dials.

PRIME OF THE MOON, is the new moon at her first appearance, for about three days after her change. It means also the GOLDEN NUMBER, which see.

PRIMELY. ad. (from prime.) 1. Originally; primarily; in the first place; in the first intention (South). 2. Excellently; supremely well.

PRIMENESS. s. (from prime.) 1. The state of being first. 2. Excellence.

PRIMER. s. 1. An office of the blessed Virgin (Stilling fleet). 2. A small prayer book, in which children are taught to read."

PRIMER SEASIN, in feodal law, was a feodal burden, only incident to the king's tenants in capite, and not to those who held of inferior or mesne lords. It was a right which the king had, when any of his tenants in capite died seised of a knight's fee, to receive of the heir (provided he were of the full age,) one whole year's profits of the lands if they were in immediate possession, and half a year's profits if the lands were in reversion expectant on an estate for life.

PRIMEROSE (Gilbert), a Scotch divine, minister of the French church in London, chaplain to James I. and canon of Windsor. He died 1642. He is author of Jacob's vow in opposition to the vows of monks and friars, in French, 4 vols. 4to.the trumpet of Sion in 18 sermons, and other theological works. His son James, a physician, for some time prac tised at Paris, and settled in Yorkshire. He wrote several treatises de mulierum morbis, 4to. de circulatione sanguinis-ars pharmaceutica de vulgi erroribus in medicina, 8vo. &c.

PRIMEVAL. PRIME'VOUS. a. (primavus, Lat) Original; such as was at first (Blackmore).

PRIMING, in gunnery, the train of powder that is laid, from the opening of the vent, along the gutter or channel on the upper part of the breech of the gun; which, when fired, conveys the flame to the vent, by which it is further communicated to the charge, in order to fire the piece. This operation is only used on shipboard at the proof, and sometimes in garrison; for, on all other occasions, tubes are used for that purpose.

PRIMING-WIRE, in gunnery, a sort of iron needle employed to penetrate the vent or touchhole of a piece of ordnance, when it is loaded; in order to discover whether the powder contained therein is thoroughly dry and fit for in mediate service; as likewise to search the vent

and penetrate the cartridge, when the guns ar not loaded with the loose powder.

PRIMING, among painters, signifies the lay ing on of the first coat of colour."

PRIMITIAL. a. (primitius, primitia, Latin.) Being of the first production (Aias.). PRIMITIVE. a. (primitif, French; primitivus, Lin.) 1. Ancient; original; established from the beginning (Tillotson). 2. Formal; affectedly solemn; imitating the sup posed gravity of old times. 3. Original; primary; not derivative (Milton).

PRIMITIVE, in grammar, is a root or original word in a language, in contradistinction to derivative: thus, God is a primitive; godly, a derivative; and godlike, a compound.

PRIMITIVELY. ad. (from primitive.) 1. Originally; at first (Brown). 2. Primarily not derivatively. 3. According to the original rule (South).

PRIMITIVENESS. s. (from primitive.) State of being original; antiquity; conformity to antiquity.

PRIMNESS. s. (from prim.) Affected niceness or formality.

PRIMOGENIAL. a. (primigenius, Lat First-born; original; primary; constituent; elemental (Boyle).

PRIMOGENITURE. s. (primogeniture, French.) Seniority; eldership; state or privilege of being first-born (Gov. of the Tongue) PRIMOGENITURE, the right of the firstborn, has among most nations been very considerable. The first-born son in the patriarchal ages had a superiority over his brethren, and, in the absence of his father, was priest to the family. Among the Jews, he was conse crated to the Lord, had a double portion of the inheritance, and succeeded in the government of the family or kingdom. It is, however, re markable, and unquestionably shows the connection between this institution and the birth and office of our Saviour, that, if a woman's first child was a girl, neither she nor the chil dren that came after her were consecrated.

In every nation of Europe, the right of primogeniture prevails in some degree at present, but it did not prevail always. The law which calls the elder-born to the crown, preferably to others, was not introduced into France till very late; it was unknown to the first race of kings, and even to the second. The four sons of Clovis shared the kingdom equally among themselves; and Louis le Debonnaire did the same: it was not till the race of Hugh Capet that the prerogative of succession to the crown was appropriated to the first-born.

By the ancient custom of Gavel-kind, still preserved in some parts of our island, primoge niture is of no account; the paternal estate being equally shared by all the sons.

PRIMORDIAL. a. (primordium, Latin.) Original; existing from the beginning (Boy.). PRIMORDIAL. s. (from the adj.) Origin; first principle (More).

PRIMORDIAN. s. A kind of plum. PRIMOʻRDIATE. a. (from primordium, Lat.) Original; existing from the first (Boyle).