Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/654

 work entitled "Green Fields and their Grasses," and a year or two after, had famished the text for a beautifully-illustrated present-book, called "The Excellent Woman," founded on Solomon's definition of such a character.

Miss Pratt's most important works, have been composed for the Christian Knowledge Society, her connection commenced in 1851, when she undertook to write a work on "Common Things of the Sea-Coast," which is one of the most popular books on the subject extant. This was followed by "Our Native Wild Flowers," in two handsome square volumes, profusely illustrated from drawings by the author, who is most skilful in the delineation of botanical subjects. Then followed another work, uniform in size and style, called "Our Song Birds;" and the success of these books, whose illustrations were in a new style of colour-printing, induced the Society to determine on the issue of a large work on "The Flowering Plants and Ferns of Britain," which this clever and indefatigable author undertook, and has only recently completed. It is in several volumes, and presents the results of the better part of an industrious life devoted to a close and loving study of the growth and properties of British plants; it is in its character at once scientific and popular, and must take its place as a standard authority. Miss Pratt is, we understand, now engaged in a smaller work on "Poisonous and Deleterious Plants," which cannot be other than a useful contribution to popular economic botanical literature. By all this it will be seen that this author well deserves a place in our catalogue of remarkable women. Her works have gone through the length and breadth of her native land, and linked more closely to nature the hearts of their numerous readers, whether old or young. Her intense love of the beautiful in nature, her reverence for all the works of the Almighty Creator, are visible in everything she has written; and her kindly and affectionate spirit has so infused itself through her teachings, that she is more like a companion than a teacher, even to the most youthful. Of late. Miss Pratt has resided chiefly at Dover, for the benefit of the fresh bracing air, her health being delicate. She is one of the pleasantest of companions and warmest of friends; and is still as eager a student in the great school of nature as she was in her young days. Many good poems are scattered through her various works, but she does not pride herself upon her rhyming faculty.

PRISCA, lady, a convert to Christianity, was horribly tortured, and afterwards beheaded, for refusing to abjure her religion and to sacrifice to idols, under the Emperor Claudius, about the year 275.

PRITCHARD, HANNAH, eminent English actress, whose maiden name was Vaughan, was born about 1711. She was on the London stage when very young, and excelled in both tragedy and comedy, especially the latter. She died in 1768.

PROBA, VALERIA PALCONIA, the wife of Adolphus, the Roman proconsul, in the reigns of Honorious and Theodosius the Younger. She composed a Virgil-