PROLUSION

(Lat.) A cla ical word which has been adopted in a rather general sense by authors unwilling to entitle their own productions by a more ambitious designation; an e ay or preparatory exercise, in which the writer tries his own strength, or throws out some preliminary remarks on a subject which he intends to treat more profoundly. The early and fugitive pieces of some poets (as the Culex and others attributed to Virgil) have been termed, by critics, their prolusions. PRO ME THE ANS. a term applied to small gla tubes containing concentrated sulphuric acid, and surrounded with an inflammable mixture, which they ignite on being pre ed, and thereby give instantaneous light. The term is derived from PRO ME THE US. {YromGr. fji.'^tts, counsel) According to the most ordinary form of his legend in Greek mythology, one of the Titans, who was exposed to the wrath of Jupiter on account of his having taught mortals the arts, and especially the use of fire; which he was said to liave stolen from heaven, concealed in a pipe. According to another story, Pro me the us was actually the creator of men; and in tiie Prot agoras of Plato he is made not to have created, but to have inspired them with thought and sense. His punishment was to be chained to a rock on Caucasus, where a vulture perpetually gnawed his liver; from which he was finally rescued by Hercules. This legend has formed the subject of the grandest of all the poetical illustrations of Greek supernatural belief, the Pro me the us BoxiJid of iEschylus. Many have recognized in the indomitable resolution of this suffering Titan, and his stern endurance of the evils inflicted on him by a power with which he had vainly warred for supremacy, the prototyi)e of the arch-fiend of Milton. Others have sought for a recondite analogy, and discovered in the tortures endured by Pro me the us as a sacrifice for mankind, whom he had benefited, a foreshadowing of the great mystery of Christianity. [s. 1003]