a frigate's share, with the loss of two killed and three wounded. She afterwards, with Calder, joined the fleet off Cadiz, and, remaining there on Calder's return to England, was present at the battle of Trafalgar. The Sirius continued in the Mediterranean under Collingwood's command, and on 17 April 1806 attacked a flotilla of French armed vessels near Civita Vecchia, capturing the corvette Bergère, after a resistance which enabled the smaller vessels to escape and inflicted on the Sirius a loss of nine killed and twenty wounded (James, Naval History, iv. 142). For his conduct on this occasion the Patriotic Fund voted Prowse a sword of the value of 100l. The Sirius was paid off in May 1808; and from March 1810 to December 1813 Prowse commanded the Theseus in the North Sea. He had no further service afloat; but on 4 June 1815 was nominated a C.B.; was made colonel of marines on 12 Aug. 1819; rear-admiral on 19 July 1821, and died on 23 March 1826, aged 74 (Gent. Mag. 1826, i. 46).
[Ralfe's Nav. Biogr. iv. 112; Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biogr. ii. (vol. i. pt. ii.) 779; Service-book in the Public Record Office.]
PROWSE, WILLIAM JEFFERY (1836–1870), humourist, born at Torquay on 6 May 1836, was the son of Isaac Prowse, by his wife Marianne Jeffery, a lady who had known Keats and published a volume of poems. On the death of his father in 1844, William was taken charge of by an uncle, John Sparke Prowse, a notary public and shipbroker, of Greenwich. At Greenwich he attended the school of N. Wanostrocht [q. v.], a well-known writer on cricket under the pseudonym of Felix, who inspired Prowse with his own enthusiasm for the game. Prowse was from youth deeply interested in all forms of sport and was devoted to the sea. Before he was twenty he developed a remarkable talent for humorous verse, and soon drifted into the profession of journalism. About 1856 he obtained an engagement on the ‘Aylesbury News,’ and in subsequent years contributed tales, descriptive articles, or verses to ‘Chambers's Journal,’ the ‘Lady's Companion,’ the ‘National Magazine,’ and the ‘Porcupine.’ In 1861 he was appointed a leader-writer on the ‘Daily Telegraph,’ and in that capacity mainly occupied himself with sporting topics. When in 1865, his friend, Tom Hood the younger, became editor of ‘Fun,’ Prowse contributed each week, under the signature of ‘Nicholas,’ a rambling article on horse-racing, into which he introduced much good-humoured satire on other subjects. In 1865 his health began to fail, consumption declared itself, and after passing the winters of 1867, 1868, and 1869 at Cimiez, near Nice, he died there on Easter Sunday 1870; he was buried in the protestant cemetery.
As a verse-writer Prowse had much of the wit and facility of Praed. His parodies were exceptionally successful, one of the best dealing with Coleridge's ‘Ancient Mariner.’ The references to his declining health in his latest efforts lend them a genuine pathos, which is well illustrated in his ‘My lost old Age, by a young Invalid’ (written in 1865 and reprinted in Locker's ‘Lyra Elegantiarum.’) His best comic piece was the ‘City of Prague,’ a vindication of bohemianism, with an attractively rhymed refrain.
Prowse was one of the six authors of ‘England's Workshops,’ 1864, and contributed stories to ‘A Bunch of Keys,’ 1865, and ‘Rates and Taxes,’ 1866 (Christmas volumes edited by Tom Hood). His contributions to ‘Fun’ were collected in 1870 as ‘Nicholas's Notes and Sporting Prophecies, with some miscellaneous poems.’ A portrait and a memoir by Hood are prefixed.
[Memoir prefixed to Nicholas's Notes, 1870; Prowse's writings.]
PRUJEAN, Sir FRANCIS, M.D. (1593–1666), physician, whose name was often spelt Pridgeon, son of Francis Prujean, rector of Boothby, Lincolnshire, was born at Bury St. Edmunds in 1593, and educated by his father. He entered as a sizar at Caius College, Cambridge, on 23 March 1610, and graduated M.B. in 1617, and M.D. in 1625. He became a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London on 22 Dec. 1621, and was elected a fellow in 1626. He practised in Lincolnshire till 1638, and then settled in London. In 1639 he was elected a censor at the College of Physicians, and again from 1642 to 1647. He was registrar from 1641 to 1647, and president from 1650 to 1654, in the last of which years he was chosen, on the special recommendation of William Harvey, M.D. [q. v.], who declined the office. He was treasurer from 1655 to 1663. He had a large practice, and was knighted by Charles II on 1 April 1661. When Queen Catherine had typhus fever in October 1663, he attended her, and her recovery was attributed to a cordial prescribed by him (Pepys, Diary). Evelyn describes (ib. 9 Aug. 1661) his laboratory and collection of pictures, and mentions that he played on the polythore. He was married twice: first to Margaret Leggatt (d. 1661), and secondly, on 13 Feb. 1664, to Margaret, the widow of Sir Thomas Fleming, and daughter of Edward, lord Gorges. By his first wife
