71

head. He adds, that its ashes are a cure for its bite, and for the king's evil. When any one has been bitten by a lamprey, the most effectual method is to cut out the part affected. Lampreys are very dexterous in saving themselves; So when taken with a hook, they cut the line with their teeth; and, when they perceive themselves caught in a net, they attempt to pass through the meshes. They fish for lampreys only on the pebbly edges of sea rocks; some of these pebbles are drawn together to make a pit as far as *: the water's edge, or a little blood is thrown in, and the lamprey immediately puts forth its head between two rocks. As soon as the hook, which is baited with a crab or some other fish, is presented to it, it swallows greedily, and drags it into its hole. There is then occasion for great dexterity to pull it out suddenly; for if it is allowed time to attach itself by the tail, the jaw would be torn away before the fish could be taken. This shows that its strength resides in the end of its tail; for the great bone of this fish is reversed, so that the bones, which in all other fishes are bent towards the tail, are here turned in a contrary direction, and ascend towards the head. After the lamprey is taken out of the water, it is not killed without a great deal of trouble; the best way is to cut the end of its tail, or to crush it with repeated blows on the spine, to prevent it from leaping; as its animal life extends to the end of the spinal marrow. M. De Querhoent denies the supposed poison of the lamprey. This species, he says, abounds on the coasts of Africa, at the Antilles, on the coast of Brasil, at Surinam, and in the East Indies. When taken with a hook, the fisher must kill it before he takes it off, otherwise it darts upon him, and wounds him severely. Its wounds, however, are not venomous, M. de Querhoent having seen several sailors who were bitten by it, but experienced no disagreeable consequences. Lampreys are likewise found in great abundance at Ascension Island, but particularly in the seas of Italy: their flesh when dried is excellent; and boiling gives to the vertebræ the color of gridelin. The flesh of the lamprey is white, fat, soft, and tender; it is pretty agreeable to the taste, and almost as nourishing as that of the eel; those of a large size are greatly superior to the small ones. Mr. Pennant is of opinion that the ancients were unacquainted with this fish. PETRONEL, n. s. a small gun used by a horseman.

Fr. petrinal. A pistol;

risk of losing the emperor's friendship and his own life; for when that prince gave orders to have his statue deposited in the temple of Jerusalem, Petronius, finding that the Jews would rather suffer death than see that sacred place profaned, was unwilling to have recourse to violent measures; and therefore preferred moderation to cruel measures to enforce obedience. In his voyage to Africa, of which country he had been appointed quæstor, the ship in which he sailed was taken by Scipio, who caused all the soldiers to be put to the sword, and promised to save the quæstor's life, provided he would renounce Cæsar's party. Petronius replied that 'Cæsar's officers were accustomed to grant life to others, and not to receive it; and, at the same time, he stabbed himself with his own sword.

PETRONIUS ARBITER (Titus), a great critic and polite writer, the favorite of Nero, supposed to be the same mentioned by Tacitus in his Annals, lib. xvi. He was proconsul of Bithynia, and afterwards consul, and appeared capable of the greatest employments! He was one of Nero's principal confidants, and the superintendant of his pleasures. The great favor shown him drew upon him the envy of Tigellinus, another of Nero's favorites, who accused him of being concerned in a conspiracy against the emperor: on which Petronius was seized, and was sentenced to die. He met death with a striking indifference, and seems to have tasted it nearly as he had done his pleasures. He would sometimes open a vein, and sometimes close it, conversing with his friends in the meanwhile, not on the immortality of the soul, which was no part of his creed, but on topics which pleased his fancy, as of love-verses, agreeable and passionate airs. Of this disciple of Epicurus, Tacitus gives the following character:- He was,' says he, neither a spendthrift nor a debauchee; but a refined voluptuary, who devoted the day to sleep, and the night to the duties of his office, and to pleasure.' He is much distinguished by a satire which he wrote, and secretly conveyed to Nero; in which he ingeniously describes, under borrowed names, the character of this prince. Peter Petit discovered at Traw in Dalmatia, in 1665, a considerable fragment containing the sequel of Petronius's Trimalcion's Feast. This fragment, which was printed in 1666 at Padua and Paris, produced a paper war among the learned. While some affirmed that it was the work of Petronius, and others denied it to be so, Petit sent it to Rome. The French critics, who had attacked its authenticity, were silent after it was deposited in the royal library. It is now generally attributed to Petronius. The public did not form the same favorable opinion of some other fragments, which were extracted from a MS. found at Belgrade in 1688, and printed at Paris by Nodot in 1694, though they are ascribed by the editor Charpentier, and other learned men, to Petronius. His genuine works are, 1. A Poem on the Civil War between Cæsar and Pompey, translated into prose by Marolles, and into French verse by Bouhier, 1737, in 4to. Petronius, disgusted with Lucan's flowery language, opposed a Pharsalia to his Pharsalia; but his

H

work, though superior to Lucan's in some respects, is not in the true style of epic poetry. 2. A Poem on the Education of the Roman Youth. 3. Two Treatises upon the corruption of Eloquence, and the Decay of Arts and Sciences, 4. A Poem on Dreams. 5. The Shipwreck of Licas. 6. On the Inconstancy of Human Life. And, 7. Trimalcion's Banquet. This last performance is a description of the pleasures of a corrupted court; and the painter is rather an ingenious courtier than a person whose aim is to reform abuses. The best editions of Petronius are those published at Venice, 1499, in 4to.; at Amsterdam, 1669, in 8vo. ; cum notis Var. Ibid. with Boschius's notes, 1677, in 24to.; and 1700, 2 vols. in 24mo. The edition variorum was reprinted in 1743, in 2 vols. 4mo., with Peter Burman s commentaries. Petronius died in 65 or 66.

PETRONIUS GRANIUS, a centurion in the eighth legion, who served with reputation under Cæsar in the Gallic war.

PETRONIUS MAXIMUS was born A. D. 395, of an illustrious family, being at first a senator and consul of Rome. He put on the imperial purple in 455, after having effected the assassination of Valentinian III. To establish himself upon the throne, he married Eudoxia, the widow of that prince; and, as she was ignorant of his villany, he confessed to her, in a transport of love, that the strong desire he had of being her husband had made him commit this atrocious crime. Whereupon Eudoxia privately applied to Genseric, king of the Vandals, who, coming into Italy with a very powerful army, entered Rome, where the usurper then was. Petronius endeavoured to escape; but the soldiers and people, enraged at his cowardice, fell upon him, and overwhelmed him with a shower of stones. His body was dragged through the streets for three days; and, after every other mark of disgrace, thrown into the Tiber, the 12th of June, 455. He reigned only seventy-seven days. Yet he had some good qualities. He loved and cultivated the sciences. He was prudent in council, circumspect in his actions, equitable in his judgments, a facetious companion, and steady friend. He had gained the affections of every body, while he remained in a private station.

PETROSA OSSA, in anatomy, a name given to the fourth and fifth bones of the cranium, called also ossa temporum and ossa squamosa; the substance whereof, as their first and last names express, is squamose and very hard.

PETROSELINUM (apium petroselinum, Lin.), parsley. See APIUM. This plant is commonly cultivated for culinary purposes. The seeds have an aromatic flavor, and are occasionally used as carminatives, &c. The root is one of the five aperient roo's, and with this intention is sometimes made an ingredient in apozems and dietdrinks; if liberally used, it is apt to occasion flatulencies; and thus, by distending the viscera, produces a contrary effect to that intended by it; the taste of this root is somewhat sweetish, with a light degree of warmth and aromatic flavor. PETROSILEX, in mineralogy, compact felsspar. See MINERALOGY.

PETSCHORA, a large river of European

Russia, which rises in the Ural Mountains, w to the northward through the governments « Perm and Archangel, and falls into the Are Ocean, near Pustoserskoe, after a course above 600 miles. It receives the Lialsa, Ukse and Elima, and is navigable during sumn The steppes of Petschora form an immen plain, lying between the Dwina and Petscher in which there is a number of lakes. The nomi part of the steppes is covered with nothing moss and stunted shrubs; but in the south the are large forests. The surface on the east sie 1 is rocky. The inhabitants are wandering San jedes.

PETTEIA, in the ancient music, a term which we have no one corresponding in our leguage. The melopeia, or the art of arrats sounds in succession so as to make melody, s divided into three parts, which the Greeks a lepsis, mixis, and chresis; the Latins sump mixtio, and usus; and the Italians presa, a colamento, and uso. The last of these is call by the Greeks TETTELA, and by the Italians pett which therefore means the art of making a j discernment of all the manners of ranging combining sounds among themselves, so that the may produce their effect, i. e. may express several passions intended to be raised. This shows what sounds are to be used, and what ne: how often they are severally to be repeated; ma which to begin, and with which to end; wheth with a grave sound to rise, or an acute one fall, &c. The petteia constitutes the manner the music; chooses out this or that passion, or that motion of the soul, to be awakened; and determines whether it be proper to excite it this or that occasion. The petteia, therefore, › in music much what the manners are in poety It is not easy to discover whence the denomin tion should have been taken by the Greeks, less from TETTEta, their game of chess; th musical petteia being a sort of combination a arrangement of sounds, as chess is of piess called TETTO calculi, or chess-men.

PETTICOAT, n. s. Fr. petit and coat. Te lower part of a woman's dress.

Sir.-Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy's What trade art thou, Feeble ?-A woman's tayk battle, as thou hast done in a woman's petticoat! Shakspeare

Suckling

Her feet beneath her petticoat, Like little mice, stole in and out, As if they fear'd the light. It is a great compliment to the sex, that the v tues are generally shewn in petticoats.

Addison.

ET

Lad to

D

The worst conditioned and least cliented petiroguers get, under the sweet bait of revenge, more plentiful prosecution of actions.

Carew's Survey of Cornwall.
Your pettifoggers damn their souls
To share with knaves in cheating fools.

Hudibras.

Physicians are apt to despise empyrics; lawyers, pettifoggers; and merchants, pedlars. Swift. PETTITOES, n. s. Petty and toe. The feet of a sucking pig: human feet, in contempt. My good clown grew so in love with the wenches' song, that he would not stir his pettitoes, till he had both tune and words. Shakspeare. Winter's Tale. PETTO, n. s. Ital. and Belg. The breast; figuratively, privacy. Thus we say, 'en petto.' PETTY, adj. Fr. petit. Small; inPETTINESS, 7. 8. ferior, inconsiderable; paltry: pettiness is littleness of matter or characester; meanness.

PETTY (Sir William), son of Anthony Petty, a clothier, was born at Romsey, a small market town in Hampshire, in 1623. It is difficult to determine, whether the course of his education was directed more by his father or himself; for being taken when a child to view the common mechanics at work, he soon, by the bent of genius and inclination, took up the tools, and learned to handle them with such dexterity, that at twelve he had attained a skill in various trades, not much inferior to that of the ordinary workman.

At fifteen he was master of the Latin, Greek, and French tongues, and of arithmetic and those parts of geometry and astronomy useful to navigation. Soon after he went to Caen and Paris, where he studied anatomy with Mr. Hobbes. Upon his return to England, he was preferred in the king's navy. In 1643, when the war occurred between the king and parliament, he went into the Netherlands and France for three years; and having prosecuted his studies in physic at Utrecht, Lèyden, Amsterdam, and Paris, he retured home to Rumsey. In 1647 he obtained a patent to teach the art of double writing for seventeen years. In 1648 he published at London, Advice to Mr. Samuel Hartlib, for the advancement of some At this time he particular parts of learning. adhered to the prevailing party of the kingdom: and went to Oxford, where he taught anatomy In 1650 and chemistry, and was created M. D. he was made professor of anatomy there; and soon after a member of the college of physicians in London, and physician to the army in Ireland; where he continued till 1659, and acquired a great fortune. After the Restoration he was introduced to king Charles II., who knighted him in 1661. In 1662 he published A Treatise of Taxes and Contributions. In 1663 he invented a double-bottomed ship. He died at London of a gangrene in the foot, occasioned by a swelling of the gout, in 1687. The character of his genius is sufficiently seen in his writings, which are very numerous. Amongst these he wrote the History of his own Life. He died possessed of a fortune of about £15,000 a-year.

PETTY (William), marquis of Lansdown, was descended from the above Sir William Petty, and born in 1737. He succeeded to the Irish title of earl of Shelburne, on the death of his father in 1761; and in 1763 was president of the board of trade, an office which he resigned to join the train of opposition led by Mr. Pitt (lord Chatham), with whom he returned to office in 1766. When a change of ministry took place, in 1768, he became an antagonist of ministers till 1782, when he was nominated secretary of state for the foreign department. On the death of the marquis of Rockingham he was succeeded by lord Shelburne; but he was soon obliged to give way to the coalition between lord North and Mr. Fox. In 1784 his lordship became an English peer, by the titles of marquis of Lansdown and earl of Wycombe; and employed himself in the cultivation of science and literature at Bow Wood, his seat in Wiltshire. He collected a valuable library, the MSS. belonging to which were, after his death, purchased by the British Museum. His death took place in 1805.

PETTY BAG, an office in chancery, the three clerks of which record the return of all inquisitions out of every county, and make all patents of comptrollers, gaugers, customers, &c.

PETTY LARCENY. See LARCENY.

PETTY SINGLES, among falconers, the toes of a hawk.

PETTY TALLY, in the sea language, a competent allowance of victuals, according to the number of the ship's company.

PETTY TREASON. See TREASON.
PETTY WHIN, a species of ononis.

Wise men knew, that which looked like pride in some, and like petulance in others, would, by experience in affairs and conversation amongst men, be in time wrought off. Clarendon.

The tongue of a man is so petulant, and his thoughts so variable, that one should not lay too great stress upon any present speeches and opinions. Spectator.

However their numbers, as well as their insolence and perverseness increased, many instances of petulancy and scurrility are to be seen in their pamphlets. Swift. There appears in our age a pride and petulancy in youth, zealous to cast off the sentiments of their fathers and teachers. Watts.

If the opponent sees victory to incline to his side, let him shew the force of his argument, without too importunate and petulant demands of an answer.

Id.

To be humane, generous and candid, is a very high degree of merit in any case; but those qualifications deserve still greater praise, when they are found in that condition which makes almost every other man, for whatever reason, contemptuous, insolent, petulant, selfish, and brutal. Johnson.

fruit is lobated, striated on both sides, and surrounded by a membrane; the involucra are very short. There are three species, none of whic have any remarkable properties, excepting the P. officinale, or common hog's fennel, growing naturally in the English salt marshes, and rising the height of two feet, with channelled stalks which divide into two or three branches, each crowned with an umbel of yellow flowers, com posed of several small circular umbels. The roots, when bruised, have a strong fœtid scen like sulphur, and an acrid, bitterish, unctuous taste. Wounded in the spring, they yield a cosiderable quantity of yellow juice, which dres into a gummy resin, and retains the strong smel of the root.

PETUNSE, in natural history, one of the substances whereof porcelain or china-ware is made. The petunse is a coarse kind of flint or pebble, the surface of which is not so smooth when broken as that of our common flint. See PORCELAIN. According to Chaptal, the petunse is that species of silex known by the names of feldspar, rhomboidal quartz, and spathum scintillans. It very frequently forms one of the principles of granite, and the crystals which are found separate arise from the decomposition of this primitive rock. The texture of feldspar is close, lamellated, and it is less hard than quartz. It fuses, without addition, into a whitish glass. The specific gravity of white feldspar is 25.946: 100 parts of white feldspar contain about 67 silex, 14 alumine, 11 barytes, and 8 magnesia.

PETWORTH, a market-town and parish in Sussex, near the river Arun, twelve miles from Arundel, and fifty south-west from London. In this place is the magnificent seat of the earl of Egremont. The streets of the town are irregular, but the houses are well built. In the centre is a market-house, in one of the rooms over which the quarter sessions are held. Here are also a charity-school, alms-house, hospital, and a bridewell, on Howard's plan. The church is a neat building, and has several monuments of the Percy family. Market on Saturday. Fairs, Holy-Thursday, and November 20th.

PEUCEDANUM, or sulphur-wort, a genus of the digynia order, belonging to the pentandria class of plants; and in the natural method ranking under the forty-fifth order, umbellatæ. The

The expressed juice was used by the ancients in lethargic disorders.

PEUCER (Gaspar), professor of medicine a Wirtemberg, was born at Bautzen in Lusama He married a daughter of Melancthon, whose works he published in 1601, in 5 vols. Being Protestant, and being closely imprisoned for te years for his opinions, he wrote his thoughts of the margins of old books, with ink made of burnt crusts soaked in wine. He died in 1602.

PEUCESTES, a brave general under Alexander the Great, who bestowed on him a crown d gold. See MACEDON.

PEVENSEY, a town of Sussex, on a rive which runs into a bay in the English Channe and forms Pevensey Harbour. It has an ancien: castle, originally belonging to Robert earl d Moreton, brother to William the Conqueror ) and thought a fine specimen of Roman architet ture. Sueno the Dane landed at it in 1049, carried off his cousin Beorn, and murdered him It was afterwards ravaged by earl Godwin and his son Harold, who carried off many ships The church is also an ancient structure. The castle belongs at present to the Cavendish family. Here William the Conqueror landed previous to the battle of Hastings. It is fourteen miles W. S. W. of Hastings, and sixty-three

south of London.

PEUTEMAN (Peter), a Dutch painter, bor at Rotterdam in 1650. His subjects were either allegorical or emblematical allusions to the shortness and misery of human life. He died in consequence of a fright in 1692.

PEUTINGER (Conrad), a learned German, born at Augsburg in 1465. He became secretary to the senate of Augsburg; and published an ancient itinerary, called Tabula Peutingerina, marking the roads by which the Roman armies passed to the greater part of the empire. He died in 1574.

PEW, n.s. Belg. puy; Ital. poggio. A seat enclosed in a church.

When Sir Thomas More was lord chancellor, be did use at mass, to sit in the chancel, and his lady

in a pew.

Васок.

How I foresee in many ages past,
When Lolioe's caytive name is quite defaced,
Thine heyre, thine heyre's heyre, and his heire
again,

From out the loynes of careful Lolian,
Shall climbe up to the chancell pewes on hie,
And rule and raigne in their rich tenancie.

Hall's Satires

PEWS, in a church, are somewhat in the nature of an heir-loom; and may descend by immemorial custom, without any ecclesiastical concurrence, from the ancestor to the heir. The right to sit in a particular pew in the church arises either from prescription as appurtenant to a messuage; or from a faculty or grant from the ordinary; for he has the disposition of all pews which are not claimed by prescription. Gibs. Cod. 221. In an action for a disturbance of the enjoyment of a pew, if the plaintiff claims it by prescription, he must state it in the declaration as appurtenant to a messuage in the parish; and then such prescription may be supported by an enjoyment for thirty-six years; and perhaps for any time above twenty years. 1 Term. Rep. 428. So uninterrupted possession of a pew in the church for thirty years, unexplained, is presumptive evidence of a prescriptive right to the pew in an action against a wrong doer: but may be rebutted by proof that prior to that time the pew had no existence. 5 Term. Rep. K. B. 297.

PE'WET, n. s. Teut. piewit; Belg. kiewit. A water fowl.

We reckon the dip-chick, so named of his diving and littleness, puffins, pewets, meawes. Carew. PEW TER, n.s. Į Fr. epeutre; Ital. and PEWTERER. Span. peltre. An artificial metal, principally made of tin; the pewter vessels of a house: a worker of pewter.

He shall charge you and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's hammer. Shakspeare.

ble.

Coarse pewter is made of fine tin and lead.

Васоп. The pewter, into which no water could enter, became more white, and liker to silver, and less flexiId. Pewter dishes, with water in them, will not melt easily, but without it they will; nay, butter or oil, in themselves inflammable, yet, by their moisture, will hinder melting.

Id.

We caused a skilful pewterer to close the vessel in Boyle. our presence with soder exquisitely.

The eye of the mistress was wont to make her pewter shine. Addison. Nine parts or more of tin, with one of regulus of antimony compose pewter. Pemberton.

PEWTER, in French called étain, and often confounded thus with pure tin, is a factitious metal used in making domestic utensils, as plates, dishes, &c. The basis is tin, which is converted into pewter by mixing at the rate of 1 cwt. of tin with fifteen pounds of lead and six pounds of brass. Besides this composition, which makes the common pewter, there are other kinds, compounded of tin, antimony, bismuth, and copper, in several proportions.

'Blocks of tin are often melted by the pewterers into small rods. I found that a cubic foot of the specimen I examined,' says Dr. Watson, weighed 7246 ounces: but even this sort exceeds in purity any of the kinds examined by some authors. Chemistry affords certain methods of discovering the quantity of lead with which tin is alloyed; but these methods are often troublesome in the

application. Pewterers, and other dealers in tin, use not so accurate a method of judging of its purity, but one founded on the same principle; for the specific gravities of bodies being nothing but the weights of equal bulks of them, they cast a bullet of pure tin, and another of the mixture of tin and lead, which they want to examine, in the same mould; and the more the bullet of the mixture exceeds the bullet of pure tin in weight, the more lead they conclude it contains.

'Pewter is a mixed metal; it consists of tin united to small portions of other metallic substances, such as lead, zinc, bismuth, and the metallic part, commonly called regulus of antimony. We have three sorts of pewter in common use; they are distinguished by the names of plate, trifle, ley. The plate pewter is used for plates and dishes; the trifle chiefly for pints and quarts; and the ley-metal for wine measures, &c. Our very best sort of pewter is said to consist of 100 parts of tin and of seventeen of regulus of antimony, though others allow only ten parts of regulus to 100 of tin; to this composition the French add a little copper. Crude antimony, which consists of nearly equal portions of sulphur and of a metallic substance, may be taken inwardly with great safety; but the metallic part, or regulus, when separated from the sulphur, is held to be very poisonous. Yet plate-pewter may be a very innocent metal; the tin may lessen or annihilate the noxious qualities of the metallic part of the antimony. We have an instance somewhat similar to this in standard silver, the use of which has never been esteemed unwholesome notwithstanding it contains nearly one-twelfth of its weight of copper. Though standard silver has always been considered as a safe metal, when used for culinary purposes, yet it is not altogether so; the copper it contains is liable to be corroded by saline substances into verdigris. This is frequently seen, when common salt is suffered to stay a few days in silver saltsellers, which have not a gold gilding; and even saline draughts, made with volatile salt and juice of lemons, have been observed to corrode a silver tea-spoon which had been left a week in the mixture.'

The weight of a cubic foot of each of these sorts of pewter is:

If the plate-pewter be composed of tin and regulus of antimony there is no reason to expect that a cubic foot of it should be heavier than it appears to be; since regulus of antimony, according to the different ways in which it is made, is heavier or lighter than pure tin. A very fine silver-looking metal is said to be composed of 100 pounds of tin, eight of regulus of antimony, one of bismuth, and four of copper. The ley pewter, if we may judge of its composition by comparing its weight with the weights of the mixtures of tin and lead mentioned in the table, contains not so much as a third, but more than a fifth, part of its weight of lead: this quantity of lead is far too much, considering one of the uses to which this sort of pewter is applied; for acid