PEN 
or a (liver pen, becaufe thefe, they fay, do not wear out. 
But fuppofe they do wear away, (as what does not ?) who 
is to mend them? Thefe pens colt from a (hilling to half- 
a crown apiece, the price of a fcore, or even a hundred, 
of quills-or pens, which can be mended, and which are fo 
obedient under the knife, that they can be made hard or 
loft, fo as to fuit any hand, or any kind of character, 
I'm a 11 or large, round or fquare, thick or thin; and the 
celerity with which quills are converted into pens is afto- 
niftiing. It is recorded, that an tifher at Rugby-fchool 
made 2000 pens in little more than eight hours. This 
vvasfin the year 1813. The man’s name was Thacker. 
To PEN, v. a. [pret. and part. palf. penned.] To write. 
It probably meant at fir ft only the manual exercife of the 
pen, or mechanical part of writing; but it has been long 
itfed with relation to the ftyle or compofition.—I would 
be loth to call away my fpeech ; for, befides that it is ex¬ 
cellently well penn’d, I have taken great pains to con if. 
Shaliefpeare's Tw. Night. —'He frequented fermons, and 
penned notes with his own hand. Hay ward's Edw. VI .— 
The precepts, penned or preached by the holy apoftles, 
were as divine and as perpetual in refpedt of obligation. 
While. —The digefting my thoughts into order, and the 
fetting them down in writing, was neceffary; for, without 
fuch drift examination as the penning them affords, they 
would have been disjointed and roving ones. Dighy on 
the Soul. 
Twenty fools I never faw 
Come with petitions fairly penn'd, 
Defiring I fhould ftand their friend. Swift. 
[Preter. and part. paff. pent.] To coop; to (hut up; to 
incage; to imprifon in a narrow place.—Away with her, 
and pen her up. Shajiefpeare. —The plaifter alone would 
pen the humour already contained in the part, and forbid 
new humour. Bacon. —The glafs, wherein it is penned 
up, hinders it to deliver itfelf by an expanfion of its parts. 
Boyle. —The prevention of mifehiefis preferibed by the 
Jevvifli cuftom; they pen up their daughters, and permit 
them to be acquainted with none. Harvey on Confump- 
tions. 
My heavy fon 
Private in his chamber pens himfelf. Shahefpsare. 
Their armour help’d tiieir harm, crufh’d in and bruis’d. 
Into their fubftance pent. Milton’s P. L. 
As when a prowling wolf, 
Whom hunger drives to feek new haunt for prey, 
Watching where fhepherds pen their flocks at eve 
In hurdled cotes, amid the field fecure, 
Leaps o’er the fence with eafe into the fold. Milton's P.L. 
PEN. See Pen Selwood. 
PEN AN'GLAS, a cape of South Wales, on the north 
coaft of the county of Pembroke. Lat. 51. 57. N. Ion. 4. 
59- w. 
PEN Y DAR'RAN. See vol. xv. p. 164. 
PEN DI'NAS, a cape of Wales, on the north coaft of 
St. Bride’s Bay. Lat. 51. 48. N. Ion. 5. 10. W. 
PEN PARK. See vol. iii. p. 414. 
PEN SEL'WOOD, a village in the county of Somerfet, 
on the borders of Wiltfhire and Dorfetfhire, on an ele¬ 
vated fituation, near the river Stour. In the year 658, a 
battle was fought here between the Saxons and the Bri¬ 
tons, which proved in favour of the former, and in fo de- 
cifive a manner, that the Britons never after made head 
againft their enemies. In the year 879, the Danes are 
faid to have been defeated here by king Alfred: in the 
year 1001, a few of king Ethelred’s troops were defeated 
by the Danes ; and in the year 1016, the Danes were de¬ 
feated here by king Edmund. It is four miles north- 
eaft of Wincanton, 106 weft of London. 
PE'NA (John), an able French mathematician, was 
defeended from a noble family at Aix in Provence, and 
born at Mouftiers, in the diocefe of Riez, about the year 
i 530. He diftinguilhed himfelf by his proficiency in the 
PEN 529 
Latin and Greek languages, and philofophy; but the 
bent of his genius particularly directed him to the ftudy 
of the mathematical fciences. Ramus had been his tutor 
in the belles-lettres, and is faid to have been infpired by 
his pupil with a tafte for mathematical ftudies, and to 
have profecuted them under his inftrudflions. M. de 
Thou fays, that they both taught at the fame time in the 
College de Prefles. About the year 1556, he was ap¬ 
pointed Profeffor of Mathematics in the College Royal ; 
and, according tofome writers, his poft was a profefforfliip- 
extraordinary, created out of compliment to his extraor¬ 
dinary merit, and fupprefled after his death. He publifn- 
ed a Latin verfion of the Catoptrics of Euclid, with a 
curious Preface, explaining and illuftrating the ufes of 
the cylindrical mirror ; the Optics of the fame geome¬ 
trician ; Euclidis Elementa Mufices; Seftio Regulte 
Harmonicas, in Greek and Latin ; and a Latin verfion 
accompanying the Greek text of The Spherics ofTheo- 
dofius, 1558, 4to. He alfo wrote fome papers on the 
Mechanics of Hero, and the Geometry of Euclid, which 
have not been given to the public. This very promifing 
young mathematician was prematurely cut off by a vio¬ 
lent fever in 1560, when only about thirty years of age. 
Teiffier's Eloges des Homnies Savans. 
PE'NA, in geography. See Peene. 
PE'NA CO'VA. See Pegna.Cova, p. 473. 
PE'NAC, a town of Naples, in Abruzzo Citra : nine 
miles eaft-fouth-eaft of Civita Borella. 
PENyE'A,./! [received that appellation from Linnaeus, 
in memory of the learned Peter Pena, a native of Jouques, 
near Aix, in Provence; who afforded great afliftance to 
Lobel, in the compofition of his ,£ Adverfaria.” Plumier 
had already confecrated a plant to his honour, which 
Linnasus reduced to Polygala ; fee that article.] In 
botany, a genus of the clafs tetrandria, order monogynia. 
Generic characters—Calyx : perianthium two-leaved : 
leaflets oppofite, lanceolate, concave, equal, coloured, 
ftiorter by half than the corolla, loofe, deciduous. Co¬ 
rolla : one-petalled, bell-fhaped : border four-cleft, fpread- 
ing a little, much ftiorter than the tube; fegments (harp. 
Stamina: filaments four, awl-ftiaped, extremely fhort, 
placed on the tube of the corolla between the divifions 
of it, upright, naked ; antherse upright, flattifh, emargi- 
nate both ways. Piftillum : germen ovate, four-cornered; 
ftyle four-cornered by four membranaceous longitudinal 
wings; ftigmacruciform, blunt, permanent. Pericarpium: 
capfule four-cornered, furniflied with the ftyle, four-celled, 
four-valved. Seeds: two, fomewhat oblong, blunt.— 
Efj'ential Charatter. Calyx two-leaved; corolla bell- 
fhaped ; ftyle quadrangular; capfule four-cornered, four- 
ceiled, eight-feeded. 
There are nine fpecies. They are flirubs, rugged below 
with the veftiges of fallen leaves, leafy above; leaves op¬ 
pofite, croffwife, feflile, approximating imbricately in a 
four-fold row, the upper ones near the flowers like feales 
and coloured, whence the calyx in fome fpecies is as it 
were many-leaved and imbricated ; flowers terminating, 
feflile, folitary or feveral heaped together ; fruit as in the 
order of Acanthi, but four-celled. Perhaps this genus 
may be allied to them ; but, having been hitherto little 
examined except in dried fpecimens, the natural order of 
the genus Penasa null yet remain uncertain. The fpecies 
are all natives of the Cape of Good Hope. 
1. Penaea farcocolla, or ovate-leaved pentea : leaves 
ovate, fomewhat rhomboid, acute ; bradtes wedge-fliaped, 
pointed, coloured ; calyx-leaves linear. This is an hum¬ 
ble much-branched bufhy fhrub. The leaves are about 
half an inch long, of a pale tawny glaucous hue in the 
dried plant, their mid-rib rather convex. Flowers few 
together, at the tops of the branches, rather longer than 
the leaves, red. It has been generally believed that the 
fubftance called farcocolla, or flefli-glue, is an exudation 
from the flowers of this plant; but there is very good 
reafon to doubt the truth of the opinion. It was firft 
taken up by Linnsus, and has been maintained ever fince 
upon 
