P E T I T. 
796 
royal, and the furvivorlhip of his father’s office of orien¬ 
tal interpreter was conferred upon him. From this pe¬ 
riod he never left the kingdom, but employed himfelf in 
tranflations from the eaftern languages, of which he was 
acquainted with the Arabic, Turkilh, Perfian, Tartarian, 
Ethiopic, and Armenian. He died at Paris in 1713. 
His principal publications are, 1. The Oriental Library of 
Hadji Calfa. 2. The Hiftory of all the Mahometan Mo¬ 
narchies, (from the Turkiffi.) 3. General State of the 
Ottoman Empire, from the foundation to the prefent 
time, with abridged lives of the emperors; (from the 
Turkifli.) 4. The Hiftory of Gengis Khan, and The 
Hiftory of Tiinur-Bec, (from the Perfian.) 5. TheThou- 
fand and One Days, (from the Perfian;) befides other 
rraCfs, geographical and defcriptive, and fome grammars, 
dictionaries, &c. Gen. Biog. 
PETISTAGU'IT, a river of Canada, which runs into 
the river St. Laurence in lat. 50. N. Ion. 66. 26. W. 
PET'IT, adj. [French.] Small; little ; inconfiderable. 
—Do but view what petite things fwell men up ; the 
ftage never prefented the pride of a conftable fo really, as 
it is frequently to be found in men under that burden- 
fome honour! I dare fay Solomon, nay kings at this day, 
hold their fcepters with more humility, than thofe fmall 
officers their ftaves! Whitlock's Mann, of the Eng. —By 
what fmall petit hints does the mind catch hold of, and 
recover, a vaniftiing notion ! South's Serm. 
PET'IT (Samuel), a French Proteftant divine, was 
born in the year 1594. He was the fon of a refpeCtable 
minifter at Nifmes in Languedoc, from whom he received 
the elements of an excellent education. While a child, 
l:e difcovered a powerful inclination for learning, and af- 
tonifiied the inafters under whofe tuition he was placed, 
by the rapidity with which he became a proficient in the 
Greek and Latin languages. Having laid a good foun¬ 
dation of grammar-learning, he continued to extend his 
acquaintance with the ancient languages, and afterward 
to applied his attention to rhetoric and philofophy. Be¬ 
ing intended for the miniftry, he fpent three years at 
Geneva in attending the divinity-leCtures of Diodati, and 
thole of the other learned profeflors of that celebrated 
fchool. At the fame time he applied himfelf to the ftudy 
of the oriental tongues. The zeal with which he applied 
to learning is almoft incredible : for a whole year he al¬ 
lowed himfelf reft only on each alternate night, the 
others being devoted to ftudy. Such was his progrefs, 
that at the age of feventeen he was admitted to the mi¬ 
niftry. Almoft immediately after this, he was chofen to 
fill the chair of profefior of divinity in the academy of 
Nifmes, to which was added the profefibrffiip of the Greek 
and Hebrew languages. Thefe polls he retained with 
very high reputation during the remainder of his life 5 
while he purfued his various learned ftudies with uncom¬ 
mon diligence. He was likewife eminent as a preacher, 
and devoted much of his time to the charitable duties of 
vifiting the fick. To the deep regret of all who knew 
him, and to thelofs of the learned world, he died in 1643, 
when he was only in the 49th year of his age. 
He was a man of vaft and profound erudition, and par¬ 
ticularly excelled in his acquaintance with ecclefiaftical 
antiquities. To the languages already mentioned, in 
which he was an adept, we ought to add, that he ac¬ 
quired an intimate knowledge of the Coptic. His learn¬ 
ing, however, was accompanied with modefty and humi¬ 
lity ; and he is faid to have exhibited a bright and amiable 
pattern of unaffeCted piety, and of all the moral virtues. 
His temper was uncommonly placid, as may be concluded 
from the following anecdote which is told of him. Hav¬ 
ing one day entered a Jewifli fynagogue at Avignon, ac¬ 
companied by fome friends, he heard one of the rabbis 
uttering the grolieft abufe and inveCtives againft them, 
but in the Hebrew language, which the Jew did not ima¬ 
gine that any of them underftood. But, when he heard 
M. Petit mildly remonftrating with him, in that tongue, 
on the incivility and malignity which he difcovered, he 
was thrown into the utmoft confufion, and in the moll 
fuppliant manner entreated forgivenefs. This our au¬ 
thor readily granted, and took no other revenge on the 
rabbi, than by exhorting him, in pure and elegant Hebrew, 
to renounce Judaifm and embrace Chriftianity. Petit 
was the author of numerous works, for a lift of which 
we refer to the General Biography. He alfo left behind 
him in manufcript, two large volumes of Notes upon 
Jofephus, which, though imperfeft, were purchafed by 
lord Clarendon, it is faid, for a hundred and fifty louis- 
d’ors, and prefented to the univerfity of Oxford, where 
they were depofited in the Bodleian Library. In that 
place they were confulted by our countryman Hudfon, 
when he was preparing his valuable edition of the Jewifti 
hiftorian ; and he acknowledged his obligations to them 
in his general preface. 
PET'IT (Peter), a celebrated French mathematician 
and natural philofopher, was born in the year 1598. He 
cultivated from a very early period the ftudy of the ma¬ 
thematics and phyfics, in which he made confiderable 
progrefs, and which recommended him to the acquaint¬ 
ance of M. Pafcal. His father was comptroller of the 
elections in the diftriCt in which he lived, an office to 
which he fucceeded, but which, in 1633, he fold, and re¬ 
moved to Paris. Here he diftinguifhed himfelf by his 
writings, and became intimate with the mod eminent 
men ot his time. On feveral occafions he was employed 
by cardinal Richelieu, who gave him a commiffion to 
vifit the fea-ports, with the title of engineer and geogra¬ 
pher to the king. He was afterwards fent into Italy by 
his majefty, on fpecial affairs. After his return, he 
became a convert to the principles of Des Cartes. About 
the year 1640, he received the appointment of intendant 
of the fortifications of France. During a part of the year 
1646 and 7, he was ftutioned at Rouen, where, in con¬ 
junction with M. Pafcal, he went through the fame ex¬ 
periments on the (ubjeCt of a vacuum, which Torricelli 
had made before in Italy. From this time there are no 
farther particulars relating to the life of M. Petit, though 
he lived to the year 1677, when he was about 79 years of 
age. He is defcribed as having excelled particularly in 
altronomy, and as having a lingular paffion for experi¬ 
mental philofophy. He was author of many treatifes on 
mathematical, phyfical, and"aftronomical, fubjecls, of 
which a long lift is given in the' Gen. Biog. 
PE'TIT (Peter), a learned phyfician, was born at 
Paris in the year 1617, and obtained the degreeof doCtor 
in the univerfity of Montpellier, and of bachelor of medi¬ 
cine in that of Paris. He was alfo elected a member of 
the academy of Padua. Although he had acquired an 
extenfive acquaintance with the medical fcience in the 
courfe of the ftudies by which thofe degrees were obtained, 
yet the bias of his mind was not fo much directed to the 
practice of the profelfion as to philofophical and literary 
purfuits, and efpecially to the ftudy of hiftory, and to the 
cultivation of Latin poetry. It was by the excellence of 
his poems that he obtained the honour of admiftion into 
the Paduan academy ; and the fame merit occafioned him 
to be ranked as one of the Pleiades of Paris, an appella¬ 
tion given to a party of feven of the molt accomplilhed 
Latin poets of that capital. A colleClion of his poems 
was publiftied in 1683, dedicated to M. Nicolai, prefident 
of the chamber of accounts, and prefaced by a curious 
diflertation on the mania of poetry. His poem of “ Co- 
drus,” and.that entitled “ Cynomagie,” are much praifed 
for the elevated fentiments, the elegance of expreftion, 
and the ftrength and harmony of the verfe, which they 
exhibit. One of his poems was on the fubjeCt of tea, and 
was printed at Leipfic, in 1685, with the title of “Thee, 
fivede Sinenfi Herba Thee,” with an epigraph of Nicho¬ 
las Pechlin refpeCting this herb, and the defcriptions of 
feveral other authors. The writings of Petit, however, 
were not limited to poetical effays; he was the author of 
feveral curious traCts, of which the following are the 
titles. 3. De Motu Animalium Spontaneo, Par. 1660, in 
which 
