S PET 
which he had not been guilty of, and for verfes which he 
never wrote.” 
A refemblance has been traced, in feveral inftances, 
between Petrarch and oar famous Yorick. Both, we 
know, had great wit and genius, and no lefs imprudence 
and eccentricity; both were canons, or prebendaries, tlie 
Italian of Padua, Sec. and the Englifhman of York; they 
both “ ran over France, without any bufinefs there.” If 
the bilhop of Lombes patronifed and correfponded with 
the one, a prelate of the Englilh church, Gilbert arch- 
bilhop of York, defired, in a letter, to Jhandyife (the abp’s 
own expreffion) with the other. In their attachments to 
Laura and Eliza, both married women, thefe two preben¬ 
daries were equally warm, and equally innocent. And, 
even after death, a molt remarkable circumftance has at¬ 
tended them both : fome perfons, we are told, dole Pe¬ 
trarch’s bones, in order to fell them ; and in like manner, 
Yorick’s body, it is confidently affirmed, was alfo ftolen, 
and his Ikull has been exhibited at Oxford. Laura’s 
bones have been dilturbed alfo; for the convent of the 
Cordeliers at Avignon, where fine was buried, was fold 
and demoliffied in the year 1806; and the chapel, in 
which a tomb-ftone indicated her place of interment, is 
transformed into a liable for mules and affes. Of the in- 
feription on her tomb nothing now remains but“ Laura,” 
.an d “ requiefcat in pace !” See Monthly Mag. 
vol. xxii. xxvi. 1 , lii. liii. liv. New' Monthly, vol. vii. 
Lit. Gaz. N° 317. Eullace’s Tour in Italy. Marianne 
Colfton’s Tour through France, Italy, &c. in 1819-21. 
PETRA'RIA,/. in ancient writers, is fometimes taken 
for a quarry of done. In other places petraria is ufed for 
a fort of engine of w'ar, with which dones were cad on the 
enemy; chiefly ufed in fieges, &c. Chambers. 
PETRASTRU'MIA, a town of Naples in Principato 
Ultra : nine miles fouth of Benevento. 
PETRAT'SCHEN, a town of Pruffian Lithuania: four 
miles w'ed-fouth-wed ofRagnitz. 
PE'TRE, f. [from petra, a done.] Nitre; falt-petre.— 
Nitre, while it is in its native date, is called petre-i alt, 
when refined fait -petre. Woodward .-—Powder made of im- 
ure and greafy petre, hath but a weak emiffion, and gives 
ut a faint report. Brown. 
PE'TRE (Sir William), an eminent datefman, was born 
at Exeter, and educated at the college of that name at 
Oxford ; but in 1523 he was defied fellow of All-Souls. 
He took his doflor’s degree in civil law. His talents 
recommended him to Thomas Cromwell, by whofe means 
he was employed in date-affairs, and was in thecommiffion 
for vifiting the monaderies. He obtained a large fliare of 
the church-lands in the reign of Mary, to whom he had 
been counfellor, as he had been to her father and brother. 
He found means to ingratiate himfelf with queen Eliza¬ 
beth, who appointed him one of her fecretaries of date, 
and member of the privy council. He was a great bene¬ 
factor to Exeter and All-Souls colleges, and founded 
feveral charitable infiitutions. He died in ‘1571 ; leaving 
very large edates in Effex, which are now in the poffeffion 
of his defeendant, the prefent lord Petre. 
PETRE'A, f. [fo called by Houlloun, in honour of 
Robert-James lord Petre, who was born in 1710, and died 
of the fmall-pox in 1742. Peter Collinfon, in a letter to 
Linnaeus, fpeaks of this nobleman as <e the worthied of 
men, whofe death was the greated lofs that botany or 
gardening ever felt in this ifland.” After deferibing his 
lordlhip’s fpacious doves, and many of their valuable 
contents, amongd which numerous tropical trees had 
attained a degree of growth 'not to be feen in any other 
garden ; as well as the nurferies for more hardy kinds, 
in which, at the time of lord Petre’s death, were 219,925 
individuals, modly exotic; the writer concludes thus: 
“As this young nobleman was the greated man in our 
tade that this age produced, I thought it might not be 
unacceptable to give you fome account of the greatnefs 
of his genius. But his fkill in all liberal arts, particularly 
PET 
architeilure, datuary, planning and defigning, planting 
and embellifhing his large park and gardens, exceeds my 
talent to fet forth.’'’] In botany, a genus of the clafs didy- 
namia, order angiofpermia, natural order of perfonatae ; 
(vitices, Jnjf.) Generic charaft'ers—Calyx: perianthium 
one-leafed, bell-fiiaped; border five-parted, fpreading, 
very large, coloured, permanent ; fegments oblong, blunt, 
clofed at the throat by five doubled truncated feales. 
Corolla: one-petalled, wheel-fnaped, unequal, lefs than, 
the calyx; tube very Ihort; border flat, five-cleft; feg¬ 
ments rounded, almofl equal, fpreading very much, the 
middle one larger and of a different colour. Stamina s 
filaments four, concealed within the tube of the corolla, 
afeending, twolhorter; anthers oval, erefl. Pillilium; 
germ ovate ; ftyle Ample, the length of the ftamens ; 
lligma blunt. Pericarpium : capfule obovate, flat at top, 
two-celled, concealed at the bottom of the calyx. Seed 
Angle, fleffiy.— Ejjential Character. Calyx five-parted, 
very large, coloured; corolla wheel-lhaped; capfule two- 
celled, at the bottom of the calyx ; feeds folitary. 
There are two fpecies, 
1. Petrea volubilis, or climbing petrea; leaves and 
clullers Ample. It rifes with a woody llalk to the height 
of fifteen or fixteen feet, covered with a light-grey bark, 
and fending out feveral long branches, having a whiter 
bark than the llem. Leaves at each joint, on the lower 
part of the branches placed by threes, but higher up by 
pairs; they are five inches long, and two inches and a 
half broad in the middle, drawing to a point at each end ; 
they are ftiff, and their furface is rough, of a light green, 
having a ftrong dark midrib, with feveral tranfverfe veins 
running to the borders, which are entire. The flower3 
are produced at the ends of the branches in loofe bunches, 
nine or ten inches long; each flower upon a flender pedi¬ 
cel about an inch in length. Calyx compofed of five 
narrow' obtufe fegments, an inch long, of a fine blue 
colour, and much more confpicuous than the petals, 
which are white, and not more than half their length. 
j 3 . Dr.Houlloun found a variety of thiswith blue petals, of 
the fame bright colour with the calyx, and making a fine 
appearance, each branch being terminated by a long 
firing of thefe flowers ; whence he has ranked it among 
the firfl clafs of beautiful American trees. Native of 
Vera Cruz, the Caraccas, and Martinique, where it 
blooms in November. Houlloun is faid to have f^nt it 
to Chelfea-garden before the year 1733; but the 
flowers were probably never feen in England till they 
appeared in Mr. Woodford’s late colleftion at Vauxhall, 
in Augult 1802. It is obferved to thrive bell in rich 
loam, and a warm moill air, being advantageoufly trained 
over a trellis, where, if luxuriant, it mull make a beauti¬ 
ful appearance, being one of the moll elegant plants that 
can be imagined. 
2. Petrea multiflora, or panicled petrea: leaves and 
clullers twice compound. Gathered in the ifland of Ho- 
nimoa, or Honimao, by the late Mr. Chrillopher Smith. 
The Item is w’oody, climbing, branched, quadrangular, 
with four furrows ; downy when young. Leaves oppofite, 
on longilh fmooth llalks, twdee ternate; leaflets on Ihort- 
ilh Italics, ovate undulated, entire, fmooth on both fides; 
fhining above; rather opaque and fomewhat paler be¬ 
neath, with a rib and veins like the former fpecies ; the 
terminal ones an inch and a half long, the reft much 
fmaller. Clullers axillary, twelve or eighteen inches long, 
twice compound, downy, compofed of innumerable 
fomew'hat-whorled flowers, rather fmaller than the prece¬ 
ding. Rumphius fays the flowers are yellow, or whitilh 
with fix minute petals and as many llamens, having in the 
middle a cloven pillil, like a lizard’s tongue. The ger- 
men is faid to turn black as it ripens ; but of the nature 
of the fruit he gives no account. 
Propagation and Culture. The firll fpecies is propagated 
by feedsj which mult be obtained from the places where 
the trees grow naturally, and very few of them are good ; 
4 ’ for. 
