satires on the papal court, included in the Epistolae sine titulo. Five public orations have been preserved, the most weighty of which, in explanation of Petrarch’s conception of literature, is the speech delivered on the Capitol upon the occasion of his coronation Among his Latin poems Africa, an epic on Scipio Africanus, takes the first place. Twelve Eclogues and three books of Epistles in verse close the list. In Italian we possess the Canzoniere, which includes odes and sonnets written for Laura during her lifetime, those written for her after her death, and a miscellaneous section containing the three patriotic odes and three famous poetical invectives against the papal court. Besides these lyrical compositions are the semi-epical or allegorical Trionfi—Triumphs of Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time and Divinity, written in terza rima of smooth and limpid quality. Though these Triumphs, as a whole, are deficient in poetic inspiration, the second canto of the Trionfo della morte, in which Petrarch describes a vision of his dead love Laura, is justly famous for reserved passion and pathos tempered to a tranquil harmony.
The complete bibliography of Petrarch forms a considerable volume. Such a work was attempted by Domenico Rossetti (Trieste, 1828). It will be enough here to mention the Basel edition of 1581, in folio, as the basis for all subsequent editions of his collected works. Among editions of the Canzoniere special mention may be made of those of Marsand (Padua, 1820), Leopardi in Le Monnier’s collection, Mestica (1895), and Cardnui (1899). Nor must Fracassetti’s Italian version of the Letters (published in 5 vols. by Le Monnier) be neglected. De Sade’s Life of the poet (Amsterdam, 1764–1767) marks an epoch in the history of his numerous biographies, but this is in many important points untrustworthy, and it has been superseded by Gustav Koerting’s exhaustive volume on Petrarcas Leben und Werke (Leipzig, 1878). Georg Voigt’s Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums (Berlin, 1859) contains a well-digested estimate of Petrarch’s relation to the revival of learning. Mezière’s Petrarque (1868) is a monograph of merit. English readers may be referred to a little book on Petrarch by Henry Reeve, and to vols ii. and iv. of Symond’s Renaissance in Italy. See also Maud F. Jerrold, Francesco Petrarca, poet and humanist (1909). (J. A. S.)
PETRE, SIR EDWARD (1631–1699), Jesuit confessor of King
James II. of England, was born in Paris. He was the son of Sir
Francis Petre, Bart, of Cranham, head of a junior branch of the
family of the Barons Petre, and his wife Elizabeth Gage,
daughter of Sir John Gage, both strong Roman Catholics. In
1649 he was sent for his education to the Jesuit College at St
Omer, and he entered the order under the name of Spencer in
1652, but did not receive the full orders till 1671. In 1679 he
succeeded his elder brother in the title and family estates. On
the accession of James II. in 1685 he was chosen as confessor by
the king, who looked upon him as “a resolute and undertaking
man.” During the whole of the king’s reign Petre was one of
his advisers who did the most to encourage him in the policy
which ended by producing the revolution of 1688. The king
contemplated making him archbishop of York, as the see was
then vacant, but the pope, Innocent XI., who was not friendly to
the order, would not grant a dispensation to hold it, and even
directed Petre’s superiors to rebuke him for his excessive ambition.
In 1687 he was made privy councillor. When the
revolution broke out Petre was compelled to flee disguised as a
woman. After his flight he had no further relations with
James II. After a visit to Rome, he became head of the Jesuit
College at St Omer in 1693, from whence he was transferred to
Walten in Flanders in 1697. He died on the 15th of May
1699. A younger brother Charles (1644–1712) was also a
member of the order.
PETRE, SIR WILLIAM (c. 1505–1572), English politician,
was a son of John Petre, a Devon man, and was educated at
Exeter College, Oxford, afterwards becoming a fellow of All
Souls' College. He entered the public service in early life, owing
his introduction therein doubtless to the fact that at Oxford
he had been tutor to Anne Boleyn’s brother, George Boleyn,
Viscount Rochford, and began his official career by serving the
English government abroad. In 1536 he was made deputy, or
proctor, for the vicar-general, Thomas Cromwell, and as such he
presided over the convocation which met in June of this year.
In 1543 Petre was knighted and was appointed a secretary of
state, in 1545 he was sent as ambassador to the emperor
Charles V. A very politic man, he retained his position
under Edward VI. and also under Mary, forsaking the protector
Somerset at the right moment and winning Mary’s goodwill by
favouring her marriage with Philip II. of Spain. He resigned
his secretaryship in 1557, but took some part in public business
under Elizabeth until his death at his residence, Ingatestone,
Essex, on the 13th of January 1572.
His son John Petre (1549–1613) was created Baron Petre of Writtle in 1603. The 2nd baron was his son William (1575–1637), whose grandson was William, the 4th baron (c. 1626–1684). Denounced by Titus Oates as a papist, the last named was arrested with other Roman Catholic noblemen in 1678 and remained without trial in the Tower of London until his death. His brother John (1629–1684) was the 5th lord, and the latter’s nephew, Robert (1689–1713), was the 7th lord. It was Robert’s action in cutting a lock of hair from a lady’s head which led Pope to write his poem “The Rape of the Lock.” The Petres have been consistently attached to the Roman Catholic faith, William Joseph, the 13th baron (1847–1893), being a priest of the Roman church, and the barony is still (1911) in existence. One of the 1st baron’s grandsons was William Petre (1602–1677), who translated the Flos sanctorum of Pedro de Ribadeneira as Lives of the Saints (St Omer, 1699, London, 1730).
See Genealogical Collections illustrating the History of Roman Catholic Families of England, vol i, edited by J. J. Howard and H. F. Burke.
PETREL, the general name of a group of birds (of which more
than 100 species are recognized), derived from the habit which
some of them possess of apparently walking on the surface of the
water as the apostle St Peter (of whose name the word is a
diminutive form) is recorded (Matt. xiv. 29) to have done. The
petrels, all of which are placed in the family Procellariidae, were
formerly associated with the Laridae (see Gull), but they are
now placed as the sole members of the suborder Tubinares (the
name denoting the characteristic tubular structure of their
nostrils) and of the order Procellariiformes (see Bird). They are
subdivided into four groups or subfamilies: (1) Pelecanoidinae
(or Halodraminae), containing some three or four species known
as diving-petrels, with habits very different from others of the
family, and almost peculiar to high southern latitudes from Cape
Horn to New Zealand; (2) Procellariinae, or petrels proper (and
shearwaters), (3) Diomedeinae, or albatrosses (see Mallemuck);
and (4) Oceanitinae, containing small sooty-black birds of the
genera Cymodroma, Pealea, Pelagodroma, Garrodia and Oceanites,
the distinctive nature of which was first recognized by Coues
in 1864.
Petrels are archaic oceanic forms, with great powers of flight, dispersed throughout all the seas and oceans of the world, and some species apparently never resort to land except for the purpose of nidification, though nearly all are liable at times to be driven ashore, and often very far inland, by gales of wind.[1] It would also seem that during the breeding-season many of them are wholly nocturnal in their habits, passing the day in holes of the ground, or in clefts of the rocks, in which they generally nestle, the hen of each pair laying a single white egg, sparsely speckled in a few species with fine reddish dots. Of those species that frequent the North Atlantic, the common Storm-Petrel, Procellaria pelagic, a little bird which has to the ordinary eye rather the look of a Swift or Swallow, is the “Mother Carey’s chicken” of sailors, and is widely believed to be the harbinger of bad weather, but seamen hardly discriminate between this and others nearly resembling it in appearance, such as Leach’s or the Fork-tailed Petrel, Cymochorea leucorrhoa, a rather larger but less common bird, and Wilson’s Petrel, Oceanites oceanicus, the type of the Family Oceanitidae mentioned above, which is more common on the American side. But it is in the Southern Ocean that Petrels most abound, both as species and as individuals. The Cape-Pigeon or Pintado Petrel, Daption capensis, is one that has long been well known to mariners and other wayfarers on the great waters, while those who voyage to or from Australia, whatever be the route they take, are
- ↑ Thus Oestrelata haesitata, the Capped Petrel, a species whose proper home seems to be Guadeloupe and some of the neighbouring West-Indian Islands, has occurred in the State of New York, near Boulogne, in Norfolk, and in Hungary (Ibis, 1884, p 202).
