Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/249

 9'i-S.X. SEPT. 27, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

241

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1902.

CONTENTS. -No. 248.

NOTES :" Petar " or "Petard," 241 P. J. Bailey, 242 Bibliography of Dibdin, 243 Linguistic Curiosities Allan Ramsay and Thomson Pick= Steal Oldest Wooden Church and University Wesley and Homer, 245 Jessica- Quaint Epitaph Quakers in Kent Charles I.'s Jou ney to Scotland, 246 H. Hawkins, Jesuit Casanova, 247.

QUERIES : Fynes Moryson's ' Itinerary ' Higgins Jack- son St. Epiphanius Tennyson/8 Bar Westphalie "Quiz," Junior Red Hand of Ir"ind, 247 Hamilton, Oriental Scholar" Never assert what you do not know " Black Fast Sir P. C. Ewins Joneses of Beaumaris Wadham Family Pigott, Astronomer, 248 Saints in Lindsay's ' Monarchic ' ' The Pageant,' 249.

REPLIES : Place-names B. R. Haydon, 249 "Taynt- ynge" Legend of Lady Alice Lea "Chien ou rat" Duchy of Berwick, 250 Fashion in Language "But ah! Maecenas " Marjorie Fleming, 251 Weight or Token 'N. & Q.' Anagram Jubilee Number Dandy -cart- Cornish Motto Scott's 'Woodstock,' 252 Crooked Usage Boudicca " Raising the wind " ' The Soul's Errand ' "Corn-bote," 253 Crossing Knives and Forks Italian Bell "Jack-in-the-box," 254" Utilitarian "Napoleon's Last Years, 255 Arms of Married Women Sathalia Old School Rules, 256 Chocolate Minas and Bmpeci- nados Burials in Westminster Abbey, 257" England's darling "Old Songs, 258.

NOTES ON BOOKS :-Bateson's 'Records of Leicester' Graham's 'Roman Africa" "Gentleman's Magazine Library."

Notices to Correspondents.

"PETAR" OR "PETARD."

As the editor of the ' Oxford English Dic- tionary ' will soon be dealing with this word, a few examples of its use by our old writers may be acceptable. It has become familiar to us from the expression " Hoist with his own petar," which occurs in ' Hamlet,' Act III. sc. iv. Mr. Sidney Lee tells us in his ' Life of William Shakespeare ' that this play was produced in 1602, and printed in 1603 and the following year. The engine of warfare to which reference is made had been recently invented, and bore a terrible character. That the dramatist (or his printer) had some reason for spelling the word as he does may be inferred from Camden's ' Remaines,' where he writes as follows in his chapter on ' Artil- larie': "Canons, Demicanons, Chambers, Slinges, Arquebuze, Caliver, Handgun, Muskets, Petronils, Pistoll, Dagge, &c., and Petarras of the same brood lately invented." I quote from the second edition, 1614, p. 241, but the article had appeared it} the first, published ten years earlier. This would seem to fix the invention of the weapon some- where near the end of the sixteenth century.

Polydore Vergil, who lived during the first half of that period, is one of the earliest writers to speak of gunpowder and the in- struments that were fashioned for its use, but he makes no mention in his book ' De Rerum Inventoribus,' lib. ii. cap. xi., of any such tormentum as the " petar. Neither do I find any reference to such a weapon in what may be called the encyclopaedia of the sixteenth century viz., the 'Officina loan. Ravisii Textoris,' which went through many editions, both before and after the death of its com- piler, "Jean Tixier, Seigneur de Ravisi, numaniste, ne. vers 1480 a St. Saulge (Nievre), mort a Paris le 3 Dec. 1524," as I learn from a manuscript note prefixed to the copy now before me. This edition was printed at Venice in 1574 in two volumes, and -is declared to be on the title-page " opus nunc recenspostomnes omnium editiones fidelissime recognitum, et indice copiosissimo locuple- tatum "; but in the chapter entitled 'Machinse Qusedam Bellicse, et Tormenta,' vol. i. p. 179 et seq,. there is none described that answers to the " petar "; hence we may conclude that it had not yet been invented. The word, as used by Camden, would seem to be Spanish, but the only form given in the dictionaries of that language is petardo; and the same may be saia of Portuguese, Dutch, and German. In Italian we find two words given in Torriano's edition of Florio's 'Dictionary,' 1688 viz.^petardo and petaruolo; and in the English-Italian part of the same work, petard and petarre. But Italy can lay no claim to the invention on the testimony of Sir Henry Wotton, who wrote as follows to Sir Edmund Bacon on 21 May, 1613 :

"With him likewise come certain other Gentle- men of Title, who should from the beginning have dignified the Ambassador's Train : but the cause of this stragling was a sudden attempt, which the Duke immediately after the Ambassador's depar- ture (who appointed these Gentlemen to follow him) made upon the Marquisate of Monferrato, where he surprized three Towns wit h the Petarde : the first time (as one writeth from \ enice) that ever that pestilent invention had been put in prac- tice beyond the Alps." 'Reliquiae Wottonianse,' p.415,fourthed., 1685.

In another letter, dated October, 1620, the same writer, describing Count Tampier's attempt on the town of Presburg in Hungary, says it was his intention "to apply the Petard to one of the Gates of the Cittadel," but it was a failure and the cause of his death, for, though not exactly "hoist with his own petar,"

"approaching a Skonce that lyes by the Castle gate, and turning about to cry for his men to come on, he was shot in the lowest part of his Skull nearest his Neck, after which he spake no syllable,