PUNA, a woody island, district, and city of South America. The island is situated at the mouth of the Guayaquil, is between six and seven leagues long, and about the same in breadth, and was once populous, containing 20,000 Indians. It was famous in the history of the conquest of Peru. The port of Puna serves for the lading place of large ships, which cannot get over the bar to Guayaquil; the island abounds in mangrove trees. The city is poor, and decayed. The port is eight leagues from the city. Long. 70° 58' W., lat. 2° 50′ S. PUNCH, n. s. As some have thought of Lat. potus nauticus. Mr. Thomson suggests Sans. and Hind. punchiene, of pun, punna, a beverage, and cheene, which signifies both Chinese and sugar.' See Fryer, quoted below. A liquor made of spirits, sugar, water, lemons, &c.: the only wholesome ingredient, says Cheyne, being the water. The West India dry gripes are occasioned by lime juice in punch. Arbuthnot on Aliments. No brute can endure the taste of strong liquor, and consequently it is against all the rules of hieroglyph to assign those animals as patrons of punch. Surft. Punch is an Indian word expressing the number of ingredients. Fryer's Travels. PUNCH, n.s. Ital. puncinello. The buffoon or harlequin of a puppet-show. Of raree-shows he sung, and punch's feats. Gay. Fr. poinçonner; Span. poizon, punzon, of Lat. puncto. To cut a hole; bore, or perforate with a sharp instrument: a puncheon and puncher are names for the instrument used: puncheon is also a liquid measure of eighty gallons. When I was mortal my anointed body Shakspeare. He granted liberty of coining to certain cities and abbies, allowing them one staple and two puncheons Camden. at a rate. The fly may, with the hollow and sharp tube of her womb, punch and perforate the skin of the eruca, and cast her eggs into her body. Ray. The shank of a key the punch cannot strike, because the shank is not forged with substance suffi cient; but the drill cuts a true round hole. Moxon's Mechanical Exercises. In the upper jaw are five teeth before, not incisors or cutters, but thick punchers. Grew. By reason of its constitution it continued open, as I have seen a hole punched in leather. Wiseman. A PUNCH is an instrument of iron or steel, used in several arts, for the piercing or stamping holes in plates of metals, &c., being so contrived as not only to perforate, but to cut out and take away the piece. PUNCHEON, PUNCHIN, OF PUNCHION, is a little block or piece of steel, on one end of which is some figure, letter, or mark, engraven either en creux or relievo, impressions whereof are taken on metal, &c., by striking it with a hammer on the end not engraved. There are various kinds of these puncheons used in the mechanical arts. Puncheon is also a common name for all those iron instruments used by stone-cutters, sculptors, blacksmiths, &c., for the cutting, in ciding, or piercing their several matters. Those of sculptors and statuaries serve for the repairing of statues when taken out of the moulds. The locksmiths use the greatest variety of puncheons; some for piercing hot, others for piercing cold; some flat, some square, some round, others oval, each to pierce holes of its respective figure in the several parts of locks. PUNCTI LIO, n. s. PUNCTIL'IOUS, Lat. punctulum. Nicety of behaviour; a nicePUNCTIL'IOUSNESS. ness or exact point: punctilious, nice; exact; fastidious; superstitiously particular: the noun substantive corresponding. If their cause is bad, they use delays to tire out their adversaries, they feign pleas to gain time for themselves, and insist on punctilios in his proceedings. Kettlewell. hear of those solemn contests which are made among Common people are much astonished when they the great, upon the punctilios of a public ceremony. Addison. laws, which they hope will atone for the habitual Some depend on a punctilious observance of divine transgression of the rest. Rogers's Sermons. Punctilio is out of door the moment a daughter Clarissa. clandestinely quits her father's house. PUNCTO, n. s. Span. punto. Nice point of ceremony; the point in fencing. Vat be all you come for? -To see thee here, to see thee there, to see thee pass thy puncto. Shakspeare. Merry Wives of Windsor. PUNCTUAL, adj. PUNCTUALITY, N. s. PUNCTUALLY, adv. PUNCTUALNESS, n. s. The final conquest of Granada from the Moors, king Ferdinando displayed in his letters, with all the particularities and religious punctos and ceremonies that were observed in the reception of that city and kingdom. Bacon's Henry VII. Fr. punctuel. Comprised, or consisting in a point: exact; nice; scrupulous: the adverb and noun substantives corresponding. A gentleman punctual of his word, when he had heard that two had agreed upon a meeting, and the one neglected his hour, would say of him, he is a young man then. Bacon. For the encouragement of those that hereafter Sophronio had done, he commanded him to offer him should serve other princes with that punctuality as a blank, wherein he might set down his own condi. tions. Howel's Vocal Forest. This earth a spot, a grain, An atom with the firmament compared, And all her numbered stars, that seem to rowl Spaces incomprehensible; for such Their distance argues, and their swift return Diurnal, merely to officiate light Round this opacous earth, this punctual spot. Milton. The correspondence of the death and sufferings our Lord is so punctual and exact, that they seem rather like a history of events past, than a prophecy Rogers. of such as were to come. He was punctual and just in all his dealings. Atterbury. The most literal translation of the scriptures, in the most natural signification of the words, is generally the best; and the same punctualness which debaseth other writings, preserveth the spirit and majesty of the sacred text. Felton. PUNCTUATION, n. s. Lat. punctum. The act or method of pointing a book or writing. It ought to do it willingly, without being forced to it by any change in the words or punctuation. Addison. PUNCTUATION, in grammar, the art of pointing, or of dividing a discourse into periods, by points expressing the pauses to be made therein. The ancients were not entirely unacquainted with punctuation. Suidas says that the period and colon were discovered and explained by Thrasymachus, about A. A. C. 380; and Cicero says that Thrasymachus was the first who studied oratorical numbers, which consisted in the artificial structure of periods and colons. It appears from a passage in Aristotle that it was known in his time. Dr. Edward Barnard says it consisted in the different positions of one single point. At the bottom of a letter, thus (A.), it was equivalent to a comma; in the middle, thus (A.), to a colon; at the top (A), it denoted a full period. Cicero, Quintilian, Seneca, Suetonius, Ælius Donatus, and St. Jerome, all mention that the Romans, as well as the Greeks, made use of points. Peculiar marks, however, were used in different ages. Of these marks of distinction, the Walcote inscription, found near Bath, may serve for a specimen. IVLIVSV VITALISV FABRI After every word here, except at the end of a line, we see this mark v. There is an inscription in Montfauçon, which has a capital letter laid in an horizontal position, by way of interstitial mark. Our punctuation appears to have been introduced with the art of printing. In the fourteenth century no stops were used but arbitrary marks here and there. In the fifteenth century, we observe their first appearance. We find, from the books of this age, that they were not all produced at the same time; those we meet with in use first being only the comma, the parenthesis, the interrogation, and the full point. To these succeeded the colon, afterwards the semicolon, and, lastly, the note of admiration. The hyphen, the parenthesis, and quotation marks, are also a species of punctuation. PUNCTULATE, v. a. Lat. punctulum. To mark with small spots. The studs have their surface punctulated, as if set all over with other studs infinitely lesser. Woodward. PUNCTUM STANS, a phrase by which the schoolmen vainly attempted to bring within the reach of human comprehension the positive eternity of God. Those subtle reasoners seem to have discovered that nothing which is made up of parts, whether continuous or discreet, can be absolutely infinite, and that therefore eternity cannot consist of a boundless series of successive moments. Yet, as if such a series had always existed and were commensurate in duration with the Supreme Being, they compared his eternity to one of the moments which compose the flux of time arrested in its course; and to this eternal moment they gave the name of punctum stans, because it was supposed to stand still, while the rest followed each other in succession, all vanishing as soon as they appeared. PUNCTURE, n. s. Lat. punctus. A small prick; a hole made with a sharp point. With the loadstone of Laurentius Guascus, what soever needles or bodies were touched, the wounds and punctures made thereby were never felt. Browne's Vulgar Errours. the former way being cut through, they are irrecoverNerves may be wounded by scission or punctures: able; but when pricked by a sharp-pointed weapon, which kind of wound is called a puncture, they are much to be regarded. Wiseman. PUNDA, or PUNDY, a town of Hindostan, province of Bejapore, formerly belonging to the Mahrattas. Long. 74° 3′ E., lat. 15° 20′ N.— There is another place of this name in the Northern Circars. Long. 84° 40′ E., lat. 18° 14′ N. PUNDERPOOR, or PUNDEPORE, a town of the province of Bejapore, Hindostan, on the left bank of the Beemal. It is not large, but regular and well built, and has a handsome temple PUN'GENCY, n. s. ing; acrid; sharp: pungency is, power of pricking, or piercing; keenness; acridness. An opinion of the successfulness of the work is as necessary to found a purpose of undertaking it, as the authority of commands, the persuasiveness of promises, pungency of menaces, or prospect of mischiefs upon neglect can be. Hammond. The latter happening not only upon the pungent exigencies of present or impending judgments, but in the common service of the church. Fell. When he hath considered the force and pungency of these expressions applied to the fathers of that Nicene synod by the western bishops, he may abate his rage towards me. Stillingfleet. It consists chiefly of a sharp and pungent manner of speech; but partly in a facetious way of jesting. Dryden. from the strong attraction, whereby the acid particles Do not the sharp and pungent tastes of acids arise rush upon and agitate the particles of the tongue ? Newton's Optics. Any substance, which by its pungency can wound the worms will kill them, as steel and hartshorn. Arbuthnot PUNIC WARS. See CARTHAGE. PUNICA, the pomegranate tree, a genus of the monogynia order and icosandria class of plants; natural order thirty-sixth, pomacea: CAL. quinquefid superior; petals five; fruit a multilocular and polyspermous apple. 1. P. granata, the common pomegranate, rises with a free stem, branching numerously all the way from the bottom, growing eighteen or twenty feet high; with spear-shaped, narrow, opposite leaves; and the branches terminated by the most beautiful and large red flowers, succeeded by large roundish fruit as big as an orange, having a hard rind filled with soft pulp and numerous seeds. There is a variety with double flowers, remarkably beautiful; and one with striped flowers. 2. P. anan, the dwarf American pomegranate, rises with a shrubby stem branching four or five feet high, with narrow short leaves and small red flowers, succeeded by small fruit; begins flowerng in June, and continues till October. Both these species are propagated by layers: the young branches are to be chosen for this purpose, and autumn is the proper time for laying them. Those of the common sort may be trained either as half or full standards, or as dwarfs. But those designed for walls must be managed as directed for peaches. The dried flowers of the double-flowered pomegranate are possessed of an astringent quality; for which reason they are recommended in diarrhoeas, dysenteries, &c., where astringent medicines are proper. The rind of the fruit is also a strong astringent, and as such is occasionally made use of. PUN'ISH, v. a. Lat. punio; Fr. punis PUNISHABLE, adj. | sable, punition. To chasPUN'ISHER, n. s. ten; afflict with penalPUNISHMENT, ties for a crime; avenge PUNITION, or revenge with death: PUNITIVE, adv. punishable, worthy of o" demanding punishment: punisher, he who inflicts it: punishment and punition, the penalty of crime: punitive, awarding or inflicting that penalty. If you will not hearken I will punish you seven times more for your sins. Leviticus. xxvi. 18. The house of endless pain is built thereby, Spenser. Theft is naturally punishable, but the kind of punishment is positive, and such lawful, as men shall think with discretion convenient to appoint. Unless it were a bloody murtherer, I never gave them condign punishment. Hooker. Shakspeare. Neither is the cylinder charged with sin, whether God or men, nor any punitive law enacted by either against its rolling down the hill. Hammond's Fundamentals. A greater power Now ruled him, punished in the shape he sinned. Dryden. Say, foolish one-can that unbodied fame, For which thou barterest health and happiness, Say, can it soothe the slumbers of the graveGive a new zest to bliss, or chase the pangs Of everlasting punishment condign? Kirke White. PUNISHMENT OF CRIMES. Dr. Paley was the last, and we believe will be the final author of any celebrity, who will be found to vindicate the general spirit of our criminal jurisprudence, in which the punishment has been any thing but the prevention of crimes. It has been constructed upon no general system of legislation. Sometimes the magistrate is clothed with a species of vindictive justice, which it seems doubtful, at least, if ever the Supreme Being delegated to any creature; at other times he is the minister of a particular order of men, a particular caste, or class; as in the administration, for instance, of the appalling enactments of the game laws: again he feebly endeavours at the legitimate, perhaps only, end of human legislation, the prevention of crimes, by punishments which, if they effected their object, are wholly dispropor tioned to the offence. It seems indeed to have been forgotten that the infliction of some kinds of punishment may in itself constitute a crime. Again, it has been forgotten that it is one thing to enact a law, and another to give it operation. The moral feelings will come into exercise among a people like our own, and predominate occasionally, and even steadily, beyond the force of attachment to any human institution. An ostensible and real equity will therefore be demanded in a body of laws, devolving on such a people to execute. Dr. Paley, as Sir Samuel Romily has remarked, himself enumerates the several aggravations which ought to guide the magistrate in the selection of objects of condign punishment; and mentions principally three-repetition, cruelty, and combination; which aggravations, Sir Samuel remarks, are as capable of being clearly and accurately described in written laws, and as proper to be submitted to the decision of a jury, as the crimes themselves. But Paley proceeds to say, that, by this expedient (meaning the multiplication of capital punishments), few actually suffer death, whilst the dread and danger of it hangs over the crimes of many;' and then that, 'the wisdom and humanity of this design furnish a just excuse for the multiplicity of capital offences, which the laws of England are accused of creating, beyond those of other countries.' We may oppose to this extraordinary reasoning, the sagacious and sound observation of the marquis Beccaria, that, where the consequences of crimes are problematical, additional force is rather given to the passions. With respect to the second remark of Dr. Paley, above noticed, it is impossible not to be surprised, with Sir Samuel Romilly, that, in this mode of administering the law, an apology should be found for the great number of our statutes creating capital offences; for certainly 'one would have imagined that one advantage of such a system, by which it is left to those who exercise the law to discriminate, and to find out the circumstances which are to characterize, to extenuate, or to aggravate offences, would be, that the laws, being extremely general, might be few in number, and simple and concise in their enactments. Were we to frame laws which should distinguish accurately the general character of different offences, and enumerate all the peculiar aggravations with which they might be attended, and should leave unforeseen and unnoticed no human action which was dangerous by its example, or heinous in its circumstances, we might, indeed, have a good excuse to offer for the multiplicity of our penal laws.' One remark more from Sir Samuel Romilly.The power of suspending the laws by granting pardons is exclusively in the king, and it is a prerogative of a very transcendental character. But in the exercise of that discretion, with which, in judicial practice, at least, the judge is invested in dispensing justice on his circuit, he is made the depositary of the royal clemency; he administers the law; he suspends its execution. Still, however, it is through the king alone that lenity after sentence can reach the case of the prisoner. It must happen, therefore, that the convicts pardoned, so much exceeding in number those against whom the law is suffered to take its course, and the few who are executed, not the many who are pardoned, appearing to form the exceptions to a general rule, this prerogative assumes, in practice, an aspect of severity, not of mercy, and the crown seems to single out its victims for punishment, not to select the objects to whom it should extend its clemency.' On the practical consequences of this system we have not room to dwell: they are well stated in Mr. Buxton's speech on the bill for mitigating the criminal law, 23d May, 1821. Juries will not convict; but, to save the criminal from the law they are sworn to administer, resort to the most palpable contradiction. We select an instance or two at random. 'Mary Whiting was indicted for stealing seven guineas and 34s., in the house of John Sun. Verdict, guilty of stealing to the value of 39s. Jonathan Smith was indicted for stealing £20 in money in the house of J. Marsh. Guilty of stealing to the value of 39s. Joseph Court was indicted for stealing eight pairs of gold ear-rings, value £3 16s.; 121 other pairs of ditto, value £74 10s. 6d.; forty-eight pairs of ditto, value £12 12s.; 204 pairs of ditto, value £36 9s.; twenty-four pairs of ditto, value £6 6s.; 2488 gold beads, value £72 18s; 864 colored beads, value £18; 144 pairs of gold ear-rings, value £20 8s.; three pairs of gold enamelled bracelets, value £9; eighteen pairs of gold ditto, value £11 7s. 6d.; three small cases for bracelets, value 6s.; thirty-six gold seals, value £33 12s.; twelve gold lockets, value £3; and a parcel of shoes, value 14s. 8d.; the property of Messrs. Mackenzie and Grey, in a lighter belonging to them on the Thames navigable river. Guilty of stealing to the value of 39s. !' We can only add that the proposed alterations of Sir Samuel Romilly had in vain been advocated by Sir James Mackintosh and Mr. Buxton in parliament, until a distinguished member of the government, Mr. Secretary Peel, adopted in a great measure the views of that enlightend statesman: he has been obliged to leave much that is desirable (the entire subject of forgery, for instance) untouched, but he has done much, and excited the just confidence of the nation that he will not fail shortly to follow up this important subject, and do all that existing and long. seated prejudices in high quarters will permit. PUNK, n. s. Barb. Lat. putanica. A whore; common prostitute. She may be a punk; for many of them are neither Near these a nursery erects its head, Dryden. PUN'STER, n. s. From pun. A quibbler; a low wit. His mother was cousin to Mr. Swan, gamester and punster of London. Arbuthnot and Pope. PUNT, v. n. at basset or ombre. Ital. punto. A point. To play Milton. The puny habitants; or, if not drive, Seduce them to our party. Jove at their head ascending from the sea, A shoal of puny powers attend his way. Dryden. PUPA, in entomology, a term now used by zoologists for that state of insects formerly called aurelia, and chrysalis. See CHRYSALIS, and ENTOMOLOGY. PUPIENAS (M. Claudius Maximus), a man of an obscure family, the son of a blacksmith, who, by his merit, raised himself to the highest offices in the Roman armies; and became successively a pretor, consul, prefect of Rome, and a governor of a province. On the death of Gordian I. and II., he was elected emperor toge ther with Balbinus by the senate; but, his colleague and he disagreeing, the pretorian guards murdered them both, A. D. 326. PUPIL, R. s. Ital. pupilla; Lat. pupula. The apple of the eye. Looking in a glass, when you shut one eye, the pupil of the other, that is open, dilateth. Bacon's Natural History. The uvea has a musculous power, and can dilate and contract that round hole in it called the pupil of the eye. More. The rays, which enter the eye at several parts of the pupil, have several obliquities to the glasses. Newton's Opticks. Fr. pupille; Lat. pupillus. A scholar; a ward: PU'PILARY, adj. Sunder the care of a tutor, or guardian: pupilage, the state of being under such care: pupilary, pertaining to a ward or pupil. PU'PIL, n. s. PU'PILAGE, one PUPIL, in the civil law, a boy or girl not yet arrived at the age of puberty; i. e. the boy under fourteen years, the girl under twelve. PUPIL, in anatomy, a little aperture in the middle of the uvea and the iris of the eye, through which the rays of light pass to the crystalline humor, in order to be painted on the retina, and cause vision. See ANATOMY. PUPPET, n. s. Fr. poupée; Ital. puppa; PUPPETMAN, Lat. pupus. A small wooden PUPPETSHOW. Simage; a doll; a wooden tragedian puppetman is the master of a puppet or puppetshow. Once Zelmane could not stir, but that, as if they had been puppets whose motion stood only upon her pleasure, Basilius with seviceable steps, Gynecia with greedy eyes, would follow her. Sidney. Oh excellent motion! oh exceeding puppet! Shakspeare. Divers of them did keep in their houses certain things made of cotton wool, in the manner of pup Abbot. Swift. Id. From yonder puppetman enquire, Who wisely hides his wood and wire. PUPPY, n. s. Fr. poupée; Lat. pupus. A whelp; progeny of a bitch; a name of contempt for a fop or pert young person. Sees but a part o' the chain, the nearest links; PURCELL (Henry), a celebrated master of music. He was made organist to Westminster Abbey in the end of the reign of Charles II. His principal works have been published under the title of Orpheus Britannicus. He died in 1695, aged thirty-seven; and was interred in Westminster Abbey, where he has a monument. PURCHAS (Samuel), an English divine, celebrated as the compiler of a valuable collection of voyages, was born in 1577, at Thackstead in Essex. After studying at Cambridge, he obtained the vicarage of Eastwood in Essex; but, leaving that cure to his brother, he settled in London, to carry on the great work in which he was engaged. He published the first volume in folio in 1613, and the last four twelve years after, under the title of Purchas his Pilgrimage, or Relations of the World, and the Religions observed in all ages and places. Meanwhile he was made rector of St. Martin's, Ludgate, in London, and chaplain to Dr. Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury. His Pilgrimage, and Hackluyt's Voyages, led the way to other collections of that kind, and have been justly esteemed. But unhappily by his publishing he involved himself in debt. He died about 1628. PURCHASE, v. a. & n. s. Fr. pourchasser. PURCHASEABLE, adj. To acquire; obPURCHASER, N. S. Stain at any expense of labor, danger, &c.; to buy for a price: purchaseable, that may be purchased or bought: purchaser, he who makes a purchase; a buyer. His sons buried him in the cave which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth. Genesis xxv. I will be deaf to pleading and excuses, Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses; Therefore usc none. Shakspeare. Upon one only alienation and change, the pur chaser is to pass both licence, fine, and recovery. Bacon |