Part 74 (1/2)

=Pet.i.t Perroquet=, a king's gardener, with whom the king's daughter fell in love. It so happened that a prince was courting the lady, and, being jealous of Pet.i.t Perroquet, said to the king that the young man boasted he could bring hither Tartaro's horse. Now Tartaro was a huge giant and a cannibal. Pet.i.t Perroquet, however, made himself master of the horse.

The prince next told the king that the young gardener boasted he could get possession of the giant's diamond. This he also contrived to make himself master of. The prince then told the king that the young man boasted he could bring hither the giant himself; and the way he accomplished the feat was to cover himself first, with honey, and then with feathers and horns. Thus disguised, he told the giant, to get into the coach he was driving, and he drove him to the king's court, and then married the princess.--Rev. W. Webster, _Basque Legends_ (1877).

=Pe'to=, lieutenant of ”Captain” Sir John Falstaff's regiment. Pistol was his ensign or ancient, and Bardolph his corporal.--Shakespeare, 1 and 2 _Henry IV._ (1597-8).

=Petow'ker= (_Miss Henrietta_), of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. She marries Mr. Lillyvick, the collector of water-rates, but elopes with an officer.--C. d.i.c.kens, _Nicholas Nickleby_ (1838).

=Petrarch= (_The English_). Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) is so called by Sir Walter Raleigh.

=Petrarch and Laura.= Laura was a lady of Avignon, the wife of Hugues de Sade, _nee_ Laura de Noves, the mistress of the poet Petrarch. (See LAURA AND PETRARCH.)

=Petrarch of Spain=, Garcilaso de la Vega, born at Toledo (1530-1568, or, according to others, 1503-1536).

=Petro'nius= (_C._ or _T._), a kind of Roman ”beau Brummell” in the court of Nero. He was a great voluptuary and profligate, whom Nero appointed _Arbiter Elegantiae_, and considered nothing _comme il faut_ till it had received the sanction of this dictator-in-chief of the imperial pleasures. Tigellinus accused him of treason, and Petronius committed suicide by opening his veins (A.D. 66).

Behold the new Petronius of the day, The arbiter of pleasure and of play.

Byron, _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ (1809).

=Petruccio= = _Pe.truch'.e.o_, governor of Bologna.--Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Chances_ (1620).

=Petru'chio=, a gentleman of Vero'na who undertakes to tame the haughty Katharina, called ”the Shrew.” He marries her, and, without the least personal chastis.e.m.e.nt, reduces her to lamb-like submission. Being a fine compound of bodily and mental vigor, with plenty of wit, spirit, and good-nature, he rules his subordinates dictatorially, and shows he will have his own way, whatever the consequences.--Shakespeare, _Taming of the Shrew_ (1594).

Beaumont and Fletcher wrote a comedy called _The Tamer Tamed_, in which Petruchio is supposed to marry a second wife, by whom he is hen-pecked (1647).

=Pet'ulant=, an ”odd sort of small wit,” ”without manners or breeding.” In controversy he would bluntly contradict, and he never spoke the truth.

When in his ”club,” in order to be thought a man of intrigue, he would steal out quietly, and then in disguise return and call for himself, or leave a letter for himself. He not unfrequently mistook impudence and malice for wit, and looked upon a modest blush in woman as a mark of ”guilt or ill-breeding.”--W. Congreve, _The Way of the World_ (1700).

=Peu-a-Peu.= So George IV. called Prince Leopold. Stein, speaking of the prince's vacillating conduct in reference to the throne of Greece, says of him, ”He has no color,” _i.e._ no fixed plan of his own, but is blown about by every wind.

=Peveril= (_William_), natural son of William the Conqueror, and ancestor of Peveril of the Peak.

_Sir Geoffrey Peveril_, a cavalier, called ”Peveril of the Peak.”

_Lady Margaret Peveril_, wife of Sir Geoffrey.

_Julian Peveril_, son of Sir Geoffrey; in love with Alice Bridgenorth.

He was named by the author after Julian Young, son of the famous actor.--Sir W. Scott, _Peveril of the Peak_ (time, Charles II.).