another man.--H. C. Bunner, _The Midge_ (1886).

=Peterson=, a Swede, who deserts from Gustavus Vasa to Christian II., king
of Denmark.--H. Brooke, _Gustavus Vasa_ (1730).

=Petit Andr['e]=, executioner.--Sir W. Scott, _Quentin Durward_ (time,
Edward IV.).

=Petit 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 Petit 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. Petit 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. Dickens, _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, _n['e]e_ 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_ (18