He is introduced by Tasso in _Jerusalem Delivered_ (1575); and by Sir W. Scott in _Count Robert of Paris_, a novel laid in the time of Rufus. A statue was erected to him at Amiens in 1854. =Peter, the Wild Boy=, a savage discovered in November, 1725, in the forest of Hertswold, Hanover. He walked on all fours, climbed trees like a monkey, ate grass and other herbage. Efforts were made to reclaim him, but without success. He died February, 1785. =Peter’s Gate= (_St._), the gate of purgatory, guarded by an angel stationed there by St. Peter. Virgil conducted Dantê through hell and purgatory, and Beatrice was his guide through the planetary spheres. Dantê says to the Mantuan bard: ... lead me, That I St. Peter’s gate may view ... Onward he moved, I close his steps pursued. Dantê, _Hell_, i. (1300). =Peterborough=, in Northamptonshire; so called from Peada (son of Pendar, king of Mercia), who founded here a monastery in the seventh century. In 1541 the monastery (then a mitred abbey) was converted by Henry VIII. into a cathedral and bishop’s see. Before Peada’s time, Peterborough was a village called Medhamsted.--See Drayton, _Polyolbion_, xxiii. (1622). =Peters= (_Dr._), benevolent, eccentric physician, who is a sympathetic fellow-sinner to the most depraved of his patients, going through it all “with a grimly humorous hope that some good, in some unseen direction, may come of it.” The waif, _Midge_, committed by fate to his guardianship, steals his heart, and finally wrings it to bleeding by marrying 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 André=, 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).