Sir Peredur is the Welsh name for Sir Percival of Wales.—The Mabinogion (from the Red Book of Hergest, twelfth century).
Per´egrine (3 syl.), a sentimental prig, who talks by the book. At the age of 15 he runs away from home, and Job Thornberry lends him ten guineas, “the first earnings of his trade as a brazier.” After thirty years absence, Peregrine returns just as the old brazier is made a bankrupt “through the treachery of a friend.” He tells the bankrupt that his loan of ten guineas has by honest trade grown to 10,000, and these he returns to Thornberry as his own by right. It turns out that Peregrine is the eldest brother of Sir Simon Rochdale, J. P., and when Sir Simon refuses justice to the old brazier Peregrine asserts his right to the estate, etc. At the same time, he hears that the ship he thought was wrecked has come safe into port, and has thus brought him £100,000.—G. Colman, junior, John Bull (1805).
Peregrine Pickle, the hero and title of a novel by Smollett (1751). Peregrine Pickle is a savage, ungrateful spendthrift, fond of practical jokes, and suffering with evil temper the misfortunes brought on himself by his own wilfulness.
Peregri´nus Proteus, a cynic philosopher, born at Parium, on the Hellespont. After a youth spent in debauchery and crimes, he turned Christian, and, to obliterate the memory of his youthful ill practices, divided his inheritance among the people. Ultimately he burned himself to death in public at the Olympic games, A.D. 165. Lucan has held up this immolation to ridicule in his Death of Peregrinus; and C. M. Wieland has an historic romance in German entitled Peregrinus Proteus (1733-1813).
Per´es (Gil), a canon, and the eldest brother of Gil Blas’ mother. Gil was a little punchy man, three feet and a half high, with his head sunk between his shoulders. He lived well, and brought up his nephew and godchild, Gil Blas. “In so doing, Perês taught himself also to read his breviary without stumbling.” He was the most illiterate canon of the whole chapter.—Lesage, Gil Blas, i. (1715).
Perez (Michael), the “copper captain,” a brave Spanish soldier, duped into marrying Estifania, a servant of intrigue, who passed herself off as a lady of property. Being reduced to great extremities, Estifania pawned the clothes and valuables of her husband; but these “valuables” were but of little worth—a jewel which sparkled as the “light of a dark lanthorn,” a “chain of whitings’ eyes” for pearls, and as for his clothes, she tauntingly says to her husband:
Put these and them [his jewels] on, and you’re a man of copper,
A copper, copper captain.
Beaumont and Fletcher, Rule a Wife and Have a Wife (1640).
Peri, (plu., Peris), gentle, fairy-like beings of Eastern mythology, offspring of the fallen angels, and constituting a race of beings between angels and men. They direct with a wand the pure-minded the way to heaven, and dwell in Shadu´kiam´ and Am´bre-abad, two cities subject to Eblis.
Are the peries coming down from their spheres?
W. Beckford, Vathek (1786).
Pe´richole (La), the heroine of Offenbach’s comic opera (opera bouffe) of that name. She was originally a street-singer of Lima, the capital of Peru, but became the mistress of the viceroy. She was not a native of Lima and offended the Creole ladies by calling them, in her bad Spanish, pericholas, “flaunting, bedizened creatures,” and they, in retaliation, called her “La Périchole,” i.e., “the flaunting one par excellence.”