ellent translation of this humorous old story by Mr T. Roscoe
("Italian Novelists," ii. 272) will enable the reader to compare the
play with it. He will find that in many parts the original has been
abandoned, and the catastrophe, if not entirely different, is brought
about by different means. The "Biographia Dramatica" informs us that
Dekker's "If it be not Good the Devil is in it" is also chiefly taken
from the same novel; but this is an error arising out of a hint by
Langbaine. Dekker's play is the famous history of Friar Rush in many of
its incidents.--_Collier_.

[423] [He was _born_ at or near Glastonbury in 925. See Wright's "Biog.
Brit. Lit.," Anglo-Saxon period, p. 443, et seq.]

[424] "Legenda Aurea, or the Golden Legend," translated out of the
French, and printed by Caxton in folio, 1483.

[425] In the old copy it is printed _Tortass_, but it means _portass,
portesse_, or _portace_, the breviary of the Roman Catholic Church.
Thus, in Greene's "Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay"--

"I'll take my _portace_ forth, and wed you here."

Spenser uses the word, "Faerie Queene," b. i. c. iv.--

"And in his hand his _portesse_ still he bare
That much was worne," &c.

See also note to "New Custom" [iii. 24].--_Collier_.

[426] [Old copy and former edits., _Dunston's_.]

[427] See the story of Malbecco in Spenser's "Faerie Queene," b. iii. c.
ix., &c.

[428] The old copy has it _reap_, but probably we ought to read _heap_;
to _reap an endless catalogue_ is hardly sense.--_Collier_.

[429] _Cleped_ is _called, named_. So in Milton's "L'Allegro," i. 11--

"But come, thou goddess fair and free,
In heaven _yclep'd_ Euphrosyne."

[430] _Colling_ is embracing round the neck. _Dare Brachia cervici_, as
Baret explains it in his "Alvearie," voce _colle_. The word is
frequently to be found in ancient writers. So in Erasmus' "Praise of
Follie," 1549, sig. B 2: "For els, what is it in younge babes that we
dooe kysse go, we doe _colle_ so; we do cheryshe so, that a very enemie
is moved to spare and succour this age." In "Wily Beguiled," 1606: "I'll
clasp thee, and clip thee; _coll thee_, and kiss thee, till I be better
than nought, and worse than nothing." In "The Witch," by Middleton--

"When hundred leagues in aire we feast and sing,
Daunce, kysse, and _coll_, use everything."

And in Breton's "Woorkes of a Young Wit," 1577, p. 37--

"Then for God's sake, let young folkes _coll_ and kis