Chapter Colein to Colossos of C by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Colein to Colossos

Colein , the great dragon slain by sir Bevis of Southampton.—Drayton: Polyolbion, ii. (1612).

Colemira , a poetical name for a cook. The word is compounded of coal and mire.

“Could I,” he cried, “express how bright a grace
Adorns thy morning hands and well-washed face,
Thou wouldst, Colemira, grant what I implore,
And yield me love, or wash thy face no more.”
   —Shenstone: Colemira (an eclogue).

Colepepper (Captain) or Captain Peppercull, the Alsatian bully.—Sir W. Scott: Fortunes of Nigel (time, James I.).

Colin, or in Scotch Cailen, Green Colin, the laird of Dunstaffnage, so called from the green colour which prevailed in his tartan.

Colin and Lucy, a ballad by Tickell (1720). Gray calls it “the prettiest ballad in the world.” Lucy, being deserted by her sweetheart for another, died of a broken heart, and was buried on the very day her quondam sweetheart married his new love.

She died. Her corpse was borne
The bridegroom blithe to meet,—
He in his wedding trim so gay,
She in her winding-sheet.

Colin and Rosalinde, in The Shephearde’s Calendar (1579), by Spenser. Rosalinde is the maiden vainly beloved by Colin Clout, as her choice was already fixed on the shepherd Menalcas. Rosalinde is an anagram of “Rose Danil,” a lady beloved by Spenser (Colin Clout), but Rose Danil had already fixed her affections on John Florio the Resolute, whom she subsequently married.

And I to thee will be as kind As Colin was to Rosalinde, Of courtesie the flower.
   —Drayton: Dowsabel (1593).

Colin Clout, the pastoral name assumed by the poet Spenser, in The Shephearde’s Calendar, The Ruins of Time, Daphnaiaa, and in the pastoral poem called Colin Clout’s Come Home Again (from his visit to sir Walter Raleigh). Eclogues i. and xii. are soliloquies of Colin, being lamentations that Rosalinde will not return his love. Eclogue vi. is a dialogue between Hobbinol and Colin, in which the former tries to comfort the disappointed lover. Eclogue xi. is a dialogue between Thenot and Colin. Thenot begs Colin to sing some joyous lay; but Colin pleads grief for the death of the shepherdess Dido, and then sings a monody on the great shepherdess deceased. In Eclogue vi. we are told that Rosalinde has betrothed herself to the shepherd Menalcas (1579).

N.B.—In the last book of the Faërie Queene, we have a reference to “Colin and his lassie” (Spenser and his wife), supposed to be Elizabeth, and elsewhere called “Mirabella.” (See Clout, etc.)

Witness our Colin, whom tho’ all the Graces And all the Muses nursed… Yet all his hopes were crossed, all suits denied; Discouraged, scorned, his writings vilified, Poorly, poor man, he lived; poorly, poor man, he died.
   —Phineas Fletcher: The Purple Island, i. 1 (1633).

Colin Clout and his Lassie (1596). (See above.)

Colin Clout’s Come Home Again. “Colin Clout” is Spenser, who had been to London on a visit to “the Shepherd of the Ocean” (sir Walter Raleigh), in 1589. On his return to Kilcolman, in Ireland, he wrote this poem. “Hobbinol” his friend (Gabriel Harvey, LL.D.) tells him how all the shepherds have missed him, and begs him to relate to him and them his adventures while abroad. The pastoral contains a eulogy of British contemporary poets, and of the court beauties of queen Elizabeth (1591). (See Colyn.)

Colin Tampon, the nickname of a Swiss, as John Bull is of an Englishman, etc. (See Crapaud, p. 242.)