Chapter Frankford to Friars of F by Brewer's Readers Handbook

(The libretto is by F. Kind, taken from Apel’s Gespensterbuch (or ghost-book), where the legend appeared in a poetic form in 1810.)

French Revolution (The), a history in three parts, by Carlyle (1837).

Frere. (See Friars.)

Freron (Fean), the person bitten by a mad dog, referred to by Goldsmith in the lines—

The man recovered of the bite;
The dog it was that died.
   —Elegy on a Mad Dog.

Un serpent mordit Jean Freron, eh bien!
Le serpent en mourut.
   —Gibbon: Decline and Fall, etc., vii. 4 (Milman’s notes).

Freston, the enchanter who bore don Quixote especial ill-will. When the knight’s library was destroyed, he was told that some enchanter had carried off the books and the cupboard which contained them. The niece thought the enchanter’s name was Munaton; but the don corrected her, and said, “You mean Freston.” “Yes, yes,” said the niece, “I know the name ended in ton.”

“That Freston,” said the knight, “is doing me all the mischief his malevolence can invent; but I regard him not.”—Ch. 7.

“That cursed Freston,” said the knight, “who stole my closet and books, has transformed the giants into windmills” (ch. 8).—Cervantes: Don Quixote, I. i. (1605).

Friar of Orders Gray (The), a ballad.

Percy, in his Reliques (bk. ii. 18), says, “Dispersed through Shakespeare’s plays are innumerable little fragments of ancient ballads … The editor (of the Reliques) was tempted to select some of them, and with a few supplementary stanzas to connect them together. … One small fragment was taken from Beaumont and Fletcher.

N.B.—The Hermit, by Goldsmith (1765), was published before Percy’s Friar of Orders Gray. The two are very much alike. (See Edwin and Angelina, p. 315.)

Friars. T he four great religious orders were Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustines, and Carmelites . Dominicans are called black friars, Franciscans gray friars, and the other two white friars. A fifth order was the Trinitarians or Crutched friars, a later foundation. The Dominicans were furthermore called Fratres Majores, and the Franciscans Fratres Minores.

(For friars famed in fable and story, see under each respective name or pseudonym.)