[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 kisse,
    When oldest folkes will thinke it not amisse.”

[431] Old copy, upon.

[432] So in Ben Jonson’s “Catiline,” act iv. sc. 3—­

    “I have those eyes and ears shall still keep guard
    And spial on thee, as they’ve ever done,
    And thou not feel it.”

And in Ascham’s “Report and Discourse of the State of Germany,” p. 31:  “He went into France secretly, and was there with Shirtly as a common launce knight, and named hymselfe Captaine Paul, lest the Emperours spials should get out hys doynges.”