COLE (1 syl.), a legendary British king, described as “a merry old soul,” fond of his pipe, fond of his glass, and fond of his “fiddlers three.”  There were two kings so called—­Cole (or Coil I.) was the predecessor of Porrex; but Coil II. was succeeded by Lucius, “the first British king who embraced the Christian religion.”  Which of these two mythical kings the song refers to is not evident.

Cole (Mrs.).  This character is designed for Mother Douglas, who kept a “gentlemen’s magazine of frail beauties” in a superbly furnished house at the north-east corner of Covent Garden.  She died 1761.—­S.  Foote, The Minor (1760).

COLEIN (2 syl.), the great dragon slain by Sir Bevis of Southampton.—­Drayton, Polyolbion, ii. (1612).

COLEMI’RA (3 syl.), 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).

COLE’PEPPER (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 ROSALINDE.  In The Shephearde’s Calendar (1579), by Edm.  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.

  M. Drayton, Dowsabel (1593)

COLIN CLOUT, the pastoral name assumed by the poet Spenser, in The Shephearde’s Calendar, The Ruins of Time, Daphnaida, and in the pastoral poem called Colin Clout’s come home again (from his visit to Sir Walter Raleigh).  Ecl. i. and xii. are soliloquies of Colin, being lamentations that Rosalinde will not return his love.  Ecl. vi. is a dialogue between Hobbinol and Colin, in which the former tries to comfort the disappointed lover.  Ecl. 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 sheperdess Dido, and then sings a monody on the great sheperdess deceased.  In ecl. vi. we are told that Rosalinde has betrothed herself to the shepherd Menalcas (1579).

In the last book of the Faery Queen, we have a reference to “Colin and his lassie,” (Spenser and his wife) supposed to be Elizabeth, and elsewhere called “Mirabella” See CLOUT, etc.