Chapter Friar's Tale to Froth of F by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Lady Friendly, wife of sir Thomas.

Frank Friendly, son of sir Thomas and fellow-collegian with Ned Blushington.

Dinah Friendly, daughter of sir Thomas. She marries Edward Blushington “the bashful man.”—Moncrieff: The Bashful Man.

Friendships Broken.

Queen Elizabeth and the earl of Essex.

Henry II. and Thomas Becket.

Henry VIII. and Wolsey.

J. H. Newman and Whately.

Pope Innocent III. and Otho IV. (See Milman’s Latin Christianity, v. 234.)

Friendships (Romantic). The most striking are those of Pyladês and Orestês, and of Damon and Pythias.

Frithiof [Frit-yof], a hero of Icelandic story. He married Ingëborg [In-ge-boy’e], daughter of a petty Norwegian king, and the widow of Hring. His adventures are recorded in an ancient Icelandic saga of the thirteenth century.

Bishop Tegner has made this story the groundwork of his poem entitled The Frithiof’s Saga.

Frithiof’s Sword, Angurvadel.

Frithiof means “peacemaker,” and Angurvadel means “stream of anguish.”

Fritz (Old), Frederick II. “the Great,” king of Prussia (1712, 1740–1786).

Fritz, a gardener, passionately fond of flowers, the only subject he can talk about.—Stirling: The Prisoner of State (1847).

Frog (Nic.), the linen-draper. The Dutch are so called in Arbuthnot’s History of Fohn Bull (1712).

Nic. Frog was a cunning, sly rogue, quite the reverse of John [Bull] in many particulars; covetous, frugal; minded domestic affairs; would pinch his belly to save his pocket; never lost a farthing by careless servants or bad debts. He did not care much for any sort of diversions, except tricks of high German artists and legerdemain; no man exceeded Nic. in these. Yet it must be owned that Nic. was a fair dealer, and in that way acquired immense riches.—Dr. Arbuthnot: History of Fohn Bull, v. (1712).

“Frogs” are called Dutch nightingales.

It is a mistake to suppose the French are intended by this sobriquet.

Frolicsome Duke (The), a ballad in Percy’s Reliques (bk. ii. 17). A duke, wanting diversion, went out one night and saw a tinker, dead drunk, fast asleep on a bench. He told his servants to take him to the mansion, put him to bed, and next morning to treat him as a duke. The tinker was amazed; but at night, after being well swilled with potent liquor, he fell asleep, and being clad in his own clothes, was carried to the bench again. He thought the whole had been a dream; and the last delusion was as diverting as the first.

This trick is an incident in the “Induction” of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew; is told in Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy (pt. ii. 2); and was played by Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy.