Younger by scores of years; flatters his age
With confident belying it; hopes he may
With charms, like Aeson, have his youth restored.
Ben Jonson,
Volpone or the Fox
(1605).
Benjamin Johnson [1665-1742] ... seemed to be proud to wear the poet's double name, and was particularly great in all that author's plays that were usually performed, viz "Wasp," in Bartholomew Fair; "Corbaccio;" "Morose," in The Silent Woman; and "Ananias," in The Alchemist.—Chetwood.
C. Dibdin says none who ever saw W. Parsons (1736-1795) in "Corbaccio" could forget his effective mode of exclaiming "Has he made his will? What has he given me!" but Parsons himself says: "Ah! to see 'Corbaccio' acted to perfection, you should have seen Shuter. The public are pleased to think that I act that part well, but his acting was as far superior to mine as Mount Vesuvius is to a rushlight."
Cor'bant, the rook, in the beast-epic of Reynard the Fox (1498). (French, corbeau, "a rook.")
Corce'ca (3 syl.), mother of Abessa. The word means "blindness of heart," or Romanism. Una sought shelter under her hut, but Corceca shut the door against her; whereupon the lion which accompanied Una broke down the door. The "lion" means England, "Corceca" popery, "Una" protestantism, and "breaking down the door" the Reformation.—Spenser, Faëry Queen, i. 3 (1590).