Note 4 — NEW CUSTOM.
Reading edition
Cowle or rather coll [Coll] I suppose to be the name of the dog.—Steevens.
Cowle my dog, I am inclined to believe, means put a cowl or hood on a dog, and he will be as learned as a friar: the contempt into which the order had at this period fallen will at least countenance the explanation, if it should not be thought sufficient to prove it. I once was of opinion, that there might be an allusion to the case of one Collins, a crazy man, who seeing a priest hold up the host over his head, lifted up a dog in the same manner, for which both he and the animal were burnt in 1538. See Fox, vol. ii. 436.
My conjecture requires a little explanation. The speaker means to say, "If the New Testament is fit for the use of boys, so likewise is it adapted equally to the conception of Coll my dog. The one will understand and make a proper use of it as soon as the other."—Steevens. [What will be thought of the preceding note, I hardly know; the text is the clearer.]