Note 708 — FATHER HUBBURD’S TALES; OR, THE ANT AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

Tale of Mother Hubburd, &c.] In the Bridgewater-House Catalogue this passage is quoted by Mr. J. P. Collier, who observes, “If it do not shew that Spenser’s ‘Mother Hubberd’s Tale’ was ‘called in again,’ it proves that obstruction was offered by public authorities to some subsequent production under the same name,” p. 200.—Assuredly the allusion is not to Spenser’s poem: in it the “ape” indeed figures conspicuously, but there is no mention of “rugged bears,” or “the lamentable downfal of the old wife’s platters.”