t
forgotten. The oft-told tale of blended theft and charity has run the
round of ages, delighting the homely circle; historians and poets have
found in them a theme suited to their energies, and sung the song of
their exploits to everlasting remembrance. It may be said that few
subjects of yore can boast so bewitching an interest as the present: for
even now, after the lapse of six or seven hundred years, the names of
Robin Hood and Little John are

Familiar in our mouths as household words.

Drayton writes

In this our spacious isle I think there is not one,
But he, of Robin Hood hath heard, and Little John;
And to the end of time the tales shall ne'er be done,
Of Scarlock, George a Green, and Much, the miller's son,
Of Tuck, the merry friar, which many a sermon made
In praise of Robin Hood, his outlaws and their trade.

Robin Hood, from the best accounts, was born at Locksley, in the county
of Nottingham, in the reign of King Henry II., and about the year of
Christ 1160. His extraction was noble, and his true name was Robert
Fitzoothes, which vulgar pronunciation corrupted into Robin Hood. He was
frequently styled, and commonly reputed to have been Earl of Huntington,
descending from Ralph Fitzoothes, a Norman, who came over to England
with William Rufus; marrying Maud, daughter of Gilbert de Gaunt, Earl
of Kyme and Lindsey, to which title in the latter part of his life, he
appears to have had some pretension. In his youth, he is reported to
have been of a wild and extravagant disposition, insomuch that his
inheritance being consumed or forfeited by his excesses, and his person
outlawed for debt, either from necessity or choice, he sought an asylum
in the woods and forests. Or, as some writers state, one of his first
exploits was the going into a forest, when, bearing with him a bow
of exceeding strength, he fell into company with certain rangers or
woodmen, who quarrelled with him for making show to use such a bow as no
man was able to shoot with. Robin replied, that he had two better than
that at Locksley, only he bore that with him now as a byrding bowe.
At length the contention grew so hot that a wager was laid about the
killing of a deer at a great distance, for performance of which Robin
offered to lay his head to a sum of money, the advantage of which rash
speech the others presently took; the mark being found out, one of them,
to make Robin's heart faint, and hand unsteady, when he w