o us for ever in the guise of the yeoman
Locksley. We do not like him half so well as we did before. He has, in
some degree, compromised his character as an outlaw, by entering into an
arrangement with him of the Lion-heart, and he now shoots deer under
cover of the kingly license. The old warfare between Little John and the
Sheriff of Nottingham is over, and the amicable diacylon conceals the
last vestige of their feud. Allan-a-Dale has become a gentleman, and
Friar Tuck laid down the quarter-staff, if he has not taken up the
breviary.

But if any one wants to know bold Robin as he really was, let him
straightway possess himself of those two delightful volumes for which we
are indebted to Mr Gutch. We have here not only the consecutive series
of ballads known as "The Lytell Geste of Robin Hode," but every ballad,
tale, and song, relating to the famous outlaw; and the whole are
beautifully illustrated. Mr Gutch thoroughly understands the duty of an
editor, and has applied himself heart and soul to the task: in
consequence, he has given us by far the best collection of English
ballads which for years has issued from the press.

We have said that the English ballads, as a whole, are decidedly
inferior to the Scottish. They are neither, in their individual kinds,
so stirring, so earnest, so plaintive, nor so imaginative, and Chevy
Chase is a tame concern when weighed against the Battle of Otterbourne.
But many of them are of great merit, and amongst the very best are those
which relate to Robin Hood, and the three stout bowmen of the North,
Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudeslee. Robin has a
fair right to be considered the yeoman hero of England, and the
representative of what must have been a tolerably large class of persons
throughout the wars of the Roses. In his history, we can trace a kind of
tacit protest against absolute despotism and feudal oppression. He is
the daring freeman of the soil, who will not live under arbitrary law,
and who, in consequence, ends by setting all laws whatever at defiance.
He is not a thief, but a free-booter, and is entitled to receive from
posterity whatever credit may be attachable to such a character. His is,
in many respects, a parallel case to that of Rob Roy Macgregor, though
there is far more of deep tragedy as well as of patriotism, interwoven
with the history of the Highland outlaw. Robin asserts no tangible
principles beyond active opposition to the church, an