d determined
hostility to the game-laws. For the first of these tenets Baines would
have fallen down and worshipped him: for the second, John Bright would
have clothed his whole company gratuitously in drab. He is fond of
fighting, and ready to take up the cudgels with any chance customer;
but, somehow or other, he has invariably the worst of the encounter.
Tinker, beggar-man, tanner, shepherd, and curtail friar, in succession,
bring him to his knees, and his life would have been many times a
forfeit, but for the timely assistance of his horn, which brought Little
John and the rest to the rescue. Guy of Gisborne was, we believe, the
only champion whom he slew unaided, and even in that meeting he was
placed in sore jeopardy.

"Robin was reachless on a root,
And stumbled at that tide,
And Guy was quick and nimble withall,
And hit him upon the side.

Oh dear Ladye! said Robin Hood,
That art both mother and may,
I think it was never man's destiny
To dye before his day.

Robin thought on our Ladye dear,
And soon leapt up againe,
And straight he came with a backward stroke
And he Sir Guy hath slaine."

But there is a fine jovial rollocking spirit about the outlawed hero of
Sherwood, which endears Robin to the popular heart of England: and we
firmly believe that Shakspeare, when he went out poaching of a moonlight
night, was more actuated by poetical precept and impulse than by any
sensual covetise for the venison of old Sir Thomas Lucy.

Many ingenious persons--nay many excellent poets, have in modern times
attempted to imitate the ancient Scottish ballad, but in no single case
has there been a perfect fac-simile produced. The reason of the failure
is obvious. An ingenious person, who is not a poet, could not for the
dear life of him construct a ditty which, in order to resemble its
original, must embody a strain of music, and a burst of heroic or of
plaintive passion. It is not, however, by any means so difficult to
imitate the diction: of which we have a notable example in the ballad of
"Childe Ether," which is included in several of the collections. "Childe
Alcohol," perhaps, would have been the better name, if all the
circumstances which we have heard relating to its composition be true;
nevertheless it is undeniable that our facetious friends who are
chargeable with this literary sin, have succeeded in producing a very
passable imitation, and that thei