+The Tradition concerning Deer Stealing+.--Nicholas Howe, in 1709, in his edition of Shakespeare says: "He had by a misfortune common enough to young fellows fallen into bad company, and among them, some that made a frequent practice of deer stealing, engaged him with them more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote near Stratford. For this he was persecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely; and, in order to revenge that ill-usage, he made a parody upon him; and though this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very bitter that he was obliged to leave his business and family in Warwickshire and shelter himself in London." Archdeacon Davies of Saperton, Gloucestershire, in the late seventeenth century testifies independently to the same tradition. Justice Shallow in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_ is on this latter authority to be identified with Sir Thomas Lucy. He is represented in the play as having come from Gloucester to Windsor. He "will make a Star Chamber matter of it" that Sir John Falstaff has "defied my men, killed my deer, and broke open my lodge." He bears on his "old coat" (of arms) a "dozen white luces" (small fishes), and there is a lot of chatter about "quartering" this coat, which is without point unless a pun is intended. {8} Now "three luces Hauriant argent" were the arms of the Charlecote Lucys, it is certain. There is some reason then, for connecting Shallow with Sir Thomas Lucy, and an apparent basis for the deer-stealing tradition, although the incident in the play may, of course, have suggested the myth. Davies goes on to say that Shakespeare was whipped and imprisoned; for this there is no other evidence.