HOOD (_Robin_) and his “merry men all,” of Sherwood Forest. Famed in song, drama and romance. Probably he lived in the reign of Richard Cœur de Lion. ⁂ Sir W. Scott has introduced him both in _The Talisman_ and in _Ivanhoe_. Stow has recorded the chief incidents of his life (see under the year 1213). Ritson has compiled a volume of ballads respecting him. Drayton has given a sketch of him in the _Polyolbion_, xxvi. The following are dramas on the same outlaw, viz.:--_The Playe of Robyn Hode, very proper to be played in Maye games_ (fifteenth century); Skelton, at the command of Henry VIII., wrote a drama called _The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntington_ (about 1520); _The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntington_, by Munday (1597); _The Death of Robert, Earle of Huntington, otherwise called Robin Hood of Merrie Sherwodde_, by H. Chettle (1598). Chettle’s drama is in reality a continuation of Munday’s, like the two parts of Shakespeare’s plays, _Henry IV._ and _Henry V._ _Robin Hood’s Penn´orths_, a play by William Haughton (1600); _Robin Hood and His Pastoral May Games_ (1624), _Robin Hood and His Crew of Soldiers_ (1627), both anonymous; _The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood_ (unfinished), B. Jonson (1637); _Robin Hood_, an opera (1730); _Robin Hood_, an opera by Dr. Arne and Burney (1741); _Robin Hood_, a musical farce (1751); _Robin Hood_, a comic opera (1784); Robin Hood, an opera by O’Keefe, music by Shield (1787); _Robin Hood_, by Macnally (before 1820). Sheridan began a drama on the same subject, which he called _The Foresters_; _The Foresters_, Tennyson (1892). PERIPHE´TES (4 _syl._) of Argŏlis, surnamed “The Club-Bearer,” because he used to kill his victims with an iron club.--_Grecian Story._ PROCRUSTES (3 _syl._), a famous robber of Attica. His real name was Polypēmon or Damastês, but he received the sobriquet of _Procrustês_, or “The Stretcher,” from his practice of placing all victims that fell into his hands on a certain bedstead. If the victim was too short to fit it he stretched the limbs to the right length; if too long he lopped off the redundant part.--_Grecian Story._ REA (_William_), executed at Old Bailey in 1828. SHEPPARD (_Jack_), an ardent, reckless, generous youth, wholly unrivalled as a thief and burglar. His father was a carpenter in Spitalfields. Sentence of death was passed on him in August, 1724; but when the warders came to take him to execution, they found he had escaped. He was apprehended in the following October, and again made his escape. A third time he was caught, and in November suffered death. Certainly the most popular burglar that ever lived (1701-1724). ⁂ Daniel Defoe made _Jack Sheppard_ the hero of a romance in 1724, and H. Ainsworth in 1839.