A modern writer (History of Whitby, by Lionel Charlton, York, 1779, 4to), though of no authority in this point, has done well enough to speak of him as living “in the days of abbot Richard and Peter his successor;” that is, between the years 1176 and 1211. The author of the two plays upon the story of our hero, of which a particular account will be hereafter given, makes him contemporary with King Richard, who, as well as his brother Prince John, is introduced upon the scene; which is confirmed by another play, quoted in Note 5. Warner, also, in his Albion’s England, 1602, p. 132, refers his existence to “better daies, first Richard’s daies.” This, to be sure, may not be such evidence as would be sufficient to decide the point in a court of justice; but neither judge nor counsel will dispute {xvii} the authority of that oracle of the law Sir Edward Coke, who pronounces that “This Robert Hood lived in the reign of King R. I.” (3 Institute, 197). We must not therefore regard what is said by such writers as the author of “George a Greene, the pinner of Wakefield,” 1599 (see Note 9), who represents our hero as contemporary with King Edward IV.,[7] and the compiler of a foolish book called “The noble birth, &c. of Robin Hood” (see Note 1), who commences it by informing us of his banishment by King Henry VIII. As well, indeed, might we suppose him to have lived before the time of Charlemagne, because Sir John Harington, in his translation of the Orlando Furioso, 1590, p. 391, has made “Duke ’Ammon in great wrath thus wise to speake: This is a Tale indeed of Robin Hood, Which to beleeve, might show my wits but weake;” or to imagine his story must have been familiar to Plutarch, because in his Morals, translated by Dr. Philemon Holland, 1603, p. 644, we read the following passage:—“Evenso [_i.e._ as the crane and fox serve each other in Æsop], when learned men at a table plunge and drowne themselves (as it were), in subtile problemes and questions interlaced with logicke, which the vulgar sort are not able for their lives to comprehend and conceive; whiles they also againe for their part come in with their foolish songs, and vain ballads of Robin-Hood and Little John, telling tales of a tubbe, or of a roasted horse, and such like.” Who, indeed, would be apt to think that his skill in archery was known to Virgil? And yet, as interpreted by our facetious friend Mr. Charles Cotton, he tells us that “Cupid was a little tyny, Cogging, lying, peevish nynny; But with a bow the shit-breecht elf Would shoot like Robin Hood himself.” In a word, if we are to credit translators, he must have {xviii} existed before the siege of Troy; for thus, according to one of Homer’s: “Then came a choice companion Of Robin Hood and Little John, Who many a buck and many a doe, In Sherwood forest, with his bow, Had nabb’d; believe me it is true, sir, The fellow’s Christian name was Teucer.”