[257] Be ther. [258] Wher’e. [259] Closd. We might read: And clos’d were [baith] his een. [260] The preceding lines of this stanza are wanting in the original. [261] Gave, begack. [262] Yeen. [263] Spok. [264] Half. [265] Bound. [266] Bag. [267] Cloath. [268] Thou. [269] Speed. [270] Cloaths. [271] “It should perhaps be swards, _i.e._ the surface of the ground, viz. ‘when the fields are in their beauty.’”—PERCY. Rather shrobbes (shrubs). The plural of sward was never used by any writer whatever. For shaws the MS. has shales. [272] Dr. Percy, by the marks he has bestowed on this line, seems to consider it as the yeoman’s reply; but it seems rather a repetition of Robin’s complimentary address. [273] This in the three former editions of the “Reliques” is improperly altered to ‘but.’ [274] So, according to Percy, reads his MS. He has altered it to ‘backward.’ [275] The title of SIR, Dr. Percy says, was not formerly peculiar to knights; it was given to priests, and sometimes to very inferior personages. If the text did not seem to be in favour of the latter part of this assertion, one might reasonably question its truth. Another instance, at least, it is believed, admitting this to be one, which is by no means certain, cannot be produced. [276] Sic PC. quere the MS. [277] An absurd mistake, scarcely worth notice in this place, and which the reader will have it in his own power to correct. [278] Our. [279] There is no authority for imputing this execrable practice to our hero or his companions, in any one single instance. If, however, the lex talionis were at all justifiable, they certainly had sufficient provocation to exercise it—not, indeed, upon the clergy, in particular, but upon the king, his ministers, judges, and nobles. “The ancient punishment for killing the king’s deer,” says Dr. Percy, “was loss of eyes and castration: a punishment far worse than death!” [280] _i.e._ than he could otherwise have been. {149} [Illustration] ROBIN HOOD. Part II. I. ROBIN HOOD’S BIRTH, BREEDING, VALOUR, AND MARRIAGE. From a black letter copy in the large and valuable collection of old ballads late belonging to Thomas Pearson, Esq., and now in the possession of the Duke of Roxburghe. This is the collection mentioned in the Harleian Catalogue, and would seem to be the greater part of that originally made by old Bagford (see Hearne’s Appendix to Hemingi Chartularium, p. 662), another volume or two having come, with the rest of his typographical collections, to the British Museum. The three vols. which went to Osborne were probably bought of him by Mr. West, at whose sale they {150} were purchased by Major Pearson, by whom the collection was new-arranged, ornamented, and improved.