Mr. Steevens, too, after citing the old play of “The downfall of Robert earl of Huntington,” 1601, to prove “that Maid Marian was originally a name assumed by Matilda, the daughter of Robert, Lord Fitzwater, while Robin Hood remained in a state of outlawry,” observes, that “Shakespeare speaks of Maid Marian in her degraded state, when she was {xxxii} represented by a strumpet or a clown;” and refers to figure 2 in the plate at the end of the play, with Mr. Tollet’s observations on it. The widow, in Sir W. Davenant’s “Love and Honour,” says, “I have been Mistress Marian in a maurice ere now;” and Mr. Warton[23] quotes an old piece, entitled “Old Meg of Herefordshire for a Maid Marian, and Hereford town for a morris-dance: or 12 morris-dancers in Herefordshire of 1200 years old,” London, 1609, 4to, which is dedicated, he says, to one Hall, a celebrated tabourer in that country.[24] See Note 34. (11) _“His company,” &c._] See the entire passage quoted from Major in a subsequent note. “By such bootyes as he could get,” says the writer of the Sloane MS., “his company encreast to an hundred and a halfe.” (12) _—“the words of an old writer.”_] The author of the Sloane manuscript; which adds: “after such maner he procured the pynner of Wakefeyld to become one of his company, and a freyr called Muchel [r. Tuck] . . . Scarlock he induced upon this occasion: one day meeting him as he walket solitary & like to a man forlorne, because a mayd to whom he was affyanced was taken from [him] by the violence of her frends, & given to another that was old & welthy, whereupon Robin, understanding when the maryage-day should be, came to the church as a begger, & having his own company not far of, which came in so soone as they hard {xxxiii} the sound of his horne, he tooke the bryde perforce from him that [bare] in hand to have marryed her, & caused the preist to wed her & Scarlocke togeyther.” (See part ii. song 8.) This MS., of which great part is merely the old legend or Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode turned into prose, appears to have been written before the year 1600. (13) _“In shooting,” &c._] MS. Sloan. Grafton also speaks of our hero’s “excellyng principally in archery or shooting, his manly courage agreeyng thereunto.”