Robin Hood: A collection of all the ancient poems, songs, and ballads, now extant, relative to that celebrated English outlaw. To which are prefixed historical anecdotes of his life.
General
Robin Hood: A collection of all the ancient poems, songs, and ballads, now extant, relative to that celebrated English outlaw. To which are prefixed historical anecdotes of his life.
Ballads, English -- England -- Texts; Outlaws -- Poetry; Robin Hood (Legendary character) -- Poetry; Songs, English -- England -- Texts
with one arrow, and an other fethered in his bowels, before he
should have turned about to see who shot the first” (p. 198).
Bishop Latimer, in his sixth sermon before King Edward VI., gives
an interesting account how the sons of yeomen were, in his infancy,
trained up to the bow. “But now,” says he, “we have taken up
whooring in townes, instead of shooting in the fieldes.”
(16)
“_All clad in Lincoln green._”]
This species of cloth is mentioned by Spenser (Faerie Queene, VI.
ii. 5):
“All in a woodman’s jacket he was clad
Of Lincolne greene, belay’d with silver lace
And on his head an hood with aglets sprad,
And by his side his hunter’s horne he hanging had.”
It is likewise noticed by our poet himself, in another place:
“Swains in shepherds gray, and gyrles in Lincolne greene.”[32]
See Polyolbion, song xxv., where the marginal note says, “Lincolne
anciently dyed the best green in England.” Thus Coventry had
formerly the reputation of dying the best blue. {xxxix} See Ray’s
Proverbs, p. 178. Kendal green is equally famous, and appears to
have been cloth of a similar quality. This colour was adopted
by foresters to prevent their being too readily discovered by
the deer. See Sir John Wynne’s History of the Guedir Family
(Barrington’s Miscellanies), p. 419. Thus the Scotish Highlanders
used to wear brown plaids to prevent their being distinguished
among the heath. It is needless to observe that green has ever been
the favourite dress of an archer, hunter, &c. See Note 34.[33] We
now call it a Saxon or grass green:
“His coat is of a Saxon green, his waistcoat’s of a plaid” (O. song).
Lincoln green was well known in France in or before the 13th
century. Thus, in an old fabliau, transprosed by M. Le Grand
(Fabliaux ou Contes, iv. 13), “Il mit donc son surcot fourré
d’écureuil, et sa belle robe d’Estanfort teinte en verd.” Estanfort
is Stamford, in Lincolnshire.[34] This cloth is, likewise, often
mentioned by the old Scotish poets under the names of Lincum licht,
Lincum twyne, &c., and appears to have been in universal request:
and yet, notwithstanding this cloud of evidence, Mr. Pinkerton
has had the confidence to assert that “no particular cloth was
ever made at Lincoln.” (See Ancient Scotish Poems, ii. 430.) But,
indeed, this worthy gentleman, as Johnson said of Goldsmith, only
stumbles upon truth by accident. {xl}
(17)
“_From wealthy abbots’ chests_,” _&c._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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