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
In The Midwife, or Old Woman’s Magazine (vol. i. p. 250), Mrs.
Midnight, in a letter “To the venerable society of antiquarians,”
containing a description of Cæsar’s camp on Windsor forest, has
the following passage: “There have been many extraordinary things
discovered about this camp. One thing, I particularly remember, was
a deer of about sixteen hundred years old. . . . . . This deer it
seems was a favourite of Cæsar’s, and on that account he bedecked
her neck with a golden collar and an inscription, which I shall by
and by take notice of; she had been frequently taken, but when the
hunters, the peasants, and poor people saw the golden collar on her
neck, they readily let her go again. However, as she continually
increased in strength and in bulk, as well as in age, after the
course of about fifteen or sixteen centuries, the flesh and skin
were entirely grown over this collar, so that it could not be
discover’d till after she was kill’d, and then to the surprise of
the virtuosi it appear’d with this inscription:
When Julius Cæsar reigned here,
Then was I a little deer;
If any man should me take,
Let me go for Cæsar’s sake.
“This collar, which is of pure gold, I am told weighs thirty
ounces, and as the blood of the creature still appears fresh upon
it, I believe it may be as valuable as any of your gimcracks;
however, there will be no harm in my sending of it to you; and if
I can procure it, you may depend on my taking the utmost care of
it.” As no notice is announced of this wonderful piece of antiquity
in the voluminous and important lucubrations of the above learned
body, it most probably never came into their possession; which
is very much to be lamented, as it would have been an admirable
companion for _Hardecnute’s chamber-pot_, _King Edward the first’s
finger_, and other similar curiosities.
Juvenal des Ursins gravely relates that in the year 1380 a hart was
taken at Senlis with a chain about his neck inscribed “_Cæsar hoc
me donavit_.”*
Upton, to be even with him, supposes a hart to have been taken at
Bagshot near Windsor, with a motto on the collar in the French
language, which proves the ancient Romans were familiar therewith
long before it existed:
“_Julius Cæsar, quant jeo fus petis,
Cest coler suz mon col ad mys._Ӡ
This _dictator perpetuo_, in fact, seems to have collared every
hart he took. The family of _Pompei_ in Italy use two harts for
their supporters on whose collars were the letters N. M. T., in
memory of one on whose collar were these words: “N_emo_ M_e_
T_angat_, _Cæsaris sum_.” Anstis, ii. 113.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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