The same author (Gent), in his “long and pathetick prologue,” setting forth “the contingencies, vicissitudes or changes of this transitory life,” “spoken, for the most part, on Wednesday and Friday the 18th and 20th of February 1761, at the deep tragedy of beautiful, eloquent, tender-hearted, but unfortunate Jane Shore, . . . . uttered and performed at his benefit” . . . (being then ætatis 70, and far declined into the vale of sorrow,*) has very artfully contrived to introduce our hero and his famous well. “The concave hall, ’mongst sources never view’d, Nor heard the goddesses, in merry mood, At their choice viands sing bold Robin Hood:† Whose tomb at Kirkley’s nunnery display’d, A false, hard-hearted, irreligious maid, Who bled, and to cold death that earl betray’d. But fame still lasts, while country folks display His limpid fountain, and loud-surging bay.” ―――― * He died in 1778, aged 87. † “Omnes agnovere deam; lætique receptant Alcæum musæ comitem, ponuntur Iâcchi Crateres; flaventque scyphis Cerealia vina: Accedunt vultus hilares; festique lepores, Et jocus, et risus: dulci testudine Naias Pulchra modos variat; furtisque insignis et arcu Hodi latronis, fluvios bene nota per istos, Ludicra gesta canit: resonant laquearia plausu.” [110] “Viventes venæ, spine, catinusque catenæ, Sunt Robin Hoodi nota trophæa sui.” [111] “A well, thorne, dish, hung in an iron chaine, For monuments of Robin Hood remaine.” [112] Voyage from England to India, 1773, p. 8. In a subsequent page this great man is employed in a commerce of a more delicate, indeed, but, according to European notions, less honourable nature, which he manages with consummate address. [113] They likewise seem alluded to in the Vision, fo. 1, b: “And ryse wyth ribaudy as Rebertes knaves.” [114] “On a loose paper, in Mr. Ashmole’s handwriting, in the museum at Oxford, is the following little anecdote:— “The famous Little John (Robin Hood’s companion) lyes buried in Fethersedge churchyard, in the peak of Derbyshire, one stone at his head, another at his feet, and part of his bow hangs up in the chancell. Anno 1652.” H. E[llis]. European Magazine, October 1794, p. 295. [115] This seems the established size of an ancient hero. The grave of Gawin, King Arthur’s nephew, discovered in the time of William the Conqueror, was, according to Malmesbury, “_quatuor decim pedes longum_” (De gestis regum, l. 3). Bois, from the above circumstance, conceives our “Litil Jhon” to have been so called “_per ironiam_.” See his original work, fo. ix.