CONCERNING THE WORTHIES, OR GOOD MEN, WHO WERE NATIVES OF DONCASTER OR OTHERWISE CONNECTED WITH THAT TOWN. _Vir bonus est quis?_ TERENCE. Let good old Fuller answer the well-known question which is conveyed in the motto to this chapter. “And here,” he says, “be it remembered, that the same epithet in several places accepts sundry interpretations. He is called a Good Man in common discourse, who is not dignified with gentility: a Good Man upon the Exchange, who hath a responsible estate; a Good Man in a Camp, who is a tall man of his arms; a Good Man in the Church who is pious and devout in his conversation. Thus whatever is fixed therein in other relations, that person is a Good Man in history, whose character affords such matter as may please the palate of an ingenuous reader.” Two other significations may be added which Fuller has not pretermitted, because he could not include them, they being relatively to him, of posthumous birth. A Good Man upon State trials, or in certain Committees which it might not be discreet to designate, is one who will give his verdict without any regard to his oath in the first case or to the evidence in both. And in the language of the Pugilists it signifies one who can bear a great deal of beating: Hal Pierce, the Game Chicken and unrivalled glory of the ring, pronounced this eulogium upon Mr. Gully, the present honorable member for Pontefract, when he was asked for a candid opinion of his professional merits:—“Sir he was the very Best Man as ever I had.” Among the Good Men, in Fuller's acceptation of the term, who have been in any way connected with Doncaster, the first in renown as well as in point of time, is Robin Hood. Many men talk of him who never shot in his bow; but many think of him when they drink at his Well, which is at Skelbroke by the way side, about six miles from Doncaster on the York road. There is a small inn near with Robin Hood for its sign; this country has produced no other hero whose popularity has endured so long. The Duke of Marlborough, the Duke of Cumberland, and the Marquis of Granby have flourished upon sign-posts, and have faded there; so have their compeers Prince Eugene and Prince Ferdinand. Rodney and Nelson are fading; and the time is not far distant when Wellington also will have had his day. But while England shall be England Robin Hood will be a popular name. Near Robin Hood's Well, and nearer to Doncaster, the Hermit of Hampole resided, at the place from which he was so called, “where living he was honored, and dead was buried and sainted.” Richard Role, however, for that was his name, was no otherwise sainted than by common opinion in those parts. He died in 1349, and is the oldest of our known Poets. His writings both in verse and prose which are of considerable extent ought to be published at the expense of some national institution.