The humour is bucolic and breezy. The song of "Robin Hood and the Bishop", which the black-letter copy describes as "Shewing how Robin Hood went to an old woman's house, and changed cloathes with her to escape from the bishop, and how he robbed the bishop of all his gold and made him sing a mass", contains about the best specimen of this country wit. Again, in _Robin Hood and the Tanner of Nottingham_ is a most ludicrous account of the manner in which, after being threatened with a "knop upon his bare scop", Robin receives as sound a drubbing as ever he himself inflicted. But this punishment, and his philosophical manner of bearing it, only earned him another follower, since the victorious tanner became at once enamoured of the free forest life, and swore there and then to join the band. The Elizabethan dramatists made good use of our hero, knowing well that when he was presented on the stage the hearts of the people were moved. In "a Pleasant Commedie called Looke About You", he appears as a fresh-faced and pretty young nobleman, ever ready to do a good turn to his friends, to whom everybody defers, and who passes through the play laughing and merry as his namesake, the Goodfellow of Ben Jonson. So rosy are his cheeks and so bright his eyes that he personates the heroine, Lady Fauconbridge, at some unwelcome visits that she dreads. _The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon_, by Anthony Munday, who wrote at the end of the sixteenth century, gives the next dramatic information. This shows him living in full state, but still young, and on the eve of marriage with Matilda Fitzwater, Lord Lacy's child. His steward, Warman, instigated by the Prior of York, betrays him in Judas-like fashion (for what real reason we are not told, if it be not for the wasting of his lands), and as an outlaw he flies to the greenwood, where he is joined by Matilda, who renounces her fine name and calls herself Maid Marion. Prince John has fallen in love with her, and she is in mortal fear of his pursuit. In this play Little John and Friar Tuck converse prettily in an aside:-- _Little John._ Methinks I see no jest of Robin Hood, No merry morrices of Friar Tuck, No pleasant skippings up and down the wood, No hunting songs, no coursings of the buck. _Friar Tuck._ For merry jests they have been shown before, As how the friar fell into the well For love of Jenny, that fair bonny belle; How Greenleaf robbed the Shrieve of Nottingham, And other mirthful matters full of game. These passages obviously refer to the antecedent plays. After this comes _The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon_, collaborated by the same author with Henry Chettle, another successful playwright. This, differing from the ballad account, shows how he was poisoned by his uncle, the wicked prior. His obsequies are solemnized with a plaintive little dirge:--