"The father of Robin a Forester was,
and he shot in a lusty long-bow,
Two north-country miles and an inch at a shot,
as the Pinder of Wakefield does know:
For he brought Adam Bell, and Clim of the Clugh,
and William a Clowdéslee,
To shoot with our Forester for forty mark;
and the Forester beat them all three."
Collect. of Old Ballads, vol. i. (1723), p. 67.
This seems to prove that they were commonly thought to have lived before the popular hero of Sherwood.
Our northern archers were not unknown to their southern countrymen: their excellence at the long-bow is often alluded to by our ancient poets. Shakespeare, in his comedy of Much adoe about nothing, act i., makes Benedick confirm his resolves of not yielding to love, by this protestation, "If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat,[682] and shoot at me, and he that hits me, let him be clapt on the shoulder, and called Adam:" meaning Adam Bell, as Theobald rightly observes, who refers to one or two other passages in our old poets wherein he is mentioned. The Oxford editor has also well conjectured, that "Abraham Cupid" in Romeo and Juliet, act ii. sc. 1, should be "Adam Cupid," in allusion to our archer. Ben Jonson has mentioned Clym o' the Clough in his Alchemist, act i. sc. 2. And Sir William Davenant, in a mock poem of his, called "The long vacation in London," describes the Attorneys and Proctors, as making matches to meet in Finsbury fields.
"With loynes in canvas bow-case tyde:[683]
Where arrowes stick with mickle pride; ...
Like ghosts of Adam Bell and Clymme.
Sol sets for fear they'l shoot at him."
Works, 1673, fol. p. 291.
I have only to add further concerning the principal hero of this Ballad, that the Bells were noted rogues in the North so late as the time of Q. Elizabeth. See in Rymer's Fœdera, a letter from lord William Howard to some of the officers of state, wherein he mentions them.
As for the following stanzas, which will be judged from the style, orthography, and numbers, to be of considerable antiquity, they were here given (corrected in some places by a MS. copy in the Editor's old folio) from a black-letter 4to. Imprinted at London in Lothburye by Wyllyam Copland (no date). That old quarto edition seems to be exactly followed in Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry, &c. Lond. 1791,[684] 8vo., the variations from which that occur in the following copy, are selected from many others in the folio MS. above-mentioned, and when distinguished by the usual inverted 'comma,' have been assisted by conjecture.
In the same MS. this Ballad is followed by another, intitled Younge Cloudeslee, being a continuation of the present story, and reciting the adventures of Willian of Cloudesly's son: but greatly inferior to this both in merit and antiquity.