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.

by Unknown

[6] It is 1100 in the original, but that is clearly an error of the press.

[7] King Edward, it is true, is introduced in the “Lytell Geste,” &c., but the author has unquestionably meant the first of that name.

[8] Thus, likewise, in a much earlier version from the same immortal bard (Homer a la mode, 1664), we read of

“

greate Apollo, who’s as good

At pricks and buts as Robin Hood.”

[9] Alias R. G., the scurrilous and malignant editor of that degraded publication.

[10] The authority cited by Grafton in 1569 as then “olde and auncient” must have been at least of equal antiquity with the most ancient poems that Dr. P. is acquainted with.

[11] Stukeley’s Palæographia Britannica, No. II. p. 115. In an interleaved copy of Robin Hood’s Garland formerly belonging to Dr. Stukeley, and now in the possession of Francis Douce, esquire, opposite the second page of the first song, is the following note in his own hand: