Restoring poore men’s goods, and eke abundantly releeved
Poore travellers which wanted food, or were with sicknes greeved.”
(Third Assertion, &c., quoted elsewhere.)
[38] That this epitaph had been printed, or was well known, at least, long before the publication of Mr. Thoresby’s book, if not before either he or Dr. Gale was born, appears from the “True Tale of Robin Hood” by Martin Parker, written, if not printed, as early as 1631. (See post, p. [126].) That dates, about this period, were frequently by ides and kalends, see Madox’s Formulare Anglicanum (Dissertation), p. xxx. Even Arabic figures are produced in some of still greater antiquity; see Collectanea de rebus Hibernicis, ii. 331. Robert Grosthead, Bishop of Lincoln, makes use of these figures about the year 1240. Astle’s Origin of Writing, p. 188.
[39] In “The Travels of Tom Thumb over England and Wales” [by Mr. Robert Dodsley], p. 106, is another though inferior version:
“Here, under this memorial stone,
Lies Robert earl of Huntingdon;
As he, no archer e’er was good,
And people call’d him Robin Hood:
Such outlaws as his men and he