[303] We should probably read frantick baboon!
[304] Ground near Moorfields, London, famous in old times for the archery practised there. “In the year 1498,” says Stow, “all the gardens which had continued time out of minde, without Mooregate, to wit, about and beyond the lordship of Fensberry, were destroyed. And of them was made a plaine field for archers to shoote in.” Survay of London, 1598, p. 351. See also p. 77, where it is observed that “about the feast of S. Bartlemew . . . the officers of the city . . . were challengers of all men in the suburbes, . . . before the ‘lord’ maior, aldermen, and sheriffes, in FENSBERY FIELDE, to shoote the standarde, broade arrow, and flight, for games.” There is a tract intitled, “Ayme for Finsburie archers, or an alphabetical table of the names of every marke within the same fields, with the true distances, both by the map, and dimensuration with the line. Published for the ease of the skilfull, and behoofe of the yoonge beginners in the famous exercise of archerie, by J. J. and E. B. To be sold at the signe of the Swan in Grub-street, by F. Sergeant, 1594.” 16mo. Republished by R. F. 1604; and again by James Partridge, 1628, 12mo.
These famous archers are mentioned by Ben Jonson (Every Man in his Humour, act i. scene 1): “Because I dwell at Hogsden I shall keep company with none but the archers of Finsbury.”
The practice of shooting here is alluded to by Cotton in his Virgile Travestie (b. iv.), 1667:
“And arrows loos’d from Grub-street bow,
In FINSBURY, to him are slow;”
and continued till within the memory of persons now living.
[305] The situation of this chase cannot be ascertained. There is an ancient family seat in Westmoreland called Dalham-tower.
[306] Either the bishop was a very bad reckoner, or there is some mistake in the copy: three hundred nobles are exactly a hundred pounds. The common editions read ninety-nine angels, which would be no more than £49, 10s. No such coin or denomination, however, as either angel or noble existed in Robin Hood’s time.
[307] I see.