Trin. Coll. Dublin.
Miscellaneous.
NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC.
If among the writers of the present day there is one whose opinion with regard to Robin Hood and the cycle of ballads of which that renowned outlaw is the hero would be looked for with anxiety and received with respect, it is the Rev. Joseph Hunter, a gentleman in whom are happily combined that thorough historical and antiquarian knowledge, and that sound poetic taste which are required to do justice to so interesting a theme. The announcement, therefore, that the fourth of Mr. Hunter's Critical and Historical Tracts is entitled The Great Hero of the Ancient Minstrelsy of England, Robin Hood. His Period, real Character, &c., investigated, and perhaps ascertained, will be received with welcome by all who rejoice "that the world was very guilty of such ballads some three ages since," and who, loving them and their hero, would fain know something of the history on which they are founded. Mr. Hunter dissents, and we think rightly, from two popular and recent theories upon the subject,—the one, that which elevates Robin Hood into the chief of a small body of Saxons impatient of their subjection to the Norman rule; the other, that which reduces him to one among the "personages of the early mythology of the Teutonic people." Mr. Hunter, on the other hand, identifies him with one "Robyn Hood" who entered the service of Edward II. a little before Christmas 1323, and continued therein somewhat less than a twelvemonth:
"Alas then said good Robyn,
Alas and well a woo,
If I dwele longer with the kynge
Sorowe wyll me sloo:"
and the evidence which he adduces in favour of our popular hero having been one of the Contrariantes of the reign of the Second Edward; and the coincidences which he points out between the minstrel testimony of the Little Geste and the testimony of records of different kinds and lying in different places, will, we are sure, be read with great interest even by those who may not think that our author has quite succeeded in unmasking the "Junius" of those olden times.