Besides these ancient authorities, the poet Drayton, who from his incontestable antiquarian learning may be safely accepted as showing the tradition on this subject, sums up the received reputation of Robin in the following words:—
"From wealthy abbots' chests and churls' abundant store,
What often times he took he shared among the poor."
It is curious to find that strange writer Ritson approving of this principle; but the subject of our romantic outlaw, visionary as it ought to have appeared, seems ever to have had a disturbing effect upon staid English brains. Even the placid Wordsworth lost all sense of moderation in his eulogium of Rob Roy, a hero ejusdem farinae.
After this preface I will turn more particularly to the ballads themselves. As I have already intimated there are no ancient manuscripts remaining of them. The oldest copy is De Worde's print of A Litell Geste of Rohin Hode. Though the date of its publication is somewhat late, the diction of the poem itself is tolerably old, indeed very much older than the printers' age.
This is an encouraging circumstance, for it gives us reason to believe that in this poem at least we have really one of the "rimes" referred to by Langland, and we may rely upon it accordingly, and the context supports this view. Its simple and unexaggerated language, not without a rough tincture of real poetry, puts to flight all the late hyperbole attached to the legend—Robin is no more than "a good yeoman," at the same time he is "a proud outlawe," and also "a curteyse outlawe." He is assisted in his nefarious trade by "Lytell John," who is equally "a good yeman"; and by Scathlock (Scarlet) and "Much the Miller's Son," both also designated with equal justice as "good."
This poem contains an open avowal of absolute brigandage, the only persons to be exempted from this trying operation being "housbondes," that is, tenant-farmers, and any knight or squire who was willing to be "a good felaw," or accomplice. But all bishops and archbishops were to "be beaten and bound," as was also the Sheriff of Nottingham, who here stands for all high sheriffs whomsoever.
