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ROBIN HOOD.

[From the European Magazine.]

THERE has, in all ages and in all nations of the ancient and the modern worlds, been a propension in the human mind, considering it in its most extended system, to endow some object, either real or fabulous, but most frequently the latter, with talents, power, strength, and valour, supernatural, and, consequently, surprising. To this propension may be ascribed the deities of the Classic, the Avatars of the Oriental, and the Giants of the Northern mythologies; the heroes of the middle ages, and all the romantic extravagancies which heated the brains of the poets from the first dawn of letters until the meridian of the seventeenth century. The adventures of Tantalus-Hercules-Theseus-the Argonauts-Edipus--and Romulus-were succeeded by those of the Seven Champions of Christendom. The admiration which these legendary saints attracted, and the influence which they, as national patrons, still retain, shows the importance of enthusiasm ranging on the side of virtue. After these, as it was absolutely necessary, according to our hypothesis, to have a domestic hero, and the Seven Champions, being canonized, had, in a manner, soared

"Far out of truth and reason's sight,"

the multitude in this country fixed upon several in succession. The first, for which we believe the materials to form him were supplied by Geoffrey of Monmouth, was Jack the Giant Queller, or Killer, which was the ancient epithet of this eminent person. Among our Saxon, and even our Norman ancestors, the appellation GIANT was as frequently applied to tyrannic power, as to personal size and muscular strength; a Saxon thane, or Norman baron, who oppressed his vassals and slaves, tore from them their wives and daughters, and committed other acts of atrocity, was termed a GIANT, and even, in common parlance, a DRAGON: a vassal who opposed such cruel domination with any degree of success, might, from the Saxon verb cpellan, be termed a Giant Queller, as a yeoman who gains a cause against his landlord would now be said to have conquered him. Guy Earl of Warwick, the conqueror of Colbrand the Dane, was the next of these traditional heroes, whose story, obscured as it is by monkish

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legends, is too well known to warrant repetition.*
third herot upon whom we mean to observe, is ROBIN HOOD.
How this outlaw came to obtain such favour with the people
in this country, as, in common with the Black Prince and the
Conqueror at Agincourt, to have games instituted to his
memory, it is now hard to say. He lived in the reign of
RICHARD I. Cœur de Lion, a period when romantic gallantry
was carried to its height in every nation of Europe: but it is
never, by the most ardent admirers of Robin Hood, pretended
that he distinguished himself in any of the expeditions to
the Holy Land, the only mean, as we should suppose, of
establishing a character for valour at that enthusiastical period;
therefore, his fame must have been derived from a source
more latent, which we shall briefly endeavour to explore.-
Stimulated by the priests, although, indeed, his warlike and
emulative genius wanted but little stimulation, Richard I.
took the Cross. The event of his brilliant, but unfortunate,
expedition to Syria is well known; the taking of Ascalon, his
truce with Saladin, and his treacherous capture on his return,
are historically recorded; but the impression which the
immensity of his ransom‡ made upon the minds of the
people, already drained, in many instances, of almost the
means of existence to supply the crusaders, has not been so
frequently mentioned. Yet this, during the absence of the
monarch, was considered as the cause of the various troubles
that ensued, and the general discontent that prevailed. At
this period, among many other outlaws who availed themselves
of the popular prejudice, arose Robin Hood, a man, it appears,
of superior dignity, of whom say the historians, "In this
time there was a trouble at home, though not to the king, to

* Upon the Avon stands Guy Cliff. This place is a seat of pleasure in itself; there is a shady grove, crystal springs, mossy caves, meadows ever green, a soft and murmuring fall of waters under the rocks, and, to crown all, solitude and quiet, the greatest darling of the Muses. Here fame tells us, that Guy of Warwick, that celebrated hero, after he had finished his martial achievements, built a chapel, led a hermit's life, and was, at last, buried. But the wiser sort think that this place took its name from Guy de Beauchamp, who lived much later; and certain it is, that Richurd de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, built and dedicated here a chapel to St. Margaret, and set up the giant-like figure of Guy, which still remaineth. Camden's Brit. Gibson's edit. p. 509.

† Colbrand was, of course, a giant.

"Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man.'

Shakspeare.

His imaginary form had made so lasting an impression upon the public mind, that it was, for ages, usual to term every man of extraordinary size Colbrand. The last instance of this occurs in the works of Richardson, Mr. B.

valet is, in the novel of Pamela, called Colbrand.

# 150,000 marks.

s gigantic Swiss

the kingdom; for Robin Hood, accompanied with one Little John and 100 other fellows more, molested all passengers on the highway by some" (writers)" 'tis said he was of noble blood, at least made noble, no less than an earl" (of Huntingdon,) "for some deserving service; but having wasted his estate in riotous courses, very penury made him take this course, in which it may be said he was honestly dishonest, for he seldom hurt any man, never any woman, but made prey of the rich, and spared the poor." This account, which is to be found in Baker, Rapin, and in historians more ancient than either of them, has always passed, if not with some degree of applause, which was the case in ancient provincial poems, stories, songs, &c. through all uncensured. Yet although upon it the popularity of Robin Hood is founded, what does it amount to? but that this notorious outlaw did not wreak his vengeance upon age and imbecility, upon women and children, nor did he plunder those that had nothing to lose; but the great moral question, what right he had to plunder the rich? has been entirely lost sight of in his celebrity, as the enormities of his followers vanish before the vernacular renown attached to their master, However, King RICHARD, among the first of his acts after his return, proclaimed him a traitor; his men were dispersed, and himself in danger of being apprehended: he, therefore, fled for sanctuary to the nunnery of Kirklees, in the West Riding, Yorkshire, where, falling ill, and being let blood, he was betrayed, and bled to death.

It is, as we have observed, astonishing what popularity has, through a course of ages, attached to the name of Robin Hood. It gives appellation to a great number of places in Yorkshire, and other northern counties. But this is not so surprising as that his story, with great variations, should have become the subject of many regular dramas, and of shows innumerable; and, more than all, as appears from an anecdote of Bishop Latimer, that on "his day"* the service of the church should have been suspended, and the people, retreating from a sermon by that learned and excellent prelate, should fly to the Maypole, to celebrate the praise, and commemorate the nefarious practices, of a robber and a rebel.

Such have, in all ages, been the effects of popular prejudices and vulgar clamour operating upon mental enthusiasm, and producing moral depravity.

The first of May

Observations on the Oriental Apologue; by James Ross, Esq. formerly of Dinagepore in Bengal.

[From the Asiatic Annual Register.]

EASTERN governments are despotic; and an historian truly to detail the public and private lives of past despots, has to dwell on events which must necessarily grate the heart perhaps of his patron the reigning despot. Accordingly, in the East, men of genius have turned their minds to fiction, and thus have rendered their well told stories equally instructing and entertaining as common history; for while this with us in Europe has been too often filled with obscurities, defects, and contradictions, to the fables of the East we have no such relations of events to oppose, as have appeared to other writers through different mediums; in history, partiality tells us one story, and antipathy another; but in the relation of a professed fable it were idle to set one fiction in opposition to another.

An apologue, or fable, was the first specimen, perhaps, of wit that man in his rude state made use of; and has been long esteemed in the East, because of its peculiar safety in amusing the old and instructing the young, after they became polite. There, indeed, it is at this day as often had recourse to, as it was in the days of a Lucman or an Esop. Like some fabulists in Europe, orientalists pretend not to distinguish between a story and a tale, an apologue and a fable, or an allegory and a parable, but like as they are found in Sadi, they are mingled indiscriminately; and they make-non tantum feræ, sed etiam arbores-not only beasts, but even stocks and stones speak with a human interest and feeling, and render them the mediums of conveying the most striking truths of common life, morality, and prudence. Yet they consider that

Ficta, voluptatis causâ, sunt proxima veris:

Fictions to please should bear the face of truth;

and are accordingly most partial to the more natural commerce of human beings, as more consonant to historical probability. They address their apologues either to the understandings or the passions, or to both jointly. Those of Sadi are chiefly preceptive, and contain but a single precept or event. He tells us" I never complained of my wretched and forlorn condition, but on one occasion, when my feet were naked, and I had not wherewithal to shoe them. Soon

after, meeting a man without feet, I was thankful for the bounty of providence to myself, and with perfect resignation submitted to my want of shoes." Yet in his story of the Santon Barsisa, where different characters are conducted through a variety of events, where a diversity of precept is introduced as applicable to the characters and circumstances, or where the passions are of course excited, the moral, however complicated, is recollected and carried on without trouble or confusion. This story is to be found in No. 148. of the Guardian; and it forms the basis of that popular romance the Monk. The following is a verbal translation from the fifth sermon of Sadi, in which, with many ingenious and applicable stories, it is, according to the oriental custom, quoted as a parable:

"It is related, that among the children of Israel there was a holy man of the name of Barsisa, who for forty years had lived apart from mankind, and detached from the world and its vain pursuits. He had spent his whole life in counting his beads, and in acts of piety, and in holding supplication and intercourse with the deity. The appetite of inordinate desire he had eradicated with the knife of self-denial, and the seed of godly zeal he had sown in the field of divine inspiration. Were you to soar into the etherial regions, till you brought the ninth heaven into your view, or penetrate into the bowels of the earth till you saw the backs of the bull and tortoise, he possessed such probity, faith, and good works, as would weary the most eloquent tongue to detail them, and commanded such praiseworthy and excellent qualifications as would puzzle the nicest fancy to unravel them. And every year many thousands of the distempered and infirm, the sickly and ailing would collect on the plain around his cell, some covered with the leprosy, and blind from the mother's womb, others hectic, dropsical, and jaundiced: the whole would lay themselves under his cell; and when the luminary of day would display his glorious countenance in the east, and the sun unfurl the standard of his splendour over the face of the globe, then would Barsisa walk forth on the terrace of his cell, breathe a single breath of blessing over them, and cure them in an instant of all their disorders. Most wonderful of works, that publicly he should have thrown open upon him the gate of such treasured benevolence, yet in secret was the arrow of separation laid on the bow of his rejection; that at first he should outwardly appear a lovely picture, yet hiddenly was a carcass mangled with the sword of disapprobation and that to the eye he seemed, alas! pure as virgin silver, yet internally was his intrinsic value debased with an

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