long to the
higher class of people. That Robert was an ordinary Christian name
requires no proof; and if it was, the combination of Robert Hood must
have been frequent also. We have taken no extraordinary pains to hunt
up this combination, for really the matter is altogether too trivial
to justify the expense of time; but since to some minds much may
depend on the coincidence in question, we will cite several Robin
Hoods in the reigns of the Edwards.

28th Ed. I. Robert Hood, a citizen of London, says Mr. Hunter,
supplied the king's household with beer.

30th Ed. I. Robert Hood is sued for three acres of pasture land in
Throckley, Northumberland. (_Rot. Orig. Abbrev._)

7th Ed. II. Robert Hood is surety for a burgess returned for
Lostwithiel, Cornwall. (_Parliamentary Writs_.)

9th Ed. II. Robert Hood is a citizen of Wakefield, Yorkshire, whom Mr.
Hunter (p. 47) "may be justly charged with carrying supposition too
far" in striving to identify with Robin the porter.

10th Ed. III. A Robert Hood, of Howden, York, is mentioned in the
_Calendarium Rot. Patent_.

Adding the Robin Hood of the 17th Ed. II. we have six persons of that
name mentioned within a period of less than forty years, and this
circumstance does not dispose us to receive with great favor any
argument that may be founded upon one individual case of its
occurrence. But there is no end to the absurdities which flow from
this supposition. We are to believe that the weak and timid prince,
that had severely punished his kinsman and his nobles, freely pardoned
a yeoman, who, after serving with the rebels, had for twenty months
made free with the king's deer and robbed on the highway,--and not
only pardoned him, but received him into service _near his
person_. We are further to believe that the man who had led so
daring and jovial a life, and had so generously dispensed the pillage
of opulent monks, willingly entered into this service, doffed his
Lincoln green for the Plantagenet plush, and _consented_ to be
enrolled among royal flunkies for three pence a day. And again,
admitting all this, we are finally obliged by Mr. Hunter's document to
concede that the stalworth archer (who, according to the ballad,
maintained himself two-and-twenty years in the wood) was worn out by
his duties as "proud porter" in less than two years, and was
discharged a superannuated lackey, with five shillings in his pocket,
_"poar cas qil ne poait pluis travailler"!_

To those