Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/209

 ii s. vm. SEPT. is, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

203

knew who these men were, certain also that he had timed his book for 12 Oct.. 1663, and thus knew that he was working for a general insurrection. He refused to disclose the Committee's names, and was executed in Smithfield on 24 Feb., 1664. But Brewster and Dover also knew who the members of the Committee were, and were obdurate in similar fashion. Consequently they remained in prison until they died in the following April the Great Plague probably being the cause of their deaths. The Newes for 28 April, 1664, chronicles their deaths as follows :

" Here are dead within these few days a book- seller [Brewster] and a printer [Dover], two of the three persons that were convict in February last at the sessions in the Old Bailey of printing and publishing several seditious libels. The one of them [Brewster] is said to have been attended to his grave in the Phanatiqties burying place in Bedlam by at least 3,000 people of the same stamp.

" These men might have been set at liberty by his Majesty's special grace if they would have been but so ingenuous as to have told the meaning of their own hands and papers in order to the clearer discovery of their dangerous con- federates, and in cases wherein they themselves could not pretend ignorance. But they chose rather to end their dayes in a, prison (where they did not lack anything) which to the quality of their condition might be afforded.

" As to the crime whereof they stood convict, I should not mention it but to stop their mouths that have the confidence to call that a severity which was so remarquable an act of clemency and mercy. Of which let the reader judge. It was proved to the clear satisfaction of a tender jury that they had printed the justification of the murder of the late king, affirming it to have been in these very terms ' The most noble and glorious Cause that hath been agitated for God and Christ since the Apostolical times Such a Cause that the Martyrs would gladly come again from Heaven to suffer for, if they might.' Adding, withall, an encouragement to the people to do the same thing over again to our gratious soveraign now in being. And yet, such was his Majesty's clemency, as to call this, so horrid and execrable treason in the eye of the law, but a misdemeanour in the indictment."

The cause of Brewster's popularity among the " phanatiques " is explained by the prominent part he took in Sir Henry Vane junior's campaign against Cromwell. He published all Vane's tracts, and was part owner with Livewell Chapman of a secret press in Cromwell's time for the purpose of printing Fifth Monarchy literature. Bark- stead, one of Cromwell's " Commissioners for Printing " (or " Surveyors of the Press "), gives an account of this in the Thurloe State Papers. It was, perhaps, a foregone con elusion that Brewster and the other put - iishers, Chapman and Calvert, who had "also

arrayed themselves in opposition to Crom- well, would be the very men to attack Charles II. J. B. WILI.JAMS.

(To be continued.)

ROBIN HOOD ROMANCES.

IT has been a hobby of mine from my boyhood to collect stories that introduce the character of Robin Hood, and a list of those which I now have may be of interest to some of the readers of ' N. & Q.' If any one can inform me of any others, I shall be glad ; but I do not wish for any more- that are nothing but prose versions of some- of the ballads. There are enough of that sort in the following list, and I know of some- which I do not possess. To interest me a; book must contain some original matter about the famous outlaw. All those in my list which are not in their original cloth binding are in half green calf, gilt green being the colour of the dress of the Sherwood, outlaws.

The following are in one volume, royal octavo :

1. Robin Hood and Little John, or the Merry Men of Sherwood Forest, by Pierce Egan, iik 35 numbers.

2. Little John and Will Scarlett, or the Outlaw* of Sherwood Forest, by the Forest Ranger, in 40 numbers.

3. Robin Hood and the Archers of Merrie Sherwood, by George Emmett, in 38 numbers.

4. Maid Marian and Bold Robin Hood : a Romance of the Olden Time. An unfinished story in 6 numbers, representing Robin Hood as living: at the time of the Wars of the Roses.

5. Robin Hood, by Stephen Percy, in 2 numbers- Simply the ballads in prose.

In eight volumes, duodecimo, uniformly- bound, are the following :

1. The Life and Adventures of Robin Hood,, by John B. Marsh.

2. The Boy Foresters : a Tale of the Days of Robin Hood, by Anne Bowman.

3. Robin Hood: a Tale of the Olden Time. Anonymous, 1819. Two volumes in one.

4. Maid Marian, by Thomas Love Peacock.

5. Ivanhoe : a Romance, by Sir Walter Scott,. Bart.

6. Royston Gower, or the Days of Robin Hood,, by Thomas Miller.

7. Stephan Langton, or the Days of King John,, by Martin F. Tupper.

8. Forest Days, or Robin Hood, by George Payne Rains ford James.

In one volume, octavo, are ' Maid Marian r the Forest Queen,' by J. H. Stocqueler r and ' Richard of England ; or, the Lion King,' by Thomas Archer. (In the same volume is Pierce Egan's ' Adam Bell, Clym o' the Cleugh, and William of Cloudeslie. r This does not introduce Robin Hood, but