writer against stage-plays, in 1599), " is necessarie, I graunt, and thinke as necessarie for scholars, that are scholars in deede, as it is for any.

Yet in my opinion it were not fit for them to play at stoole-ball among wenches, nor at chance or maw with idle loose companions, nor at trunkes in guile-hals, nor to danse about May-poles, nor to rifle [ruffle] in alehouses, nor to carouse in tavernes, nor to steale deere, nor to rob orchards." In like manner, Antony Wood, speaking of Dr. John Thornborough, who was admitted a member of Magdalen College in Oxford, in 1570, at the age of eighteen, and was successively bishop of Limerick in Ireland, and bishop of Bristol and Worcester in England, informs us, that he and his kinsman, Robert Pinkney, "seldom studied or gave themselves to their books; but," (as is related by Simon Forman, then a poor scholar of the same college, who was chiefly maintained by their bounty, and with whom they frequently associated), "spent their time in the fencingschools and dancing-schools, in stealing deer and conies, in hunting the hare, and wooing girls 1.” At the time here referred to, Thornborough was a bachelor of arts, and twenty-two years old.

The following quibbling verses also, written by a contemporary of our poet, afford another testimony to the same point:

8 The Overthrow of Stage Plaies, 4to. 1599, p. 23.

9 Afterwards the celebrated astrologer, who died in 1613. Probably, the passage quoted by Wood is found in one of Forman's MSS. in the Ashmole Museum, in Oxford.

Athen. Oxon. i. 371.

"ON DEARE-STEALING.

"Some colts, (wild-youngsters,) that ne'er broken were,
"Hold it a doughty deed to steal a deare:

"If cleanly they come off, they feast anon:

"And say their pray is good fat venison;

"If otherwise, by them it doth appeare,

"That that which they have stollen, then is deare "."

It is clear, therefore, that this kind of trespass, even were it justly imputable to Shakspeare, would

2 Wit's Bedlam, Ep. 93, 8vo. 1617. Written by John Davies, of Hereford, as appears from a passage in which the author says he was a native of that town, and a writing-master. That this kind of juvenile frolick was generally unconnected with any lucrative motive, may also be inferred from the following verses, by the same author, in his Scourge of Folly, without date, but published about the year 1611:

"Of Drusus his deere-hunting.

"Drusus in stealing of a deere was kill'd,
"So dyed, ere he had his belly fill'd ;
"Thus, like a flea, in seeking but for food,

"Ere he was full, he lost his life and blood."

How very common the practice of stealing deer formerly was, may further appear from the following verses of Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, which was written at some time between 1614 and 1620. He is describing his fare at an inn, at Flower, in Northamptonshire, about three miles from Daventry:

"Now whether it were providence or luck,
"Whether the keeper's, or the stealer's buck,

"There we had venison." Poems, p. 2, edit. 1672. To the same purpose may be cited the following passage in Fuller's Worthies (Lincolnshire, 102), which shows manifestly how common deer-stealing continued to be, even to his time [1658]:

not leave any very deep stain on his character; being, in his time, considered merely as a playful "trick of youth." Let us now examine the ground on which he has been charged with it.

From Mr. Davies's account of this transaction, it should seem that he either thought the trespass, which, according to him, consisted in purloining not only venison, but rabbits, was committed at so early a period of life, that Sir Thomas Lucy could, with propriety, punish the youthful trespassers by corporal chastisement; or, supposing them to have been adult, that the law inflicted such a punishment. The former of these suppositions, I have already shown to be highly improbable; and the other is equally erroBy the statute 5 Eliz. ch. 213, it was

neous.

"I will insert [says he], a letter of Lady Elizabeth, written to him [Peregrine Bertie] with her own hand; and, Reader, deale in matters of this nature, as when venison is set before thee, eat the one, and read the other, never asking whence either came."

3 This act was certainly considered an important one, for I find the bill on which it was founded was either brought in by Mr. Comptroller of her Majesty's household [Sir Edward Rogers], or committed to him and others; and when it passed the Commons, it was carried up to the Lords, by Mr. Secretary Cecil, afterwards Lord Burghley. Com. Journ. i. 64-68, compared with D'Ewes, 83.

It appears to have been much contested in its progress; and in the different stages of the bill to have assumed different shapes and titles:

"Jovis. Jan. 24, 1562-3.

"The bill [for breaking of ponds, and stealing fish and coneys]." Com. Journ. 1. 63.

"Merc. 3. Feb.

"The bill for robbing of ponds, and stealing of coneys, to be felony. Mr. Comptroller." Com. Journ. 1. 64.

enacted, that if any person, by night or day, break into or wrongfully enter any park, or other ground,

It is afterwards called "The bill for punishment of unlawful taking of fish, conies, or deer, out of parks and enclosed grounds." It was engrossed on the 25th of February. The House divided on it, on the 8th of March, and it was carried to the Lords on the 11th, under the title of "A Bill to prevent the stealing of fish, deer, or hawks; " the article of conies having, in the progress of the bill, been omitted, and the punishment of felony,. which was originally proposed, changed to that mentioned in the On the 29th of March, an additional clause or proviso to this bill was brought from the Lords, and there was a division on that proviso, on the 31st of the same month. Com. Journ. i. 71. This proviso was, without doubt, the second in the Act, which enables the party aggrieved, on certain conditions, to release the offender from his recognizance for his good behaviour.

text.

Thus, we find, this bill was above two months in its progress to a law, and the session lasted but three; from the 12th of January to the 10th of the following April.

By a former statute, made about twenty years before, 32 Hen. VIII. ch. 2. (to which this reasonable preamble is prefixed, "Forasmuch as justice and equity requireth that every inheritor and possessor of manors, lands, or tenements, within the realme of England should, according to their estates or possessions, peaceably and quietly have, take, and enjoy the profits, revenues and commodities of the same, as well in things of pleasure, as in things commonly valuable, without injury, rapine, or other extort wrong to be committed or done to any of them within or upon the same-"), it was enacted, that if any person, with his face hid with hood or visor, or with painted face, or otherwise disguised, to the intent he should not be known, should steal deer or conies, in the day-time, in a lawful park or warren; or if any person should steal deer or conies, in a lawful park or warren, in the night-time, he should be adjudged guilty of felony of death. But this severe act subsisted but seven years, being repealed by 1 Edward VI. c. 12. Afterwards, it was revived for three years, by 3 & 4 Edward VI. c. 17; again, by the 7th of the same King, c. 11; and once more finally repealed by

enclosed and used for keeping deer, before the making of this statute, or afterwards enclosed, by licence of the Queen, and hunt, drive out, hurt, or kill, any deer there, he shall, on conviction, pay to the party aggrieved treble damages, be imprisoned for three months, and, after the expiration of that time, find security for his good abearing for seven years; the party aggrieved, however, is empowered, at any time within the seven years, or before, to release, at his pleasure, the said suretyship for good behaviour, the offender having first satisfied him in damages, and confessed his fault before the justices in open session. Corporal correction, therefore, we see, was no part of the punishment appropriated by law to this

offence.

The penalties of the act of Elizabeth were founded on a former law, repealed some years before, by which this offence, in certain cases, was made felony. If Shakspeare had been indicted on the statute of Elizabeth, he undoubtedly could easily have found the security required; nor could there have been any difficulty in making a compensation for the damage. done; but he could not so easily commute the imprisonment of his person. Without, however, in

1 Mar. sess. 1. c. i. Hence, however, it was, that when the bill was brought in first, in 1562-3, it was proposed to make the offence felony, and the stealing of conies as criminal as the stealing of deer.

In the parliament which met in the 14th year of Elizabeth, in which Sir Thomas Lucy was not a member, another ineffectual attempt was made to punish the destroyers of rabbits:

"May 20, 1572. The Bill against hunting, and killing of conies, the first reading, and rejected.". Com. Journ. 1. 96.