8 INTRODUCTION. 



information, and we are left to grope our way, so far as 

 this important incident is concerned, mainly by the light 

 of collateral circumstances. These, it must be admitted, 

 serve in some respects to confirm the tradition. Shake- 

 speare certainly quitted Stratford-upon-Avon when a young 

 man, and it could have been no ordinary impulse which 

 drove him to leave wife, children, friends, and occupa- 

 tion, to take up his abode among strangers in a distant 

 place. 



" Then there is the pasquinade, and the unmistakable 

 identification of Sir Thomas Lucy as Justice Shallow, 

 in the Second Part of Henry IV., and in the opening 

 scene of The Merry Wives of Windsor. The genuine- 

 ness of the former may be doubted ; but the ridicule 

 in the Plays betokens a latent hostility to the Lucy 

 family, which is unaccountable, except upon the 

 supposition that the deerstealing foray is founded on 

 facts." 



The more legitimate sport in killing deer was by means 

 of blood-hounds, and in The Midsummer Night's Dream 

 we are furnished with an accurate description of the dogs 

 in most repute : — 



" My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, 

 So flew'd, so sanded ; and their heads are hung 

 With ears that sweep away the morning dew ; 

 Crook-knee'd, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls ; 

 Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells, 



