INTRODUCTION. 7 



of eighteen, and who was successively Bishop of Limerick 

 and Bishop of Bristol and Worcester, informs us, that he 

 and his kinsman, Robert Pinkney, " seldom studied or 

 gave themselves to their books, but spent their time 

 in the fencing schools, and dancing schools, in stealing 

 deer and conies, in hunting the hare and wooing girls." 



Shakespeare himself has been accused of this indiscre- 

 tion. The story is first told in print by Rowe, in his " Life 

 of Shakespeare " : — "He had, by a misfortune common 

 enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company, and 

 amongst them some that made a frequent practice of 

 deer-stealing engaged him more than once in robbing a 

 park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, 

 near Stratford. For this he was prosecuted by that 

 gentleman, as he thought somewhat too severely ; and in 

 order to revenge that ill-usage, he made a ballad upon 

 him. And though this, probably the first essay of his 

 poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very bitter, 

 that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that 

 degree, that he was obliged to leave his business and 

 family in Warwickshire, for some time, and shelter him- 

 self in London." 



Mr. Staunton, in his library edition of Shakespeare's 

 Plays, says : " What degree of authenticity the story-pos- 

 sesses will never probably be known. Rowe derived his 

 version of it no doubt through Betterton ; but Davies 

 makes no allusion to. the source from which he drew his 



