6 INTRODUCTION. 



" Then, forester,* my friend, where is the bush 

 That we must stand and play the murtherer in ? " 



To which the forester replies, — 



" Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice ; 

 A ' stand ' where you may make the fairest shoot.'' 



And in Henry VI. Part III. Act iii. Sc. i — 



" Under this thick-grown brake we '11 shroud ourselves ; 

 For through this laund anon the deer will come ; 

 And in this covert will we make our ' stand,' 

 Culling the principal of all the deer." 



Again, in Cymbcline (Act iii. Sc. 4), " When thou hast 

 ta'en thy ' stand,' the elected deer before thee." Other 

 passages might be mentioned, but it will be sufficient 

 to refer only to The Merry Wives of Windsor (Act v. 

 Sc. 5), and to the song- in As You Like It (Act iv. 

 Sc. 2), commencing " What shall he have that kill'd the 

 deer ?" 



Deer-stealing in Shakespeare's day was regarded only as 

 a youthful frolic. Antony Wood (■' Athen. Oxon." i. 371), 

 speaking of Dr. John Thornborough, who was admitted a 

 member of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1570, at the age 



* ' ' A forester is an officer of the forest sworn to preserve the vert and venison 

 therein, and to attend the wild beasts within his bailiwick, and to watch and 

 endeavour to keep them safe, by day and night. He is likewise to apprehend all 

 offenders in vert and venison, and to present them to the Courts of the Forest, to the 

 end they may be punished according to their offences." — The Gentleman' s Recrea- 

 tion. 1686. 



