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 
