Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452, page 29 by Various Authors
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acts, by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, now in course of publication. Mr Hunter is an assistant-keeper of the public records, and is well known, by his other publications, as one of the most laborious and most judicious elucidators of mysterious passages in our national history. But the evidences of industry, of minute knowledge, and of logical acuteness, contained in his little treatise concerning 'the ballad-hero, Robin Hood,' are really surprising. The story of an obscure outlaw, who chased deer and took purses in a northern forest five hundred years ago, has been investigated with the painstaking sagacity of a Niebuhr; and a strong light has been unexpectedly thrown on the state of public sentiment and manners existing at that period. Mr Hunter, it is proper to say, dwells in his treatise chiefly upon results, and says little, and that very modestly, of the labours by which they were obtained. He even seems to fear that his subject may be considered trivial, and that he may possibly receive 'the censure of being one who busies himself with the mere playthings of antiquity.' Dr Percy, when he compiled his invaluable Reliques, had similar apprehensions, which were then not altogether groundless; but it may reasonably be hoped, that the race of pedants, who wondered how a man of learning could be interested in a bundle of old ballads, is now extinct.
Departing a little from the method and order observed by Mr Hunter in his tract, we will endeavour not only to state in a condensed form the remarkable conclusions at which he has arrived, but also to follow, as accurately as his references will enable us to do so, the ingenious processes of investigation which led to these results. The object of the inquiry was to determine, in the first place, whether such a person as Robin Hood ever existed; and, in the second place, to ascertain who and what he was, and to what extent the ballads of which he was the hero were based upon actual occurrences. What a vast amount of uncertainty there was to clear up, may be infe