Robin and Maid Marian are, of course, characters no whit less idealized than the shepherds, though the process was largely effected by popular tradition instead of by the author.  But this being so, such characters as Much and Scathlock must be no less incongruous with Robin and Marian than with Karol and Amie—­a proportion which those who love the old Sherwood tradition would be loath to admit.  In any case the incongruity, if it exists, is not of Jonson’s devising, but consecrated for ages in the popular mind.  The truth is, however, that Much and Little John, Scathlock and Scarlet are, in spite of their more homely speech and humour, scarcely less idealized than any of the other characters I have mentioned.  That Jonson has even sought to tone down such harshness of contrast as he found is noticeable in his treatment of a recognized figure of burlesque like Friar Tuck, who is throughout portrayed with decorum and respect.

Lastly, to come to the third group of characters.  If it was impossible for an English audience to regard as burlesque such popular and sympathetic characters as Robin and his merry men, so a malignant witch and a mischievous elf were far too serious agents of ill to be treated in this light either.  Characters whose unholy powers would have fitted them for death at the stake can scarcely have been regarded even by the rude audiences of pre-restoration London as fitting subjects of farce, while there is nothing to lead us to suppose that Jonson, whatever his private opinion on the subject may have been, sought in the present instance to cast ridicule upon the belief in witches, but rather it is evident that he laid hands upon everything that could give colour to their sinister reputation.  On the other hand, he has treated the whole subject with an imaginative touch which relieves us of all tragic or moral apprehension, removes all the squalid and unblessed surroundings into the region of romantic art, and makes it impossible to regard the characters as less idealized than those of the shepherds and huntsmen.  I cannot myself but regard the elements of witchcraft and fairy employed by Jonson as far more in harmony not only with Robin Hood and his men, but also with the shepherds of Belvoir vale, than would have been the oracles, satyrs, and other outworn machinery of regular pastoral tradition.

There remains the rusticity of language which distinguishes some of the ruder characters from others more refined.  That some contrast between the groups was intended is indisputable, that the contrast is rather harsher than the author intended may be plausibly maintained.  There is, on the whole, a lack of graduation.  Into the question of dialectism in general it is needless to enter.  The speech employed would be inoffensive, were it not that it is, and is felt to be, no genuine dialect at all, but a mere literary convention, a mixture of broad Yorkshire and Lothian Scots, not only utterly out of place in Sherwood forest, but such