Note 199 — ROBIN HOOD. Part I.

This saint is also mentioned by Chaucer in the Sompnour’s tale; by Spenser, in his 5th eclogue; in the Downfall of Robert Earl of Hun­ting­ton, 1601; and in one of Ophelia’s songs in Hamlet. (See a note upon this last passage in the edition of 1793, vol. xv. p. 163.) Mr. Steevens’s assertion that “Saint Charity is a known saint among the Roman Catholics,” may be supported by infallible authority. “We read,” says Dr. Douglas, “in the Martyrology on the first of August—Romæ passio sanctarum virginum, Fidei, Spei, et Charitatis, quæ sub Hadriano principe martyris coronam adeptæ sunt” (Criterion, p. 68). Pierre Nadal, commonly called Petrus de Natalibus, in his Catalogus Sanctorum, has given the history of the saints Faith, Hope, and Charity, the daughters of St. Sophia (or Wisdom). Nothing can be too absurd for superstition.