Before, however, proceeding to discuss the issue raised by Mr. Swinburne, it will be well to clear up certain minor misapprehensions.  In the first place Mr. Homer Smith states that Jonson ’wove together the two threads, pastoral and forest, apparently regarding them of equal importance and seeing no incongruity in the combination.’  In so far as this may be taken to imply a necessary incompatibility of the traditions of field and forest, it is of course utterly opposed to the whole history of pastoral tradition.  Tasso’s Silvia and Guarini’s Silvio alike are silvan not in name only, but are truly figures of the woods, hunters of the wolf and boar; while the same distinction survives in a modified form in Daniel’s Hymen’s Triumph, in which the ruder characters, Montanus and the rest, are described as foresters.  The contrast appears sharply in the Maid’s Metamorphosis in the characters of Silvio and Gemulo; more faintly indicated by Randolph in Laurinda’s lovers, of whom one frequents the woods and one the plains.  The pastoral and forest traditions are in their essence and history indistinguishable.[288] Probably, however, what the writer had in view was some supposed incongruity between the characters of popular romance, such as Robin and his crew, and the shepherds whom he regards as pure Arcadians.  This is the same objection as that raised by Mr. Swinburne, to which I shall return.

Another point which has been somewhat obscured by previous writers is the comparative importance of the two threads.  Thus, again to quote Mr. Homer Smith, it has been held that ’In general the pastoral incidents serve as an underplot, utterly foreign in spirit to the main plot.’  Against this view that the pastoral is, intentionally at least, the subsidiary element, the title itself is a strong argument—­’The Sad Shepherd:  A Tale of Robin Hood.’  Clearly the first title would naturally indicate the main subject of the plot, and the vague addition suggest, the surroundings amid which the action is laid.  This is a consideration which no amount of stichometrical argument can seriously discount, especially in the case of a fragment.  The same view is borne out by the plot itself so far as it is known to us.  In Aeglamour’s despair at the supposed loss of his love we have a situation already familiar from at least two English pastorals, Hymen’s Triumph and Rutter’s Shepherds’ Holiday; while in the detention of Earine in the power of the witch we have the material for an exciting and touching development.  Where else can we look for the elements of a plot?  The only possible alternative lies in the dissensions sown by Maudlin between Robin and his love Maid Marian.  Here indeed we find the materials for some excellent comedy, and the instinctive sympathy excited by the characters in the breast of every Englishman, as well as the exquisite charm and grace imparted to the forest scenes by Jonson’s verse, have undoubtedly combined