Here is the text from the Rowe Shakespeare edition
of 1709
He had, by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company; and amongst them, some made a frequent practice of deer-stealing, engaged him with them 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 tho 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 himself in London. So Rowe maintains There seems to be only anecdotal evidence for any of this. We cannot
even be sure Shakespeare was hauled up in front of Thomas Lucy. But the
story persists partly because the Lucy family accrued benefits from it. |
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