CHAPTER X.
BEASTES.
[THIS Chapter, with the three which follow it, on “Fishes”, “Birds”, and “Reptils and Insects”, constitute a principal branch of the work. On these topics Aubrey was assisted by his friend Sir James Long, of Draycot, Bart., whose letters to him are inserted in the original manuscript. Besides the passages here given, the chapter on “Beastes” comprises some extracts from Dame Juliana Berners’ famous “Treatyse on Hawkynge, Hunting, and Fisshynge” (1481); together with a minute account of a sculptured representation of hunting the wild boar, over a Norman doorway at Little Langford Church. This bas-relief is engraved in Hoare’s Modern Wiltshire.—J. B.]
I WILL first begin with beastes of venerie, whereof there hath been great plenty in this countie, and as good as any in England. Mr. J. Speed, who wrote the description of Wiltshire, anno Domini [1611], reckons nine forests, one chace, and twenty-nine parkes.
This whole island was anciently one great forest. A stagge might have raunged from Bradon Forest to the New Forest; sc. from forest to forest, and not above four or five miles intervall (sc. from Bradon Forest to Grettenham and Clockwoods; thence to the forest by Boughwood-parke, by Calne and Pewsham Forest, Blackmore Forest, Gillingham Forest, Cranbourn Chase, Holt Forest, to the New Forest.) Most of those forests were given away by King James the First. Pewsham Forest was given to the Duke of Buckingham, who gave it, I thinke, to his brother, the Earle of Anglesey. Upon the disafforesting of it, the poor people made this rhythme:-
“When Chipnam stood in Pewsham’s wood,
Before it was destroy’d,
A cow might have gone for a groat a yeare-
but now it is denyed”.
The metre is lamentable; but the cry of the poor was more lamentable. I knew severall that did remember the going of a cowe for 4d. per annum. The order was, how many they could winter they might summer: and pigges did cost nothing the going. Now the highwayes are encombred with cottages, and the travellers with the beggars that dwell in them.
The deer of the forest of Groveley were the largest of fallow deer in England, but some doe affirm the deer of Cranborne Chase to be larger than Groveley. Quaere Mr. Francis Wroughton of Wilton concerning the weight of the deer; as also Jack Harris, now keeper of Bere Forest, can tell the weight of the best deere of Verneditch and Groveley: he uses to come to the inne at Sutton. Verneditch is in the parish of Broad Chalke. ’Tis agreed that Groveley deer were generally the heaviest; but there was one, a buck, killed at Verneditch about an°. 165-, that out-weighed Groveley by two pounds. Dr. Randal Caldicot told me that it was weighed at his house, and it weighed eight score pounds. About the yeare 1650 there were in Verneditch-walke, which is a part of Cranborne Chase, a thousand or twelve hundred fallow deere; and now, 1689, there are not above five hundred. A glover at Tysbury will give sixpence more for a buckskin of Cranborne Chase than of Groveley; and he saies that he can afford it.
Clarendon Parke was the best parke in the King’s dominions. Hunt and Palmer, keepers there, did averre that they knew seven thousand head of deere in that parke; all fallow deere. This parke was seven miles about. Here were twenty coppices, and every one a mile round.
Upon these disafforestations the marterns were utterly destroyed in North Wilts. It is a pretty little beast and of a deep chesnutt colour, a kind of polecat, lesse than a fox; and the furre is much esteemed: not much inferior to sables. It is the richest furre of our nation. Martial saies of it—
“Venator capta marte superbus adest”.—Epigr.
In Cranborn Chase and at Vernditch are some marterns still remaining.
In Wiley river are otters, and perhaps in others. The otter is our English bever; and Mr. Meredith Lloyd saies that in the river Tivy in Carmarthenshire there were real bevers heretofore—now extinct. Dr. Powell, in his History of Wales, speakes of it. They are both alike; fine furred, and their tayles like a fish. (The otter hath a hairy round tail, not like the beavers.—J. RAY.)
I come now to warrens. That at Auburn is our famous coney-warren; and the conies there are the best, sweetest, and fattest of any in England; a short, thick coney, and exceeding fatt The grasse there is very short, and burnt up in the hot weather. ’Tis a saying, that conies doe love rost-meat.
Mr. Wace’s notes, p. 62.—“We have no wild boares in England: yet it may be thought that heretofore we had, and did not think it convenient to preserve this game”. But King Charles I. sent for some out of France, and putt them in the New Forest, where they much encreased, and became terrible to the travellers. In the civill warres they were destroyed, but they have tainted all the breed of the pigges of the neighbouring partes, which are of their colour; a kind of soot colour.
(There were wild boars in a forest in Essex formerly. I sent a Portugal boar and sow to Wotton in Surrey, which greatly increased; but they digged the earth so up, and did such spoyle, that the country would not endure it: but they made incomparable bacon.—J. EVELYN.)
In warrens are found, but rarely, some old stotes, quite white: that is, they are ermins. My keeper of Vernditch warren hath shewn two or three of them to me.
At Everley is a great warren for hares; and also in Bishopston parish neer Wilton is another, where the standing is to see the race; and an°. 1682 the Right Honble James, Earle of Abingdon, made another at West Lavington.
Having done now with beastes of venerum, I will come to dogges. The British dogges were in great esteeme in the time of the Romans; as appeares by Gratius, who lived in Augustus Caesar’s time, and Oppian, who wrote about two ages after Gratius, in imitation of him. “Gratii Cynegeticon”, translated by Mr. Chr. Wace, 1654:-
“What if the Belgique current you should view,
And steer your course to Britain’s utmost shore’!
Though not for shape, and much deceiving show,
The British hounds no other blemish know:
When fierce work comes, and courage must he shown,
And Mars to extreme combat leads them on,
Then stout Molossians you will lesse commend;
With Athemaneans these in craft contend.”
It is certain that no county of England had greater variety of game, &c. than Wiltshire, and our county hounds were as good, or rather the best of England; but within this last century the breed is much mix’t with northern hounds. Sir Charles Snell, of Kington St. Michael, who was my honoured friend and neighbour, had till the civill warrs as good hounds for the hare as any were in England, for handsomenesse and mouth (deep-mouthed) and goodnesse, and suited one another admirably well. But it was the Right Hon. Philip I. Earle of Pembroke, that was the great hunter. It was in his lordship’s time, sc. tempore Jacobi I. and Caroli I. a serene calme of peace, that hunting was at its greatest heighth that ever was in this nation. The Roman governours had not, I thinke, that leisure. The Saxons were never at quiet; and the barons’ warres, and those of York and Lancaster, took up the greatest part of the time since the Conquest: so that the glory of the English hunting breath’d its last with this Earle, who deceased about 1644, and shortly after the forests and parkes were sold and converted into arable, &c. ’Twas after his lordship’s decease [1650] that I was a hunter; that is to say, with the Right Honourable William, Lord Herbert, of Cardiff, the aforesaid Philip’s grandson. Mr. Chr. Wace then taught him Latin, and hunted with him; and ’twas then that he translated Gratii Cynegeticon, and dedicated it to his lordship, which will be a lasting monument for him. Sir Jo. Denham was at Wilton at that time about a twelve moneth.
The Wiltshire greyhounds were also the best of England, and are still; and my father and I have had as good as any were in our times in Wiltshire. They are generally of a fallow colour, or black; but Mr. Button’s, of Shirburn in Glocestershire, are some white and some black. But Gratius, in his Cynegeticon, adviseth:-
“And chuse the grayhound py’d with black and white,
He runs more swift than thought, or winged flight;
But courseth yet in view, not hunts in traile,
In which the quick Petronians never faile.”
We also had in this county as good tumblers as anywhere in the nation. Martial speakes of the tumblers:-
“Non sibi sed domino venatur vertagus acer,
Illæsum leporem qui tibi dente feret”—
Turnebus, Young, Gerard, Vossius, and Janus Ulitius, all consenting that the name and dog came together from Gallia Belgica. Dr. Caldicot told me that in Wilton library there was a Latine poeme (a manuscript), wrote about Julius Caesar’s time, where was mention of tumblers, and that they were found no where but in Britaine. I ask’d him if ’twas not Gratius; he told me no. Quaere, Mr. Chr. Wace, if he remembers any such thing? The books are now most lost and gonne: perhaps ’twas Martial.
Very good horses for the coach are bought out of the teemes in our hill-countrey. Warminster market is much used upon this account.
I have not seen so many pied cattle any where as in North Wiltshire. The country hereabout is much inclined to pied cattle, but commonly the colour is black or brown, or deep red. Some cow-stealers will make a hole in a hott lofe newly drawn out of the oven, and putt it on an oxes horn for a convenient tune, and then they can turn their softned homes the contrary way, so that the owner cannot swear to his own beast. Not long before the King’s restauration a fellow was hanged at Tyburn for this, and say’d that he had never come thither if he had not heard it spoken of in a sermon. Thought he, I will try this trick.