"Sir Charles. So; well cast off; aloft, aloft; well flown.
O, now she takes her at the sowse, and strikes her down
To th' earth, like a swift thunder clap.—
Now she hath seized the fowl, and 'gins to plume her,
Rebeck her not; rather stand still and check her.
So: seize her gets, her jesses, and her bells;
Away.
Sir Francis. My hawk kill'd too!
Sir Charles. Aye, but 'twas at the querre,
Not at the mount, like mine.
Sir Fran. Judgment, my masters.
Cranwell. Your's miss'd her at the ferre.[269:A]
Wendoll. Aye, but our Merlin first had plumed the fowl,
And twice renew'd her from the river too;
Her bells, Sir Francis, had not both one weight,
Nor was one semi-tune above the other:
Methinks these Milain bells do sound too full,
And spoil the mounting of your hawk.—
Sir Fran. —— Mine likewise seized a fowl
Within her talons; and you saw her paws
Full of the feathers: both her petty singles,
And her long singles griped her more than other;
The terrials of her legs were stained with blood:
Not of the fowl only, she did discomfit
Some of her feathers; but she brake away."[270:A]

To hawking and the language of falconry, Shakspeare, as we have previously observed, has frequently had recourse, and he has selected the terms with his wonted propriety and effect; of this five or six instances will be adequate proof. Othello, in allusion to Desdemona, exclaims:

————— "If I do prove her haggard,
Though that jesses were my dear heart-strings,
I'd whistle her off, and let her down the wind,
To prey at fortune."[270:B]

A haggard is a species of hawk wild and difficult to be reclaimed, and which, if not well trained, flies indiscriminately at every bird; a fault to which Shakspeare again refers in his Twelfth Night, where Viola tells the Clown that

"He must observe their mood on whom he jests—
And, like the haggard, check at every feather
That comes before his eye."[270:C]

The phrase to whistle off will be best explained by a simile in Burton, which opens his chapter on Air. "As a long-winged hawk when he is first whistled off the fist, mounts aloft, and for his pleasure fetcheth many a circuit in the air, still soaring higher and higher, till he be come to his full pitch, and in the end when the game is sprung, comes down amain, and stoops upon a sudden."[270:D] To let a hawk down the wind, was to dismiss it as worthless.

Petruchio, soliloquising on the means which he had adopted, in order to tame his termagant bride, says emphatically,

"My falcon now is sharp, and passing empty;
And, till she stoop, she must not be full-gorged,
For then she never looks upon her lure.
Another way I have to man my haggard,
To make her come, and know her keeper's call,
That is,—to watch her, as we watch these kites,
That bate, and beat, and will not be obedient."[271:A]

To bate in this passage means to flutter or beat the wings, as striving to fly away, and is metaphorically used in the following address of Juliet to the night:

———————— "Come, civil night,——
Hood my unmann'd blood bating in my cheeks,
With thy black mantle."[271:B]

The same tragedy furnishes us with another obligation to falconry, where the love-sick maiden recalls Romeo in these terms:

"Hist! Romeo, hist!——O, for a falconer's voice
To lure this tassel-gentle back again."[271:C]

Falstaff's page in the Merry Wives of Windsor is appositely compared to the eyas-musket, an unfledged hawk of the smallest species:

"Mrs. Ford. How now, my eyas-musket? What news with you?"[271:D]

Eyas-musket, remarks Mr. Steevens, is the same as infant Lilliputian, and he subjoins an illustrative passage from Spenser:

———— "youthful gay,
Like eyas-hawke, up mounts into the skies,
His newly budded pinions to essay."[271:E]

If the commencement of the seventeenth century, saw Hawking the most splendid and prevalent amusement of the nobility and gentry, the close had to witness its decline and abolition; it gave way to a more sure and expeditious, though, perhaps, less interesting mode of killing game, and the adoption of the gun had, before the year 1700, almost entirely banished the art of the Falconer.

The costume of the next great amusement of the country, that of Hunting, differs at present in few essential points from what it was in the sixteenth century. The chief variations may be included in the disuse of killing game in inclosures, and in the adoption of more speed, and less fatigue and stratagem in the open chace; or in other words, it is the strength and speed of the fleet blood-horse, and not of the athletic and active huntsman, or old steady-paced hunter, that now decide the sport. "In the modern chace," observes Mr Haslewood, "the lithsomness of youth is no longer excited to pursue the animals. Attendant footmen are discontinued and forgotten; while the active and eager rustic with a hunting pole, wont to be foremost, has long forsaken the field, nor is there a trace of the character known, except in a country of deep clay, as parts of Sussex. Few years will pass ere the old steady paced English hunter and the gabbling beagle will be equally obsolete. All the sport now consists of speed. A hare is hurried to death by dwarf fox-hounds, and a leash murdered in a shorter period than a single one could generally struggle for existence. The hunter boasts a cross of blood, or, in plainer phrase, a racer, sufficiently professed to render a country sweepstakes doubtful. This variation is by no means an improvement, and can only advantage the plethoric citizen, who seeks to combat the somnolency arising from civic festivals by a short and sudden excess of exercise."[272:A]

The mode of hunting, indeed, in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, still continued an emblem of, and a fit preparation for, the fatigues of war; nor was it unusual to consider the toils of the chace as initiatory to those of the camp. "The old Lord Gray, our English Achilles," says Peacham, "when hee was Deputie of Ireland, to inure his sonnes for the warre, would usually in the depth of winter, in frost, snow, raine, and what weather so ever fell, cause them at midnight to be raised out of their beds, and carried abroad on hunting till the next morning; then perhaps come wet and cold home, having for a breakefast, a browne loafe and a mouldie cheese, or (which is ten times worse) a dish of Irish butter[273:A];" and Dekkar, in his praise of hunting, remarks, that "it is a very true picture of warre, nay, it is a warre in itselfe, for engines are brought into the field, stratagems are contrived, ambushes are laide, onsets are given, alarams strucke up, brave encounters are made, fierce assailings are resisted by strength, by courage, or by policie: the enemie is pursued, and the pursuers never give over till they have him in execution, then is a retreate sounded, then are spoiles divided, then come they home wearied, but yet crowned with honour and victorie. And as in battailes, there bee several manners of fight; so in the pastime of hunting, there are several degrees of game. Some hunt the lyon, &c.—others pursue the long-lived hart, the couragious stag, or the nimble footed deere; these are the noblest hunters, and they exercise the noblest game: these by following the chace, get strength of bodie, a free, and undisquieted minde, magnanimitie of spirit, alacritie of heart, and unwearisomnesse to breake through the hardest labours: their pleasures are not insatiable, but are contented to be kept within limits, for these hunt within parkes inclosed, or within bounded forests. The hunting of the hare teaches feare to be bold, and puts simplicitie to her shifts, that she growes cunning and provident; &c."[273:B]

Hunting in inclosures, that is, in parks, chases, and forests, where the game was inclosed with a fence-work of netting stretched on posts driven into the ground, appears to have been the custom of this country from the time of Edward the Second to the middle of the seventeenth century. The manuscript treatise of William Twici, grand huntsman to Edward the Second, entitled Le Art De Venerie, le quel maistre Guillame Twici venour le roy d'Angleterre fist en son temps per aprandre Autres[274:A]; the nearly contemporary manuscript translation of John Gyfford, with the title of A book of Venerie, dialogue[274:B] wise; the tract called The Maistre of the Game[274:C], in manuscript also, and written by the chief huntsman of Henry the Fourth, for the instruction of his son, afterwards Henry the Fifth; the Book of St. Albans, the first printed treatise on the subject, and written by the sister of Lord Berners, when prioress at the nunnery of Sopewell, about 1481; the tract on the Noble Art of Venerie, annexed to Turberville on Falconrie 1575, and supposed to have been written by George Gascoigne, and the re-impression of the same in 1611, all describe the ceremonies and preparations necessary for the pursuit of this, now obsolete, mode of hunting, which, from its luxury and effeminacy, forms a perfect contrast to the manly fatigues of the open chace.

This style of hunting, indeed, exhibited great splendour and pomp, and was certainly a very imposing spectacle; but the slaughter must have been easy and great, and the sport therefore proportionally less interesting. When the king, the great barons, or dignified clergy, selected this mode of the diversion, in which either bows or greyhounds were used, the masters of the game and the park-keepers prepared all things essential for the purpose; and, if it were a royal hunt, the sheriff of the county furnished stabling for the king's horses, and carts for the dead game. A number of temporary buildings, covered with green boughs, to shade the company from the heat of the sun or bad weather, were erected by the foresters in a proper situation, and on the morning of the day chosen for the sport, the master of the game and his officers saw the greyhounds duly placed, and a person appointed to announce, by the different intonations of his horn the species of game turned out, so that the company might be prepared for its reception when it broke cover.

The enclosure being guarded by officers or retainers, placed at equal distances, to prevent the multitude prematurely rousing the game, the grand huntsman, as soon as the king, nobility, or gentry had taken their respective stations, sounded three long mootes or blasts with the horn, as a signal for the uncoupling of the hart-hounds, when the game, driven by the manœuvres of the huntsman, passed the lodges where the company were waiting, and were either shot from their bows, or individuals, starting from the groupe, pursued the deer with greyhounds.[275:A]

We find, from the poems of Gascoigne and Turberville, as they appear in their Book of Hunting of 1575, that every accommodation which beautiful scenery and epicurean fare could produce, was thought essential to this branch of the sport. Turberville, describing the scene chosen for the company to take their stations, says—

"The place should first be pight, on pleasant gladsome greene,
Yet under shade of stately trees, where little sunne is seene:
And neare some fountaine spring, whose chrystall running streames
May helpe to coole the parching heate, ycaught by Phœbus beames.
The place appoynted thus, it neyther shall be clad
With arras nor with tapystry, such paltrie were too bad:
Ne yet those hote perfumes, whereof proude courtes do smell,
May once presume in such a place, or paradise to dwell.
Away with fayned fresh, as broken boughes or leaves,
Away, away, with forced flowers, ygathered from their greaves:
This place must of itselfe, afforde such sweet delight,
And eke such shewe, as better may content the greedie sight;
Where sundry sortes of hewes, which growe upon the ground,
May seeme, indeede, such tapystry, as we by arte, have found.
Where fresh and fragrant flowers, may skorne the courtier's cost,
Which daubes himselfe with syvet, muske, and many an ointment lost,
Where sweetest singing byrdes, may make such melodye,
As Pan, nor yet Apollo's arte, can sounde such harmonye.
Where breath of westerne windes, may calmely yeld content,
Where casements neede not opened be, where air is never pent.
Where shade may serve for shryne, and yet the sunne at hande,
Where beautie need not quake for colde, ne yet with sunne be tande.
In fine and to conclude, where pleasure dwels at large,
Which princes seeke in pallaces, with payne and costly charge.
Then such a place once founde, the Butler first appeares,—
Then comes the captaine Cooke"—

These gentlemen of the household, it seems, came well provided; the farmer, with wines and ales "in bottles and in barrels," and the latter with colde loynes of veale, colde capon, beefe and goose, pigeon pyes, mutton colde, neates tongs poudred well, gambones of the hogge, saulsages and savery knackes.[276:A]

Of the stag-chace in the open country, and of the ceremonies and costume attending it, at the castellated mansions of the Baron and opulent Squire, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a tolerably accurate idea may be formed from the following statement, drawn up from the ancient writers on the subject, and from the works of the ingenious antiquary Strutt.

The inhabitants of the castle, and the hunters, were usually awakened very early in the morning by the lively sounding of the bugles, after which it was not unusual for two or more minstrels to sing an appropriate roundelay, beneath the windows of the master of the mansion, accompanied by the deep and mellow chorus of the attending rangers and falconers. Shakspeare alludes to a song of this kind in his Romeo and Juliet[276:B], which has been preserved entire by Thomas Ravenscroft[276:C], and commences thus:—

"The hunt is up, the hunt is up,
Sing merrily wee, the hunt is up;
The birds they sing,
The deere they fling;
Hey nony nony-no; &c."

The Yeoman Keepers, with their attendants, called Ragged Robins, to the number of ten or twelve, next made their appearance, leading the slow-hounds or brachets, by which the deer were roused. These men were usually dressed in Kendal green, with bugles and short hangers by their sides, and quarter-staffs in their hands, and were followed by the foresters with a number of greyhounds led in leashes for the purpose of plucking down the game.

This assemblage in the Court of the castle was soon augmented by a number of Retainers, or Yeomen who received a small annual pension for attendance on these occasions; they wore a livery, with the cognisance of the house to which they belonged, borne, as a badge of adherence, on their arms, and each man had a buckler on his shoulder, and a burnished broad sword hanging from his belt. Shortly afterwards appeared the pages and squires in hunting garbs on horse-back and on foot, and armed with spears and long and cross bows; and lastly the Baron, his friends, and the ladies.

The company thus completed, were conducted by the huntsmen to a thicket, in which, they knew, by previous observation, that a stag had been harboured all night. Into this cover the keeper entered, leading his ban-dog (a blood-hound tied in a leam or band), and as soon as the stag abandoned it, the greyhounds were slipped upon him; these, however, after running two or three miles, he usually threw out, by again entering cover, when the slow-hounds and prickers were sent in, to drive him from his strength. The poor animal now traverses the country for several miles, and after using every effort and manœuvre in vain, exhausted and breathless, his mouth embossed with foam, and the tears dropping from his eyes, he turns in despair upon his pursuers, and in this situation the boldest hunter of the train generally rides in, and, at some risque, dispatches him with a short hunting-sword. The treble-mort is then sounded, accompanied by the shouts of the men and the yelping of the dogs, and the huntsman ceremoniously presents his knife to the master of the chase, in order that he may take, as it is termed, the say of the deer.[278:A]

The danger which the ancient hunter incurred, on dealing the death stroke to the stag when he turned to bay, is strikingly exemplified by an incident in the life of Wilson the historian, during the time he formed a part of the household of the Earl of Essex, in the reign of Elizabeth.

"Sir Peter Lee, of Lime, in Cheshire, invited my lord one summer, to hunt the stagg. And having a great stagg in chace, and many gentlemen in the pursuit, the stagg took soyle. And divers, whereof I was one, alighted, and stood with swords drawne, to have a cut at him, at his coming out of the water. The staggs there, being wonderfully fierce and dangerous, made us youths more eager to be at him. But he escaped us all. And it was my misfortune to be hindered of my coming nere him, the way being sliperie, by a fall; which gave occasion to some, who did not know mee, to speak as if I had falne for feare. Which being told me, I left the stagg, and followed the gentleman who first spake it. But I found him of that cold temper, that it seems his words made an escape from him; as by his denial and repentance it appeared. But this made mee more violent in pursuit of the stagg, to recover my reputation. And I happened to be the only horseman in, when the dogs sett him up at bay; and approaching nere him on horsebacke, hee broke through the dogs, and run at mee, and tore my horse's side with his hornes, close by my thigh. Then I quitted my horse, and grew more cunning (for the dogs had sette him up againe), stealing behind him with my sword, and cut his hamstrings; and then got upon his back, and cut his throate."[280:A]

A still more difficult and gallant feat, however, of this kind, was performed by John Selwyn, the under-keeper of Queen Elizabeth, who, one day, animated by the presence of his royal mistress, at a chase, in her park of Oatlands, pursued the stag with such activity, that, overtaking it, he sprung from his horse on the animal; when, after most skilfully maintaining his seat for some time, he drew his hunting-sword, and, just as he reached the green, plunged it in the throat of the stag, which immediately dropped down dead at the feet of Elizabeth; an achievement which is sculptured on his monument in Walton church, Surrey, where he is represented in the very act of killing the infuriated beast.[280:B]

The taking the say of, and the breaking up, the deer, were formerly attended with many ceremonies and superstitions.[280:C] "Touching the death of a deare, or other wylde beast," says a writer of the sixteenth century, "yee knowe your selves what ceremonies they use about the same. Every poore man may cut out an oxe, or a sheepe, whereas such venison may not be dismembered but of a gentylman; who bareheadded, and set on knees, with a knife prepared properly to that use, (for every kynde of knife is not allowable) also with certain jestures, cuttes a sunder certaine partes of the wild beast, in a certain order very circumstantly. Which holy misterie, having seen the lyke yet more than a hundred tymes before. Then (sir) whose happe it bee to eate parte of the fleshe, marye hee thinkes verily to bee made thereby halfe a gentilman."[281:A]

After the process of dismemberment, and the selection of choice pieces, the forester, the keeper, and the hounds had their allotted share, and superstition granted even a portion to the ominous raven. "There is a little gristle," relates Turberville, "which is upon the spoone of the brisket, which we call the raven's bone; and I have seen in some places a raven so wont and accustomed to it, that she would never fail to croak and cry for it all the time you were in breaking up of the deer, and would not depart till she had it."

Of this superstitious observance Jonson has given us a pleasing sketch, in the most poetical of his works, the Sad Shepherd:—

"Marian. —————— He that undoes him,
Doth cleave the brisket bone upon the spoon,
Of which a little gristle grows——you call it—
Robin Hood. The raven's bone.
Marian. —————— Now o'er head sat a raven
On a sere bough, a grown, great bird and hoarse,
Who, all the time the deer was breaking up,
So croaked and cried for it, as all the huntsmen,
Especially old Scathlocke, thought it ominous!"[281:B]

In an age, when to hawke and to hunt formed the Gentleman's Academy[281:C], the Falconer and the Huntsman were most important characters; of the former we have already given an outline from contemporary authority, and of the latter the following extract delineates a very curious picture, in which the manners, the dress, and the accoutrements are marked with singular strength and raciness of touch.

"A huntsman is the lieutenant of dogs, and foe to harvest: he is frolick in a faire morning fit for his pleasure; and alike rejoyceth with the Virginians, to see the rising sun: he doth worship it as they, but worships his game more than they; and is in some things almost as barbarous. A sluggard he contemnes, and thinks the resting time might be shortened; which makes him rise with day, observe the same pace, and prove full as happy, if the day be happy. The names of foxe, hare, and bucke, be all attracting sillables; sufficient to furnish fifteene meales with long discourse in the adventures of each. Foxe, drawes in his exploits done against cubbes, bitch-foxes, otters and badgers: hare, brings out his encounters, platformes, engines, fortifications, and night worke done against leveret, cony, wilde-cat, rabbet, weasell, and pole-cat: then bucke, the captaine of all, provokes him (not without strong passion) to remember hart, hind, stagge, doe, pricket, fawne, and fallow deere. He uses a dogged forme of governement, which might bee (without shame) kept in humanity; and yet he is unwilling to be governed with the same reason: either by being satisfied with pleasure, or content with ill fortune. Hee hath the discipline to marshall dogs, and sutably; when a wise herald would rather mervaile, how he could distinguish their coates, birth, and gentry. Hee carries about him in his mouth the very soule of Ovid's bodies, metamorphosed into trees, rockes and waters; for, when he pleases, they shall eccho and distinctly answere; and when he pleases, be extremely silent. There is little danger in him towards the common wealth; for his worst intelligence comes from shepherds or woodmen; and that onely threatens the destruction of hares; a well knowne dry meate. The spring and he are still at variance; in mockage therefore, and revenge together of that season, he weares her livery in winter. Little consultations please him best; but the best directions he doth love and follow, they are his dogs. If hee cannot prevaile therefore, his lucke must be blamed, for he takes a speedy course. He cannot be less than a conquerour from the beginning, though he wants the booty; for he pursues the flight. His manhood is a crooked sword with a sawbacke; but the badge of his generous valour is a home to give notice. Battery and blowing up, he loves not; to undermine is his stratageme. His physick teaches him not to drinke sweating; in amends whereof, he liquors himselfe to a heate, upon coole bloud, if he delights (at least) to emulate his dog in a hot nose. If a kennel of hounds passant take away his attention and company from church; do not blame his devotion; for in them consists the nature of it, and his knowledge. His frailties are, that he is apt to mistake any dog worth the stealing, and never take notice of the collar. He dreames of a hare sitting, a foxe earthed, or the bucke couchant: and if his fancy would be moderate, his actions might be full of pleasure."[283:A]

Making a natural transition from the huntsman to his hounds, we have to remark, that one great object, at this period, in the construction of the kennel, was the modulation and harmony of the vocal powers of the dog. This was carried to a nicety and perfection little practised in the present day. Gervase Markham seems to write con amore on this subject, and has penned directions which partake both of the picturesque, and of the melody on which he is descanting: thus, speaking of the production of loudness of cry, he says, "if you would have your kennel for loudness of mouth, you shall not then choose the hollow deep mouth, but the loud clanging mouth, which spendeth freely and sharply, and as it were redoubleth in utterance: and if you mix with them the mouth that roreth, and the mouth that whineth, the cry will be both the louder and the smarter;—and the more equally you compound these mouths, haveing as many rorers as spenders, and as many whiners, as of either of the other, the louder and pleasanter your cry will be, especially, if it be in sounding tall woods, or under the echo of rocks;" and treating of the composition of notes in the kennel, he adds, "you shall as nigh as you can, sort their mouths into three equal parts of musick, that is to say base, counter-tenor and mean; the base are those mouths which are most deep and solemn, and are spent out plain and freely, without redoubling: the counter-tenor are those which are most loud and ringing, whose sharp sounds pass so swift, that they seem to dole and make division; and the mean are those which are soft sweet mouths, that though plain, and a little hollow, yet are spent smooth and freely; yet so distinctly, that a man may count the notes as they open. Of these three sorts of mouths, if your kennel be (as near as you can) equally compounded, you shall find it most perfect and delectable: for though they have not the thunder and loudness of the great dogs, which may be compared to the high wind-instruments, yet they will have the tunable sweetness of the best compounded consorts; and sure a man may find as much art and delight in a lute as in an organ."[284:A]

Shakspeare, who frequently avails himself of the language, imagery, and circumstances attendant on this diversion, has particularly noticed, in a passage of much animation and beauty, the care taken to arrange the notes of the kennel, and the pleasure derivable from the varied intonations of the hounds. Theseus addressing Hippolyta, exclaims—

"My love shall hear the musick of my hounds.—
Uncouple in the western valley; go:—
Despatch, I say, and find the forester.—
We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
And mark the musical confusion
Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
Hip. —————— Never did I hear
Such gallant chiding; for, besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
The. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flew'd[284:B], so sanded[284:C]; and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
Crook-knee'd, and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tuneable
Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn."[284:D]

It appears from a scene in Timon of Athens, and from a passage in Laneham's Account of the Queen's Entertainment at Killingworth Castle, 1575, that it was a common thing, at this period, to hunt after dinner, or in the evening. Timon, having been employed, during the morning, in hunting, says to Alcibiades—

"So soon as dinner's done, we'll forth again;"[285:A]

and Elizabeth, twice, during her residence with the Earl of Leicester, is described as pursuing this exercise in the cool of the evening. Honest Laneham's narrative of one of these royal chases will amuse the reader.

"Munday waz hot, and thearfore her Highness kept in till a five a clok in the eevening: what time it pleazz'd her to ride foorth into the chace too hunt the Hart of fors; which foound anon, and after sore chased, and chafed by the hot pursuit of the hooundes, waz fain of fine fors at last to take soil. Thear to beholl'd the swift fleeting of the deer afore, with the stately cariage of hiz head in his swimmyng, spred (for the quantitee) lyke the sail of a ship; the hoounds harroing after, az had they bin a number of skiphs too the spoyle of a karvell; the ton no lesse eager in purchaz of his pray, than waz the other earnest in savegard of hiz life; so az the earning of the hoounds in continuauns of their crie, the swiftness of the deer, the running of footmen, the galloping of horsez, the blasting of hornz, the halloing and hewing of the huntsmen, with the excellent echoz between whilez from the woods and waters in valliez resounding; moved pastime delectabl in so hy a degree, az, for ony parson to take pleazure by moost sensez at onez, in mine opinion, thear can be none ony wey comparable to this; and special in this place, that of nature iz foormed so feet for the purpoze; in feith, Master Martin, if ye coold with a wish, I woold ye had bin at it: Wel, the hart waz kild, a goodly deer."[285:B]

So partial was Her Majesty to this diversion that even in her seventy-seventh year she still pursued it with avidity; for Rowland Whyte, one of her courtiers, writing to Sir Robert Sidney on September 12th, 1600, says, "Her majesty is well and excellently disposed to hunting, for every second day she is on horseback, and continues the sport long;" and when not disposed to incur the fatigue of joining in the chase, she was recreated with a sight of the pastime; thus at the seat of Lord Montecute, in 1591, she saw, after dinner, from a turret, "sixteen bucks all having fayre lawe, pulled downe with greyhounds in a laund or lawn."[286:A]

Nor was James the First less passionately addicted to the sport; his journey from Scotland to England, on his accession to the throne of the latter kingdom, was frequently protracted by his inability to resist the temptation of joining in the chase; on his road to Withrington, the seat of Sir Robert Cary, after a hard ride of thirty-seven miles in less than four hours, "and by the way for a note," says a contemporary writer, "the miles according to the northern phrase, are a wey bit longer, then they be here in the south,—His Majesty having a little while reposed himselfe after his great journey, found new occasion to travell further: for, as he was delighting himselfe with the pleasure of the parke, hee suddenly beheld a number of deere neare the place: the game being so faire before him hee could not forbeare, but according to his wonted manner, forth he went and slew two of them;" again, "After his Majesties short repast to Werslop his Majestie rides forward, but by the way in the parke he was somewhat stayed; for there appeared a number of huntes-men all in greene; the chiefe of which with a woodman's speech did welcome him, offering his Majestie to shew him some game, which he gladly condiscended to see; and with a traine set he hunted a good space, very much delighted."[286:B] This diversion from his direct route is repeatedly noticed by the same author, and proves the strong attachment of the monarch to this amusement, which he preferred to either hawking or shooting; he divided his time, says Wellwood, "betwixt his standish, his bottle, and his hunting; the last had his fair weather, the two former his dull and cloudy[287:A];" an assertion which with regard to hunting is corroborated by Wilson, who, recording his visit to his native dominions in 1617, informs us, that on his return he exhibited the same keen relish for the sport which he had shown in 1603: "The King, in his return from Scotland," he remarks, "made his Progress through the hunting-countries, (his hounds and hunters meeting him,) Sherwood-Forest, Need-wood, and all the parks and forests in his way, were ransacked for his recreation; and every night begat a new day of delight."[287:B] In short, James was so engrossed by his passion for hunting, that he neglected the most important business to indulge it; and even affected the garb of a hunter when he ought to have been in that of a king. Osborne calls him a Sylvan Prince, and adds, "I shall leave him dressed to posterity in the colours I saw him in the next Progress after his Inauguration, which was as green as the grass he trod on, with a feather in his cap, and a horn instead of a sword by his side."[287:C]

To these brief notices of hawking and hunting, it may be necessary to add a very few remarks on the kindred amusements of fowling and fishing, as far as they deviate, either in manner or estimation, from the practice or opinions of the present day. In the pursuit of fowling, indeed, there is little or no discrepancy between the two periods, if we make an exception for two instances; and these now obsolete modes of exercising the art, were termed horse-stalking and bird-batting. The former consisted originally of a horse trained for the purpose, and so mantled over with trappings as to hide the fowler completely from the game; a contrivance much improved upon for facility of usage by substituting a stuffed canvas figure, painted to resemble a horse grazing; this was so light that the sportsman might move it easily with one hand, and behind it he could securely take his aim; to this curious species of deception Shakspeare alludes in As You Like It, where the Duke, speaking of Touchstone, says, "He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that, he shoots his wit[288:A];" and again, in Much Ado about Nothing, Claudio exclaims, "Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits."[288:B] It appears from Drayton, that the fowler shot from underneath his horse, where he was concealed by the mantle-cloth depending to the ground: thus in the Polyolbion.

"One underneath his horse to get a shoot doth stalk;"[288:C]

and in the Muses' Elysium—

"Then underneath my horse, I stalk my game to strike."[288:D]

Sometimes, instead of a stuffed canvas figure, the form of a horse painted on a cloth was carried before the sportsman: "Methinks," says a writer of this period quoted by Mr. Reed, "I behold the cunning fowler, such as I have knowne in the fenne countries and els-where, that doe shoot at woodcockes, snipes, and wilde fowle, by sneaking behind a painted cloth which they carry before them, having pictured in it the shape of a horse; which while the silly fowle gazeth on, it is knockt down with hale shot, and so put in the fowler's budget."[288:E]

We have reason to suppose that Henry the Eighth often amused himself in this manner; for in the inventories of his wardrobes, preserved in the Harleian MS., are to be found frequent allowances of materials for making "stalking coats, and stalking hose for the use of his majesty."[289:A]

Of the peculiar mode of netting called bird-batting, the following account has been given by a once popular authority on these subjects:—"This sport we call in England most commonly bird-batting, and some call it low-belling; and the use of it is to go with a great light of cressets, or rags of linen dipped in tallow, which will make a good light; and you must have a pan or plate made like a lanthorn, to carry your light in, which must have a great socket to hold the light, and carry it before you, on your breast, with a bell in your other hand, and of a great bigness, made in the manner of a cow-bell, but still larger; and you must ring it always after one order. If you carry the bell, you must have two companions with nets, one on each side of you; and what with the bell, and what with the light, the birds will be so amazed, that when you come near them, they will turn up their white bellies: your companions shall then lay their nets quietly upon them, and take them. But you must continue to ring the bell; for, if the sound shall cease, the other birds, if there be any more near at hand, will rise up and fly away."[289:B] This method was used to ensnare wood-cocks, partridges, larks, &c. and it is probable that to a stratagem of this kind Shakspeare may allude, when he paints Buckingham exclaiming—