applied to inanimate things, as a caste of bread, a cluster of grapes, a cluster of nuts, &c.

I shall now conclude this long, and, I fear, tedious chapter with "the seasons for alle sortes of venery;" and the ancient books upon hunting, seem to be agreed upon this point.

The "time of grace" begins at Midsummer, and lasteth to Holyrood-day. The fox may be hunted from the Nativity to the Annunciation of our Lady; the roebuck from Easter to Michaelmas; the roe from Michaelmas to Candlemas; the hare from Michaelmas to Midsummer; the wolf as the fox; and the boar from the Nativity to the Purification of our Lady

See the Encyclopedia Britannica, art. Hunting.

CHAPTER II.

I. Hawking practised by the Nobility.-II. Its Origin not well known ;-A favourite Amusement with the Saxons.-III. Romantic Story relative to Hawking.-IV. Grand Falconer of France, his State and Privileges.-V. Edward III. partial to Hawking;-Sir Thomas Jermin.-VI. Ladies fond of Hawking.-VII. Its Decline.-VIII. How it was performed.-IX. Embellishments of the Hawk.X. Treatises concerning Hawking;-Superstitious Cure of Hawks.-XI. Laws respecting Hawks.-XII. Their great Value.-XIII. The different Species of Hawks, and their Appropriation.—XIV. Terms used in Hawking.—XV. Fowling and Fishing;-The Stalking Horse ;-Lowbelling.

I-HAWKING BY THE NOBILITY.

HAWKING, or the art of training and flying of hawks, for the purpose of catching other birds, is very frequently called falconry or fauconry; and the person who had the care of the hawks is denominated the falconer, but never I believe the hawker. The sport is generally placed at the head of those amusements that can only be practised in the country, and probably it obtained this precedency from its being a pastime so generally followed by the nobility, not in this country only, but also upon the continent. Persons of high rank rarely appeared without their dogs and their hawks; the latter they carried with them when they journeyed from one country to another,' and sometimes even when they went to battle, and would not part with them to procure their own liberty when taken prisoners. Sometimes they formed part of the train of an ecclesiastic.2 These birds were considered as ensigns of nobility: and no action could be reckoned more dishonourable to a man of rank than to give up his hawk. The ancient English illuminators have uniformly distinguished the portrait of king Stephen by giving him a hawk upon his hand, to signify, I presume, by that symbol, that he was nobly, though not royally born.4

Sebastian Brant, a native of Germany, the author of a work entitled Stultifera Navis, the Ship of Fools, published towards

1 See p. 4. sec. V.

3 Memoirs des Inscrip. tom. ix. p. 542.

See p. 11. sec. X.

See the Regal and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of England.

the conclusion of the fifteenth century, accuses his countrymen of bringing their hawks and hounds into the churches, and interrupting the divine service; which indecency he severely reprobates and with the greatest justice. The passage is thus translated by Alexander Barclay :'

Into the church then comes another sotte,
Withouten devotion, jetting up and down,
Or to be seene, and showe his garded cote.
Another on his fiste a sparhawke or fawcone,
Or else a cokow; wasting so his shone;
Before the aulter he to and fro doth wander,
With even as great devotion as doth a gander.
In comes another, his houndes at his tayle,
With lynes and leases, and other like baggage;
His dogges barke, so that withouten fayle,
The whole church is troubled by their outrage.

II.-ORIGIN OF HAWKING.

I cannot trace the origin of hawking to an earlier period than the middle of the fourth century. Julius Firmicus, who livea about that time, is the first Latin author that speaks of falconers, and the art of teaching one species of birds to fly after and catch others.2 Pliny is thought to have attributed a sport of this kind to the inhabitants of a certain district in Thrace, but his words are too obscure for much dependance to be placed upon them.3 An English writer, upon what authority I know not, says, that hawking was first invented and practised by Frederic Barbarossa, when he besieged Rome. It appears, however, to be very certain that this amusement was discovered abroad, where it became fashionable, some time before it was known in this country the period of its introduction cannot be clearly determined; but, about the middle of the eighth century, Winifred, or Boniface, archbishop of Mons, who was himself a native of England, presented to Ethelbert, king of Kent, one hawk and two falcons; and a king of the Mercians requested the same Winifred to send to him two falcons that had been trained to kill cranes. In the succeeding century, the sport was very highly esteemed by the Anglo-Saxon nobility; and the training and flying of hawks became one of the essentials in the education of

2 Lib. v. cap. 8

1 And printed by Pynson A. D. 1508. Pliny Nat. Hist. lib. x. cap. 8. 4 Peacham's Complete Gentleman, p. 183 Epist. Winifred. See Warton's Hist. Eng. Poet. vol. ii. p. 221.

1

a young man of rank. Alfred the great is commended for his early proficiency in this, as well as in other fashionable amusements; he is even said to have written a treatise upon the subject of hawking, but there is no such work at present in existence, that can with any degree of certainty be attributed to him. The pastime of hawking must, no doubt, at this period, have been very generally followed, to call for the prohibition inserted in a charter granted to the Abbey of Abington, by Kenulph,` king of the Mercians; which restrains all persons from carrying of hawks, and thereby trespassing upon the lands belonging to the monks who resided therein.2 This amusement continued to be a fashionable one to the end of the Saxon æra. Byrhtric, a Saxon nobleman, who died towards the end of the tenth century, among other valuable articles, left by will, to earl Elfric, two hawks, and all his heaßop hundap. which Lambarde renders hedge-hounds; spaniels, I suppose, for the purpose of flushing the game. We have already seen that Edward the confessor was highly pleased with the sports of the field, and pursued them constantly every day, allotting the whole of his leisure time to hunting or hawking.4

1II.-ROMANTIC STORY RELATIVE TO HAWKING.

The monkish writers, after the conquest, not readily accounting for the first coming of the Danes, or for the cruelties that they committed in this country, have assigned several causes; and, among others, the following story is related, which, if it might be depended upon, would prove that the pastime of hawking was practised by the nobility of Denmark at a very early period; such a supposition has at least probability on its side, even if it should not be thought to derive much strength from the authority of this narrative.

A Danish chieftain, of high rank, some say of royal bloo!, named Lothbroc, amusing himself with his hawk near sea, upon the western coasts of Denmark, the bird, in pursuit of her game, fell into the water; Lothbroc, anxious for her safety, got into a little boat that was near at hand, and rowed from the shore to take her up, but before he could return to the land, a sudden storm arose, and he was driven out to sea. After suffering

1 See p. 3. sec. iii.

2 This charter was granted A. D. 821. Dugdale's Monasticon, vol. i.

3 See the whole of the curious will in Lambarde's Perambulation of Kent, p. 540.
p. 100.
See p. 4. sec. v.

great hardship, during a voyage of infinite peril, he reached the coast of Norfolk, and landed at a port called Rodham: he was immediately seized by the inhabitants, and sent to the court of Edmund, king of the East Angles; when that monarch was made acquainted with the occasion of his coming, he received him very favourably, and soon became particularly attached to him, on account of his great skill in the training and flying of hawks. The partiality which Edmund manifested for this unfortunate stranger, excited the jealousy of Beoric, the king's falconer, who took an opportunity of murdering the Dane, whilst he was exercising of his birds in the midst of a wood, and secreted the body: which was soon afterwards discovered by the vigilance of a favourite spaniel. Beoric was apprehended, and, it seems, convicted of the murder; for he was condemned to be put into an open boat (some say the very boat in which the Danish chieftain came to England) without oars, mast, or rudder, and in that condition abandoned to the mercy of the ocean. It so chanced, that the boat was wafted to the very point of land that Lothbroc came from; and Beoric, escaped from the danger of the waves, was apprehended by the Danes, and taken before two of the chieftains of the country, named Hinguar and Hubba; who were both of them the sons of Lothbroc. The crafty falconer soon learned this circumstance, and, in order to acquire their favour, made them acquainted with the murder of their father, which he affirmed was executed at the command of king Edmund, and that he himself had suffered the hardship at sea, from which he had been delivered by reaching the shore, because he had the courage to oppose the king's order, and endeavoured to save the life of the Danish nobleman. Incited by this abominable falsehood to revenge the murder of their father, by force of arins, they invaded the kingdom of the East Angles, pillaged the country, and having taken the king prisoner, caused him to be tied to a stake, and shot to death with arrows.

This narration bears upon the face of it the genuine marks of a legendary tale. Lidgate, a monk of Saint Edmund's Bury, has given it a place, with the addition of several miraculous circumstances, in his poetical life of king Edmund, who was the tutelar saint of the abbey to which he belonged. On the other

Lidgate presented this poem to king Henry VI. when that monarch held his court at Bury. The presentation MS. is yet extant in the Harleian Library, No. 2278