Chapter VIII (1)

VIEW OF COUNTRY LIFE DURING THE AGE OF SHAKSPEARE
CONTINUED—DIVERSIONS.

The attempt to describe all the numerous rural diversions which were prevalent during the age of Shakspeare, would be, in the highest degree, superfluous; for the greatest part of them, it is evident, must remain, with such slight or gradual modification as to require but little notice. It will be, therefore, our endeavour, in the course of this chapter, after giving a catalogue of the principal country-diversions of the era in question, to dwell only upon those which are now either entirely obsolete, or which have subsequently undergone such alterations as to render their former state an object of novelty and curiosity.

This catalogue may be taken, with tolerable accuracy, from Randal Holme of Chester, and from Robert Burton; the former enumerating the games and diversions of the sixteenth century, and the latter those of the prior part of the seventeenth. If to these, we add the notices to be drawn from Shakspeare, the sketch will, there is reason to suppose, prove sufficiently extensive.

In the list of Randal Holme will be found the names of some juvenile sports, which are now perhaps no longer explicable; this poetical antiquary, however, shall speak for himself.

"—— They dare challenge for to throw the sledge;
To jumpe or lepe over ditch or hedge;
To wrastle, play at stool-balle, or to runne;
To pitch the barre or to shote offe the gunne;
To play at loggets, nineholes, or ten pinnes;
To trye it out at fote balle by the shinnes;
At ticke tacke, seize noddy, maw, or ruffe;
Hot-cockles, leape froggè, or blindman's buffe;
To drinke the halfer pottes, or deale att the whole canne;
To playe at chesse, or pue, and inke-horènne;
To daunce the morris, playe at barley breake;
At alle exploytes a man can thynke or speake;
Att shove-grote, 'venter poynte, att crosse and pyle;
Att "Beshrewe him that's last att any style;"
Att lepynge over a Christmàs bon fyer,
Or att the "drawynge dame owte o' the myre;"
At "Shoote cock, Gregory," stoole-ball, and what not:
Pickè-poynt, top, and scourge to make him hot."[247:A]

Burton, after mentioning _Hawking_, _Hunting_, _Fowling_, and _Fishing_, says, "many other sports and recreations there be, much in use, as _ringing_, _holding_, _shooting_, (with the bow,) _keelpins_, _tronks_, _coits_, _pitching bars_, _hurling_, _wrestling_, _leaping_, _running_, _fencing_, _mustring_, _swimming_, _wasters_, _foiles_, _foot-ball_, _balown_, _quintan_, &c., and many such which are the common recreations of the Country folks."[247:B] He subsequently adds _bull_ and _bear baiting_ as common to both countrymen and[247:C] citizens, and then subjoins to the list of rural amusements, _dancing_, _singing_, _masking_, _mumming_, and _stage-players_.[247:D] For the ordinary recreations of _Winter_ as well in _the country_ as in town, he recommends "_cards_, _tables_ and _dice_, _shovelboord_, _chess-play_, the _philosopher's game_, _small trunks_, _shuttle-cock_, _balliards_, _musick_, _masks_, _singing_, _dancing_, _ule games_, _frolicks_, _jests_, _riddles_, _catches_, _purposes_, _questions and commands_, and _merry tales_."[247:E]

From this statement it will immediately appear, that many of the rural diversions of this period are those likewise of the present day, and that no large portion of the catalogue can with propriety call for a more extended notice.

At the head of those which demand some brief elucidation, we shall place the _Itinerant Stage_, a _country_ amusement, however, which, in the days of Elizabeth, was fast degenerating into contempt. The performance of secular plays by strolling companies of minstrels, had been much encouraged for two or three centuries, not only by the vulgar, but by the nobility, into whose castles and halls they were gladly admitted, and handsomely rewarded. At the commencement of the sixteenth century, the custom was still common, and Mr. Steevens, as a proof of it, has furnished us with the following entry from the fifth Earl of Northumberland's Household Book, which was begun in the year 1512:—

"Rewards to Players.

"Item, to be payd to the said Richard Gowge and Thomas Percy for rewards to players for playes playd in Chrystinmas by _stranegers_ in my house after xxd. every play by estimacion somme xxxiijs. iiijd. Which ys appoynted to be paid to the said Richard Gowge and Thomas Percy at the said Christynmas in full contentacion of the said reward ys xxxiijs. iiijd."[248:A]

That these itinerants were still occasionally admitted into the country-mansions of the great, during the reign of Elizabeth, we have satisfactory evidence; but it may be sufficient here to remark, that Elizabeth herself was entertained with an historical play at Kenelworth Castle, by performers who came for that purpose from Coventry; and that Shakspeare has favoured us with another instance, by the introduction of the following scene in his _Taming of the Shrew_, supposed to have been written in 1594:—

"_Lord._ Sirrah, go see what trumpet 'tis that sounds:—
Exit _Servant_.
Belike, some noble gentleman; that means,
Travelling some journey, to repose him here.—
Re-enter a _Servant_.
How now? who is it?

_Serv._ An it please your honour,
Players that offer service to your lordship.

_Lord._ Bid them come near:—

Enter Players.

Now, fellows, you are welcome.

_1 Play._ We thank your honour.

_Lord._ Do you intend to stay with me to night?

_2 Play._ So please your lordship to accept our duty.

_Lord._ With all my heart.—
Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery,
And give them friendly welcome every one:
Let them want nothing that my house affords."[249:A]

From this passage it may be deduced, that the _itinerant_ players of this period were held in no higher estimation than menial servants; an inference which is corroborated by referring to the anonymous play of _A Taming of a Shrew_, written about 1590, where the entry of the players is thus marked, "Enter two of the plaiers, _with packs at their backs_." The abject condition of these _strollers_, Mr. Pope has attributed, perhaps too hastily, to the stationary performers of this reign; "the _top_ of the profession," he observes, "were then mere players, not gentlemen of the stage; they were led into the _buttery_ by the steward, not placed at the lord's table, or the lady's[249:B] toilette;" a passage on which Mr. Malone has remarked, that Pope "seems not to have observed, that the players here introduced are _strollers_; and there is no reason to suppose that our author, Heminge, Burbage, Condell, &c. who were licensed by King James, were treated in this manner."[249:C]

On the other hand Mr. Steevens supports the opinion of Pope by asserting, that "at the period when this comedy (_Taming of a Shrew_) was written, and for many years after, the profession of a player was scarcely allowed to be reputable. The imagined dignity," he continues, "of those who did not belong to itinerant companies, is, therefore, unworthy consideration. I can as easily believe that the blundering editors of the first folio were suffered to lean their hands on Queen Elizabeth's chair of state, as that they were admitted to the table of the Earl of Leicester, or the toilette of Lady Hunsden. Like Stephen, in _Every Man in his Humour_, the greatest indulgence our histrionic leaders could have expected, would have been a trencher and a napkin in the _buttery_."[250:A]

The inference, however, which Mr. Malone has drawn, appears to have the authority of Shakspeare himself; for when Hamlet is informed of the arrival of the players, he exclaims, "How chances it, they travel; their _residence_, both in _reputation_ and profit, was _better both ways_[250:B];" a question, the drift of which even Mr. Steevens explains in the following words. "How chances it they travel?—i. e. _How happens it that they are become strollers?_—Their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways—i. e. _To have remained in a settled theatre was the more honourable as well as the more lucrative situation_."[250:C] We have every reason, therefore, to suppose, that the difference between the _stroller_ and the _licensed_ performer was in Shakspeare's time considerable; and that the latter, although not the companion of lords and countesses, was held in a very respectable light, if his personal conduct were good, and became the occasional associate of the first literary characters of the age; while the former was frequently degraded beneath the rank of a servant, and, in the statute, indeed, 39 Eliz. ch. 4. he is classed with rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars.

This depreciation of the character of the _itinerant player_, towards the close of Elizabeth's reign, soon narrowed his field of action; the opulent became unwilling to admit into their houses persons thus legally branded; and the _stroller_ was reduced to the necessity of exhibiting his talents at wakes and fairs, on temporary scaffolds and barrel heads; "if he pen for thee once," says Ben Jonson, addressing a strolling player, "thou shalt not need to travell, with thy pumps full of gravell, any more, after a _blinde jade and a hamper_, and _stalk upon boards and barrel-heads_ to an old crackt trumpet."[250:D]

Many country-towns, indeed, at this period, were privileged to hold fairs by exhibiting a certain number of stage-plays at their annual fairs. Of these, Manningtree in Essex was one of the most celebrated; Heywood mentions it as notorious for yearly plays at its fair[251:A]; and that its festivity on these occasions was equally known, is evident from Shakspeare's comparison of Falstaff to a "roasted Manningtree ox with a pudding in his belly."[251:B] The histrionic fame of Manningtree Mr. Malone proves by two quotations from Nashe and Decker; the former exclaiming in a poem, called _The choosing of Valentines_,

——— "Or see a play of strange moralitie,
Shewen by bachelrie of _Manning-tree_,
Whereto the countrie franklins flock-meale swarme;"

and the latter observing, in a tract entitled _Seven deadly Sinnes of London_, 1607, that "Cruelty has got another part to play; it is acted like the old _morals_ at _Manningtree_."[251:C]

This custom of stage-playing at annual fairs continued to support a few itinerant _companies_; but in general, after the halls of the nobility and gentry were shut against them[251:D], they divided into small parties of three or four, and at length became mere jugglers, jesters, and _puppet-show_ exhibitors. This last-mentioned amusement, indeed, and its professors, seem to have been known, in this country, under the name of _motions_, and _motion-men_, as early as the commencement of the sixteenth century[252:A]; and the term, indeed, continued to be thus applied in the time of Jonson, who repeatedly uses it, in his _Bartholomew Fair_.[252:B] The degradation of the STROLLING companies, by the statutes of Elizabeth and James, rendered the exhibition of automaton figures, at this period, common throughout the kingdom. They are alluded to by Shakspeare under the appellation of _drolleries_; thus in the _Tempest_, Alonzo, alarmed at the _strange shapes bringing in the banquet_, exclaims

"Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these?"

a question to which Sebastian replies,

"_A LIVING drollery_,"[252:C]

meaning by this epithet to distinguish them from the wooden puppets, the performers in the shows called _drolleries_.

A very popular annual diversion was celebrated, during the age of Shakspeare, and for more than twenty-five years after, on the _Cotswold Hills_ in Gloucestershire. It has been said that the rural games which constituted this anniversary, were _founded_ by one Robert Dover on the accession of James I.;[252:D] but it appears to be ascertained that Dover was only the _reviver_, with additional splendour, of sports which had been yearly exhibited, at an early period, on the same spot, and perhaps only discontinued for a short time before their revival in 1603. "We may learn from Rudder's History of Glocestershire," says Mr. Chalmers, "that, in more early times, there was at Cottswold a customary meeting, every year, at Whitsontide, called an _ale_, or _Whitson-ale_, which was attended by all the lads, and the lasses, of the _villegery_, who, annually, chose a Lord and Lady of the _Yule_, who were the authorized rulers of the _rustic revellers_. There is in the Church of Cirencester, says Rudder, an ancient monument, in _basso relievo_, that evinces the antiquity of those games, which were known to Shakspeare, before the accession of King James. They were known, also, to Drayton early in that reign: for upon the map of Glocestershire, which precedes the _fourteenth song_, there is a representation of a _Whitsun-ale_, with a _may pole_, which last is inscribed '_Heigh for Cotswold_.'

"Ascending, next, faire Cotswold's plaines,
She _revels_ with the _Shepherd's_ swaines."[253:A]

Mr. Strutt also is of opinion that the Cotswold games had a much higher origin than the time of Dover, and observes that they are evidently alluded to in the following lines by John Heywood the epigrammatist:

"He fometh like a bore, the beaste should seeme bolde,
For he is as fierce as a _lyon of Cotswold_."[253:B]

In confirmation of these statements it may be added, that Mr. Steevens and Mr. Chalmers have remarked, that in Randolph's poems, 1638, is to be found "An eclogue on the noble assemblies _revived_ on Cotswold hills by Mr. Robert Dover;" and in D'Avenant's poems published the same year, a copy of verses "In celebration of the yearely _preserver_ of the games at Cotswold."[253:C]

The _Reviver_ of these far-famed games was an enterprising attorney, a native of Barton on the Heath in Warwickshire, and consequently a near neighbour to Shakspeare's country-residence. He obtained permission from King James to be the director of these annual sports, which he superintended in person for forty years. They were resorted to by prodigious multitudes of people, and by all the nobility and gentry for sixty miles round, until "the rascally rebellion," to adopt the phraseology of Anthony Wood, "was begun by the Presbyterians, which gave a stop to their proceedings, and spoiled all that was generous and ingenious elsewhere."[254:A]

They consisted originally, and previous to the direction of Dover, merely of athletic exercises, such as wrestling, leaping, cudgel-playing, sword and buckler fighting, pitching the bar, throwing the sledge, tossing the pike, &c. &c. To these Dover added _coursing_ for the gentlemen and _dancing_ for the ladies; a temporary castle of boards being erected for the accommodation of the fair sex, and a silver collar adjudged as a prize for the fleetest greyhound.

To these two eras of the Cotswold Games Shakspeare alludes in the second part of _King Henry IV._, and in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_. Justice Shallow refers to the original state of this diversion, when in the first of these dramas he enumerates among the _swinge-bucklers_, "Will Squeele, a _Cotsole_ man[254:B];" and to Dover's improvement of them, when, in the second, he represents Slender asking Page, "How does your _fallow greyhound_, Sir? I heard say, he was out-run on Cotsale."[254:C]

Dover, tradition says, was highly delighted with the superintendance of these Games, and assumed, during his direction of them, a great deal of state and consequence. "_Captain_ Dover," relates Granger, a title which courtesy had probably bestowed on this public-spirited attorney, "had not only the permission of James I. to celebrate the Cotswold Games, but appeared in the very cloaths which that monarch had formerly worn[254:D], and with much more dignity in his air and aspect."[254:E]

In 1636, there was published at London a small quarto, entitled, "_Annalia Dubrensia, upon the yearly Celebration of Mr. Robert Dover's Olympic Games, upon Cotswold Hills_," a book consisting entirely of recommendatory verses, written by Jonson, Drayton, Randolph, and many others, and with a print prefixed of Dover on horseback.

It is probable that, at this period, and for many subsequent years, there were several places in the kingdom which had Games somewhat similar to those of Cotswold, though not quite so celebrated; for Heath says, that a carnival of this kind was kept every year, about the middle of July, upon Halgaver-moor, near Bodwin in Cornwall; "resorted to by thousands of people. The sports and pastimes here held were so well liked," he relates, "by Charles the Second, when he touched here in his way to Sicily, that he became a brother of the jovial society. The custom," he adds, "of keeping this Carnival is said to be as old as the Saxons."[255:A]

Of the four great rural diversions, _Hawking_, _Hunting_, _Fowling_ and _Fishing_, the first will require the greatest share of our attention, as it is now nearly, if not altogether extinct, and was, during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, the most prevalent and fashionable of all amusements.

To the very commencement, indeed, of the seventeenth century, we may point, as to the zenith of its popularity and reputation; for although it had been introduced into this country as early as the middle of the eighth century[255:B], it was, until the commencement of the sixteenth, nearly, if not entirely, confined to the highest rank of society. During the reigns of Elizabeth and James, however, it descended from the nobility to the gentry and wealthy yeomanry, and no man could then have the smallest pretension to the character of a gentleman who kept not a cast of hawks. Of this a ludicrous instance is given us by Ben Jonson, in his _Every Man in his Humour_:

"_Master Stephen._ How does my coussin Edward, uncle?

_Knowell._ O, well cousse, goe in and see: I doubt he be scarce
stirring yet.

_Steph._ Uncle, afore I goe in, can you tell me, an' he have
ere a booke of the sciences of hawking, and hunting? I would
faine borrow it.

_Know._ Why, I hope you will not a hawking now, will you?

_Steph._ No, cousse; but I'll practise against next yere uncle.
I have bought me a hawke, and a hood, and bells, and all; I
lacke nothing but a booke to keepe it by.

_Know._ O, most ridiculous.

_Steph._ Nay, looke you now, you are angrie, uncle: why
you know, an' a man have not skill in the hawking, and
hunting-languages now-a-days, I'll not give a rush for him.
They are more studied than the Greeke, or the Latine. He is for
no gallant's company without 'hem.—A fine jest ifaith! Slid a
gentleman mun show himselfe like a gentleman!"[256:A]

That the character of Master Stephen is not, in this respect, overcharged, but represents faithfully the fashionable folly of the age, is evident from many contemporary writers, and especially from that sensible old author Richard Brathwait, who, speaking of dogs and hawks, says, "they are to be used only as pleasures and recreations, of which to speake sparingly were much better, than onely to discourse of them, _as if our whole reading were in them_. Neither doe I speake this without just cause; for I have noted this fault in many of our younger brood of _Gentry_, who either for want of education in learning, or their owne neglect of learning, have no sooner attained to the strength of making their fist a pearch for a _hawke_, but by _the helpe of some bookes of faulconry_, whereby they are instructed in the words of art, they will run division upon discourse of this pleasure: whereas, if at any time they be interrupted by occasion of some other conference, these _High-flyers_ are presently to bee _mewed_ up, for they are taken from their element."[256:B]

Many of the best books on the Art of Falconry were written, indeed, as might be expected, during this universal rage for the amusement, and the _hawking coxcombs_ of the day, adopting their language on all occasions, became necessarily obtrusive and pedantic in a disgusting degree. Of these manuals the most popular were written by George Turberville, Gervase Markham, and Edmund Best.[257:A]

But the most detrimental consequence arising from the universality of this elegant diversion, was the immense expense that attended it, and which frequently involved those who were not opulent in utter ruin: a result not to be wondered at, when we find, that at the commencement of the seventeenth century, a goss-hawk and a tassel-hawk were not to be purchased for less than a hundred marks; and that in the reign of James I., Sir Thomas Monson gave one thousand pounds for a cast of hawks. Brathwait, in his usual strain of propriety, advises those who are not possessed of _good estates_, to give up all idea of this diversion, and exposes its indiscriminate pursuit in the following pleasant manner:—

"This pleasure," observes he, "as it is a princely delight, so it moveth many to be so dearely enamoured of it, as they will undergoe any charge, rather than forgoe it: which makes mee recall to mind a merry tale which I have read, to this effect. Divers men having entered into discourse, touching the superfluous care (I will not say folly) of such as kept _dogs_ and _hawkes_ for _hawking_; one _Paulus_ a _Florentine_ stood up and spake: Not without cause (quoth hee) did that foole of _Millan_ laugh at these; and being entreated to tell the tale, hee thus proceeded; upon a time (quoth he) there was a citizen of _Millan_, a physitian for such as were distracted or lunaticke; who tooke upon him within a certaine time to cure such as were brought unto him. And hee cured them after this sort: Hee had a plat of ground neere his house, and in it a pit of corrupt and stinking water, wherein he bound naked such as were mad to a stake, some of them knee-deepe, others to the groin, and some others deeper according to the degree of their madnesse, where hee so long pined them with water and hunger, till they seemed sound. Now amongst others, there was one brought, whom he had put thigh-deepe in water; who after fifteene dayes began to recover, beseeching the physitian that hee might be taken out of the water. The physitian taking compassion of him, tooke him out, but with this condition, that he should not goe out of the roome. Having obeyed him certaine dayes, he gave him liberty to walke up and downe the house, but not to passe the out-gate; while the rest of his companions, which were many, remaining in the water, diligently observed their physitian's command. Now it chanced, as on a time he stood at the gate, (for out hee durst not goe, for feare he should returne to the pit) he beckoned to a yong _gentleman_ to come unto him, who had a _hawke_ and two spaniels, being moved with the novelty thereof; for to his remembrance before hee fell mad, he had never seene the like. The yong _gentleman_ being come unto him; Sir, (quoth he) I pray you hear mee a word or two, and answer mee at your pleasure: What is this you ride on (quoth he) and how do you imploy him? This is a horse (replied he) and I keepe him for _hawking_. But what call you that, you carry on your fist, and how do you use it? This is a _hawke_ (said he) and I use to flie with it at pluver and partridge. But what (quoth he) are these which follow you, what doe they, or wherein doe they profit you? These are dogges (said he) and necessary for _hawking_, to finde and retrieve my game. And what were these birds worth, for which you provide so many things, if you should reckon all you take for a whole yeere? Who answering, hee knew not well, but they were worth a very little, not above sixe crownes. The man replied; what then may be the charge you are at with your horse, dogges and hawke? Some fiftie crowns, said he. Whereat, as one wondering at the folly of the yong _gentleman_: Away, away Sir, I pray you quickly, and fly hence before our physitian returne home: for if he finde you here, as one that is maddest man alive, he will throw you into his pit, there to be cured with others, that have lost their wits; and more than all others, for he will set you chin-deepe in the water. Inferring hence, that the use or exercise of _hawking_, is the greatest folly, unlesse sometimes used by such as are of good estate, and for recreation sake.

"Neither is this pleasure or recreation herein taxed, but the excessive and immoderate expence which many are at in maintaining this pleasure. Who as they should be wary in the expence of their _coine_, so much more circumspect in their expence of _time_. So as in a word, I could wish yong _gentlemen_ never to bee so taken with this pleasure, as to lay aside the dispatch of more serious occasions, for a flight of feathers in the ayre."[259:A]

The same prudent advice occurs in an author who wrote immediately subsequent to Brathwait, and who, though a lover of the diversion, stigmatises the folly of its general adoption. "As for hawking," says he; "I commend it in some, condemne it in others; in men of qualitie whose estates will well support it, I commend it as a generous and noble qualitie; but in men of meane ranke and religious men[259:B], I condemne it with Blesensis, as an idle and foolish vanitie: for I have ever thought it a kinde of madnesse for such men, to bestow ten pounds in feathers, which at one blast might be blowne away, and to buy a momentary monethly pleasure with the labours and expence of a whole yeare."[260:A]

It is to be regretted, however, that the use of the gun has superseded, among the opulent, the pursuit of this far more elegant and picturesque recreation. As intimately connected, for many centuries, with the romantic manners and costume of our ancient nobility and gentry, it now possesses peculiar charms for the poet and the antiquary, and we look back upon the detail of this pastime, and all its magnificent establishments, with a portion of that interest which time has conferred upon the splendid pageantries of chivalry. Of the estimation in which it was held, and of the pleasure which it produced, in Shakspeare's time, there are not wanting numerous proofs: he has himself frequently alluded to it, and the poets Turberville, Gascoign, and Sydney, have delighted to expatiate on its praises, and to adopt its technical phraseology. But the most interesting eulogia, the most striking pictures of this diversion, appear to us to be derived from a few strokes in Brathwait, Nash, and Massinger; writers who, publishing shortly after Shakspeare's death, and describing the amusement of their youthful days, of course delineate the features as they existed in Shakspeare's age, with as much, if not greater accuracy than the still earlier contemporaries of the bard.

"Hawking," remarks Brathwait, "is a pleasure for high and mounting spirits: such as will not stoope to inferiour lures, having their mindes so farre above, as they scorne to partake with them. It is rare to consider, how a wilde _bird_ should bee so brought to hand, and so well managed as to make us such pleasure in the ayre: but most of all to forgoe her native liberty and feeding, and returne to her former servitude and diet. But in this, as in the rest, we are taught to admire the great goodnesse and bounty of God, who hath not only given us the birds of the aire, with their flesh to feede us, with their voice to cheere us, but with their flight to delight us."[260:B]

"I have in my youthfull dayes," relates Nash, "beene as glad as ever I was to come from Schoole, to see a little martin in the dead time of the yeare, when the winter had put on her whitest coat, and the frosts had sealed up the brookes and rivers, to make her way through the midst of a multitude of fowle-mouth'd ravenous crows and kites, which pursued her with more hydeous cryes and clamours, than did Coll the dog, and Malkin the maide, the Fox in the Apologue.

"When the geese for feare flew over the trees,
And out of their hives came the swarme of bees:"
_Chaucer in his Nunes Priests Tale._

and maugre all their oppositions pulled down her prey, bigger than herselfe, being mounted aloft, steeple-high downe to the ground. And to heare an accipitrary relate againe, how he went forth in a cleere, calme, and sun-shine evening, about an houre before the sunne did usually maske himselfe, unto the river, where finding of a mallard, he whistled off his faulcon, and how shee flew from him as if shee would never have turned head againe, yet presently upon a shoote came in, how then by degrees, by little and little, by flying about and about, she mounted so high, untill shee had lessened herselfe to the view of the beholder, to the shape of a pigeon or partridge, and had made the height of the moone the place of her flight, how presently upon the landing of the fowle, shee came downe like a stone and enewed it, and suddenly got up againe, and suddenly upon a second landing came downe againe, and missing of it, in the downe come recovered it, beyond expectation, to the admiration of the beholder, at a long; and to heare him tell a third time, how he went forth early in a winter's morning, to the woody fields and pastures to fly the cocke, where having by the little white feather in his tayle discovered him in a brake, he cast of a tasel gentle, and how he never ceased in his circular motion, untill he had recovered his place, how suddenly upon the flushing of the cocke he came downe, and missing of it in the downcome, what working there was on both sides, how the cocke mounted, as if he would have pierced the skies; how the hawke flew a contrary way, untill he had made the winde his friend, how then by degrees he got up, yet never offered to come in, untill he had got the advantage of the higher ground, how then he made in, what speed the cocke made to save himselfe, and what hasty pursuit the hawke made, and how after two long miles flight killed it, yet in killing of it killed himselfe. These discourses I love to heare, and can well be content to be an eye-witnesse of the sport, when my occasions will permit."[262:A]

To this lively and minute detail, which brings the scene immediately before our eyes, we must be allowed to add the poetical picture of Massinger, which, as Mr. Gifford has justly observed, "is from the hand of a great master."

————————— "In the afternoon,
For we will have variety of delights,
We'll to the field again, no game shall rise
But we'll be ready for't——
————————— for the pye or jay, a sparrow hawk
Flies from the fist; the crow so near pursued,
Shall be compell'd to seek protection under
Our horses bellies; a hearn put from her siege,
And a pistol shot off in her breech, shall mount
So high, that, to your view, she'll seem to soar
Above the middle region of the air:
A cast of haggard falcons, by me mann'd,
Eying the prey at first, appear as if
They did turn tail; but with their labouring wings
Getting above her, with a thought their pinions
Clearing the purer element, make in,
And by turns bind with her[262:B]; the frighted fowl,
Lying at her defence upon her back,
With her dreadful beak, awhile defers her death,
But by degrees forced down, we part the fray,
And feast upon her.——
————————— Then, for an evening flight,
A tiercel gentle, which I call, my masters,
As he were sent a messenger to the moon,
In such a place flies, as he seems to say,
See me, or see me not! the partridge sprung,
He makes his stoop; but wanting breath, is forced
To cancelier[263:A]; then, with such speed as if
He carried lightning in his wings, he strikes
The trembling bird, who even in death appears
Proud to be made his quarry."[263:B]

After these praises and general description of hawking, it will be proper to mention the various kinds of hawks used for this diversion, the different modes of exercising it, and a few of the most interesting particulars relative to the training of the birds.

It will be found, on consulting the _Treatise on Hawking_, by Dame Juliana Barnes, printed by Winkin De Worde in 1496, the _Gentleman's Academie_, by Markham, 1595, and the _Jewel for Gentrie_, published in 1614, that during this space of time, the species of hawks employed, and the several ranks of society to which they were appropriated, had scarcely, if at all varied. The following catalogue is, therefore, taken from the ancient Treatyse:

"An eagle, a bawter (a vulture), a melown; these belong unto an
Emperor.
A Gerfalcon: a Tercell of a Gerfalcon are due to a King.
There is a Falcon gentle, and a Tercel gentle; and these be for a
Prince.
There is a Falcon of the rock; and that is for a Duke.
There is a Falcon peregrine; and that is for an earl.
Also there is a Bastard; and that hawk is for a baron.
There is a Sacre and a Sacret; and these ben for a knight.
There is a Lanare and a Lanrell; and these belong to a squire.
There is a Merlyon; and that hawk is for a lady.
There is an Hoby; and that hawk is for a young man.
And these _ben_ hawks of the _tour_ and ben both _illuryd_ to be
called and reclaimed.
And yet there ben more kinds of hawks.
There is a Goshawk; and that hawk is for a yeoman.
There is a Tercel; and that is for a poor man.
There is a Sparehawk; she is an hawk for a priest.
There is a Muskyte; and he is for an holy-water clerk."[264:A]

To this list the _Jewel for Gentre_ adds

A Kesterel, for a knave or servant.

Many of these birds were held in such high estimation by our crowned heads and nobility, that several severe edicts were issued for the preservation of their eggs. These were mitigated in the reign of Elizabeth; but still if any person was convicted of taking or destroying the eggs of the falcon, gos-hawk or laner, he was liable to suffer imprisonment for three months, and was obliged to find security for his good behaviour for seven years, or remain confined until he did.

Hawking was divided into two branches, land and water hawking, and the latter was usually considered as producing the most sport. The diversion of hawking was pursued either on horseback or on foot: on the former in the fields and open country; on the latter, in woods, coverts, and on the banks of rivers. When on foot, the sportsman had the assistance of a stout pole, for the purpose of leaping over ditches, rivulets, &c.; a circumstance which we learn from the chronicle of Hall, where the historian tells us that Henry the Eighth, pursuing his hawk on foot, in attempting to leap over a ditch of muddy water with his pole, it broke, and precipitated the monarch head-foremost into the mud, where, had it not been for the timely assistance of one of his footmen, named John Moody, he would soon have been suffocated; "and so," concludes the venerable chronicler, "God of hys goodnesse preserved him."[264:B]

The game pursued in hawking included a vast variety of birds, many of which, once fashionable articles of the table, have now ceased to be objects of the culinary art. Of those which are now obsolete among epicures may be enumerated, herons, bitterns, swans, cranes, curlews, sheldrakes, cootes, peacocks; of those still in use, teel, mallard, geese, ducks, pheasants, quails, partridges, plovers, doves, turtles, snipes, woodcocks, rooks, larks, starlings, and sparrows.

Hawking, notwithstanding the occasional fatigue and hazard which it produced, was a favourite diversion among the ladies, who in the pursuit of it, according to a writer of the seventeenth century, did not hesitate to assume the male attire and posture. "The [265:A]Bury ladies," observes he, "that used _hawking_ and hunting, were once in a great vaine of wearing breeches."[265:B] The same author has preserved a hawking anecdote of some humour, and which occurred, likewise, at the same place: "Sir Thomas Jermin," he relates, "going out with his servants, and brooke hawkes one evening, at Bury, they were no sooner abroad, but fowle were found, and he called out to one of his falconers, Off with your jerkin; the fellow being into the wind did not heare him; at which he stormed, and still cried out, Off with your jerkin, you knave, off with your jerkin; now it fell out that there was, at that instant, a plaine townsman of Bury, in a freeze jerkin, stood betwixt him and his falconer, who seeing Sir Thomas in such a rage, and thinking he had spoken to him, unbuttoned himself amaine, threw off his jerkin, and besought his worshippe not to be offended, for he would off with his doublet too, to give him content."[265:C]

That the _training_ of hawks was a work of labour, difficulty, and skill, and that the person upon whom the task devolved, was highly prized, and supported at a great expense, may be readily imagined. The _Falconer_ was, indeed, an officer of high importance in the household of the opulent, and his whole time was absorbed in the duties of his station. That these were various and incessant may be deduced from the following curious character of a _falconer_, drawn by a satirist of 1615.[266:A]

"A falkoner is the egge of a tame pullett, hatcht up among hawkes and spaniels. Hee hath in his minority conversed with kestrils and yong hobbies: but growing up he begins to handle the lure, and look a fawlcon in the face. All his learning makes him but a new linguist; for to have studied and practised the termes of Hawke's Dictionary, is enough to excuse his wit, manners, and humanity. He hath too many trades to thrive; and yet if hee had fewer, hee would thrive lesse. Hee need not be envied therefore, for a monopolie, though he be barber-surgeon, physitian, and apothecary, before he commences _hawk-leech_; for though he exercise all these, and the art of bow-strings together, his patients be compelled to pay him no further, then they be able. Hawkes be his object, that is, his knowledge, admiration, labour, and all; they be indeed his idoll, or mistresse, be they male or female: to them he consecrates his amorous ditties, which be no sooner framed then hallowed; nor should he doubt to overcome the fairest, seeing he reclaimes such haggards, and courts every one with a peculiar dialect. That he is truly affected to his sweetheart in her fether-bed, appeares by the sequele, himselfe being sensible of the same misery, for they be both mewed up together: but he still chuses the worst pennance, by chusing rather an ale-house, or a cellar, for his moulting place than the hawke's mew."[266:B]

The training of Hawks consisted principally in the _manning_, _luring_, _flying_, and _hooding_ them. Of these, the first and second imply a perfect familiarity with the man, and a perfect obedience to his voice and commands, especially that of returning to the fist at the appointed signal.[267:A] The _flying_ includes the appropriation of peculiar hawks to peculiar game; thus the _Faulcon gentle_, which, according to Gervase Markham, is the principal of hawks, and adapted either for the field or river, will fly at the partridge or the mallard; the _Gerfaulcon_ will fly at the heron; the _Saker_ at the crane or bittern; the _Lanner_ at the partridge, pheasant, or chooffe; the _Barbary Faulcon_ at the partridge only; the _Merlin_ and the _Hobby_ at the lark, or any small bird; the _Goshawk_ or _Tercel_ at the partridge, pheasant, or hare; the _Sparrow-hawk_ at the partridge or blackbird, and the _Musket_ at the bush only.[267:B]

The _hooding_ of hawks, as it embraces many technical terms, which have been adopted by our poets, and among the rest, by Shakspeare, will require a more extended explanation, and this we shall give in the words of Mr. Strutt. "When the hawk," he observes, "was not flying at her game, she was usually hood-winked, with a cap or hood provided for that purpose, and fitted to her head; and this hood was worn abroad, as well as at home. All hawks taken upon '_the fist_,' the term used for carrying them upon the hand, had straps of leather called _jesses_[267:C], put about their legs; the jesses were made sufficiently long, for the knots to appear between the middle and the little fingers of the hand that held them, so that the _lunes_, or small thongs of leather, might be fastened to them with two _tyrrits_, or rings; and the lunes were loosely wound round the little finger; lastly, their legs were adorned with _bells_, fastened with rings of leather, each leg having one; and the leathers, to which the bells were attached, were denominated _bewits_; and to the bewits was added the _creance_, or long thread, by which the bird in tutoring, was drawn back, after she had been permitted to fly; and this was called the _reclaiming_ of the hawk. The bewits, we are informed, were useful to keep the hawks from _winding when she bated_, that is, when she fluttered her wings to fly after her game. Respecting the bells, it is particularly recommended that they should not be too heavy, to impede the flight of the bird; and that they should be of equal weight, sonorous, shrill, and musical; not both of one sound, but the one a semitone below the other[268:A]; they ought not to be broken, especially in the sounding part, because, in that case, the sound emitted would be dull and unpleasing. There is, says the Book of St. Alban's, great choice of sparrow-hawk bells, and they are cheap enough; but for gos-hawk bells, those made at Milan are called the best; and, indeed, they are excellent; for they are commonly sounded with [268:B]silver, and charged for accordingly."[268:C]

Thomas Heywood, in his play, entitled _A Woman killed with Kindness_, and acted before 1604, has a passage on falconry, four lines of which have been quoted by Mr. Strutt, as allusive to the toning of the Milan bells; but as the whole is highly descriptive of the diversion, and is of no great length, we shall venture to transcribe it, with the exception of a few lines, entire:

"_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—