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 chase; 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 deeide the sport.

"In the modern chase," 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."

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 chase 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;"†

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 bonour 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;" etc.‡

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," the nearly contemporary manuscript translation of John Gyfford, with the title of "A book of Venerie, dialogue** wise;" the tract called "The Maistre of the Game," †† in manuscript also, and written by the chief huntsman of Henry the Fourth, for the instruction of his son, afterwards Henry

Censura Literaria, vol. x. p. 231.

+ Complete Gentleman, 2nd edit., p. 212, 213.

Dekkar's Villanies discovered by lanthorne and candle light, &c. 1616.

§ Vide Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 221. note. MS. Cotton Library, Vespasianus, B. 12.

ti MS. Digb. 182. Bibl. Bodl. Warton, vol. ii. p. 221. note m.

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

chase.

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 parkkeepers 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 group, pursued the deer with greyhounds. 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 Phoebus 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.

The substance of this account is taken from "The Maistre of the Game," written for the use of Prince Henry.

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."*

Of the stag-chase 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, † which has been preserved entire by Thomas Ravenscroft, and commences thus:

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-stafls 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 horseback 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

Vide Censura Literaria, vol. x. p. 237, 238.

† Act iii. sc. 5.

In a work entitled "A Briefe Discourse of the true (but neglected) use of Charact'ring the degrees by their perfection, imperfection, and diminution, in measurable musicke, against the common practice and custome of these times. Examples whereof are exprest in the harmony of 4 voyces, concerning the pleasure of 5 usual Recreations. 1. Hunting. 2. Hawking. 3. Dauncing. 4. Drinking. 5. Enamouring By Thomas Ravenscroft, Bachelar of Musicke. London, printed by Edw. Allde for Tho. Adams, 1614. Cum privilegio Regali, 4to."

Puttenham refers to one Gray as the author of this ballad, who was in good estimation, he says, with King Henry," and afterwards with the Duke of Sommerset Protectour, for making certaine merry ballades, whereof one chiefly was, The hunte it (is) up, the hunte is up." P. 12.

Ritson refers to another ballad, as the prototype of Shakspeare's line, which, he says, is very old, and commences thus:

"The hunt is up, the bunt is up,

And now it is almost day;

And he that's a bed with another man's wife,

It's time to get him away."

Remarks critical and illustrative, &c., 1783, p 183.