So chants Master Thomas Ravenscroft,* "bacholar of musicke ;" and although we cannot answer his invitation, by rushing out into the green and dewy pastures, and enjoying the sport of Falconry, we may spend a "little moment" very pleasantly in inquiring into the history of this "joyous science."

"Hawking," observes Henry Peacham, "was a sport utterly unknown to the ancients; yet it appeareth, by Firmicus, that it was known twelve hundred yeeres since." Where it was first exercised, and at what precise era it came into vogue, is uncertain, "but it is mentioned by a Latin writer of the fourth century, and is affirmed by some to have been borrowed by the Romans from the Britons, as early as the reign of Vespasian."† "In England," says Mr. Pennant, "I cannot trace the certainty of falconry till the reign of King Ethelbert, the Saxon monarch, in the year 860, when he wrote to Germany for a brace of falcons, which would fly at cranes and bring them to the ground, as there were very few such in Kent." The unfortunate Harold is pictured going on an embassy of the utmost importance, with a dog under his arm and a hawk on his wrist; and even females of distinction were occasionally thus represented. “Alfred the Great, who is commended for his proficiency in this, as in all other fashionable amusements, is said to have written a treatise upon the subject, which, however, has not come down to us: from various other sources, nevertheless, we are enabled to assert, that the pastime continued to be in high favour to the end of the Saxon era."

"A knowledge of hunting and falconry" Warton describes " as an essential requisite in accomplishing the character of a knight;" and in such high repute was it held by our nobility, for several centuries, that its tenacious support 66 may be traced through the statute laws, and swelling the pains and penalties of criminal jurisprudence." In the 34th of Edward III., it was made felony to steal a hawk; and to take its eggs, even on a person's own ground, was punishable with imprisonment for a year and a day, besides a fine at the king's pleasure. In the reign of Elizabeth,

"A Briefe Discovrse of the true (but neglected) vse of charact'ring the degrees by their perfection, imperfection, and diminution, in measurable musicke against the common practise and custome of these times. Examples whereof are exprest in the harmony of 4 voyces, concerning the pleasure of 5 vsuall Recreations 1. Hunting. 2. Hawking. 3. Dauncing. 4. Drinking. 5. Enamouring. By Thomas Rauenscroft, Bachelar of Musicke. London: printed by Edw. Alde, for Tho. Adams, 1614, Cum priuilegio Regale," 4to. + Smith's "Festivals," &c. p. 175.. Ibid.

although the term of confinement was reduced to three months, the offender was compelled to find security for his good behaviour for seven years, or to remain in prison till he did." In the reign of Edward III., the Bishop of Ely excommunicated certain persons for stealing a hawk that was sitting upon her perch, in the cloisters of Bermondsey in Southwark."* By an act of parliament, passed in 13th of Henry II., it is declared that none may "hauke or hunt in other mennes warrenes," unless, "if he be a secular man, he can dispende freely and clerely 40 shillings of freeholde by yere, and yf he be a preste or clerke, he ought to be advaynced to a benefice of 40sh by yere.” And it is again enacted, in 34th of Edward IV., “ that the possession of a hawk could not be kept by a simple man;" nor can any "of less bearing than a gentleman with estate have a hawk." In "Le Morte d'Arthur," music, hunting, and hawking, are considered courtly amusements, and only attached to those possessing gentle blood. Thus we see that the sport was confined to the higher ranks; it may, however, be gathered from the following passage in the “Quaternio," 1638, that it was not always, nor, at that time exclusively restricted to the rich and noble.

"As for hawking," says the writer, "I commend it in some, condemne it in others; in men of qualitie I commend it as a generous and noble qualitie, but in men of meane ranke and religious men, (the clergy) 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 (if to see one bird torture another may be so called) with the labours and expense of a whole yeare." In the Book of St Alban's also, where the sort of birds is assigned to different ranks of persons, the goshawk is appointed for a yeoman, the tercel for a poor man, and the kesterel for a knave or a servant.

The twelfth century appears to have been the season when falconry attained the zenith of its popularity. Not only kings and nobles, but high-born maidens and dignified ecclesiastics pursued this favourite amuse

ment.

Even Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury, Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," vol. i. p. 34.

+ At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Mr. Smith informs us that a goshawk and tassel hawk were sold for 100 marks, and that in the reign of James II. Sir Thomas Monson gave £1000. for a cast of hawks.

The Treatises on Hawking, Hunting, Fishing, and Coat Armour, usually ascribed to Dame Juliana Berners, Prioress of Sopewell Nunnery, were called "The Boke of St. Alban's," because first printed in that monastery, 1486.

when despatched on an embassy to the court of France, by Henry the Second, carried hawks and hounds with him of every description.

For a long period, no person of high rank was represented without his falcon. "In travelling, in visiting, in affairs of business or of pleasure, the hawk still remained perched upon the hand, which it stamped with distinction."* Nay, to such an excess was this practice carried, that the nobility attended divine service with their hawks and hounds. A German of the fifteenth century severely censures this impiety. He writes--

"Into the church then comes another sotte,
Withouten devotion jetting up and down,
For 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 auter 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 bark; so that withouten fayle,
The whole church is troubled by their outrage."
Chaucer introduces a falcon into his " Squiere's
Tale," in the following manner:

"Amidde a tree for-dry, (very dry) as white as chalk,
As Canace was playing in hire walk,
Ther sat a faucon over hire hed ful hie
That with a piteous vois so gan to crie,
That all the wood resouned with hire cry,
And beten had hireself so pitously
With both here winges, til the rede blood
Ran endelong the tree, ther as she stood."

And more than that, to further health, by mouing to and froe, That in our lumpish lustlesse limmes, no more disease might groe.

Which if be so, I neede not blush, or deem it my disgrace
If hawks and spanels I preferre, and set in hiest place,
For truly no deuise delightes the minde of man so much,
No game so gladsome to the limmes, there is no pleasure such,
No phisicke fitter to remoue the dregges of direful paine,
And to restore to former life, the feeble force againe.

This kinde of sport doth banish vice, and vile deuises quight, When other games do foster faults, and breede but base delight: No idle thought can harbor well within the falconer's braine, For though his sportes right pleasant be, yet are they mixt with

paine.

The toil he takes to find the fowle, his greedy lust to slay, The fowle once found cuts off conceits, and driues i thoughts away."

We find many allusions to falcons and falconry in Shakespeare, as, for instance,

"Hist! Romeo, hist! O for a falconer's voice

To lure this tassel-gentle back again."

"Dost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark."

"A falcon, towering in her pride of place Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd." Again, where in allusion to this sport, Othello, in his jealousy exclaims

"The Booke of Faulconrie, or Hawking, for the onely delight and pleasure of all Noblemen and Gentlemen: collected out of the best aucthors, as wel Italians as Frenchmen, and some English practises withall concernyng Faulconrie, the contentes whereof are to be seene in the next page following. By

Our early poets frequently make honourable mention of hawks and hawking. Turberville (in 1575) is the oldest minstrel who "invokes the muse to immortalize the subject." He says,

"I deeme that no man doubts, but games and al our chief delights Where first deuisede to daunt the dumps of pensiue payned sprights.

Smith's "Festivals," p. 176.

✦ That Henry the Eighth was very partial to this sport, may be safely inferred from the following passage in Hall's "Vnion of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke," fol, cxxxix. 2. edit. 1548." In this yere [16th Hen. VIII. Anno 1524] the Kyng folowyng of hi Hauke, lept over a diche beside Hychyn, [Hitchen, in Hertfordshire] with a polle and the polle brake, so that if one Edmond Mody, a foteman had not lept into the water, & lift vp his hed, whiche was fast in the clay, he had bene drouned: but God of his goodnes preserued him." ED.

Bridges's" Censura," vol. x. p. 121.

Imprinted at London, for Ch. Baker, at the signe of the Grashoper, in Paule's Churchyarde, 1575." "The cuts in this publication," observes Mr. Dibdin, "evidently of foreign execution, show a master in the art of design;" they represent Queen Elizabeth actively engaged in hawking. In the second impression, of the date of 1611, which came out in the reign of

James I., the courteous publisher substituted the figure of the Anglo-Scotch monarch for that of the Virgin queen. See the

Bibliographical Decameron,” vol. i. p. 248. Both editions are included in the very curious library of J. Haslewood, esq. and the print at the head of this article, has been executed from a tracing made with the permission of that gentleman, by Mr. Whittock, from the first edition of Turberville. In this print, Queen Elizabeth is represented on horse back, surrounded by her courtiers and attendants; but, in the second edition, by way of compliment to the reigning sovereign, the head and extremities of King James, were substituted for the head and petticoats of Elizabeth, as can be readily ascertained, on comparing the prints in the two editions, the body and arms of the Queen being left remaining the joins in the mutilated. block, proving this, are quite visible. There is no valid foundation for Mr. Dibdin's remark of the original cuts being of foreign execution."