*

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; and the term, indeed, continued to be thus applied in the time of Jonson, who repeatedly uses it, in his "Bartholomew Fair." 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,

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.; ‡ 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 villagery, 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, say 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 Whitsunale, with a May pole, which last is inscribed Heigh for Cotswold.'

"Ascending, next, faire Cotswold's plaines,

She revels with the Shepherd's swaines."§

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."*

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

given or made, by any baron of this realm, or any other honourable personage of greater degree, unto any interlude players, minstrels, jugglers, bearward, or any other idle person or persons whatsoever, using any awful games or plays, to play or act, should be available to free or discharge the said persons, or any of them, from the pains and punishments of rogues, of vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, in the said statutes

those of Eliz.) mentioned."

A character in Gammar Gurton's Needle, says Mr. Strutt, a comedy supposed to have been written A.D. 1517, declares he will go "and travel with young Goose, the motion-man, for a puppet-player.” This reference, however, is inaccurate, for after a diligent perusal of the comedy in question, no such passage is to be found.

Ben Jonson's Works, fol. edit. 1640, vol. ii. p. 77. act v. sc. 4. Vide Malone on the Chronological Order of Shakspeare's Plays. $ Calmers's Supplemental Apology, p. 323, note s.

** Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 20,

* Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 150, note b.

"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."

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." *

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, etc. etc. 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 enume rates among the swinge-bucklers, "Will Squeele, a Cotsole man;" 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."

Dover, tradition says, was highly delighted with the superintendence 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 †, and with much more dignity in his air and aspect."+

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." S

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.

Oth

To the very commencement, indeed, of the seventeenth century, we may point,

Athena Oxon, vol. ii p. 812.

They were given him by Endymion Porter, the King's servant.

Biographical History of England, vol. ii. p. 399, 8vo. edit. of 1775.

Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 20, and Heath's Description of Cornwall, 1750.

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,* 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 cousin Edward, uncle?

Knowell. 0, 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. 0, 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!"†

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 de 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 Highflyers are presently to bee mewed up, for they are taken from their element."

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. S

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

About the year 750, Winifrid, or Boniface, a native of England, and archbishop of Mons, acquaints Fthelbald, a king of Kent, that he has sent him one hawk, two falcons and two shields And Hedilbert, a king of the Mercians, requests the same archbishop Winifrid to send him two falcons which have been traided to kill cranes. See Epistol. Winifrid. (Bonifac.) Mogunt. 1605. 1629. And in Bibl. Patr. tom. vi., and tom. xiii p. 70."-Warton's Hist of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 221.

Jonson's Works, fol. vol. i. p. 6. act i. sc. 1.

Brathwait's English Gentleman, 2d edit. 1633. p. 220.

The Booke of Faulconrie, or Hawking, for the onely delight and pleasure of all Noblemen and Genfemen: 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 folowyng. By Geo. Turherville, Gentleman. Nocet empta dolore voluptas. Imprinted at London for Chr. Barker, at the signe of the Grashoper in Paules Church-yarde, 1575." To this was added, the “Noble Arte of Venerie or Huntm" and a re-impression of both, "newly revived, corrected, and augmented with many additions proper to these present times," was published by Thomas Purfoot, in 1611.

Gervase Markham published in 1595 the edition of Dame Julyana Barne's Treatise on Hawking and Hunting, which we have formerly noticed, and which was first printed by Caxton, and afterwards by Winkin De Worde; and in 1615, the first edition of his Country Contentments, which contains a treatise on Hawking, a work so popular, that it reached thirteen or fourteen editions.

Edmund Best, who trained and sold hawks, printed a treatise on Hawks and Hawking in 1619.

at, when we find, that at the commencement of the seventeenth century, a gosshawk 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 deare enamoured of it, as they will undergoe any charge, rather than foregoe it: which makes mee recall to mind a merry tale which I have read, to this effect. Divers men having entered inte 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 hee) there was a citizen of Millan, a physitian for such as were distracted or lunaticke; who took upon him within a certaine time to cure such as were brought unto him. And bee cured them after this sort: Hee had a plat of ground neere his house, and in it a pit of corrup and stinking water, wherein he bound 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 fifteen dayes began to recover, beseeching the physitian that he 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 days, 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 the physitian's command. Now it chanced, as on a time he stood at the gate (for out he durst not goe, for feare he should return 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 he fell mad, he had never seen the like. The yong gentleman being come unto him; Sir (quoth he) I pray you hear meea 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 do they profit you? These are dogges (said be) and necessary for hawking, to find 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, he knew not well, but they were worth a very little, not above six 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 before our physitian returne home: for if he find 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 chindeepe 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.

The same prudent advice occurs in an author who wrote immediately subse quent 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, † I condemne it with Blesensis, as an idle and foolish vanitie; for I have ever thought it a kind of madnesse for such men, to bestow ten pounds in

* Brathwait's English Gentleman, 21 edit. 1633. p. 201-203.

Henry Peacham, who remarks of Hawking, that it is a recreation "very commendable and befitting a Noble or Gentleman to exercise," adds, that "by the Canon Law, Hawking was forbidden unto Clergie The Compleat Gentleman, 2d edit. p. 212, 213.

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."*

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 establishment, 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 Tuberville, 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 stoop to inferiour lures, having their mindes so farre above, as they scorn 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 foregoe 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 goodness 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."+

"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 mangre 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 she had lessened herself 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 downecome recovered it, beyond expectation, to the admiration of the beholder, at a long; and to heare him tell a thirde 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 gound, how then he made in, what speed the cocke made to save himselfe, and what hasty pursuit the hawke Lade, and how after two long miles flight killed it, yet in killing of it killed himselfe. These dis

⚫ Vide Quaternio, or a Fourefold Way to a Happie Life, set forth in a Dialogue betweene a Countryman and a Citizen, a Divine and a Lawyer. Per Tho Nash, Philopolitean, 1633.

† Engish Gentleman, p. 200.