Class I. FOX. 79 



does no credit to the manners of the times: bear- 

 baiting in all its cruelty was a favorite paftime with 

 our anceflors. We find it in queen ElizabetF^ days, 

 exhibited (tempered with our merry difports) as 

 an entertainment for an ambafTador, and again 

 among the various amufements prepared for her 

 majefty at the princely Kenelworth. 



Our nobility alfo kept their bear-ward: twenty 

 fhillings was the annual reward of that officer from 

 his lord the fifth earl of Northumberland, 'when 

 ' he comyth to my lorde in crijlmas with his lord- 



* fhippes beefts for makynge of his lordfchip paf- 



* tyme the faid xii days *. 



It will not be foreign to the fubjecl here to add, 

 that our monarchs in very early times kept up the 

 ftate of a menag-ery of exotic animals. Henry I. had 

 his lions, leopards, lynxes, and porpentines (por- 

 cupines) in his park at Woodfiock -f . The empe- 

 ror Frederick fent to Henry III. a prefent of three 

 leopards in token of his royal fhield of arms, where- 

 in three leopards were pidlured \. The fame prince 

 had alfo an elephant vvhich (with its keeper) was 

 maintained at the expence of the flieriffs of Londoyi 

 for the time being ji. The other animals had their 

 keeper, a man of fafhion, who was allowed fix- 

 pence a day for himfclf and fix- pence for each 

 beaft. 



* NortJju?nherland Houfmld Book. 



f Sto^cv's hijl London I. 79. X.Ibid. 



il Idem, 118. 



Six 



