60 



century longer, they continued to be occasionally met with in the more 

 wild and thinly peopled parts of England, especially in the northern 

 counties. 



In the fifteenth century they probably became scarce. 



In the fourteenth year of the reign of Edward IV., (1474) when that 

 monarch invaded France, and negociations for a truce were commenced 

 between Louis XI. and Edward, we learn from Baker's " Chronicles," that 

 King Louis presented Edward with the handsomest horse which Louis 

 had in liis stable, and an ass, and also " a wolf and a wild boar, beasts at 

 that time rare in England."' 



Those are the exact words of Baker, and are very interesting, and 

 with reference to the objects of this paper, very valuable. It wall be 

 remarked, that he does not state or insinuate that wolves had been 

 exterminated or had ceased to exist in England, but merely that they 

 had then become rare. We, therefore, have got so far towards the 

 latter part of the iifteenth ceutuiy, and appear not yet to have reached 

 the period of their extinction. 



I have read somewhere that it is traditionally stated, that they were 

 to be found either in the forest of Dean or in the forest of Dartmoor, as 

 late as the time of Queen Elizabeth ; but. unfortunately, I omitted to 

 take a note of the publication in which it was mentioned, and although 

 I have since devoted some time in endeavouring to discover it, I have 

 not yet succeeded. Shakspeare wrote in the reign of Elizabeth, and 

 his allusion to England, and also to wolves, is worthy of notice, as 

 shewing his impression of their having at one period abounded in 

 England, viz. : — 



"0 thou will be a wilderness again 



Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants." 



Shakspeare's ''Henry IV." 2nd part, Act 4, Scene 4. 



Some passages in that learned and celebrated work, "The Institutes 

 of the Laws of England," by Sir Edward Coke (afterwards Lord Chief 

 Justice of England, from that circumstance often called Lord Coke), 

 who was a lawyer of great talents in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, will, 

 perhaps, excite surprise, and are very important with reference to the 

 subject of this enquiry. 



He was born in 1551, was made Sohcitor-General by Queen Elizabeth 

 in 1592, and Attorney-General in 1594. He was appointed Chief 

 Justice of the Court of Common Pleas by James I. in 1606, and Lord 

 Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench in 16J3. His celebrated 

 works the " Commentary upon Sir Thomas Littleton's Treatise," and 



' Baker's "Chronicles," folio 213. We cannot reasonably doubt that the wild boar, 

 being a favourite beast of chase, and not being so destructive an animal as the wolf, -svould 

 remain in this country a considerable time after the wolf was destroyed. 



