118 DAYS OF DEER-STALKING. 



raven would feed upon his scalp, as Ugolino did upon the 

 cruel archbishop's. 



Ye who eat long like your mothers, and fast like your 

 fathers ye, believe me, had much better remain at home 

 with your household gods, and cultivate decisive apoplexies. 

 Everybody will tell you how well you look ; so let out your 

 waistcoats and your waistbands most amply, my much 

 cherished friends eat, drink, and be happy ; or if the god 

 of sport be warm within you, if so great such an inex- 

 tinguishable ardour burns in your bosoms, arrange your- 

 selves, I pray you, in an ample punt on a domestic fishpond, 

 with a rod, a line, and that admirable contrivance the float ; 

 but let not your obese fingers aspire to dally with a rifle. 



Tell me now, could you hit any given acre of land at fifty 

 paces ? I should rather think not. As for a rifle, then, have 

 nothing to do with it, I beseech you, my good fellows, lest 

 it should go off unadvisedly. We are ready to give you 

 every possible credit for your private and domestic virtues ; 

 you are good fathers, the best of husbands, and the most 

 excellent of friends in short, ornaments to society ; much 

 more valuable members of it, indeed, than we minions of 

 the mountains. What ! does not this satisfy you ? Do you 

 mutiny in your punt, and are you determined to reject our 

 wholesome advice ? Well, then, we admire your spirit 

 which soars so high above your corporal capacity, and since 

 you are so determined, we will grant you our license to 

 sport with the stag after the self -same fashion with Queen 

 Elizabeth. 



Thus it was: When the said Queen. of glorious memory 

 visited Lord Montacute at Cowdrey in Sussex, on the 

 Monday, August 17th, 1591, her Highness took horse and 

 rode into the park at eight o'clock in the morning, " where 

 was a delicate bowre prepared, under which were her 

 Highness' musicians placed ; and a cross-bow, by a nymph 

 with a sweet song, was delivered into her hands to shoot at 

 the deere ; about some thirty were put into a paddock, of 

 which number she killed three or four, and the Countess 

 of Kildare, one."* 



* Nicoll's Progresses, vol. ii. 



