128 DAYS OF DEER-STALKING. 



not only kept his seat gracefully, in spite of every effort of 

 the affrighted beast, but drawing his sword, with it guided 

 him towards the Queen, and coming near her presence, 

 plunged it in his throat, so that the animal fell dead at 

 her feet. This was thought sufficiently wonderful to be 

 chronicled on his monument, which is still to be seen in 

 the chancel of the church of Walton upon Thames, in the 

 county of Surrey. He is there represented on an engraved 

 brass-plate, sitting on the back of a deer at full gallop, 

 and at the same time stabbing him in the neck with his 

 sword."* 



This feat of John Selwyn has been paralleled very lately 

 by one recorded in another page of this work ; and in still 

 earlier days, perhaps, w r as equalled in jockeyship, by Merlin 

 Sylvester, the Wild, as mentioned by Geoffery of Mon- 

 mouth. 



" Merlin had fled to the forest in a state of distraction ; 

 and looking upon the stars one clear evening, he discovered, 

 from his astrological knowledge, that his wife Guendolen 

 had resolved upon the next morning to take another 

 husband. As he had presaged to her that this would 

 happen, and had promised her a nuptial gift (cautioning 

 her, however, to keep the bridegroom out of his sight), he 

 now resolved to make good his word. Accordingly, he col- 

 lected all the stags and lesser game in the neighbourhood, 

 and having seated himself upon a hart, drove the herd 

 before him to the capital of Cumberland, where Guendolen 

 resided ; but her lover's curiosity leading him to inspect too 

 nearly this extraordinary cavalcade, Merlin's rage was awak- 

 ened, and he slew him with the stroke of an antler of the 



Formerly, it seems, the hunters went to the chase armed 

 at all points, like the redoubted Alderman Sawbridge. 

 Wilson, the historian, records an escape that befel him in 

 the hazardous sport, whilst a youth and a follower of the 

 Earl of Essex. 



" Sir Peter Lee, of Lime, in Cheshire, invited my lord, 

 one summer, to hunt the stagg ; and having a great stagg in 



* Antiquarian Repertory. 



