PART 1I.-CHAPTER XIV. 



OF HAWKS AND HAWKING. 



[A PAPER " Of Hawkes and Falconry, ancient and modern," is here transcribed from Sir Thomas 

 Browne's Miscellanies, (8vo. 1684.) It describes at considerable length (from the works of Sym- 

 maclius, Albertus Magnus, Demetrius Constantinopolitanus, and others), the various rules which 

 were acted upon in their times, with regard to the food and medicine of hawks ; and it also narrates 

 some historical particulars of the once popular sport of hawking. J. 13.] 



E, Sir James Long of tlu's subject, for he understands it as well as any gentleman in this 

 nation, and desire him to write his marginal! notes. 



[From Sir James Long, Dracot] Memorandum. Between the years 1630 and 1634 Henry 

 Poole, of Cyrencester, Esquire (since Sir Henry Poole, Baronet), lost a falcon flying at Brook, in 

 the spring of the year, about tliree a'clock in the afternoon ; and he had a falconer in Norway at 

 that time to take hawks for him, who discovered this falcon, upon the stand from whence he was 

 took at first, the next day in the evening. This flight must be 600 miles at least 



Dame Julian Barnes, in her book of Hunting and Hawking, says that the hawk's bells must be 

 in proportion to the hawk, and they are to be equiponderant, otherwise they will give the hawk an 

 unequall ballast : and as to their sound they are to differ by a semitone, which will make them heard 

 better than if they were unisons. 



William of Malmesbury sayes that, anno Domini 900, tempore Regis Alfredi, hawking was first 

 used. Coteswold is a very fine countrey for this sport, especially before they began to enclose about 

 Malmesbury, Newton, &c. It is a princely sport, and no doubt the novelty, together with the 

 delight, and the conveniency of this countrey, did make King Athelstan much use it. I was wont to 

 admire to behold King Athelstan's figure in his monument at Malmesbury Abbey Church, with a 

 falconer's glove on his right hand, with a knobbe or tassel to put under his girdle, as the falconers 

 use still ; but this clironologicall advertisement cleares it. [The effigy on the monument here 

 referred to, as well as the monument itself, have no reference to Athelstan, as they are of a style 

 and character some hundreds of years subsequent to that monarch's decease. If there were any 

 tomb to Athelstan it would have been placed near the high altar in the Presbytery, and very 

 different in form and decoration to the altar tomb and statue here mentioned, which are at the east 

 end of the south aisle of the nave. J. B.] Sir George Marshal of Cole Park, a-quarry to King 

 James First, had no more manners or humanity than to have his body buried under this tombe. 

 The Welsh did King Athelstan homage at the city of Hereford, and covenanted yearly payment of 

 20" gold, of silver 300, oxen 2,500, besides hunting dogges and hawkes. He dyed anno Domini 

 941, and was buried with many trophies at Malmesbury. His lawes are extant to this day among 

 the lawes of other Saxon kings. 



