HISTORY AND LITERATURE. 27 



Clarendon, ' that we give law to hares and deer because they 

 are Beasts of Chase ; but it was never accounted either cruelty, 

 or foul play, to knock foxes and wolves on the head as they 

 can be found, because they are beasts of prey.' Walter Scott, 

 too, it will be remembered, puts the same sentiment in the 

 mouth of Roderick Dhu ; 



but, though the beast of game 

 The privelege of chase may claim, 

 Though space and law the stag we lend 

 Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend, 

 Who ever reck'd where, how, or when, 

 The prowling fox was trapp'd or slain ! 



It is true, Twici gives directions for hunting him 'above 

 ground,' which shows that he was then beginning to be re- 

 garded as something better, at least, than a badger ; but much 

 later writers than Twici evidently regard his chase, though 

 in default of a better it may yield sport enough, as not com- 

 parable to that of the stag or the hare. Markham, for ex- 

 ample, who, by the way, does class poor Reynard with the 

 badger, says of both that they ' are chases of a great deal lesse 

 use or cunning than anie of the former,' though his reasons * be- 

 cause they are of much hotter scent, and indeed very few dogges 

 but will hunt them with all egernesse,' may strike us as not 

 very cogent. Blome considers the chase of the fox ' not so full 

 of diversity as the hare,' and the * Country Gentleman ' agrees 

 both with Blome and Markham. He is always mentioned as 

 'the craftiest beast that is,' trusting less in his ' strength of body 

 or swiftness of legs ' than in his cunning. Turberville, indeed, 

 gives some very remarkable instances of his shifts to escape 

 from his pursuers, which the verbal decorum of our age will not 

 allow us here to reproduce. But perhaps the most striking 

 illustration of our ancestors' ideas on the subject of fox-hunting 

 is to be found in Cockaine, who tells us that ' every huntsman 

 his part is to hew him, or backe him into the covert again when 

 he offereth to breake the same.' This murderous piece of 

 advice may perhaps be partly condoned by the fact that in those 



