386 HUNTING. 



who, it appears from Virgil, hunted any thing, 

 from the wild ass to the stag ; but, we have reason 

 to believe, without much system, as far as their 

 dogs had to do with it. We conceive the ancient 

 Germans and Gauls to have been the best early 

 sportsmen upon system ; and the ancient Britons, 

 who came originally from Gaul, and, according to 

 Caesar and Tacitus, were one of the widely-extended 

 Celtic tribes, introduced or rather brought with 

 them from Gaul, that ardent passion for the chase 

 for which Great Britain has ever since been re- 

 markable. The Anglo-Norman and early English 

 monarchs likewise all appear to have had a passion 

 for the chase ; and although a code of laws relative 

 to hunting was formed by one of the Welsh princes 

 in the twelfth century, containing a list of animals, 

 climbing ones, for example, which does not accord 

 with the present idea of hunting^ we hear nothing 

 of fox-hounds per se, till we find them in the kennel 

 of Edward I., and an item in his wardrobe book of 

 <£21, 6s. as the annual expenses of his pack, con- 

 sisting of six couples. Soon after this period, at 

 all events in the course of the next king's reign, the 

 diversion of hunting in England may be said to 

 have been first reduced to something like a science 

 — treatises having been written on the subject for 

 the instruction of young sportsmen, as well as rules 

 laid down for the observation and conduct of those 

 who filled the various offices, in the forest, the 

 kennel, and the stable. One of the most curious 

 of these performances is a manuscript written in 

 the beginning of the fourteenth century, in Nor- 



