Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 155 



the famous wild boar of Northern Mythology, 

 Sarhimner, who was hunted every day by the 

 heroes in Walhalla, and feafted upon every night, 

 and then miraculoufly came to life again next day 

 for another chafe, thus affording eternal amufe- 

 ment to his purfuers. 



Time would fail to recount the different modes 

 of hunting which fucceeded the ufe of nets and 

 toils, of the crofsbow-fhooting and flipping of 

 dogs at deer practifed in and after the Norman 

 period of Englifh hiftory. Our purpofe is but to 

 touch upon the early phafes of the fport. He 

 who would know fomething of hunting in the 

 Middle Ages fhould confult the quaint treatife on 

 it earlieft in the language in the " Boke of St. 

 Albans," 1486, or the fuller pages of Jacques de 

 Fouilloux, 1650. Beckford and Surtees bring the 

 art of fox-hunting to which moft Englifh hunting 

 has fhrunk down to our own days. Vaniere, 

 the Jefuit poet, well defcribes the moral ufes of 

 hunting : 



" Nobilium labor ille virum eft, bellique cruenti 

 Dulce rudimentum ; juvenes exercita curfu 

 Corpora venando durant ad frigus et aeftum, 

 Corda fibi generofa parant, animamque capacem 

 Mortis, et expertem media inter tela pavoris ; 

 Exercent et ad arma manus ; aftuque ferarum 

 Ac nemorum infidiis et bellica furta docentur 

 Hoftilefque dolos." 1 



1 " Praed. Rufticum," lib. xvi. 



