1 66 BOOKS ON FALCONRY. 



This poem lias also been printed in the Delicice Poetarum 

 Gallorum, 1609 (pars iii. pp. 922—1001) and by Nicholas 

 Rigault in his Ret Accipitrarim Scriptores, 16 12 (pp. 1-99), 

 the latest edition being that with which the Italian translation 

 is given, published in Venice in 1735 (see No. 284). 



The author, Jacques Auguste de Thou, was born in 1553, in 

 Paris, where he was educated, and rose to such distinction as to 

 become President of the Parliament, and Privy Councillor to 

 two Kings of France, Henri III. and Henri IV. He is best 

 known to fame as the author of a Latin History of his own 

 time ( 1 546-1 608) in four folio volumes. Voltaire, who ranks 

 him with Hume, styles him an historian distinguished for 

 eloquence and veracity. Cardinal du Perron placed him next to 

 Sallust and Tacitus. Dr. Johnson had so high an opinion of his 

 " History " that he entertained serious thoughts of translating 

 it {cf. Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. 1804, vol. iii. p. 691). 



This poem on the art of Hawking written in Latin hexameters 

 was composed about the year 1581-82 (when he was twenty- 

 nine) while travelhng with his friend Pierre Pithou through 

 Languedoc and Provence, where no doubt at that period hawking 

 was commonly practised. He may also have seen something of 

 the sport in Italy when travelling in the suite of the Comte de 

 Foix on an embassy to Rome (1573-74), and perhaps too in 

 Germany (1579) when visiting Languet, the Prime Minister of 

 the Elector of Saxony at Strasburg. 



Collinson in his "Life of Thuanus " (8vo, 1807, pp. 34, 80) 

 gives the date of this composition as 1575 (which would make 

 the author only twenty-two when it was written), but, although 

 professing to give some account of his writings, he affords no 

 information as to the circumstances under which this poem was 

 composed. 



It is related of Thuanus that, when travelling through France 

 with M. Schomberg on an embassy from Henri III. to the King 

 of Navarre, they were entertained for some days at Mande, the 

 seat of the Bishop and Count of Gevandan. At the first repast 

 it was observed with surprise that all the game or wild fowl 

 brought to table wanted either a head, a wing, a leg, or some 

 other part, which occasioned their host pleasantly to apologise 

 for the voracity of his caterer, who always took the liberty of 

 first tasting what he had procured. It turned out that the game 



