IO INTRODUCTION. 



We have here an allusion to the ancient method of 

 " breaking up " a deer.* " The fellow of this walk " is the 

 forester, to whom it was customary on such occasions to 

 present a shoulder. Dame Juliana Berners, in her " Boke 

 of St. Albans," 1496, says, — 



" And the right shoulder, wheresoever he be, 

 Bere it to the foster, for that is fee." 



And in Turbervile's "Book of Hunting," 1575, the 

 distribution of the various parts of a deer is minutely 

 described. 



The touching description of a wounded stag, in As You 

 Like It, can scarcely escape notice. Alluding to "the 

 melancholy Jaques," one of the lords says,— 



" To-day my lord of Amiens and myself 

 Did steal behind him, as he lay along 

 Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out 

 Upon the brook that brawls along this wood ; 

 To the which place a poor sequestred stag, 

 That from the hunters' aim had ta'en a hurt, 

 Did come to languish ; and, indeed, my lord, 

 The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans, 

 That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat 



" ' ' We say the deer is ' broken up, ' the fox and hare are ' cased. ' ' ' — The Gentle- 

 man's Recreation. 1686. 



From this ancient practice, too, is derived the phrase, "to eat humble pie," 

 more correctly written " vmble pie." This was a. venison pasty, made of the 

 umbles (heart, liver, and lungs), and always given to inferiors, and placed low 

 down on the table when the squire feasted publicly in the hall. 



