INTKODUCTION. 25 



poraneous ballads, which sound so truly in unison to the 

 chords of the popular heart. 



Parcelled out, as greater and lesser fiefs, to the high 

 Barons of the realm, and again by them to their knightly 

 vassals, as were all the lands of England, as fast as they 

 were overrun and conquered by the equestrian army of 

 the Norman William and his successors ; the sole right 

 of following and taking game in the field, the forest, the 

 morass, of keeping animals or implements of the chase, was 

 vested firstly in the king, and secondly in the holder of 

 feudal and manorial tenures ; without the smallest refer- 

 ence to the ownership or cultivation of the soil. 



By degrees the stringency and the cruelty of these 

 statutes were remitted ; and it is a curious fact, that the 

 cooperation of the Barons in securing the liberties of the 

 English people, as against the encroachment of the crown, 

 was induced mainly by their desire to abridge the royal pre- 

 rogative in the matter of the forest laws. 



From this period, and the state of things then existing 

 unquestionably, dates the hunting spirit of the English 

 gentleman ; his addiction to field sports, in utter disregard 

 of climate, country, toil, hardship or exposure ; his jealousy 

 concerning manorial rights and the preservation of his 

 game ; qualities and ideas, which he carries with him into 

 whatever quarter of the globe he migrates, whether to the 

 snows of Canada, the unwatered barrens of Australia, the 

 pestilential brakes of Africa, or the tiger-haunted jungles 

 of Hindostan, 



Ccelum non animum mutans si trans mare currat ; — 



