INTRODUCTION. 95 
‘* 
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 
codperation 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 ;— 
2 
