Class II. FALCONRY. 211 



Neis there hauke which mantleth heron pearch, 



Whether high towring, or accoasting low, 

 But I the measure of her flight doe search, 



And all her pray, and all her diet know.* 



In short, this diversion was, among the old 

 English, the pride of the rich, and the privilege 

 of the poor, no rank of men seems to have been 

 excluded the amusement: we learn from the 

 book of St. Alban's;\ that every degree had its 

 peculiar hawk, from the emperor down to the 

 holy water clerk. Vast was the expence that 

 sometimes attended this sport ; in the reign of 

 James I. Sir Thomas Monson\ is said to have 

 given a thousand pounds for a cast of hawks : 

 we are not then to wonder at the rigor of the 

 laws that tended to preserve a pleasure that was 

 carried to such an extravagant pitch. In the 

 34th of Edward III. it was made felony to 

 steal a hawk; to take its eggs, even in a person's 

 own ground, was punishable with imprison- 

 ment for a year and a day, besides a fine at the 

 king's pleasure : in queen Elizabeth's reign the 

 imprisonment was reduced to three months; but 

 the offender was to find security for his good 

 behaviour for seven years, or lie in prison till he 



* Book VI. Canto 2. 



f A treatise on hunting, hawking and heraldry, printed at 

 St. Albans by Caxton, and attributed to Dame Julian Barnes. 

 % Sir Ant- Wtldoris court of K. James. 105. 



p 2 



