i 
FALCON RY. Crass II. 
horn and to carry their hawk fair, and leave frudy 
and learning to the children of mean people*. The 
former were the accomplifhments of the times; 
Spenfer makes his galiant Sir Trifram boaft, 
Ne is there hauke which mantleth her on pearch, 
Whether high towring, or accoafting low, 
But I the meafure of her flight doe fearch, 
And all her pray, and all her diet know fF. 
In fhort, this diverfion was, amone the old Englifh, 
the pride of the rich, and the privilege of the poor, 
no rank of men feems to have been excluded the 
amufement: we learn from the book of Sz. Albanst, 
that every degree had its peculiar hawk, from the 
emperor Gown to the holy water clerk. Watt was 
the expence that fometimes attended this fport; in 
the reign of Fames 1. Sir Thomas Monfon | is faid 
to have given a thoufand pounds for a caft of 
hawks: we are not then to wonder at the rigor of 
the laws that tended to preferve a pleafure that was 
carried to fuch an extravagant pitch. Inthe 34th 
of Edward III. it was made felony to fteal ahawk: 
to take its eggs, even in a perfon’s own ground, 
was punifhable with imprifonment for a year and 
a day; befides a fine at the kine’s pleafure: in 
queen Elizaberh’s reign the imprifonment was re- 
duced to three months; but the offender was to 
* Biog. Brit. article Caxton. 
+ Book VI. Canto z. j 
t A treatife on hunting, hawking and heraldry, printed at 
St. Albans by Caxton, and attributed to Dame Fulian Barnes. 
\| Sir dat. Weldon’s court of K. Fames. 105. 
find 
‘ 
