ANTIQUITY OP HAWKING. 
on every hawk sold. When Edward III. invaded France, 
that nation had an opportunity of knowing that we too had a 
passion for hawking as deep as themselves. Froissart says, 
“ With him the king took thirty falconers on horseback, who 
had charge of his hawks, and every day he either hunted 
or hawked, as he was disposed.” 
It is seldom that a sport — or, for that matter, a serious 
business — gets such universal hold on a people as did hawking. 
Every one indulged in it. A lady could not go a journey of a 
mile without her merlin perched on her wrist; when Darby 
walked out into the fields with Joan, he carried his tercel as 
■commonly as he now carries his walking-stick; and to such 
wicked lengths did the fast young bucks of the period carry 
the passion, as to take their hawks with them to church. 
This desecration of the sacred edifice was the theme of a 
poet who lived so long ago that the language in which the 
complaint is couched is now unintelligible, except to the pro- 
foundly learned. It has been modernized as follows by a 
recent writer : — 
“ Into the church then comes another sot, 
Without devotion, fretting up and down. 
All to be seen, and show his gaudy coat. 
With sparrow-hawk on his fist, or falcon, 
Or else a cuckoo ; wearing out his shoes, 
Before the altar up and down he’ll wander. 
Having no more devotion than a gander. 
In comes another, his hounds at his tail, 
With lines and leashes, and such-like baggage ; 
His dogs bark, and so, without fail, 
Trouble the whole church by their outrage.” 
When in those pagan times a hawk fell sick, the keeper, -as 
be administered the medicine, uttered the following established, 
prayer, — “ In the name of the Lord, the birds of Heaven shall 
be beneath thy feet ; ” and if a conflict occurred between a 
hawk and a heron, and the former got worsted, it was proper 
for the company to ejaculate, “ The lion of the tribe of Judah, 
the root of David has conquered ! Hallelujah !” 
Ho better illustration of the universality of the sport of 
hawking can be given than the following extract from an 
ancient and credible writer on the subject. According to one’s 
station in life, a hawk of a certain quality was apportioned 
nim for his pastime ; — every one to his kind, from the emperor 
to the “ knave,” as the serving-man was in those days desig- 
nated : — 
“For the Emperor the Eagle, or Vulture. 
For the King the Ger-Falcon. 
