243 
Definition of a Gentleman. 
quent: lie is nobody,.that in the season hath not a hawke on his fist: 
a great art, and many books written on it. It is a wonder to hear what 
is related of the Turkes officers in this behalf, how many thousand men 
are employed about it, how many hawks of all sorts, how much is 
spent at Adrianople alone every year to that purpose. The Persian 
kings hawk after butterflies with sparrows, made to that purpose, and 
stares; lesser hawks for lesser games they have, and bigger for- the 
rest, that they may produce their sport to all seasons. The Musco- 
vian emperours reclaime eagles to fly at hindes, foxes, etc., and such a 
■one was sent for a present to Queen Elizabeth: some reclaime ravens, 
vcastrils, pies, etc., and man them for their pleasure. 5 ’ 
There was, however, a darker side to this amusement, 
which is suggested by Gifford, in a note in his edition of 
Massinger. 
u Humanity,” he writes, “ has seldom obtained a greater triumph 
than in the abolition of this most execrable pursuit, compared to which 
cock-fighting and bull-baiting are innocent amusements : and this not 
so much on account of the game killed in the open field, as the 
immense number of domestic animals sacrificed to the instruction of 
the hawk. The blood runs cold while we peruse the calm instructions 
of the brutal falconer, to impale, tie down, fasten by the beak, break 
the legs and wings of living pigeons, hens, and sometimes herons, for 
the hourly exercise of the hawk, who was thus enabled to pull them 
to pieces without resistance.” (Note to The Picture , vol. ii.) 
Probably, with the increase of consideration for animal 
suffering, many of the practices Gifford condemns have 
been abandoned by modern falconers. 
The excess to which love of hawking was occasionally 
carried provoked some opposition from the less extrava¬ 
gant portion of the community. A correspondent in 
Notes and Queries (5th series, vol. viii. p. 133) quotes a 
passage from a volume of sermons by a nephew of Bishop 
Jewell, printed at Oxford in 1633, after the death of the 
author:— 
<£ Hunting, hawking are almost become essential to a gentleman, so 
that perhaps he defined not much amisse who said, a gentleman was 
a beast riding upon a beast, with a beast on his fist, having beasts 
following him, and himselfe following beasts.” 
