usually placed at the head of those amusements that can only be
practised in the country. This precedency it probably obtained from its
being a pastime to generally followed by the nobility, not in Great
Britain only, but likewise on the continent. In former times, persons of
high rank rarely appeared in public without their dogs and their hawks:
the latter they carried with them when they journeyed from one country
to another, and sometimes even took them to battle with them, and would
not part with them when taken prisoners, even to obtain their own
liberty. Such birds were esteemed as the ensigns of nobility, and no
action was reckoned more dishonourable in a man of rank than that of
giving up his hawk. We have already alluded to the hunting propensities
of our own Edward III., and we may also allude to his being equally
addicted to hawking. According to Froissart, when this sovereign invaded
France, he took with him thirty falconers on horseback, who had charge
of his hawks, and every day, as his royal fancy inclined him, he either
hunted, or went to the river for the purpose of hawking. In the great
and powerful, the pursuit of game as a sport is allowable, but in those
who have to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, it is to be
condemned. In Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" we find a humorous story,
told by Poggius, the Florentine, who reprobates this folly in such
persons. It is this. A physician of Milan, that cured madmen, had a pit
of water in his house, in which he kept his patients, some up to the
knees, some to the girdle, some to the chin, _pro modo insaniae_, as
they were more or less affected. One of them by chance, that was well
recovered, stood in the door, and seeing a gallant pass by with a hawk
on his fist, well mounted, with his spaniels after him, would needs know
to what use all this preparation served. He made answer, To kill certain
fowl. The patient demanded again, what his fowl might be worth which he
killed in a year? He replied, Five or ten crowns; and when he urged him
further, what his dogs, horse, and hawks stood him in, he told him four
hundred crowns. With that the patient bade him begone, as he loved his
life and welfare; "for if our master come and find thee here, he will
put thee in the pit, amongst the madmen, up to the chin." Thus reproving
the madness of such men as will spend themselves in those vain sports,
to the neglect of their business and necessary affairs.