[218] See D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature," vol. iii. p. 84.
[219] See Thornbury's "Shakespeare's England," vol. i. pp. 311-322.
[220] Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 394.
[221] Harting's "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 269.
[222] Aldis Wright's "Notes to 'The Tempest'," 1875, pp. 120, 121.
[223] See Dyce's "Shakespeare," vol. i. p. 245.
_Hawk._ The diversion of catching game with hawks was very popular in Shakespeare's time,[224] and hence, as might be expected, we find many scattered allusions to it throughout his plays. The training of a hawk for the field was an essential part of the education of a young Saxon nobleman; and the present of a well-trained hawk was a gift to be welcomed by a king. Edward the Confessor spent much of his leisure time in either hunting or hawking; and in the reign of Edward III. we read how the Bishop of Ely attended the service of the church at Bermondsey, Southwark, leaving his hawk in the cloister, which in the meantime was stolen--the bishop solemnly excommunicating the thieves. On one occasion Henry VIII. met with a serious accident when pursuing his hawk at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire. In jumping over a ditch his pole broke, and he fell headlong into the muddy water, whence he was with some difficulty rescued by one of his followers. Sir Thomas More, writing in the reign of Henry VIII., describing the state of manhood, makes a young man say:
"Man-hod I am, therefore I me delyght To hunt and hawke, to nourish up and fede The greyhounde to the course, the hawke to th' flight, And to bestryde a good and lusty stede."
[224] See Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," 1876, pp. 60-97, and "Book of Days," 1863, vol. ii. pp. 211-213; Smith's "Festivals, Games, and Amusements," 1831, p. 174.
In noticing, then, Shakespeare's allusions to this sport, we have a good insight into its various features, and also gain a knowledge of the several terms associated with it. Thus frequent mention is made of the word "haggard"--a wild, untrained hawk--and in the following allegory ("Taming of the Shrew," iv. 1), where it occurs, much of the knowledge of falconry is comprised:
"My falcon now is sharp, and passing empty; And, till she stoop, she must not be full-gorged,[225] For then she never looks upon her lure. Another way I have to man my haggard, To make her come, and know her keeper's call; That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites That bate, and beat, and will not be obedient. She eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat; Last night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not."[226]