and the chase assume a 'theanthropic' form, to the disregard of detail of landscape in accordance with the prevailing principles of Greek art. Detail, particular description, had to wait for the northern and mediæval poets and romancers. For these reasons our knowledge of classical sport is meagre and general. A more special picture occurs in the passage on the death of the boar, in Mr. Swinburne's 'Atalanta in Calydon.' After Homer the Greek poets were men of the alcove, the market-place, the theatre, as were many of our own writers, between Shakspeare and Scott. The sporting races, as in Thessaly and Sparta, were not literary: the poets of Boeotia were few, and references to the chase, as a rule, deal in a somewhat conventional way with the characters of the remote heroic age. BEFORE introducing readers to Sporting Songs and Ballads, it will be interesting to look at some of the allusions to sport found scattered through the works of our English poets and verse-writers. To one who is only acquainted with the names of some fifty or sixty of these the labour of selection may appear easy, and the fear of omitting anything of interest slight; but if it be remembered that for every well-known author we have ten but little known, the difficulty of the undertaking will be better realised. In fact, the limit of research must, in all such cases, be determined by the conscientiousness of the workers. There are about 1,800,000 books to be found in the British Museum; how many of these contain verse in one form or another is a question that must be left for some future bibliomaniac to discover. We should roughly estimate them between a quarter and half a million, and yet the works of at least a sixth of the older minor poets are not to be found there. It is, moreover, not safe to take for granted that it is easy to decide who is or who is not likely to write on sporting subjects. The reader would hardly have expected to find a hunting song by Bishop Heber, yet one of the best in this collection was written by him. Verily the ways of poets are past understanding, and the number of verse-writers who can calculate! In making the following collection of extracts we have had three objects chiefly in view-the excellence of the verse, C the accuracy of description, and the historical interest. Any piece has been included which marks the changes of sport, either in spirit, manner, or costume, thereby enabling the reader to gain considerable information on the subject which he might find much difficulty in acquiring elsewhere. To carry out this object further, a considerable number of plates. copied from little known ancient paintings and engravings have been included. These will be found to illustrate far better and more accurately than any modern work the customs and costumes of the varicus times, and help to explain many allusions which might otherwise be more or less unintelligible. In dealing with English verse it is fortunately only necessary to go back about five hundred years. Before the time of Chaucer there is little or nothing of poetical interest to be found. The printing press had not brought either its blessing or its curse, and songs of excellence, if such there were, must have perished or lived only as memory preserved them in a mangled form. It is more than probable that many early writers have received credit for much that was not their own and which they never wished to appropriate. An instance of this is doubtless to be found in the first printed hunting song found in the 'Boke of St. Albans' and attributed to Dame Juliana Berners. Fiction has been allowed to play some liberal freaks with this lady's history, which doubtless would amuse her greatly if she could only read them, one writer after another having piled up tales of imagination and given them forth as facts, till anyone who so wishes can read quite a thrilling history of the Hunting Abbess. Not one word, however, of this romance appears to be founded on even a groundwork of truth, and the world is indebted to Mr. William Blades for having finally exploded this iridescent bubble. In his introduction to the reprint, 1881, of the 'Boke of St. Albans,' after giving a most interesting account of how history is manufactured, he concludes with this verdict : 'What is really known of the Dame is almost nothing, and may be summed up in the following words. She probably lived at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and she possibly compiled from existing manuscripts some rhymes on Hunting.' Strutt thinks, and most likely correctly, that the 'Boke of St. Albans is compiled from a tract by William Twici or Twety, huntsman to King Edward II., or from an enlargement of the same by Henry IV., for the use of his son Prince Henry. Anyway, it is evidently a school-book, so written that a pupil whilst learning to read might at the same time become familiar with the terms of venery. It would be out of place to give more than an extract or two from this doggerel, which is only of value for certain allusions to sport, such as the following description of a greyhound: A grehounde shulde be heded like a snake, Tayled like a rat, Sydd like a teme, Chyned' like a beme.? The Boke of St. Albans, 1486. We find here, also, the names of beasts of sport divided into three classes: Ist, venery; 2nd, chase ; 3rd, raskall From which it will be seen that the fox was considered a beast of chase at that time. Foure maner bestys of venery there are : The first of theym is the hert, the secunde is the hare, The bore is oon of tho, the wolff and not oon moo. And where that ye cum in playne or in place, I shall you tell which be bestys of enchace, Oon of thym is the bucke, a nother is the Doo. Some writers have stated that foxhunting as a recognised sport was of much later date, but we have the authority of William Twici that the fox was classed with the buck, the doe, and the roe in Edward II.'s time. 1 Backed. 21. 1. breme. In the fourteenth century hunting was a very popular sport with ladies, and if we are to credit the illustrated manuscripts of the date, these sporting dames were quite capable of making up parties by themselves, of blowing the horns, managing the hounds, and doing all the work of huntsmen. In these cases they rode astride, but when accompanying the men it seems to have been more usual for them to sit sideways in a pillion behind their favourite knights. What the unfortunate horse thought of this latter arrangement history does not relate, but from the engravings the horses seem to have had pretty broad backs, and resemble slightly melted-down cart-horses. Lydgate (1370-1440), who wrote about the close of this century, gives 'A satirical description of his Lady : Of huntyng she beryth the greet pryse, 3 Harl. MS. 2255. The importance attached to the training of youths in all field sports is frequently alluded to, as in the following fragment taken from a romance written at this period, and called 'Ipomydon.' Speaking of the education of the king's son, the writer says: Both of howndes and hawkes game In wodde to chase the wild dere And in feld to ryde a stede That all men had joy of hys dede. Harl. MS. 2252. Strutt copy. That hunting and hawking were necessities as well as amusements in these days is also shown in the following lines by W. J. Langland, written about 1360 1 thrust. 2 tine of the horns. 3 notched at the edges. |