Popery, as he was bound to do according to law; and he somewhat dreaded the inroads of Popery in the shape of Church ceremonials. He was not quite clear that the good man to whom he had presented the living of Charlcote was perfectly right in maintaining the honour and propriety of the surplice; but he did not altogether think that it was the "mark of abomination." He reprobated the persecution of certain ministers "for omitting small portions or some ceremony prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer."+ Those ministers were of the new opinions which men began to call puritanical. The good knight's visits to Stratford may be occasionally traced in the Chamberlain's accounts, especially upon solemn occasions, when he went thither with "my Lady and Mr. Sheriff," and left behind him such pleasant memorials as "paid at the Swan for a quart of sack and a quartern of sugar, burned for Sir Thomas Lucy." The "sack and sugar" would, we think, indispose him to go along with the violent denouncers of old festivals; and those who deprecated hunting and hawking would be in his mind little better than fools. He had his falconer and his huntsman; and he had his blandest mien when he rode out of his gates with his hounds about him, and graciously saluted the yeomen who rode with him to find a hare in Fulbrooke. * See Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Polity," Book v. When in Parliament, in 1584, Sir Thomas Lucy presented a petition against the interference of ecclesiastical courts in such matters, wherein these words are used. Chamberlain's Accounts-Halliwell, p. 101. THERE is a book with which William Shakspere would unquestionably be familiar, the delightful "Scholemaster" of Roger Ascham, first printed in 1570, which would sufficiently encourage him, if encouragement were wanting, in the common pursuit of serious study and manly exercises. "I do not mean," says this fine genial old scholar, "by all this my talk, that young gentlemen should always be poring on a book, and, by using good studies, should lose honest pleasure and haunt no good pastime; I mean nothing less; for it is well known that I both like and love, and have always and do yet still use, all exercises and pastimes that be fit for my nature and ability. And beside natural disposition, in judgment also, I was never either stoic in doctrine, or Anabaptist in religion, to mislike a merry, pleasant, and playful nature, if no outrage be committed against law, measure, and good order. Therefore to ride comely; to run fair at the tilt or ring; to play at all weapons; to shoot fair in bow or surely in gun; to vault lustily; to run; to leap; to wrestle; to swim; to dance comely; to sing, and play of instruments cunningly; to hawk; to hunt; to play at tennis; and all pastimes generally which be joined with labour, used in open place, and in the daylight, containing either some fit exercise for war, or some pleasant pastime for peace, be not only comely and decent, but also very necessary for a courtly gentleman to use." To "ride comely," to "shoot fairly in bow, or surely in gun,' "to hawk, to hunt," were pastimes in which William Shakspere would heartily engage. His plays abound with the most exact descriptions of matters connected with field-sports. In these exercises, "in open place and in the daylight," would he meet his neighbours; and we may assume that those social qualities which won for him the love of the wisest and the wittiest in his mature years, would be prominent in the frankness and fearlessness of youth. Learned men had despised hunting and hawking—had railed against these sports. Surely Sir Thomas More, he would think, never had hawk on fist, or chased the destructive vermin whose furs he wore, when he wrote, "What delight can there be, and not rather displeasure, in hearing the barking and howling of dogs?"* Erasmus, too, was a secluded scholar. Ascham appreciated these things, because he liked, and loved, and used them. With his "stone-bow" in hand would the boy go forth in search of quail or partridge. It was a difficult weapon a random shot might hit a man "in the eye," + but it was not so easy when the small bullet flew from the string to bring down the blackbird from the bush. There is abundant game in Fulbrooke. Ever since the attainder of John Dudley it had been disparked; granted by the Crown to a favourite, and again seized upon. A lovely woodland scene was this, in the days when Elizabeth took into her own hands the property which her sister had granted to Sir Henry Englefield, now a proscribed wanderer. The boy-sportsman is on Daisy Hill with his "birdingbow;" but the birds are for a while unheeded. He stops to gaze upon that glorious view of Warwick which is here unfolded. There, bright in the sunshine, at the distance of four or five miles, are the noble towers of the Beauchamps; and there is the lofty church beneath whose roof their pride and their ambition lie low. Behind him is his own Stratford, with its humbler spire. All around is laund and bush, a spot which might have furnished the scene of the Keepers in Henry VI. : "1 Keep. Under this thick-grown brake we'll shroud ourselves; For through this laund anon the deer will come; And in this covert we will make our stand, Culling the principal of all the deer. 2 Keep. I'll stay above the hill, so both may shoot. 1 Keep. That cannot be; the noise of thy cross-bow Will scare the herd, and so my shoot is lost. Here stand we both, and aim we at the best;"+ a spot to which many a fair dame had been led by gallant forester, with bow bent, and "quarrel" fitted :— "Prin. Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush But it was With the timid deer even the cross-bow scares the herd with its noise. retained in "birding" long after the general use of fire-arms, that the covey might not be scattered. Its silent power of destruction was its principal merit. But as boyhood is thrown off there are nobler pastimes for William Shakspere than those of gun and cross-bow. Like Gaston de Foix "he loved hounds, of all * "Utopia," book ii., chap. 7. "O, for a stone-bow! to hit him in the eye."-Twelfth Night. "Henry VI.," Part III., Act III., Scene I. § "Love's Labour's Lost," Act IV. Scene I. beasts, winter and summer.”* He was skilled in the qualities of hounds: he de lighted in those of the noblest breed, "So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung The chase in his day was not a tremendous burst for an hour or two, whose breathless speed shuts out all sense of beauty in the sport. There was harmony in every sound of the ancient hunt—there was poetry in all its associations. Such lines as those which Hippolita utters were not the fancies of a cloistered student : "I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, The solemn huntings of princes and great lords, where large assemblies were convened to chase the deer in spaces enclosed by nets, but where the cook and the butler were as necessary as the hunter, were described in stately verse by George Gascoigne. "The noble art of Venerie" seems to have been an admirable excuse for ease and luxury “under the greenwood tree." But the open hunting with the country squire's beagles was a more stirring matter. By day-break was the bugle sounded; and from the spacious offices of the Hall came forth the keepers, leading their slow-hounds for finding the game, and the foresters with their greyhounds in leash. Many footmen are there in attendance with their quarter-staffs and hangers. Slowly rides forth the master and his friends. Neighbours join them on their way to the wood. There is merriment in their progress, for, as they pass through the village, they stop before the door of the sluggard who ought to have been on foot, singing “Hunt's up to the day: "—§ "The hunt is up, the hunt is up, Sing merrily we, the hunt is up; The deer they fling: Hey nony, nony-no: The hounds they cry, The hunters they fly: It is a cheering and inspiriting tune-the réveillée-awakening like the "singing" of the lark, or the "lively din" of the cock. Sounds like these were heard, half a century after the youth of Shakspere, by the student whose poetry scarcely descended to the common things which surrounded him; for it was not the outgushing of the *Lord Berners' "Froissart," book iii. chap. 26. "Midsummer Night's Dream," Act IV., Scene I. Ibid. § "Romeo and Juliet," Act III., Scene v. || Douce, "Illustrations of Shakspere," vol. ii., p. 192. heart over all life and nature; it was the reflection of his own individuality, and the echo of books-beautiful indeed, but not all-comprehensive : "Oft list'ning how the hounds and horn Through the high wood echoing shrill."* : Some To the wood leads the chief huntsman. He has tracked the hart or doe to the covert on the previous night; and now the game is to be roused by man and dog. of the company may sing the fine old song, as old as the time of Henry VIII.: "Blow thy horn, hunter, Blow thy horn on high. In yonder wood there lieth a doe; In faith she woll not die. Then blow thy horn, hunter, Then blow thy horn, hunter, Then blow thy horn, jolly hunter."† The hart is roused. The hounds have burst out in "musical confusion." Soho is cried. The greyhounds are unleashed. And now rush horsemen and footmen over hill-through dingle. A mile or two of sharp running, and he is again in cover. Again the keepers beat the thicket with their staves. He is again in the open field, crossing Ingon Hill. And so it is long before the treblemort is sounded; and the * Milton, "L'Allegro." †The MS. of this fine song is in the British Museum. It has been published by Mr. Chappell. |