of England_
prefixed to Holinshed, chap. 6.]

[Footnote 35:
_His honour was somewhat preposterous, for he bare_, &c., first edit.]

[Footnote 36:
_Clown_, first edit.]

[Footnote 37:
The art of hawking has been so frequently and so fully explained, that
it would be superfluous, if not arrogant, to trace its progress, or
delineate its history, in this place. In the earliest periods it appears
to have been exclusively practised by the nobility; and, indeed, the
great expense at which the amusement was supported, seems to have been a
sufficient reason for deterring persons of more moderate income, and of
inferior rank, from indulging in the pursuit. In the _Sports and
Pastimes_ of Mr. Strutt, a variety of instances are given of the
importance attached to the office of falconer, and of the immense value
of, and high estimation the birds themselves were held in from the
commencement of the Norman government, down to the reign of James I., in
which Sir Thomas Monson gave L1000 for a cast of hawks, which consisted
of only _two_.

The great increase of wealth, and the consequent equalization of
property in this country, about the reign of Elizabeth, induced many of
inferior birth to practise the amusements of their superiors, which they
did without regard to expense, or indeed propriety. Sir Thomas Elyot, in
his _Governour_ (1580), complains that the falcons of his day consumed
so much poultry, that, in a few years, he feared there would be a great
scarcity of it. "I speake not this," says he, "in disprayse of the
faukons, but of them which keepeth them lyke cockneyes." A reproof,
there can be no doubt, applicable to the character in the text.]

[Footnote 38:
A term in hawking, signifying the short straps of leather which are
fastened to the hawk's legs, by which she is held on the fist, or joined
to the leash. They were sometimes made of silk, as appears from _The
Boke of hawkynge, huntynge, and fysshynge, with all the propertyes and
medecynes that are necessarye to be kepte_: "Hawkes haue aboute theyr
legges _gesses_ made of lether most comonly, some of sylke, which shuld
be no lenger but that the knottes of them shulde appere in the myddes of
the lefte hande," &c. _Juliana Barnes_, edit. 410, "_Imprynted at London
in Pouls chyrchyarde by me Hery Tab_." Sig. C. ii.]

[Footnote 39:
_This authority of his is that club which keeps them under as his dogs
hereafter_, first edit.]

[Footnote 40:
_Now become a man