peaking of the lark:

"Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day."

[402] Chappell's "Popular Music of the Olden Time," 2d ed. vol.
i. p. 61; see Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," p. 432;
see, too, Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 440.

In Drayton's "Polyolbion" (xiii.) it is used:

"No sooner doth the earth her flowery bosom brave,
At such time as the year brings on the pleasant spring,
But hunts-up to the morn the feather'd sylvans sing."

In Shakespeare's day it was customary to hunt as well after dinner as
before, hence, in "Timon of Athens" (ii. 2), Timon says:

"So soon as dinner's done, we'll forth again."

The word "embossed" was applied to a deer when foaming at the mouth from
fatigue. In "Taming of the Shrew" (Ind. scene 1) we read: "the poor cur
is embossed," and in "Antony and Cleopatra" (iv. 13):

"the boar of Thessaly
Was never so emboss'd."

It was usual to call a pack of hounds "a cry," from the French _meute de
chiens_. The term is humorously applied to any troop or company of
players, as by Hamlet (iii. 2), who speaks of "a fellowship in a cry of
players." In "Coriolanus" (iv. 6) Menenius says,

"You have made
Good work, you and your cry."

Antony, in "Julius Caesar" (iii. 1), alludes to the technical phrase to
"let slip a dog," employed in hunting the hart. This consisted in
releasing the hounds from the leash or _slip_ of leather by which they
were held in hand until it was judged proper to let them pursue the
animal chased.[403] In "1 Henry IV." (i. 3) Northumberland tells
Hotspur:

"Before the game's afoot, thou still let'st slip."

[403] See Dyce's "Glossary," p. 401.

In "Taming of the Shrew" (v. 2) Tranio says:

"O, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his greyhound,
Which runs himself, and catches for his master."

A sportsman's saying, applied to hounds, occurs in "2 Henry IV." (v. 3):
"a' will not out; he is true bred," serving to expound Gadshill's
expression, "such as can hold in," "1 Henry IV." (ii. 1).

The severity of the game laws under our early monarchs was very
stringent; and a clause in the "Forest Charter"[404] grants "to an
archbishop, bishop, earl, or baron, when travelling through the royal
forests, at the king's command, the privilege to kill one deer or two in
the sight of the forester, if he was at hand; if not, they were
co