Nevertheless, the compassion of Josiane carries her to Sir Bevis' apartment. "Lemman,' sche seyd, with gode entent, For make the bothe hole and fere," &c. No doubt such interviews were frequently attended with the consequences which follow in the text. Indeed, according to a later minstrel, Isate le Triste, the son of our hero, Sir Tristrem, becomes the father of Sir Marck the Exile, through a similar Complaisant visit from the lovely princess Martha, niece of a certain King Irion. To be faithful, or firm, as a stone, seems to have been a proverbial expression: His wife that was so trewe as ston." How a Merchant did his Wife betray. In Winton's Chronicle, the Earl of Athole, entering into battle, thus apostrophized a huge rock: By the face of God, thou shalt flee this day, as soon as I!"* Nine lines of the twelfth, and three lines of the thirteenth stanzas, are cut out of the MS. That is, the knights came ashore in complete armour. I am here tempted to transcribe a curious account of the varieties of the ancient arms, which will remind the admirers of Chaucer, of a similar description, previous to the tournament in the knight's Tale. "The famous knyghtes arme them in that place, And some of them gan full streyte lace, A certayn folde that aboute hym • "Evyn in the Peth was Erle Dawy, B. viii. c. xxxi, v. 63. XVII. Of folk the feld was brade And some there were eke that ne wolde fayle A payre gussets on a pety-cote, A paunce of plate, which of the self behinde, And some, for they would be armed more light, And some wolde have of mayle wrought full fyne, XVIII. Morganes folk came newe Thurch brinies brast the blood; His sone him after stode, And dere his deth he sold. XIX. Rewthe mow ye here, Of Rouland Riis the knight; To deth he him dight, XX. His horse o feld him bare, Alle ded hom in his way; Gret wonder hadde he thought thare, To Blaunche Flour that may; For hir me reweth sare; On child bed ther sche lay, Of hir Tristrem, that day, Ac hye no bade nought that morn. XXI. A ring of riche hewe, Than hadde that leuedi fre; King Markes may rewe, As Rouland loued the, Thou kepe it to his sone." XXII. The folk stode vn fain, Bifor that leuedi fre: -"Rouland mi lord is slain, He speketh no more with me!" That leuedi, nought to lain, For sothe ded is sche; Who maye be ogain, As God wil it schal be Sorwe it was to se, Morgan, agreeable to ancient custom, is represented as solemnizing his accession to the kingdom of Ermonie, by distributing rich ornaments and jewels, the emblems probably of dignity, among his favoured vassals. The coronation of a monarch was always attended with similar marks of splendour and munificence. That of Edward Longshanks is thus described in a MS. chronicle of England, penes the Marquis of Douglas, apparently written about the reign of Henry V. "And aftur this Kyng Henry reygned his sone Edward, the worthyest knight of al the world, for the honor of Godis grace. And as sone as he myght, aftur that Kyng Henry his fadur was dede, he come to London with a fayr company of prelatis, and of erles, and barons: and alle maner of men hym moche honoryd; for in every place that Sir Edwarde rode, the streets were covered over his hede wythe rych clothes of sylke, of carpytes, and of ryche coverings: and therefore, for joye of his comyng, the noble burges of the cite caste oute atte ouper windows, golde and sylver handes-full, in tokenynges of love and worschepefull servyces and reverence. And oute of the condytt of Chepe ran whyte wyne and red, as stremes dothe of water. And thus Kyng Edward was crowned and anoynted as ryght heyr of England, wyth moche honor. And whan he was sete unto his mete, the Kyng Alysandre of Scotlonde came for to do him honor and reverence, with a queyntise [pageant] and an C knyghtes wyth hym wel horsed and arayed, and whan they were lyght adowne of her stedes, they lett hem gone whether that they wold, and who that myght take hem, toke at her own wel wythoute any chal XXIII. Geten and born was so The child, was fair and white; Nas neuer Rohand so wo; He nist it whom to wite; To child bed ded he go, His owhen wiif al so tite; And seyd he hadde children to, On hem was his delite, Bi Crist. In court men cleped him so Tho tram bifor the trist. XXIV. Douk Morgan was blithe,, Tho Rouland Riis was doun; He sent his sond swithe, And bad all schuld be boun, And to his lores lithe, Redi to his somoun; Durst non oyain him kithe, Bot yalt him tour and toun, So sone; No was no king with croun, So richeliche hadde y done. Fiftene yere he gan him fede, He taught him ich alede, More he couthe of veneri, lenge. And aftur come Symend, Kyng Edward's brother, a curteys knyght, an a gentil of renowne, and the Erle of Cornewayle. and the Erle of Glocester, and efter hem come the Erle of Pembroke, and eche of hem by herselfe, led in her hond an C of knyghtes, gaylich disgysed in her armor, and whanne they wer lyght of her horse, and lete hyr gon whether that hym liked who that myght hem take, have hem still withoute eny lete." In contemplating this rich picture of feudal grandeur, it is impossible to suppress a sigh, when we reflect how little Alexander III. anticipated, that the ambition of the brother sovereign, to whom he offered his congratulation and honorary attendance, should in future prove the most dreadful scourge by which Scotland was ever visited. The education of Sir 'Tristrem, comprising the art of war and of combat, with the mysteries of the chase, skill in music, in poetry, and in the few sedentary games used by the feudal nobility, united all that was necessary, or even decent to be known, by a youth of noble birth. Huon of Bourdeaux, disguised as a minstrel's page, gives the following account of his qualifications to a heathen soldan:- Sire," dit Huon, "je sais muer un epervier, voire un falcen, chasser le cerf, voire le sanglier, et corner quand la bete est prinse, faire la droicture aux chiens, trancher au festin d'un grand roi ou seigneur, et des tables et echecs en sais autant, et plus que homme qui vive."-"Oh! Oh!" se dit Yvoirin, ces ne sont mie la les faits de valet de menestrier, bien duiroient is a gentil damoiseau." 1 Tristrem is uniformly represented as the patron of the chase, XXVIII. Ther com a schip of Norway,* On his playing he wold For hauke siluer he yold; A cheker he fond bi a cheire,t -"Child, what wiltow lay?'- The mariner swore his faye, For sothe ich held ther tille. XXX. Now bothe her wedde lys, And endred beth ther inne: Of playe ar he wald blinne, Rohand toke leue to ga, His sones he cleped oway; The fairest hauke he gan ta, That Tristrem wan that day, With him he left ma Pans for to play; The mariner swore also, and the first who reduced hunting to a science. Thus the report Then hushed and peace for noble Tristrame's sake." The Morte Arthur tells us, that "Tristrem laboured ever in bunting and hawking, so that we never read of no gentleman more that so used himself therein. And as the book saith, he began good measures of blowing of blasts of venery, and of chace, and of all manner of vermeins; and all these terms have we ret of hawking and hunting. And therefore the booke of venery, of hawking and hunting, is called the booke of Sir Tristrem: Wherefore, as we seemeth, all gentlemen that bear old armes, of ngh: they ought to honour Sir Tristrem, for the goodly termes that gentlemen have and use, and shall to the worldes end, that thereby in a manner all men of worship may dessever a gentlemas from a yeoman, and a yeoman from a villaine. For he that of gentle blood will draw him into gentle latches, and to follow he custome of noble gentlemen." It is not impossible that there may have been some foundation for this belief. The anCent British were as punctilious as the English concerning the rales of hunting, the Welsh laws of which are printed at the end of Davies and Richard's Dictionary. Every huntsman, who was ignorant of the terms suitable to the nine chases, forfeited his horn. Most of our modern hunting terms are, however, of French derivation. Sir Triatrem," or "An old Tristrem," seems to have passed into a common proverbial appellation for an expert huntsman. The title of a chapter in The Art of Venerie bears, How you shall rewarde your houndes when they have killed a hare; which the Frenchmer. calleth the reicarde, and sometime the querry, but our old Tristrem calleth it the hallow."-P. 174. In another passare it is said, "Our Tristram reckoneth the bore for one of the four beastes of venerie."-Marginal Note, p. 148. I am ignorant who is meant by Manerious. Du Cange gives us Manerius, as synonymous to Mandaterius, i. c. Villicus. Mr. Ellis suggests, that a work upon the chase may have been compled by a person designing himself, Regis vel Comitis Manerius, the bailiff of such a king or noble, and that the office may have been confounded with the name. Tristrem wan that day, XXXII. Tristrem wan that ther was layd: Of lod thai were wel glade, XXXIII. His maister than thai fand, Sink or stille stand; The child schal with ous fare Tristrem wepe ful sare; The mariners flet on flode, Version of Olaus Magnus, by J. S., London, 1658, p. 200. Tho estimation in which the Norwegian hawks and falconers were held in England, appears from the fabulous account of Regnar Lodbrog's arrival in Kent, or Northumberland, as given by Bromp ton and William of Malmesbury. The game of chess is supposed to have been invented in the East, a subject upon which the learned Hyde has poured forth an amazing profusion of Oriental erudition. But it was early known to the northern people; and skill in that interesting game was one of the accomplishments of a Scandinavian hero. It is therefore with great propriety that a Norwegian mariner is introduced as the antagonist of Tristrem. Frequent mention of chess occurs in ancient romance. In that of Ogier le Danois, Churlot, the degenerate son of Charlemagne, incensed at losing two games to the young Baldwin, kills him with the massive chess-board. In the beautiful romance of Florence and Blaunche Floure, the hero procures access to the harem of the Soldan of Babylon, where his mistress is confined, by permitting the porter to win from him at chess,-a sacrifice of which every amateur of the game will fully understand the value. A similar stratagem was practised by Huon de Bourdeaux in Egypt. But the most splendid game of chess, and which puts to shame even that which the late King of Prussia and Marshal Keith were wont to play, with real soldiers, occurs in the romance of Sir Gaheret. That champion was entertained in the enchanted castle of a beautiful fairy, who engaged him in a party at chess in a large hall, where flags of black and white marble formed the chequer, and the pieces, consisting of massive statues of gold and silver, moved at the touch of the magic rod held by the player. Sir Gaheret, being defeated, was obliged to remain the fairy's prisoner, but was afterwards liberated by his cousin Gawin, who checkmated the mistress of the enchanted chess board. A similar adventure occurs in the romance of Lancelot du Lac, 2d partie, f. 101. But it is not in romance alone that we trace the partiality of our ancestors for this amusement. In the laws of Howel Dha, a chess-board is allotted as the reward of the King's principal bard. Sir William de Granville won, for King Edward III, the town and castle of Evreux, by offering to show the French governor of the fortress the most goodly set of chess men he had ever beheld, provided he would play a game with him for a cup of wine. The The northern mountains (in Norway) breed faulcons very French Castellan having for this purpose admitted him within the fierce, but generous, and white ones, that are never shot at, with gate, Sir William slew him with a stroke of his battle-axe, and bows, by the inhabitants, but are held as sacred, unless they do defended the entrance till a party of his men, who lay in ambush, too much hurt and rapine. But if they do mischief, how white rushed in, and possessed themselves of the fortress.-FROISSART and noble soever they be, they shall not escape their arrows."-translated by Bourchier, folio lxxxvii. And so had all that dyd himn se; She saw all that he down droughe, Of hantynge she wist he coude ynoughe; And thoght in her hert then, That he was come of gentilmen." In an age when knowledge of every kind was rare, there prevailed a natural disposition to attach mystery to the most common trades, and even to the amusements of the period. Arts, but imperfectly known to the professors themselves, were rendered dark and impenetrable to the uninitiated, by the introduction of minute forms, and the use of a peculiar phraseology. Shrouded by such disguises, ignorance itself assumed the language and port of mysterious knowledge, and the mystic orders of religion and of chivalry were imitated in the inferior associations of mechanics and fellow-crafts. It is therefore no wonder that the chase, the exclusive amusement, or rather the only pacific employment, of the great, should be decorated with an appropriate Bestes thai brac and bare; In quarters thai hem wroght; Martírs as it ware, t That husbond men had bought; Tristrem tho spac thare, And seyd wonder him thought; Ne seighe y neuer are, So wilde best y wrought, Other he seyd Y can nought, XLIII. Vp stode a seriaunt bold, And spac Tristrem oyain, -"We and our elders old, Thus than haue we sain; In lede is nought to lain ;"- XLIV. He schar and layd biside; diction, and rendered solemn by an established code of regulations. The "mystery of woods and of rivers" was a serious subject of study to the future candidate for the honours of chivalry. In order to add yet greater splendour to this important art, it was, as has been seen, universally believed, that our hero, Sir Tristrem, was the first by whom the chase was reduced into a science. There are numerous allusions to this circumstance in old authors, and some have been already quoted. But the most respectable testimony is that of Lady Juliana Berners, the vene rable Abbess of St. Albans, who, for the instruction of the noble youth of the fifteenth century, did herself deign to compose a trea tise upon field sports. The book upon hunting commences thus:"Beastes of Venerie are of Three Kinds. "Where so ever ye fare, by frith or by felle, Mi dere child, take heed how Tristre doth you tel How many maner beasis of veneri there were; Lysten to your dame, and she will you lere. Foure maner of beastes of venery there are; The first of them is the hart, the second is the hare, The bore is one of tho, the wolf, and not one moe. Spenser, with the usual richness of his colouring, blazons out "Buskins he wore of costliest cordawain, The breche adoun he threst, He ritt, and gan to right, Carf he of that hide, Bidene; The bestes he graithed that tide, Of many a lion, and of many a bear, That first unto his hand in chace did happen near." In answer to the inquiries of Sir Calidore, Tristrem informs him of his name and parentage, and concludes: All which my days I have not leudly spent, In idless, but, as was convenient,, Have trained been with many noble feres In gentle thewes, and much like seemly leers; Monget which, my most delight hath always been To hunt the salvage chace, amongst my peers, Of all that rangeth in the forest green, Of which none is to me unknown, that ever yet was seen. "Ne is there hawk which mantleth her on pearch, But I the measure of her flight do search, And all her prey, and all her diet know; Such be our joys, which in these forests grow." Every department of the chase had its peculiar language and laws; but to have described all these in the romance would have been tediously digressive, and the author has therefore limited himself to the mode of cutting up, or, according to the scientific phrase, breaking, the hart. This was an operation of great skill and nicety, as was also the carving of the venison, when dressed. The dissection required some practical knowledge of anatomy; nay, the very earving of a wild boar, roasted whole, and of the milar cumbrous dainties which loaded a feudal board, was probably no slight trial to the strength of the youthful gallants. The St. Alban's, and it may not be improper to insert the directions of process of breaking the stag is minutely described in the Book of the worthy abbess, as an illustration of the text of Thomas of Erceldoune :"How ye shall breke an Hart. "And for to speake of the hart while we think on, My childe, finite ye shal him serve when he shal be undon, Within his hornes to lay hym upryght. At the assay kitte him, that lordes may see Anon fat or lene, whether that he bee; Then cut of the coddes the belly even fro, Or ye begin him to flay, and then shall ye go At the chaules to begyn, soone as ye may, And slit him downe to th'away, And fro th'assay, eden down to the bely shal ye slyt, To the pyssil, there the code was away kit. Then at the left legges euen first before, And then the left legges behynde or ye doe more, And these other legges vpon the right syde; Upon the same maner slyt ye that tide, Then put out the paunche, and from the paunche chase Hold it with a finger, doo as I you ken, And with the bloud and the grece fill it then, Looke threde that ye have and nedle thereto, For see it withall or ye more doo, The small guttes then ye shall out pyt, From then take the maw, forget not it; Then take out the liver and lay it on the akynne, Downe the auauncera kerue that cleueth to the necke, As men see in the beast whan he is vndoon. And in the middes of the hert euer more it lyes. XLV. The spande was the first brede, And euen ato hem schare The wombe oway he bare; Than shall ye cut the necke the sydes euen fro, The tongue, the brayne, the pauriche, and the necke, To the fosters knaue gyue it at the least; The numbles trusse in the skynne, and hardell them fas Your play for nymme, or that ye come in." A matter so important, in the eyes of our ancestors, is worthy of some illustration, besides that which may be derived from comparing it with the directions of the Abbess of St. Alban's. The hemynges was a piece of the hide cut out to make brogues for the hunt-men. When the versatile David de Strathbogie, Earl of Athole, was hard pressed, and driven to the Highlands, by the Earl of Murray, in 1335, Winton mentions, as a mark of his distress, "That at sa gret myschef he wes, That his knyehtia weryd rewelynys, Of hydis, or of hart hemmynys." The mode of making those rullions, or rough shoes, is thus described: We go a hunting, and after that we have slain red deer, we flay off the skin bye and bye, and setting of our bare foot on the inside thereof, for want of cunning shoemakers, by your grace's pardon, we play the cobblers, compassing and measuring so much thereof as shall reach up to our ancles, pricking the upper part thereof with holes, that the water may repass where it enters, and stretching it up with a strong thong of the same above our said ancles. So, and please your noble grace, we make our shoes. Therefore, we, using such manner of shoes, the rough hairy side outwards, in your grace's dominions of England, we be called Rough footed Scots."-ELDER'S Address to HENRY VIII., apud PINKERTON'S History, vol. ii. p. 397. The numbles seem to have been the inwards of the deer :"Faith, a good well-set fellow, if his spirit Be answerable to his umbles."-Roaring Girl. The numbles were a woodland dainty. They are mentioned in the Litell Geste of Robin Hode: "Brede and wyne they had ynough, "Then she fetched to Lytell Johun The nombles of a doo." The numbles seem to have included the midriff, and the dowsets, or testicles. The gargiloun, the meaning of which seems uncertain, also belonged to this division: "The man to his master speaketh blythe, Of the numbles of the heart that he wolde them kythe, How many ends there shall be them within." Quod the master, But one thicke nor thinne, And that is but the gargylyon to speke of all bydene. And all these others, crokes and roundelles bene. Yet wold I wyt, and then wondest me lere, The crookes and the roundels of the numbles of the dere "One crooke of the numbels lyeth ever more Under the throle-bole of the beast before, And the bravest part of the numbels then; That is to say, the forcers, that lyn even between In the midret, that is called the roun lil also, To "make the arber" is to disembowel the animal, which must be done in a neat and cleanly manner. The dogs are then rewarded with such parts of the entrails as their two-legged associates do not think proper to reserve for their own use. The huntsman also receives his share of the spoil, according to the following rules:-" Whanne the hert is take, ye shal blowe four |