Baily's Magazine of Sports and Pastimes (Volume 22)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 edition. Excerpt: ...was the larger bird; and, according to our friend Richard Surflet, ' the faulcon is more fit than any other hawke to flie the heron, and all other fowle of the river.' Let us turn to the beautiful and touching passage in Othello, where he says--' If I do prove her haggard, Though that her Jessies were my dear heart strings, I'd whistle her off, and let her down the wind To prey at fortune. It is not possible to conceive an idea more expressive of the struggle between love and pride that rages in the man. Haggard js strictly a hawking term, and means wild, or, perhaps, false. The Jessies were the strings attached to the bewitts, by which the hawk was held. Some hawks were for the fist, others for the lure, and flew aloft--the falcon was for the lure, she was trained and accustomed to the tongue' of the spaniel, and the cheery voice of the falconer, who ' whooped and gibbetted ' to her. And this reminds us of Juliet, when Romeo has left her at the termination of the balcony scene. She would recall him, and says--' Hist! Romeo, hist! O for a falconer's voice To lure % this tassel gentle back again!' Flying at birds of the brook, i. e., hawking at water-fowl.--Knight'! Shakespeare. t Ten to one old Joan had not taken her flight at the game.--Ibid. 1 Standing by one who lured loud and shrill, I had suddenly an offence as if somewhat had broken or been dislocated in my ear, and immediately after a loud ringing.--Bacon. The tassel gentle, or tiercel gentle, was the male falcon, a good-looking young fellow, or Juliet would not have made a comparison between him and Romeo, we may depend upon it. Petruchio's soliloquy, in which he propounds his plans for the subjugation of Katherine, after he has thrown away the dinner, positively rattles with phrases of...