of the manners of his age, has given us a very particular and amusing portrait of a sporting monastic of the fourteenth century; the original (probably) from which the abbot in Ivanhoe is copied.

Of the game then hunted,

"The wolf, wild boar, and roebuck, have long since disappeared. The particular periods when the two former became extinct in this country, cannot probably be ascertained. The history and fall of the roebuck are better known. He continued to be an inhabitant of England till within the last eighty years; and was not infrequently met with on the wastes, a small 'distance from Hexham, in Northumberland. As the breed, however, became gradually more scarce, it was sought for with greater eagerness; so that after enduring the united attacks of the dog and gun for a few seasons, it at length dwindled into one solitary animal, which about sixty years since is said to have been destroyed by Whitfield, esq. of Whitfield, in Nor

thumberland."

Good living was as heartily patronized as hard exercise:

"In the thirteenth year of his reign, on his return from an excursion into Normandy, Rufus reared that spacious edifice, known by the name of Westminster Hall, which to this day boasts a superiority, with respect to size, over every other

room in Europe of a similar construction. This was the theatre of royal revelry, and here Rufus held a magnificent feast on the Whitsuntide after it was completed. Vast, however, as the fabric was, it did not equal the ideas of the extravagant monarch; for it being observed to him by one of his courtiers, that the building was too large for the purposes of its construction, the king answered, This halle is not begge enough by one half, and is but a bedchamber, in comparison of that I minde to make. Stowe adds, a diligent searcher might yet find out the foundation of the hall, which he hadde proposed to build, stretching from the river Thames even to the common highway.'

"The luxury of the English, as far as it regarded the table, during the succeeding reigns, from Rufus to the end of Henry III., seems to have increased to a pitch of extreme excess; for in the thirty-fourth year of this monarch, the legislature was under the necessity of exerting its controlling power; and on common occasions, more than two dishes of meat were forbidden to be produced at one meal.

"It was about this period that the peacock became a favourite dish at the tables of the great, where it was served up with many solemnities. . . . . . In the thirteenth century it was sufficiently esteemed, to be made the prize of the conqueror at the game of quintain. Et eodem tempore

juvenes Londinenses statuto pavone pro bravio, ad stadium quod quinten vulgariter dicitur, vires proprias et equorum cursus sunt experti.' Matt. Paris, edit. Watts, p. 744. This bird continued to be a dish in request till the end of the last century. Hollingshed has given us a curious anecdote of Pope Julius III., that disgrace to the Romish see, an egregious glutton and epicure, whose favourite dish was the peacock. At another time, he sitting at dinner, pointing to a peacocke upon his table, which he had not touched, 'Keepe,' said he, this cold peacocke for me against supper, and let me sup in the garden, for I shall have ghests.' So when supper came, and amongst the hot peacockes, he saw not this cold peacocke brought to his table, the Pope, after his wonted manner, most horribly blaspheming God, fell into an extreame rage, &c. Whereupon one of his Cardina's sitting by desired him, saieng, Let not your Holinesse, I pray you, be so moved with a matter of so small weight.' Then this Julius the Pope answering again, What,' said he, if God was so angry for one apple, that he cast our first parents out of Paradise for the same, why may not I, being his vicar, be angrye then for a peacocke, sithens a peacocke is a greater matter than an apple?'-Hol. Chron. p. 1128, a. 40.”

THE SITUATION OF KING RICHARD, when a Prisoner of LEOPOLD, Duke of Austria, singularly discovered;-related by FAUCHET, from an Ancient Chronicle.

(From Mrs. Dobson's Literary History of the Troubadours.)

A MINSTREL, named Blondel, who owed his fortune to Richard, animated with tenderness towards his illustrious master, was resolved to go over the world till he had discovered the destiny of this prince. He had already traversed Europe, and was returning through Germany; when, talking one day at Lintz, in Austria, with an innkeeper, in order to make this discovery, he learnt that there was near the city, at the entrance of a forest, a strong and ancient castle, in which there was a prisoner, who was guarded with great care. A secret impulse persuaded Blondel, that the prisoner was Richard: he immediately went to the castle, the sight of which made him tremble: he got acquainted with a peasant, who went over there to carry provisions; questioned, and offered him a considerable sum to declare who it was that was shut up there; but the good man, though he readily told all he knew, was ignorant both of the name and quality of the prisoner. He could only inform him, that he was watched with the most exact attention, and was suffered no communication with any one but the keeper of the castle and his servants. He added, that the prisoner had

no other amusement, than looking over the country through a small grated window, which served also for the light that glimmered into his apartment.

He told him that this castle was a horrid abode; where the staircase and the apartments were black with age, and so dark, that at noonday it was necessary to have a lighted flambeau to find the way along them.

Blondel listened with eager attention, and meditated several ways of coming at the prison, but all in vain. At last, when he found that, from the height and narrowness of the window, he could not get a sight of his dear master, for he firmly believed it was him, he bethought himself of a French song, the last couplet of which had been composed by Richard, and the first by himself. After he had sung, with a loud and harmonious voice, the first part, he suddenly stopped, and heard a voice which came from the castle-window," Continue and finish the song." Transported with joy, he was now assured it was the king, his master, who was confined in this dismal castle.

The Chronicle adds, that one of the keeper's servants falling sick, he hired himself to him, and thus made himself known to Richard and informing his nobles, with all possible expedition, of the situation of their monarch, he was released from his confinement, on paying a large

ransom.