The Ornithology of Shakespeare Part 39

THETFORD.

"_S. E. soupa derechef avecq sa Ma^te. Lesquel en sortans de table, entrerent en carrosse pour aller a la riviere, ou ils virent des Cormorants, oyseau qui par signe que maistre qui les addresses leur donne, se plongent sous l'eaux et prennent des Anguilles et autre poisson; lequel aussy par signe l'on le faict rendir et vomir tous vifs, chose bien meruielleuse a voir. Sur toute chose estoit les sages discours de sa Ma^te tres admirable."_

The King had a regular establishment for his cormorants on the river at Westminster, and created a new office, "Master of the Royal Cormorants,"

which office was first held by John Wood, as appears from various doc.u.ments in the Record Office. Amongst other entries, for a knowledge of which I am indebted to Mr. F. H. Salvin, the distinguished falconer, are the following:--

"No. 1, James I., 1611, April 11.--To John Wood, the sum of 30, in respect he hath been at extraordinary charge in bringing up and training of certain fowls called cormorants, and making of them fit for the use of fishing, to be taken to him of His Majesty's free gift and reward. By writ, dated the 5th day of April, 1611.

"No. 2, May 27th, 1612.--Payment to the said John Wood for getting cormorants from the north.

"No. 3, August 31st, 1618.--James I. to Robert Wood. Advance of 66 13_s._ 4_d._, in part payment of the sum of 286 due in respect of the cormorant houses, and making nine ponds, &c., at Westminster, the ground called the Vine-garden having been taken upon lease of the Lord Danvers.

["In this doc.u.ment," says Mr. Salvin, "this Wood is described as keeper of His Majesty's cormorants, ospreys, and otters. It is therefore clear that the fishing-hawk was tried, and as we hear so little about it afterwards, there can be no doubt but that it proved a failure, which, indeed, might have been expected, as the bird is what falconers would call an habitual 'carrier.' Neither do the otters seem to have answered.

Vines were grown in Surrey for wine in ancient times, and I wonder if this vine-garden was for that purpose."]

"No. 4, February 28th, 1619.--To John Wood, whom His Majesty heretofore appointed to attend the French amba.s.sadors, with the cormorants sent by His Majesty's good brother, the French King, the sum of 215, for so much by him disbursed and laid out for his charges incident to the performance of the said service, over and above the sum of 50, impressed unto him, for and towards the said charges, appearing by his bill, of the particulars thereof, delivered in upon oath, and allowed by us and the rest of the Commissioners of the Treasury. By writ dated the 18th July, 1609, and by confirmation dated the last of July, 1618.

"14th October, 1619.--To Robert Wood, whom His Majesty intendeth to send, with divers cormorants, to his good cousin, the Duke of Lorraine, the sum of 60, by way of an imprest towards defraying the expenses in that journey. By writ, dated 7th October, 1619.

"28th August, 1624.--To Robert Wood, the sum of 98 8_s._ 6_d._, in full satisfaction of the charge and loss sustained by Luke Wood, in his late travels, with three cormorants, to Venice, having been stayed in his pa.s.sage thither, and his cormorants taken away from him by the Duke of Savoy."

["From these two doc.u.ments," says Mr. Salvin, "it would appear that cormorant fishing was likely to have become fashionable upon the continent, if poor Wood and his birds had not come to grief.

"The civil wars in the next reign extinguished the office of The Master of the Royal Cormorants, and his a.s.sistants, and in the Record Office we find this pet.i.tion from poor old Mr. Wood, who appears to have been rather hard-up and neglected in his old age.

"'A prayer of Richard Wood, of Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, to Charles II., for restoration to his place as cormorant keeper, which he held, he says, from King James's first coming to England, to the late wars, in which he served as a soldier, but being now ninety-five years old, has been forced to retire to a dwelling at Walton.'"[152]]

"A doc.u.ment in the State Paper Office, sealed with the royal signet, and addressed to the 'Treasurer of the Chamber' for the time being, authorizes him to pay unto John Harris, gentleman, His Majesty's cormorant keeper, for his repairing yearly unto the north parts of England to take haggard cormorants for His Majesty's disport in fishing, the yearly allowance of eighty-four pounds, to be paid on the four usual feasts of the year, during His Majesty's pleasure, in such manner as John Wood and Robert Wood, or George Hutchinson, gentlemen, formerly received."[153]

Although Shakespeare has mentioned the cormorant in many of his Plays, he has nowhere alluded to the sport with trained birds; and this is somewhat singular, inasmuch as he has made frequent mention of the then popular pastime of hawking, and he did not die until some years after James I. had made fishing with cormorants a fashionable amus.e.m.e.nt.[154]

The sport has long since ceased to amuse royalty, and by English sportsmen is now almost abandoned.[155]

[Sidenote: THE HOME OF THE CORMORANT.]

To return to the sea, the true home of the cormorant; that sea

"Whose rocky sh.o.r.e beats back the envious siege Of watery Neptune."

_Richard II._ Act ii. Sc. 1.

"Those who have never observed our boldest coasts," says Oliver Goldsmith, "have no idea of their tremendous sublimity. The boasted works of art, the highest towers, and the n.o.blest domes, are but ant hills when put in comparison....

"To walk along the sh.o.r.e when the tide is departed, or to sit in the hollow of a rock when it is come in, attentive to the various sounds that gather on every side, above and below, may raise the mind to its highest and n.o.blest exertions.

"The solemn roar of the waves, swelling into and subsiding from the vast caverns beneath, the piercing note of the gull, the frequent chatter of the guillemot, the loud note of the auk, the screams of the heron, and the hoa.r.s.e, deep periodical croaking of the cormorant, all unite to furnish out the grandeur of the scene, and turn the mind to Him who is the essence of all sublimity."

[Sidenote: GULLS.]

It is amid such scenes as these that we naturally look for and find the next of Shakespeare's birds, the Gull, or, as he sometimes calls it, the "Sea-mell" (_The Tempest_, Act ii. Sc. 2).

In no pa.s.sage, however, do we find a reference to any particular species of gull; the word is used in its generic sense only, and is most frequently applied metaphorically to a dupe or a fool:--

"Why, 'tis a gull, a fool!"

_Henry V._ Act iii. Sc. 6.

The gull is said to have derived its name from its voracious habits, _i.e._, from "_gulo--onis_," a gormandizer. Tooke holds that gull, guile, wile, and guilt, are all from the Anglo-Saxon "_wiglian_, _gewiglian_," that by which any one is deceived. Archdeacon Nares suggests that gull is from the old French _guiller_.

Malvolio asks:--

"Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd, Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest, And made the most notorious geck[156] and gull, That e'er invention play'd on? tell me why."

_Twelfth Night_, Act v. Sc. 1.

[Sidenote: GULL-CATCHERS.]

In the same play we find the word "gull" occurring several times in a similar sense, as in Act ii. Sc. 3, and Act iii. Sc. 2;[157] and Fabian, on the entry of Maria (Act ii. Sc. 5), exclaims,--

"Here comes my n.o.ble _gull-catcher_!"

[Sidenote: GULL-GROPERS.]

When sharpers were considered as bird-catchers, a gull was their proper prey.[158] "Gull-catchers," or "gull-gropers," therefore, were the names by which, in Shakespeare's day, these sharpers were known.

"The _gull-groper_ was generally an old gambling miser, who frequented the ordinary to save the charge of housekeeping, under the pretext of meeting with travellers and seeking company, and carried in his pouch some hundred or two hundred pounds in twenty-shilling pieces. By long experience he knew to an ace how much the losing player was worth, and as he scratched his head and paced uneasily up and down the room, as if he wanted the ostler, he takes him to a side window and tells him that he was, forsooth, sorry to see so honest a gentleman in bad luck, but that 'dice were made of women's bones and would cozen the wisest,' and that for his father's sake, Sir Luke Littlebrain (he had learned the name from the drawer), if it pleased him he need not leave off play for a hundred pound or two. The youth, eager to redeem his losses, accepted the money ordinarily with grateful thanks. The gold was poured upon the table, and a hard bond was hastily drawn up for the repayment at the next quarter-day, deducting so much for the scrivener's expense at changing the pieces. If he lost, the usurer hugged his bond, and laughed in his sleeve. If Sir Andrew won, the gull-groper would then steal silently out of the noisy room to avoid repayment. The day that the bond became due, Hunks was sure not to be within, and if seen, in some way contrived to make the debtor break the bond, and then transformed himself into two sergeants, who clapped the youth in prison. From thence he usually escaped shorn of a goodly manor or fair lordship, worth three times the money, and which was to be entered upon by Hunks three months after his young friend came of age--an unpleasant thought, when the ox was roasting whole, the bells ringing, and the tenants shouting."[159]

[Sidenote: SEA-MELLS.]

Not only was the person duped called "a gull," but the trick itself was also known as "a gull," just as we now-a-days term it "a sell."

"_Bened.i.c.k._ I should think this 'a gull,' but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence."--_Much Ado about Nothing_, Act ii. Sc. 3.

But it is not always synonymously with "fool" that Shakespeare employs the word "gull." Caliban, addressing Trinculo, says,--

"Sometimes I'll get thee Young _sea-mells_ from the rock."

_Tempest_, Act ii. Sc. 2.

Here it is evident that the sea-mall, sea-mew, or sea-gull, is intended, the young birds being taken before they could fly. Young sea-gulls were formerly considered great delicacies, and in the old "Household Books"

we often find such entries as the following:--

"Item, it is thought goode that See-gulles be hade for my Lordes own mees and non other, so they be goode and in season, and at jd.

apece or jd. ob. at the moste."

The description of their haunts which the poet gives us in the fourth act of _King Lear_ cannot be easily forgotten. We seem to stand when reading it upon the very edge of the cliff!--

"How fearful And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!

... the murmuring surge, That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes, Cannot be heard so high.--I'll look no more, Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight Topple down headlong."