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teene shillings four pence. 11 Hen.

vii.

4. If there be found any Weares vpon the Riuers, not hauing any Grates before them ; It is lawfull for every Owner, Swan-Masters, or Swanne-herdes, to pull vp, or cut downe the Birth-net, or Gynne of the said Weare or Weares. 5. If any person, or persons, be found carrying any Swan-hooke, and the same person being no Swan-herd, nor accompanied with two Swan-herds: every such person shall pay to the King. Thirteene shillings four pence, (that is to say) Three shillings foure pence to him that will informe, and the rest to the King.

6. The auncient custome of this Realme hath and dothe allow to every owner of such ground where any such Swan shall heirie, to take one Land-bird; and for the same, the Kings Maiestie must have of him that hath the Landbird, Twelve pence, Be it vpon his owne ground, or any other.

7. It is ordained, that if any person, or persons, do convey away or steale away the Egge, or Egges of any Swannes, and the same being duely proued by two sufficient witnesses, that then euery such offender shall pay to the King thirteene shillings foure pence, for euery Egge so taken out of the Nest of any Swanne.

8. It is ordained, that euery owner that hath any Swans, shall pay euery yeare yearly for euery Swan-marke, foure pence to the Master of the Game for his Fee, and his dinner and supper free on the Upping daies: And if the saide Master of the Game faile of the foure pence, then he shall distraine the Game of euery such owner, that so doth faile of payment.

9. If there be any person or persons, that hath Swannes, that doe heirie vpon any of their seuerall waters, and after come to the co'mon Riuer, they shall pay a Land-bird to the King, and be obedient to all Swanne Lawes: for diuers such persons doe use collusion, to defraud the King of his right. 10. It is ordained, that euery person, hauing any Swans, shal begin yearly to mark, the Monday next after St. Peters day, and no person before; but after as conueniently may be, so that the Master of the Kings Game, or his Deputy, be present. And if any take vpon him or them, to marke any

Swanne or Cignet, in other manner, to forfeit to the Kings Maiestie for euery Swan so marked fortie shillings. 11. It is ordained, that no person or persons being Owners, or Deputies, or seruants to them, or other, shall go on marking without the Master of the Game, or his Deputie be present, with other Swan-herds next adioyning, vpon paine to forfeit to the Kings Maiesty, fortie shillings.

12. It is ordained, that no person shall hunt any Duckes, or any other chase in the water, or neere the haunt of Swans in Fence-time, with any Dogge or Spaniels: viz. from the feast of Easter to Lammas: vpon paine for euery time so found in hunting, to forfeit sixe shillings eight pence.

13. It is ordained, that if any person doth set any snares or any manner of Nets, Lime, or Engines, to take Bittorns or Swans, from the Feast of Easter to the Sunday after Lammas day; He or they to forfeit to the Kings Maiestie for euery time so setting, six shillings eight pence.

14. It is ordained that no person take vp any Cignet unmarked, or make any sale of them, but that the Kings Swanherd, or his Deputie be present, with other Swan-herds next adioyning, or haue knowledge of the same: vpon paine to forfeit to the Kings Maiestie fortie shillings.

15. It is ordained that the Swan-herdes of the Duchie of Lancaster, shall vp no Swannes, or make any sale of them, without the Master of the Swannes or his Deputy be present: vpon paine to forfeite to the Kings Maiestie forty shillings.

16. And in like manner, the Kings Swanherd shal not enter into the Libertie of the Duchie, without the Duchies Swanherd be there present: vpon the like paine to forfeite forty shillings.

17. It is ordained, that if any Swannes or Cignets be found double marked, they shall be seaz'd to the Kings vse, till it be prooved to whom the same Swans or Cignets doe belong: And if it cannot be prooved to whome they doe belong, that then they be seazd for the King, and his Grace to be answered to the value of them..

18. It is ordained that no person make sale of any white Swans nor make delivery of them, without the Master of the Game be present or his Deputy,

with other Swan-herds next adioyning; vpon paine to forfiet forty shillings : whereof six shillings eight pence to him that will informe: and the rest to the Kings Maiestie.

19. It is ordained, that no person shall lay Leapes, set any Nets, or Dragge, within the common streames or Riuers vpon the day time, from the Feast of the Inuention of the Crossse, vnto the Feast of Lammas: vpon paine so oft as they be found so offending, to forfeit twenty shillings.

20. It is ordained, that if the Master of the Swans, or his Deputy, do seaze, or take vp any Swa'nes, as strayes, for the Kings Maiesty, that he shall keepe them in a Pit within twenty foote of the Kings streame, cr within twenty foote of the common High-way, that the Kings subiects may have a sight of the said Swans so seazed, vpon paine of forty shillings.

21. It is ordained, that if any person doe

raze out, counterfeit, or alter the Marke of any Swanne, to the hindering or losse of any mans Game, and any such offendor duly prooved before the Kings Maiesties Commissioners of Swannes, shal suffer one yeares imprisonment, and pay three pounds six shillings eight pence, to the King.

22. It is ordained, that the Commons (that is to say) Dinner and Supper, shall not exceed above twelve pence a man at the most: If there be any Game found where the dinner or supper is holden, vpon that Riuer, the owner being absent and none there for him, the Master of the Game is to lay out eight pence for him, and he is to distraine the Game of him that faileth the paiment of it.

23. It is ordained, that there shall be no forfeiture of any white Swanne or Cignet, but only to the Kings Grace, as well within the Franchise and Liberties, as without, and if any doe deliver the Swanne or Signet so seazed, to any person, but only to the Master of the Kings Game, or to his Deputy, to the Kings vse; he is to forfeit sixe shillings eight pence; and the Swannes to be restored vnto the Master of the Game. 24. It is ordained, that no person shall take any Gray Swans, or Cignets, or white Swans flying, but that he shall within foure dayes next after, deliver it, or them, to the Master of the Kings Game, and the Taker to haue for his VOL. II.-83.

paines eight pence. And if he faile, and bring him not, he forfeits forty shillings to the King.

25. It is ordained, that no person, having any Game of his own shall not be Swan-herd for himselfe; nor keeper of any other mans Swannes: upon paine to forfeit to the Kings Maiestie forty shillings.

26. It is ordained, that no Swan-herd,
fisher, or fowler, shall vex any other
Swan-herd, fisher or fowler, by way of
action, but only before the Kings Ma-
iesties Justices of Sessions of Swans,
vpon paine of forfeiting to the Kings
Grace forty shillings.

27. The Master of the Kings Game, shal
not take away any vnmarked Swan
coupled with any other mans Swan,
for breaking of the brood: and when
they doe Heirie, the one part of the.
Cignets to the King, and the other to
the owner of the marked Swanne.
28. Also, any man whatsoever he be, that
killeth any Swanne with dogge, or
Spaniels, shall forfeit to the King forty
shillings, the owner of the Dogge to
pay it, whether he be there or no.
Also, the Maister of the Swannes, is to
have for every White Swanne and
Gray vpping, a penny, and for every
Cignet two pence.

29. It is ordained, that if any Heirie be
leyed with one Swan, the Swan and the
Cignets shall be seazed for the King,
till due proofe be had whose they are,
and whose was the Swan, that is away;
Be it Cobbe or Pen.

30. Lastly, If there be any other misdemeanour, or offence committed or done by the owner of any Game, Swan-herd, or other person whatsoeuer, contrary to any law, ancient custome, or vsage heretofore vsed and allowed, and not before herein particularly mentioned or expressed, you shal present the same offence, that reformation may be had, and the offendors punished, according to the quantitie and qualitie of the seuerall offences.

FINIS.

God Saue the King.

It may be presumed that "the Order for Swannes" fairly illustrates the origin of the term "swan hopping;" perhaps the "order" itself will be regarded by some of the readers of the Every-Day Book as "a singular rarity."

"SWAN WITH TWO NECKS,"

Lad-lane.

The sign of the "Swan with two necks," at one of our old city inns, from whence there are 66 and parcels passengers booked" to all parts of the kingdom, is manifestly a corruption. As every swan belonging to the king was marked, according to the swan laws, with two nicks or notches; so the old sign of this inn was the royal bird so marked, that is to say, "the swan with two nicks." In process of time the "two nicks" were called "two necks;" an ignorant landlord hoisted the foul misrepresentation; and, at the present day," the swan with two nicks" is commonly called or known by "the name or sign" of "the swan with two necks."

"A Southern Tourist," in the "Gentle man's Magazine," for 1793, giving an account of his summer rambles, which he calls "A naturalist's stray in the sultry days of July," relates that he "put up for the night at the Bush-inn, by Stainesbridge," and describes his sojournment there with such mention of the swans as seems fitting to extract.

"The Swan at Staines.”

"This inn is beautifully situated: a translucent arm of the Thames runs close under the windows of the eating-rooms, laving the drooping streamers of the Babylonian willows that decorate the garden, and which half conceal the small bridge leading into it. In these windows we spent the evening in angling gudgeons for our supper, and in admiring a company of swans that were preening themselves near an aite in the river. The number of these birds on the Thames is very considerable, all swimming between Marlow and London, being protected by the dyers and vintner's companies, whose properties they are. These companies annually send to Marlow six wherries, manned by persons authorized to count and to mark the swans, who are hence denominated swan-hoppers. The task assigned them is rather difficult to perform; for, the swans being exceeding strong, scuffling with them amongst the tangles of the river is rather dangerous, and recourse is obliged to be had to certain strong crooks, shaped like those we suppose the Arcadian shepherds to have used."

The swan is a royal bird, and often figured in the princely pleasures of former kings of England.

In Edward the fourth's time none was permitted to keep swans, who possessed value, except the king's son: and by an not a freehold of at least five marks yearly act of Henry the Seventh, persons convicted of taking their eggs were liable to a year's imprisonment, and a fine at the will of the sovereign.*

More anciently, if a swan was stolen in an open and common river, the same swan or another, according to old usage, was to be hanged in a house by the beak, and he who stole it was compelled to give the owner as much corn as would cover the swan, by putting and turning the com upon the head of the swan, until the head of the swan was covered with corn.t

In the hard winter of 1726, a swan was killed" at Emsworth, between Chichester and Portsmouth, lying on a creek of the sea, that had a ring round its neck, with the king of Denmark's arms on it."Į

For indications of the weather, by the flight of the swans on the Thames, see vol. i. col. 505.

It is mentioned by the literary lord Northampton, as formerly " a paradox of simple men to thinke that a swanne cannot hatch without a cracke of thunder."||

THE SWAN'S DEATH SONG.

The car of Juno is fabled to have been drawn by swans. They were dedicated to Venus and Apollo. To the latter, according to Banier, because they were "reckoned to have by instinct a faculty of prediction;" but it is possible that they were consecrated to the deity of music, from their fabled melody at the moment of death.

Buffon says, the ordinary voice of the tame swan is rather low than canorous. It is a sort of creaking, exactly like what is valgarly called the swearing of a cat, and which the ancients denoted by the imitative word drensare. It would seem to be an accent of menace or anger; nor does its love appear to have a softer. In the

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"Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions" is a dissertation by M. Morin, entitled, "Why swans, which sung so well formerly, sing so ill now."

The French naturalist further remarks, that "swans, almost mute, like ours in the domestic state, could not be those melodious birds which the ancients have celebrated and extolled. But the wild

swan appears to have better preserved its prerogatives; and with the sentiment of entire liberty, it has also the tones. The bursts of its voice form a sort of modulated song." He then cites the observations of the abbé Arnaud on the song of two wild swans which settled on the magnificent pools of Chantilly. "One can hardly say that the swans of Chantilly sing, they cry; but their cries are truly and constantly modulated; their voice is not sweet; on the contrary, it is shrill, piercing, and rather disagreeable; I could compare it to nothing better than the sound of a clarionet, winded by a person unacquainted with the instrument. Almost all the melodious birds answer to the song of man, and especially to the sound of instruments: I played long on the violin beside our swans, on all the tones and chords. I even struck unison to their own accents, without their seeming to pay the smallest attention: but if a goose be thrown into the basin where they swim with their young, the male, after emitting some hollow sounds, rushes impetuously upon the goose, and seizing it by the neck, plunges the head repeatedly under water, striking it at the same time with his wings; it would be all over with the goose, if it were not rescued. The swan, with his wings expanded, his neck stretched, and his head erect, comes to place himself opposite to his female, and utters a cry, to which the female replies by another, which is lower by half a tone. The voice of the male passes from A (la) to B flat (si bémol); that of the female, from G sharp (sol dièse) to A. The first note is short and transient, and has the effect of that which our musicians call sensible; so that it is not detached from the second, but seems to slip into it. Fortunately for the ear, they do not both sing at once; in fact, if while the male sounded B flat, the female struck A, or if the male uttered A, while the female gave G sharp, there would result the harshest and most insupportable of discords. We may add, that this dialogue is subjected to a constant and

regular rhythm, with the measure of two times."

M. Grouvelle observes, that "there is a season when the swans assemble together, and form a sort of commonwealth; it is during severe colds. When the frost threatens to usurp their domain, they congregate and dash the water with all the extent of their wings, making a noise which is heard very far, and which, whether in the night or the day, is louder in proportion as it freezes more intensely. Their efforts are so effectual, that there are few instances of a flock of swans having quitted the water in the longest frosts, though a single swan, which has strayed from the general body, has sometimes been arrested by the ice in the middle of

the canals."

This

Buffon further remarks, that the shrill and scarcely diversified notes of the loud clarion sounds, differ widely from the tender melody, the sweet and brilliant variety of our chanting birds. Yet it was not enough that the swan sung admirably, the ancients ascribed to it a prophetic spirit. It alone, of animated beings, which all shudder at the prospect of destruction, chanted in the moment of its agony, and with harmonious sounds prepared to breathe the last sigh. They said that when about to expire, and to bid a sad and tender adieu to life, the swan poured forth sweet and affecting accents, which, like a gentle and doleful murmur, with a voice low, plaintive, and melancholy, formed its funeral song. tearful music was heard at the dawn of day, when the winds and the waves were still: and they have been seen expiring with the notes of their dying hymn. No fiction of natural history, no fable of antiquity, was ever more celebrated, oftener repeated, or better received. It occupied the soft and lively imaginations of the Greeks: poets, orators, even philosophers adopted it as a truth too pleasing to be doubted. And well may we excuse such fables; they were amiable and affecting; they were worth many dull, insipid truths; they were sweet emblems to feeling minds. The swan, doubtless, chants not its approaching end; but, in speaking of the last flight, the expiring effort of a fine genius, we shall ever, with tender melancholy, recal the classical and pathetic expression, "It is the song of the swan !"

1

Shakspeare nobly likens our island dying frenzy "he sung," the prince to the eyrie of the royal bird :

-I' the world's volume

Our Britain seems as of it, but not in it;
In a great pool, a swan's nest.

Nor can we fail to remember his beau-
tiful allusions to the swan's death-song.
Portia orders "sweet music" during
Bassanio's deliberation on the caskets:-

Let music sound while he doth make his
choice:

Then if he lose, he makes a swan-like end—
Fading in music.

And after the Moor has slain his innocent bride, Æmilia exclaims while her heart is breaking, and sings

Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan,

And die in music-Willow, willow, willow.

After "King John" is poisoned, his son, prince Henry, is told that in his

answers

'Tis strange that death should sing.—
I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death;
And from the organ-pipe of frailty, sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.

The muse of " Paradise" remarks, that -The swan with arched neck Between her white wings mantling, proudly

rowes

Her state with oary feet: yet oft they quit
The dank, and rising on stiff pennons, tour
The mid æreal sky.

Opportunities for observing the flight of the wild swan are seldom, and hence it is seldom mentioned by our poets. The migrations of other aquatic birds are frequent themes of their speculation.

To A WATER-fowl,

Whither, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As darkly painted on the crimson sky
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or maize of river wide,

Or where the rocky billows rise and sink

On the chafed ocean's side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,-
The desert and illimitable air,-

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fann'd,

At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,

And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend
Soon o'er thy shelter'd nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven

Hath swallow'd up thy form; yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

He, who from zone to zone

Guides through the boundless sky the certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.

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