MR. BAILLIE-GROHMAN has already conferred an obligation on those interested
in " The Last Knight of Chivalry," as well as in the history of mediaeval sport on the grand scale, by his discovery of the private hunting- book of the Emperor Maximilian in the Burgundian Library at Brussels, and the publication of extracts from its pages, and admirable reproductions of its " topioal " illustrations. But there can be no hesitation in ascribing to the magnificently produced volume under review the first place in the classics of hunting of an earlier date ever given to the public of our day. The editor, if that is not unduly understating his part, in which Mrs. Baillie-Grohman has assisted, has given us, in a splendid folio, the earliest English version of the work written by Count Gaston de Foix on the whole art of hunting as understood by a great Prince owning a principality on the French aide of the Pyrenees, in the fourteenth century. He has taken the best of all existing manuscripts, in the form in which it was translated into English, with additions bringing it up to date, by the second Duke of York, better known to students of Shakespeare as the " Duc d'Autnerle." The additions made by the Duke are shown in separate type, and to the whole the editor has added in parallel columns a version closely following the text, but in the English of to-day. Glos- saries of hunting terms, comments on the modes and management of hunting of the time, a bibliography, a history of the text, full historical details as to Gaston De Foix and the Duke of York, the circumstances in which the translation was written, and an appreciation of the general en- vironment, by a writer who has an hereditary connection with the ancient forms of European sport in Tyrol, as well as with the most modern history of the shooting of great game in most parts of the New World and the Old, form some of the attrac- tions of this splendid volume. The editor has also reproduced the original illustrations of the best example of the book, now in the National Library of France at Paris. It is believed to have been given by Louis XI. to his daughter Marie, who married, in 1470, Aymar de Poitiers. It was taken by Francis L, for his private reading, into Italy, on the cam- paign which ended in the battle of Pavia., where it was part of the spoil of the Landsknechts of Tyrol. It remained in the library of the Bishop of Trent, and, like most master- pieces, was preserved through the chances of time, till it was captured by one of Turenne's generals and found its way back to France. The illustrations, which are as interesting as the text, were originally painted by artists of the transi. tion period, in which fidelity to figure-drawing is aided by • The Master of Game. By Edward, Second Duke of York. The Oldest English Book on Hunting. Edited by A. and F. Beau e - Grohman. With a Foreword by Theodore Roosevelt. London Ballantyne, Hanson, and• Co. [Re.] The "Duo d'Aumerle," or second Duke of York, suc- ceeded to the title in 1402, and was made Grand Huntsman, or " Master of Game," to Henry IV. in 1406. In the year before he had been engaged in a plot against the King's life, and it is possible that the translation was made during the time that he was a prisoner in Pevensey Castle. He dedi- cated his wonderfully able translation of the book of the Pyrenean sportsman and Prince to the King's son, the Prince of Wales, Henry of Monmouth. A perusal of its pages will show how able and how versatile a Plantagenet Prince, how- ever bad his character, could be. In the next reign, after many turns of fortune, he appeared at Agincourt, where he took a leading part, and there fell, after one of the most " tumultuous " lives, even of Plantagenet Princes.
His book—it seems strange to be commenting on it to-day —is absolutely a masterpiece. Though mainly a translation, it is the translation of a man writing with the perfect know- ledge of one of the three activities in which the rulers of the earth were engaged in his time,—war, political intrigue, and the chase. It is not only a manual of sport, but of the life history of the animals, whether the quarry or the hounds. The historical scholar will find much to interest him in its pages. He will see in them part of the vie intime of the friends of the Black Prince, for the author of the original work, Gaston de Foix, was one of these, and he will note how completely d'accord the Princes of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were in their amusements. The "thoroughness" of the author and of his Royal translator are not less worthy of respect by those who appreciate that quality. The naturalist will note the interesting details as to the daily life of creatures now little known in Western Europe, such as the bear, the wolf, and the lynx ; while the endurance of a scholarly and rational enthusiasm in the history and pursuit of sport has its monument in the fine work now presented. Not the least interesting fact in the publication of the work is its recom- mendation to the sportsmen of the United States by the President. Mr. Theodore Roosevelt in his appreciation of the work links up the centuries in which the Old World and the New have made sport the occupation of a part of their leisure time. While drawing a distinction between those who, like the old rulers of the world, made the chase almost the sole recreation of their leisure hours, and the active life of modern rulers, he pays a just tribute to the "astonishing familiarity with the habits, nature, and chase of their quarry" possessed by the mediaeval ancestors of modern Englishmen and of modern Americans.
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