"_Groom._ I was a poor groom of thy stable, king, When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York, With much ado at length have gotten leave To look upon my sometimes royal master's face. O, how it yearn'd my heart, when I beheld, In London streets, that coronation day, When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary, That horse that thou so often hast bestrid, That horse that I so carefully have dress'd! _King Richard._ Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend, How went he under him? _Groom._ So proud as if he had disdain'd the ground. _King Richard._ So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back! That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand; This hand hath made him proud with clapping him. Would he not stumble? Would he not fall down,-- Since pride must have a fall,--and break the neck Of that proud man that did usurp his back? Forgiveness, horse! why do I rail on thee, Since thou, created to be awed by man, Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse; And yet I bear a burden like an ass, Spur-gall'd and tir'd by jauncing Bolingbroke." The description of hare-hunting in _Venus and Adonis_ (679) must also have been based on actual experience in the sport:-- "And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare, Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles How he outruns the winds, and with what care He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles: The many musits through the which he goes, Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes. "Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep, To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell, And sometime where earth-delving conies keep, To stop the loud pursuers in their yell, And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer; Danger deviseth shifts, wit waits on fear: "For there his smell with others being mingled, The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt, Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled With much ado the cold fault cleanly out; Then do they spend their mouths; Echo replies, As if another chase were in the skies. "By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill, Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear, To hearken if his foes pursue him still: Anon their loud alarums he doth hear; And now his grief may be compared well To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell. "Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch Turn, and return, indenting with the way; Each envious brier his weary legs doth scratch, Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay: For misery is trodden on by many And being low never reliev'd by any."