Beauclerc was, indeed, in the present instance, really and truly intent upon what he was about; and he pursued the History of Falconry, with all its episodes, from the olden time of the Boke of St. Alban’s down to the last number of the Sporting Magazine, including Colonel Thornton’s latest flight, with the adventures of his red falcons, Miss M’Ghee and Lord Townsend, and his red tercels, Messrs. Croc Franc and Craignon;--not forgetting that never-to-be forgotten hawking of the Emperor Arambombamboberus with Trebizonian eagles, on the authority of a manuscript in the Grand Signior’s library. Beauclerc had such extraordinary dependence upon the sympathy of his friends, that, when he was reading any thing that interested him, no matter what they might be doing, he must have their admiration for what charmed him. He brought his book to Lord Davenant, who was writing a letter. “Listen, oh listen! to this pathetic lament of the falconer,--‘Hawks, heretofore the pride of royalty, the insignia of nobility, the ambassador’s present, the priest’s indulgence, companion of the knight, and nursling of the gentle mistress, are now uncalled-for and neglected.’” “Ha! very well that,” said good-natured Lord Davenant, stopping his pen, dipping again, dotting, and going on. Then Beauclerc passaged to Lady Davenant, and, interrupting her in Scott’s Lives of the Novelists, on which she was deeply intent, “Allow me, my dear Lady Davenant, though you say you are no great topographer, to show you this, it is so curious; this royal falconer’s proclamation--Henry the Eighth’s--to preserve his partridges, pheasants, and herons, from his palace at Westminster to St. Giles’s _in the Fields_, and from thence to Islington, Hampstead, and Highgate, under penalty for every bird killed of imprisonment, or whatever other punishment to his highness may seem meet.” Lady Davenant vouchsafed some suitable remark, consonant to expectation, on the changes of times and places, and men and manners, and then motioned the quarto away with which motion the quarto reluctantly complied; and then following Lady Cecilia from window to window, as she _tended_ her flowers, he would insist upon her hearing the table of precedence for hawks. She, who never cared for any table of precedence in her life, even where the higher animals were concerned, would only undertake to remember that the merlin was a lady’s hawk, and this only upon condition, that she should have one to sit upon her wrist like the fair ladies in Wouvermans’ pictures. But further, as to Peregrine, Gerfalcon, or Gerkin, she would hear nought of them, nor could she listen, though Granville earnestly exhorted, to the several good reasons which make a falcon dislike her master-- 1st. If he speak rudely to her. 2nd. If he feed her carelessly. Before he could get thirdly out, Lady Cecilia stopped him, declaring that in all her life she never could listen to any thing that began with _first_ and _secondly_--reasons especially.