Page:The house of Cecil.djvu/229

 THE FIRST EARL OF SALISBURY 199

white horses " for his coach, which he ordered from Embden and not a year passes without his receiving both horses and other animals. Some of these must have been embarrassing pets, such as a dog sent by Sir S. Bagenall, which the donor boasts is " the most furiosest beast that ever I saw," or the " paraquito," given by Sir John Gilbert, with instructions as follows : " He will eat all kinds of meat, and nothing will hurt him except it be very salt. If you put him on the table at meal time he will make choice of his meat. He must be kept very warm and after he hath filled himself he will set in a gentlewoman's ruff all the day. In the afternoon he will eat bread or oatmeal groats, drink water or claret wine : every night he is put in the cage and covered warm."

His correspondence bears constant witness to his interest in hawking, and his friends vie with each other in seconding his efforts to secure hawks that will "fly in a high place." In the year 1600 he was stocking his park at Theobalds with deer, and received many " fat bucks " and does, as well as ten red deer from Lord Sheffield.

Among other gifts, Bishop Bancroft sends him a vat of Rhenish wine, containing six score gallons, which he had brought from Embden. " You should not have had it," he writes, " but that I did so surfeit at Embden, in quaffing to such and so many healths, not forgetting your own (but remembering you better, I trust, in my

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