"In the year 1638 lived Mr. Hastings, second son of an Earl of Huntingdon. He was, peradventure, an original in our age, or rather the copy of our ancient nobility in hunting, not in warlike times. He was low, very strong, and very active, of a reddish flaxen hair. His clothes, always green cloth, and never all worth (when new) five pounds; his house was perfectly of the old fashion, in the midst of a large park, well stocked with deer, and near the house rabbits, to serve his kitchen; many fishponds, great store of wood and timber, a bowling green in it (long, but narrow), full of high ridges, it being never levelled since it was ploughed. They used round lead bowls, and it had a banqueting house, like a stand, built in a tree.
"He kept all manner of sport-hounds, that ran buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger; and hawks, long and short-winged. He had all sorts of nets for fish; he had a walk in the New Forest and the Manor of Christ Church.
"This last supplied him with red deer, sea and river fish; and, indeed, all his neighbours grounds and royalties were free to him, who bestowed all his time on these sports. He was popular with his neighbours, and was ever a welcome guest at their houses; he, too, kept open house, where beef, pudding, and small beer, were to be had in plenty; his great hall was full of marrow bones, and full of hawks' perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers, the upper side of which was hung with foxes' brushes, here and there a polecat intermixed.
"The parlour was a very large room, and properly furnished. On a great hearth, paved with brick, lay some terriers, and the choicest hounds and spaniels. Seldom but two of the great chairs had litters of young cats in them, which were not to be disturbed, he having always three or four attending him at dinner, and a little white round stick of fourteen inches lying by his trencher, that he might defend such meat as he had no mind to part with to them.
"The windows (which were very large) served for places to lay his arrows, crossbows, stonebows, and other such-like accoutrements. The corners of the room full of the best chase hunting and hawking poles, an oyster-table at the lower end, which was of constant use twice a day all the year round, for he never failed to eat oysters before dinner and supper through all seasons; the neighbouring town of Poole supplied him with them. The upper part of the room had two small tables and a desk, on the one side of which was a Church Bible, and on the other the 'Book of Martyrs.'
"On the tables were hawks' hoods, bells, and such like, two or three old green hats, with their crowns thrust in, so as to hold ten or a dozen eggs, which were of a pheasant kind of poultry he took much care of, and fed himself. Tables, dice, cards, and bowls were not wanting. In the hole of the desk were scores of tobacco-pipes that had been used.
"On one side of this end of the room was the door of a closet, wherein stood the strong beer and the wine, which never came thence but in single glasses, that being the rule of the house strictly observed, for he never exceeded in drink or permitted it. On the other side was the door into an old chapel, not used for devotion; the pulpit, as the safest place, was never wanting of a cold chine of beef, venison pasty, gammon of bacon, or great apple-pie, with thick crust, extremely baked.
"His table cost him not much, though it was good to eat at; his sports supplied all but beef and mutton, except Fridays, when he had the best salt fish (as well as other fish) he could get, and that was the day his neighbours of best quality most visited him. He never wanted a London Pudding, and always sang it in with 'My past lies therein—a.'
"He drank a glass of wine or two at meals, very often syrup of gilliflower in his sack, and had always a tun glass without feet by his side, holding a pint of small beer, which he often stirred with rosemary. He was well natured, but soon angry; he lived to be a hundred; never lost his eye-sight, but always read and wrote without spectacles, and got on horseback without help. Until past fourscore he rode to the death of a stag as well as any."