"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."
Mr. John R. Wise comments on this passage as follows: "This description of the run is wonderfully true; how the 'dew-bedabbled wretch' betakes herself to a flock of sheep to lead the hounds off the scent; how she stops to listen, and again makes another double. Mark, too, the beauty and aptness of the epithets, 'the hot scent-snuffing' hounds, and the 'earth-delving' conies; but more especially mark the pity that the poet feels for the poor animal, showing that he possessed a true feeling heart, without which no line of poetry can ever be written."
FOWLING.
There are many allusions to fowling in Shakespeare's works. He had evidently seen a good deal of it, probably in his boyhood, whether he had had actual experience in it or not.
In As You Like It (v. 4. 111) the Duke says of Touchstone, who combined much philosophy with his professional foolery, "He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit." And in Much Ado About Nothing (ii. 3. 95), when Don Pedro and his companions are talking about Benedick, whom they know to be hid within hearing, Claudio says: "Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits"; that is, go on with the practical joke, for the victim does not suspect it.