In England mews is the name commonly given to a livery stable, or place where carriage horses are kept. The word has a curious connection with hawking. A bird was said to mew, when it moulted or changed its feathers. When hawks were moulting they were shut up in a cage or coop, which was called a mew. The royal stables in London got the name of mews because they were built where the mews of the king's hawks had been situated. This was done in the year 1537, the hawks being removed to another place. The word mews, being thus used for the royal stables, gradually came to be applied to other buildings of the kind.
It would take too much space to quote and explain all the allusions to hawking in Shakespeare's works. The few here given may serve as samples of this very interesting class of technical terms, most of which became obsolete when the art ceased to be practised.
BOY WITH HAWK AND HOUNDS
Before dropping the subject, however, I may remind the young reader that many of the quotations here given to illustrate archery, hawking, and other ancient arts, sports, and games, also illustrate the fact that the figurative language of a period is affected by its manners and customs. The one needs to be known in order to understand the other. To take a fresh example, John Skelton, who lived in the time o£ Henry VIII., refers to a lady thus:—
"Merry Margaret,
As midsummer flower;
Gentle as falcon,
Or hawk of the tower."