a Fifth-Monarchy man. Perhaps this dislike accounts for the total absence of all advertisements having reference to field-sports, or to animals connected therewith, until the return of the Court to England. With its return came in once more an aristocratic amusement which had faded out during the stern days of the Commonwealth, hawking, and we are reminded of this by the following advertisement for a lost lanner, which appears in the Mercurius Publicus of September 6, 1660:—
Richard Finney, Esquire, of Alaxton, in Leicestershire, about a fortnight since, lost a Lanner from that place; she hath neither Bells nor Varvels; she is a white Hawk, and her long feathers and sarcels are both in the blood. If any one can give tidings thereof to Mr Lambert at the Golden Key in Fleet-street, they shall have forty shillings for their pains.
If it be true that the Mercurius changed its name from Politicus to Publicus out of compliment to the new King and his Court, second thoughts seem to have been taken, and the original name resumed, for there is a Mercurius Politicus in November 1660, from which is the following:—