CHASE, or Chace, is a place of retreat for deer and wild beasts, of a middle kind between a forest and a park, being usually less than a forest, and not possessed of so many privileges. The following history of the English chase is given by Mr Pennant (British Zool. i. 42): “At first the beasts of chase had this whole island for their range; they knew no other limits than the ocean, nor confessed any particular master. When the Saxons had established themselves in the heptarchy, they vyere reserved by each sovereign for his own particular diversion. Hunting and war in those uncivilized ages were the only employ of the great; their active but uncultivated minds being susceptible of no pleasures but those of a violent kind, such as gave exercise to their bodies, and prevented the pain of thinking.

“But as the Saxon kings only appropriated those lands to the use of forests which were unoccupied, so no individuals received any injury; but when the conquest had settled the Norman line on the throne, this passion for the chase was carried to an excess which involved every civil right in a general ruin: it superseded the consideration of religion even in a superstitious age; the village communities, nay, even the most sacred edifices, were turned into one vast waste, to make room for animals, the objects of a lawless tyrant’s pleasure. The New Forest in Hampshire is too trite an instance to be dwelt on; sanguinary laws w ere enacted to preserve the game; and in the reigns of William Rufus and Henry I. it was less criminal to destroy one of the human species than a beast of chase. Thus it continued while the Norman line filled the throne; but when the Saxon line was restored under Henry II. the rigour of the forest laws was immediately softened.

“When our barons began to form a power, they claimed a vast but more limited tract for a diversion that the English were always fond of. They were very jealous of any encroachments on their respective bounds, which were often the cause of deadly feuds. Such a one gave cause to the fatal battle of Chevy-chase, a fact which, though recorded only in a ballad, may, from what we know of the manners of the times, be founded on truth; not that it was attended with all the circumstances which the author of that natural but heroic composition has given it; for on that day neither a Percy nor a Douglas fell. Here the poet seems to have claimed his privilege, and mixed with this fray some of the events of the battle of Otterbourne.

“When property became happily more divided by the relaxation of the féodal tenures, those extensive hunting grounds became more limited; and as tillage and husbandry increased, the beasts of chase were obliged to give way to others more useful to the community. The vast tracts of land before dedicated to hunting w ere then contracted, and, in proportion as the useful arts gained ground, either lost their original destination, or gave rise to the invention of parks. Liberty and the arts seem coeval; for when once the latter got footing, the former protected the labours of the industrious from being ruined by the licentious sportsman, or being devoured by the objects of his diversion. For this reason the subjects of a despotic government still experience the inconveniences of vast wastes and forests, the terrors of the neighbouring husbandmen, while in our well-regulated monarchy very few chases remain. The English still indulge themselves in the pleasures of hunting, but confine the deer kind to parks, of which England boasts of more than any other kingdom in Europe. The laws allow every man his pleasure, but confine them in such bounds as to prevent them from being injurious to the meanest of the community. Before the reformation the prelates seem to have guarded sufficiently against this want of amusement, the see of Norwich in particular being possessed about that time of thirteen parks.”

Chase, in the sea language, is to pursue a ship, which is also called giving chase. Chase-Guns are guns which are either in the head, when they are used in chasing others, or in the stern, where they are only useful in the event of pursuit by any other ship.
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Wild-goose Chase, a term used to express a sort of racing on horseback formerly practised, resembling the flying of wild geese; those birds generally going in a train one after another, not in confused flocks as other birds do. In this sort of race the two horses, after running twelve score yards, had liberty, which horse soever could get the lead, to take what ground the jockey pleased, the hindmost horse being bound to follow him within a certain distance agreed on by the articles, or else to be whipped in by the triers and judges who rode by; and whichever horse could distance the other won the race. This sort of racing was not long in common use; for it was found inhuman, and destructive of good horses, when two such were matched together. For in this case neither was able to distance the other till they were both ready to sink under their riders; and often two very good horses were both spoiled, and the wagers forced to be drawn at last. The mischief of this sort of racing soon brought in the method now in use, of only running over a certain quantity of ground, and determining the plate or wager by coming in first at the winning-post.