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[An asterisk is prefixed to all the newly written paragraphs throughout the work.]
A GENERAL ARRANGEMENT OF THE POPULAR SPORTS, PASTIMES, AND MILITARY GAMES, TOGETHER WITH THE VARIOUS SPECTACLES OF MIRTH OR SPLENDOUR, EXHIBITED PUBLICLY OR PRIVATELY, FOR THE SAKE OF AMUSEMENT, AT DIFFERENT PERIODS IN ENGLAND.
Object of the Work, to describe the Pastimes and trace their Origin--The Romans in Britain--The Saxons--The Normans--Tournaments and Jousts--Other Sports of the Nobility, and the Citizens and Yeomen--Knightly Accomplishments--Esquireship--Military Sports patronised by the Ladies--Decline of such Exercises and of Chivalry--Military Exercises under Henry the Seventh and under Henry the Eighth--Princely Exercises under James the First--Revival of Learning--Recreations of the Sixteenth Century--Old Sports of the Citizens of London--Modern Pastimes of the Londoners--Cotswold and Cornish Games--Splendour of the ancient Kings and Nobility--Royal and noble Entertainments--Civic Shows--"Merry England "--Setting out of Pageants--Processions of Queen Mary and King Philip of Spain in London--Chester Pageants--Public Shows of the Sixteenth Century--Queen Elizabeth at Kenelworth Castle--The Master of the Revels--Rope-dancing, tutored Animals, and Puppet-shows--Minstrelsy, Bell-ringing, etc.--Baiting of Animals--Pastimes formerly on Sundays--Royal Interference with them--Dice and Cards--Regulation of Gaming for Money by Richard Cœur de Lion, etc.--Statutes against Cards, Ball-play, etc.--Archery succeeded by Bowling--Modern Gambling--Ladies' Pastimes Needle-work--Dancing and Chess-play--Ladies' Recreations in the Fourteenth Century--The Author's Labours--Character of the Engravings.
OBJECT OF THE WORK.--In order to form a just estimation of the character of any particular people, it is absolutely necessary to investigate the Sports and Pastimes most generally prevalent among them. War, policy, and other contingent circumstances, may effectually place men, at different times, in different points of view, but, when we follow them into their retirements, where no disguise is necessary, we are most likely to see them in their true state, and may best judge of their natural dispositions. Unfortunately, all the information that remains respecting the ancient inhabitants of this island is derived from foreign writers partially acquainted with them as a people, and totally ignorant of their domestic customs and amusements; the silence, therefore, of the contemporary historians on these important subjects leaves us without the power of tracing them with the least degree of certainty; and as it is my intention, in the following pages, to confine myself as much as possible to positive intelligence, I shall studiously endeavour to avoid all controversial and conjectural arguments. I mean also to treat upon such pastimes only as have been practised in this country; but as many of them originated on the continent, certain digressions, by way of illustration, must necessarily occur; these, however, I shall make it my business to render as concise as the nature of the subject will permit them to be.
THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN.--We learn, from the imperfect hints of ancient
history, that, when the Romans first invaded Britain, her inhabitants were a bold, active, and warlike people, tenacious of their native liberty, and capable of bearing great fatigue; to which they were probably inured by an early education, and constant pursuit of such amusements as best suited the profession of a soldier; including hunting, running, leaping, swimming, and other exertions requiring strength and agility of body. Perhaps the skill which the natives of Devonshire and Cornwall retain to the present day, in hurling and wrestling, may properly be considered as a vestige of British activity. After the Romans had conquered Britain, they impressed such of the young men as were able to bear arms for foreign service, and enervated the spirit of the people by the importation of their own luxurious manners and habits; so that the latter part of the British history exhibits to our view a slothful and effeminate race of men, totally divested of that martial disposition, and love of freedom, which so strongly marked the character of their pro-genitors; and their amusements, no doubt, partook of the same weakness and puerility. 1
THE SAXONS.--The arrival of the Saxons forms a new epoch in the annals of this country. These military mercenaries came professedly to assist the Britons against their incessant tormentors the Picts and the Caledonians; but no sooner had they established their footing in the land, than they invited more of their countrymen to join them, and turning their arms against their wretched employers, became their most dangerous and most inexorable enemies, and in process of time obtained full possession of the largest and best part of the island; whence arose a great change in the form of government, laws, manners, customs, and habits of the people.
The sportive exercises and pastimes practised by the Saxons appear to have been such as were common among the ancient northern nations; and most of them consisted of robust exercises. In an old Chronicle of Norway, 2 we find it recorded of Olaf Tryggeson, a king of that country, that he was stronger and more nimble than any man in his dominions. He could climb up the rock Smalserhorn, and fix his shield upon the top of it; he could walk round the out-side of a boat upon the oars, while the men were rowing; he could play with three darts, alternately throwing them in the air, and always kept two of them up, while he held the third in one of his hands; he was ambidexter, and could
cast two darts at once; he excelled all the men of his time in shooting with the bow; and he had no equal in swimming. In one achievement this monarch was outdone by the Anglo-Saxon gleeman, represented on the twenty-first plate, who adds an equal number of balls to those knives or daggers. The Norman minstrel Tallefer, before the commencement of the battle at Hastings, cast his lance into the air three times, and caught it by the head in such a surprising manner, that the English thought it was done by the power of enchantment. Another northern hero, whose name was Kolson, boasts of nine accomplishments in which he was well skilled: "I know," says he, "how to play at chess; I can engrave Runic letters; I am expert at my book; I know how to handle the tools of the smith; I can traverse the snow on skates of wood; I excel in shooting with the bow; I use the oar with facility; I can sing to the harp; and I compose verses." 1 The reader will, I doubt not, anticipate me in my observation, that the acquirements of Kolson indicate a much more liberal education than those of the Norwegian monarch; it must, however, be observed, that Kolson lived in an age posterior to him; and also, that he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which may probably account in great measure for his literary qualifications. Yet, we are well assured that learning did not form any prominent feature in the education of a young nobleman during the Saxon government: it is notorious, that Alfred the Great was twelve years of age before he learned to read; and that he owed his knowledge of letters to accident, rather than to the intention of his tutors. A book adorned with paintings in the hands of his mother attracted his notice, and he expressed his desire to have it; she promised to comply with his request on condition that he learned to read it, which it seems he did; and this trifling incident laid the groundwork of his future scholarship. 2
Indeed, it is not by any means surprising, under the Saxon government, when the times were generally very turbulent, and the existence of peace exceedingly precarious, and when the personal exertions of the opulent were so often necessary for the preservation of their lives and property, that such exercises as inured the body to fatigue, and biassed the mind to military pursuits, should have constituted the chief part of a young nobleman's education: accordingly, we find that hunting, hawking, leaping, running, wrestling, casting of darts, and other pastimes which necessarily required great exertions of bodily strength, were taught them in their adolescence. These amusements engrossed the whole of their attention, every one striving to excel his fellow; for hardiness, strength, and valour, out-balanced, in the public estimation, the accomplishments of the mind; and therefore literature, which flourishes best in tranquillity and retirement, was considered as a pursuit unworthy the notice of a soldier, and only requisite in the gloomy recesses of the cloister.
Among the vices of the Anglo-Saxons may be reckoned their propensity to
gaming, and especially with the dice, which they derived from their ancestors; for Tacitus 1 assures us that the ancient Germans would not only hazard all their wealth, but even stake their liberty, upon the turn of the dice; "and he who loses," says the author, "submits to servitude, though younger and stronger than his antagonist, and patiently permits himself to be bound, and sold in the market; and this madness they dignify by the name of honour." Chess was also a favourite game with the Saxons; and likewise backgammon, said to have been invented about the tenth century. It appears moreover, that a large portion of the night was appropriated to the pursuit of these sedentary amusements. In the reign of Canute the Dane, this practice was sanctioned by the example of royalty, and followed by the nobility. Bishop Ætheric, having obtained admission to Canute about midnight upon some urgent business, found the king engaged with his courtiers at play, some at dice, and some at chess. 2 The clergy, however, were prohibited from playing at games of chance, by the ecclesiastical canons established in the reign of Edgar.
THE NORMANS.--The popular sports and pastimes, prevalent at the close of the Saxon era, do not appear to have been subjected to any material change by the coming of the Normans: it is true, indeed, that the elder William and his immediate successors restricted the privileges of the chase, and imposed great penalties on those who presumed to destroy the game in the royal forests, without a proper licence. By these restrictions the general practice of hunting was much confined, but by no means prohibited in certain districts, and especially to persons of opulence who possessed extensive territories of their own.
TOURNAMENTS AND JOUSTS.--Among the pastimes introduced by the Norman nobility, none engaged the general attention more than the tournaments and the jousts. The tournament, in its original institution, was a martial conflict, in which the combatants engaged without any animosity, merely to exhibit their strength and dexterity; but, at the same time, engaged in great numbers to represent a battle. The joust was when two knights, and no more, were opposed to each other at one time. These amusements, in the middle ages, which may properly enough be dominated the ages of chivalry, were in high repute among the nobility of Europe, and produced in reality much of the pomp and gallantry that we find recorded with poetical exaggeration in the legends of knight-errantry. I met with a passage in a satirical poem among the Harleian MSS. of the thirteenth century, 3 which strongly marks the prevalence of this taste in the times alluded to. It may be thus rendered in English:
OTHER SPORTS OF THE NOBILITY, AND THE CITIZENS AND YEOMEN.--While the principles of chivalry continued in fashion, the education of a nobleman was confined to those principles, and every regulation necessary to produce an accomplished knight was put into practice. In order fully to investigate these particulars, we may refer to the romances of the middle ages; and, generally speaking, dependence may be placed upon their information. The authors of these fictitious histories never looked beyond the customs of their own country; and whenever the subject called for a representation of remote magnificence, they depicted such scenes of splendour as were familiar to them: hence it is, that Alexander the Great, in his legendary life, receives the education of a Norman baron, and becomes expert in hawking, hunting, and other amusements coincident with the time in which the writer lived. Our early poets have fallen into the same kind of anachronism; and Chaucer himself, in the Knight's Tale, speaking of the rich array and furniture of the palace of Theseus, forgets that he was a Grecian prince of great antiquity, and describes the large hall belonging to an English nobleman, with the guests seated at table, probably as he had frequently seen them, entertained with singing, dancing, and other acts of minstrelsy, their hawks being placed upon perches over their heads, and their hounds lying round about upon the pavement below. The two last lines of the poem just referred to are peculiarly applicable to the manners of the time in which the poet lived, when no man of consequence travelled abroad without his hawk and his hounds. In the early delineations, the nobility are frequently represented seated at table, with their hawks upon their heads. Chaucer says,
[paragraph continues] The picture is perfect, when referred to his own time; but bears not the least analogy to Athenian grandeur. In the romance called The Knight of the Swan, it is said of Ydain, Duchess of Roulyon, that she caused her three sons to be brought up in "all maner of good operacyons, vertues, and maners; and when in their adolescence they were somwhat comen to the age of strengthe, they," their tutors, "began to practyse them in shootinge with their bow and arbelstre, 1 to playe with the sword and buckeler, to runne, to just, to playe with a poll-axe, and to wrestle; and they began to bear harneys, to runne horses, and to approve them, as desyringe to be good and faythful knightes to susteyne the faith of God." We are not, however, to conceive that martial exercises in general were confined to the education of young noblemen: the sons of citizens and yeomen had also their sports resembling military combats. Those practised at an early period by the young Londoners seem to have been
derived from the Romans; they consisted of various attacks and evolutions performed on horseback, the youth being armed with shields and pointless lances, resembling the ludus Trojæ, or Troy game, described by Virgil. These amusements, according to Fitz Stephen, who lived in the reign of Henry II., were appropriated to the season of Lent; but at other times they exercised themselves with archery, fighting with clubs and bucklers, and running at the quintain; and in the winter, when the frost set in, they would go upon the ice, and run against each other with poles, in imitation of lances, in a joust; and frequently one or both-were beaten down, "not always without hurt; for some break their arms, and some their legs; but youth," says my author, "emulous of glory, seeks these exercises preparatory against the time that war shall demand their presence." The like kind of pastimes, no doubt, were practised by the young men in other parts of the kingdom.
KNIGHTLY ACCOMPLISHMENTS.--The mere management of arms, though essentially requisite, was not sufficient of itself to form an accomplished knight in the times of chivalry; it was necessary for him to be endowed with beauty, as well as with strength and agility of body; he ought to be skilled in music, to dance gracefully, to run with swiftness, to excel in wrestling, to ride well, and to perform every other exercise befitting his situation. To these were to be added urbanity of manners, strict adherence to the truth, and invincible courage. Hunting and hawking skilfully were also acquirements that he was obliged to possess, and which were usually taught him as soon as he was able to endure the fatigue that they required. Hence it is said of Sir Tristram, a fictitious character held forth as the mirror of chivalry in the romance entitled The Death of Arthur, that "he learned to be an harper, passing all other, that there was none such called in any countrey: and so in harping and on instruments of musike he applied himself in his youth for to learne, and after as he growed in might and strength he laboured ever in hunting and hawking, so that we read of no gentlemen who more, or so, used himself therein; and he began good measures of blowing blasts of venery, and chase, and of all manner of vermains; and all these terms have we yet of hunting and hawking; and therefore the book of venery, and of hawking and hunting, is called the Boke of Sir Tristram." In a succeeding part of the same romance, King Arthur thus addresses the knight: "For all manner of hunting thou bearest the prize; and of all measures of blowing thou art the beginner, and of all the termes of hunting and hawking thou art the beginner." 1 We are also informed that Sir Tristram had previously learned the language of France, knew all the principles of courtly behaviour, and was skilful in the various requisites of knighthood.
[paragraph continues] Another ancient romance says of its hero, "He every day was provyd in dauncyng and in songs that the ladies coulde think were convenable for a nobleman to conne; but in every thinge he passed all them that were there. The king for to assaie him, made justes and turnies; and no man did so well as he, in runnyng, playing at the pame, 1 shotyng, and castyng of the barre, ne found he his maister." 2
ESQUIRESHIP.--The laws of chivalry required that every knight should pass through two offices: the first was a page; and, at the age of fourteen he was admitted an esquire. The office of the esquire consisted of several departments; the esquire for the body, the esquire of the chamber, the esquire of the stable, and the carving esquire; the latter stood in the hall at dinner, carved the different dishes, and distributed them to the guests. Several of the inferior officers had also their respective esquires. 3 Ipomydon, a king's son and heir, in the romance that bears his name, written probably at the commencement of the fourteenth century, is regularly taught the duties of an esquire, previous to his receiving the honours of knighthood; and for this purpose his father committed him to the care of a "learned and courteous knight called Sir ’Tholomew." Our author speaks on this subject in the following manner:
Here we find reading mentioned; which, however, does not appear to have been of any great importance in the middle ages, and is left out in the Geste of King Horne, another metrical romance, 5 which seems to be rather more ancient than the former. Young Horne is placed under the tuition of Athelbrus, the king's steward, who is commanded to teach him the mysteries of hawking and hunting, to play upon the harp,
to carve at the royal table, and to present the cup to the king when he sat at meat, with every other service fitting for him to know. The monarch concludes his injunctions with a repetition of the charge to instruct him in singing and music:
And the manner in which the king's carver performed the duties of his office is well described in the poem denominated "The Squyer of Lowe Degree." 1
MILITARY SPORTS PATRONISED BY LADIES.--Tournaments and jousts were usually exhibited at coronations, royal marriages, and other occasions of solemnity where pomp and pageantry were thought to be requisite. Our historians abound with details of these celebrated pastimes. The reader is referred to Froissart, Hall, Holinshed, Stow, Grafton, etc., who are all of them very diffuse upon this subject; and in the second volume of the Manners and Customs of the English are several curious representations of these military combats both on horseback and on foot.
One great reason, and perhaps the most cogent of any, why the nobility of the middle ages, nay, and even princes and kings, delighted so much in the practice of tilting with each other, is, that on such occasions they made their appearance with prodigious splendour, and had the opportunity of displaying their accomplishments to the greatest advantage. The ladies also were proud of seeing their professed champions engaged in these arduous conflicts; and, perhaps, a glove or riband from the hand of a favourite female might have inspired the receiver with as zealous a wish for conquest, as the abstracted love of glory; though in general, I presume, both these ideas were united; for a knight divested of gallantry would have been considered as a recreant, and unworthy of his profession.
DECLINE OF MILITARY EXERCISES.--When the military enthusiasm which
so strongly characterised the middle ages had subsided, and chivalry was on the decline, a prodigious change took place in the nurture and manners of the nobility. Violent exercises requiring the exertions of muscular strength grew out of fashion with persons of rank, and of course were consigned to the amusement of the vulgar; and the education of the former became proportionably more soft and delicate. This example of the nobility was soon followed by persons of less consequence; and the neglect of military exercises prevailed so generally, that the interference of the legislature was thought necessary, to prevent its influence from being universally diffused, and to correct the bias of the common mind; for, the vulgar readily acquiesced with the relaxation of meritorious exertions, and fell into the vices of the times, resorting to such games and recreations as promoted idleness and dissipation.
DECLINE OF CHIVALRY.--The romantic notions of chivalry appear to have lost their vigour towards the conclusion of the fifteenth century, especially in this country, where a continued series of intestine commotions employed the exertions of every man of property, and real battles afforded but little leisure to exercise the mockery of war. It is true, indeed, that tilts and tournaments with other splendid exhibitions of military skill, were occasionally exercised, and with great brilliancy, so far as pomp and finery contribute to make them attractive, till the end of the succeeding century. These splendid pastimes were encouraged by the sanction of royalty, and this sanction was perfectly political; on the one hand, it gratified the vanity of the nobility, and, on the other, it amused the populace, who, being delighted with such shows of grandeur, were thereby diverted from reflecting too deeply upon the grievances they sustained. It is, however, certain that the jousts and tournaments of the latter ages, with all their pomp, possessed but little of the primitive spirit of chivalry.
MILITARY EXERCISES UNDER HENRY VII.--Henry VII. patronised the gentlemen and officers of his court in the practice of military exercises. The following extract may serve as a specimen of the manner in which they were appointed to be performed: "Whereas it ever hath bene of old antiquitie used in this realme of most noble fame, for all lustye gentlemen to passe the delectable season of summer after divers manner and sondry fashions of disports, as in hunting the red and fallowe deer with houndes, greyhoundes, and the bowe; also in hawking with hawkes of the Tower; and other pastimes right convenyent which were to long here to rehearse. And bycause it is well knowen, that in the months of Maie and June, all such disports be not conveniently prest and redye to be executed; wherefore, in eschewing of idleness, the ground of all vice," and to promote such exercises as "shall be honourable, and also healthfull and profitable to the body," we "beseech your most noble highness to permit two gentlemen, assosyatying to them two other gentlemen to be their aides," by "your gracious licence, to furnish certain articles concerning the feates of armes hereafter ensuinge":--"In the first place; On the
xxijth daye of Maie, there shall be a grene tree sett up in the lawnde of Grenwich parke; whereuppon shall hange, by a grene lace, a Vergescu 1 Blanke, in which white shield it shalbe lawfull for any gentleman that will annswear this chalenge ensewing to subscribe his name.--Secondly; The said two gentlemen, with their two aides, shalbe redye on the xxiijth daie of Maie, being Thursdaye, and on Mondaye thence next ensewinge, and so everye Thursday and Monday untill the xxth daye of June, armed for the foote, to annswear all gentlemen commers, at the feate called the Barriers, with the Casting-speare, and the Targett, and with the bastard-sword, 2 after the manner following, that is to saie, from vj of the clocke in the forenoone till sixt of the clocke in the afternoone during the tyme.--Thirdly; And the said two gentlemen, with their two aiders, or one of them, shall be there redye at the said place, the daye and dayes before rehearsed, to deliver any of the gentlemen answeares of one cast with the speare bedded with the morne, 3 and seven strokes with the sword, point and edge rebated, without close, or griping one another with handes, upon paine of punishment as the judges for the time being shall thinke requisite.--Fourthly; And it shall not be lawfull to the challengers, nor to the answearers, with the bastard sword to give or offer any foyne 4 to his match, upon paine of like punishment.--Fifthly; The challengers shall bringe into the fielde, the said daies and tymes, all manner of weapons concerning the said feates, that is to saie, casting speares bedded with mornes, and bastard swords poynt and edge rebated, and the answerers to have the first choice." 5
* The Harleian MS. just cited contains accounts of the proclamation and articles of a tilting to be held at the palace of Richmond on the birth of the Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII.; of a joust at Grenwich in 1516; and of a "Justinge, Tournay, and Fightinge at Barrier holden at the Palace of Westminster," in 1540. 6
MILITARY EXERCISES UNDER HENRY VIII.--Henry VIII. not only countenanced the practice of military pastimes by permitting them to be exercised without restraint, but also endeavoured to make them fashionable by his own example. Hall assures us, that, even after his accession to the throne, he continued daily to amuse himself in archery, casting of the bar, wrestling or dancing, and frequently in tilting, tournaying, fighting at the barriers with swords, and battle-axes, and such like martial recreations, in most of which there were few that could excel him. His leisure time he spent in playing at the recorders, flute, and virginals, in setting of songs, singing and making of ballads. 7 He was also exceedingly fond of hunting, hawking, and other sports of the field; and indeed his example so far prevailed, that hunting, hawking, riding the
great horse, charging dexterously with the lance at the tilt, leaping, and running, were necessary accomplishments of a man of fashion. 1 The pursuits and amusements of a nobleman are placed in a different point of view by an author of the succeeding century; 2 who, describing the person and manners of Charles, Lord Mountjoy, regent of Ireland, in 1599, says, "He delighted in study, in gardens, in riding on a pad to take the aire, in playing at shovelboard, at cardes, and in reading of play-bookes for recreation, and especially in fishing and fish-ponds, seldome using any other exercises, and using these rightly as pastimes, only for a short and convenient time, and with great variety of change from one to the other." The game of shovelboard, though now considered as exceedingly vulgar, and practised by the lower classes of the people, was formerly in great repute among the nobility and gentry; and few of their mansions were without a shovelboard, which was a fashionable piece of furniture. The great hall was usually the place for its reception.
PRINCELY EXERCISES UNDER JAMES I.--We are by no means in the dark respecting the education of the nobility in the reign of James I.; we have, from that monarch's own hand, a set of rules for the nurture and conduct of an heir apparent to the throne, addressed to his eldest son Henry, prince of Wales. From the third book of this remarkable publication, entitled "ΒΑΣΙΛΙΟΚΟΝ ΔΩΡΟΝ, or, a Kinge's Christian Dutie towards God," I shall select such parts as respect the recreations said to be proper for the pursuit of a nobleman, without presuming to make any alteration in the diction of the royal author.
"Certainly," he says, "bodily exercises and games are very commendable, as well for bannishing of idleness, the mother of all vice; as for making the body able and durable for travell, which is very necessarie for a king. But from this court I debarre all rough and violent exercises; as the foote-ball, meeter for lameing, than making able, the users thereof; as likewise such tumbling trickes as only serve for comœdians and balladines to win their bread with: but the exercises that I would have you to use, although but moderately, not making a craft of them, are, running, leaping, wrestling, fencing, dancing, and playing at the caitch, or tennise, archerie, palle-malle, and such like other fair and pleasant field-games. And the honourablest and most recommendable games that yee can use on horseback; for, it becometh a prince best of any man to be a faire and good horseman: use, therefore, to ride and danton great and courageous horses;--and especially use such games on horseback as may teach you to handle your arms thereon, such as the tilt, the ring, and low-riding for handling of your sword.
"I cannot omit heere the hunting, namely, with running houndes, which is the most honourable and noblest sort thereof; for it is a theivish forme of hunting to shoote with gunnes and bowes; and greyhound hunting is not so martial a game.
"As for hawkinge, I condemn it not; but I must praise it more sparingly,
because it neither resembleth the warres so neere as hunting doeth in making a man hardie and skilfully ridden in all grounds, and is more uncertain and subject to mischances; and, which is worst of all, is there through an extreme stirrer up of the passions.
"As for sitting, or house pastimes--since they may at times supply the roome which, being emptie, would be patent to pernicious idleness--I will not therefore agree with the curiositie of some learned men of our age in forbidding cardes, dice, and such like games of hazard: when it is foule and stormie weather, then I say, may ye lawfully play at the cardes or tables; for, as to diceing, I think it becometh best deboshed souldiers to play at on the heads of their drums, being only ruled by hazard, and subject to knavish cogging; and as for the chesse, I think it over-fond, because it is over-wise and philosophicke a folly."
His majesty concludes this subject with the following good advice to his son: "Beware in making your sporters your councellors, and delight not to keepe ordinarily in your companie comœdians or balladines."
REVIVAL OF LEARNING.--The discontinuation of bodily exercises afforded a proportionable quantity of leisure time for the cultivation of the mind; so that the manners of mankind were softened by degrees, and learning, which had been so long neglected, became fashionable, and was esteemed an indispensable mark of a polite education. Yet some of the nobility maintained for a long time the old prejudices in favour of the ancient mode of nurture, and preferred exercise of the body to mental endowments; such was the opinion of a person of high rank, who said to Richard Pace, secretary to King Henry VIII., "It is enough for the sons of noblemen to wind their horn and carry their hawke fair, and leave study and learning to the children of meaner people." 1 Many of the pastimes that had been countenanced by the nobility, and sanctioned by their example, in the middle ages, grew into disrepute in modern times, and were condemned as vulgar and unbecoming the notice of a gentleman. "Throwing the hammer and wrestling," says Peacham, in his Complete Gentleman, published in 1622, "I hold them exercises not so well beseeming nobility, but rather the soldiers in the camp and the prince's guard." On the contrary, Sir William Forest, in his Poesye of Princelye Practice, a MS. in the Royal Library, 2 written in the year 1548, laying down the rules for the education of an heir apparent to the crown, or prince of the blood royal, writes thus:
[paragraph continues] However, I doubt not both these authors spoke agreeably to the taste of the times in which they lived. Barclay, a more early poetic writer, in his Eclogues
first published in 1508, has made a shepherd boast of his skill in archery; to which he adds,
RECREATIONS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, published in 1660, gives us a general view of the sports most prevalent in the seventeenth century. "Cards, dice, hawkes, and hounds," says he, "are rocks upon which men lose themselves, when they are imprudently handled, and beyond their fortunes." And again, "Hunting and hawking are honest recreations, and fit for some great men, but not for every base inferior person, who, while they maintain their faulkoner, and dogs, and hunting nags, their wealth runs away with their hounds, and their fortunes fly away with their hawks." In another place he speaks thus: "Ringing, bowling, shooting, playing with keel-pins, tronks, coits, pitching of bars, hurling, wrestling, leaping, running, fencing, mustering, swimming, playing with wasters, foils, foot-balls, balowns, running at the quintain, and the like, are common recreations of country folks; riding of great horses, running at rings, tilts and tournaments, horse-races, and wild-goose chases, which are disports of greater men, and good in themselves, though many gentlemen by such means gallop quite out of their fortunes." Speaking of the Londoners, he says, "They take pleasure to see some pageant or sight go by, as at a coronation, wedding, and such like solemn niceties; to see an ambassador or a prince received and entertained with masks, shows, and fireworks. The country hath also his recreations, as May-games, feasts, fairs, and wakes." The following pastimes he considers as common both in town and country, namely, "bull-baitings and bear-baitings, in which our countrymen and citizens greatly delight, and frequently use; dancers on ropes, jugglers, comedies, tragedies, artillery gardens, and cock-fighting." He then goes on: "Ordinary recreations we have in winter, as cards, tables, dice, shovelboard, chess-play, the philosopher's game, small trunks, shuttlecock, billiards, music, masks, singing, dancing, ulegames, frolicks, jests, riddles, catches, cross purposes, questions and commands, merry tales of errant knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves, cheaters, witches, fairies, goblins, and friars." To this catalogue he adds: "Dancing, singing, masking, mumming, and stage-plays, are reasonable recreations, if in season; as are May-games, wakes, and Whitson-ales, if not at unseasonable hours, are justly permitted. Let them," that is, the common people, "freely feast, sing, dance, have puppet-plays, hobby-horses, tabers, crowds, 1 and bag-pipes": let them "play at ball and barley-brakes"; and afterwards, "Plays, masks, jesters, gladiators, tumblers, and jugglers, are to be winked at, lest the people should do worse than attend them."
A character in the Cornish Comedy, written by George Powell, and acted at Dorset Garden in 1696, says, "What is a gentleman without his recreations? With these we endeavour to pass away that time which otherwise would lie heavily upon our hands. Hawks, hounds, setting-dogs, and cocks, with their appurtenances, are the true marks of a country gentleman." This character is supposed to be a young heir just come to his estate. "My cocks," says he, "are true cocks of the game--I make a match of cock-fighting, and then an hundred or two pounds are soon won, for I never fight a battle under."
OLD SPORTS OF THE CITIZENS OF LONDON.--In addition to the May-games, morris-dancings, pageants and processions, which were commonly exhibited throughout the kingdom in all great towns and cities, the Londoners had peculiar and extensive privileges of hunting, hawking, and fishing; they had also large portions of ground allotted to them in the vicinity of the city for the practice of such pastimes as were not prohibited by the government, and for those especially that were best calculated to render them strong and healthy. We are told by Fitz Stephen, in the twelfth century, that on the holidays during the summer season, the young men of London exercised themselves in the fields with "leaping, shooting with the bow, wrestling, casting the stone, playing with the ball, and fighting with their shields." The last species of pastime, I believe, is the same that Stow, in his Survey of London, calls "practising with their wasters and bucklers"; which in his day was exercised by the apprentices before the doors of their masters. The city damsels had also their recreations on the celebration of these festivals, according to the testimony of both the authors just mentioned. The first tells us that they played upon citherns, 1 and danced to the music; and as this amusement probably did not take place before the close of the day, they were, it seems, occasionally permitted to continue it by moonlight. We learn from the other, who wrote at the distance of more than four centuries, that it was then customary for the maidens, after evening prayers, to dance in the presence of their masters and mistresses, while one of their companions played the measure upon a timbrel; and, in order to stimulate them to pursue this exercise with alacrity, the best dancers were rewarded with garlands, the prizes being exposed to public view, "hanged athwart the street," says Stow, during the whole of the performance. This recital calls to my mind a passage in Spenser's "Epithalamium," wherein it appears that the dance was sometimes accompanied with singing. It runs thus:
LATER PASTIMES OF THE LONDONERS.--A general view of the pastimes practised by the Londoners soon after the commencement of the eighteenth century
occurs in Strype's edition of Stow's Survey of London, published in 1720. 1 "The modern sports of the citizens," says the editor, "besides drinking, are cock-fighting, bowling upon greens, playing at tables, or backgammon, cards, dice, and billiards; also musical entertainments, dancing, masks, balls, stage-plays, and club-meetings, in the evenings; they sometimes ride out on horse-back, and hunt with the lord-mayor's pack of dogs when the common hunt goes out. The lower classes divert themselves at football, wrestling, cudgels, nine-pins, shovelboard, cricket, stowball, ringing of bells, quoits, pitching the bar, bull and bear baitings, throwing at cocks," and, what is worst of all, "lying at ale-houses." To these are added, by an author of later date, Maitland, in his History of London, published in 1739, "Sailing, rowing, swimming and fishing, in the river Thames, horse and foot races, leaping, archery, bowling in allies, and skittles, tennice, chess, and draughts; and in the winter seating, sliding, and shooting." Duck-hunting was also a favourite amusement, but generally practised in the summer. The pastimes here enumerated were by no means confined to the city of London, or its environs: the larger part of them were in general practice throughout the kingdom.
COTSWOLD AND CORNISH GAMES.--Before I quit this division of my subject, I shall mention the annual celebration of games upon Cotswold Hills, in Gloucestershire, to which prodigious multitudes constantly resorted. Robert Dover, an attorney, of Barton on the Heath, in the county of Warwick, was forty years the chief director of these pastimes. They consisted of wrestling, cudgel-playing, leaping, pitching the bar, throwing the sledge, tossing the pike, with various other feats of strength and activity; many of the country gentlemen hunted or coursed the hare; and the women danced. A castle of boards was erected on this occasion, from which guns were frequently discharged." Captain Dover received permission from James I. to hold these sports; and he appeared at their celebration in the very clothes which that monarch had formerly worn, but with much more dignity in his air and aspect." 2 I do not mean to say that the Cotswold games were invented, or even first established, by Captain Dover; on the contrary, they seem to be of much higher origin, and are evidently alluded to in the following lines by John Heywood the epigrammatist: 3
[paragraph continues] Something of the same sort, I presume, was the Carnival, kept every year, about the middle of July, upon Halgaver-moor, near Bodmin in Cornwall; "resorted to by thousands of people," says Heath, in his description of Cornwall, published in 1750. "The sports and pastimes here held were so well liked by Charles II. when he touched here in his way to Sicily, that he became a brother of the
jovial society. The custom of keeping this carnival is said to be as old as the Saxons."
SPLENDOUR OF THE ANCIENT KINGS AND NOBILITY.--Paul Hentzner, a foreign writer, who visited this country at the close of the sixteenth century, says of the English, in his Itinerary, written in 1598, that they are "serious like the Germans, lovers of show, liking to be followed wherever they go by whole troops of servants, who wear their master's arms in silver." This was no new propensity: the English nobility at all times affected great parade, seldom appearing abroad without large trains of servitors and retainers; and the lower classes of the people delighted in gaudy shows, pageants, and processions.
If we go back to the times of the Saxons, we shall find that, soon after their establishment in Britain, their monarchs assumed great state. Bede tells us that Edwin, king of Northumberland, lived in much splendour, never travelling without a numerous retinue; and when he walked in the streets of his own capital, even in the times of peace, he had a standard borne before him. This standard was of the kind called by the Romans tufa, and by the English tuuf: it was made with feathers of various colours in the form of a globe, and fastened upon a pole. 1 It is unnecessary to multiply citations; for which reason I shall only add another. Canute the Dane, who is said to have been the richest and most magnificent prince of his time in Europe, rarely appeared in public without being followed by a train of three thousand horsemen, well mounted and completely armed. These attendants, who were called house carls, formed a corps of body guards or household troops, and were appointed for the honour and safety of that prince's person. 2 The examples of royalty were followed by the nobility and persons of opulence.
In the middle ages, the love of show was carried to an extravagant length; and as a man of fashion was nothing less than a man of letters,. those studies that were best calculated to improve the mind were held in little estimation.
ROYAL AND NOBLE ENTERTAINMENTS.--The courts of princes and the castles of the great barons were daily crowded with numerous retainers, who were always welcome to their masters' tables. The noblemen had their privy counsellors, treasurers, marshals, constables, stewards, secretaries, chaplains, heralds, pursuivants, pages, henchmen or guards, trumpeters, and all the other officers of the royal court. 3 To these may be added whole companies of minstrels, mimics, jugglers, tumblers, rope-dancers, and players; and especially on days of public festivity, when, in every one of the apartments opened for the reception of the guests, were exhibited variety of entertainments, according to the taste of the times, but in which propriety had very little share; the whole forming a scene of pompous confusion, where feasting, drinking, music, dancing, tumbling, singing, and buffoonery, were jumbled together, and mirth excited too often at the expense of common decency. 4 If we turn to the third Book of
[paragraph continues] Fame, a poem written by our own countryman Chaucer, we shall find a perfect picture of these tumultuous court entertainments, drawn, I doubt not, from reality, and perhaps without any exaggeration. It may be thus expressed in modern language: Minstrels of every kind were stationed in the receptacles for the guests; among them were jesters, that related tales of mirth and of sorrow; excellent players upon the harp, with others of inferior merit seated on various seats below them, who mimicked their performances like apes to excite laughter; behind them, at a great distance, was a prodigious number of other minstrels, making a great sound with cornets, shaulms, flutes, horns, pipes of various kinds, and some of them made with green corn, 1 such as are used by shepherds' boys; there were also Dutch pipers to assist those who chose to dance either "love-dances, springs, or rayes," or any other new-devised measures. Apart from these were stationed the trumpeters and players on the clarion; and other seats were occupied by different musicians playing variety of mirthful tunes. There were also present large companies of jugglers, magicians, and tregetors, who exhibited surprising tricks by the assistance of natural magic.
Vast sums of money were expended in support of these spectacles, by which the estates of the nobility were consumed, and the public treasuries often exhausted. But we shall have occasion to speak more fully on this subject hereafter.
CIVIC SHOWS.--In London, pageants and displays, or triumphs, were frequently required at the reception of foreign monarchs, or at the processions of our own kings and queens through the city to Westminster previous to their coronation, or at their return from abroad, and on various other occasions; besides such as occurred at stated times, as the lord mayor's show, the setting of the midsummer watch, and the like. A considerable number of different artificers were kept, at the city's expense, to furnish the machinery for the pageants, and to decorate them. Stow tells us that, in his memory, great part of Leaden Hall was appropriated to the purpose of painting and depositing the pageants for the use of the city.
The want of elegance and propriety, so glaringly evident in these temporary exhibitions, was supplied, or attempted to be supplied, by a tawdry resemblance of splendour. The fronts of the houses in the streets through which the processions passed were covered with rich adornments of tapestry, arras, and cloth of gold; the chief magistrates and most opulent citizens usually appeared on horseback in sumptuous habits and joined the cavalcade; while the ringing of bells, the sound of music from various quarters, and the shouts of the populace, nearly stunned the ears of the spectators. At certain distances, in places appointed for the purpose, the pageants were erected, which were temporary buildings representing castles, palaces, gardens, rocks, or forests, as the occasion required, where nymphs, fawns, satyrs, gods, goddesses, angels, and
devils, appeared in company with giants, savages, dragons, saints, knights, buffoons, and dwarfs, surrounded by minstrels and choristers; the heathen mythology, the legends of Chivalry and Christian divinity, were ridiculously jumbled together, without meaning; and the exhibition usually concluded with dull pedantic harangues, exceedingly tedious, and replete with the grossest adulation. The giants especially were favourite performers in the pageants; they also figured away with great applause in the pages of romance; and, together with dragons and necromancers, were created by the authors for the sole purpose of displaying the prowess of their heroes, whose business it was to destroy them.
Some faint traces of the processional parts of these exhibitions were retained at London in the lord mayor's show about twenty or thirty years ago; 1 but the pageants and orations have been long discontinued, and the show itself is so much contracted that it is in reality altogether unworthy of such an appellation.
* MERRY ENGLAND.--Outside military pastimes, and the sports of princes, or of noblemen, and gentlefolk at large, it must not be forgotten that the townsmen had many an opportunity of amusement and enjoyment after their own heart. In pre-Reformation days their feasts and frolics and plays were usually associated with, or at all events somewhat slightly allied to the observances of religion. In his chapter on "Gilds and Misteries," Mr J. A. Wylie, the historian of Henry IV., gives a vivid and faithful picture of this side of town gild life of the fifteenth century:--
"England was then 'Merry England,' and sad and sober pleasure was not the people's creed. The brethren did not put in their weekly shot merely to dole groats to pittancers, or help the bedrid and brokelegged, or find poor scholars to school, or dower poor girls, or burn their soul-candles round the corpse of a dead brother, or follow at his forthbringing and ’terment. Such duties were soon relegated to chaplains, who were paid and lodged at the cost of the gild. The gildsmen lived for mirth, joy, sweetness, courtesy and merry disports. Once every year came the Gild-day, usually on a Sunday or one of the greater feasts, when the brethren, fairly and honestly arrayed in their new hoods, gowns, and cloaks, in livery suit of murrey, crimson, white, or green, would assemble at daybreak, and form up in the house or hall of their craft. In front rode the beadle or crier, in scarlet tabard or demigown. Next came the pipers, trumpers, corners, clarioners, cornemusers, shalmusers, and other minstrelsy, clad in verdulet, rayed plunket, or russet motley; and then the craftsmen, mounted or a-foot, moving in procession through the streets to the church where their chantry was appointed. They carried with them a huge wax serge, sometimes weighing fifty pounds, to burn before the shrine of their saint. Then began the morn-speech, communion, or speaking together, which was usually held in the church while the mass was proceeding, where the year's accounts were squared, the gild
chattels were laid on the checker, points were promulgated, defaulters announced, new members enrolled, and the Master, Skevins, Proctors, Dean, Clerk, Summoner, and other officers elected for the coming year. Hence they returned to the hall for the general feast, otherwise known as the drink, the meat, or the mangery. The walls would be hung with hallings of stained worsted, and dight with birch boughs, and the floor over-strawed with mats, or a litter of sedge and rushes, that swarmed with the quick beasts that tickle men o’ nights. The benches were fit with gay bankers, before tables set on trestle-trees spread with board-cloths of clean nap. On these was laid a garnish of pewter or treen, together with the masers and silver spoons bequeathed by brethren since dead. Men and women alike brought their beaker of ale, and the poor received their share of the good things by the custom of the day. Each member was required to bring his wife or his lass, and the sick brother or sister had still to pay his score, though he might have his bottle of ale and his mess of kitchen stuff sent to his own house if he wished. If any disturbed the fellowship with brabbling or high language, the Dean delivered him the yard [of scourging], or fined him in two pounds of wax, to be paid in to the light-silver. The cook was often a brother of the gild, and skilled waferers were always to be had for a price. When all had washed and wiped, the Graceman placed them in a row with his silver wand, and the Clerk stood up and called 'Peace,' while prayers were said for England and the Church.
* "The feast began with good bread and brown ale. Then came the bruets, joints, worts, gruel aillies and other pottage, the big meat, the lamb tarts and capon pasties, the cockentrice or double roast (i.e. griskin and pullet stitched with thread, or great and small birds stewed together), and served in a silver posnet or pottinger, the charlets, chewets, collops, mammenies, mortreus, and other such toothsome entremets of meat served in gobbets and sod in ale, wine, milk, eggs, sugar, honey, marrow, spices, and verjuice made from grapes or crabs. Then came the subtleties, daintily worked like pigeons, curlews, or popinjays in sugar and paste, painted in gold and silver, with mottoes coming out of their bills; and after them the spiced cake-bread, the Frenchbread, the pastelades, doucets, dariols, flauns, pain-puffs, rastons, and blancmanges, with cherries, drajes, blandrells, and cheese, and a standing cup of good wine left by some former brother to drink him every year to mind.
* "When the cloth was up and the boards were drawn, came the merrymaking and the hoy-trolly-lolly. They laughed and cried at the jester's bourds, or the gitener's glee; they watched the tregetoners sleight, or they diced and raffled, while the sautryours and other minstrels harped, piped, gitterned, flutted, and fitheled a merry fit aloft. As they left the hall they gathered about the leapers and tumblers, or thronged the bearward and the apeward to enjoy the grins, mous, and gambols of their darlings, or formed a ring about the bear-stake to see the baiting with the dogs. Or the summer afternoon would be spent in running a bull, when the poor brute's skin was daubed with smear,
its tail cut, and its horns sawn off, the sport being to goad it with dogs and sticks and see who could get near enough to cut a few hairs from its grease back.
* "But the great diversion of our forefathers was mumming. Give them but free air and an antic guise, and they would mask and mime with all the seriousness of children at play. Every mistery must have its riding, and every gild its procession. At Beverley, on St Helen's Day, the gildsmen dressed up a boy as a queen to represent the saint. One old man marched before her with a cross, and another with a spade; the music played up, and the brethren and sistern followed the parade to church. At Candelmas, a man in woman's dress represented the Virgin Mary, and carried 'what might seem' a baby in his arms, Joseph and Simeon walked behind him, and two angels carrying a heavy candlestick, with twenty-four wax lights. At York they showed the Vices and Virtues by means of the petitions in the Lord's Prayer, or they acted out the articles of the Creed, while the gildsmen in their livery rode with the players on the route. At Leicester the images of St Martin and the Virgin were borne through the streets with music and singing, twelve of the gildsmen making up as the Apostles, each with his name stuck in his cap. At Norwich, on St George's Day, they chose their George and a man to bear his sword and be his carver; two of the brethren bore the banner and two 'the wax,' and the rest rode with them in their livery round the town. The Norwich peltyers (skinners) dressed up 'a knave-child innocent,' with a large candle in his hand, and led him through the city to the minster, 'betwyxen two good men,' in memory of St William, the boy martyr, to foster hatred against the Jews. At Canterbury, every 6th of July, at the city march, a cart was drawn about the streets, showing a boy vested as 'Bishop Becket' struck down before an altar by four other children, who played the knights; and as the martyr fell beneath their blows, real blood was spurted on his forehead from a leather bag, which was carried in reserve for use at a given signal. At Cambridge, the scholars of Michaelhouse played a comedy in masks, beards, and embroidered cloaks. In London, the brethren of the fraternity of SS. Fabian and Sebastian carried 'the Branch' springing from the root of Jesse, dressed out with lighted candles, to the church of St Bololph, Aldersgate. On St Nicholas Eve (Dec. 5th), the chorister boys in every cathedral, and probably in every collegiate and parish church where singing boys were found, elected one of their number to be their 'Barne-Bishop,' or 'St Nicholas Bishop,' and to rule the services of the church, in mitre, ring, gloves, cope, surplice, rochet, and full pontificals. He rode or strutted about the streets with his crozier borne before him, blessing the crowd, and collecting their pennies in a glove, with his canons, chaplains, clerks, vergers, and candle-bearers till Childermas.
* "Each season brought its ales, its mayings-round-the-shaft, its Piffany mummings, its Candelmas, Hochtide, and Yule; but Corpus Christi was the feast of feasts, when the gildsmen carried torches, candles, and banners around the
[paragraph continues] Blessed Sacrament as it passed through the streets, and all the town turned out at sunrise to watch the annual play.
* "They could play you gracious mysteries grounded in Scripture, such as the story of the Children of Israel, or of Moses in Egypt, or legends of the martyrdom of Saints Salenia and Feliciana, or of St Catherine of Alexandria and the angels feeding her in her torture house, and smashing the wheel like bruchel glass, or the miracles of St Nicholas, the hearer of prayer, who sent the hand-some suitors in the very nick of time to the poor but virtuous gentleman with the pretty penniless daughters, and brought the little boys back to life after they had been cut up in the pickle-butt by the naughty taverner. . . . Such exhibitions were usually known in England as 'the miracles,' or 'the marvels,' and occasionally 'the mysteries'; we trace them wherever town records are preserved, and they penetrated even to the remotest manor-house and the most secluded village." 1
SETTING OUT OF PAGEANTS.--In an old play, The Historie of Promos and Cassandra, by George Whetstone, printed in 1578, 2 a carpenter, and others, employed in preparing the pageants for a royal procession, are introduced. In one part of the city the artificer is ordered "to set up the frames, and to space out the rooms, that the Nine Worthies may be so instauled as best to please the eye." The "Worthies" are thus named in an heraldical MS. in the Harleian Library: 3 "Duke Jossua; Hector of Troy; kyng David; emperour Alexander; Judas Machabyes; emperour Julyus Cæsar; kyng Arthur; emperour Charlemagne; and syr Guy of Warwycke"; but the place of the latter was frequently, and I believe originally, supplied by Godefroy, earl of Bologne: it appears, however, that any of them might be changed at pleasure. Henry VIII. was made a "Worthy" to please his daughter Mary, as we shall find a little further on. In another part of the same play the carpenter is commanded to "errect a stage, that the wayghtes 4 in sight may stand"; one of the city gates was to be occupied by the fowre Virtues, together with "a consort of music"; and one of the pageants is thus whimsically described:
[paragraph continues] The stage direction then requires the entry of "Two men apparelled lyke greene men at the mayor's feast, with clubbs of fyreworks"; whose office, we are told, was to keep a clear passage in the street, "that the kyng and his trayne might pass with ease." In another dramatic performance of later date, Green's Tu Quoque, or the City Gallant, published in 1614, a city apprentice says, "By this light, I doe not thinke but to be lord mayor of London before I die; and have
three pageants carried before me, besides a ship and an unicorn." The following passage occurs in Selden's Table Talk, under the article Judge, "We see the pageants in Cheapside, the lions and the elephants; but we do not see the men that carry them; we see the Judges look big like lions; but we do not see who moves them."
PROCESSIONS OF QUEEN MARY AND KING PHILIP OF SPAIN IN LONDON.--In the foregoing quotations, we have not the least necessity to make an allowance for poetical licence: the historians of the time will justify the poets, and perfectly clear them from any charge of exaggeration; and especially Hall, Grafton, and Holinshed, who are exceedingly diffuse on this and such like popular subjects. The latter has recorded a very curious piece of pantomimical trickery exhibited at the time that the Princess Mary went in procession through the city of London, the day before her coronation:--At the upper end of Gracechurch Street there was a pageant made by the Florentines; it was very high; and "on the top thereof there stood foure pictures; and in the midst of them, and the highest, there stood an angell, all in greene, with a trumpet in his hand; and when the trumpetter who stood secretlie within the pageant, did sound his trumpet, the angell did put his trumpet to his mouth, as though it had been the same that had sounded." Holinshed, speaking of the spectacles exhibited at London, when Philip king of Spain, with Mary his consort, made their public entry in the city, calls them, in the margin of his Chronicle, "the vaine pageants of London"; and he uses the same epithet twice in the description immediately subsequent; "Now," says he, "as the king came to London, and as he entered at the drawbridge, [on London Bridge,] there was a vaine great spectacle, with two images representing two giants, the one named Corinens, and the other Gog-magog, holding betweene them certeine Latin verses, which, for the vaine ostentation of flatterye, I overpasse." He then adds: "From the bridge they passed to the conduit in Gratious Street, which was finely painted; and, among other things," there exhibited, "were the Nine Worthies; of these King Henry VIII. was one. He was painted in harnesse, having in one hand a sword, and in the other hand a booke, whereupon was written Verbum Dei. He was also delivering, as it were, the same booke to his sonne King Edward VI. who was painted in a corner by him." 1
The Nine Worthies appear to have been favourite characters, and were often exhibited in the pageants; those mentioned in the preceding passage were probably nothing more than images of wood or pasteboard. These august personages were not, however, always degraded in this manner, but, on the contrary, they were frequently personified by human beings suitably habited, and sometimes mounted on horseback. They also occasionally harangued the spectators as they passed in the procession.
CHESTER PAGEANTS.--The same species of shows, but probably not upon so extensive a scale, were exhibited in other cities and large towns throughout
the kingdom. I have now before me an ordinance for the mayor, aldermen, and common councilmen of the city of Chester, to provide yearly for the setting of the watch, on the eve of the festival of Saint John the Baptist, a pageant, which is expressly said to be "according to ancient custome," consisting of four giants, one unicorn, one dromedary, one luce, one camel, one ass, one dragon, six hobby-horses, and sixteen naked boys. This ordinance is dated April 26th, 1564. 1 In another MS. of the same library, it is said, "A.D. 1599, Henry Hardware, esq. the mayor, was a godly and zealous man"; he caused "the gyauntes in the midsomer show to be broken," and not to goe; "the devil in his feathers," alluding perhaps to some fantastic representation not mentioned in the former ordinance, "he put awaye, and the cuppes and cannes, and the dragon and the naked boys." In a more modern hand it is added, "And he caused a man in complete armour to go in their stead. He also caused the bull-ring to be taken up," etc. But in the year 1601, John Ratclyffe, beer-brewer, being mayor, "sett out the giaunts and midsommer show, as of oulde it was wont to be kept." 2 In the time of the Commonwealth this spectacle was discontinued, and the giants, with the beasts, were destroyed. At the restoration of Charles II. it was agreed by the citizens to replace the pageant as usual, on the eve of the festival of St John the Baptist, in 1661; and as the following computation of the charges for the different parts of the show are exceedingly curious, I shall lay them before the. reader without any further apology. We are told that "all things were to be made new, by reason the ould modells were all broken." The computist then proceeds: "For finding all the materials, with the workmanship of the four great giants, all to be made new, as neere as may be lyke as they were before, at five pounds a giant the least that can be, and four men to carry them at two shillings and six pence each." The materials for the composition of these monsters are afterwards specified to be "hoops of various magnitudes, and other productions of the cooper, deal boards, nails, pasteboard, scaleboard paper of various sorts, with buckram, size cloth, and old sheets for their bodies, sleeves, and shirts, which were to be coloured." One pair of the "olde sheets" were provided to cover the "father and mother giants." Another article specifies "three yards of buckram for the mother's and daughter's hoods"; which seems to prove that three of these stupendous pasteboard personages were the representatives of females. There were "also tinsille, tinfoil, gold and silver leaf, and colours of different kinds, with glue and paste in abundance." Respecting the last article, a very ridiculous entry occurs in the bill of charges, it runs thus: "For arsnick to put into the paste to save the giants from being eaten by the rats, one shilling and fourpence." But to go on with the estimate. "For the new making the city mount, called the maior's mount, as auntiently it was, and for hreing of bays for the same, and a man to carry it, three pounds six shillings and eight pence." The bays mentioned in this and the succeeding article was hung round the bottom of the frame, and extended to the ground, or
near it, to conceal the bearers. "For making anew the merchant mount, as it aunciently was, with a ship to turn round, the hiring of the bays, and five men to carry it, four pounds." The ship and new dressing it, is charged at five shillings; it was probably made with pasteboard, which seems to have been a principal article in the manufacturing of both the moveable mountains; it was turned by means of a swivel attached to an iron handle underneath the frame. In the bill of charges for "the merchant's mount," is an entry of twenty pence paid to a joyner for cutting the pasteboard into several images. "For making anew the elephant and castell, and a Cupid," with his bow and arrows, "suitable to it," the castle was covered with tinfoil, and the Cupid with skins, so as to appear to be naked, "and also for two men to carry them, one pound sixteen shillings and eight-pence. For making anew the four beastes called the unicorne, the antelop, the flower-de-luce, and the camell, one pound sixteen shillings and fourpence apiece, and for eight men to carry them, sixteen shillings. For four hobby-horses, six shillings and eight-pence apiece; and for four boys to carry them, four shillings. For hance-staves, garlands, and balls, for the attendants upon the mayor and sheriffs, one pound nineteen shillings. For makinge anew the dragon, and for six naked boys to beat at it, one pound sixteen shillings. For six morris-dancers, with a pipe and tabret, twenty shillings."
The sports exhibited on occasions of solemnity did not terminate with the pageants and processions; the evening was generally concluded with festivity and diversions of various kinds to please the populace. These amusements are well described in a few lines by an early dramatic poet, whose name is not known; his performance is entitled A pleasant and stately Morall of the Three Lordes of London, black letter, no date: 1
The "cresset light" was a large lanthorn placed upon a long pole, and carried upon men's shoulders. There is extant a copy of a letter from Henry VII. to the mayor and aldermen of London, commanding them to make bon-fires, and to show other marks of rejoicing in the city, when the contract was ratified for the marriage of his daughter Mary with the prince of Castile. 2
PUBLIC SHOWS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--These motley displays of pomp and absurdity were highly relished by the nobility, and repeatedly exhibited by them, on extraordinary occasions. For want of more rational entertainments, they maintained for ages their popularity, and do not appear to
have lost the smallest portion of their attraction by the frequency of representation. Shows of this kind were never more fashionable than in the sixteenth century, when they were generally encouraged by persons of the highest rank, and exhibited with very little essential variation; and especially during the reign of Henry VIII. His daughter Elizabeth appears to have been equally pleased with this species of pageantry; and therefore it was constantly provided for her amusement by the nobility whom she visited from time to time, in her progresses or excursions to various parts of the kingdom. 1 I shall simply give the outlines of a succession of entertainments contrived to divert her when she visited the Earl of Leicester at Kenelworth Castle, and this shall serve as a specimen for the rest.
QUEEN ELIZABETH AT KENELWORTH.--Her majesty came thither on Saturday, the ninth of July 1575; 2 she was met near the castle by a fictitious Sibyl, who promised peace and prosperity to the country during her reign. Over the first gate of the castle there stood six gigantic figures with trumpets, real trumpeters being stationed behind them, who sounded as the queen approached. "By this dumb show," says my author, "it was meant that in the daies of King Arthur, men were of that stature; so that the castle of Kenelworth should seem still to be kept by King Arthur's heirs and their servants." Laneham says these figures were eight feet high. Upon her majesty entering the gateway, the porter, in the character of Hercules, made an oration and presented to her the keys. Being come into the base court, a lady "came all over the pool, being so conveyed, that it seemed she had gone upon the water; she was attended by two water nymphs, and calling herself the Lady of the Lake, she addressed her majesty with a speech prepared for the purpose." The queen then proceeded to the inner court, and passed the bridge, which was railled on both sides, and the tops of the posts were adorned with "sundry presents and gifts," as of wine, corn, fruits, fishes, fowls, instruments of music, and weapons of war. Laneham calls the adorned posts "well-proportioned pillars turned": he tells us there were fourteen of them, seven on each side of the bridge; on the first pair were birds of various kinds alive in cages, said to be the presents of the god Silvanus; on the next pair were different sorts of fruits in silver bowls, the gift of the goddess Pomona; on the third pair were different kinds of grain in silver bowls, the gift of Ceres; on the fourth, in silvered pots, were red and white wine with clusters of grapes in a silver bowl, the gift of Bacchus; on the fifth were fishes of various kinds in trays, the donation of Neptune; on the sixth were weapons of war, the gift of Mars; and on the seventh, various musical instruments, the presents of Apollo. The meaning of these emblematical decorations was explained in a Latin speech delivered by the author of it. Then an excellent band of music began to play
as her majesty entered the inner court, where she alighted from her horse, and went upstairs to the apartments prepared for her.
On Sunday evening she was entertained with a grand display of fireworks, as well in the air as upon the water.
On Monday, after a great hunting, she was met on her return by Gascoigne the poet, so disguised as to represent a savage man, who paid her many high-flown compliments in a kind of dialogue between himself and an echo.
On Tuesday she was diverted with music, dancing, and an interlude upon the water.
On Wednesday was another grand hunting.
On Thursday she was amused with a grand bear-beating, to which were added tumbling and fire-works. Bear-beating and bull-beating were fashionable at this period, and considered as proper pastimes for the amusement of ladies of the highest rank. Elizabeth, though a woman, possessed a masculine mind, and preferred, or affected to prefer, the exercises of the chace and other recreations pursued by men, rather than those usually appropriated to her sex.
On Friday, the weather being unfavourable, there were no open shows.
On Saturday there was dancing within the castle, and a country brideale, with running at the quintain in the castle yard, and a pantomimical show called "the Old Coventry Play of Hock Thursday," performed by persons who came from Coventry for that purpose. In the evening a regular play was acted, succeeded by a banquet and a masque.
On the Sunday there was no public spectacle.
On the Monday there was a hunting in the afternoon, and, on the queen's return, she was entertained with another show upon the water, in which appeared a person in the character of Arion, riding upon a dolphin twenty-four feet in length; and he sung an admirable song, accompanied with music performed by six musicians concealed in the belly of the fish. Her majesty, it appears, was much pleased with this exhibition. The person who entertained her majesty in the character of Arion is said to have been Harry Goldingham, of whom the following anecdote is related: "There was a spectacle presented to Queen Elizabeth upon the water, and among others, Harry Goldingham was to represent Arion upon the back of a dolphin; but finding his voice to be very hoarse and unpleasant when he came to perform his part, he tears off his disguise, and swears that he was none of Arion, not he, but even honest Harry Goldingham; which blunt discovery pleased the queen better than if it had gone thorough in the right way. Yet he could order his voice to an instrument exceedingly well." 1
On Tuesday the Coventry play was repeated, because the queen had not seen the whole of it on Saturday.
On Wednesday, the twentieth of the same month, she departed from Kenelworth.
[paragraph continues] Various other pastimes were prepared upon this occasion; but, for want of time and opportunity, they could not be performed.
* THE MASTER OF THE REVELS.--From very early days there was an official of the English court termed the Master of the Revels. This was a permanent office quite distinct from the one who had temporary control over all Christmas or Epiphany merriment. It was his duty to superintend and provide for plays, interludes, and every variety of entertainment, apart from field sports, for the king's court. It was stated in 1660 that "the allowance of Playes, the ordering of Players and Playmakers, and the Permission for Erecting of Playhouses, Hath time out of minde, wherof the memory of man is not to the Contrary belonged to the Master of his Majesties Office of the Revells." In 1544 Henry VIII. appointed, by letters patent, Sir Thomas Cawardin, Knight, to this office, with an annual fee of £10, and powers to appoint a deputy. Queen Elizabeth made a like grant, in 1579, to Edmond Tilney, Esquire; King James in 1603 to George Buck, Esquire, in 1613 to Sir John Ashley, and in 1622 to Ben. Jonson; and Charles I., in 1629, jointly to Henry Herbert, Knight, and Simon Thelwall, Esquire. Sir Henry Herbert and Mr Thelwall at the Restoration claimed to exercise their office. This was resisted by playwrights and others, with the result that various interesting documents and statements were produced in support of their claims. In these it was stated that the office originated in the days of the Saxons; that "mountebanks, lotteries, clockwork motions, ordinary motions, extra motions, dancing horses and mares, ropedancers, and slights of hand" all required licenses from the Master of the Revels, as well as "all Comedies, Tragedies, Poems, Ballads, half-sides, drolleries, and all billes relating to jokes." Moreover, Edward Hayward, gentleman, as deputy to Sir Henry Herbert, claimed to enjoy "all ancient privileges at Court, the ordering of maskes in the Innes of Law, halls, houses of great personages, and societies, all Balls, Dancing schooles, and musick, except his Majesty's and the priviledges of the Corporation touching freemen, if it extend soe farre; Pageantry and other publique tryumphes, the rurall feasts called Wakes, where there is constant revelling and musick, Cockpitts, fencing and fencing schooles, nocturnal feasts, and banquettings in publique houses when attended with minstrelsy, singing, and Dancing, together with the ordering of all mommeries, fictions, Disguises, scenes, and masking attire, all which (in the judgment of an able Lawyer) are within the verge and comprehension of the Master of the Revells Patent from the words Jocorum, Revelorum, et Mascorum."
* The words of the original patent gave jurisdiction throughout the whole kingdom of England, and Mr Hayward's claim for a very liberal interpretation was apparently granted. On July 23rd, 1663, Mr Hayward, in conjunction with Mr Poyntz, instructed Edward Thomas, one of the messengers belonging to his Majesties office of the Revels, to proceed to Bristol, with a view to the approaching fairs, and to acquaint the mayor with the king's grant to them, and the Lord Chamberlain's mandate, "touching musick, cockfightings, maskings,
prizes, stage-players, tumblers, vaulters, dancers on the ropes, such as act, sett forth, shew or present any play, shew, motion, feats of activity, or sights whatsoever." 1 Thomas was given power to grant temporary licenses to persons from Wales or remote parts, who seldom or never came to London, but others were to be required to take out licenses at the London office. Any presuming to act or exhibit unlicensed, were to be taken into custody, and kept until bound with good security to appear within ten days at the London office under penalty of £20. In 1668, Charles II. appointed Alexander Stafford, gentleman, Master of the Revels.
* Various interesting particulars relative to the Master of the Revels can be gleaned from the State Papers of the Public Record Office. There are full accounts extant of the expenditure of Richard Gibson, Master of the Revels, from 1509 to 1522, which show the extravagant character of the mummings and disguisings at the court of the young king. 2 Crimson, purple, blue, and yellow velvet; cloth of gold of Venice; blue, green, white, black, yellow, and crimson satin; blue, crimson, and yellow sarcenet; brabant cloth; crimson copper tinsel of Bruges; cotton cloth; white fustian; gray furs; and ostrich feathers were all used in the attiring of a single year. In February 1511, revels were held on a most costly scale in the house of Black Friars, Ludgate, and in White Hall, Westminster. On New Year's Day and Epiphany 1512, Gibson had the ordering of a pageant called "Dangerus Fortress." In the following year the pageant was called "The Rydie Mount," which was planted with broom to signify Plantaganet, and with red and white roses. At the foot were six lords, above them six minstrels, and at the entrance two armed men. It was drawn by two "mighty woord wossys or wyld men," and after the descent of the lords, the mount opened and showed six ladies. The six "lords" were the king, Mr Brandon, Earl of Essex, Sir Henry Guildford, Mr Nevell, and Mr Thomas Chene. The disguisings of Twelfth Night, 1514, cost the then great total of £404, 6s. 9d. The Twelfth Night revel at Greenwich, in 1516, as ordered by Gibson, was called "The Gardyn de Esperans." In 1520, a mummery was held at Greenwich on New Year's Eve; Gibson had to prepare dresses for fourteen persons. On January 5th, 1521, the king went "in meskellyng apparell" by water to visit the Cardinal with nineteen gentlemen. There were maskings on Shrove Monday and Shrove Tuesday, 1521, at Greenwich, in which the king took part; and he also played his share in several maskings both at Greenwich and York Place in the following year.
* Queen Elizabeth's expenditure on revels, early in her reign, outrivalled the extravagance of her father. From the first Christmas after her accession down to April 1567, the provisions and payments made by the Master of the Revels reached the then gigantic total of £4588, 1s. 10d. 3 Towards the end of the
reign the expenses under this head were but small. In May 1594 Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels, received a warrant of £311, 2s. 2d. for wares delivered and works done in the office of the revels, and for three years' wages of the officers. 1 In January 1597 2200 was assigned to the Master for wares and works, and three years' officers' wages; and also £66, 6s. 8d. yearly as composition for defraying the charges of the office for plays only, according to a rate of a late composition. 2
* In 1603 Sir George Buck succeeded to the Mastership of the Revels. On July 10th, 1615, Sir George wrote to the Lord Chamberlain, saying that the King had been pleased, at the Queen's intercession on behalf of Samuel Danyell, to appoint a company of youths to perform comedies and tragedies at Bristol, under the name of the Youths of Her Majesty's Royal Chamber of Bristol; he had consented to it, without prejudice to the rights of his office; but he reminded the Chamberlain that he had received no wages for two years, and begged for payment of the arrears. 3
* Sir Henry Herbert, the next Master of the Revels, got into rather serious trouble in the summer of 1674, almost immediately after his appointment, by licensing the poet Middleton's play A Game at Chess, which was a thinly-veiled political attack on Spain, that gave great umbrage to the Spanish ambassador. 4 Sir Henry Herbert was confirmed in his office on the accession of Charles I.
* In 1631 the churchwardens and constables of Blackfriars, on behalf of the whole parish, petitioned Bishop Laud to revive an order made by the Council and the Corporation in June 1600, limiting the playhouses to one each side of the Thames, and an order of 1619 suppressing the house in Blackfriars. They tabulated their reasons, which were briefly as follows: (1) hindrance to shop-keepers from great recourse to the plays, especially of coaches, their goods being broken and beaten off their stalls; (2) coaches so numerous in an afternoon that the inhabitants could not take in their beer or coals; (3) the passage through Ludgate and to the water was stopped; (4) if any fire occurred it could not be quenched; (5) baptisms and burials often disturbed; and (6) persons of honour and quality resident in the parish are restrained by the coaches from ingress and egress. 5
* In May 1633, some strolling players visited Banbury. The mayor and justices, suspecting them to be wandering rogues, if not more dangerous persons, called on them for their license, they produced a patent which they pretended to be granted by the crown, and also a commission from the Master of the Revels. Believing these papers to be forgeries, or wrongly obtained, they arrested the six men, examined them, and committed them to prison, till the council's pleasure should be signified. The patent and commission and examinations were forwarded to London. The company had been acting, as they alleged, at Leicester, Market Bosworth, Stratford, Meriden, and Solihull, and at Sir Thomas Lucy's, and Sir William Spencer's. 6
* Sir Henry Herbert received £200, as Master of the Revels, in October 1660, together with a warrant to advance him yearly such sums as might be needful for his office. 1 The official immediately under the master was termed the Yeoman of the Revels; his salary was usually, £50 a year. In May 1661, one John Tredeskyn was brought before Sir Henry Herbert charged with showing "severall strainge cretures" without authority from the office of the revels; but in the following month he obtained a royal warrant to continue as before to show to all who wish it his "rare and ingenious collection of rarities in art and nature," which had been for many years exhibited by him and his father before him. 2 In July of the same year an order was made for the suppression of all stage players, tumblers, rope dancers, and showmen unless approved and authorised by the Master of the Revels, as some persons had obtained recently commissions from the king, acted plays and exhibited shows full of scandal, and abused their commissions by selling or lending them.
* George Jolly obtained a license from the revel office on January 1st, 1663, to raise a company of players for acting tragedies, comedies, pastorals, and interludes, throughout England, provided they outstayed not forty days in one place, and acted nothing offensive, nor in the time of divine worship, nor at prohibited seasons. At the same time general orders were issued that "what company soever, either stage players, musicians, mountebanks, or such as go about with monsters and strange sights," as had no authority confirmed by the Master of the Revels, should have their commissions taken from them and sent to the office. 3 In July of that year the king empowered the mayor and sheriff and magistrates of Norwich, as he understood that the meaner sort of people were diverted from their work through the frequency of lotteries, puppet-shows, etc., to determine the length of stay of such shows in the city notwithstanding any licenses from the revel office. 4
ROPE-DANCING, TUTORED ANIMALS, AND PUPPET-SHOWS.--Great delight was taken in seeing men and animals perform such feats as appeared to be entirely contrary to their nature; as, men and monkeys dancing upon ropes, or walking upon wires; dogs dancing minuets, pigs arranging letters so as to form words at their master's command; hares beating drums, or birds firing off cannons. These exhibitions, for all of them have in reality been brought to public view, are ridiculed by the Spectator, in a paper dated the 3rd of April 1711. The author pretends that he received the following letter from a show-man who resided near Charing-Cross.
"Honoured Sir,--Having heard that this nation is a great encourager of ingenuity, I have brought with me a rope-dancer that was caught in one of the woods belonging to the great Mogul. He is by birth a monkey, but swings upon a rope, takes a pipe of tobacco, and drinks a glass of ale, like any reasonable
creature. 1 He gives great satisfaction to the quality; and if they will make a subscription for him, I will send for a brother of his out of Holland, that is a very good tumbler; and also for another of the same family whom I design for my merry-andrew, as being an excellent mimic, and the greatest droll in the country where he now is. I hope to have this entertainment in readiness for the next winter; and doubt not but it will please more than the opera or the puppet-show. I will not say that a monkey is a better man than some of the opera heroes; but certainly he is a better representative of a man than any artificial composition of wood and wire."
The latter part of this sarcasm relates to a feigned dispute for seniority between Powel, a puppet-showman, who exhibited his wooden heroes under the little piazza in Covent Garden, and the managers of the Italian opera; which is mentioned in a preceding paper 2 to this effect: "The opera at the Haymarket, and that under the little piazza of Covent Garden, are at present the two leading diversions of the town; Powel professing in his advertisements to set up Whittington and his Cat against Rinaldo and Armida."--After some observations, which are not immediately to the present purpose, the author proceeds: "I observe that Powel and the undertakers of the opera had both of them the same thought, and I think much about the same time, of introducing animals on their several stages, though indeed with different success. The sparrows and chaffinches at the Haymarket fly as yet very irregularly over the stage, and instead of perching on the trees, and performing their parts, these young actors either get into the galleries, or put out the candles; whereas Powel has so well disciplined his pig, that in the first scene he and Punch dance a minuet together. I am informed that Powel resolves to excel his adversaries in their own way, and introduce larks into his opera of Susanna, or Innocence betrayed; which will be exhibited next week with a pair of new elders."
From the same source of information, in a subsequent paper, 3 we may find a catalogue of the most popular spectacles exhibited in London at the commencement of the last century. Our author has introduced a projector, who produces a scheme for an opera entitled The Expedition of Alexander the Great; and proposes to bring in "all the remarkable shows about the town among the scenes and decorations of his piece"; which is described in the following manner: "This Expedition of Alexander opens with his consulting the Oracle at Delphos; in which the Dumb Conjurer, who has been visited by so many persons of quality of late years, is to be introduced as telling his fortune; at the same time Clench of Barnet 4 is represented in another corner of the temple, as ringing the bells of Delphos for joy of his arrival. The Tent of Darius is to be
peopled by the ingenious Mrs Salmon, where Alexander is to fall in love with a piece of waxwork that represents the beautiful Statira. When Alexander comes to that country in which, Quintus Curtius tells us, the dogs were so exceedingly fierce, that they would not loose their hold, though they were cut to pieces limb by limb, and that they would hang upon their prey by their teeth when they had nothing but a mouth left, there is to be a scene of Hockley in the Hole, in which are to be represented all the diversions of that place, the Bull-Baiting only excepted, which cannot possibly be exhibited in the theatre by reason of the lowness of the roof. The several Woods in Asia, which Alexander must be supposed to pass through, will give the audience a sight of Monkies dancing upon ropes, with many other pleasantries of that ludicrous species. At the same time, if there chance to be any strange animals in town, whether birds or beasts, they may be either let loose among the woods, or driven across the stage by some of the country people of Asia. In the last Great Battle, Pinkethman is to personate king Porus upon an Elephant, and is to be encountered by Powel, representing Alexander the Great upon a Dromedary, which, nevertheless, he is desired to call by the name of Bucephalus. On the close of this great Decisive Battle, when the two Kings are thoroughly reconciled, to show the mutual friendship and good correspondence that reigns between them, they both of them go together to a puppet-show, in which the ingenious Mr Powel junior may have an opportunity of displaying his whole art of machinery for the diversion of the two monarchs." It is further added, that, "after the reconciliation of these two kings, they might invite one another to dinner, and either of them entertain his guest with the German artist, Mr Pinkethman's Heathen Gods, or any of the like Diversions which shall then chance to be in vogue."
The projector acknowledged the thought was not originally his own, but that he had taken the hint from "several Performances he had seen upon our stage; in one of which there was a Raree Show, in another a Ladder Dance, and in others a posture or a moving picture with many curiosities of the like nature."
MINSTRELSY, BELL-RINGING, ETC.--The people of this country in all ages delighted in secular music, songs, and theatrical performances; 1 which is abundantly evident from the great rewards they gave to the bards, the scalds, the gleemen, and the minstrels, who were successively the favourites of the opulent, and the idols of the vulgar. The continual encouragement given to these professors of music, poetry, and pantomime, in process of time swelled their numbers beyond all reasonable proportion, inflamed their pride, increased their avarice, and corrupted their manners; so that at length they lost the favour they had so long enjoyed among the higher classes of society; and, the donations of the populace not being sufficient for their support, they fell away from affluence to poverty, and wandered about the country in a contemptible condition,
dependent upon the casual rewards they might occasionally pick up at church-ales, wakes, and fairs.
Hentzner, who wrote at the conclusion of the sixteenth century, says, "the English excel in dancing and music, for they are active and lively." A little further on he adds, "they are vastly fond of great noises that fill the ear, such as the firing of cannon, beating of drums, and the ringing of bells; so that it is common for a number of them that have got a glass in their heads to get up into some belfry and ring the bells for hours together for the sake of exercise." 1 Polydore Vergil mentions another remarkable singularity belonging to the English, who celebrated the festival of Christmas with plays, masques, and magnificent spectacles, together with games at dice and dancing, which, he tells us, was as ancient as the year 1170, and not customary with other nations; 2 and with respect to the Christmas prince, or lord of the misrule, he was, as the same author informs us, a personage almost peculiar to this country. 3
BAITING OF ANIMALS.--It were well if these singularities were the only vulnerable parts of the national character of our ancestors; but it must be confessed that there are other pastimes which equally attracted their attention, and manifested a great degree of barbarism, which will admit of no just defence. Sir Richard Steele, reprobating the inhumanity of throwing at cocks, makes these pertinent observations: "Some French writers have represented this diversion of the common people much to our disadvantage, and imputed it to a natural fierceness and cruelty of temper, as they do some other entertainments peculiar to our nation; I mean those elegant diversions of bull-baiting, and prize-fighting, with the like ingenious recreations of the bear-garden. I wish I knew how to answer this reproach which is cast upon us, and excuse the death of so many innocent cocks, bulls, dogs, and bears, as have been set together by the ears, or died an untimely death, only to make us sport." 4
PASTIMES FORMERLY ON SUNDAYS.--I know not of any objection that can have more weight in the condemnation of these national barbarisms, than the time usually appropriated for the exhibition of them; which, it seems, was the after part of the Sunday. The same portion of time also was allotted for the performance of plays, called, in the writings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, "vaine playes and interludes "; 5 to which are added, "dice and card-playing, dancing, and other idle pastimes." Stephen Gosson, a very zealous, if not a very correct writer, declaiming vehemently against plays and players, says of the latter, "because they are permitted to play every Sunday, they make four or five Sundayes at leaste every weeke." 6 Nor is he less severe upon those who frequented such amusements: "To celebrate the Sabbath," says he, "they go to the theatres, and there keepe a general market of bawdrie; by
which means," as he afterwards expresses himself, "they make the theatre a place of assignation, and meet for worse purposes than merely seeing the play." A contemporary writer, endeavouring to prove the impropriety of an established form of prayer for the church service, among other arguments, uses the following: "He," meaning the minister, "posteth it over as fast as he can galloppe; for, eyther, he hath two places to serve; or else there are some games to be playde in the afternoon, as lying for the whetstone, heathenishe dauncing for the ring, a beare or a bull to be baited, or else a jackanapes to ride on horsebacke, or an interlude to be plaide; and, if no place else can be gotten, this interlude must be playde in the church. We speak not of ringing after mattins is done." 1 To what has been said, I shall add the following verses, which made their appearance rather earlier than either of the foregoing publications; and they describe, with much accuracy I doubt not, the manner of spending the Sunday afternoons according to the usage of that time: but it is proper previously to observe, that such amusements on holidays were by no means peculiar to the young gallants of this country, but equally practised upon the continent.
ROYAL INTERFERENCE WITH SUNDAY PASTIMES.--Citations to this purpose might be made from infinity of pamphlets, written professedly against the profanation of the Sabbath: it was certainly an evil that called loudly for redress; and the pens of various writers, moral and religious, as well of the clergy as the laity, have been employed for that purpose. There are some few treatises on this subject that do honour to their authors; but far the larger part of them are of a different description, consisting of vehement and abusive declamations, wherein the zeal of the writers is too frequently permitted to run at random, without the least restraint from reason and moderation, and, what is still worse, without that strict adherence to the truth which the seriousness of the subject necessarily required. It must be granted, however, that the continued remonstrances from the grave and religious parts of the community were not without effect. In the twenty-second year of the reign of Elizabeth, the magistrates of the city of London obtained from the queen an edict, "that all heathenish playes and interludes should be banished upon Sabbath days"; 3 a but this restriction, I apprehend, was confined to the jurisdiction of the lord mayor; for, it is certain that such amusements were publicly exhibited in other districts, and especially
at the Paris Garden in Southwark, a place where these sort of sports were usually exhibited; and where three years afterwards a prodigious concourse of people being assembled together on a Sunday afternoon, to "see plays and a bear-baiting, the whole theatre gave way and fell to the ground; by which accident many of the spectators were killed, and more hurt." This lamentable misfortune was considered as a judgment from God, and occasioned a general prohibition of all public pastimes on the Sabbath-day. The wise successor of Elizabeth, on the other hand, thought that the restrictions on the public sports were too generally and too strictly applied, and especially in the country places; he therefore published on the 24th of May 1618 the following declaration: "Whereas we did justly, in our progresse through Lancashire, rebuke some puritanes and precise people, in prohibiting and unlawfully punishing of our good people for using their lawfull recreations and honest exercises on Sundayes and other holy dayes, after the afternoone sermon or service: It is our will, that after the end of divine service, our good people be not disturbed, letted, or discouraged, from any lawful recreation, such as dauncing, either for men or women; archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmless recreation; nor for having of May-games, Whitson-ales, and morris-daunces, and the setting up of May-poles, and other sports therewith used; so as the same be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or neglect of divine service. But withall, we doe here account still as prohibited, all unlawfull games to be used upon Sundayes onely, as beare and bull-baitings, interludes, and, at all times in the meaner sort of people by law prohibited, bowling." This proclamation was renewed by Charles I. in the eighth year of his reign; which occasioned many serious complaints from the puritanical party; but, three years afterwards, a pamphlet was published which defended the principles of the declaration; wherein the author, who was a high churchman, endeavours to fine away the objections of its opponents. In one part he says, "those recreations are the meetest to be used, which give the best refreshment to the bodie, and leave the least impression in the minde. In this respect, shooting, leaping, pitching the barre, stool-ball, and the like, are rather to be chosen than diceing or carding." This publication was immediately answered by the other party, who certainly had the best end of the argument, and were not sparing in their severity, but wounded the ordinance itself through the sides of its defender. The more precise writers objected not only to the profanation of the Sabbath, but to the celebration of most of the established festivals and holidays, as we find from the following verses of Neogeorgus:
DICE AND CARDS.--The Saxons and the Danes, as we have observed already, 1 were much addicted to gaming; and the same destructive propensity was equally prevalent among the Normans. The evil consequences arising from the indulgence of this pernicious pleasure have in all ages called loudly for reprehension, and demanded at last the more powerful interference of the legislature. The vice of gambling, however, is by no means peculiar to the people of this country: its influence is universally diffused among mankind; and in most nations the same strong measures that have been adopted here are found to be absolutely necessary to prevent its extension beyond the limits of subordination. Dice, and those games of chance dependent upon them, have been most generally decried; and cards, in latter times, are added to them as proper companions. Cards, when compared with dice, are indeed of modern invention, and originally, I doubt not, were productive only of innocent amusement; they were, however, soon converted into instruments of gambling equally dangerous as the dice themselves, and more enticing from the variety of changements they admit of, and the pleasing mixture of chance with skill, which often gives the tyro an advantage over the more experienced player; that is, supposing fair play on both sides; but woeful experience has convinced many that this is not always the case.
REGULATION OF GAMES FOR MONEY, BY RICHARD CŒUR DE LION, ETC.--Towards the close of the twelfth century, we meet with a very curious edict relative to gaming, and which shows how generally it even prevailed among the lower classes of the people at that period. This edict was established for the regulation of the Christian army under the command of Richard I. of England and Philip of France, during the crusade in 1190: It prohibits any person in the army beneath the degree of a knight from playing at any sort of game for money: knights and clergymen might play for money, but no one of them was permitted to lose more than twenty shillings in one whole day and night, under the penalty of one hundred shillings, to be paid to the archbishops in the army; the two monarchs had the privilege of playing for what they pleased; but their attendants were restricted to the sum of twenty shillings; and, if they exceeded, they were to be whipped naked through the army for three days. 2
STATUTES AGAINST DICE, CARDS, BALL-PLAY, ETC.--The decrees established by the council held at 'Worcester, in the twenty-fourth year of Henry III., prohibited the clergy from playing at dice, or at cards: but neither the one nor the other of these games are mentioned in the succeeding penal statutes, before the twelfth year of Richard II., when diceing is particularised, and expressly forbidden; though perhaps they were both of them included under the general title of games of chance, and dishonest games, mentioned in the proclamation of Edward III. which, with other pastimes therein specified, were generally practised to the great detriment of military exercises, and of archery in particular.
In the eleventh year of Henry VII. cards are first mentioned among the games prohibited by the law; 1 and at that time they seem to have been very generally used; for, the edict expressly forbids the practice of card-playing to apprentices, excepting the duration of the Christmas holidays, and then only in their masters' houses. 2 We learn from Stow, that these holidays extended "from All-Hallows evening to the day after Candlemasday, when," says the historian, "there was, among other sports, playing at cards for counters, nailes, and points in every house, more for pastime than for gain." 3 The recreations prohibited by proclamation in the reign of Edward III., exclusive of the games of chance, are thus specified; throwing of stones, 4 wood, or iron; playing at hand-ball, foot-ball, club-ball, and cambucam, which I take to have been a species of goff, and probably received its name from the crooked bat with which it was played. These games, as before observed, were not forbidden from any particular evil tendency in themselves, but because they engrossed too much of the leisure and attention of the populace, and diverted their minds from the pursuits of a more martial nature. I should not forget to add, that "bull-baiting and cock-fighting" are included with "other dishonest games as trivial and useless." In 5 the reign of Edward IV. we find coits, closh or claish, kayles or nine-pins, half-bowl, hand-in and hand-out, with quick-borde, classed among the unlawful amusements; 6 which list was considerably augmented in the succeeding reigns, and especially in the eighteenth year of Henry VIII., when bowling, loggating, playing at tennis, dice, cards and tables, or back-gammon, were included. 7
In the preamble to the Parliamentary Statutes as early as the sixth year of Edward III., there is a clause prohibiting of boys or others from playing at barres, or snatch-hood, or any other improper games, in the king's palace at Westminster during the sitting of the parliament; neither might they, by striking, or otherwise, prevent any one from passing peaceably about his business.
ARCHERY SUCCEEDED BY BOWLING.--The general decay of those manly and spirited exercises, which formerly were practised in the vicinity of the metropolis, has not arisen from any want of inclination in the people, but from the want of places proper for the purpose; such as in times past had been allotted to them are now covered with buildings, or shut up by enclosures, so that, if it were not for skittles, dutch-pins, four-corners, and the like pastimes, they would have no amusements for the exercise of the body; and these amusements are only to be met with in places belonging to common drinking-houses, for which reason their play is seldom productive of much benefit, but more frequently becomes the
prelude to drunkenness. This evil has been increasing for a long series of years; and honest Stow laments the retrenchments of the grounds appropriated for martial pastimes which had begun to take place in his day. "Why," says he, "should I speak of the ancient exercises of the long bow, by the citizens of this city, now almost clean left off and forsaken? I over-pass it; for, by the means of closeing in of common grounds, our archers, for want of room to shoot abroad, creep into bowling-alleys and ordinarie diceing-houses neer home, where they have room enough to hazard their money at unlawful games." 1 He also tells us, that "Northumberland house, in the parish of St Katherine Coleman, belonging to Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, in the thirty-third year of Henry the Sixth; but of late, being deserted by that noble family, the gardens were converted into bowling-alleys, and the other parts of the estate into diceing-houses. But bowling-alleys and houses for the exercise of diceing and other unlawful games are at this time so greatly increased in the other parts of the city and its suburbs, that this parent spot," or, as he afterwards calls it, "the ancient and only patron of misrule, is forsaken of its gamesters." And here we may add the following remark from an author somewhat more ancient than Stow: 2 "common bowling-alleyes are privy mothes that eat up the credit of many idle citizens, whose gaynes at home are not able to weigh downe theyr losses abroad; whose shoppes are so farre from maintaining their play, that theyr wives and children cry out for bread, and go to bedde supperlesse ofte in the yeere." In another place, his reflections are more general, and he exclaims, "Oh, what a wonderful change is this! our wreastling at armies is turned to wallowing in ladies' laps, our courage to cowardice, our running to royot, our bowes into bowls, and our darts into dishes."
MODERN GAMBLING.--The evils complained of by these writers were then in their infancy; they have in the present day (1801 attained to a gigantic stature; and we may add to them E.O. tables, as also other tables for gambling distinguished by the appellation of Rouge et Noir, Pharo-banks, and many more fashionable novelties, equally as detrimental to morality, and as equally destructive to the fortunes of those who pursue them, as any of the recreations of the former times. Even horse-racing, which anciently was considered as a liberal sport, and proper for the amusement of a gentleman, has been of late years degraded into a dangerous species of gambling, by no means the less deserving of censure, because it is fashionable and countenanced by persons of the highest rank and fortune. The good old Scotch poet little dreamed of such an innovation, when he lamented that horse-racing was falling into disrepute through the prevalency of games of chance. His words are these:
* The warmth with which dice-playing and every form of gaming is condemned in the writings of the Fathers and the later expounders of Christianity is a sufficient proof of its prevalence throughout Europe. With the introduction of cards in the fourteenth century, the flame of gambling burnt with renewed ardour, and provoked fresh remonstrances from the guardians of religion. In England gambling attained to an extraordinary pitch in the reign of Henry VIII., the king being himself an unscrupulous gamester; and the practice flourished under the highest auspices during the reign of Elizabeth and James I. Sir Miles Partridge threw dice with Henry VIII. for the great Jesus bells in "the tower of St Paul's, London, and won them; but the ropes afterwards catched about his neck, for in Edward the Sixth's days he was hanged for some criminal offences." 1
* Modern club gaming in England is said to date from 1777 or 1778. In a pamphlet as to gambling by an M. P., published in 1784, it is stated that thirty years before there was but one gaming club in the metropolis, and the stakes very low, namely crowns or half-crowns, but at that date the clubs were numerous, and the fashion of high stakes generally prevalent. 2
* Roulette or Roly Poly tables, so called from the balls used in them, were introduced into England about 1739, and were first set up at Tunbridge Wells.
* The first English lottery named in history was drawn 1569. It consisted of 400,000 lots at ten shillings each, and was drawn at the west door of the Cathedral Church of St Paul's. The prizes were in plate, and the profits to go to the repairing of the havens or ports of the kingdom. Another state lottery was held in 1612, in favour of the plantation of English colonists in Virginia; the chief prize, "4000 crowns in fair plate," was won by Thomas Sharplys, a London tailor. In 1680 a lottery was granted to supply the metropolis with water, and a few years later the Government resorted to a huge lottery scheme to find the war funds which resulted in the capture of Namur. From 1709 until 1824 lottery bills were in the programme of every session, the prizes being generally paid in terminable annuities. This state gambling led to an appalling amount of vice and misery as well as direct fraud. The last public lottery in Great Britain was drawn in October 1826.
LADIES' PASTIMES--NEEDLE-WORK.--It now remains to say a few words in a general way respecting the diversions of the English ladies. In the early ages, our fair countrywomen employed a large portion of their time in needlework and embroidery; and their acquirements in these elegant accomplishments most probably afforded them little leisure for the pursuits of trifling and useless amusements; but, though we are not acquainted with the nature of their recreations, there is no reason to suppose that they were unbecoming in themselves, or indulged beyond the bounds of reason or decorum. I have already, on a former occasion, particularly noticed the skilfulness of the Saxon and Norman ladies in handling the needle, embroidering, and working in tapestry; and that their performances
were not only held in very high estimation at home, but were equally prised upon the continent, where none were produced that could be placed in competition with them. 1
DANCING AND CHESS PLAY.--Dancing was certainly an ancient and favourite pastime with the women of this country: the maidens even in a state of servitude claimed, as it were by established privilege, the license to indulge themselves in this exercise on holidays and public festivals; when it was usually performed in the presence of their masters and mistresses.
In the middle ages, dice, chess, and afterwards tables, and cards, with other sedentary games of chance and skill, were reckoned among the female amusements; and the ladies also frequently joined with the men in such pastimes, as we find it expressly declared in the metrical romance of Ipomydom. The passage alluded to runs thus:
In another poem, by Gower, 3 a lover asks his mistress, when she is tired of "dancing and caroling," if she was willing to "play at chesse, or on the dyes to cast a chaunce." Forrest, speaking in praise of Catharine of Arragon, first wife of Henry VIII., says, that when she was young,
LADIES' RECREATIONS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.--The English ladies did not always confine themselves to domestic pastimes, they sometimes participated with the other sex in diversions of a more masculine nature; and engaged with them in the sports of the field. These violent exercises seem to have been rather unfashionable among them in the seventeenth century; for Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, speaks of their pastimes as much better suited to the modesty and softness of the sex. "The women," says he, "instead of laborious studies, have curious needle-works, cutworks, spinning, bone-lace making, with other pretty devices to adorn houses, cushions, carpets, stool-seats," etc. 5 Not but some of these masculine females have occasionally made their appearance: and at the commencement of the last century, it should seem that they were more commonly seen than in Burton's time, which gave occasion for the following satirical paper in one of the Spectators, 6 written
by Addison: "I have," says he, "very frequently the opportunity of seeing a rural Andromache, who came up to town last winter, and is one of the greatest foxhunters in the country; she talks of hounds and horses, and makes nothing of leaping over a six-bar gate. If a man tells her a waggish story, she gives him a push with her hand in jest, and calls him an impudent dog; and, if her servant neglects his business, threatens to kick him out of the house. I have heard her in her wrath call a substantial tradesman a lousie cur; and I remember one day when she could not think of the name of a person, she described him, in a large company of men and ladies, by the fellow with the broad shoulders."
THE AUTHOR'S [JOSEPH STRUTT] LABOURS--CHARACTER OF THE ENGRAVINGS.--Having laid before my readers a general view of the sports and pastimes of our ancestors, I shall proceed to arrange them under their proper heads, and allot to each of them a separate elucidation. The task in truth is extremely difficult; and many omissions, as well as many errors, must of necessity occur in the prosecution of it; but none, I hope, of any great magnitude, nor more than candour will overlook, especially when it is recollected, that in a variety of instances, I have been constrained to proceed without any guide, and explore, as it were, the recesses of a trackless wilderness. I must also entreat the reader to excuse the frequent quotations which he will meet with, which in general I have given verbatim; and this I have done for his satisfaction, as well as my own, judging it much fairer to stand upon the authority of others than to arrogate to myself the least degree of penetration to which I have no claim.
It is necessary to add, that the engravings, which constitute an essential part of this work, are not the produce of modern invention, neither do they contain a single figure that has not its proper authority. Most of the originals are exceedingly ancient, and all the copies are faithfully made without the least unnecessary deviation. As specimens of the art of design they have nothing to recommend them to the modern eye, but as portraitures of the manners and usages of our ancestors, in times remote, they are exceedingly valuable, because they not only elucidate many obsolete customs, but lead to the explanation of several obscurities in the history of former ages.
January 1801.
xvi:1 "These remarks require some qualification, as the knowledge of the long period of the Roman occupation, as well as of the times immediately preceding their first invasion, have become more accurately known in the last half of the nineteenth century, through careful archæological investigation. The later Celts used gold coinage, cultivated four sorts of grain, practised the crafts of spinning and weaving, melted iron and wrought cunning ornamented work in both iron and bronze; used the flesh of the red deer and the roe for food, and their horns for many a useful purpose; and domesticated the horse, ox, goat and dog. Such a people, as shown by the investigations at Hunsbury Camp, Northampton, and elsewhere, would certainly have some acquaintance with genuine sports and pastimes, little as we may know of their nature. The excavations at Silchester, and more particularly those conducted by the late General Pitt Rivers among the Romanised British villages of Dorset and Wilts, also afford evidence of a superior race, with higher acquirements than was supposed to be the case at the time when these pages were first written, and of their acquaintance with various breeds of dogs.
xvi:2 Pontoppidan's History of Norway, p. 248.
xvii:1 Oläi. Worm. Lit. Run. p. 129; Bartholin. p. 420.
xvii:2 Asser. in Vit. Ælfredi. b
xviii:1 De Moribus Germ.
xviii:2 Hist. Ramsien. aped Gale, vol. i. an. 85.
xviii:3 No. 2293, fol. rob.
xix:1 The cross-bow.
xx:1 Morte Arthur, translated from the French by Sir Thomas Malory, knight, and first printed by Caxton, A.D. 1481. "The English," says a writer of our own country, "are so naturally inclined to pleasure, that there is no countrie wherein gentlemen and lords have so many and so large parkes, only reserved for the purpose of hunting." And again, "Our progenitors were so delighted with hunting, that the parkes are nowe growne infinite in number, and are thought to containe more fallow deere than all the Christian world besides." Itinerary of Fynes Moryson, published in 1617, part iii. book iii. cap. 3.
xxi:1 Written also paume; that is, hand-tennis.
xxi:2 Romance of Three Kings' Sons and the King of Sicily, Harl. MS. 326.
xxi:3 Mom. Anc. Cheval. tom. i. p. 16.
xxi:4 Harl. MS. 2252, p. 54b. It is a long poem, extending from p. 54 to p. 84, entitled The Lyfe of Ipomydone, Son to Ermones, King of Toyle (Apulia).
xxi:5 Ibid.
xxii:1 Printed by Copeland; black letter, without date; Garrick's Collection, K. vol. ix.
xxiv:1 For vierge eseu, a virgin shield, or a white shield, without any devices, such as was borne by the tyros in chivalry who had not performed any memorable action.
xxiv:2 A sword without edge or point.
xxiv:3 That is, with hearts without points, or blunted so that they could do no hurt.
xxiv:4 Foyne, or loin, signifies to push or thrust with the sword, instead of striking.
xxiv:5 Harl. MS. 69, f. 56.
xxiv:6 Ibid. ff. 4b, 16b, 18.
xxiv:7 Hall, Life of Henry VIII.
xxv:1 Arte of Rhetorike by Tho. Wilson, fol. 67.
xxv:2 Fynes Moryson's Itinerary, published A.D. 1617.
xxvi:1 Biograph. Brit. p. 1236.
xxvi:2 No. 17 D. iii.
xxvii:1 Crowd is an ancient name for the violin.
xxviii:1 The words of Fitz Stephen are, Puellarum cithara ducit chores, et pede libero pulsatur tellus, usque imminente lunâ. The word cithara, Stow renders, but I think not justly, timbrels.
xxix:1 vol. i. p. 259.
xxix:2 Aiken. Oxon. ii. col. 812; and see Grainger's Biographical History, vol. ii. p. 398. 8vo. "There is a good illustrated account of these Cotswold Games in Chambers' Book of Days, i. 712.754.
xxix:3 In his Proverbs, part i. chap. 11.
xxx:1 Bede, Eccl. Hist. lib. ii. cap. 16.
xxx:2 Henry's Hist. vol. ii. lib. v. cap. 7.
xxx:3 See the Northumberland Family-Book.
xxx:4 Johan. Sarisburiensis, lib. i. c. viii. p. 34.
xxxi:1 Pypes made of greene come are also mentioned in the Romance of the Rose.
xxxii:1 [Before 1801.]
xxxv:1 Wylie's History of England under Henry IV., vol. iii. ch. 75.
xxxv:2 Garrick's Collection of Old Plays, H. vol. iii.
xxxv:3 No. 2220, fol. 7.
xxxv:4 Or waits, the band of city minstrels.
xxxvi:1 Holinshed, vol. iii. pp. 1091, 1120, etc.
xxxvii:1 No. 1968, f. 576.
xxxvii:2 Harl. MS. 2125.
xxxviii:1 Garrick's Collection of Old Plays.
xxxviii:2 Cotton MS. Titus, B. i.
xxxix:1 The reader may find accounts of most of these excursions in a work entitled The Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, in two volumes 4to, published by Mr Nichols.
xxxix:2 This account is chiefly taken from a small pamphlet called Princely Pleasures at Kenelworth Castle. Progresses, vol. i.
xl:1 Harl. MSS. 6395, entitled Merry Passages and Jests, art. 221.
xlii:1 A Collection of Ancient Documents respecting the Office of Master of the Revels (Halliwell), 1870, passim.
xlii:2 These are given with much detail in Letters and Papers, Hen. VIII., vol. ii. pp. 1490-1518.
xlii:3 Dom. State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. i. 47.
xliii:1 Dom. State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. ccxlviii. 120.
xliii:2 Ibid. vol. cclxii. 18.
xliii:3 Ibid. James I., vol. ii. 12; vol. lxxxi. 12.
xliii:4 Ibid. James I., vol. clxxi. 64.
xliii:5 Ibid. Charles I., ccv. 32.
xliii:6 Ibid. Charles I., ccxxxviii. 32.
xliv:1 Dom. State Papers, Charles II., vol. xvii.
xliv:2 9 Ibid. xxxix. 110.
xliv:3 Ibid. lxvii. 2.
xliv:4 Ibid. xxvi. 61.
xlv:1 There actually was such a monkey exhibited at that time near Charing Cross, but in the bills which were given to the public he is called a Wild Hairy Man, and they tell us he performed all that the Spectator relates concerning him; but this subject is treated more fully in the body of the work.
xlv:2 Spectator, vol. i. No. 14.
xlv:3 Ibid. vol. i. No. 31, dated Thursday, April 5, 1711.
xlv:4 A man famous at that time for imitating a variety of musical instruments with his voice, and, among others, the bells.
xlvi:1 "To pass over griefe," says an author of our own, "the Italians sleepe, the English go to playes, the Spaniards lament, and the Irish bowl," etc. Fynes Moryson's Itinerary, in 1617, part book i. cap. 3.
xlvii:1 Hentzner's Itinerary, pp. 88, 89.
xlvii:2 Hist. Angl. lib. xiii.
xlvii:3 De Rerum Invent. lib. v. cap, 2.
xlvii:4 Tatler, No. 134, dated Thursday, Feb. 16, 1709.
xlvii:5 See a pamphlet written by John Northbrooke, published in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, without date.
xlvii:6 School of Abuse, published 1579.
xlviii:1 Admonition to Parliament, by Tho. Cartwright, published A.D. 1572.
xlviii:2 The Pope's Kingdom, book iv. translated from the Latin of Tho. Neogeorgus, by Barnabe Googe, and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, A.D. 1570.
xlviii:3 John Field, is his Declaration of God's Judgment at Paris Garden, published A. D. 1603, fol. 9.
l:2 Benedict. Abbas, Vit. Ric. I. edit. à Hearne, tom. ii. p. 610.
li:1 An. 11, Hen. VII. cap. 2.
li:2 No householder might permit the games prohibited by the statute to be practised in their houses, excepting on the holidays, as before specified, under the penalty of six shillings and eight-pence for every offence.
li:3 Survey of London, p. 79.
li:4 Pilam manualem, pedinam, el bacculoream, et ad cambucam, etc.
li:5 Rot. Claus. 39 Ed. III. m. 23.
li:6 The magistrates are commanded to seize upon the said tables, dice, cards, boules, closhes, tennice-balls, etc., and to burn them.
li:7 An. 17 Edw. II. cap. 3.
lii:1 Survey of London, p. 85.
lii:2 Stephen Gosson, in The School of Abuse, 1579.
lii:3 An old anonymous poem "of Covetice," cited by Warton, History of Poetry, vol. ii. p. 316.
liii:1 Harl. Misc.
liii:2 Steinmetz Gaming Table (1870) i. ch. vi.
liv:1 In the Manners and Customs of the English; the Chronicle of England; and more particularly in the View of the Dresses of the English, vol. i. p. 73, vol. ii. p. 140, etc.
liv:2 Harl. MS. 2252.
liv:3 Confessio Amantis.
liv:4 Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 311.
liv:5 Part ii. sect. 2, cap. 4.
liv:6 No. 55, A.D. 1711.