_To the Editor._
_Morley, near Leeds, July, 1827._
Sir,--On surveying the plays and pastimes of children, in these northern
parts especially, it has often struck me with respect to some of them,
that if traced up to their origin, they would be found to have been
“political satires to ridicule such follies and corruptions of the
times, as it was, perhaps, unsafe to do in any other manner.” In this
conjecture I have lately been confirmed, by meeting with a curious
paper, copied from another periodical work by a contributor to the old
London Magazine, vol. for 1738, p. 59. It is an article which many would
doubtless be glad to find in the _Table Book_, and nobody more so than
myself, as it would be a capital accompaniment to my present remarks.
To come at once to the point; we have, or rather had, a few years ago, a
game called the “bear and tenter,” (or bear and bear warden, as it would
be called in the south,) which seems, certainly, to have been one of the
sort alluded to. A boy is made to crawl as a bear upon his hands and
knees, round whose neck is tied a rope which the keeper holds at a few
yards’ distance. The bystanders then buffet the bear, who is protected
only by his keeper, who, by touching any of the assailants, becomes
liberated; the other is then the bear, and the buffeted bear becomes the
keeper, and so on. If the “tenter” is sluggish or negligent in defence
of his charge, it is then that the bear growls, and the blows are turned
upon the guardian, wholly or partially, as the bearbaiters elect.
Now, my conjecture as to the origin of the game of “bear and tenter” is
this.--Our English youths and their tutors, or companions, were formerly
distinguished in foreign countries by the names of the bear and the bear
leader, from the absurd custom of sending out the former, (a boisterous,
ungovernable set,) and putting them under the care of persons unfit to
accompany them. These bears were at first generally sprigs of royalty or
nobility, as headstrong as need be; and the tutor was often some needy
scholar, a Scotsman, or a courtier, who knew little more of the world
than his pupil; but who, when he had put on his bag-wig and sword, was
one of the most awkward and ridiculous figures imaginable. While these
people were abroad, there can be no doubt that they were formerly the
dupes and laughingstocks of those who dealt with them; and that, in
exchange for the cash out of which they were cheated, they brought home
a stock of exotic follies, sufficient to render them completely
preposterous characters in the eyes of their own countrymen. Considering
therefore how much good English gold was wasted and lost in these
travels, how hurtful to the national pride the practice was, and how
altered for the worse were both guardian and ward, it is not to be
wondered at if the middling and lower classes of Englishmen were highly
incensed or disgusted. But as complaints would, at least, be unavailing
when such persons as “Baby Charles” and “Stenny” Buckingham were the
“bear and tenter,” the people revenged themselves, as far as they dared,
by the institution of this game, in which they displayed pretty well
what hard knocks, ill treatment, derision, and scorn, awaited those who
forsook their homes to wander in a land of strangers. And not only so,
but they illustrated, at the same time, the contamination which ensued
the touch of bad tutors, and the general character of the parties
ridiculed.
I am well aware, Mr. Editor, that there was formerly a _pastime_ of
buffeting the bear; but that, as I apprehend, was a very different sport
from that of “bear and _tenter_,” and had not a political origin. That
this had, I am well assured, from the game being kept up in these parts,
where the Stuarts were ever almost universally execrated; where
patriotism once shone forth in meridian splendour, and the finest
soldiers that the world ever saw, were arranged under the banners of
Cromwell, of Fairfax, or of Lambert.