The dignified persons above mentioned were, I presume, upon an equal

footing with the King of the Bean, whose reign commenced upon the

vigil of the Epiphany, or upon the day itself. We read that, some time

back, "it was a common Christmas gambol in both our universities, and

continued," at the commencement of the last century, "to be usual in

other places, to give the name of king or queen to that person whose

extraordinary good luck it was to hit upon that part of a divided cake

which was honoured above the others by having a bean in it."[997] The

reader will readily trace the vestige of this custom, though somewhat

differently managed, and without the bean, in the present method of

drawing, as it is called, for king and queen upon Twelfth-day. I will

not pretend to say in ancient times, for the title is by no means of

recent date, that the election of this monarch, the King of the Bean,

depended entirely upon the decision of fortune: the words of an old

kalendar belonging to the Romish church[998] seem to favour a contrary

opinion; they are to this effect: On the fifth of January, the vigil

of the Epiphany, the Kings of the Bean are created;[999] and on the

sixth the feast of the kings shall be held, and also of the queen; and

let the banqueting be continued for many days. At court, in the eighth

year of Edward III., this majestic title was conferred upon one of

the king's minstrels, as we find by an entry in a computus so dated,

which states that sixty shillings were given by the king, upon the day

of the Epiphany, to Regan the trumpeter and his associates, the court

minstrels, in the name of King of the Bean.[1000]

VIII.--WHENCE THESE MOCK DIGNITIES WERE DERIVED.

Selden asserts,[1001] and in my opinion with great justice, that

all these whimsical transpositions of dignity are derived from the

ancient Saturnalia, or Feasts of Saturn, when the masters waited upon

their servants, who were honoured with mock titles, and permitted to

assume the state and deportment of their lords. These fooleries were

exceedingly popular, and continued to be practised long after the

establishment of Christianity, in defiance of the threatenings and the

remonstrances of the clergy, who, finding it impossible to divert the

stream of vulgar prejudice permitted them to be exercised, but changed

the primitive object of devotion; so that the same unhallowed orgies,

which had disgraced the worship of a heathen deity, were dedicated,

as it was called, to the service of the true God, and sanctioned by

the appellation of a Christian institution. From this polluted stock

branched out variety of unseemly and immoral sports; but none of

them more daringly impious and outrageous to common sense, than the

Festival of Fools, in which the most sacred rites and ceremonies of

the church were turned into ridicule, and the ecclesiastics themselves

participated in the abominable profanations. The following outlines of

this absurd diversion will no doubt be thought sufficient.

IX.--THE FESTIVAL OF FOOLS.

In each of the cathedral churches there was a bishop, or an archbishop

of fools, elected; and in the churches immediately dependent upon the

papal see a pope of fools. These mock pontiffs had usually a proper

suit of ecclesiastics who attended upon them, and assisted at the

divine service, most of them attired in ridiculous dresses resembling

pantomimical players and buffoons; they were accompanied by large

crowds of the laity, some being disguised with masks of a monstrous

fashion, and others having their faces smutted; in one instance to

frighten the beholders, and in the other to excite their laughter: and

some, again, assuming the habits of females, practised all the wanton

airs of the loosest and most abandoned of the sex. During the divine

service this motley crowd were not contented with singing of indecent

songs in the choir, but some of them ate, and drank, and played at dice

upon the altar, by the side of the priest who celebrated the mass.

After the service they put filth into the censers, and ran about the

church, leaping, dancing, laughing, singing, breaking obscene jests,

and exposing themselves in the most unseemly attitudes with shameless

impudence.[1002] Another part of these ridiculous ceremonies was, to

shave the precentor of fools upon a stage erected before the church,

in the presence of the populace; and during the operation, he amused

them with lewd and vulgar discourses,[1003] accompanied by actions

equally reprehensible. The bishop, or the pope of fools, performed

the divine service habited in the pontifical garments, and gave his

benediction to the people before they quitted the church. He was

afterwards seated in an open carriage, and drawn about to the different

parts of the town, attended by a large train of ecclesiastics and

laymen promiscuously mingled together; and many of the most profligate

of the latter assumed clerical habits in order to give their impious

fooleries the greater effect; they had also with them carts filled with

ordure, which they threw occasionally upon the populace assembled to

see the procession.[1004] These spectacles were always exhibited at

Christmas-time, or near to it, but not confined to one particular day.

It was sometimes on Christmas-day, and on the feasts of St. Stephen,

St. John, the Innocents, the Circumcision, the Epiphany, &c.[1005] When

the ceremony took place upon St. Stephen's-day, they sang, as part of

the mass, a burlesque composition called the Prose of the Ass, or the

Fool's Prose. It was performed by a double choir, and at intervals,

in place of a burden, they imitated the braying of an ass. Upon the

festival of St. John the Evangelist they had another arrangement

of ludicrous sentences, denominated the Prose of the Ox, equally

reprehensible.[1006] These exhibitions were highly relished by the

populace at large, and crept into the monasteries and nunneries, where

they were practised by the female votaries of religion.

X.--THE BOY-BISHOP

Grotesque ceremonies, something similar to those above mentioned,

certainly took place in England; but probably they were not carried

to that extent of impiety, nor so grossly offensive to decency. We

had a king of the fools, but his office was suppressed at an early

period, and not, that I remember, revived in the succeeding times. A

Rex Stultorum, in Beverley church, was prohibited in 1391.[1007] The

election and the investment of the boy-bishop was certainly derived

from the festival of fools. It does not appear at what period this idle

ceremony was first established, but probably it was ancient, at least

we can trace it back to the fourteenth century. In all the collegiate

churches, at the feast of St. Nicholas, or of the Holy Innocents, and

frequently at both, it was customary for one of the children of the

choir, completely apparelled in the episcopal vestments, with a mitre

and crosier, to bear the title and state of a bishop. He exacted a

ceremonial obedience from his fellows, who being dressed like priests,

took possession of the church, and performed all the ceremonies

and offices which might have been celebrated by a bishop and his

prebendaries: Warton, and the author of the manuscript he has followed,

add, "the mass excepted;" but the proclamation of Henry VIII. for the

abolition of this custom, proves they did "singe masse." Colet, dean of

St. Paul's, though he was "a wise and good man," countenanced this idle

farce; and in the statutes for his school[1008] at St. Paul's,

expressly orders that the scholars "shall, every Childermas, that

is, Innocents-day, come to Paule's churche, and hear the Childe

Byshop's[1009] sermon, and after be at hygh masse, and each of them

offer a penny to the childe byshop; and with them the maisters and

surveyors of the schole."[1010] To this Warton adds, "I take this

opportunity of intimating that the custom at Eton of going ad montem,

originated from the ancient and popular practice of these theatrical

processions in collegiate bodies."[1011] After having performed

the divine service, the boy-bishop and his associates went about

to different parts of the town, and visited the religious houses,

collecting money. These ceremonies and processions were formally

abrogated by proclamation from the king and council, in 1542, the

thirty-third year of Henry VIII.; the concluding clause of the

ordinance runs thus: "Whereas heretofore dyvers and many superstitious

and chyldysh observances have been used, and yet to this day are

observed and kept in many and sundry places of this realm upon St.

Nicholas, St. Catherines, St. Clements, and Holy Innocents, and such

like holydaies; children[1012] be strangelie decked and apparayled

to counterfeit priests, bishops, and women, and so ledde with songs

and dances from house to house, blessing the people, and gathering

of money; and boyes do singe masse, and preache in the pulpits, with

such other unfittinge and inconvenient usages, which tend rather to

derysyon than enie true glorie to God, or honor of his sayntes."[1013]

This idle pageantry was revived by his daughter Mary; and in the

second year of her reign an edict, dated November 13, 1554, was issued

from the bishop of London to all the clergy of his diocese, to have a

boy-bishop in procession.[1014] The year following, "the child bishop,

of Paules church, with his company," were admitted into the queen's

privy chamber, where he sang before her on Saint Nicholas-day and

upon Holy Innocents-day.[1015] Again the next year, says Strype, "on

Saint Nicholas-even, Saint Nicholas, that is, a boy habited like a

bishop in pontificalibus,[1016] went abroad in most parts of London,

singing after the old fashion; and was received with many ignorant but

well-disposed people into their houses, and had as much good cheer as

ever was wont to be had before." After the death of Mary this silly

mummery was totally discontinued. We may observe, that most of the

churches in which these mock ceremonies were performed, had dresses

and ornaments proper for the occasion, and suited to the size of the

wearers, but in every other respect resembling those appropriated to

the real dignitaries of the church; hence it is we frequently meet with

entries of diminutive habits and ornaments in the church inventories,

as una mitra parva cum petris pro episcopo puerorum, that is, a

small mitre with jewels for the bishop of the boys.[1017]

XI.--THE FOOL-PLOUGH.

Cards, dice, tables, and most other games prohibited by the public

statutes at other seasons of the year, were tolerated during the

Christmas holidays, as well as disguisements and mummings; and in some

parts of the kingdom vestiges of these customs are to be found to

the present day. "In the north," says Mr. Brand,[1018] at Christmas

time "fool-plough goes about; a pageant that consists of a number

of sword-dancers dragging a plough about with music, and one, or

sometimes two of them attired in a very antic dress; as the Bessy in

the grotesque habit of an old woman, and the Fool almost covered with

skins, a hairy cap on his head, and the tail of some animal hanging

down his back: the office of one of these characters is to go about

rattling a box among the spectators of the dance to collect their

little donations; and it is remarkable that in some places where

this pageant is retained, they plough up the soil before any house

where they receive no reward." The pageant and the dance seem to

be a composition of gleanings of several obsolete customs followed

anciently. The Fool and the Bessy are plainly fragments of the festival

of fools.[1019]

The fool-plough was, perhaps, the yule-plough; it is also called the

white-plough, because the gallant young men that compose the pageant

appear to be dressed in their shirts without coats or waistcoats; upon

which great numbers of ribbands folded into roses are loosely stitched.

Mr. Brand adds, "it appears to be a very airy habit for this cold

season, but they have warm waistcoats under it."

In general Plough-Monday, or the first Monday after Twelfth-day, is

the Ploughmen's Holiday, when they beg for the plough-money to drink.

In Essex and Suffolk, at Shrove-tide or upon Shrove-Tuesday, after the

confession, it was usual for the farmer to permit his ploughman to go

to the barn blindfolded, and "thresh the fat hen," saying, "if you can

kill her then give it thy men; and go you and dine on fritters and

pancakes."[1020]

XII.--EASTER GAMES.

In the islands of Scilly it was customary of late years at this

season for "the young people to exercise a sort of gallantry called

goose dancing, when the maidens are dressed up for young men, and the

young men for maidens; thus disguised they visit their neighbours in

companies, where they dance, and make jokes upon what has happened

in the island; when every one is humorously told their own without

offence being taken; by this sort of sport, according to yearly custom

and toleration, there is a spirit of wit and drollery kept up among

the people. When the music and dancing is done, they are treated with

liquor, and then they go to the next house of entertainment."[1021]

XIII.--SHROVE-TUESDAY, &c.

Cock-fighting, and throwing at cocks on Shrove-Tuesday, and playing at

hand-ball for tansy-cakes at Easter-tide, have been already mentioned,

with other trifling sports which are comprised under their appropriate

heads, and need not to be repeated; but, according to Stow, the week

before Easter, "great shows were made by bringing a twisted tree, or

with, as they termed it, into the king's palace, and into the houses

of the nobility and gentry." I am not certain whether the author means

that this custom was confined to the city of London, or whether it

extended to other parts of England.[1022] It is now obsolete.

XIV.--HOKE-DAY, OR HOCK-DAY.

This popular holiday, Quindena Paschæ, mentioned by Matthew Paris and

other ancient writers, was usually kept on the Tuesday[1023] following

the second Sunday after Easter-day; and distinguished, according

to John Rouse,[1024] by various sportive pastimes, in which the

towns-people, divided into parties, were accustomed to draw each other

with ropes. Spelman is more definite, and tells us, "they consisted

in the men and women binding each other, and especially the women the

men," and hence it was called Binding-Tuesday.[1025] Cowel informs

us that it was customary in several manors in Hampshire for "the

men to hock the women on the Monday, and the women the men upon the

Tuesday; that is, on that day the women in merriment stop the ways

with ropes and pull the passengers to them, desiring something to be

laid out in pious uses in order to obtain their freedom."[1026] Such

are the general outlines of this singular institution, and the pens of

several able writers have been employed in attempting to investigate

its origin.[1027] Some think it was held in commemoration of the

massacre of the Danes, in the reign of Ethelred the Unready, on Saint

Brice's-day;[1028] others, that it was in remembrance of the death of

Hardicanute, which happened on Tuesday the 8th of June, 1041, by which

event the English were delivered from the intolerant government of the

Danes: and this opinion appears to be most probable. The binding part

of the ceremony might naturally refer to the abject state of slavery in

which the wretched Saxons were held by their imperious lords; and the

donations for "pious uses," may be considered as tacit acknowledgments

of gratitude to heaven for freeing the nation from its bondage. In the

churchwarden's accounts for the parish of Lambeth for the years 1515

and 1516, are several entries of hock monies received from the men and

the women for the church service. And here we may observe, that the

contributions collected by the fair sex exceeded those made by the

men.[1029]

Hock-day was generally observed as lately as the sixteenth century.

We learn from Spelman that it was not totally discontinued in his

time. Dr. Plott, who makes Monday the principal day, has noticed some

vestiges of it at the distance of fifty years, but now it is totally

abolished.

XV.--MAY-GAMES.

The celebration of the May-games, at which we have only glanced in a

former part of the work,[1030] will require some enlargement in this

chapter. "On the calends or first of May," says Bourne,[1031] "commonly

called May-day, the juvenile part of both sexes were wont to rise a

little after midnight and walk to some neighbouring wood, accompanied

with music and blowing of horns, where they break down branches

from the trees, and adorn them with nosegays and crowns of flowers;

when this is done, they return with their booty homewards about the

rising of the sun, and make their doors and windows to triumph with

their flowery spoils; and the after part of the day is chiefly spent

in dancing round a tall poll, which is called a May-poll; and being

placed in a convenient part of the village, stands there, as it were,

consecrated to the Goddess of Flowers, without the least violation

being offered to it in the whole circle of the year."

This custom, no doubt, is a relic of one more ancient, practised by

the Heathens, who observed the last four days in April, and the first

of May, in honour of the goddess Flora. An old Romish calendar, cited

by Mr. Brand, says, on the 30th of April, the boys go out to seek

May-trees, "Maii arbores a pueris exquirunter." Some consider the

May-pole as a relic of Druidism; but I cannot find any solid foundation

for such an opinion.

It should be observed, that the May-games were not always celebrated

upon the first day of the month; and to this we may add the following

extract from Stow: "In the month of May the citizens of London of

all estates, generally in every parish, and in some instances two or

three parishes joining together, had their several mayings, and did

fetch their may-poles with divers warlike shows; with good archers,

morrice-dancers, and other devices for pastime, all day long; and

towards evening they had stage-plays and bonfires in the streets. These

great mayings and may-games were made by the governors and masters of

the city, together with the triumphant setting up of the great shaft or

principal may-pole in Cornhill before the parish church of Saint

Andrew,"[1032] which was thence called Saint Andrew Undershaft.

No doubt the May-games are of long standing, though the time of their

institution cannot be traced. Mention is made of the May-pole at

Cornhill, in a poem called the "Chaunce of the Dice," attributed to

Chaucer. In the time of Stow, who died in 1605, they were not conducted

with so great splendour as they had been formerly, owing to a dangerous

riot which took place upon May-day, 1517, in the ninth year of Henry

VIII. on which occasion several foreigners were slain, and two of the

ringleaders of the disturbance were hanged.

Stow has passed unnoticed the manner in which the May-poles were

usually decorated; this deficiency I shall supply from Philip Stubs,

a contemporary writer, one who saw these pastimes in a very different

point of view, and some may think his invectives are more severe than

just; however, I am afraid the conclusion of them, though perhaps

much exaggerated, is not altogether without foundation. He writes

thus:[1033] "Against Maie-day, Whitsunday, or some other time of the

year, every parish, towne, or village, assemble themselves, both men,

women, and children; and either all together, or dividing themselves

into companies, they goe some to the woods and groves, some to the

hills and mountaines, some to one place, some to another, where they

spend all the night in pleasant pastimes, and in the morning they

return, bringing with them birche boughes and branches of trees to

deck their assemblies withal. But their chiefest jewel they bring from

thence is the Maie-pole, which they bring home with great veneration,

as thus--they have twentie or fourtie yoake of oxen, every oxe having

a sweete nosegaie of flowers tied to the tip of his hornes, and these

oxen drawe home the May-poale, their stinking idol[1034] rather, which

they covered all over with flowers and hearbes, bound round with

strings from the top to the bottome, and sometimes it was painted with

variable colours, having two or three hundred men, women, and children

following it with great devotion. And thus equipped it was reared with

handkerchiefes and flagges streaming on the top, they strawe the ground

round about it, they bind green boughs about it, they set up summer

halles, bowers, and arbours hard by it, and then fall they to

banquetting and feasting, to leaping and dauncing about it, as the

heathen people did at the dedication of their idolls. I have heard it

crediblie reported, by men of great gravity, credite, and reputation,

that of fourtie, threescore, or an hundred maides going to the wood,

there have scarcely the third part of them returned home againe as they

went."

In the churchwarden's account for the parish of St. Helen's in

Abingdon, Berks, dated 1566, the ninth of Elizabeth, is the following

article: "Payde for setting up Robin Hoode's bower, eighteenpence;"

that is, a bower for the reception of the fictitious Robin Hood and his

company, belonging to the May-day pageant.[1035]

XVI.--THE LORD AND LADY OF THE MAY.

It seems to have been the constant custom, at the celebration of the

May-games, to elect a Lord and Lady of the May, who probably presided

over the sports. On the thirtieth of May, 1557, in the fourth year of

queen Mary, "was a goodly May-game in Fenchurch-street, with drums,

and guns, and pikes; and with the nine worthies who rode, and each of

them made his speech, there was also a morrice dance, and an elephant

and castle, and the Lord and Lady of the May appearing to make up the

show."[1036] We also read that the Lord of the May, and no doubt his

Lady also, was decorated with scarfs, ribbands, and other fineries.

Hence, in the comedy called The Knight of the Burning Pestle, written

by Beaumont and Fletcher in 1611, a citizen, addressing himself to the

other actors, says, "Let Ralph come out on May-day in the morning, and

speak upon a conduit, with all his scarfs about him, and his feathers,

and his rings, and his knacks, as Lord of the May." His request

is complied with, and Ralph appears upon the stage in the assumed

character, where he makes his speech, beginning in this manner:

With gilded staff and crossed scarf the May Lord here I stand.

The citizen is supposed to be a spectator, and Ralph is his apprentice,

but permitted by him to play in the piece.

At the commencement of the sixteenth century, or perhaps still earlier,

the ancient stories of Robin Hood and his frolicsome companions seem

to have been new-modelled, and divided into separate ballads, which

much increased their popularity; for this reason it was customary

to personify this famous outlaw, with several of his most noted

associates, and add them to the pageantry of the May-games. He presided

as Lord of the May; and a female, or rather, perhaps, a man habited

like a female, called the Maid Marian, his faithful mistress, was the

Lady of the May. His companions were distinguished by the title of

"Robin Hood's Men," and were also equipped in appropriate dresses;

their coats, hoods, and hose were generally green. Henry VIII., in the

first year of his reign, one morning, by way of pastime, came suddenly

into the chamber where the queen and her ladies were sitting. He was

attended by twelve noblemen, all apparelled in short coats of Kentish

kendal, with hoods and hosen of the same; each of them had his bow,

with arrows, and a sword, and a buckler, "like outlawes, or Robyn

Hode's men. The queen, it seems, at first was somewhat affrighted by

their appearance, of which she was not the least apprised. This gay

troop performed several dances, and then departed."[1037]

Bishop Latimer, in a sermon which he preached before king Edward VI.,

relates the following anecdote, which proves the great popularity of

the May pageants. "Coming," says he, "to a certain town on a holiday

to preach, I found the church door fast locked. I taryed there half an

houre and more, and at last the key was found, and one of the parish

comes to me and sayes, Syr, this is a busy day with us, we cannot hear

you; it is Robin Hoode's day; the parish are gone abroad to gather for

Robin Hood; I pray you let[1038] them not. I was fayne, therefore, to

give place to Robin Hood. I thought my rochet would have been regarded;

but it would not serve, it was faine to give place to Robin Hoode's

men."[1039] In Garrick's Collection of Old Plays[1040] is one entitled

"A new Playe of Robyn Hoode, for to be played in the May-games, very

pleasaunte and full of Pastyme," printed at London by William Copland,

black letter, without date. This playe consists of short dialogues

between Robyn Hode, Lytell John, Fryer Tucke, a potter's boy, and

the potter. Robyn fights with the friar, who afterwards becomes his

chaplain; he also breaks the boy's pots, and commits several other

absurdities. The language of the piece is extremely low, and full of

ribaldry.

XVII.--GRAND MAY-GAME AT GREENWICH.

It has been observed that the May-games were not confined to the first

day of the month, neither were they always concluded in one day;

on the contrary, I have now before me a manuscript,[1041] written

apparently in the reign of Henry VII., wherein a number of gentlemen,

professing themselves to be the servants of the Lady May, promise to

be in the royal park at Greenwich, day after day, from two o'clock in

the afternoon till five, in order to perform the various sports and

exercises specified in the agreement; that is to say,

On the 14th day of May they engage to meet at a place appointed by the

king, armed with the "harneis[1042] thereunto accustomed, to kepe the

fielde, and to run with every commer eight courses." Four additional

courses were to be granted to any one who desired it, if the time would

permit, or the queen was pleased to give them leave; agreeable to the

ancient custom by which the ladies presided as arbitrators at the

justs.[1043]

On the 15th the archers took the field to shoot at "the standard with

flight arrows."

On the 16th they held a tournament with "swords rebated to strike with

every commer eight strokes," according to the accustomed usage.

On the 18th, for I suppose Sunday intervened, they were to be ready

to "wrestle with all commers all manner of ways," according to their

pleasure.

On the 19th they were to enter the field, to fight on foot at the

barriers, with spears in their hands and swords rebated by their sides,

and with spear and sword to defend their barriers: there were to be

eight strokes with the spear, two of them "with the foyne," or short

thrust, and eight strokes with the sword; "every man to take his best

advantage with gript or otherwise."

On the 20th they were to give additional proof of their strength by

casting "the barre on foote, and with the arme, bothe heavit and

hight." I do not clearly understand this passage, but suppose it means

by lifting and casting aloft.

On the 21st they recommenced the exercises, which were to be continued

daily, Sundays excepted, through the remaining part of May, and a

fortnight in the month of June.

XVIII.--ROYAL MAY-GAME AT SHOOTER'S HILL.

Henry VIII., when young, delighted much in pageantry, and the early

part of his reign abounded with gaudy shows; most of them were his own

devising, and others contrived for his amusement. Among the latter we

may reckon a May-game at Shooter's hill, which was exhibited by the

officers of his guards; they in a body, amounting to two hundred, all

of them clothed in green, and headed by their captain, who personated

Robin Hood, met the king one morning as he was riding to take the

air, accompanied by the queen and a large suite of the nobility of

both sexes. The fictitious foresters first amused them with a double

discharge of their arrows; and then, their chief approaching the king,

invited him to see the manner in which he and his companions lived.

The king complied with the request, and the archers, blowing their

horns, conducted him and his train into the wood under the hill, where

an arbour was made with green boughs, having a hall, a great chamber,

and an inner chamber, and the whole was covered with flowers and sweet

herbs. When the company had entered the arbour, Robin Hood excused the

want of more abundant refreshment, saying to the king, "Sir, we outlaws

usually breakfast upon venison, and have no other food to offer you."

The king and queen then sat down, and were served with venison and

wine; and after the entertainment, with which it seems they were well

pleased, they departed, and on their return were met by two ladies

riding in a rich open chariot, drawn by five horses. Every horse,

according to Holingshed, had his name upon his head, and upon every

horse sat a lady, with her name written. On the first horse, called

Lawde, sat Humidity; on the second, named Memeon, sat lady Vert, or

green; on the third, called Pheton, sat lady Vegitive; on the fourth,

called Rimphon, sat lady Pleasaunce; on the fifth, called Lampace, sat

Sweet Odour.[1044] Both of the ladies in the chariot were splendidly

apparelled; one of them personified the Lady May, and the other Lady

Flora, "who," we are told, "saluted the king with divers goodly songs,

and so brought him to Greenwich."

We may here just observe that the May-games had attracted the notice

of the nobility long before the time of Henry; and agreeable to the

custom of the times, no doubt, was the following curious passage in the

old romance called The Death of Arthur: "Now it befell in the moneth

of lusty May, that queene Guenever called unto her the knyghtes of the

round table, and gave them warning that, early in the morning, she

should ride on maying into the woods and fields beside Westminster."

The knights were all of them to be clothed in green, to be well horsed,

and every one of them to have a lady behind him, followed by an esquire

and two yeomen, &c.[1045]

XIX.--MAY MILK-MAIDS.

"It is at this time," that is, in May, says the author of one of the

papers in the Spectator,[1046] "we see the brisk young wenches, in

the country parishes, dancing round the May-pole. It is likewise on

the first day of this month that we see the ruddy milk-maid exerting

herself in a most sprightly manner under a pyramid of silver tankards,

and like the virgin Tarpeia, oppressed by the costly ornaments which

her benefactors lay upon her. These decorations of silver cups,

tankards, and salvers, were borrowed for the purpose, and hung round

the milk-pails, with the addition of flowers and ribbands, which the

maidens carried upon their heads when they went to the houses of their

customers, and danced in order to obtain a small gratuity from each of

them. In a set of prints called Tempest's Cryes of London, there is one

called the merry milk-maid's, whose proper name was Kate Smith. She

is dancing with the milk-pail decorated as above mentioned, upon her

head.[1047] Of late years the plate, with the other decorations, were

placed in a pyramidical form, and carried by two chairmen upon a wooden

horse. The maidens walked before it, and performed the dance without

any incumbrance. I really cannot discover what analogy the silver

tankards and salvers can have to the business of the milk-maids. I

have seen them act with much more propriety upon this occasion, when in

place of these superfluous ornaments they substituted a cow. The animal

had her horns gilt, and was nearly covered with ribbands of various

colours, formed into bows and roses, and interspersed with green oaken

leaves and bunches of flowers."

XX.--MAY FESTIVAL OF THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS.

The chimney-sweepers of London have also singled out the first of May

for their festival; at which time they parade the streets in companies,

disguised in various manners. Their dresses are usually decorated

with gilt paper, and other mock fineries; they have their shovels and

brushes in their hands, which they rattle one upon the other; and to

this rough music they jump about in imitation of dancing. Some of the

larger companies have a fiddler with them, and a Jack in the Green,

as well as a Lord and Lady of the May, who follow the minstrel with

great stateliness, and dance as occasion requires. The Jack in the

Green is a piece of pageantry consisting of a hollow frame of wood or

wicker-work, made in the form of a sugar-loaf, but open at the bottom,

and sufficiently large and high to receive a man. The frame is covered

with green leaves and bunches of flowers interwoven with each other, so

that the man within may be completely concealed, who dances with his

companions, and the populace are mightily pleased with the oddity of

the moving pyramid.

XXI.--WHITSUN GAMES.

The Whitsuntide holidays were celebrated by various pastimes commonly

practised upon other festivals; but the Monday after the Whitsun week,

at Kidlington in Oxfordshire, a fat lamb was provided, and the maidens

of the town, having their thumbs tied behind them, were permitted

to run after it, and she who with her mouth took hold of the lamb

was declared the Lady of the Lamb, which, being killed and cleaned,

but with the skin hanging upon it, was carried on a long pole before

the lady and her companions to the green, attended with music, and

a morisco dance of men, and another of women. The rest of the day

was spent in mirth and merry glee. Next day the lamb, partly baked,

partly boiled, and partly roasted, was served up for the lady's feast,

where she sat, "majestically at the upper end of the table, and her

companions with her," the music playing during the repast, which, being

finished, the solemnity ended.[1048]

XXII.--MIDSUMMER EVE FESTIVAL.

On the Vigil of Saint John the Baptist, commonly called Midsummer

Eve, it was usual in most country places, and also in towns and

cities, for the inhabitants, both old and young, and of both sexes,

to meet together, and make merry by the side of a large fire made

in the middle of the street, or in some open and convenient place,

over which the young men frequently leaped by way of frolic, and also

exercised themselves with various sports and pastimes, more especially

with running wrestling, and dancing. These diversions they continued

till midnight, and sometimes till cock-crowing;[1049] several of the

superstitious ceremonies practised upon this occasion are contained

in the following verses, as they are translated by Barnabe Googe,

from the fourth book of The Popish Kingdome, written in Latin by Tho.

Neogeorgus: the translation was dedicated to queen Elizabeth, and

appeared in 1570.

Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne,

When bonfiers great, with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne:

And yong men round about with maides doe daunce in every streete,

With garlands wrought of Mother-wort, or else with Vervaine sweete

And many other flowres faire, with Violets in their handes

Whereas they all do fondly thinke, that whosoever stands,

And thorow the flowres beholds the flame, his eyes shall feele

no paine.

When thus till night they daunced have, they through the fire amaine

With striving mindes doe run, and all their hearbes they

cast therin,

And then, with wordes devout and prayers, they solemnely begin,

Desiring God that all their illes may there confounded bee,

Whereby they thinke through all that yeare, from Agues to be free.

At London, in addition to the bonfires, "on the eve of this saint, as

well as upon that of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, every man's door was

shaded with green birch, long fennel, Saint John's wort, orpin, white

lilies, and the like, ornamented with garlands of beautiful flowers.

They, the citizens, had also lamps of glass with oil burning in them

all night; and some of them hung out branches of iron, curiously

wrought, containing hundreds of lamps lighted at once, which made a

very splendid appearance." This information we receive from Stow, who

tells us that, in his time, New Fish-street and Thames-street were

peculiarly brilliant upon these occasions.

XXIII.--SUPPOSED ORIGIN OF THE MIDSUMMER VIGIL.

The reasons assigned for making bonfires upon the vigil of Saint

John in particular are various, for many writers have attempted the

investigation of their origin; but unfortunately all their arguments,

owing to the want of proper information, are merely hypothetical, and

of course cannot be much depended upon. Those who suppose these fires

to be a relic of some ancient heathenish superstition engrafted upon

the variegated stock of ceremonies belonging to the Romish church, are

not, in my opinion, far distant from the truth. The looking through

the flowers at the fire, the casting of them finally into it, and the

invocation to the Deity, with the effects supposed to be produced by

those ceremonies, as mentioned in the preceding poem, are circumstances

that seem to strengthen such a conclusion.

According to some of the pious writers of antiquity, they made large

fires, which might be seen at a great distance, upon the vigil of this

saint, in token that he was said in holy writ to be "a shining light."

Others, agreeing with this, add also, these fires were made to drive

away the dragons and evil spirits hovering in the air; and one of them

gravely says, in some countries they burned bones, which was called

a bone-fire; for "the dragons hattyd nothyng mor than the styncke of

bernyng bonys." This, says another, habent ex gentilibus, they have

from the heathens. The author last cited laments the abuses committed

upon these occasions. "This vigil," says he, "ought to be held with

cheerfulness and piety, but not with such merriment as is shewn by the

profane lovers of this world, who make great fires in the streets, and

indulge themselves with filthy and unlawful games, to which they add

glotony and drunkenness, and the commission of many other shameful

indecencies."[1050]

XXIV.--SETTING OF THE MIDSUMMER WATCH.

In former times it was customary in London, and in other great cities,

to set the Midsummer watch upon the eve of Saint John the Baptist; and

this was usually performed with great pomp and pageantry.[1051] The

following short extract from the faithful historian, John Stow, will

be sufficient to show the childishness as well as the expensiveness

of this idle spectacle. The institution, he assures us, had been

appointed, "time out of mind;" and upon this occasion the standing

watches "in bright harness." There was also a marching watch, that

passed through all the principal streets. In order to furnish this

watch with lights, there were appointed seven hundred cressets; the

charge for every cresset was two shillings and fourpence; every cresset

required two men, the one to bear it, and the other to carry a bag

with light to serve it. The cresset was a large lanthorn fixed at the

end of a long pole, and carried upon a man's shoulder. The cressets

were found partly by the different companies, and partly by the city

chamber. Every one of the cresset-bearers was paid for his trouble;

he had also given to him, that evening, a strawen hat and a painted

badge, besides the donation of his breakfast next morning. The marching

watch consisted of two thousand men, most of them being old soldiers

of every denomination. They appeared in appropriate habits, with their

arms in their hands, and many of them, especially the musicians and

the standard bearers, rode upon great horses. There were also divers

pageants and morris-dancers with the constables, one half of which,

to the amount of one hundred and twenty, went out on the eve of Saint

John, and the other half on the eve of Saint Peter. The constables were

dressed in "bright harnesse, some over gilt, and every one had a joinet

of scarlet thereupon, and a chain of gold; his henchman following

him, and his minstrels before him, and his cresset-light at his side.

The mayor himself came after him, well mounted, with his sword-bearer

before him, in fair armour on horseback, preceded by the waits, or city

minstrels, and the mayor's officers in liveries of worsted, or say

jackets party coloured. The mayor was surrounded by his footmen and

torch-bearers, and followed by two henchmen on large horses. The

sheriffs' watches came one after the other in like order, but not

so numerous; for the mayor had, besides his giant, three pageants;

whereas the sheriffs had only two besides their giants, each with their

morris-dance and one henchman: their officers were clothed in jackets

of worsted, or say party-coloured, but differing from those belonging

to the mayor, and from each other: they had also a great number of

harnessed men."[1052] This old custom of setting the watch in London

was maintained until the year 1539, in the 31st year of Henry VIII.

when it was discontinued on account of the expense, and revived in the

year 1548, the 2d of Edward VI. and soon after that time it was totally

abolished.

On Midsummer eve it was customary annually at Burford, in Oxfordshire,

to carry a dragon up and down the town, with mirth and rejoicing; to

which they also added the picture[1053] of a giant. Dr. Plott tells

us, this pageantry was continued in his memory, and says it was

established, at least the dragon part of the show, in memory of a

famous victory obtained near that place, about 750, by Cuthred, king of

the west Saxons, over Ethebald, king of Mercia, who lost his standard,

surmounted by a golden dragon,[1054] in the action.

XXV.--PROCESSIONS ON ST. CLEMENT'S AND ST. CATHERINE'S DAYS.

The Anniversary of Saint Clement, and that of Saint Catherine, the

first upon the 23d, and the second upon the 25th, of November, were

formerly particularized by religious processions which had been disused

after the Reformation, but again established by queen Mary. In the

year she ascended the throne, according to Strype, on the evening of

Saint Catherine's day, her procession was celebrated at London with

five hundred great lights, which were carried round Saint Paul's

steeple;[1055] and again three years afterwards, her image, if I

clearly understand my author, was taken about the battlements of the

same church with fine singing and many great lights.[1056] But the

most splendid show of this kind that took place in Mary's time was the

procession on Saint Clement's day, exhibited in the streets of London:

it consisted of sixty priests and clerks in their copes, attended by

divers of the inns of court, who went next the priests, preceded by

eighty banners and streamers, with the waits or minstrels of the city

playing upon different instruments.[1057]

XXVI.--WASSAILS.

Wassail, or rather the wassail bowl, which was a bowl of spiced ale,

formerly carried about by young women on New-year's eve, who went

from door to door in their several parishes singing a few couplets of

homely verses composed for the purpose, and presented the liquor to the

inhabitants of the house where they called, expecting a small gratuity

in return, Selden alludes to this custom in the following comparison:

"The Pope, in sending reliques to princes, does as wenches do by their

wassails at New-year's tide, they present you with a cup, and you

must drink of a slabby stuff; but the meaning is, you must give them

monies ten times more than it is worth."[1058] The wassail is said to

have originated from the words of Rowena, the daughter of Hengist;

who, presenting a bowl of wine to Vortigern, the king of the Britons,

said, Wæs hæel, or, Health to you, my lord the king; (Ƿæꞅ hæl laꝼoꞃꝺ

cẏnnınᵹ). If this derivation of the custom should be thought doubtful,

I can only say that it has the authority at least of antiquity on its

side. The wassails are now quite obsolete; but it seems that fifty

years back, some vestiges of them were remaining in Cornwall; but the

time of their performance was changed to twelfth-day.[1059]

XXVII.--SHEEP-SHEARING AND HARVEST-HOME.

There are two feasts annually held among the farmers of this country,

which are regularly made in the spring, and at the end of the summer,

or the beginning of autumn, but not confined to any particular day.

The first is the sheep-shearing, and the second the harvest-home; both

of them were celebrated in ancient times with feasting and variety of

rustic pastimes: at present, excepting a dinner, or more frequently a

supper, at the conclusion of the sheep-shearing and the harvest, we

have little remains of the former customs.

The particular manner in which the sheep-shearing was celebrated in

old time is not recorded; but respecting the harvest-home we meet with

several curious observations. Hentzner, a foreign gentleman, who was

in England at the close of the sixteenth century, and wrote an account

of what he saw here, says, "as we were returning to our inn, (in or

near Windsor) we happened to meet some country people celebrating their

harvest-home: their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having

besides, an image richly dressed, by which perhaps they signify Ceres;

this they keep moving about, while the men and women, and men and

maid-servants, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud

as they can till they arrive at the barn." Moresin, another foreign

writer, also tells us that he saw "in England, the country people bring

home," from the harvest field, I presume he means, "a figure made with

corn, round which the men and the women were promiscuously singing, and

preceded by a piper or a drum."[1060] "In the north," says Mr. Brand,

"not half a century ago, they used every where to dress up a figure

something similar to that just described, at the end of harvest, which

they called a kern-baby, plainly a corruption of corn-baby, as the

kern, or churn supper, is of corn-supper."[1061]

The harvest-supper in some places is called a mell-supper, and a

churn-supper. Mell is plainly derived from the French word mesler,

to mingle together, the master and servant promiscuously at the same

table.[1062] At the mell-supper, Bourne[1063] tells us, "the servant

and his master are alike, and every thing is done with equal freedom;

they sit at the same table, converse freely together, and spend the

remaining part of the night in dancing and singing, without any

difference or distinction. There was," continues my author, "a custom

among the heathens much like this at the gathering of their harvest,

when the servants were indulged with their liberty, and put upon an

equality with their masters for a certain time. Probably both of them

originated from the Jewish feast of tabernacles."[1064]

XXVIII.--WAKES.

The wakes when first instituted in this country were established upon

religious principles, and greatly resembled the agapæ, Αγαπαι, or

love feasts of the early Christians. It seems, however, clear, that

they derived their origin from some more ancient rites practised in

the times of paganism. Hence Pope Gregory, in his letter to Melitus, a

British abbot, says, "whereas the people were accustomed to sacrifice

many oxen in honour of dæmons, let them celebrate a religious and

solemn festival, and not slay the animals, diabolo, to the devil, but

to be eaten by themselves, ad laudem Dei, to the praise of God."[1065]

These festivals were primitively held upon the day of the dedication

of the church in each district, or the birth-day of the saint whose

relics were therein deposited, or to whose honour it was consecrated;

for which purpose the people were directed to make booths and tents

with the boughs of trees adjoining to the churches, circa easdem

ecclesias,[1066] and in them to celebrate the feast with thanksgiving

and prayer. In process of time the people assembled on the vigil, or

evening preceding the saint's-day, and came, says an old author, "to

churche with candellys burnyng, and would wake, and come toward night

to the church in their devocion,"[1067] agreeable to the requisition

contained in one of the canons established by king Edgar, whereby

those who came to the wake were ordered to pray devoutly, and not to

betake themselves to drunkenness and debauchery. The necessity for this

restriction plainly indicates that abuses of this religious institution

began to make their appearance as early as the tenth century. The

author above cited goes on, "and afterwards the pepul fell to

letcherie, and songs, and daunses, with harping and piping, and also to

glotony and sinne; and so tourned the holyness to cursydness; wherefore

holy faders ordeyned the pepull to leve that waking and to fast the

evyn, but it is called vigilia, that is waking, in English, and eveyn,

for of eveyn they were wont to come to churche." In proportion as these

festivals deviated from the original design of their institution, they

became more popular, the conviviality was extended, and not only the

inhabitants of the parish to which the church belonged were present at

them, but they were joined by others from the neighbouring towns and

parishes, who flocked together upon these occasions, and the greater

the reputation of the tutelar saint, the greater generally was the

promiscuous assembly. The pedlars and hawkers attended to sell their

wares, and so by degrees the religious wake was converted into a

secular fair. The riot and debaucheries which eventually took place

at these nocturnal meetings, became so offensive to religious persons

that they were suppressed, and regular fairs established, to be held

on the saint's-day, or upon some other day near to it as might be

most convenient; and if the place did not admit of any traffic of

consequence, the time was spent in festive mirth and vulgar amusements.

These fairs still retain the ancient name of wakes in many parts of the

kingdom.

XXIX.--SUNDAY FESTIVALS.

"In the northern parts of this nation," says Bourne, "the inhabitants

of most country villages are wont to observe some Sunday in a more

particular manner than the other common Sundays of the year, namely,

the Sunday after the day of dedication of their church," that is, the

Sunday after the saint's day to whom the church was dedicated. "Then

the people deck themselves in their gaudiest clothes, and have open

doors and splendid entertainments for the reception and treating of

their relations and friends, who visit them on that occasion from each

neighbouring town. The morning is spent for the most part at church,

though not as that morning was wont to be spent, with the commemoration

of the saint or martyr; nor the grateful remembrance of the builder

and endower." Being come from church, the remaining part of the day

is spent in eating and drinking, and so is a day or two afterwards,

together with all sorts of rural pastimes and exercises, such as

dancing on the green, wrestling, cudgelling, and the like. "In the

northern parts, the Sunday's feasting is almost lost, and they observe

only one day for the whole, which among them is called hopping, I

suppose from the dancing and other exercises then practised. Here they

used to end many quarrels between neighbour and neighbour, and hither

came the wives in comely manner, and they which were of the better sort

had their mantles carried with them, as well for show as to keep them

from the cold at the table. These mantles also many did use at the

churches, at the morrow masses, and at other times."[1068]

XXX.--CHURCH-ALES.

The Church-ales, called also Easter-ales, and Whitsun-ales from their

being sometimes held on Easter-Sunday, and on Whit-Sunday, or on

some of the holidays that follow them, certainly originated from the

wakes. The churchwardens and other chief parish officers observing the

wakes to be more popular than any other holidays, rightly conceived,

that by establishing other institutions somewhat similar to them,

they might draw together a large company of people, and annually

collect from them, gratuitously as it were, such sums of money for

the support and repairs of the church, as would be a great easement

to the parish rates. By way of enticement to the populace they brewed

a certain portion of strong ale, to be ready on the day appointed for

the festival, which they sold to them; and most of the better sort,

in addition to what they paid for their drink, contributed something

towards the collection; but in some instances the inhabitants of one

or more parishes were mulcted in a certain sum according to mutual

agreement, as we find by an ancient stipulation,[1069] couched in the

following terms: "The parishioners of Elverton and those of Okebrook

in Derbyshire agree jointly to brew four ales, and every ale of one

quarter of malt between this,[1070] and the feast of Saint John the

Baptist next comming, and every inhabitant of the said town of Okebrook

shall be at the several ales; and every husband and his wife shall

pay two pence, and every cottager one penny. And the inhabitants

of Elverton shall have and receive all the profits comming of the

said ales, to the use and behoof of the church of Elverton; and the

inhabitants of Elverton shall brew eight ales betwixt this and the

feast of Saint John, at which ales the inhabitants of Okebrook shall

come and pay as before rehearsed; and if any be away one ale, he is

to pay at t'oder ale for both." In Cornwall the church-ales were

ordered in a different manner; for there two young men of a parish were

annually chosen by their foregoers to be wardens, "who, dividing the

task, made collections among the parishioners of whatever provision

it pleased them to bestow; this they employed in brewing, baking, and

other acates, against Whitson-tide, upon which holidaies the neighbours

meet at the church-house, and there merely feed on their own victuals,

contributing some petty portion to the stock. When the feast is ended,

the wardens yield in their accounts to the parishioners; and such money

as exceedeth the disbursements, is layed up in store to defray any

extraordinary charges arising in the parish."[1071]

To what has been said upon this subject, I shall only add the following

extract from Philip Stubs, an author before quoted, who lived in the

reign of queen Elizabeth, whose writings[1072] are pointed against the

popular vices and immoralities of his time. "In certaine townes," says

he, "where drunken Bacchus bears swaie against Christmass and Easter,

Whitsunday, or some other time, the churchwardens, for so they call

them, of every parish, with the consent of the whole parish, provide

half a score or twentie quarters of mault, whereof some they buy of

the church stocke, and some is given to them of the parishioners

themselves, every one conferring somewhat, according to his ability;

which mault being made into very strong ale, or beer, is set to sale,

either in the church[1073] or in some other place assigned to that

purpose. Then, when this nippitatum, this huffe-cappe, as they call

it, this nectar of life, is set abroach, well is he that can get

the soonest to it, and spends the most at it, for he is counted the

godliest man of all the rest, and most in God's favour, because it

is spent upon his church forsooth. If all be true which they say,

they bestow that money which is got thereby for the repaire of their

churches and chappels; they buy bookes for the service, cupps for

the celebration of the sacrament, surplesses for Sir John, and such

other necessaries," &c. He then proceeds to speak upon "the manner of

keeping wakesses (wakes) in England," in a style similar to that above

cited, and says they were "the sources of gluttonie and drunkenness;"

and adds, "many spend more at one of these wakesses than in all the

whole year besides." It has before been observed that this author is

very severe upon most of the popular sports; but in justice to him

I may add, that similar complaints have been exhibited against the

church-ales and wakes in times greatly anterior to his existence. And,

indeed, if we look at the wakes and fairs as they are conducted in the

present day, I trust we shall not hesitate to own that they are by no

means proper schools for the improvement of the public morals.

The ingenious researcher into the causes of melancholy thinks

that these kinds of amusement ought not to be denied to the

commonalty.[1074] Chaucer, in the Ploughman's Tale, reproves the

priests because they were more attentive to the practice of secular

pastimes than to the administration of their holy functions, saying

they were expert

At the wrestlynge and at the wake,

And chefe chauntours at the nale,

Markette beaters, and medlyng make,

Hoppen and houters with heve and hale.

XXXI.--FAIRS.

The church-ales have long been discontinued; the wakes are still kept

up in the northern parts of the kingdom; but neither they nor the

fairs maintain their former importance; many of both, and most of the

latter, have dwindled into mere markets for petty traffic, or else

they are confined to the purposes of drinking, or the displayment of

vulgar pastimes. These pastimes, or at least such of them as occur

to my memory, I shall mention here in a cursory manner, and pass

on to the remaining part of this chapter. In a paper belonging to

the Spectator[1075] there is a short description of a country wake.

"I found," says the author, "a ring of cudgel-players, who were

breaking one another's heads in order to make some impression on

their mistresses' hearts." He then came to "a foot-ball match," and

afterwards to "a ring of wrestlers." Here he observes, "the squire of

the parish always treats the company every year with a hogshead of ale,

and proposes a beaver hat as a recompence to him who gives the most

falls." The last sport he mentions is pitching the bar. But he might,

and with great propriety, have added most of the games in practice

among the lower classes of the people that have been specified in the

foregoing pages, and perhaps the whistling match recorded in another

paper.[1076] "The prize," we are told, "was one guinea, to be conferred

upon the ablest whistler; that is, he that could whistle clearest, and

go through his tune without laughing, to which at the same time he was

provoked by the antic postures of a merry-andrew, who was to stand

upon the stage, and play his tricks in the eye of the performer.

There were three competitors; the two first failed, but the third, in

defiance of the zany and all his arts, whistled through two tunes with

so settled a countenance that he bore away the prize, to the great

admiration of the spectators." This paper was written by Addison, who

assures us he was present at the performance, which took place at Bath

about the year 1708. To this he adds another curious pastime, as a kind

of Christmas gambol, which he had seen also; that is, a yawning match

for a Cheshire cheese; the sport began about midnight, when the whole

company were disposed to be drowsy; and he that yawned the widest, and

at the same time most naturally, so as to produce the greatest number

of yawns from the spectators, obtained the cheese.

The barbarous and wicked diversion of throwing at cocks usually took

place at all the wakes and fairs that were held about Shrove-tide,

and especially at such of them as were kept on Shrove-Tuesday.

Upon the abolition of this inhuman custom, the place of the living

birds was supplied by toys made in the shape of cocks, with large

and heavy stands of lead, at which the boys, on paying some very

trifling sum, were permitted to throw as heretofore; and he who could

overturn the toy claimed it as a reward for his adroitness. This

innocent pastime never became popular, for the sport derived from

the torment of a living creature existed no longer, and its want was

not to be compensated by the overthrowing or breaking a motionless

representative; therefore the diversion was very soon discontinued.

At present, snuff-boxes, tobacco-boxes, and other trinkets of small

value, or else halfpence or gingerbread, placed upon low stands, are

thrown at, and sometimes apples and oranges, set up in small heaps; and

children are usually enticed to lay out their money for permission to

throw at them by the owners, who keep continually bawling, "Knock down

one you have them all." A halfpenny is the common price for one throw,

and the distance about ten or twelve yards.

The Jingling Match is a diversion common enough at country wakes and

fairs. The performance requires a large circle, enclosed with ropes,

which is occupied by as many persons as are permitted to play. They

rarely exceed nine or ten. All of these, except one of the most active,

who is the jingler, have their eyes blinded with handkerchiefs or

napkins. The eyes of the jingler are not covered, but he holds a small

bell in each hand, which he is obliged to keep ringing incessantly so

long as the play continues, which is commonly about twenty minutes, but

sometimes it is extended to half an hour. In some places the jingler

has also small bells affixed to his knees and elbows. His business is

to elude the pursuit of his blinded companions, who follow him, by the

sound of the bells, in all directions, and sometimes oblige him to

exert his utmost abilities to effect his escape, which must be done

within the boundaries of the rope, for the laws of the sport forbid

him to pass beyond it. If he be caught in the time allotted for the

continuance of the game, the person who caught him claims the prize:

if, on the contrary, they are not able to take him, the prize becomes

his due.

Hunting the Pig is another favourite rustic pastime. The tail of the

animal is previously cut short, and well soaped, and in this condition

he is turned out for the populace to run after him; and he who can

catch him with one hand, and hold him by the stump of the tail without

touching any other part, obtains him for his pains.

Sack Running, that is, men tied up in sacks, every part of them being

enclosed except their heads, who are in this manner to make the best of

their way to some given distance, where he who first arrives obtains

the prize.

Smock Races are commonly performed by the young country wenches, and

so called because the prize is a holland smock, or shift, usually

decorated with ribbands.

The Wheelbarrow Race requires room, and is performed upon some open

green, or in a field free from incumbrances. The candidates are all of

them blindfolded, and every one has his wheelbarrow, which he is to

drive from the starting-place to a mark set up for that purpose, at

some considerable distance. He who first reaches the mark of course

is the conqueror. But this task is seldom very readily accomplished;

on the contrary, the windings and wanderings of these droll

knights-errant, in most cases, produce much merriment.

The Grinning Match is performed by two or more persons endeavouring to

exceed each other in the distortion of their features, every one of

them having his head thrust through a horse's collar.

Smoking Matches are usually made for tobacco-boxes, or some other

trifling prizes, and may be performed two ways: the first is a trial

among the candidates who shall smoke a pipe full of tobacco in the

shortest time: the second is precisely the reverse; for he of them who

can keep the tobacco alight within his pipe, and retain it there the

longest, receives the reward.

To these we may add the Hot Hasty-pudding Eaters, who contend for

superiority by swallowing the greatest quantity of hot hasty-pudding in

the shortest time; so that he whose throat is widest and most callous

is sure to be the conqueror.

The evening is commonly concluded with singing for laces and ribbands,

which divertisement indiscriminately admits of the exertions of both

sexes.

XXXII.--BONFIRES.

It has been customary in this country, from time immemorial, for the

people, upon occasions of rejoicing, or by way of expressing their

approbation of any public occurrence, to make large bonfires upon

the close of the day, to parade the street with great lights, and to

illuminate their houses. These spectacles may be considered as merely

appendages to the pageants and pompous shows that usually preceded

them; and they seem to have been instituted principally for the

diversion of the populace. In the reign of Henry VII. a letter was sent

from the king to the lord-mayor and aldermen of London, commanding them

to cause bonfires to be made, and to manifest other signs of rejoicing,

on account of the espousals of his daughter Mary.[1077] And within

these forty years[1078] bonfires continued to be made in London at the

city expense, and in certain places at Westminster by order from the

court, upon most of the public days of rejoicing; but of late they have

been prohibited, and very justly, on account of the mischief occasioned

by the squibs and crackers thrown about by the mob who assembled upon

these occasions.

In London, and probably in other large cities, bonfires were frequently

made in the summer season, not only for rejoicing sake, but to cleanse

the air. Hence Stow, writing upon this subject, says, "In the months

of June and July, on the vigils of festival days, and on the evenings

also of those days after sunset, bonfires were made in the streets. The

wealthy citizens placed bread and good drink upon the tables before

their doors upon the vigil of the festival; but on the festival evening

the same tables were more plentifully furnished with meat and drink,

to which not only the neighbours but passengers were also invited to

sit and partake, with great hospitality. These were called bonfires,

as well of amity among neighbours that, being before at controversie,

were, at these times, by the labour of others, reconciled, and made of

bitter enemies loving friends; and also for the virtue that a great

fire hath to purge the infection of the air."[1079] There are many

fanciful derivations of the compound word bonfire; but I perfectly

agree with Dr. Johnson, who thinks the first syllable originated from

the French word bon, good; because these fires were usually made upon

the receipt of some good news, or upon occasions of public rejoicing.

XXXIII.--ILLUMINATIONS.

I do not know at what period illuminations were first used as marks of

rejoicing. They are mentioned by Stow, in his Survey of London, who

tells us that lamps of glass, to the amount of several hundreds, were

hung upon branches of iron curiously wrought, and placed at the doors

of the opulent citizens upon the vigils of Saint John the Baptist, and

of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.[1080] The historian does not speak of

these lights as any novelty, neither is there any reason to conclude

that similar illuminations were not made in other great towns and

cities as well as in London; so that the custom might have been of long

standing, and probably originated from some religious institution. But

the lights, for I can hardly call them illuminations, most generally

used at this period, were the cressets, or large lanthorns, which were

carried in procession about the street. When they were laid aside,

the windows of the houses were decorated with lighted candles, or

the outsides ornamented with lamps of various colours, and placed

in variety of forms; to which may be added, transparent paintings,

inscriptions, and variety of other curious and expensive devices, that

seem to be almost peculiar to the present age; and certainly the grand

illuminations exhibited on the 23d of April, 1789, upon the happy

occasion of his Majesty's recovery, far surpassed, not only in the

number and brilliancy of the lights, but also in the splendour and

beauty of the transparencies, every other spectacle of the like kind

that has been made in this country, or perhaps in any other.

XXXIV.--FIREWORKS.

Fireworks, for pastime, are little spoken of previous to the reign of

Elizabeth, and seem to have been of a very trifling nature. We are

told, when Ann Bullen was conveyed upon the water from Greenwich to

London, previous to her coronation, in 1533, "there went before the

lord-mayor's barge, a foyste[1081] for a wafter full of ordinance; in

which foyste was a great red dragon, continually moving and casting

forth wildfire; and round about the said foyste stood terrible,

monstrous, and wilde men, casting of fire, and making a hideous noise."

This vessel with the fireworks, I apprehend, was usually exhibited when

the lord mayor went upon the water, and especially when he went to

Westminster on the lord mayor's day. Hence Morose, in Jonson's comedy

of the Silent Woman, says to his visitors, who come with drums and

trumpets, "Out of my dores, you sonnes of noise and tumult, begot on

an ill May-day, or when the gally-foist is afloate to Westminster; a

trumpetter could not be conceived till then."[1082]

Among the spectacles prepared for the diversion of queen Elizabeth at

Kenelworth Castle in 1575, there were displays of fireworks, which

are thus described by Laneham, who was present.[1083] "On the Sunday

night," says he, "after a warning piece or two,[1084] was a blaze of

burning darts flying to and fro, beams of stars coruscant, streams

and hail of fire sparks, lightnings of wildfire on the water; and on

the land, flight and shot of thunderbolts, all with such continuance,

terror, and vehemence, the heavens thundered, the waters surged, and

the earth shook." Another author, Gascoyne, speaks thus: "On the Sunday

were fireworks showed upon the water, passing under the water a long

space; and when all men thought they had been quenched, they would rise

and mount out of the water again and burne furiously until they were

utterlie consumed."[1085] On the Thursday following, according to

Laneham, "there was at night a shew of very strange and sundry kinds

of fireworks compelled by cunning to fly to and fro, and to mount very

high into the air upward, and also to burn unquenchable in the water

beneath." And again, sixteen years afterwards, the same queen was

entertained by the earl of Hertford at Elvetham in Hampshire, and after

supper there was a grand display of fireworks, preceded by "a peale

of one hundred chambers,[1086] discharged from the Snail Mount;" with

"a like peale discharged from the ship Isle, and some great ordinance

withal. Then was there a castle of fireworkes of all sorts, which

played in the fort; answerable to that there was, at the Snail Mount, a

globe of all manner of fireworkes, as big as a barrel. When these were

spent there were many running rockets upon lines, which passed between

the Snail Mount and the castle in the fort. On either side were many

fire-wheeles, pikes of pleasure, and balles of wildfire, which burned

in the water."[1087]

XXXV.--LONDON FIREWORKS.

A writer, who lived in the reign of James I., assures us there were

then "abiding in the city of London men very skilful in the art of

pyrotechnie, or of fireworkes."[1088] But, so far as one can judge from

the machinery delineated in the books formerly written upon the subject

of firework making, these exhibitions were very clumsily contrived,

consisting chiefly in wheels, fire-trees, jerbs, and rockets, to which

were added, men fantastically habited, who flourished away with poles

or clubs charged with squibs and crackers, and fought with each other,

or jointly attacked a wooden castle replete with the same materials, or

combated with pasteboard dragons running upon lines and "vomitting of

fire like verie furies." These men fantastically habited were called

green men. Thus, in The Seven Champions of Christendom, a play written

by John Kirke, and printed 1638, it is said, "Have you any squibs, any

green men, in your shows, and whizzes on lines, Jack-pudding upon the

rope, or resin fireworks?"

I am decidedly of opinion that the fireworks displayed within these

last fifty years[1089] have been more excellent in their construction,

more neatly executed, and more variable and pleasing in their

effects, than those produced at any former period. It is certain that

the early firework makers were totally unacquainted with the nature

and properties of the quick-match, which is made with spun cotton,

soaked in a strong solution of saltpetre, and rolled, while wet, in

pounded gunpowder, and which, being enclosed in small tubes of paper,

communicates the fire from one part of the apparatus to another with

astonishing celerity. The old firework makers were obliged to have

recourse to trains of corned gunpowder, conveyed by grooves made in the

wood-work of the machinery, when they were desirous of communicating

the fire to a number of cases at once, and especially if they were

at a distance from each other, which was not only a very circuitous

process, but liable to a variety of unpleasant accidents; and to this

cause is attributed the failure of the tremendous firework exhibited

in the Green Park in the reign of George II., when the performance was

interrupted, and the grandeur of the general effect totally destroyed,

by the timbers belonging to one of the wings taking fire through the

explosion of the gunpowder trains communicated by the wooden channels.

This unfortunate accident, in all probability, would not have happened

had the communications from one part of the machinery to the other been

made with quick-match. I received the above information from a very

skilful firework maker belonging to the train of artillery, who had an

opportunity of seeing the manner in which the trains were laid, and was

present at the exhibition.

XXXIV.--FIREWORKS ON TOWER-HILL, AT PUBLIC GARDENS, AND IN PAGEANTS.

It was customary, in my memory, for the train of artillery annually

to display a grand firework upon Tower-hill on the evening of his

Majesty's birth-day. This spectacle has been discontinued for several

years in compliance with a petition for that purpose made by the

inhabitants on account of the inconveniences they sustained thereby.

Fireworks were exhibited at Marybone Gardens while they were kept open

for public entertainment; and about five-and-twenty years ago,[1090]

Torre, a celebrated French artist, was employed there, who, in addition

to the usual displayment of fire-wheels, fixed stars, figure pieces,

and other curious devices, introduced pantomimical spectacles, which

afforded him an opportunity of bringing forward much splendid

machinery, with appropriate scenery and stage decoration, whereby

he gave an astonishing effect to his performances, and excited the

admiration and applause of the spectators. I particularly remember

two, the Forge of Vulcan, and the Descent of Orpheus to Hell in search

of his wife Eurydice. The last was particularly splendid: there were

several scenes, and one of them supposed to be the Elysian fields,

where the flitting backwards and forwards of the spirits was admirably

represented by means of a transparent gauze artfully interposed between

the actors and the spectators.

Fireworks have for many years been exhibited at Ranelagh Gardens; they

are now[1091] displayed occasionally at Vauxhall; and, in an inferior

style, at Bermondsey Spa.

In speaking upon this subject I have mentioned some of the actors

formerly concerned in the pyrotechnical shows. Those said above to have

been on board the city foyst, or galley, are called monstrous wilde

men;[1092] others are frequently distinguished by the appellation of

green men;[1093] and both of them were men whimsically attired and

disguised with droll masks, having large staves or clubs, headed with

cases of crackers. Annexed is

[Illustration: 114. A GREEN MAN.]

This engraving, representing the character equipped in his proper

habit, and flourishing his firework, is from a book of fireworks

written by John Bate, and published in 1635. Below is

[Illustration: 115. A WODEHOUSE.]

This character, which is that of a wild or savage man, was very common

in the pageants of former times, and seems to have been very popular.

It was in a dress like this, I suppose, that Gascoyne appeared before

queen Elizabeth; see p. 253. The figure itself is taken from a ballad,

in black letter, entitled "The mad, merry Pranks of Robin Good Fellow."

Bishop Percy, probably with great justice, supposes it to have been one

of the stage-disguisements for the representation of this facetious

spirit.

CHAPTER IV.

I.--Popular manly Pastimes imitated by Children.--II.

Horses.--III. Racing and Chacing.--IV. Wrestling

and other Gymnastic Sports.--V. Marbles, and

Span-counter.--VI. Tops, &c.;--The Devil among the

Taylors.--VII. Even or Odd--Chuck-halfpenny;--Duck

and Drake.--VIII. Baste the Bear;--Hunt the Slipper,

&c.--IX. Sporting with Insects;--Kites;--Windmills.--X.

Bob-cherry.--XI. Hoodman-blind;--Hot-cockles.--XII.

Cock-fighting.--XIII. Anonymous Pastimes;--Mock Honours at

Boarding-schools.--XIV. Houses of Cards;--Questions and

Commands;--Handy-dandy;--Snap-dragon;--Push-pin;--Crambo;

--Lotteries.--XV. Obsolete Pastimes.--XVI. Creag;--Queke-board;

--Hand in and Hand out;--White and Black, and Making and

Marring;--Figgum;--Mosel the Peg;--Hole about the Church-yard;

--Penny-prick;--Pick-point, &c.;--Mottoes, Similes, and

Cross-purposes;--The Parson has lost his Cloak.

I.--POPULAR MANLY PASTIMES IMITATED BY CHILDREN.

Most of the popular pastimes mentioned in the preceding pages were

imitated by the younger part of the community, and in some degree, at

least, became the sports of children. Archery, and the use of missive

weapons of all kinds, were formerly considered as an essential part

of a young man's education; for which reason the bow, the sling, the

spear, and other military instruments, were put into his hands at a

very early period of his life; he was also encouraged in the pursuit

of such sports as promoted muscular strength, or tended to make him

acquainted with the duties of a soldier. When the bow and the sling

were laid aside in favour of the gun, prudence naturally forbad the

putting an instrument of so dangerous a nature into the hands of

children; they however provided themselves a substitute for the gun,

and used a long hollow tube called a trunk, in which they thrust a

small pointed arrow, contrived to fit the cavity with great exactness,

and then blowing into the trunk with all their might, the arrow was

driven through it and discharged at the other end by the expansion of

the compressed air. Sometimes pellets of clay were used instead of

the arrows. Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary, under the article trunk,

has this quotation from Ray: "In a shooting trunk, the longer it is

to a certain limit, the swifter and more forcibly the air drives the

pellet." The trunks were succeeded by pot-guns made with hollow pieces

of elder, or of quills, the pellets being thrust into them by the

means of a ramrod. These were also called pop-guns; and perhaps more

properly, from the popping noise they make in discharging the pellets.

Big bouncing words are compared to pot-gun reports in a comedy called

The Knave in Graine, printed in 1640.[1094]

II.--HORSES.

Most boys are exceedingly delighted with riding, either on horses or

in carriages, and also upon men's shoulders, which we find to be a

very ancient sport;[1095] and I trust there are but few of my readers

who have not seen them with a bough or a wand substituted for a horse,

and highly pleased in imitating the gallopping and prancing of that

noble animal.[1096] This is an amusement of great antiquity, well known

in Greece; and if report speaks truth, some of the greatest men have

joined in it, either to relax the vigour of their own minds for a time,

or to delight their children. The Persian ambassadors found Agesilaus,

the Lacedemonian monarch, employed in this manner.[1097] Socrates also

did the same, for which it seems his pupil Alcibiades used to laugh at

him.[1098] If we turn to the engraving No. 45,[1099] we shall see two

boys, each of them having two wands, the one serves for a horse, and

the other for a spear, and thus equipped they are justing together.

The engraving No. 30,[1100] represents a boy mounted upon a wooden

horse, drawn by two of his companions, and tilting at the quintain;

and here we may remark that the bohourts, the tournaments, and most of

the other superior pastimes have been subjected to youthful imitation;

and that toys were made on purpose to train up the young nobility in

the knowledge and pursuit of military pastimes, as may be seen by the

engravings Nos. 43 and 44.[1101] Nay, some writers, and not without the

support of ancient documents, derive the origin of all these splendid

spectacles from the sportive exercises of the Trojan boys.[1102]

III.--RACING AND CHACING.

Contending with each other for superiority in racing on foot is natural

to children;[1103] and this emulation has been productive of many

different amusements, among which the following seem to be the most

prominent.

Base, or Prisoners' Bars, is described in a preceding part of this

work.[1104]

Hunt the Fox.--In this game one of the boys is permitted to run

out, and having law given to him, that is, being permitted to go to

a certain distance from his comrades before they pursue him, their

object is to take him if possible before he can return home. We have

the following speech from an idle boy in The longer thou livest the

more Fool thou art, an old comedy, written towards the close of the

sixteenth century:[1105]

And also when we play and hunt the fox,

outrun all the boys in the schoole.

Hunt the Hare is the same pastime under a different denomination.

Harry-racket, or Hide and Seek, called also Hoop and Hide; where one

party of the boys remain at a station called their home, while the

others go out and hide themselves; when they are hid one of them cries

hoop, as a signal for those at home to seek after them. If they who are

hidden can escape the vigilance of the seekers and get home uncaught,

they go out to hide again; but so many of them as are caught, on the

contrary, become seekers, and those who caught them have the privilege

of hiding themselves.

Thread the Taylor's Needle.--In this sport the youth of both sexes

frequently join. As many as choose to play lay hold of hands, and the

last in the row runs to the top, where passing under the arms of the

two first, the rest follow: the first then becoming the last, repeats

the operation, and so on alternately as long as the game continues.

Cat after Mouse; performed indiscriminately by the boys and the girls.

All the players but one holding each other's hands form a large circle;

he that is exempted passes round, and striking one of them, immediately

runs under the arms of the rest; the person so struck is obliged to

pursue him until he be caught, but at the same time he must be careful

to pass under the arms of the same players as he did who touched him,

or he forfeits his chance and stands out, while he that was pursued

claims a place in the circle. When this game is played by an equal

number of boys and girls, a boy must touch a girl, and a girl a boy,

and when either of them be caught they go into the middle of the ring

and salute each other; hence is derived the name of kiss in the ring.

Barley-brake.--The excellency of this sport seems to have consisted in

running well; but I know not its properties. Johnson quotes these lines

from Sidney:

By neighbours prais'd, she went abroad thereby,

At barley-brake her sweet swift feet to try.[1106]

Puss in the Corner.--A certain number of boys or girls stand singly

at different distances; suppose we say for instance one at each of

the four corners of a room, a fifth is then placed in the middle; the

business of those who occupy the corners is to keep changing their

positions in a regular succession, and of the out-player, to gain one

of the corners vacated by the change before the successor can reach it:

if done he retains it, and the loser takes his place in the middle.

Leap Frog.--One boy stoops down with his hands upon his knees and

others leap over him, every one of them running forward and stooping in

his turn. The game consists in a continued succession of stooping and

leaping. It is mentioned by Shakspeare in King Henry the Fifth; "If I

could win a lady at leap-frog, I should quickly leap into a wife:" by

Jonson in the comedy of Bartholomew Fair, "A leap-frogge chance now;"

and by several other more modern writers.

IV.--WRESTLING AND OTHER GYMNASTIC SPORTS.

To the foregoing pastimes we may add Wrestling, which was particularly

practised by the boys in the counties of Cornwall and Devon.[1107] In

the engraving No. 18, we find two lads contending for mastery at this

diversion.

Hopping and Sliding upon one Leg are both of them childish sports, but

at the same time very ancient, for they were practised by the Grecian

youth; one they called akinetinda, Ακινητινδα,[1108] which was a

struggle between the competitors who should stand motionless the

longest upon the sole of his foot; the other denominated ascoliasmos,

Ασκωλιασμος,[1109] was dancing or hopping upon one foot,[1110] the

conqueror being he who could hop the most frequently, and continue

the performance longer than any of his comrades; and this pastime is

alluded to by the author of the old comedy, The longer thou livest

the more Fool thou art, wherein a boy boasting of his proficiency in

various school games, adds,

And I hop a good way upon my one legge.

Among the school-boys in my memory there was a pastime called

Hop-Scotch, which was played in this manner: a parallelogram about four

or five feet wide, and ten or twelve feet in length, was made upon

the ground and divided laterally into eighteen or twenty different

compartments, which were called beds; some of them being larger than

others. The players were each of them provided with a piece of a tile,

or any other flat material of the like kind, which they cast by the

hand into the different beds in a regular succession, and every time

the tile was cast, the player's business was to hop upon one leg after

it, and drive it out of the boundaries at the end where he stood to

throw it; for, if it passed out at the sides, or rested upon any one of

the marks, it was necessary for the cast to be repeated. The boy who

performed the whole of this operation by the fewest casts of the tile

was the conqueror.

Skipping.--This amusement is probably very ancient. It is performed by

a rope held by both ends, that is, one end in each hand, and thrown

forwards or backwards over the head and under the feet alternately.

Boys often contend for superiority of skill in this game, and he who

passes the rope about most times without interruption is the conqueror.

In the hop season, a hop-stem stripped of its leaves is used instead of

a rope, and in my opinion it is preferable.

Trundling the hoop is a pastime of uncertain origin, but much in

practice at present, and especially in London, where the boys appear

with their hoops in the public streets, and are sometimes very

troublesome to those who are passing through them.

Swimming, sliding,[1111] and of late years skating, may be reckoned

among the boys' amusements; also walking upon stilts,[1112] swinging,

and the pastime of the meritot and see-saw, or tetter-totter, which

have been mentioned already,[1113] together with most of the games

played with the ball,[1114] as well as nine-pins and skittles.[1115]

V.--MARBLES AND SPAN-COUNTER.

Marbles seem to have been used by the boys as substitutes for bowls,

and with them they amuse themselves in many different manners. I

believe originally nuts, round stones, or any other small things that

could be easily bowled along, were used as marbles. Those now played

with seem to be of more modern invention. It is said of Augustus

when young, that by way of amusement he spent many hours in playing

with little Moorish boys cum nucibus, with nuts.[1116] The author of

one of the Tatlers calls it "a game of marbles not unlike our common

taw."[1117]

Taw, wherein a number of boys put each of them one or two marbles

in a ring and shoot at them alternately with other marbles, and he

who obtains the most of them by beating them out of the ring is the

conqueror.

Nine holes; which consists in bowling of marbles at a wooden bridge

with nine arches. There is also another game of marbles where four,

five, or six holes, and sometimes more, are made in the ground at a

distance from each other; and the business of every one of the players

is to bowl a marble by a regular succession into all the holes, which

he who completes in the fewest bowls obtains the victory.

Boss out, or boss and span, also called hit or span, wherein one bowls

a marble to any distance that he pleases, which serves as a mark for

his antagonist to bowl at, whose business it is to hit the marble first

bowled, or lay his own near enough to it for him to span the space

between them and touch both the marbles; in either case he wins, if

not, his marble remains where it lay and becomes a mark for the first

player, and so alternately until the game be won.

Span-counter is a pastime similar to the former, but played with

counters instead of marbles. I have frequently seen the boys for want

of both perform it with stones. This sport is called in French tapper,

a word signifying to strike or hit, because if one counter is struck by

the other, the game is won.

VI.--TOPS, &c.--THE DEVIL AMONG THE TAILORS.

The top was used in remote times by the Grecian boys. It is mentioned

by Suidas, and called in Greek τροχος, and in Latin turbo. It was

well known at Rome in the days of Virgil,[1118] and with us as early

at least as the fourteenth century, when its form was the same as it

is now, and the manner of using it can admit of but little if any

difference. Boys whipping of tops occur in the marginal paintings of

the MSS. written at this period. It was probably in use long before.

In a manuscript at the Museum I met with the following anecdote of

prince Henry, the eldest son of James I., and the author assures us it

is perfectly genuine;[1119] his words are these: "The first tyme that

he the prince went to the towne of Sterling to meete the king, seeing a

little without the gate of the towne a stack of corne in proportion not

unlike to a topp wherewith he used to play; he said to some that were

with him, 'loe there is a goodly topp;' whereupon one of them saying,

'why doe you not play with it then?' he answered, 'set you it up for me

and I will play with it.'"

We have hitherto been speaking of the whip-top; for the peg-top, I

believe, must be ranked among the modern inventions, and probably

originated from the te-totums and whirligigs, which seem all of them

to have some reference to the tops, saving only that the usage of the

te-totum may be considered as a kind of petty gambling, it being marked

with a certain number of letters: and part of the stake is taken up, or

an additional part put down, according as those letters lie uppermost.

The author of Martin. Scriblerus mentions this toy in a whimsical

manner: "He found that marbles taught him percussion, and whirligigs

the axis in peretrochio." When I was a boy the te-totum had only four

sides, each of them marked with a letter; a T for take all; an H for

half, that is of the stake; an N for nothing; and a P for put down,

that is, a stake equal to that you put down at first. Toys of this

kind are now made with many sides and letters.

There is a childish pastime which may well be inserted here, generally

known by the ridiculous appellation of the Devil among the Tailors;

it consists of nine small pins placed like skittles in the midst of a

circular board, surrounded by a ledge with a small recess on one side,

in which a peg-top is set up by means of a string drawn through a

crevice in the recess; the top when loosed spins about among the pins

and beats some, or all of them, down before its motion ceases; the

players at this game spin the top alternately, and he who first beats

down the pins to the number of one-and-thirty is the conqueror. This

silly game, I am told, is frequently to be seen at low public houses,

where many idle people resort and play at it for beer and trifling

stakes of money.

VII.--EVEN OR ODD--CHUCK-HALFPENNY--DUCK AND DRAKE.

Even or Odd is another childish game of chance well known to the

ancients, and called in Greek artiazein, Αρτιαζειν, and in Latin par

vel impar. Hence the following line in Horace:

Ludere par, impar; equitare in arundine longâ.

To play at even or odd--to ride upon a long reed or cane.[1120]

The play consists in one person concealing in his hand a number of any

small pieces, and another calling even or odd at his pleasure; the

pieces are then exposed, and the victory is decided by counting them;

if they correspond with the call, the hider loses; if the contrary, of

course he wins. The Grecian boys used beans, nuts, almonds, and money;

in fact any thing that can be easily concealed in the hand will answer

the purpose.

Cross and Pile is mentioned some pages back.[1121] Here we may add

Chuck-farthing, played by the boys at the commencement of the last

century; it probably bore some analogy to pitch and hustle.[1122] There

is a letter in the Spectator supposed to be from the father of a romp,

who, among other complaints of her conduct, says, "I catched her once

at eleven years old at chuck-farthing among the boys."[1123] I have

seen a game thus denominated played with halfpence, every one of the

competitors having a like number, either two or four, and a hole being

made in the ground with a mark at a given distance for the players to

stand, they pitch their halfpence singly in succession towards the

hole, and he whose halfpenny lies the nearest to it has the privilege

of coming first to a second mark much nearer than the former, and all

the halfpence are given to him; these he pitches in a mass towards the

hole, and as many of them as remain therein are his due; if any fall

short or jump out of it, the second player, that is, he whose halfpenny

in pitching lay nearest to the first goer's, takes them and performs

in like manner; he is followed by the others so long as any of the

halfpence remain.

Duck and Drake, is a very silly pastime, though inferior to few

in point of antiquity. It is called in Greek epostrakismos,

Εποστρακισμος,[1124] and was anciently played with flat shells,

testulam marinam, which the boys threw into the water, and he whose

shell rebounded most frequently from the surface before it finally

sunk, was the conqueror. With us a part of a tile, a potsherd, or a

flat stone, are often substituted for the shells.

To play at ducks and drakes is a proverbial expression for spending

one's substance extravagantly. In the comedy called Green's Tu Quoque,

one of the characters, speaking of a spendthrift, says, "he has thrown

away as much in ducks and drakes as would have bought some five

thousand capons."

VIII.--BASTE THE BEAR--HUNT THE SLIPPER, &c.

Baste, or buffet the bear with hammer and block, are rather appendages

to other games than games by themselves, being punishments for

failures, that ought to have been avoided; the first is nothing more

than a boy couching down, who is laden with the clothes of his comrades

and then buffeted by them; the latter takes place when two boys have

offended, one of which kneeling down bends his body towards the ground,

and he is called the block; the other is named the hammer, and taken

up by four of his comrades, one at each arm and one at each leg, and

struck against the block as many times as the play requires.

Hunt the Slipper.--In this pastime a number of boys and girls

indiscriminately sit down upon the ground in a ring, with one of their

companions standing on the outside; a slipper is then produced by

those seated in the ring, and passed about from one to the other

underneath their clothes as briskly as possible, so as to prevent the

player without from knowing where it is; when he can find it, and

detain it, the person in whose possession it was, at that time, must

change place with him, and the play recommences.

Shuttle-cock has been spoken of in a former chapter, the engraving, No.

98,[1125] affords an ancient representation of the game.

IX.--SPORTING WITH INSECTS--KITES--WINDMILLS.

Spinning of chafers and of butterflies.--I do not know a greater fault

in the nurture of children than the conniving at the wanton acts of

barbarity which they practise at an early age upon innocent insects;

the judgment of that parent must be exceedingly defective, or strangely

perverted, who can proportion the degree of cruelty to the smallness

of the creature that unfortunately becomes the sufferer. It is but a

fly, perhaps he may say, when he sees his child pluck off its wings or

its legs by way of amusement; it is but a fly, and cannot feel much

pain; besides the infant would cry if I was to take it from him, and

that might endanger his health, which surely is of more consequence

than many flies: but I fear worse consequences are to be dreaded by

permitting it to indulge so vicious an inclination, for as it grows up,

the same cruelty will in all likelihood be extended to larger animals,

and its heart by degrees made callous to every claim of tenderness and

humanity.

I have seen school-boys shooting of flies with a headless pin impelled

through part of a tobacco-pipe, by the means of a bent cane, and this

instrument is commonly called a fly-gun; from this they have proceeded

to the truncating of frogs, and afterwards to tormenting of cats, with

every other kind of animal they dare to attack; but I have neither time

to recollect, nor inclination to relate, the various wanton acts of

barbarism that have been practised, arising from the want of checking

this pernicious inclination as soon as it begins to manifest in the

minds of children.

The chafers, or May-flies, a kind of beetles found upon the bloom of

hemlock in the months of May and June, are generally made the victims

of youthful cruelty. These inoffensive insects are frequently caught

in great quantities, crammed into small boxes without food, and carried

in the pockets of school-boys to be taken out and tormented at their

leisure, which is done in this manner; a crooked pin having two or

three yards of thread attached to it, is thrust through the tail of the

chafer, and on its being thrown into the air it naturally endeavours to

fly away, but is readily drawn back by the boy, which occasions it to

redouble its efforts to escape; these struggles are called spinning,

and the more it makes of them, and the quicker the vibrations are, the

more its young tormentor is delighted with his prize.

I am convinced that this cruelty, as well as many others above

mentioned, arise from the perpetrators not being well aware of the

consequences, nor conscious that the practice of them is exceedingly

wicked. I hope the reader will excuse my introducing a story relating

to myself; but as it may serve to elucidate the argument, I shall

venture to give it. When a child, I was caught by my mother, who

greatly abhorred every species of cruelty, in the act of spinning a

chafer; I was so much delighted with the performance that I did not

observe her coming into the room, but when she saw what I was about,

without saying any thing previously to me, she caught me by the ear and

pinched it so severely that I cried for mercy; to the punishment she

added this just reproof: "That insect has its feelings as you have! do

you not see that the swift vibrations of its wings are occasioned by

the torment it sustains? you have pierced its body without remorse,

I have only pinched your ear, and yet you have cried out as if I had

killed you." I felt the admonition in its full effect, liberated the

poor May-fly, and never impaled another afterwards.

[Illustration: 116. BOY AND BUTTERFLY.--XIV. CENTURY.]

The preceding representation is from a drawing on a manuscript in the

Royal Library.[1126]

This barbarous sport is exceedingly ancient. We find it mentioned by

Aristophanes in his comedy of The Clouds.[1127] It is called in the

Greek melolonthe, Μηλολονθη, rendered in the Latin scarabæus, which

seems to have been the name of the insect. But the Grecian boys were

less cruel in the operation than those of modern times, for they bound

the thread about the legs of the beetle, instead of thrusting a pin

through its tail. We are also told that the former frequently amused

themselves in the same manner with little birds, substituted for the

beetles.[1128]

The Kite is a paper machine well known in the present day, which the

boys fly into the air and retain by means of a long string. It probably

received its denomination from having originally been made in the shape

of the bird called a kite; in a short French and English Dictionary

published by Miege, A.D. 1690, the words cerf volant, are said among

other significations to denote a paper kite, and this is the first time

I have found it mentioned. Now, the paper kites are not restricted to

any particular form; they appear in a great diversity of figures, and

not unfrequently in the similitude of men and boys. I have been told,

that in China the flying of paper kites is a very ancient pastime,

and practised much more generally by the children there than it is in

England. From that country perhaps it was brought to us, but the time

of its introduction is unknown to me; however, I do not find any reason

to conclude that it existed here much more than a century, back.

[Illustration: 117. THE PAPER WINDMILL.]

This is from a painting nearly five hundred years old; though differs

very little in its form from those used by the children at present.

X.--BOB-CHERRY.

This is "a play among children," says Johnson, "in which the cherry is

hung so as to bob against the mouth," or rather so high as to oblige

them to jump in order to catch it in their mouth, for which reason the

candidate is often unsuccessful. Hence the point in the passage which

Johnson quotes from Arbuthnot. "Bob-cherry teaches at once two noble

virtues, patience and constancy; the first in adhering to the pursuit

of one end, the latter in bearing a disappointment."

[Illustration: 118. BOB-CHERRY.]

In this engraving, taken from a MS. of the fourteenth century, in the

Royal Library,[1129] we see a sport of this kind where four persons

are playing, but the object they are aiming at is much larger than

a cherry, and was probably intended to represent an apple or an

orange. "It was customary," we are told by Mr. Brand, "on the eve of

All-Hallows, for the young people in the north to dive for apples, or

catch at them when stuck at one end of a kind of hanging beam, at the

other extremity of which is fixed a lighted candle, and that with their

mouths, only having their hands tied behind their back."[1130]

[Illustration: 119. DIVING FOR APPLES.]

A pastime something resembling that of diving for the apples, I

take it, is represented by the foregoing engraving from a MS. in the

Bodleian Library,[1131] and the business of the boy upon the form, with

his head over the vessel of water, is to catch some object contained

therein, or to avoid being ducked when the other end of the form is

elevated by his companion.

XI.--HOODMAN BLIND--HOT COCKLES.

_Hoodman Blind_, more commonly called Blind Man's Buff, is where a

player is blinded and buffeted by his comrades until he can catch

one of them, which done, the person caught is blinded in his stead.

This pastime was known to the Grecian youth, and called by them myia

chalki, Μυια χαλκι.[1132] It is called Hoodman's Blind because the

players formerly were blinded with their hoods. In the Two angry Women

of Abington, a comedy, this pastime is called the Christmas-sport of

Hobman-Blind.

The manner in which Hoodman Blind was anciently performed with us

appears from these three different representations, all of them from

the Bodleian MS. before mentioned.

[Illustration: 120.]

[Illustration: 121.]

[Illustration: 122. HOODMAN BLIND.--XIV. CENTURY.]

The players who are blinded have their hoods reversed upon their heads

for that purpose, and the hoods of their companions are separately

bound in a knot to buffet them.

_Hot Cockles_, from the French hautes-coquilles, is a play in which

one kneels, and covering his eyes lays his head in another's lap and

guesses who struck him. Gay describes this pastime in the following

lines:

As at Hot Cockles once I laid me down,

And felt the weighty hand of many a clown,

Buxoma gave a gentle tap, and I

Quick rose, and read soft mischief in her eye.

"The Chytrinda, Χυτρινδα, of the Grecians," says Arbuthnot, "is

certainly not our hot cockles, for that was by pinching, not by

striking;" but the description of the chytrinda, as it is given by

an ancient writer, bears little or no resemblance to the game of hot

cockles, but is similar to another equally well known with us, and

called frog in the middle. The chytrinda took place in this manner:--A

single player, called χοτρα, kotra, and with us the frog, being seated

upon the ground, was surrounded by his comrades who pulled or buffeted

him until he could catch one of them; which done, the person caught

took his place, and was buffeted in like manner.[1133] I scarcely need

to add, that the frog in the middle, as it is played in the present

day, does not admit of any material variation. There was another method

of playing this game, according to the same author; but it bears no

reference to either of those above described. The following engravings

represent both the pastimes above mentioned, taken from the Bodleian

manuscript of 1344 last referred to.

[Illustration: 123. HOT-COCKLES.]

[Illustration: 124. FROG IN THE MIDDLE.]

XII.--COCK-FIGHTING.

I have already spoken at large upon cock-fighting, and throwing at

cocks. I shall only observe that the latter, especially, was a very

common pastime among the boys of this country till within these few

years; and in the following engraving we have the copy of a curious

delineation, which I take to represent a boyish triumph.

[Illustration: 125. COCK-THROWING TRIUMPH.]

The hero supposed to have won the cock, or whose cock escaped unhurt

from the danger to which he had been exposed, is carried upon a long

pole by two of his companions; he holds the bird in his hands, and

is followed by a third comrade, who bears a flag emblazoned with a

cudgel, the dreadful instrument used upon these occasions. The original

painting occurs in the manuscript mentioned in the preceding article.

XIII.--ANONYMOUS PASTIMES--MOCK HONOURS AT BOARDING SCHOOLS.

The two next engravings are representations of a pastime, the name of

which is unknown to me; but the purpose of it is readily discovered.

[Illustration: 126.]

In this, which is from the just cited Bodleian MS., we see a young

man seated upon a round pole which may readily turn either way, and

immediately beneath him is a vessel nearly filled with water; he holds

a taper in each hand, and one of them is lighted, and his business,

I presume, is to bring them both together and light the other, being

careful at the same time not to lose his balance, for that done, he

must inevitably fall into the water.

In the following, from a beautiful book of prayers in the possession

of Francis Douce, esq., the task assigned to the youth is still more

difficult, as well from the manner in which he is seated, as from the

nature of the performance, which here he has completed: that is, to

reach forward and light the taper held in his hands from that which is

affixed to the end of the pole, and at a distance from him.

[Illustration: 127.]

The originals of both these engravings were made in the fourteenth

century.

The subjoined engraving, also from a drawing in Mr. Douce's book of

prayers, represents two boys seated upon a form by the side of a

water-tub; both of them with their hands fixed below their knees, and

one bending backwards in the same position, intending, I presume, to

touch the water without immerging his head, or falling into it, and

afterwards to recover his position.

[Illustration: 128.]

This trick being done by the one was probably imitated by the other;

I speak however from conjecture only. If it be necessary for him who

stoops to take any thing out of the water, the pastime will bear some

analogy to the diving for apples represented by the engraving No. 119,

on a preceding page.[1134]

In some great Boarding Schools for the fair sex, it is customary, upon

the introduction of a novice, for the scholars to receive her with

much pretended solemnity, and decorate a throne in which she is to be

installed, in order to hear a set speech, addressed to her by one of

the young ladies in the name of the rest. The throne is wide enough for

three persons to sit conveniently, and is made with two stools, having

a tub nearly filled with water between them, and the whole is covered

by a counterpane or blanket, ornamented with ribands and other trifling

fineries, and drawn very tightly over the two stools, upon each of

which a lady is seated to keep the blanket from giving way when the new

scholar takes her place; and these are called her maids of honour. The

speech consists of high-flown compliments calculated to flatter the

vanity of the stranger; and as soon as it is concluded, the maids of

honour rising suddenly together, the counterpane of course gives way,

and poor miss is unexpectedly immerged in the water.

XIV.--HOUSES OF CARDS--QUESTIONS AND

COMMANDS--HANDY-DANDY--SNAP-DRAGON--PUSH-PIN--CRAMBO--LOTTERIES.

_Building_ of houses _with cards_, and such like materials, is a very

common amusement with children, as well as drawing little waggons,

carts, and coaches; and sometimes boys will harness dogs and other

animals, and put them to their waggons in imitation of horses.

Something of this kind is alluded to by Horace, who writes thus in one

of his satires:[1135]

Ædificare cassus, plostello adjungere mures.

To build little houses, and join mice to the diminutive waggons.

_Questions and Commands_, a childish pastime, which though somewhat

different in the modern modification, most probably derived its origin

from the basilinda, Βασιλινδα,[1136] of the Greeks, in which we are

told a king, elected by lot, commanded his comrades what they should

perform.

_Handy-dandy_, "a play," says Johnson, "in which children change

hands and places;" this seems clear enough according to the following

quotation from Shakspeare: "See how yond justice rails upon yond simple

thief! hark in thine ear; change places; and handy-dandy which is

the justice and which is the thief;" to which is added another from

Arbuthnot, "neither cross and pile, nor ducks and drakes, are quite so

ancient as handy-dandy."

_Snap-dragon._ This sport is seldom exhibited but in winter, and

chiefly at Christmas-time; it is simply heating of brandy or some

other ardent spirit in a dish with raisins; when the brandy being set

on fire, the young folks of both sexes standing round it pluck out

the raisins, and eat them as hastily as they can, but rarely without

burning their hands, or scalding their mouths.

_Push-pin_ is a very silly sport, being nothing more than simply

pushing one pin across another.

_Crambo_ is a diversion wherein one gives a word, to which another

finds a rhyme; this, with other trifling amusements, is mentioned in a

paper belonging to the Spectator.[1137] "A little superior to these,"

that is, to persons engaged in cross-purposes, questions, and commands,

"are those who can play at crambo, or cap-verses." In this we trace

some vestige of a more ancient pastime, much in vogue in the fourteenth

and fifteenth centuries, called the A B C of Aristotle; which is

strongly recommended by the author, one "Mayster Bennet," not only to

children, but also to persons of man's estate, if ignorant of letters.

The proem to this curious alliterative alphabet is to the following

effect:

"Whoever will be wise and command respect let him learn his letters,

and look upon the A B C of Aristotle, against which no argument will

hold good: It is proper to be known by clerks and knights, and may

serve to amend a mean man, for often the learning of letters may save

his life. No good man will take offence at the amendment of evil,

therefore let every one read this arrangement and govern himself

thereby.

Hearkyn and heare every man and child how that I begynne.

A to amerous, to adventurous; ne anger the too much.

B to bold, to busy, and board thou not too brode.

C to curtes, to cruel, and care not too sore.

D to dull, to dreadfull, and drynk thou not too oft.

E to ellynge, to excellent; ne to ernestfull neyther.

F to fierce, ne too familier but frendely of chere.

G to glad, to gloryous, and gealosy thou shalt hate.

H to hasty, to hardy, ne too hevy yn thyne herte.

I to jettyng, to jangling, and jape not too oft.

K to keeping, to kynd, and ware knaves taches among.

L to lothe, to lovyng, to lyberall of goods.

M to medlurs, to merry but as manner asketh.

N to noyous, to nyce, ne nought to newe fangle.

O to orpyd, to oveyrthwarte, and othes do thee hate.

P to preysyng, to prevy, ne peerless with prynces.

Q to queynt, to querelous, but quyene wele thee may.

R to ryetous, to revelyng, ne rage not too moche.

S to strange, ne to stervyng, nor stare not too brode.

T to taylours, ne tayle wyse, for temperance yt hatyth.

V to venemous, to violent, and waste not too mych.

W to wyld, ne wrathful, and ne too wyse deeme thee.

For fear of a fall.

A measurable meane way is best for us all. Explicit."

There are two copies of this alphabet among the Harleian manuscripts,

one marked 1706, written in the fourteenth century, and another marked

541; whence the above is chiefly taken. At the end of the former we

read "XY wyth ESED AND per se--Amen."

_Lotteries_, in which toys and other trifling prizes were included to

be drawn for by children, were in fashion formerly, but by degrees, and

especially since the establishment of the State Lottery, they have been

magnified into a dangerous species of gambling, and are very properly

suppressed by the legislature. They were in imitation of the State

Lotteries, with prizes of money proportionable to the value of the

tickets, and drawn in like manner. These lotteries are called little

goes.

XV.--OBSOLETE PASTIMES.

I have here attempted to give some account of the principal sports

practised by the children of this country. I am fully sensible that

the list will admit of very many additions, and also that the pastimes

which are included in it have been subject to numberless variations. I

have, however, set down all that I can recollect, and described them

according to the manner in which I have seen the larger part of them

performed. It only remains for me to enumerate a few more, which indeed

are not well known to me, but may be elucidated hereafter by some more

able writer.

[Illustration: 129.]

This engraving represents a kind of a mock procession, where one of

the company, equipped in a royal habit with a crown upon his head, is

walking with his mantle displayed by two attendants, and preceded by a

zany beating a tambourin with knotted thong. I presume it to be the

installation of the King of the Bean, who has already been introduced

to the reader.

Below it are two figures, one of them blinded with his hood, having a

club upon his shoulder, and approaching towards an iron cauldron, in

order no doubt to strike it with his club.

[Illustration: 130.]

This may probably refer to the amusement at wakes and fairs, where

various tasks for pastime sake are frequently assigned to blindfolded

persons, as the Wheelbarrow Race, described on a preceding page.[1138]

The drawings from whence the two last engravings are derived, are in

the Bodleian MS. of 1344 already mentioned.

The sport in the next representation is quite unknown to me, unless

it may be thought to bear some resemblance to the Greek game called

apodidraskinda, Αποδιδρασκινδα,[1139] where one being seated in the

midst of his comrades, closed his eyes, or was blinded by the hand of

another, while the rest concealed themselves, and he who was found

by him after he was permitted to rise, took his place; this was

evidently a species of the pastime called hide and seek. The original

of this engraving is in a MS. of the thirteenth century, in the Royal

Library.[1140]

[Illustration: 131.]

I am equally at a loss respecting the two next representations.

[Illustration: 132.]

[Illustration: 133.]

Those that are standing, and those that are seated below them, are

evidently engaged in a similar kind of pastime. The only game within

the compass of my knowledge that bears any resemblance to it, I have

seen played by two persons one of them alternately holds up the fingers

of his right hand, varying the number at his pleasure, and the other is

obliged to answer promptly by exposing a like number of his fingers,

which is called by both, and the least variation on either side loses.

In these delineations there are three players, and he in the middle

seems to be alternately answering to the other two. They are in the

Bodleian MS. of 1344.

Mr. Douce's Book of Prayers of the fourteenth century contains the

following representation.

[Illustration: 134.]

Here we see a rope apparently made fast at both ends, and a man laying

hold of it with his teeth, by which he seems to support himself.

If this be the meaning of the delineator, the trick may properly

be classed with those that were exhibited by the minstrels and the

joculators.

[Illustration: 135.]

[Illustration: 136.]

With respect to the two preceding drawings from the frequently

mentioned MS. of 1344, in the Bodleian Library, I can hardly venture

a conjecture; unless we may suppose them to represent two of the

ridiculous ceremonies belonging to the Festival of Fools. I suspect the

monks with the nuns in No. 135, are lay people who have assumed the

religious habits, for the former have not the tonsure, but their hair

is powdered with blue.

XVI.--CREAG--QUEKE-BOARD--HAND IN AND HAND OUT--WHITE AND BLACK,

AND MAKING AND MARRING--FIGGUM--MOSEL THE PEG--HOLE ABOUT THE

CHURCHYARD--PENNY-PRICK, PICK-POINT, &c.--MOTTOES, SIMILES, AND

CROSS-PURPOSES--THE PARSON HAS LOST HIS CLOAK.

_Creag_ is a game mentioned in a computus dated the twenty-eighth of

Edward I., A. D. 1300, and said to have been played by his son prince

Edward.

_Queke Borde_, with _Hand yn and Hand oute_, are spoken of as new

games, and forbidden by a statute made in the seventeenth year of

Edward IV.

_White and Black_, and also _Making and Marring_ are prohibited by a

public act established in the second and third years of Philip and Mary.

_Figgum_ is said to be a juggler's game in the comedy of Bartholomew

Fayre by Ben Jonson, acted in 1614; to which is added, "the devil is

the author of wicked Figgum." In the same play mention is made of

crambe (probably crambo), said to be "another of the devil's games."

_Mosel the Pegge_, and playing for the hole about the church yard, are

spoken of as boys' games, in a comedy called The longer thou livest the

more Fool thou art, written in the reign of queen Elizabeth.

_Penny-pricke_ appears to have been a common game in the fifteenth

century, and is reproved by a religious writer of that period.[1141]

_Pick-point_, _Venter-point_, _Blow-point_,[1142] and _Gregory_, occur

in a description of the children's games in the sixteenth century.

Blow-point was probably blowing an arrow through a trunk at certain

numbers by way of lottery. To these may be added another pastime,

called _Drawing Dun out of the Mire_. Chaucer probably alludes to this

pastime in the Manciple's Prologue, where the host seeing the cook

asleep, exclaims, "Syr, what dunne is in the mire."

_Mottoes_, _Similes_, and _Cross Purposes_, are placed among the

childrens' games in a paper belonging to the Spectator.[1143] And the

_Parson has lost his cloak_, in another, where a supposed correspondent

writes thus: "I desire to know if the merry game of the parson has

lost his cloak is not much in vogue amongst the ladies this Christmas,

because I see they wear hoods of all colours, which I suppose is for

that purpose."[1144]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Pontoppidan's History of Norway, p. 248.

[2] On p. 173.

[3] The famous Dunstan was also an excellent blacksmith.

[4] Oläi. Worm. Lit. Run. p. 129; Bartholin. p. 420.

[5] Asser. in Vit. Ælfredi.

[6] De Moribus Germ.

[7] Hist. Ramsien. apud Gale, vol. i. an. 85.

[8] A. D. 960, can. 64, Johnson's Canons.

[9] See p. 6 in the body of the work.

[10] No. 2253, fol. 108.

[11] In the original it is purry poume, that is rotten apple.

[12] The cross-bow.

[13] That is, to practise with lances, two persons running one against

the other.

[14] Armour.

[15] See p. 126 of this work.

[16] Hunting.

[17] In the first chapter, p. 17, the reader will find the animals to

be hunted divided into three classes; namely, beasts of venery, beasts

of chase, and raskals, or vermin. The horn was sounded in a different

manner according to the class of the beasts pursued.

[18] Morte Arthur, translated from the French by sir Thomas Mallory,

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.

[19] To learn.

[20] Written also paume; that is, hand-tennice.

[21] Romance of Three Kings' Sons and the King of Sicily, Harl. MS. 326.

[22] Mem. Anc. Cheval. tom. i. p. 16.

[23] Harl. MS. 2252.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Printed by Copeland; black letter, without date; Garrick's

Collection, K. vol. ix.

[26] That is, all of the lords and other nobility who were seated in

the hall.

[27] For vierge escu, 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.

[28] A sword without edge or point, as it is explained in the following

articles.

[29] That is, with heads without points, or blunted so that, they could

do no hurt.

[30] Foyne, or foin, signifies to push or thrust with the sword,

instead of striking.

[31] Harl. MS. 69.

[32] Hall, in Life of Henry VIII.

[33] Arte of Rhetorike by Tho. Wilson, fol. 67.

[34] Fynes Moryson's Itinerary, published A. D. 1617.

[35] Coursing, I presume, he means.

[36] I here omit a long train of royal reasoning in confutation of the

assertions of the learned men his majesty alludes to in this passage.

[37] Biograph. Brit. p. 1236.

[38] No. 17, D. iii.

[39] Crowd is an ancient name for the violin.

[40] See the first and second chapters in the body of the work.

[41] The words of Fitz Stephen are, "Puellarum cithara ducit choros, et

pede libero pulsatur tellus, usque imminente lunâ." The word cithara,

Stow renders, but I think not justly, timbrels.

[42] Vol. i. p. 257.

[43] Athen. Oxon. ii. col. 812; and see Granger's Biographical History,

vol. ii. p. 398 8vo.

[44] In his Proverbs, part I, chap. 11

[45] Scuta ex argento facta.

[46] Bede, Eccl. Hist. lib. ii. cap. 16.

[47] Dr. Henry's Hist. vol. ii. lib. v. cap. 7.

[48] See the Northumberland Family-Book.

[49] Johan. Sarisburiensis, lib. i. c. 8. p. 34.

[50] Smale harpers with ther glees.

[51] Cornmuse and Shalmes--many a floyte and lytlyngehorne.

[52] Pypes made of grene corne are also mentioned in the Romance of the

Rose.

[53] These are the author's own words.

[54] In the chapters on Minstrels, Jugglers, &c. pp. 170, 197. The

plays and pageants exhibited at court are described in the chapter

treating on Theatrical Amusements, p. 150.

[55] [Before 1801.]

[56] Garrick's Collection of Old Plays, H. vol. iii.

[57] No. 2220, fol. 7

[58] Or waits, the band of city minstrels.

[59] See further on, p. xlvi.

[60] These passages do not prove that the historian was disgusted with

the pageantry, abstractedly considered, but rather with the occasion

of its exhibition; for, he speaks of the same kind of spectacles, with

commendation, both anterior and subsequent to the present show, which

do not appear to have had the least claim for superiority in point of

reason or consistency.

[61] Armour.

[62] "The Word of God;" meaning the Bible published in English by his

authority, which was prohibited in the sanguinary reign of his fanatic

daughter.

[63] Holinshed, vol. iii. pp. 1091, 1120, &c.

[64] Called below a flower-de-luce, an animal I am not in the least

acquainted with.

[65] No. 1968.

[66] Harl. MS. 2125.

[67] Garrick's Collection of Old Plays.

[68] Cotton MS. Titus, B. i.

[69] See the account of the court ludi in the chapter on Theatrical

Exhibitions.

[70] 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.

[71] This account is chiefly taken from a small pamphlet called

Princely Pleasure at Kenelworth Castle. Progresses, vol. i.

[72] Harl. MS. 6395, entitled Merry Passages and Jests, art. 221.

[73] Tempest, act ii, scene iv.

[74] 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.

[75] Spectator, vol. i. No. 14.

[76] Spectator, vol. i. No 31, dated Thursday, April 5, 1711.

[77] A man famous at that time for imitating a variety of musical

instruments with his voice, and, among others, the bells. See his bill

of performance, at p. 255.

[78] All these pastimes the reader will find particularised, under

their proper heads, in the body of the work.

[79] "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," &c. Fynes Moryson's Itinerary, in 1617, part iii. book i. cap. 3.

[80] The reader will find this subject particularly treated on, in the

chapter that relates to minstrels and music, in the body of the work.

[81] Hentzner's Itinerary, published by lord Orford, at

Strawberry-hill, pp. 88, 89.

[82] Hist. Angl. lib. xiii.

[83] De Rerum Invent, lib. v. cap. 2.

[84] Tatler, No. 134, dated Thursday, Feb. 16, 1709.

[85] See a pamphlet written by John Northbrooke. published in the reign

of queen Elizabeth, without date.

[86] School of Abuse, published 1579.

[87] Gosson, I hope, was acquainted with the vulgar part of the

audience only, or, which is more probable, spoke from report, and that

exaggerated.

[88] Admonition to Parliament, by Tho. Cartwright, published A. D. 1572.

[89] Still, for stay. The Pope's Kingdom, book iv. translated from the

Latin of Tho. Neogeorgus, by Barnabe Googe, and dedicated to queen

Elizabeth, A. D. 1570.

[90] John Field, in his Declaration of God's Judgment at Paris Garden,

published A. D. 1503, fol. 9.

[91] Field, ut supra. See also D. Beard's Theatre of God's Judgments.

[92] Entitled, A Treatise concerning the Sabbath, published A. D. 1636.

[93] Page 25.

[94] The Pope's Kingdom, from Neogeorgus by Googe.

[95] Thomas Hall, B. D. Pastor of King's Norton, in his pamphlet

entitled Funebria Floræ; or, the Down-fall of May-Games; published 1660.

[96] See p. xx.

[97] Benedict. Abbas, Vit. Ric. I. edit, à Hearne, tom. ii. p. 610.

[98] The words in the original, as quoted by Du Cange, are these: "Nec

ludant ad aleas vel taxillos, nec sustineant ludos fieri de rege et

regina," &c. The game of king and queen he conceives to have been some

game with the cards; but most authors who have written upon the subject

of playing cards, think that they were not known at that period, at

least in this country: it is certain, however, that in the time of

Elizabeth, the game of king and queen was understood to mean the

playing with cards. "John Heywood, the great epigrammatist," according

to Camden, "used to say he did not love to play at kinge and queene,

but at Christmasse, according to the old order of Englande; that few

men plaiyed at cardes but at Christmasse; and then almost all, men and

boyes." Camden's Remains, p. 378. I have ventured to substitute chess

for cards, in which game the two principal pieces are the king and the

queen, and are so denominated in a MS. nearly coeval with the edict.

See the account of this game in the body of the work.

[99] An. 11 Hen. VII. cap. 2.

[100] 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 eightpence for every

offence.

[101] Survey of London, p. 79.

[102] Pilam manualem, pedinam, et bacculoream, et ad cambucam, &c.

[103] Rot. Claus. 39 Ed. III. m. 23.

[104] The magistrates are commanded to seize upon the said tables,

dice, cards, boules, closhes, tennice-balls, &c. and to burn them.

[105] An. 17 Edw. II. cap. 3.

[106] Nul enfaunt ne autres jeur a barres, ne a autres jues nient

convenebles come a oustre chaperon des gentz, ne a mettre en eux, &c.

Rot. Pari. an. 6 Edw. III. Harl. MS. 7058.

[107] [Before 1801.]

[108] Survey of London, p. 85.

[109] It was afterwards converted into small cottages, which were let,

at large rents, to strangers and others, Ibid. p. 158.

[110] Stephen Gosson, in The School of Abuse, 1579.

[111] That is, cards and dice; an old anonymous poem "of Covetice,"

cited by Warton, History of Poetry, vol. ii. p. 316.

[112] 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, &c.

[113] See p. xxxv.

[114] Harl. MS. 2252.

[115] Confessio Amantis.

[116] Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 311.

[117] Part ii. sect 2. cap. 4.

[118] No. 57, A. D. 1711.

[119] Vespasian, B. xii. There are also three copies of this MS. but

more modern, in the Royal Library. [See sec. xiii. of the present

chapter.]

[120] Dio Nicæus ex Xiphilin.

[121] Lib. iv.

[122] Cæsar Bel. Gal. lib. vi.

[123] Cæsar Bel. Gal. lib. vi.

[124] Asser. in Vit. Ælfredi.

[125] Will. Malmsbury. Hist. Reg. Anglorum, lib. ii. cap. 6.

[126] Ibid. cap. 8.

[127] Ibid. ut sup. cap. 13.

[128] Ibid.

[129] Montfaucon Monarch. Fran. and Ducarel's Anglo-Norman Antiquities.

[130] Tiberius, B. v.

[131] No. 2, B. vii.

[132] Will. Malmsbury, lib. iv.

[133] Johan. Sarisburiensis de Nugis Curialium, lib. i. cap. 4.

[134] Blount's Ancient Tenures, p. 135.

[135] "Fort chiens et chiens de levries," Froissart. Chron. vol. i.

cap. 210.

[136] Froissart, vol. iv.

[137] Wellwood's Memoirs, p. 35.

[138] Harl. MS. No. 6395, anonymous, entitled "Merry Passages and

Jeasts."

[139] Sir Thomas More's Poems. See also Warton's History of English

Poetry, 4to vol. iii. p. 101.

[140] Constitut. Cnut. Reg. de Forest, apud Spelm. Gloss, et Wilkins,

Leg. Sax. p. 146.

[141] Leges Cnuti, apud Lambard, cap. 77.

[142] Ibid. cap. 15.

[143] Carta de Foresta, cap. 11.

[144] Faciat cornare, ibid. cap. 17.

[145] Spelman's Answer to the Apology for Archbishop Abbot.

[146] Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. Numerous quotations might be made

from other writers in addition to those above; but they are sufficient

for my purpose.

[147] Stat. 13 Rich. II.

[148] An. 21 Hen. II. A. D. 1157. See Spelman's Answer to the Apology

for Archbishop Abbot.

[149] P. Blensens. epist. lvi. p. 81

[150] Knyghton, apud Decem Script, p. 263.

[151] Stephanid. vit. S. Thom.

[152] Vide Spelman ut supra.

[153] Claudius. A. 2.

[154] Garrick's Collection of Old Plays, K. vol. ix.

[155] The following extracts prove king John to have been exceedingly

partial to this kind of dogs. Rot. Pip. iv. Reg. Johan. A. D. 1203.

Rog. constab. Cestriæ debet D marcas et X palfridos et X laissas

Leporariorum, &c. that is, five hundred marks, ten horses, and ten

leashes of greyhounds.--An. xi. Johan. 1210. Rog. de Mallvell redd.

comp, de 1 palfrido velociter currente et 2 laissiüs Leporariorum, one

swift running horse, and six greyhounds.

[156] Garrick's Collec. K. vol. x.

[157] 2. B. vii. [In the original drawing, and on Mr. Strutt's plate,

the figures pursuing and pursued are in a line together: but for the

purpose of including all the figures within the preceding page, the

lady on horseback is placed above, instead of behind the female archer.]

[158] MS. Harl. 6395. Merry Passages and Jeasts, art. 345.

[159] Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney, dated September 12, A.D. 1600.

[160] Nichols's Progresses, vol. ii.

[161] No. 4431.

[162] Maitland's Hist. London, book i. chap. 6.

[163] Stephanides Descript. London.

[164] Stow's Survey of London, vol. i. p. 157.

[165] "Pills to Purge Melancholy," 1719, vol. iv. p. 42.

[166] Blount's Ancient Tenures.

[167] Or "vautrarius," which Blount derives from the French vaultre, a

mongrel hound, and supposes the name to signify an inferior huntsman;

and this opinion I have adopted.

[168] E c. An. 34 Edward I. No. 37. Richard Rockesley held the same

land by the same tenure, in the second year of Edward II. Blount ut

supra.

[169] Entitled "Art de Venerie le quel Maistre Guillame Twici venour le

Roy dangleterre fist en son temps por aprandre Autres; or the Art of

Hunting, which Mr. Wm. Twici, huntsman to the king of England, made for

the instruction of others." See Warton's Hist. Eng. Poetry, vol. ii. p.

221.

[170] Cotton MS. Vespasian, B. xii.

[171] MS. Harl. This book is entitled "The Maister of the Game."

[172] The Book of St. Albans, I fancy, by mistake, places the wild roe

for the wild boar.

[173] The Book of St. Albans adds, that all other kinds of beasts

subject to hunting are to be called "Raskall," derived, I suppose, from

the Saxon word papcal, which signifies a lean beast, or one of no worth.

[174] The word in the original MS. is written fute and fuite, which

I conceive to be French, and then the interpretation I have given of

flight will be proper. The meaning is, that the latter leave a scent

behind them when they are chased.

[175] Hist. Reg. Angl. lib. ii. cap.8.

[176] Testa Nevelli.

[177] Memb. 13.

[178] Ibid. See more in Blount's Ancient Tenures.

[179] "Booke of hauking and hunting," without date, reprinted with the

title of "A Jewell for Gentrie." Lond. 1614.

[180] See Blount's Antient Tenures, art. Sutton, &c.

[181] Page 17, sec. xiii.

[182] They are called "trists" or "trestes" in the MS. and might

possibly be temporary stages.

[183] The passage runs thus in the MS. "the fewtrerers ought to make

fayre logges of grene boughes at their trestes," &c.

[184] Chastised greyhoundes, MS.

[185] See Blount's Ancient Tenures.

[186] See the Encyclopedia Britannica, art. Hunting.

[187] See p. 4. sec. v.

[188] See p. 11. sec. x.

[189] Memoirs des Inscrip. tom. ix. p. 542.

[190] See the Regal and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of England.

[191] And printed by Pynson A. D. 1508.

[192] Lib. v. cap. 8.

[193] Pliny Nat. Hist. lib. x. cap. 8.

[194] Peacham's Complete Gentleman, p. 183.

[195] Epist. Winifred. See Warton's Hist. Eng. Poet. vol. ii. p. 221.

[196] See p. 3. sec. iii.

[197] This charter was granted A. D. 821. Dugdale's Monasticon, vol. i.

p. 100.

[198] See the whole of the curious will in Lambarde's Perambulation of

Kent, p. 540.

[199] See p. 4. sec. v.

[200] Lidgate presented this poem to king Henry VI. when that monarch

held his court at Bury. The presentation MS. is yet extant in the

Harleian Library, No. 2278.

[201] Walton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 221.

[202] Aira Accipitris.

[203] Trente fauconniers à cheval, chargez d'oiseaux. Froissart's

Chron. vol. i. cap. 210.

[204] Ou en riviere. Ibid.

[205] Tous jours en riviere. Ibid. cap. 140.

[206] Garrick's Collect. of old Plays, K. vol. x.

[207] Canterbury Tales.

[208] Bury St. Edmund's, in Suffolk.

[209] That is, to the windward; I use the author's own words.

[210] MS. Harl. 6395. Merry Passages and Jeasts, art. 223.

[211] Tiberius, C. vi.

[212] Julius. A. vi.

[213] Marked 2 B. vii.

[214] [The fowls before the falconer in the original drawing are placed

below in the present engraving, to accommodate it to the page.]

[215] Johan. Sarisburiensis, lib. i. cap. 4.

[216] See p. 4. sec. v.

[217] Hall in the life of Henry VIII. sub an. xvi.

[218] These observations are taken from "The Boke of Saint Albans;" a

subsequent edition says, "at least a note under."

[219] "A Woman killed with Kindness," third edition, 1617. Garrick's

Coll. E. vol. iv.

[220] MS. Harl. 1419.