XIV. PRINCELY EXERCISES UNDER JAMES 1. We are by no means in the dark respecting the education of the nobility in the reign of James I.; we have, from that mouarch's own hand, a set of rules for the nurture and conduct of an heir apparent to the throne, addressed to his eldest son Henry, prince of Wales. From the third book of this remarkable publication, entitled “BAZIAIKON AQPON, or, a Kinge's Chistian Dutie towards God," I shall select such parts as respect the recreations said to be proper for the pursuit of a nobleman, without presuming to make any alteration in the diction of the royal author. "Certainly," he says, "bodily exercises and games are very commendable, as well for bannishing of idleness, the mother of all vice; as for making the body able and durable for travell, which is very necessarie for a king. But from this court I debarre all rough and violent exercises; as the foote-ball, meeter for lameing, than making able, the users thereof; as likewise such tumbling trickes as only serve for comedians and balladines to win their bread with: but the exercises that I would have vou to use, although but moderately, not making a craft of them, are, running, leaping, wrestling, fencing, dancing, and playing at the caitch, or tennise, archerie, palle-malle, and such like other fair and pleasant field-games. And the honourablest and most recommendable games that yee can use on horseback; for, it becometh a prince best of any man to be a faire and good horseman use, therefore, to ride and danton great and courageous horses;—and especially use such games on horseback as may teach you to handle your armes thereon, such as the tilt, the ring, and low-riding for handling of your sword. "I cannot omit heere the hunting, namely, with running houndes, which is the most honourable and noblest sort thereof; for it is a theivish forme of hunting to shoote with gunnes and bowes; and greyhound hunting is not so martial a game. "As for hawkinge, I condemn it not; but I must praise it more sparingly, because it neither resembleth the warres so neere as hunting doeth in making a man hardie and skilfully ridden in all grounds, and is more uncertain and subjec. to mischances; 1 Coursing, I presume, bo means and, which is worst of all, is there through an extreme stirrer up of the passions. "As for sitting, or house pastimes-since they may at times supply the roome which, being emptie, would be patent to pernicious idleness-I will not therefore agree with the curiositie of some learned men of our age in forbidding cardes, dice, and such like games of hazard: when it is foule and stormie weather, then I say, may ye lawfully play at the cardes or tables; for, as to diceing, I think it becommeth best deboshed souldiers to play at on the heads of their drums, being only ruled by hazard, and subject to knavish cogging; and as for the chesse, I think it over-fond, because it is over-wise and philosophicke a folly." His majesty concludes this subject with the following good advice to his son: "Beware in making your sporters your councellors, and delight not to keepe ordinarily in your companie comœdians or balladines." XV.-REVIVAL OF LEARNING. The discontinuation of bodily exercises afforded a proportionable quantity of leisure time for the cultivation of the mind; so that the manners of mankind were softened by degrees, and learning, which had been so long neglected, became fashionable, and was esteemed an indispensable mark of a polite education. Yet some of the nobility maintained for a long time the old prejudices in favour of the ancient mode of nurture, and preferred exercise of the body to mental endowments; such was the opinion of a person of high rank, who said to Richard Pace, secretary to king Henry VIII., "It is enough for the sons of noblemen to wind their horn and carry their hawke fair, and leave study and learning to the children of meaner people."2 Many of the pastimes that had been countenanced by the nobility, and sanctioned by their example, in the middle ages, grew into disrepute in modern times, and were condemned as vulgar and ́ unbecoming the notice of a gentleman. "Throwing the hammer and wrestling," says Peacham, in his Complete Gentleman, '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. Biograph. Brit. p. 1230. published in 1622, "I hold them exercises not so well beseeming nobility, but rather the soldiers in the camp and the prince's guard." On the contrary, sir William Forest, in his Poesye of Princelye Practice, a MS. in the Royal Library,' written in the year 1548, laying down the rules for the education of an heir apparent to the crown, or prince of the blood royal, writes thus: So must a prince, at some convenient brayde, However, I doubt not both these authors spoke agreeably to the taste of the times in which they lived. Barclay, a more early poetic writer, in his Eclogues, first published in 1508, has made a shepherd boast of his skill in archery; to which be adds, I can dance the raye; I can both pipe and sing, If I were mery; I can both hurle and sling; XVI.--RECREATIONS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, published in 1660, gives us a general view of the sports most prevalent in the seventeenth century. "Cards, dice, hawkes, and hounds," says he, "are rocks upon which men lose themselves, when they are imprudently handled, and beyond their fortunes." And again," Hunting and hawking are honest recreations, and fit for some great men, but not for every base inferior person, who, while they maintain their faulkoner, and dogs, and hunting nags, their wealth runs away with their hounds, and their fortunes fly away with their hawks." In another place he speaks thus: "Ringing, bowling, shooting, playing with keel-pins, tronks, coits, pitching of bars, hurling, wrestling, leaping, running, fencing, mustering, swimming, playing with wasters, foils, foot-balls, balowns, running at the quintain, and the like, are common recreations of country folks: riding No. 17, D. ILL. of great horses, running at rings, tilts and tournaments, horseraces, and wild-goose chases, which are disports of greater men, and good in themselves, though many gentlemen by such means gallop quite out of their fortunes." Speaking of the Londoners, he says, "They take pleasure to see some pageant or sight go by, as at a coronation, wedding, and such like solemn niceties; to see an ambassador or a prince received and entertained with masks, shows, and fireworks. The country hath also his recreations, as May-games, feasts, fairs, and wakes." The following pastimes he considers as common both in town and country, namely, "bull-baitings and bear-baitings, in which our countrymen and citizens greatly delight, and frequently use; dancers on ropes, jugglers, comedies, tragedies, artillery gardens, and cock-fighting." He then goes on: “Ordinary recreations we have in winter, as cards, tables, dice, shovelboard, chess-play, the philosopher's game, small trunks, shuttlecock, billiards, music, masks, singing, dancing, ulegames, frolicks, jests, riddles, catches, cross purposes, questions and commands, merry tales of errant knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves, cheaters, witches, fairies, goblins, and friars." To this catalogue he adds: “Dancing, singing, masking, mumming, and stage-plays, are reasonable recreations, if in season; as as are May-games, wakes, and Whitson-ales, if not at unseasonable hours, are justly permitted. Let them," that is, the common people, "freely feast, sing, dance, have puppet-plays, hobby-horses, tabers, crowds,' and bag-pipes:" let them "play at ball and barley-brakes; and afterwards, "Plays, masks, jesters, gladiators, tumblers, and jugglers, are to be winked at, lest the people should do worse than attend them." A character in the Cornish Comedy, written by George Powell, and acted at Dorset Garden in 1696, says, "What is a gentleman without his recreations? With these we endeavour to pass away that time which otherwise would lie heavily upon our hands. Hawks, hounds, setting-dogs, and cocks, with their appurtenances, are the true marks of a country gentleman." This character is supposed to be a young heir just come to his "My cocks," says he, "are true cocks of the game-I make a match of cock-fighting, and then an hundred or two. pounds are soon won, for I never fight a battle under." estate. Crowd is an ancient uame for the violin XVII.-OLD SPORTS OF THE CITIZENS OF LONDON 1 In addition to the May-games, morris-dancings, pageants and processions, which were commonly exhibited throughout the kingdom in all great towns and cities, the Londoners had peculiar and extensive privileges of hunting, hawking, and fishing: they had also large portions of ground allotted to them in the vicinity of the city for the practice of such pastimes as were not prohibited by the government, and for those especially that were best calculated to render them strong and healthy. We are told by Fitz Stephen, in the twelfth century, that on the holidays during the summer season, the young men of London exercised themselves in the fields with "leaping, shooting with the bow, wrestling, casting the stone, playing with the ball, and fighting with their shields." The last species of pastime, I believe, is the same that Stow, in his Survey of London, calls "practising with their wasters and bucklers;" which in his day was exercised by the apprentices before the doors of their masters. The city damsels had also their recreations on the celebration of these festivals, according to the testimony of both the authors just mentioned. The first tells us that they played upon citherns, and danced to the music; and as this amusement probably did not take place before the close of the day, they were, it seems, occasionally permitted to continue it by moonlight. We learn from the other, who wrote at the distance of more than four centuries, that it was then customary for the maidens, after evening prayers, to dance in the presence of their masters and mistresses, while one of their companions played the measure upon a timbrel; and, in order to stimulate them to pursue this exercise with alacrity, the best dancers were rewarded with garlands, the prizes being exposed to public view, "hanged athwart the street," says Stow, during the whole of the performance. This recital calls to my mind a passage in Spenser's Epithalamium, wherein it appears that the dance was sometimes accompanied with singing. It runs thus: -The damsels they delight, And thereunto dance and carol sweet. See the first and second chapters in the body of the work. ? The words of Fitz Stephen are, "Puellarum cithara ducit choros, et pede libero pulsatur tellus, usque imminente luna." The word cithara, Stow renders, but I think not jusuy, timbreis. |