of the commonalty, we find that, in addition to those of running, leaping, and throwing heavy weights, bull-baiting, and cock-fighting, which are to be found among all semi-barbarous countries, wrestling, bowling, and games at ball may be particularly mentioned among the popular amusements of the English at this period. Skill in wrestling seems to have been one of the national distinctions; and the men of Cornwall and Devonshire

were especially famed as matchless wrestlers. The public competitions in this exercise were often attended by the persons of highest rank in the neighbourhood, and a ram (or sometimes a cock, as appears from an old drawing) was the reward of the conqueror. Bowling, also, has been reckoned a sport peculiarly English. In some of the early drawings the attitudes of the bowlers are given with remarkable spirit and effect. In these

delineations, however, it may be observed that each player, instead of using three bowls, as in the modern game, is provided with one only. Among the ancient varieties of bowling may be mentioned the game called Closh, which was similar to that of Kayles, being played with pins that were thrown at, and struck down with a bowl, instead of a stick; and the game of Half-bowl, which was played with a hemisphere of wood. When this favourite sport had been completely naturalised in England, covered bowling-alleys were frequently attached to the houses of the wealthy, or to places of public resort in which people could enjoy the amusement independently of the changes of the weather. We find frequent complaints, however, that the habit of resorting to these places of social meeting was found to promote other kinds of

| dissipation as well as the love of gambling and idleness. But the common order of moralists have been generally too much inclined to throw imputations of this sort upon the amusements of the people.

The games at ball were of various kinds. What has been called the balloon-ball, resembled the Roman Follis, or Italian Pallone. A large ball, made of leather, was filled with air; the player, having his hand and wrist loaded and braced with bandages, struck this elastic balloon with all his might, and the person who played against him returned it in like manner. In some of the illuminations representing this game, the ball is struck with the naked hand. Club-ball was similar to the bat-and-ball now commonly in use. The ball was of large size (probably filled with nir),

and struck with a straight, heavy stick, or club. Trap-ball, as appears from the illuminations, was also in use so early as the fourteenth century: the trap, however, was of a greater height than that

TRAP-BALL.

From a MS. in the Douce Collection.

of the modern game. In those days, a game at ball was a weighty occasion, in which party was engaged against party, and village matched with village; and frequently the mayor and aldermen vouchsafed to attend to do honour to the competition.

We had occasion, in the last Book, to notice the attempts of the legislature to promote the practice of archery among the people, both by making exercise with the bow imperative on a certain number of days in the year in every village, and by proscribing those other games and sports that were supposed to have most tendency to allure the yeomanry from the shooting green. But although pains were taken to give to the legal sport as much as possible of the excitement of those that were prohibited, the plan does not appear to have proved very successful. The law for the encouragement of archery had been so little regarded that, in the reign of Edward IV., it was found necessary to renew it with additional circumstantiality. The games of quoits, kayles, closh, half-bowl,

ANCIENT DICE-BOX.

In this dice-box, the dice, which were without numbers, were dropped into the box or funnel while the machine was turned round, and were counted according to the space below upon which they fell.

hand-in and hand-out, and quick board, were now condemned as unlawful; and the magistrates were commanded to seize the tables, dice, cards, bowls, closhes, tennis-balls, and other instruments with which these games were played, and destroy them. It was also enacted that every Englishman, and every Irishman dwelling in England, should have a long bow of his own height; and that butts should be erected in every township, at which the inhabitants were to shoot up and down on all feastdays, upon penalty of one halfpenny for every time the exercise was omitted. That no excuse, also, might be made for the lack of proper weapons on the score of poverty, the bowyers of London, as has been mentioned in a preceding Chapter, were commanded to sell the best bow-staves at three shillings and fourpence each. Still, however, in spite both of encouragements and penalties, the science of archery, towards the end of this period, was visibly on the decline. A preference had for some time come to be entertained for the crossbow, or hand-gun, as it was sometimes called, even for the purposes of amusement and hunting, as a weapon more easily managed, and affording a more steady aim than the common long-bow. But the chief cause of this growing unpopularity of the old English weapon is to be found in the introduction

of gunpowder, and the multiplication of different kinds of fire arms. The superiority of the hagbut for war, and the birding-piece for amusement, was soon felt; and they gradually superseded the use of the bow, as they have superseded every kind of missile weapon in all the countries into which they have been introduced.

We shall still, however, have occasion to advert to the subject of archery in the next period; but before taking leave of it for the present, we may briefly observe that there were three kinds of marks used to be shot at for pastime and exercise, by which archers were carefully trained either for a near or a distant aim,-namely, butts, pricks, and rovers. The butt was a level mark in the form of a target or bull's-eye, which, as we have seen, was shot at up and down on either side; and this kind of mark required a strong arrow with a very broad feather. The prick, again, was called "a mark of compass," as it was of a settled distance, for which strong light arrows were necessary, with moderately-sized feathers. The rover was a mark of varying distance, and therefore required arrows differing in weight and feather according to the emergency. Other marks of a more difficult nature appear to have been sometimes used, when the contention was keen or the shooters of distinguished skill; such as hazel wands, rose garlands, and the popinjay; which last was either a cock or an artificial parrot.

A manly and favourite sport among our ancestors for many centuries, and which even till lately was practised at our country fairs and holiday meetings, was that of quarter-staff,-a weapon which does not seem to have been naturalised in any other country. This truly formidable instrument was a heavy staff about five or six feet in length, which was firmly grasped in the middle by one hand, while the other traversed to either end of the weapon, according to the end that was to be suddenly brought down upon the head or shoulders of the antagonist. The advantage of such an instrument was, that it had a very large compass both in defence and annoyance: with a turn of the wrist it described a wide circle, and guarded the player on every side; and it required a very quick eye, as well as nimble foot, to watch the direction in which it was about to strike, and to escape the blow. These advantages of the quarter-staff were learnedly set forth in the seventeenth century by an English gentleman, who, with that weapon only, encountered and foiled, at Xeres, three Spanish cavaliers, armed with rapiers and daggers, in the presence of a large and noble assembly. doughty hero, after such a wonderful display of his skill in fence, very naturally took up the pen to record his exploit, which he has done in a small pamphlet entitled Three to One.' It is probable that this favourite exercise of the English gave them additional dexterity in the use of the brown bill, another weapon with which they were wont to do deadly execution.

This

There is every likelihood that the game of tennis was introduced into England during this period, as we do not find any previous allusion to it in English authors, although it had been in high favour for a considerable period on the continent. The taunting present of tennis-balls, which the Dauphin of France sent to Henry V., and the answer it provoked, is the first English historical notice of this amusement.* At first the game in England was played in the open air; but as it soon became a favourite, especially with the nobility, covered tennis-courts were built as well as covered bowling-greens.

We have already quoted the passage from FitzStephen's account of London, in which he describes the peculiar mode of skating practised in his day by the youth of the metropolis. They tied the shank-bones of sheep to their feet, and with the help of a long pole, shod with iron, glided upon the ice with great velocity, sometimes encountering each other, like knights in full career. While the sport was as yet so rude in England, and confined to mere boys, it was a more serious exercise in northern countries, where it was a matter of necessity to traverse frozen rivers and mountains covered with snow; and, accordingly, in one of the Runic songs, a chief enumerates among his qualifications, that he can run upon the snow on wooden skates. In the present period, in England, the sheepbones had given place to regular skates, shod with iron, which were probably introduced from the Netherlands; and adults now enjoyed in full perfection this spirit-stirring exercise. Skating upon the Thames in winter was succeeded by the recreations of sailing and rowing in spring and summer. Boating, indeed, appears to have been always a favourite pastime with the citizens of London; and many of their military games, as we have already seen, were performed upon the water. During the fifteenth century, however, recreations upon the water received a fresh popularity from the lord-mayor's procession to Westminster being conducted on the river. This innovation was commenced by John Norman, the lord-mayor in 1453, to the great satisfaction of the watermen who plied above London-bridge; and from this period, also, pleasure boats became very numerous upon the Thames.

Another class of the popular amusements of this age may be considered as a species of the mummings which have been described in a preceding page. In the merriment of the Christmas holidays it was common for people to go from house to house with their faces blackened with soot and bedaubed with paint, so that they could not be recognised; and, thus disfigured, we may be sure they did not always confine themselves to frolics of a perfectly harmless or innocent kind. In the north of England a favourite frolic at this season was for men and women to exchange dresses, when they sallied forth to make mirth among their friends and neighbours, and to partake of their

• See Shakspeare's Henry V., Act i, scene 3

Christmas cheer. Another Christmas pastime was | the Fool's Dance, performed by a number of persons habited like the court-fool, who capered to the sound of bagpipes and other instruments, the musicians being dressed in the same fantastic garb. From this Dance of Fools it is probable that the Morris Dance originated, which was performed with a number of small bells attached to the dresses of the dancers.

Licensed or professional fools were important personages during the middle ages. Unknown to the ancient world, they had probably their origin among the northern tribes, whose duller intellects required a more pungent stimulus than would have been tolerated by the people of Greece and Rome. Professional fools appear to have been common among the Anglo-Saxons; and after the Norman Conquest, by which so much was subverted, their occupation was far from being gone. A royal fool was an established officer of the successive Norman and English sovereigns till so late a period as the reign of Charles II. Of the duties attached to this chief of the jesters, Fuller has quaintly observed, that only he who had wit could perform them well, while only he who wanted it would perform them. His duty was to amuse his master by broad jokes at the expense of the courtiers, or even the royal administration itself; and, under this wide charter, he was frequently enabled to deliver shrewd hints upon the prevailing abuses, which perhaps even the king's regular advisers would not have hazarded. The estimation in which the jesters of the palace were held may be gathered from the considerable largesses frequently given to them, and which were probably often bestowed in those open-hearted moments when a hearty laugh had lightened the royal bosom of a load of political anxieties.

COURT FOOL AND BUFFOON. Harl. MS. 4379.

Among the nobility, also, those who could main

tain such a luxury had in their retinue, sometimes, a wretched idiot, whose real folly and infirmity were made the butt of the master and household; or, what was more commonly the case, some shrewd madcap, who could use the appearance of folly as a shelter from behind which to discharge his satirical observations. This person was dressed like the court-fool, and possessed similar privileges of speech. He is described by a writer of the sixteenth century as "in person comely, in apparel courtly, but in behaviour a very ape, and no man: his employment, it is asserted, was to coin bitter jests, and to sing profligate songs and ballads; give him a little wine in his head, he is continually fleering and making of mouths: he laughs intemperately at every little occasion, and dances about the house, leaps over tables, outskips men's heads, trips up his companion's heels, burns sack with a candle, and hath all the feats of a Lord of Misrule in the country."* The quaint author adds darker shades to the picture, by which it would appear that this mercurial office had no tendency to improve the moral character of him who held it. As the office of a jester possessed so many immunities, it was not without its penalties also, and an unseasonable quip very often subjected him to a severe whipping.

The fool's wit, however, was not always confined to his head, and his jokes were often not only of a verbal, but also of a practical and mischievous character. The coarse taste of the times required that even the habiliments of the fool should be pregnant with matter of laughter. In the time of Henry VIII., and probably much earlier, one form of his official costume consisted of a party-coloured coat, sometimes hung with bells at the skirts and elbows; together with breeches and close hose, of which the legs were sometimes of different colours. Another dress was a jacket and petticoat, also of motley, and fringed with yellow. A hood covered the head, in shape like a monk's cowl, decorated with asses' ears, or terminating in the neck and head of a cock, sometimes ridiculously garnished with a single feather. But, above all, the bauble must be particularised, without which the jester was nothing. It was at once his sceptre and his sword. By this, he swore in confirmation of his preposterous stories; with a flourish of this caduceus he gave double force to a joke; and sometimes a blown bladder was attached to its extremity, with which, brandishing it about in mock combat, he would buffet the contemners of his airy dignity. This bauble was a short staff, generally ornamented with the carved head of a zany, or some other fantastic ornament. In earlier times, when the Church, reposing in the consciousness of her power, allowed things sacred to be ridiculed without alarm, the fool's head was occasionally shaven in the fashion of a clerical tonsure; but after the apprehensions excited by the spread of Lollardism such liberties could not be safely taken. Among the games not yet mentioned, which

• Lodge's Wit's Miserie, 4to. 1599.