SPORTS AND PASTIMES.

F we would learn how merry were our anceftors, how thoroughly they gave themselves up to the enjoyment of their sports and paftimes, we could not have stronger proof

than is afforded in the fermon of Bishop Latimer, preached before King Edward the Sixth. The good Bifhop there laments that the attractions of Robin Hood's day were greater than the charms of his eloquence.

"I came once myself," says he, "to a place riding a journey homeward from London, and fent word overnight into the town that I would preach there in the morning because it was a holy day, and I took my horfe and my company and went thither. (I thought I should have found a great company in the church.) When I came there, the church door was faft locked. I tarried there half-an-hour and more; at laft the key was found, and one of the parish comes to me and fays: This is a bufy day with us, we cannot heare you; this is Robin Hoodes daye; the parish is gone abroad to gather for

Robin Hoode.' I thought my rochet would have been regarded, though I were not: but it would not ferve, but was fayne to give place to Robin Hoode's men."

This ardent love of merriment extended upwards from the people; and if Latimer had to complain of the villagers' preference for Robin Hood, the venerable Thomas Cartwright certainly found the merry humour even of his clergy fomewhat in excess, for we find him saying, in his "Admonition to Parliament against the use of the Common Prayer,”

"If there be a bear or a bull to be baited in the afternoon, or a jackanapes to ride on horseback, the minifter hurries the service over in a shameful manner in order to be present at the show."

Among the numerous fports and paftimes of the "merrie days. of England," those which were connected with the use of the bow, were long held in the highest esteem. From France our fathers imported the game of fhooting at the Popin-jay, thus referred to by an old writer

The wooden bird on horseback showing,
By beat of drum with pipers blowing,

They troop along huzzaing, tooting,

To hold their annual game of shooting.

The game as first inftituted in France confifted of cruelly tethering a large bird in a field fo that it could fly only to a certain height, and the youth of the fecond order of nobles affembled and took aim at him with their bows and arrows, in presence of the nobility, gentry, and magiftracy. He who killed the bird was named "king of the archers" for the year, and the next two best

marksmen were named to the office of the king's lieutenant, and standard-bearer. When the sport was introduced into England, a wooden bird was fubftituted for the live one, and the prize of victory was awarded to the archer who could knock the Papeguay" off the pole. Stow tells of a large Clofe called the "Tazell," which in his day was let to the cross-bow markers, where the citizens used to shoot for prizes at the wooden bird. Henry the Eighth founded a perpetual corporation, called "the Order of St. George," the members of which were permitted for pastime-sake to practise shooting at all forts of marks and butts, and at "the game of the Popinjay." The skill of the English bowmen was tested on many a battle-field, and the feats of William Cloudeflie, Adam Bell, and Clym of the Clough, not less than those of Robin Hood, have been cherished in the ballads and traditions of our country. We have, however, only to treat of archery as one of the sports and pastimes of merry England. Bulwer has given a vivid description, in the "Last of the Barons," of one of the gatherings of the people at these trials of skill:

Open spaces for the popular games and diverfion were then numerous in the suburbs of the metropolis. Grateful to some the fresh pool of Iflington; to others, the grass-bare fields of Finsbury; to all, the hedgelefs plains of vaft Mile-end. But the fite to which we are now fummoned was a new and maiden holiday-ground, lately bestowed upon the towns-folk of Westminster, by the powerful Earl of Warwick. The ground was well fuited to the purpose to which it was devoted. But what particularly now demands our attention was a broad plot in the ground, dedicated to the noble