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 popguns; 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 1640.1

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;2 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.3 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.4 Socrates also did the same, for which it seems his pupil Alcibiades used to laugh at him.5 If we turn to the engraving No. 45,6 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/ 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 44.6 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.9

III.—RACING AND CHACING.

Contending with each other for superiority in racing on foot is natural to children;1 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.*

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 :3

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 sporl 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 alternatily 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.1

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 outplayer, 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 Sbakspeare in King Henry the Fifth; "If I could win a lady at leap-frog, 1 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.2 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 bv the Grecian youth; one they called akinetinda, Xavtinvia,1 which was a struggle between the competitors who should stand motionless the longest upon the sole of his foot; the other denominated ascoliasmos, AfficwXia^oc2 was dancing or hopping upon one foot,3 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.