contest between eleven Greenwich pensioners, with only one leg, against an equal number of their brethren, with only one arm, but the one legged boys won. In almost all the English sports, the females are much engaged in them, either as actors or spectators, which adds great zest to the passing scene, and tends very much to moderate various excesses, which otherwise might arise.* In this game females play; some years past there was a match of an equal number of married females, against an equal number of spinsters, in which, I believe, the married ladies were the victors. SWIMMING. 66 Swimming raises my spirits." BYRON. IN noticing this pleasant and necessary diversion: necessary, because it is conducive to health; I shall first mention a swimming match of Sir John Packington's, he was a remarkable tall and handsome man, and a great favorite of Queen Elizabeth. He made a bet of £3000 that he could swim, within a given time, from Whitehall Palace stairs to Greenwich, the distance is but six miles, but the amount of the bet may be considered large in these gambling days, it is about equal to $40,000 of the present money. As soon as the queen heard of it, she forbade him; to which his gallantry and duty readily assented. In 1638, The Duchess of Chevreuse, (she was one of the attendants on the queen of Charles I.,)" with pretty, and with swimming gait," swam across the Thames; this feat is supposed to have been performed at Windsor. It brought forth from some court poet the following scrap of high-flown, complimentary poetry, she was remarkable as having very beautiful eyes: "But her chaste breast, cold as the cloister'd nun, So glaz'd the stream, that pilots then afloat Had it not been by her own beams dissolved." Swimming matches were very much encouraged, after the restoration, by the witty and profligate Rochester, and his boon companions, as a source of betting, for them to risk their courtly wealth to the capricious goddess of fortune. * Plato “would have women follow the camp, to inspire noble actions; they encourage also," he says, "subtility, wit, and many pretty devices." A letter of the late S. T. Coleridge, Esq., dated July 22d, 1794, states, " Abergely is a large village on the sea coast, North Wales. Walking on the sea sands, I was surprised to see a number of fine women bathing promiscuously with men and boys, perfectly naked. Doubtless the citadels of their chastity are so impregnably strong, that they need not the ornamental bulwarks of modesty; but, seriously speaking, where sexual distinctions are least observed, men and women live together in the greatest purity. Concealment sets the imagination a working, and, as it were, cantharadizes our desires."* Among the athletic sports was foot racing; this was quite a courtly amusement. King Charles II. was a great pedestrian ; and, during his reign, two young nobles run down a buck, in the park, for a wager, in the king's presence. There were also military athletics, such as running at the ring, throwing the javelin at a Moor's head, and firing pistols at a mall. COTSWOLD GAMES." An attorney once resided in the village of Barton-on-the-Heath, whom we might now be justified in regarding as a lusus naturæ. His name was Captain Robert Dover, and it is said of him that he was of so pacific a disposition, that he never tried more than two causes in his life, (a period of some length,) and that he usually acted as a friend and mediator, when any disputes arose. This was about 200 years ago, a time when the meshes of the law were neither so multifarious nor so intricate as they are at present." "It was this Mr. Dover who instituted (or perhaps revived) the annual festivities, termed the Cotswold Games, which, in the reigns of James I., were so much celebrated, and consisted, like the Olympian Games of the ancients, of most kind of manly exercises. They consisted of wrestling, cudgel-playing, leaping, pitching the bar, throwing the sledge, tossing the pike; many of the country gentlemen hunted or coursed the hare, and the women danced. A castle of boards was errected on this occasion, from which guns were discharged.† Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, and other poets, wrote verses on these diversions."+ This public spirited benevolent gentleman is a fit companion piece to Pope's celebrated Man of Ross. He is, to this day, well spoken of. * Gentleman's Magazine, 1836. In Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. ii., the same idea is there discussed. + Strut's Sports. + "Concise Topographical Description of Warwickshire," 1817, Captain Dover received permission from James I. to hold these sports, and he appeared at their celebration in the very clothes which that monarch had formerly worn, but with much more dignity in his air and aspect." In the wealthy houses they were fond of practical jokes. Admiral Sir William Penn, (father of the founder of Pennsylvania,) had an imprisoning chair, which, when a person sat in, he was suddenly clasped round the middle by two iron arms, from which he could not, by himself, get released. This amusing seat is very ancient; it was one among the ingenious devices of the Marquis of Worcester's hundred inventions, but can be traced centuries before his time. The settling of this continent, and the general increase of commerce, brought forth curious fishes and crocodile skins, which were numerously exhibited in London. And also "wild Indians"-these poor creatures were kidnapped away from hence, by greedy people, solely for them to get money by their exhibition: "How vain are all things here below, Each pleasure hath its poison too, BEAR BAITING.-In Collier's " Memoirs of Edward Alleyn, Founder of Dulwich College," we are informed, that him and Henslowe, both play actors, in 1600, purchased the office of master of the Kings' games, of bears, bulls, and dogs of Sir William Stuart, for £450, which they insisted was a very bad bargain on their part; and they soon after presented a petition to the king, complaining that their fees and emoluments were not sufficient; that they bought their office at a high rate; that vagrants went about the country with bears and dogs to their detriment, and without license; and, above all, that they were not permitted to bait bears on Sunday. They lamented the loss of a goodly bear, named George Stone; and that four of their best bears, worth £30, had been killed in an exhibition before the king. This dutiful and reasonable petition, seems to have remained unanswered, and their grievances unredressed." "In 1601, Alleyn relinquished the chief benefits of the theatres to Henslowe. But he was compelled, by virtue of the office he held of the master of the games, to superintend the affairs of the bear garden. One part of this duty, was to take possession of all bulls, bears, and bear dogs, in any part of the kingdom, that might be useful for his majesty's sports; and * Athenian Oxonensis. they, or rather the deputies they appointed, got into fierce disputes, as may well be conceived, on endeavouring to make good their claims. It is supposed the law and the prerogative, were not at that time very well defined: for though the great seal was appended to the deputation, a gentleman of Cheshire charged them with felony, on stealing his dog, and threatened to prosecute them at the assizes. Alleyn, it appears, was obliged, whenever it pleased the king, to furnish him with this sport, so he was ordered to bring his mastiffs and bear dogs, from the bear garden to bait a lion at the tower. The royal beast did not show his accustomed clemency, but killed the dogs, except one, which Prince Henry ordered to be kept, saying, as "he had fought with the king of beasts, he should never after fight with any inferior creature." How different are the notions of those who keep fighting dogs at this time; they now only fight against each other, so that the true courage of the dog is not known; and, I have no doubt, from this circumstance they are deteriorated; two dogs of the present day, called good dogs, which have never contented against any other more ferocious animals, may be poor things compared with those who, in the seventeenth century, contended against more wild and powerful beasts. On the restoration of Charles II., bear and bull baiting, and cock fighting, although put down by the Puritans, were readily resumed, and were never more fully practised. These well meaning pious men, never went the proper way to work, in their plan of reform. They did not reflect, with Hume, “ that man is a bundle of habits," therefore, all judicious reforms must be begun by changing them; legislators should consider, it is of little use to legislate upon an abstract idea, however accurately (which is very difficult,) it may be defined. Plato says, "( man, when he has received a right education, is the most gentle of all creatures, but when not so, be becomes the most savage being that the earth produces." The genius of science had not then opened to wondering man, her cornucopia of blessings and of beauties. They had all the raw materials then, as we have now; but few of them had begun to be investigated. Pope has since said: "Pretty in amber, to observe the forms Of hairs, of dirt, of grubs, and worms, The things we know, are neither rich nor rare, No doubt, many of my readers will be struck with horror and surprize, at many things I have placed before them; but, on due reflection, they will conclude it could not be otherwise. Every age has its customs and manners, and they are slowly and only partially changed; we, of the present age, are far more highly favoured. How easily may families, now, keep their offspring from the habits of the gamblers and the grogs.. An English poet thus wrote on their drunkenness : "The excise is fattened with the rich result Of all this riot; and ten thousand casks Her cares demand, th' assistance of your throats, Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more." Fathers of families should recollect, that "habit makes either sinners or saints." Elementary books may now be had on every science, besides music and drawing; how easily, and with very little assistance, can any science be entered upon. How pleasant must it be for a father to know that his family is all safe under his own roof; one perhaps occupied with music, another with painting, another arranging geological specimens, another shells, another insects; and, as they grow larger, practising experiments on chemistry or mechanism. As young people will seek something for their amusements; surely, among these few enumerated, some one, and there are many more may be found, the practising of which may, in their youthful days, be not only amusing, but afterward turn to even their worldly profit. This, as it appears to me, is the best way to civilize, and reform, and improve mankind; and happy shall I be, if this feeble hint should be the means of only exciting the attention of one family, in every township of this extensive Union. And if only a few families would, in every township, undertake it, they might have a museum; and by the interchanging of duplicate specimens with other museums, would soon have an interesting and useful variety-affording instruction to the young, and amusement to the old. "Thus may our lives, exempt from public toil, find Tongues in trees-books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones-and good in everything." SHAKSPEARE. Besides, the subjects are inexhaustible; Harris says, “ as there is no part of nature too mean for the divine presence, so there is no kind of subject having for its foundation in nature; that is below the dignity of a philosophical enquirer." Studies of this sort, in the language of the energetic Bolingbroke, "teach us to reason cautiously, pronounce moderately, and hope humbly, and to do this, is to be wise and good." It also |