sports and pastimes of the people. history of their changes, and present state.

a mighty revolution has taken place in the sports and pastimes of the common people. they, indeed, furnish a certain indication of the real character of a people, and change with the changing spirit of a state. a mighty revolution has taken place in this respect, within the last thirty years, in england, and that entirely produced by the change of feeling, and advance of character. but if we look back through the whole course of english history, we shall find the sports and pastimes of the people taking their form and character from the predominant spirit of the age; in a great measure copied from the amusements and practices of their superiors, and always influenced by them. while the feudal constitution of society prevailed, and chivalry was in vogue, the sports of the common people[516] had a certain chivalric character. they saw jousts and tourneys and feats of archery, and they jousted and tilted, and shot at butts. tilting at the quintain was, in all the chivalric ages, a popular game. it was a roman pastime, instituted for military practice, and continued for the same object by the feudal nations; and was adopted by the common people as a favourite game, because both the laws of chivalry and their slender finances prevented them taking part in jousts and tourneys. in strutt may be found descriptions and quaint illustrative engravings of the various kinds of this game. “the quintain,” says strutt, quoting from vegetius, de re militari, menestrier and others, “originally, was nothing more than the trunk of a tree, or post set up for the practice of the tyroes in chivalry. afterwards a staff or spear was fixed in the earth, and a shield being hung upon it, was the mark to strike at; the dexterity of the performance consisted in striking the shield in such a manner as to break the ligatures and bear it to the ground. in process of time this diversion was improved, and instead of the staff and the shield, the resemblance of a human figure, carved in wood, was introduced. to render the appearance of this figure more formidable, it was generally made in the likeness of a turk, or a saracen, armed at all points, having a shield upon his left arm, and brandishing a club or a sabre in his right. hence this exercise was called by the italians—‘running at the armed man, or at the saracen.’ the quintain thus fashioned, was placed upon a pivot, and so contrived as to move round with facility. in running at this figure, it was necessary for the tilter to direct his lance with great adroitness, and make his stroke upon the forehead, between the eyes, or upon the nose; for if he struck wide of those parts, especially upon the shield, the quintain turned about with much velocity, and in case he was not exceedingly careful, would give him a severe blow upon the back with the wooden sabre held in the right hand, which was considered as highly disgraceful to the performer, while it excited the laughter and ridicule of the spectators. when many were engaged in running at the saracen, the conqueror was declared from the number of strokes he had made, and the value of them. for instance, if he struck the image upon the top of the nose between the eyes, it was reckoned for three; if below the eyes upon the nose, for two; if under the nose to the point of the chin, for[517] one; all other strokes were not counted: but, whoever struck upon the shield, and turned the quintain round, was not permitted to run again upon the same day, but forfeited his courses as a punishment for his unskilfulness.” brande, in his popular antiquities, tells us that the saracen was often armed with a bag of sand instead of a sabre, which came upon the back of the unlucky tilter with such violence as to fling him to the earth with no enviable shock. various were the quintains, according to the age in which they were used, or the means of the players. in some cases the quintain was merely a common stake with a board fastened to it; in others, it was a post with a cross-bar moving on a pivot, something like a turnstile, with the sand-bag at one end of the bar, and the board, or shield, at the other. in others, it was a water-butt set upon a post, so as to throw its contents over the tilter if he struck it unskilfully. in others, it was a living person holding a shield. there was also the water-quintain. “a pole or a mast,” says fitzstephen, “is fixed in the midst of the thames, during the easter holidays, with a strong shield attached to it; and a boat being previously placed at some distance, is driven swiftly towards it by the force of oars, and the violence of the tide, having a young man standing at the prow, who holds a lance in his hand, with which he is to strike the shield; and if he be dexterous enough to break the lance against it, and retain his place, his most sanguine wishes are satisfied. on the contrary, if the lance be not broken, he is sure to be thrown into the water, and the vessel goes away without him; but, at the same time, two other boats are stationed near to the shield, and furnished with many young persons, who are in readiness to rescue the champion from danger.” it appears to have been a very popular pastime, for the bridge, the wharfs, and the houses near the river, were crowded with people on this occasion, who came, says the author, to see the sports, and make themselves merry.

running at the quintain continued to be a favourite game till queen elizabeth’s time; and was universal throughout the country. plott, in his history of oxfordshire, mentions it, and laneham describes a curious instance of it exhibited at kenilworth during the entertainment given by the earl of leicester to queen elizabeth. “there was,” he says, “a solemn country bridal; when in the castle was set up a quintain for feats of arms, where, in a great[518] company of men and lasses, the bridegroom had the first course at the quintain, and broke his spear très hardiment. but his mare in his manage did a little stumble, that much-adoe had his manhood to sit in his saddle. but after the bridegroom had made his course, rose the rest of the band, awhile in some order; but soon after tag and rag, cut and long tail; where the specialty of the sport was to see how some for his slackness had a good bob with the bag, and some for his haste to topple downright, and come tumbling to the post. some striving so much at the first setting out that it seemed a question between man and beast whether the race should be performed on horseback or on foot; and some put forth with spurs, would run his race byas, among the thickness of the throng, that down they came together, hand over head. another, while he directed his course to the quintain, his judgment would carry him to a man among the people; another would run and miss the quintain with his staff, and hit the board with his hand.”

boys imitated this game on their own scale, drawing one another on wooden horses to the quintain, or running at it on foot; and various other rustic exercises were derived from it. of archery we need not speak, every one knowing how universal it was during the feudal ages; and quarter-staff, quoits, flinging the hammer, pitching the bar, and similar games were the offspring of the same state of society. playing at ball and at bowls were very ancient and kingly sports, and became general amongst the people. they were ancient classical games, and no doubt were introduced by the romans into this country. they are mentioned both in the oldest metrical romances, and the oldest of our popular ballads. tennis courts were common in england in the sixteenth century, and the establishment of such places countenanced by the monarchs. henry viii. was a tennis player. fives courts, and places for the practice of a variety of ball-games,—hand-ball, balloon-ball, stool-ball, principally played at by women; hurling, foot-ball, golf, bandy, stow-ball, pall-mall, club-ball, trap-ball, tip-ball, and that which is now become the prince of english ball-games, cricket.

another circumstance in the feudal ages, which contributed to promote these and other games, was, that towns were few. the majority of the common people, living in the country; in forests and fields; watching the game, or cultivating the lands, or tending[519] the herds and flocks of their lords, on open downs and wastes, naturally congregated with greater zest in villages after the day’s tasks were over, and entered into amusements with the lightheartedness of children; for they were as ignorant of all other cares, of book-learning, and what was going on in the world at a distance, as children. hence their social pleasures were of an arcadian stamp—they danced, they leaped, they wrestled, they kicked the foot-ball, or flung the hand-ball, the quoit, or the bar.

but another circumstance which tended to fashion their amusements was that the feudal ages were also the ages of the catholic church; a church which delighted to amuse the imaginations of the people with shows, pageants, miracle-plays, and mysteries. the church festivals were all scenes of holiday, feasting, and wonderment. processions, and representations of the acts and persons of their religious faith, kept them fixed in admiration and insatiable delight. the churches were the first and only theatres. in them all scripture subjects, personages, doctrines, and even opinions were represented, and brought palpably before the wondering people, in mysteries, moralities, and miracle-plays. things which now would justly be deemed the most revolting blasphemies and desecrations of holy things, were then gravely brought out by the church, for the entertainment and edification of the people. i have already shewn something of this in speaking of the religious festivals, as celebrated in catholic countries, but we can only see these things in their full growth, by looking back into the middle ages. the theatrical exhibitions of london in the twelfth century were of this kind; representations of the miracles wrought by confessors, and the sufferings of holy martyrs. but these did not suffice. these ecclesiastical actors penetrated into the holy of holies, and dared to represent the sacred trinity before the eyes of the mob. in the mystery called corpus-christi, or coventry-play, being played in a moveable theatre, by the mendicant friars of coventry, the deity himself is represented seated on his throne, delivering a speech commencing thus:

ego sum de alpha et omega, principium et finis.

my name is knowyn god and kynge,

my worke for to make now wyl i wende,

in myself now resteth my reyninge,

it hath no gynnyng, ne noe ende.

[520]

the angels then enter, singing from the church service, “to thee all angels cry aloud, the heavens and all the powers therein; to thee the cherubim and seraphim continually do cry, holy, holy, holy, lord god of hosts.” lucifer next makes his appearance, and desires to know if the hymn they sang was in honour of god or of himself? the good angels readily reply, in honour of god; the evil angels incline to worship lucifer, and he presumes to seat himself on the throne of the deity, who then banishes him into hell.

in the mysteries, the devil and his angels seem to have been the principal comic actors; and by all kind of noises, strange gestures, and contortions, excited the laughter of the people. at many of these plays the kings and their courts, all the nobility and gentry of the time, as well as the people, would sit with the highest delight, nine hours a day, for six and eight days together. nay, at the moralities, which were not representations of facts, but moral reasonings and dialogues, carried on by virtues, vices, good doctrine, charity, faith, prudence, discretion, death, and the like, they would sit equally long. the scotch were as persevering in these amusements as our own ancestors. they are represented as sitting “frae nine houris afoir none till six houris at evin,” at the representation of sir david lindsay’s “satyr of the three estates,” and in 1535, in the reign of the accomplished james iv. here, however, sir david, the chaucer of scotland, had turned the weapons of the church against itself, and through its favourite medium, the drama, uttered the most caustic satire against it from the mouths of rex humanitas, wantonness, solace, placebo, sensualitie, homeliness, flattery, falsehood, deceit, chastity, divine correction, etc. etc.

besides the church too, during the feudal times, there were the festivities kept up in the castles and halls at christmas, easter, birthdays, and other great days, on which all kinds of pageants, mimings, masks, and frolics, were shewn to their followers and dependents, by the great feudal lords; and their minstrels, mimes, and jesters were made to exert their arts for their gratification. wandering minstrels and jongleurs went from house to house, and from village to village, following their profession of entertainers of the people. all these things combined to fashion[521] the popular taste, and the popular amusements, and all at the reformation received their death-blow. it was not, indeed, an instant death, but it was a slow and certain one; for though the reigns of henry viii. and elizabeth seemed to carry pageants and tourneys to their climax, the living principle of them was dying out. the catholic church, the great mother of all festivals and mysteries, was overturned, and in the dispersion of its property the rise of new classes and a new state of things originated; and so far had these causes taken effect in the reign of james i., that he made public proclamation in 1618, that “whereas, we did justly, in our progress through lancashire, rebuke some puritans and precise people, in prohibiting and unlawfully punishing of our good people for using their lawful recreations and honest exercises on sundays and other holidays after the afternoon service, it is our will that, at the end of divine service, our good people be not disturbed, letted, or discouraged, from any lawful recreation, such as dancing, either for men or women; archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other harmless recreation; nor for having of may-games, whitsun-ales, and morris-dances, and the setting up of may-poles, and other sports therewith used.”

but the day was gone by. a new spirit was arisen, and was destined soon to shew itself with overwhelming power. the days of cromwell and the puritans were coming, when all these things were to be denounced as popish and heathenish. the spirit and language at that time becoming universally such as that displayed by thomas hall, b.d., pastor of king’s-norton, in his funebria flor?, or the downfall of may-games in 1660, in which he says, “the city of rome, in the county of babylon, has contrary to the peace of our lord, his crown and dignity, brought in a pack of practical fanatics, viz.: ignorants, atheists, papists, drunkards, swearers, swashbucklers, maid-marians, morris-dancers, maskes, mummers, may-pole stealers, health-drinkers, gamesters, lewd men, light women, contemners of magistrates, affronters of ministers, rebellious to masters, disobedient to parents, misspenders of time, and abusers of the creature, etc.”

this republican puritanism, in its genuine style, was now again about to cease, but the effects of it could never be obliterated by subsequent kings. compare the popular amusements as enumerated[522] by burton in his “anatomie of melancholie,” a short time before the commonwealth, with those which remained thirty years ago,—the period when they expired nearly altogether, and gave way to a new era. “cards, dice, hawks, and hounds,” he says, “are the recreations of the gentry; ringing, bowling, shooting, playing with keel-pins, tronks, coits, foot-balls, balowns, running at the quintain, and the like, are the common recreations of country folk. riding of great horses, running of rings, tilts and tournaments, horse-races and wild-goose chases, are desports of greater men. the country hath its recreations of may-games, feasts, fairs and wakes; both town and country, bull-baitings and bear-baitings, in which the countrymen and citizens greatly delight; dancing of ropes, jugglings, comedies, tragedies, artillery-gardens, and cock-fightings, whitsun-ales, maskes, jesters, gladiators, and tumblers.”

thirty years ago, tilts and tournaments had gone after their parent chivalry; archery had fallen before gunpowder; whitsun-ales had followed many another ecclesiastical merriment; comedies and tragedies had set up their own secular houses apart from the church; and scarcely any of the other amusements were left but bull-baiting, bear-baiting, cock-fighting, and similar barbarities. the public mind had become vulgarized and brutalized. the spirit of chivalry, with its pageants and knightly feats, had diffused some sense of grace and graceful emulation amongst the people; the church, amid all its ludicrous shows and absurdities, had conveyed some moral principles; the wandering minstrels had in their lays and ballads excited some feelings of honour, and many a feeling of true nature and homely poetry: but all these sources of inspiration, feeble and mingled with evil as they were, were dried up, and during the long wars of the hanoverian dynasty the common people seem to have been neglected as rational and immortal beings, and cultivated and educated only as the instruments and the food of war. accordingly, the minstrels had dwindled into ballad-singers, the jongleurs into jugglers and mountebanks; the arcadian amusements of the country—may-games, dances on the green, wrestling and leaping, were nearly extinct; and there remained the very characteristic sports of bull-baiting, bear-baiting, badger-baiting, dog-fighting, cock-fighting,[523] and throwing at cocks on shrove-tuesday. bear and bull baitings were games that our queens elizabeth and anne had both delighted in, but the more elegant pastimes of those queens and their subjects had fallen into disuetude, the savage and brutal alone remaining. this was natural enough. from the days of marlborough to those of wellington, the common people had been bred for the battle-field,—the food of the great european moloch of war; and the bloody spirit which casts out all the fairer spirits of grace and gaiety, had been purposely and avowedly cherished, as the true english spirit. who that remembers these times, does not recollect the famous speeches of wyndham and his colleagues in favour of these brutal sports? who forgets their prognostics that if this spirit was destroyed, there was an end of our martial ascendency? but the point of time had arrived beyond which this spirit could not endure. the brutal and vulgarized condition of the people flashed on the perception of the middle classes, which amid all the noise of war had been progressing in intelligence and refinement. robert raikes and sunday-schools arose. a better spirit, a better sense of our duties and responsibilities towards the people awoke. it was seen that all over the country the more laudable sports of the village green, and the village wakes, as quoits, nine-pins, skittles, wrestling, leaping, cricket, and the other ball games; will-pegs, jumping in sacks, and other athletic amusements, had lost much of their relish, and were abandoned for the bloody spectacles of the bull-ring and the cock-pit. attempts were made to counteract this spirit; parliament was petitioned on the subject, and after the repulse given to these attempts by the senators i have alluded to, nothing was so common as to see the bulls led through the villages adorned with ribbons, and bearing on their necks large placards of—“sanctioned by wyndham and parliament!”

i have before me now a curious specimen of the effect of such doctrines on the minds of those even who are, by national authority, the public teachers of the country, in a little volume published in 1819, by a clergyman of the name of chafin—“an account of cranbourn chase.” he says, “cockfighting also, in the last century was a favourite diversion, greatly delighted in by persons of all ranks; and there was a nobleman, lord albemarle bertie, who was so fond of the amusement, that he attended cock-pits[524] when he was totally blind. and there were but few gentlemen in the country, who did not keep and breed game cocks, and were very anxious and careful in the breeding of them. frequent matches were made, and there were cock-pits in almost every village, the remains of which are still visible. to this amusement also cranbourn chase contributed, for the cocks bred in it were superior to others, both in shape and make, and, as the feeders name it, handled better when brought to their pens; insomuch that lord weymouth, of longleat, an ancestor of the present marquis of bath, for many years had a cock at walk at every lodge in the chase, and the keepers were well rewarded for taking care of them; and when they were brought chickens from longleat, annually, each game cock was accompanied with two dunghill hens, which became the perquisite of the keeper when the cock was taken away. but in our days of refinement, this amusement of cock-fighting hath been exploded, and, in a great measure, abandoned, being deemed to be barbarous and cruel; but in this respect the writer thinks differently, and believes it to be the least so of any diversions now in vogue, and nothing equal as to cruelty, to horse-racing, in which poor animals are involuntarily forced against their nature to performances against their strength, with whips and spurs, which, in jockey phrase, is styled cutting up. but in fighting of cocks the case is totally different; for, instead of a force against nature, it is an indulgence of natural propensities; for cocks at their walks, and at full liberty, will seek each other for battle as far as they can hear each other’s crowing; and the arming them with artificial weapons, when they are brought in the pit to fight, is the very reverse of cruelty, for the contest is sooner ended, and sufferings trifling, in comparison to what they would have been had they fought with their own natural weapons, by lacerating their bodies, and bruising each other in every tender part.”

now, to feel the full force of the rev. william chafin’s notion of a game that is the least cruel of any diversions now in vogue, it is necessary to consider that these cocks are stimulated to contest by heating food and artificial contrivances, such as keeping them within the sight or crow of their rivals; that they are then clipped almost bare of feathers; the feathers are clipped off their stomachs; their heads cut clean of their wattles; their wings and tails cut[525] short and square; that they are, in fact, metamorphosed from the most gallant-looking of birds into the most bare, comical, quaint, and strutting objects in nature, i was going to say; but they are put out of all nature, and are, lastly, armed with steel or silver spurs of an inch long, sharp as needles. with these they kick and pierce each other, “lacerating their bodies, and bruising each other in every tender part;” fighting till their heads are all one mass of gore; till they are often stark blind, and go staggering about like drunken men, till one has the luck to strike the other clean through the head with his artificial spur. this is a game which a clergyman, a teacher of christianity, could by custom come to think “the least cruel of all the diversions now in vogue.” it is impossible to produce more striking evidence of the effect of a familiarity with cruelty. it is just by the same process that men come to approve of war and slavery. god be praised that all these bloody sports are gone for ever from the soil of england. that bull, bear, and badger baiting, have all, after many a hard contest, been eventually put down; that for some years, so much has the mind of the common people been raised and softened, there have scarcely been any cock-fighters, except noblemen and gentlemen, whose cock-pits have been the nuisances of their neighbourhoods, and their game-cock caravans, travelling from place to place with these cocks, have offended the public eye. it is a satisfaction to record that in the year 1835, even this brutal game was made illegal by act of parliament, and that through the exertions of joseph pease, the only member of parliament who is a member of the society of friends.

since these atrocities have been exploded, their place has not been supplied by an equal number of more commendable amusements. the people of large towns, in particular, have not substituted a sufficient equivalent. politics and alehouses seem, till lately, to have furnished their sole stimulants. there appears to have been a pause in that important portion of human life, amusement, so far as the common people are concerned; but it has been in appearance only. one of the greatest changes that ever took place in human society, has been in this interval maturing;—the change from the last stage of worn-out feudalism to the commencement of the era of social regeneration;—a change from a system[526] in which the largest portion of mankind was regarded but as the instruments of the luxury and revenge of the wealthy few,—to one in which every part of the human family will be recognised as possessing the same nature, and worthy of enjoying the same domestic and intellectual blessings;—a change, in fact, from gentilism to christianity; from the condition in which the great of the earth lorded it over the poor, to that in which the common sympathies of our nature will be honoured and obeyed; and a career of intelligence, benevolence, and mutual good-will and good works will begin, to end in a prosperity beyond our present imagination. and already what symptoms of this better state of things break upon us! what schools, and mechanics’ libraries and institutes; what friendly societies, and plans on the part of the wealthy for the benefit of the poor. for amusements there has been no time. all workers, both in town and country, have been compelled to plod on solemnly and half-despairingly from day to day, and from year to year. but pleasures of a higher order, and more akin to genuine happiness,—social pleasures and pleasures of the intellect, will open upon and grow upon our more numerous brethren of the operative class. they will find pleasures in books—boundless, unimagined, inexhaustible, inexpressible pleasures;—pleasures in their wives and children, pleasures in their firesides, and in the glorious face of nature, which have hitherto been unknown to their eyes and hearts, sealed up in the frost of ignorance and the contempt of the proud. and already we see the commencement of that new order of pastimes which will assuredly result from this new order of mind. in the country, indeed, you find with pleasure occasionally, in some old-fashioned hamlet, the villagers and farm-servants in an evening tossing the quoit, that relic of the ancient discus; bowling, or playing at skittles; but rustics, in general, look to wakes and fairs for amusement; and yet at wakes you do not see half the sports there used to be,—as running, leaping, jumping in sacks; or aiming at the snuff-boxes balanced on the will-pegs; and where these games do remain, they are too frequently attached to alehouses, and made gambling baits of. but, in town and country, it is the noble, and as miss mitford, the fair historian of rural life, justly calls it, the true english game of cricket, which shews whither the[527] mind of the people is tending, and what will be the future character of english popular sports.

this game seems to have absorbed into itself every other kind of ball-game, trap-ball, tip-cat, or foot-ball. foot-ball, indeed, seems to have almost gone out of use with the enclosure of wastes and commons, requiring a wide space for its exercise; but far and wide is spread the love of cricketing, and it may now be safely ranked as the prince of english athletic games. i will here describe a match of this fine sport, which was played on the 7th and 9th of september 1835, between the sussex and the nottingham club, and the thoughts which it produced in me at the time.

the nottingham club challenged the sussex to a match for fifty guineas a-side; and played first at brighton, where the sussex men were beaten, who then went to play the nottingham men on their own ground. the match commenced on monday, september 7th, and was finished on wednesday the 9th, about half-past four o’clock. tuesday having been a wet day, there was no playing. the nottingham men beat again, having three wickets to go down. a more animating sight of the kind never was seen.

on sunday morning early, we saw a crowd going up the street, and immediately perceived that, in the centre of it, were the sussex cricketers, just arrived by the london coach, and going to an inn kept by one of the nottingham cricketers. they looked exceedingly interesting, being a very fine set of fellows, in their white hats, and with all their trunks, carpet-bags, and cloaks, coming, as we verily believed, to be beaten. our interest was strongly excited; and on monday morning we set off to the cricket-ground, which lies about a mile from the town, in the forest, as it is still called, though not a tree is left upon it,—a long, furzy common, crowned at the top by about twenty windmills, and descending in a steep slope to a fine level, round which the race-course runs. within the race-course lies the cricket-ground, which was enclosed at each end with booths; and all up the forest-hill were scattered booths, and tents with flags flying, fires burning, pots boiling, ale-barrels standing, and asses, carts, and people bringing still more good things. there were plenty of[528] apple and ginger-beer stalls; and lads going round with nuts and with waggish looks, crying—“nuts, lads! nuts, lads!” in little hollows the nine-pin and will-peg men had fixed themselves, to occupy loiterers; and, in short, there was all the appearance of a fair.

standing at the farther side of the cricket-ground, it gave me the most vivid idea possible of an amphitheatre filled with people. in fact, it was an amphitheatre. along each side of the ground ran a bank sloping down to it, and it, and the booths and tents at the ends were occupied with a dense mass of people, all as silent as the ground beneath them; and all up the hill were groups, and on the race-stand an eager, forward-leaning throng. there were said to be twenty thousand people, all hushed as death, except when some exploit of the players produced a thunder of applause. the playing was beautiful. mr. ward, late member of parliament for london, a great cricket-player, came from the isle of wight to see the game, and declared himself highly delighted. but nothing was so beautiful as the sudden shout, the rush, and breaking up of the crowd, when the last decisive match was gained. to see the scorers suddenly snatch up their chairs, and run off with them towards the players’ tent; to see the bat of bart goode, the batsman on whom the fate of the game depended, spinning up in the air, where he had sent it in the ecstasy of the moment; and the crowd, that the instant before was fixed and silent as the world itself, spreading all over the green space where the white figures of the players had till then been so gravely and apparently calmly contending,—spreading with a murmur as of the sea; and over their heads, amid the deafening clamour and confusion, the carrier-pigeon with a red ribbon tied to its tail, the signal of loss, beating round and round as to ascertain its precise position, and then flying off to bear the tidings to brighton,—it was a beautiful sight, and one that the most sedate person must have delighted to see.

my thoughts on such occasions overpass the things moving before me, and run on into consequences; and i could not help feeling what a great change the last thirty years had produced in the mind, taste, feeling, and moral character of our working population. what a wide difference was here presented, to the rude[529] rabbles formerly assembled to the most barbarous and blackguard amusements imaginable. why this is a near approach to the athletic games of the greeks; and no greek crowd could have behaved with more order and propriety, and evincing an intense interest, excited not by any vulgar and unworthy cause, but by a fine trial of skill and activity between their townsmen and their countrymen of a distant county. such an interest, arising out of such an emulation, not only shews a great progression of the public taste, but will wonderfully promote that progression. here, if we have been disappointed in many other instances, we see the actual and legitimate effect of general education. it is because the general mind is quickened, raised, and made capable of more refined impulses, that twenty thousand people can now sit, day after day, to witness a contest of manly activity and pure skill, and enjoy a high delight without drunkenness and brutal rows. never was a more respectable collection of people seen; and although there were plenty of booths and tents well supplied with all sorts of eatables and drinkables, and a good many took a necessary refreshment, or a comfortable glass and a pipe, as they sat and looked on, at the time we left there were no symptoms of drunkenness, but a sight the most gratifying imaginable—thousands of poor workmen streaming off homewards the moment the game was over, many of them with their children, wives, or sweethearts.

i say, therefore, that my thoughts ran on into consequences, and i saw, in prospect, the great good which this better taste for amusement, this purer species of emulation will produce. it is a beautiful sight to see men coming from a distant part of england to contend in a noble gymnastic exercise with those of another part of the country; and the spirit of generous rivalry thus is spread wider and wider. you see while a match is impending, what numbers of cricket-players are out in the fields, from grown men to boys that can but just wield the lightest bat. you see, even while the great game is going on, boys playing their lesser games in the outskirts of the crowd; and when the match is decided, the spirit is kindled and diffused farther than ever, by the warm discussions of the various merits of the players, and the glory acquired by the best.

this is a spirit which deserves the attention both of the public[530] and the legislature, and if ever we come to see public grounds appropriated to every large town for such exercises, as has been proposed in parliament by mr. buckingham, then not merely cricket but kindred sports will be pursued, quoits, nine-pins, bowls, archery, leaping, and running; all having a direct tendency to strengthen the body and quicken the mind; to counteract both the physical and moral poisons of crowded factories and thickly-populated towns.

it may, indeed, be objected, that all such games would lead to betting; but are we to shrink from every useful measure through fear of its abuse? i say fearlessly, let us set the brand of public abhorrence on such a practice, boldly and firmly, and the practice will disappear. it is not long since the brutal practice of boxing had become a mania, and seemed to set all public censure at defiance, but it did but seem—public censure put it down. let the higher classes too sanction these laudable exercises by their presence as a public duty, and the british people will, in my opinion, in coming years, exhibit scenes of beautiful skill, activity, and grace, as imposing as greece ever saw. in the instance here selected, the two most obvious circumstances were,—first, the absence of the higher classes, especially of the ladies; and secondly, the most perfect and admirable decorum of the people.