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 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 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 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 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:
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 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 Floræ, 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.
We must not close this department of our subject without saying a word or two on wrestling. This exercise, which at one time was almost universal, is now, like many others, fallen into general disuse; and is confined almost entirely to Cornwall and Devon in the west, and the counties of Chester, Lancaster, Cumberland, and Westmoreland in the north. These counties, indeed, have always been pre-eminent in the science of wrestling, and have possessed practices peculiar to themselves. Formerly, the citizens of London were great wrestlers. Stow tells us, that in the month of August, about the feast of St. Bartholomew, there were divers days spent in wrestling. The lord mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs being present, in a large tent pitched for that purpose, near Clerkenwell; the officers of the city, namely, the sheriffs, sergeants, and yeomen; the porters of the king’s beam, or weighing-house, etc., gave a general challenge to such of the inhabitants of the suburbs as thought themselves expert in this exercise. In Sewell’s History of the Society of Friends, a curious circumstance is recorded connected with this taste of the Londoners for wrestling. Edward Burrough, a young and enthusiastic preacher in that society, which then was newly formed, seeing a ring made for a wrestling match in some part of the city where he was passing, and a man in it awaiting the acceptance of his challenge by some one, suddenly stepped into it, to the great amazement both of the champion and the spectators, “who,” say the historian, “instead of some light and airy person, seeing a grave and awful young man,” were utterly posed and confounded; and the eloquent and zealous minister, taking advantage of this surprise, told them he was prepared for a contest, but of another sort to what they were looking for; and forthwith gave them such a sermon in his fiery and vehement style of eloquence, which had gained him the name of Boanerges, or the Son of Thunder, as wonderfully quieted them down, and sent them away in a solemn frame of mind.
This wrestling spirit, however, appears to have vanished for a long period from London as well as the country, and to have been only of late years revived by the West of England, and the Westmoreland, and Cumberland Clubs. These have drawn together great numbers; the spectators at the anniversary display of the Westmoreland club at Chalk-Farm, in the spring of 1837, being about 8000.
Sir Thomas Parkyn, of Bunny Park, in Nottinghamshire, who was a zealous advocate and patron of wrestling, gave an annual prize for the best wrestler, and ordered the continuance of the same in his will; but it would not take root there, and the only remaining traces of his endeavour are, his book on the Cornish Hug, and his effigy in a niche in Bunny church, in the attitude in which a wrestler receives his antagonist, with his favourite title of Thomas Luctator inscribed over his head.
It is singular that in the two extremities of the country, where wrestling maintains its ancient popularity, adjoining counties, whose rivalry, no doubt, keeps alive the interest in it, should maintain such opposite practices. In some of the northern counties, kicking is allowed, in others it is not. In Devon, kicking shins is a great part of the game; in Cornwall it forms no part of it. Lancashire is famous for its cross-buttock, and Cornwall for its hug. Cornwall and Devon, however, possess unquestionably the pre-eminence in this ancient art, an art which held an eminent rank in the Olympic games of Greece. “The Cornish,” says Fuller, “are masters of the art of wrestling, so that if the Olympian Games were now in fashion, they would come away with the victory. Their hug is a crowning close with their fellow combatant, the fruits whereof is his fair fall, or foil at the least.” “They learn the art,” says Carew, “early in life, for you shall hardly find an assembly of boys in Devon and Cornwall, where the untowardly among them will not as readily give you a muster of this exercise, as you are prone to require it.”
A writer in Hone’s Every-Day Book, in 1828, says, “No kicks are allowed in Cornwall except the players who are in the ring mutually agree to it. A hat is thrown in as a challenge, which being accepted by another, the combatants strip, and put on a coarse loose kind of jacket, of which they take hold, and of nothing else. Play then commences. To constitute a fair fall, both shoulders must touch the ground at or nearly the same moment. To guard against foul play, to decide on the falls, and manage the affairs of the day, four or six Sticklers, as the umpires are called, are chosen, to whom all these matters are left. Wrestling thrives in the eastern part of Cornwall, particularly about Saint Austle and Saint Columb. At the latter place, resides Polkinhorne, the champion of Cornwall, and by many considered entitled to the championship of the four western counties; Cann, the Devonshire champion, having declined to meet him, Polkinhorne has not practised wrestling for several years past, while Cann has carried off the prize at every place in Devon that he shewed at. They certainly are both good ones. Parkins, a friend of Polkinhorne’s, is a famous hand at these games; and so was Warner of Redruth, till disabled in February 1825, by over-exertion on board the Cambria brig, bound for Mexico.”
This writer proceeds to state that John Knill, Esq. bequeathed the income of an estate to be given in various prizes for racing, rowing, and wrestling; these games to be held every fifth year for ever; and that the first was celebrated in July 1801, around a mausoleum which he erected in his lifetime on a high rock near St. Ives. “Early in the morning, the roads from Helston, Truro, and Penzance, were lined with horses and vehicles of every description, while thousands of travellers on foot poured in from all quarters till noon, when the assembly formed. The wrestlers entered the ring; a troop of virgins dressed in white, danced and chanted a hymn composed for the occasion; the spectators ranged themselves along the hills, and, at length, the mayor of St. Ives appeared in his robes of state. The signal was given; the flags were displayed from the towers of the castle; here the wrestlers exerted their sinewy strength; here the rowers dashed through the waves, and the songs of the damsels added delight to the scene. A dinner and ball at the Union Hotel concluded the day. The games were again celebrated in 1806, 1811, 1816, and 1821, with increased favour and admiration.”
So much for Cornish play; that of Devon, I have already said, is of a different kind. The Devon wrestlers don’t practice the hug, but kick shins dreadfully. For this purpose they have their shoes armed with iron, and before going into the ring, they wrap up their legs with numerous folds of carpeting to defend themselves from the violence of the kicks. “The Devonshire men,” says the same writer, who professes to be of neither county, and to admire the champions of both, “have no under-play, nor have they one heaver. Visit a Devon ring, and you will wait a tedious time after a man is thrown ere another appear. After undergoing the necessary preparation for a good kicking, he enters, and shakes his adversary by the hand, and kicks, and lays hold when he can get a fit opportunity. If he is conscious of superior strength, he goes to work, and by force of arm wrests his opponent off his legs, and lays him flat; or if too heavy for this, he carries him round by the hip. But when the men find that they are ‘much of a muchness,’ it is really tiresome; caution is the word, and the hardest shoe, and the best kicker, carries it. I have seen in Cornwall more persons at these games when the prize has been a gold-laced hat, a waistcoat, or a pair of gloves, than ever attend the sports in Devon, where the prizes are liberal, for they don’t like to be kicked for a trifle; or even at the famed meetings of later days in London, at the Eagle in the City-Road, or the Golden Eagle in Mile-End. How is this? Why, in the latter places, six, eight, and at farthest twelve standards, are as much as a day’s play will admit of; while in Cornwall I have seen forty made in one day. At Penzance, on Monday, 24th ultimo, thirty standards were made, and the match concluded the day following. In Devon, what with the heavy shoes, and thick padding, and time lost in equipment and kicking, half that number cannot be made in a day. I have frequently seen men obliged to leave the ring, and abandon the chance of a prize, owing solely to hurts they have received by kicks from the knee downwards; nay, I have seen Cann’s brothers, or relations, obliged to do so. To the eye of a beholder unacquainted with wrestling, the Cornish mode must appear as play; that of Devon—barbarous. It is an indisputable fact that no Cornish wrestler of any note ever frequents the games in Devon, and that whenever those from Devon have played in Cornwall, they have been thrown—Jordans by Parkins, and so on.”
I think any person not of Devon must give the preference to the play of Cornwall as more scientific and less savage; but before we proceed to compare the rival champions, let us give a little more display of the Devonshire men by an eye-witness in 1820, who has related his visit to the ring at Exmouth, in the London Magazine, with a great feeling of enjoyment. He was told one morning that there was going to be a wrestling, and that “the Canns would be there; and young Brockenden; and Thorne, from Dawlish; and the men from the moors!” This excited his imagination; as well it might, for there is something about the names of these men, the Canns, the Brockendens, the Widdicombs of the moors, that has a wild, grim, and wrestlerish sound; and accords well with those grey, ancient, and romantic moorlands of the western regions of our island. On approaching the ring he found a champion in it. “He was a young man of extremely prepossessing appearance, stripped to the shirt, and enclothed with the linen jacket with a green cock on the back, which I have noticed to be the customary garment. His figure, which in its country garb had not particularly impressed me with its size or strength, now struck me as highly powerful, compact, and beautiful. His limbs were well grown, and strongly set—yet rather slight than otherwise—and his body was easy, slim, and yet peculiarly expressive of power. The fronts of his legs from the knee to the ankle, were armed with thick carpeting, to protect them from the kicks of his antagonist; and even this strange armour did not give to his person the appearance of clumsiness. His neck was bare, and certainly very fine;—but the shape of his head struck me as being the most expressive and poetical (I use the term under correction) I had for a long time beheld—being set off, I conceive, by the way in which his hair was arranged;—and this was dark, hanging in thick snakish curls on each side of his forehead, and down the back part of his head: add to all this, a handsome, melancholy, thin countenance, and you will have at once some idea of the young man who now stood before me. I turned to a countryman near me, and inquired who this youth might be, whose undaunted mien and comely port had so taken my favour captive. ‘Who is that?’ said the man, with a tone of surprise, accompanied with a look of profound pity at my ignorance—‘why, one of the Canns to be sure!’” But we will pass over the first day’s play, and come to the evening of the second day’s play. “The first shout of the master of the revels was—‘The younger Cann, and Widdicomb of the Moors!’ and this was received with a low murmur, and a deep interest which almost smothered sound. The younger Cann was the stoutest of the brotherhood, finely formed and fair-haired. He stripped and accoutred himself immediately: his brothers assisting in buckling his leg-armour and fastening his jacket. There was evidently a great anxiety in this group, but still the utmost confidence in ultimate success; and I could not help taking part in the interest of the brothers, and at the same time entertaining a full share of their faith in their champion’s triumph. ‘And who,’ said I to a neighbour, ‘are these Canns?’ ‘They are farmers; and there are five brothers, all excellent wrestlers; but you only see three here to-night.’ But the fine young wrestler stepped into the ring, and our conversation ceased.
“The moon was now very clear, full, and bright; and its light fell upon the noble person of Cann, and shewed every curl of his hair. The Moor-man soon joined him—prepared for the conflict. He was a giant in size, and from what I gathered around me, a man of most savage nature. The popular feeling was painfully on Cann’s side. After the cup had been pledged, the opponents seized each other with an iron grasp. Cann stood boldly, but cautiously up, as conscious that he had much to do; and the Moorman opposed him resolutely and grandly. The struggle was immediate; and Cann, with one terrific wrench, threw his antagonist to the earth; but he fell so doubtfully on his shoulder, that it seemed uncertain whether he would fall on his back, which is necessary to victory, or recover himself by rolling on his face. Cann looked proudly down upon him, and saw him by a miraculous strain, which resembled that of a Titan in pain, save the fall, by wrenching himself down on his face. His shoulder and side were soiled—but he was not deemed vanquished.
“By the order of the umpires the struggle was renewed, when owing, as I conceived, to the slippery state of the grass, Cann fell on his knees, and the Moor-man instantly hurled him on his back. All was uproar and confusion—but Cann was declared to have received a fall—and gloom spread itself over all! He could not be convinced of the justice of his judges—a common case when the verdict is adverse—and it was in real pain of spirit that he pulled off the jacket.
“Young Brockenden followed next, with another man from the Moors; and he received a doubtful fall, which was much cavilled at, but which the judges, nevertheless, gave against him. It now grew late, and the clouds thickened around, so that the wrestlers could scarcely be perceived. I left the sports somewhat unwillingly; but I could not distinguish the parties, and in truth, I was dispirited at my favourite’s being foiled. I heard that the brother Canns retrieved the fame of the family—but the darkness of the night, and the state of the grass, gave no chance, either to the spectators or to the wrestlers. In the morning, the ring, the awning, the scaffolding—had vanished; and the young fellows had separated; the Canns to their farms—the men to the moors.”
Having now taken a peep at both the Cornish and Devonshire men, let us bring them into contact. In 1826, at the Eagle-Tavern Green, City-Road, several matches took place between Devonshire and Cornish men, on the 19th, 20th, and 21st of September. The following exhibition of the struggle between Abraham Cann, the champion of Dartmoor, and Warren of Cornwall, is equal to a bass-relief from a Grecian frieze, and gives a most graphic view of the systems of the two counties. It is from the London Magazine, and evidently by the same writer.
“The contest between Abraham Cann and Warren not only displayed this difference of style, but was attended with a degree of suspense between skill and strength, that rendered it extremely interesting. The former, who is a son of a Devonshire farmer, has been backed against any man in England for 500l. His figure is of the finest athletic proportions, and his arm realizes the muscularity of ancient specimens. His power in it is surprising: his hold is like that of a vice, and with ease he can pinion the arms of the strongest adversary, if he once grips them, and keep them as close together, or as far asunder, as he chooses. He stands with his legs apart, his body quite upright, looking down good-humouredly on his crouching opponent. In this instance, his opponent, Warren, a miner, was a man of superior size, and of amazing strength, not so well distributed, however, throughout his frame: his arms and body being too lengthy in proportion to their bulk. His visage was harsh beyond measure, and he did not disdain to use a little craft with eye and hand, in order to distract his enemy’s attention. But he had to deal with a man as collected as ever entered a ring. Cann put in his hand as quietly as if he were going to seize a shy horse, and at length, caught a slight hold between finger and thumb of Warren’s sleeve. At this Warren flung away with the impetuosity of a surprised horse. But it was in vain; there was no escape from Cann’s pinch, so the miner seized his adversary in his turn, and at length both of them grappled each other by the arm and the breast of the jacket. In a trice Cann tripped his opponent with the toe in a most scientific but ineffectual manner, throwing him clean to the ground, but not on his back, as required. The second heat began similarly. Warren stooped more, so as to keep his legs out of Cann’s reach, who punished him for it by several kicks below the knee, which must have told severely if his shoes had been on, after his country’s fashion. They shook each other rudely—strained knee to knee—forced each other’s shoulders down, so as to overbalance the body—but all ineffectually. They seemed to be quite secure from each other’s efforts, as long as they held by the arm and breast-collar, as ordinary wrestlers do. A new grip was to be effected. Cann liberated one arm of his adversary, to seize him by the cape behind; at that instant, Warren, profiting by his inclined posture and his long arm, threw himself round the body of the Devon champion, and fairly lifted him a foot from the ground, clutching him in his arms with the grasp of a second Antæus. The Cornish men shouted aloud, ‘Well done, Warren!’ to their hero, whose naturally pale visage glowed with the hope of success. He seemed to have his opponent at his will, and to be fit to fling him, as Hercules flung Lycas, any how he pleased. Devonshire then trembled for its champion, and was mute. Indeed it was a moment of heart-quaking suspense. But Cann was not daunted; his countenance expressed anxiety, but not discomfiture. He was off terra firma, clasped in the embrace of a powerful man, who waited but a single struggle of his, to pitch him more effectually from him to the ground. Without straining to disengage himself, Cann with unimaginable dexterity, glued his back firmly to his opponent’s chest, lacing his feet round the other’s knee-joints, and throwing one arm backward over Warren’s shoulders so as to keep his own enormous shoulders pressed upon the breast of his uplifter. In this position they stood, at least twenty seconds, each labouring in one continuous strain, to bend the other, one forward, the other backwards. Such a struggle could not last. Warren, with the might of the other upon his stomach and chest, felt his balance almost gone, as the energetic movements of his countenance indicated. His feet too were motionless, by the coil of his adversary’s legs round his; so, to save himself from falling backward, he stiffened his whole body from the ankles upwards, and these last being the only liberated joints, he inclined forward from them, so as to project both bodies, and prostrate them in one column to the ground together. It was like the slow and poising fall of an undermined tower. You had time to contemplate the injury which Cann, the undermost, would sustain, if they fell in that solid, unbending posture to the earth. But Cann ceased bearing upon the spine as soon as he found his supporter going in an adverse direction. With a presence of mind unrateable, he relaxed his strain upon one of his adversary’s stretched legs, forcing the other outwards with all the might of his foot, and pressing his elbow on the opposite shoulder. This was sufficient to whisk his man undermost the instant he unstiffened his knee—which Warren did not do till more than half-way to the ground, when from the acquired rapidity of the falling bodies, nothing was discernible. At the end of the fall, Warren was seen sprawling on his back, and Cann, whom he had liberated to save himself, had been thrown a few yards off, on all fours. Of course the victory should have been adjudged to this last. When the partial referee was appealed to, he decided that it was not a fair fall, as only one shoulder had bulged the ground, though there was evidence on the back of Warren that both had touched it pretty rudely. After much debating, a new referee was appointed, and the old one expelled: when the candidates again entered the lists. The crowning beauty of the whole was, that the second fall was precisely a counterpart of the first. Warren made the same move, only lifting his antagonist higher, with the view to throw the upper part of his frame out of play. Cann turned himself exactly in the same manner, using much greater effort than before, and apparently more put to it by his opponent’s great strength. His share, however, in upsetting his supporter was greater this time, as he relaxed one leg much sooner, and adhered closer to the chest during the fall; for at the close he was seen uppermost, still coiled round his massive adversary, who admitted the fall, starting up, and offering his hand to the victor.”
Since then Polkinhorne of St. Columb has encountered Cann, and thrown him, and is, or was, the acknowledged champion of the West. He is the keeper of the principal inn at St. Columb, where I on one occasion stopped, having shortly before taken a halfpenny ticket from his dethroned rival, Cann of Dartmoor, at the foot-bridge between Plymouth and Devonport, where he was, if he be not yet, stationed.
In my last chapter I gave a general view of the present rural sports and pastimes of the peasantry—perhaps as it regards wrestling, more prominently than some readers might think judicious. But what is prominent in the country life of any part of England, it is my bounden duty to set before my readers; and there is no feature of English life more remarkable than the sanguine attachment of the people of some particular parts to particular sports; more especially where those sports have relaxed their ancient hold on the people in all other districts, or have refused to be engrafted on other districts; as golf continues to be one of the prime sports of Scotland, but will not travel across the Tweed. Let us now, before closing the department of this work appropriated to the peasantry, notice some characteristic features, which I think must strongly interest us all.
After all, the happiness of a people is not found in their amusements. Amusements may indicate, in a certain degree, that a people is happy; but real happiness is a thing of a more domestic nature. It is a Lar, and belongs to the household, or is to be found in the quiet and enclosed precincts of home gardens. A great portion of the happiness of the common people is therefore little perceived, for it is unobtrusive; and consists in following out those peculiar biases and penchants, which in higher personages are termed genius. The genius of the working classes, which from its deriving little help from science, or field of exercise from circumstance, is seldom admitted to be genius at all, still exhibits itself in a variety of ways, and contributes at once to their prosperity, their happiness, and to the stamping of individual character. A great deal of it is necessarily exerted in their particular trades, and produces all that is beautiful and exquisite in handicraft arts. That which gives an artisan eminence in the workshop of his master, would probably have produced specimens of art that would have claimed the admiration of the whole community. Those glorious specimens of architectural perfection which adorn our chief cathedrals, the work of the middle ages, are the evidences of masonic skill, which in this age might probably have been employed on our plainer structures, or in building steam-engines, or elaborating some piece of plate, or carving the handles of parasols. Circumstance has much to do in the decision of the fate of all genius and ingenuity. It is a striking fact, that the greater number of artisans who eminently excel in their own line, partake largely of the temperament and foibles of genius. They are often irregular in their application to business, fond of company and of its excitements; so that nothing is so common as to say, that man is an inimitable workman, but that he will not work half his time, and is too fond of the public-house, where he draws a circle of admirers around him. But when a man is at once skilful, steady, and enthusiastic in his art,—that man is a happy man. His mind has a constant subject of reflection, of exercise, of satisfaction, before it. He sees with pride the workmanship of his hands, and enjoys with as much inward delight the reputation and applause it brings him, as does a poet, a philosopher, or a conqueror the fame of their respective works.
But, in many others, the peculiar instinct shews itself in some other pursuit than their trade. It does not happen to them to have fallen upon that profession which would have called forth the slumbering spirit, and when it wakes it shews itself in some other form. These men are said to have their HOBBY. They have a favourite scheme, or occupation, which shares their attention with their trade, and often supersedes it. Crabbe, that close observer of whatever passed in this grade of life, has well described these propensities. If they shew themselves in a man’s own trade: