Bear Garden, Southwark.-From Visscher's' London.

FITZSTEPHEN mentions the baiting of bulls with dogs as a diversion of the London youths on holidays in his time.(1)

Hentzner, in his "Travels in England," p. 42, says: "There is a place built in the form of a Theatre, which serves for the baiting of bulls and bears they are fastened behind, and then worried by great English bull-dogs; but not without great risk to the dogs, from the horns of the one and the teeth of the other: and it sometimes happens they are killed on the spot. Fresh ones are immediately supplied in the places of those that are wounded or tired. To this entertainment there often follows that of whipping a blinded bear, which is performed by five or six men, standing circularly, with whips, which they exercise upon him without any mercy, as he cannot escape from them because of his chain. He defends himself with all his force and skill, throwing down all who come within his reach, and are not quite active enough to get out of it, and tearing the whips out of their hands and breaking them. At these spectacles, and everywhere else, the English are constantly smoking tobacco."(a) Hentzner was here in 1598.

Gilpin, in his "Life of Cranmer," tells us : "Bear-baiting, brutal as it was, was by no means an amusement of the lower people only. An odd incident furnishes us with the proof of this. An important controversial manuscript was sent by Archbishop Cranmer across the Thames. The person entrusted bade his waterman keep off from the tumult occasioned by baiting a bear on the river, before the King; he rowed however too near, and the persecuted animal overset the boat by trying to board it. The manuscript, lost in the confusion, floated away, and fell into the hands of a priest, who, by being told that it belonged to a privy-counsellor, was terrified from making use of it, which might have been fatal to the head of the reformed party." In a proclamation "to avoyd the abhomi

(a) Trav. in England, 8vo. Strawb. Hill, 1757.

VOL. II.

nable place called the Stewes," dated April the 13th, in the 37th year of Henry VIII., (preserved in the first volume of a "Collection of Proclamations in the Archives of the Society of Antiquaries of London," p. 225,) we read as follows: "Finallie to th' intent all resort should be eschued to the said place, the king's majestie straightlie chargeth and comaundeth that from the feast of Easter next ensuing, there shall noe Beare-baiting be used in that rowe, or in any place on that side the bridge called London-bridge, whereby the accustomed assemblies may be in that place cleerely abolished and extinct, upon like paine as well to them that keepe the beares and dogges, whych have byn used to that purpose, as to all such as will resort to see the same."(*)

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In Vaughan's Golden Grove," 8vo. Lond. 1608, signat. P. 6 h, we are told: "Famous is that example which chanced neere London, A.D. 1583, on the 13th daye of Januarie, being Sunday, at Paris Garden, where there met together (as they were wont) (3) an infinite number of people to see the Beare-bayting, without any regard to that high day. in the middest of their sports, all the scaffolds and galleries sodainely fell downe, in such wise that two hundred persons were crushed well nigh to death, besides eight that were killed forthwith."

But,

In Laneham's "Account of the Queen's Entertainment at Killingworth Castle," 1575, we have the following curious picture of a Bearbaiting, in a letter to Mr. Martin, a mercer of London :

"Well, syr, the bearz wear brought foorth intoo the court, the dogs set too them, too argu the points even face to face; they had learn'd counsel also a both parts: what may they be coounted parciall that are retain but a to syde? I ween no. Very feers both ton and toother and eager in argument; if the dog in pleadyng would pluk the bear by the throte, the bear with travers woould claw him again by the scalp; confess and a list, but avoyd a coold not that waz bound too the

R

bar and his coounsell toold him that it coould be too him no pollecy in pleading. Thearfore thus with fending and prooving, with plucking and tugging, skratting and byting, by plain tooth and nayll a to side and toother, such expens of blood and leather waz thear between them, az a moonth's licking, I ween, wyl not recoover; and yet remain az far out az ever they wear.

"It was a sport very pleazaunt of theez beastz; to see the bear with his pink nyez leering after hiz enmiez approch, the nimble

ness and wayt of the dog to take hiz avauntage, and the fors and experiens of the bear agayn to avoyd the assauts: if he wear bitten in one place, how he would pynch in an oother to get free: that if he wear taken onez, then what shyft, with byting, with clawyng, with roring, tossing, and tumbling, he woould woork too wynd hymself from them; and when he waz lose, to shake his ears twyse or thryse wyth the blud and the slaver about his fiznamy, was a matter of goodly releef." (4)

(1)Descript. of London," edited by Dr. Pegge, 4to. Lond. 1772, p. 50. In Misson's "Memoirs and Observations in his Travels over England," pp. 24, 25, 26, are some remarks on the manner of Bull-baiting as it was practised in the time of King William III.

The ancient law of the market directing that no man should bait any Bull, bear, or horse in the open streets in the metropolis, has been already quoted in the former volume of this work.

(2) The subsequent extract from the same proclamation will be thought curious: "Furthermore his Majestie straightlie chargeth and commandeth that all such householders as, under the name of baudes, have kept the notable and marked houses, and knowne hosteries, for the said evill disposed persons, that is to saie, such householders as do inhabite the houses whited and painted, with signes on the front for a token of the said houses, shall avoyd with bagge and baggage, before the feast of Easter next comyng, upon paine of like punishment, at the Kings Majesties will and pleasure."

(3) See also Stubbe's "Anatomie of Abuses," 12mo. Lond. 1585, p. 118, where is a relation of the same accident. In the very

rare Roman Catholic book, "The Life of the Reverend Father Bennet of Canfilde," Douay, 1623, translated from the French by R. R., Catholique Priest, p. 11, is the following passage: Even Sunday is a day designed for Beare-bayting, and even the houre of theyre (the Protestants) service is allotted to it, and indeede the tyme is as well spent at the one as at the other." R. R. was at least an honest Catholic; he does not content himself with equivocal glances at the erroneous creed, but speaks out plainly.

"this

(4) See Mr. Nichols's "Progresses of Queen Elizabeth," vol. i. "Her Majesty," says Rowland White, in the Sidney papers, day appoints a Frenchman to doe feats upon a rope in the Conduit Court. To-morrow she hath commanded the Beares, the bull, and the ape to be bayted in the tilt-yard.' Andrews's "Continuation of Henry's History of Great Britain," 4to., 1796, p. 532.

THIS is a Welsh custom, practised as they throw the blacksmith's stone in some parts of England. There is a similar game in the

North of England called Long Bullets. The prize is to him that throws the ball farthest in the fewest throws.