A man holds up

the

23. Running at the quintain on foot. bag of sand. 24. Two boys drawing a third with all their force, seated on a stool (on which is a saddle) running on four wheels.

25. A moveable quintain. The bag supposed to be held out. 26. A man laid on his belly upon a long stool, his head hanging over a vessel, with water at the bottom; another man standing at the other end of the stool to lift it up and plunge the head of the first in the water.

27. Two boys carrying a third upon a stick thrust between his legs, who holds a cock in his hands. They are followed by another boy with a flag.

28. Water quintain. A boat rowed by four persons, and steered by one. A man with a long pole at the stern. 29. Walking upon the hands to pipe and tabor.

30. A species of music.

31. A man seated, holding out his foot, against which another presses his.

32. Fighting with shield and club.

33. Carrying on pickapack.

34. Five women seated, a sixth kneeling, and leaping upon her hands. One of them lifts up her garments over her head, which the rest seem to be buffeting.

35. A boy seated cross-legged upon a pole, supported by two stools over a tub of water, in one hand holding something not understood, in the other, apparently, a candle.

36. The game of " Frog in the middle, you cannot catch me." 37. Three boys on stools, in a row, striking at each other. 38. A man carrying another on his shoulders.

39. A man in armour seated, holding a shield, another running at him with a pole. The armed man in place of a quintain. I suspect this to be nothing more than the human quintain.

40. Two men seated feet to feet, pulling at a stick with all their might.

41. Two men balancing in their hands a long board, on which a boy is kneeling on one knee with three swords, forming (by their points meeting) a triangle, and to music.

42. A man hanging upon a pole, with his elbows and feet together, and his head between his hams, supported by two other men.

43. Two men fighting with club and target.

44. Two handbells, common with the other music in the masquerade dances. It may be noted that the women do not appear to have been disguised; the men only, and in various forms, with the heads of all manner of animals, devils, &c. 45. A man with two bells, and two figures disguised as animals.

46. A man and bear dancing.

47. A man with monkeys tumbling and dancing.

48. Four figures, one blindfold, with a stick in his hand, and an iron kettle at a little distance, on which he appears to strike; the others waiting for the event.

49. Three figures with their hands elevated, as if to clap them together; one of them has his fingers bent, as if taking a pinch of snuff.

50. A man with a long pole like a rope-dancer.

51. Boys: one blindfold, the others beating him with their hands.

52. Four men, one putting his hand upon the head of a fifth, who sits in the middle cross-legged and cross-armed; the rest seem as if advancing to strike him open-handed.

53. A dance of seven men and seven women holding hands. Strutt, in his Manners and Customs, iii. 147, gives us from MS. Harl. 2057, an enumeration of "Auntient Customs in Games used by Boys and Girles, merrily sett out in verse:"

'Any they dare challenge for to throw the sledge,
To jumpe or leape over ditch or hedge;
To wrastle, play at stoole ball, or to runne,
To pich the barre, or to shoot of a gunne;
To play at loggets, nine holes, or ten pinnes,
To try it out at foote-ball by the shinnes;
At tick-tacke, seize nody, maw, and ruffe,

At hot-cockles, leape-frogge, or blind-man's buffe,

To drink the halper pottes, or deale at the whole cann,

To play at chesse, or pue, and ink horne,

To daunce the morris, play at barley brake,

At all exploits a man can think or speak:

At shove groate, venter poynte, or cross and pile,
At beshrew him that's last at any stile;

At leapinge over a Christmas bonfire,

Or at the drawing Dunne out of the myer;

At shoote cocke, Gregory, stoole ball, and what not;
Picke poynt, toppe and scourge to make him hott.”

ALL-HID.

THERE was an old sport among children, called in Hamlet, "Hide fox and all after," which, if I mistake not, is the same game that elsewhere occurs under the name of "All-hid;" which, as Steevens tells us, is alluded to in Dekker's Satiromastix: "Our unhandsome-faced poet does play at bo-peep with your grace, and cries all-hid, as boys do." In a curious little book entitled A Curtaine Lecture, 1637, p. 206, is the following passage: "A sport called all-hid, which is a mere children's pastime."

AMBASSADOR.

GROSE mentions among the sports of sailors the following: AMBASSADOR. A trick to duck some ignorant fellow or landsman, frequently played on board ships in the warm latitudes. It is thus managed: a large tub is filled with water, and two stools placed on each side of it. Over the whole is thrown a tarpawlin or old sail; this is kept tight by two persons, who are to represent the king and queen of a foreign country, and are seated on the two stools. The person intended to be ducked plays the ambassador, and, after repeating a ridiculous speech dictated to him, is led in great form up to the throne, and seated between the king and queen, who rising suddenly as soon as he is seated, he falls backwards into the tub of water."

ARCHERY.

IN Coates's History of Reading, p. 223, among the churchwardens' accounts of St. Lawrence parish, 1549, is the following entry: "Paid to Will'm Watlynton, for that the p'ishe was indetted to hym for makyng of the butts, xxxvis." Ibid. p. 131, St. Mary's parish, sub anno 1566: "Itm. for the

makyng of the butts, viijs." Ibid. p. 132, 1622: "Paid to two laborers to playne the grounde where the buttes should be, vs. vjd." 1629, "Paid towards the butts mending, ijs. vjd." Ibid. p. 379, St. Giles's parish, 1566: "Itm. for carrying of turfes for the butts, xvjd." Ibid. p. 381, 1605: "Three labourers, two days work aboute the butts, iiijs. . . . Carrying ix load of turfes for the butts, ijs. . . . For two pieces of timber to fasten on the railes of the butts, iiijd." 1621: "The parishioners did agree that the churchwardens and constables should sett up a payre of butts called shooting butts, in such place as they should think most convenient in St. Giles parish, which butts cost xivs. xjd.”

With the history of this exercise as a military art we have no concern here. Fitzstephen, who wrote in the reign of Henry the Second, notices it among the summer pastimes of the London youth; and the repeated statutes from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, enforcing the use of the bow, usually ordered the leisure time upon holidays to be passed in its exercise.

"In the sixteenth century we meet with heavy complaints,” says Strutt, in his Sports and Pastimes, p. 43, "respecting the disuse of the long-bow, and especially in the vicinity of London." Stow informs us that before his time it had been customary at Bartholomew-tide for the lord mayor, with the sheriffs and aldermen, to go into the fields at Finsbury, where the citizens were assembled, and shoot at the standard with broad and flight arrows for games; and this exercise was continued for several days: but in his time it was practised only one afternoon, three or four days after the festival of Saint Bartholomew. Stow died in 1605.

After the reign of Charles the First archery appears to have fallen into disrepute. Sir William Davenant, in a mock poem entitled the Long Vacation in London, describes the attorneys and proctors as making matches in Finsbury fields:

"With loynes in canvas bow-case tied,
Where arrows stick with mickle pride;
Like ghosts of Adam Bell and Clymme;
Sol sets for fear they'll shoot at him!"

About 1753 a society of archers was established in the metropolis, who erected targets on the same spot during the Easter and Whitsun holidays, when the best shooter was

styled captain, and the second lieutenant for the ensuing year. Of the original members of this society there were only two remaining when Daines Barrington compiled his "Observations" in the Archæologia. It is now incorporated into the archers' division of the Artillery Company.

About 1789 archery was again revived as a general amusement; and societies of bowmen and toxophilites were formed in almost every part of the kingdom. The fashion did not last long, but it has recently been resuscitated, and is now a fashionable recreation in all parts of England.

Sir Robert Dallington, in his View of France as it stood in 1598, says: 66 Concerning their shooting with the crossebowe, it is used, but not very commonly. Once in a yere, there is in each city a shooting with the peece at a popinjay of wood set upon some high steeple, as also they doe in many places of Germany. He that hitteth it downe is called the King for that yere, and is free from all taxe: besides, he is allowed twenty crownes towards the making of a collation for the rest of the shooters. And if it happen that three yeres together he carry the prize, he is free from all taxe and imposition whatsoever all his life after."

KING ARTHUR.

A GAME used at sea, when near the line, or in a hot latitude. It is performed thus: a man who is to represent King Arthur, ridiculously dressed, having a large wig, made out of oakum, or some old swabs, is seated on the side or over a large vessel of water. Every person in his turn is to be ceremoniously introduced to him, and to pour a bucket of water over him, crying, Hail, King Arthur! If, during this ceremony, the person introduced laughs or smiles (to which his Majesty endeavours to excite him by all sorts of ridiculous gesticulations), he changes places with and then becomes King Arthur, till relieved by some brother tar, who has as little command over his muscles as himself.