the eighth1, and A. D. 1569m. It has been by some called a royal Diversion, and as every one knows, the Cock-pit at Whitehall was erected by a crowned head", for the more magnificent celebration of the sport. It was prohibited however by one of the Acts of Oliver Cromwell, March 31st 1654°. Dr. Pegge describes the Welsh Main, in order to expose the cruelty of it, and supposes it peculiar to this kingdom, known neither in China, nor in Persia, nor in Malacca, nor among the savage Tribes of America. Suppose, says he, sixteen pair of Cocks; of these the sixteen Conquerors are pitted the second time-the eight Conquerors of these are pitted a third time-the four of these a fourth time--and lastly, the two Conquerors of these are pitted a fifth time so that, incredible Barbarity! thirty-one of these Creatures are sure to be thus inhumanly destroyed for the sport and pleasure, amid noise ¶ and nonsense, blended with the blasphemies and profaneness, of those who will yet assume to themselves the name of Christians. བ་ Without running into all the extravagance and superstition of Pythagoreans 1 Maitland, p. 1343, 933. m Maitland, p. 260. King Henry VIII. See Maitland, p. 1343. It appears that James I. was remarkably fond of Cock-fighting. • Historia Histrionica. ? Perhaps the subsequent Extract from a MS. Life of Alderman Barnes, p. 4. which I have frequently cited in my History of Newcastle, about the date of James the second's time, leads to the Etymon of the word Main, which signifies a Battle off hand. "His chief Recreation was Cock-fighting, and which long after, he was not able to say whether it did not at least border upon what was criminal, he is said to have been the Champion of the Cock-pit. One Cock particularly he had, called Spang Counter,' which came off victor in a great many battles a la main; but the Sparks of Streatlem Castle killed it out of mere Envy: 80 there was an end of Spang Counter and of his Master's sport of Cocking ever after." ¶ "Ecce decem pono libras: Quis pignore certat Gallorum mores multorum expertus et artes; Musa Angl. p. 89 and Brahmins, yet certainly we have no right, no power or authority, to abuse and torment any of God's creatures, or needlessly to sport with their Lives: but, on the contrary, ought to use them with all possible tenderness and moderation. In a word Cock-fighting was an heathenish mode of diversion in its beginning, and at this day ought certainly to be confined to barbarous nations. Yet it may and must be added, to aggravate the matter, and enhance our shame, our Butchers in this cruel business have contrived a method, unknown to the antients, of arming the Heels of the Bird with Steel": a device which has been considered a most noble improvement in the Art, and indeed an invention highly worthy of Men that delight in blood. It still continues to be a favourite Sport of the Colliers in the North of Englands. The clamorous wants of their Families solicit them to go to work in vain, when a Match is heard of: Nequicquam jejuni urgent vestigia nati, Poscentes lacrymis tenerisque amplexibus escam: Pliny mentions the Spur and calls it Telum, but the Gafle is a mere modern Invention, as likewise is the great, and, I suppose, necessary exactness in matching them. The Asiatics, however, use Spurs that act on each side like a Lancet, and which almost iminediately decide the Battle. Hence they are never permitted by the modern Cock-fighters. • In the North, before any Collier ventures down a pit, which is suspected to contain foul air, a Cock is let down. In performing some years ago the Service appropriated to the Visitation of the Sick with one of these Men, who died a few days afterwards, to my great astonishment I was interrupted by the crowing of a Game Cock, hung in a Bag over his head. To this exultation an immediate answer was given by another Cock concealed in a Closet, to which the first replied, and instantly the last rejoined. I never remember to have met with an incident so truly of the tragi-comical cast as this, and could not proceed in the execution of that very solemn office, till one of the Disputants was removed. It had been industriously hung beside him, it should seem, for the sake of Company. He had thus an opportunity of casting at an object he had dearly loved in the days of his health and strength, what Gray has well called 'a long lingering look behind.' BULL-RUNNING in the Town of STAMFORD. At Stamford in Lincolnshire, an annual Sport is celebrated, called Bull-running of which the following account is taken from Butcher's Survey of the Town, 8vo. Lond. 1717. pp. 76. 77. "It is performed just the day six weeks before Christmas. The Butchers of the Town at their own charge against the time, provide the wildest Bull they can get: This Bull over night is had into some Stable or Barn belonging to the Alderman. The next morning proclamation is made by the common Bellman of the Town, round about the same, that each one shut up their Shop-doors and Gates, and that none, upon pain of imprisonment, offer to do any violence to Strangers, for the preventing whereof (the Town being a great thoroughfare and then being in Term Time) a Guard is appointed for the passing of Travellers through the same (without hurt). That none have any iron upon their Bull-Clubs or other Staff which they pursue the Bull with. Which proclamation made, and the gates all shut up, the Bull is turned out of the Alderman's House, and then hivie skivy, tag and rag, men, women, and children of all sorts and sizes, with all the dogs in the town promiscuously running after him with their Bull-Clubs spattering dirt in each others faces, that one would think them to be so many Furies started out of Hell for the punishment of Cerberus, as when Theseus and Perillas conquered the place (as Ovid describes it) "A ragged Troop of Boys and Girls Do pellow him with Stones: With Clubs, with Whips, and many raps, They part his skin from Bones.' and (which is the greater shame) I have seen both senatores majorum Gentium & matrones de eodem gradu, following this Bulling business. "I can say no more of it, but only to set forth the Antiquity thereof, (as the Tradition goes), William Earl of Warren, the first Lord of this Town, in the time of King John, standing upon his Castle-walls in Stamford, viewing the fair prospects of the River and Meadow, under the same, saw two Bulls a fighting for one Cow; a Butcher of the Town, the owner of one of those Bulls, with a great Mastiff Dog accidentally coming by, set his Dog upon his own Bull, who forced the same Bull up into the Town, which no sooner was come within the same but all the Butcher's Dogs both great and small, follow'd in pursuit of the Bull, which by this time made stark mad with the noise of the people and the fierceness of the Dogs, ran over man, woman, and child, that stood in the way: this caused all the Butchers and others in the Town to rise up as it were in a tumult, making such an hideous noise that the sound thereof came into the Castle unto the ears of Earl Warren, who presently thereupon mounted on Horseback, rid into the Town to see the business, which then appearing (to his humour) very delightful, he gave all those Meadows in which the two Bulls were at the first found fighting, (which we now call the Castle Meadows) perpetually as a Common to the Butchers of the Town, (after the first Grass is eaten) to keep their Cattle in till the time of Slaughter: upon this condition, that as upon that day on which this sport first began, which was (as I said before) that day six weeks before Christmas, the Butchers of the Town should from time to time yearly for ever, find a mad Bull for the continuance of that sport.' At present the Magistracy of the Town decline any interference in the Bull-Running. [A very long account of a similar practice at Tutbury will be found in Dr. Plot's History of Staffordshire, where it appears to have been a custom, belonging to the Honour of the Place, that the Minstrels who came to Matins there on the feast of the Assumption of the blessed Virgin, should have a Bull given them by the prior of Tutbury, if they could take him on this side the river Dove nearest to the Town; or else the Prior was to give them forty pence; for the enjoyment of which Custom they were to give to the lord at the said feast twenty pence. See Plot's Staffordshire, p. 439. See also Shaw's History of Staffordshire, vol. i. p. 52. and an elaborate Memoir in the second Volume of the Archæologia, p. 86. where the subject is considered by Dr. Pegge. In later times the Tutbury Bull-running appears to have given rise to greater excesses than that at Stamford. "Happily," says Mr. Shaw, "a few years since, his Grace the Duke of Devonshire, who is grantee of the scite of the Priory, and the Estates belonging to it, was pleased to abolish this barbarous custom, which it is to be hoped will have the same effect upon those similar brutish Diversions of Bull-baiting, practised in many country towns (particularly in the North-west parts of this County,) at that season of the Year called the Wake."] ADDITIONS VOL. I. P. 196. MAY POLES. [In Burton's "Judgements upon Sabbath Breakers", a Work written professedly against the Book of Sports, and published in quarto 1641. are some curious particulars illustrating May Games: pag. 9. Example 16. "At Dartmouth, 1634. upon the coming forth and publishing of the Book of Sports, a company of younkers on May-day morning before day, went into the country, to fetch home a May-pole with Drumme aud Trumpet, whereat the neighbouring Inhabitants were affrighted, supposing some enemies had landed to sack them. The Pole being thus brought home, and set up, they began to drink healths about it, and to it, till they could not stand so steady as the Pole did, whereupon the Major and Justice bound the ringleaders over to the Sessions, whereupon these complaining to the Archbishop's Vicar Generall, then in his Visitation, he prohibited the Justices to proceed against them in regard of the King's Book. But the Justices acquainted him they did it for their disorder, in transgressing the bounds of the book. Hereupon these libertines scorning at Authority, one of them fell suddenly into a Consumption, whereof he shortly after died; now although this revelling was not on the Lord's Day, yet being upon any other day and especially May-day, the May Pole set up thereon giving occasion to the prophanation of the Lord's Day the whole yeer after, it was sufficient to provoke God to send plagues and judgements among them." The greater part of the Examples are levelled at Summer-poles.] P. 233. TRINITY SUNDAY. In a Letter from Mr. E. G. to Mr. Aubrey, (Miscellanies on several curious subjects, 8vo. Lond. printed by Curl. 1714.) dated Ascension Day 1682. is |