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been disgraced with private assassinations by Englishmen. "Of two evils, common sense says, choose the least."

Boxing matches, therefore, were hailed with delight. The deadly weapons were laid aside, and the pugnacious encouraged the practice, under the idea that pugilism would, as it did, promote manliness of character.

The magistrates sanctioned it, and it had for a while, the influence and the patronage of all ranks, and as well the wealthy A few years after, it brought forth William Willis, whose cog nomen was the fighting Quaker; also Broughton, and others. Broughton, the prize fighter, was a waterman, (died 1788, aged 85, he had realized £7000,) and won the first Dogget's* coat and badge.

In 1715, he rowed from old Swan stairs, near London bridge, to the white Swan, Chelsea; the distance is five miles, which was once rowed by Mullins, a waterman, in forty-eight minutes against the tide. It is an annual boat race on the first of August. Edmund Kean, the player, added to the prize during his lifetime.

It may be remarked, as a noble trait in the English character, as a proof of his manliness and generosity, that when provoked, he seeks not the aid of other instruments; he is content with no other weapons for righting his own wrongs, than those which nature gave him. I am not holding up the Englishman as a model in all cases; every nation has its peculiar characteristics; in this particular, an Englishman stands far superior to all other nations in the world. He will protect himself, he will defend the weaker sex, he will revenge helpless innocence with his bared, stalwart arm; nay, he will do more! he will lay down his deadly weapon, if his ordinary working tool is one, and will feel satisfied when his adversary cries, "hold, enough." While all other nations will fly to the first deadly weapon they can grasp; and not remain satisfied, till they have maimed or disfigured, or probably taken life. This great change, this amazing difference in the national character, can be traced as clearly arising from the pugilistic contests of this century, as the flight of the cricket ball can be traced to the bat.

There is a very interesting chapter on this subject, in Combe's System of Phrenology, article Combativeness.

I beg these remarks may not be taken as an apology for the gratification of a pugnacious disposition :

""Tis folly only, and defect of sense,

Turns trifles into things of consequence." MARTIAL.

I hope I am fully alive to the propriety of forgiving, rather *Dogget was a comedian of some celebrity at the commencement of the seventeenth century.

than resenting injuries. I have oft reflected, and I would, was I capable, plead with the force of the most eloquent divine, the necessity of forbearance. I bow with reverence to the maxim "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!"

I am doing no more than stating an historical fact, in what I have written.

SKATING. This diversion is mentioned by Fitz Stephen, a monk of Canterbury, as far back as 1170.

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The fastest skaters reside in the neighbourhood of the fenny districts of Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, and Cambridgeshire, there it is practised in hard winters, on the meres, with much enthusiasm; about thirty-five years past, a skater easily beat a fleet horse, who galloped by the side of the mere (there was some snow on the ground.) A fast skater, on good ice, will nearly equal the race horse for a short distance, because the foundation on which he moves is then not proper for him: but for length of time, the horse has no chance. In the year 1838, Mr. Simpson, of (Queen's College) Cambridge, accomplished forty miles over very indifferent ice, in two hours and thirtysix minutes; speaking of this noble diversion, when I was young, I never found myself tired, after five or six hours exercise; and, although I lay no claim to having been a swift skater, yet, in point of endurance, I have no doubt I could have tired down any horse. In the year 1821, two extraordinary skaters, Young, and Staples, skated on Whittlesey mere (a match) two miles, in five minutes and ten seconds.

It is recommended, that the skates proper for speed, should be low in the iron, with the toe lying near the ice, and higher at the heel than the toe, the irons lying perfectly level on the ice the whole length. A stout man with considerable length of limb, will, in long distances, generally beat one of a lighter frame. There are some fast and excellent skaters in Scotland.

This is a diversion in which the fair sex may display themselves with much grace and elegance. Hundreds of the London belles, may be seen thus sportively employed, on the serpentine river, in Hyde Park. I have seen lady's, after an hour's exercise upon the ice, in the face of "rude Boreas," look so as to prompt one to say,

"Of nature's gifts, thou may'st with lillies boast,
And yet with the full blown rose," may vie.

These Hygeian tints, so different to a blowzy appearance, are always much admired in the female countenance; they bespeak health, vigour, and longevity, and which strong exercise in the open air tends to acquire and preserve. If I may be

permitted to recommend anything more calculated to preserve the beauty of the American female countenance, which, up to a certain age, ranks them among the most beautiful sylphs in the world. I should certainly recommend them in summer, to mount the horse, and in winter, take to the ice; and, in the language of Klopstock, "like the Homeric goddesses, stride with winged feet over the sea, transmuted into solid ground." How much better this is than medicine, may be easily inferred from the following verse:

"Carminatives and diuretics

Will damp all passions sympathetic;
And love such nicety requires

One blast, will put out all the fires." SWIFT.

CRICKET.

"He (Shenkin) was the prettiest fellow

At foot-ball or at cricket,

At hunting, race, or nimble pace,

How featly he could prick it." T. D'URFEY.

IN Pierce Egan's Book of Sports, quoted from Strutt, « He states this manly game is English. 'Tis English, sir, from top to toe." The Penny Cyclopedia says, it is "an English game of strength and activity."

In a letter from Horace Walpole, dated Strawberry Hill, 1747. He informs Mr. Conway, "Lord John Sackville predecessed me here, and instituted certain games, called cricketalia, which have been celebrated this very evening in honour of him, in a neighbouring meadow."

It began in the southern counties, but has spread all over the country; there are now many clubs, the "Lord's ground, Maryle-Bone," London, is the one most in repute. The members are mostly of the nobility. The Duke of Hamilton once struck a ball 132 yards from his wicket. It may now be said:

"I trust we have within our realm,

Five hundred good as he."

A later poet than Tom D'Urfey observes:

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England, when once of peace and wealth possess'd,
Began to think frugality a jest ;

So grew polite, hence all her well bred heirs,

Gamesters and jockies turn'd, and cricket players." JENYNS.

All classes play at it; some years past, there was a strong

contest between eleven Greenwich pensioners, with only one leg, against an equal number of their brethren, with only one arm, but the one legged boys won.

In almost all the English sports, the females are much engaged in them, either as actors or spectators, which adds great zest to the passing scene, and tends very much to moderate various excesses, which otherwise might arise.* In this game females play; some years past there was a match of an equal number of married females, against an equal number of spinsters, in which, I believe, the married ladies were the victors.

SWIMMING.

"Swimming raises my spirits." BYRON.

In noticing this pleasant and necessary diversion: necessary, because it is conducive to health; I shall first mention a swimming match of Sir John Packington's, he was a remarkable tall and handsome man, and a great favorite of Queen Elizabeth. He made a bet of £3000 that he could swim, within a given time, from Whitehall Palace stairs to Greenwich, the distance is but six miles, but the amount of the bet may be considered large in these gambling days, it is about equal to $40,000 of the present money. As soon as the queen heard of it, she forbade him; to which his gallantry and duty readily assented.

In 1638, The Duchess of Chevreuse, (she was one of the attendants on the queen of Charles I.,)" with pretty, and with swimming gait," swam across the Thames; this feat is supposed to have been performed at Windsor. It brought forth from some court poet the following scrap of high-flown, complimentary poetry, she was remarkable as having very beautiful eyes:

"But her chaste breast, cold as the cloister'd nun,
Whose frost to crystal might congeal the sun,
So glaz'd the stream, that pilots then afloat
Thought they might safely land without a boat;
July had seen the Thames in ice involved,

Had it not been by her own beams dissolved."

Swimming matches were very much encouraged, after the restoration, by the witty and profligate Rochester, and his boon companions, as a source of betting, for them to risk their courtly wealth to the capricious goddess of fortune.

* Plato "would have women follow the camp, to inspire noble actions they encourage also," he says, "subtility, wit, and many pretty devices."

A letter of the late S. T. Coleridge, Esq., dated July 22d, 1794, states, "Abergely is a large village on the sea coast, North Wales. Walking on the sea sands, I was surprised to see a number of fine women bathing promiscuously with men and boys, perfectly naked. Doubtless the citadels of their chastity are so impregnably strong, that they need not the ornamental bulwarks of modesty; but, seriously speaking, where sexual distinctions are least observed, men and women live together in the greatest purity. Concealment sets the imagination a working, and, as it were, cantharadizes our desires."'*

Among the athletic sports was foot racing; this was quite a courtly amusement. King Charles II. was a great pedestrian; and, during his reign, two young nobles run down a buck, in the park, for a wager, in the king's presence.

There were also military athletics, such as running at the ring, throwing the javelin at a Moor's head, and firing pistols at a mall.

COTSWOLD GAMES." An attorney once resided in the village of Barton-on-the-Heath, whom we might now be justified in regarding as a lusus naturæ. His name was Captain Robert Dover, and it is said of him that he was of so pacific a disposition, that he never tried more than two causes in his life, (a period of some length,) and that he usually acted as a friend and mediator, when any disputes arose. This was about 200 years ago, a time when the meshes of the law were neither so multifarious nor so intricate as they are at present."

"It was this Mr. Dover who instituted (or perhaps revived) the annual festivities, termed the Cotswold Games, which, in the reigns of James I., were so much celebrated, and consisted, like the Olympian Games of the ancients, of most kind of manly exercises. They consisted of wrestling, cudgel-playing, leaping, pitching the bar, throwing the sledge, tossing the pike; many of the country gentlemen hunted or coursed the hare, and the women danced. A castle of boards was errected on this occasion, from which guns were discharged Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, and other poets, wrote verses on these diversions."

This public spirited benevolent gentleman is a fit companion piece to Pope's celebrated Man of Ross. He is, to this day, well spoken of.

*Gentleman's Magazine, 1836. In Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. ii., the same idea is there discussed.

+ Strut's Sports.

↑ "Concise Topographical Description of Warwickshire," 1817.

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