added: “The maydens did play at Purposes at Sales-To Thinke at Wonders at Stakes-at Vertues at Answers, so that we could come no sooner," &c. A list of games, to which the keys seem to have been lost, is printed in Notes and Queries, being transcribed from three sources as under: "We went to a sport called selling a horse for a dish of eggs and herrings.". Pepys, Diary, Feb. 2, 1659-60. The merry game of The parson has lost his cloak.”—Spectator, N. 268. "What say you, Harry; have you any play to show them?" Yes, sir,' said Harry, I have a many of them; there's first leap-frog and thrush-a-thrush."-H. Brooke, Fool of Quality, i. 25 (ed. 1859). "One fault brought me into another after it, like Water my chickens come clock."-Ib., i. 272. Can you play at draughts, polish, or chess?"-Ib., i. 267. "Some reminded him of his having beaten them at boxing, others at wrestling and all of his having played with them at prison-bars, leap-frog, shut the gate, and so forth."-Ib., ii. 168. Several games of the middle of the 17th century are enumerated in "Wit Restor'd," 1658: "Here's children's bawbles and mens To play with for delight. Edward Chamberlayne, in his "Angliæ Notitia," 1676, enumerates what were at that time the principal recreations and exercises both of the upper and lower classes of society in this country: "For variety of divertisements, sports, and recreations, no nation doth excel the English. The King hath abroad, his forests, chases, and parks, full of variety of game; for hunting red and fallow deer, foxes, otters; hawking, his paddock courses, horse-races, &c., and at home, tennis, pelmel, billiard, enterludes, balls, ballets, masks, &c. The Nobility and gentry have their parks, warrens, decoys, paddock-courses, horse-races, huntings. coursing, fishing, fowling, hawking, setting dogs, tumblers, lurchers, duck-hunting, cock-fighting, guns for birding, lowbells, bat-fowling; angling, nets, tennis, bowling, billiard tables, chess, draughts, cards, dice, catches, questions, purposes, stage-plays, masks, balls, dancing, singing, all sorts of musical instruments, &c. The citizens and peasants have hand-ball, foot-ball, skittles or nine-pins, shovelboard, stow-ball, goffe, trol-madame. cudgels, bear-baiting, bull-baiting, bow and arrow, throwing at cocks, shuttlecock, bowling, quoits, leaping, wrestling, pitching the bar, and ringing of bells, a recreation used in no other countrey of the world. Amongst these, cock-fighting seems to all foreigners too childish and unsuitable for the gentry, and for the common people; bull-baiting and bearbaiting seem too cruel; and for the citizens, foot-ball and throwing at cocks, very uncivil, rude, and barbarous within the City." In the Life of the Scotch Rogue," 1722, p. 7, the following sports occur: "I was but a sorry proficient in learning being readier at cat and dog, cappy hole, riding the hurley hacket, playing at kyles and dams, spang-bodle, wrestling, and foot-ball, and (such other sports as we use in our country), than at my book." With bowle at them to rowle: And if you like such trundling sport Here is my ladyes hole. Here's shaddow ribbon'd of all sorts, As various as your mind, And here's a windmill like your selfe Will turne with every wind. And heer's a church of the same stuff Cutt out in the new fashion." "Julius Pollux," (observes CorneIn Cotgrave's Wit's Interpreter, third lius Scriblerus) "describes the Omilla edition, 1671, we meet with directions for or chuck - farthing; tho' some will playing the courtly games of L'Ombre, have our modern chuck-farthing to be Piquit, Gleek, and Cribbage; and in Cot-nearer the aphetinda of the ancients. He ton's Compleat Gamester, 1674 he adduces the usual and most gentile games on cards, dice, billiards, trucks, bowls, or chess. In a later impression, 1709, the amusements enumerated are more varied: Piquet, gleek, l'ombre, a Spanish game, cribbage, all-fours, English ruff, and honours alias slam, whist, French ruff, five cards, a game called costly colours, boneale, put, the high game, wit and reason, the art of memory, plain dealing, Queen Nazareene, lanterloo, penneech, bankafalet, beast or la béte, and basset. also mentions the basilinda or King I am; and myinda, or hoopers-hide. But the chytindra described by the same author is certainly not our hot-cockle; for that was by pinching, and not by striking; tho' there are good authors who affirm the rathapygismus to be yet nearer the modern hot cockles. My son Martin may use either of them indifferently, they being equally antique. Building of houses and riding upon sticks, have been used by children in all ages; Edificare casas, equitare in arundine longa. Yet I much doubt whether the riding upon sticks did not come into use after the age of the Centaurs. There is one play which shews the gravity of ancient education, called the Acinetinda, in which children contended who could longest stand still. This we have suffered to perish entirely; and if I might be allowed to guess, it was certainly first lost among the French. I will permit my son to play at Apodidascinda, which can be no other than our Puss in a corner. Julius Pollux, in his ninth Book, speaks of the melolonthe, or the kite; but I question whether the kite of antiquity was the same with ours, and though the Ορτυτοκοπία, or quail-fghting, is what is most taken notice of, they had doubtless cock-matches also, as 18 evident from certain antient gems and relievos. In a word, let my son Martin disport himself at any game truly antique, except one which was invented by a people among the Thracians, who hung up one of their companions in a rope, and gave him a knife to cut himself down; which if he failed in, he was suffered to hang till he was dead; and this was only reckoned a sort of joke. I am utterly against this as barbarous and cruel." Misson says: "Besides the sports and diversions common to most other European nations, as tennis, billiards, chess, tick-tack, dancing, plays, &c., the English have some which are particular to them, or at least which they love and use more than any other people." Travels in England, p. 304. See a little volume entitled: Games most in use in England, France, and Spain, viz., Basset. Piquet, Primero, L'Ombre, Chess, Billiards, Grand-tricktrack, Verquere, &c., some of which were never before printed in any language. All regulated by the most experienced Masters." Published by J. Morphew about 1710. The editions of Charles Cotton's Compleat Gamester, and the earlier issues of Hoyle's Games may also be consulted. Hollar published in 1647 "Paidopoegnion, sive puerorum ludentium schemata varia, pictorum usui aptata." The Gantelupe or Gauntlet, To Run. See Penny Magazine for 1837, p. 339, where it is described as a military and naval punishment; but it was not confined to this country or to civilized nations. It occurs in accounts of travels among savage communities, and in works of fiction founded on them. Garden-House. The older summer-house. See Nares, Glossary, 1859, in v. Garlands. Nuptial garlands are of the most remote antiquity. They appear to have been equally used by the Jews and the Greeks and Romans. Selden's Uxor Hebraica in Opera, iii., 655. "Among the Romans, when the marriage-day was come, the bride was bound to have a chaplet of flowers or hearbes upon her head, and to weare a girdle of sheeps wool about her middle, fastned with a true-loves-knot, the which her husband must loose. Hence rose the proverb: He hath undone her virgin's girdle: that is, of a mayde he hath made her a woman. Vaughan's Golden Grove, 1600, ed. 1608, sign O 2. In Ihre's "Glossarium," 1769, v. Krona, we read: "Sponsarum ornatus erat coronæ gestamen, qui mos hodieque pleno usu apud Ruricolas viget." Among the Anglo-Saxons, after the benediction in the church, both the bride and bridegroom were crowned with crowns of flowers, kept in the church for that purpose. In the Eastern Church the chaplets used on these occasions appear to have been blessed. Selden, ubi suprâ, p. 661. "Coronas tenent a tergo paranymphi, quæ Capitibus Sponsorum iterum a Sacerdote non sine benedictione solenni aptantur." The form is given, p. 667. "Benedic, Domine, Annulum istum et Coronam istam, ut sicut Annulus circumdat digitum hominis et Corona Caput, ita Gratia Spiritus Sancti circumdet Sponsum et Sponsam, ut videant Filius et Filias usque ad tertiam aut quartam Generationem, &c." We ought not to overlook the miraculous garland given by the father in the Wright's Chast Wife on her nuptials to her spouse, in the tale of that name from the "Gesta Romanorum. He says to the wright, on presenting it as the only gift it is in his power to make: "Haue here thys garlonde of roses In alle thys lond ys none yt lyche, The chaplett wolle hold hewe." In "Dives and Pauper, 1493, "The fixte Precepte," chap. 2, is the following curious passage: Thre ornamentys longe pryncypaly to a wyfe. A rynge on hir fynger, a broch on hir brest, and a garlond on hir hede. The ringe betokenethe true love, as I have seyd, the broch betokennethe clennesse in herte and chastitye that she oweth to have, the garlande bytokeneth gladnesse and the dignitye of the sacrament of wedlok." At the marriage of Blonde of Oxford to Jean de Dammartin, in the 13th century, the bride is made to wear a gold chaplet. Compare Nuptial Usages, infrâ. dressing out Grisild for her marriage in the "Clerk of Oxenford's Tale" in Chaucer, the chaplet is noted: "A corune on In hire hed they han ydressed." The nuptial garlands were sometimes made of myrtle. In England, in the time of Henry VIII., the bride wore a garland of corn ears, sometimes one of flowers. Wax appears to have been used in the formation of these garlands from the subsequent passage in Hyll's book on Dreams: "A garlande of waxe (to dream of) signifyeth evil to all personnes, but especiallye to the sicke, for as much as it is commonlye occupyed aboute burialls." Gosson, in his "Ephemerides of Phialo," 1579, remarks: In som countries the bride is crowned by the matrons with a garland of prickles, and so delivered unto her husband that hee might know he hath tied himself to a thorny plesure." Among the wares on sale or supply by Newbery in his Dives Pragmaticus, 1563 (Hazlitt's Fugitive Tracts, 1875, vol. i.), figure : Fyne gay and straunge garlands, for In the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Margaret's, Westminster, under 1540, is the following item: Paid to Alice Lewis, a goldsmith's wife of London; for a serclett to marry maydens in, the 26th day of September, £3 10s." The following occurs in Marston's Dutch Courtezan": "I was afraid, I'faith, that I should ha seene a garland on this beauties herse." In Field's "Amends for Ladies," 1618, scene the last, when the marriages are agreed upon, there is a stage direction to set garlands upon the heads of the maid and widow that are to be married. These garlands are thus described by Gay: "To her sweet mem'ry flow'ry garlands strung, On her now empty seat aloft were hung." These emblems were apparently hung up in churches, and where they were composed of fresh flowers withered. Newton, under Breaches of the second Commandment, censures "the adorning with garlands, or presenting unto any image of any Saint, whom thou hast made special choise of to be thy patron and advocate, the firstlings of thy increase, as Corne and Graine, and other oblations.' Tryall of a Man's Own Selfe, 1586, 54. Coles, probably speaking of the metropolis only, says: "It is not very long since the custome of setting up garlands in churches hath been left off with us.' Intro. to the Knowledge of Plants, 64, But in the Ely Articles of Enquiry, 1662, 7, I read as follows: "Are any garlands and other ordinary funeral ensigns suffred to hang where they hinder the prospect, or until they grow foul and dusty, withered and rotten?" Aubanus, in his Description of the Rites at Marriages in his country and time, has not omitted garlands. Dallaway tells us that Marriage is by them (of the Greek Church) called the Matrimonial Coronation, from the crowns or garlands with which the parties are decorated, and which they solemnly dissolve on the eighth day following." Brand likewise refers to a French work, where it is mentioned that, at the weddings of the poorer sort, a chaplet or wreath of roses was customary in France; but these illustrations, even when they are very apt, which is not often, it must be owned, the case, are only interesting parallel examples. The Masters and Wardens of some of the Gilds of London formerly used Election Garlands, which were often made of sumptuous materials, See particularly the fine large illustrations in Black's History of the Leathersellers, 1871, where the examples date from 1539. Garrett. For a notice of this place, otherwise known as Garvett, and its mock mayor, &c., see Additions to Hazlitt's Blount, 1874, in Antiquary for September, 1885. Its evolution from a single house to a hamlet has had many analogues, such as Vauxhall, and Schaffhausen, Mühlhausen, &c., abroad. During a considerable number of years, Sir Jeffrey Dunstan, a dealer in wigs, and Sir Henry Dimsdale, a muffin-seller, subsequently a hardware man, were successively returned as mayors of Garrett. The former was nicknamed Old Wigs, and the latter Honeyjuice or Sir Harry. Garters at Weddings.-There was formerly a custom in the North of England, which will be thought to have bordered very closely upon indecency, and strongly marks the grossness of manners that prevailed among our ancestors: it was for the young men present at a wedding to strive immediately after the ceremony, who could first pluck off the bride's garters from her legs. This was done before the very altar. The bride was generally gartered with ribbons for the occasion. Whoever were so fortunate as to be victors in this singular species of contest, during which the bride was often obliged to scream out, and was very frequently thrown down, bore them about the church in triumph. Brand says: “A clergyman in Yorkshire told me, that to prevent this very indecent assault, it is usual for the bride to give garters out of her bosom. I have sometimes thought this a fragment of the ancient ceremony of loosening the virgin zone, or girdle, a custom that needs no explanation." From passages in different works, it should seem that the striving for garters was originally after the bride had been put to bed. Among the lots in the lottery presented in 1601, there occurs: 66 "A Payre of Garters. Though you have fortunes garters, you must be More staid and constant in your steps than she." Sir Abraham Ninny, in Field's Woman's a Weather-Cocke," 1612, act i. sc. 1, declares : "Well, since I am disdain'd; off garters blew ; Gawby Day. (December 28). This day at Wrexham is called Gawby Day, perhaps from Gauby, a Northern term for a countryman or a bumpkin; and the town is filled with servants, both men and women. Formerly and originally they came up from the country to be hired; but now it has become a mere holiday. See Atkinson's Cleveland Glossary, 1868, in v. George's Day, St.-(April 23rd). Among the ordinances made by Henry V. for his army abroad, printed in Ex1833, is one "For "Acerpta Historica,' theim that bere not a bande of Seinte George"; and it appears that all the English soldiers were bound, under severe penalties, to carry this distinguishing badge. Compare Amulet. It is curious that the same Ordinances, which were promulgated by Henry V. in 1415, served the same purpose in 1513, when Henry VIII. made his expedition to Boulogne, mutatis mutandis. In Coates's "History of Reading," p. 221, under Churchwardens' Accounts in the year 1536, are the following entries: Which signifies Sir Abram's love was true. Off cypresse blacke, for thou befits not me; Thou art not cypresse of the cypresse tree, Befitting Lovers: out green shoestrings, out, Wither in pocket, since my Luce doth pout.' In Brooke's " Epithalamium," 1614, we read : 66 In Aylet's Poems, 1654, is a copy of verses on a sight of a most honorable Lady's Wedding Garter.” A note to George Stuart's "Discourse between a Northumberland Gentleman and his Tenant," 1686, p. 24, tells us: The piper at a wedding has always a piece of the bride's garter ty'd about his pipes." These garters, it should seem, were anciently worn as trophies in the hats. Misson says: "When bed-time is come, the bride-men pull of the bride's garters, which she had before unty'd, that they might hang down and so prevent a curious hand from coming too near her knee. This done, and the garters being fasten'd to the hats of the gallants, the bride maids carry the bride into the bride-chamber, where they undress her and lay her in bed." I am of opinion that the origin of the Order of the Garter is to be traced to this nuptial custom, anciently common to both court and country. It is the custom in Normandy for the bride to bestow her garter on some young man as a favour, or sometimes it is taken from her. Gate Penny.-A customary tribute from tenants to their landlords. See Halliwell in v. The In the hamlet of Y Faerdref, in the commote of Isdulas, in Denbighshire, is a small village called St. George, on the churchyard-wall of which it was formerly believed that the print of the shoes of St. George's horse could be seen. neighbouring woods were supposed to be haunted by fairies and other spirits. Denbigh and its Lordship, by John Williams, 1860, pp. 217-18. Machyn the Diarist notes that, on St. George's Day, 1559, the Knights of the Garter went about the Hall singing in procession in the morning, and in the afternoon was the election of new knights. Machyn appears, in one place, to insinuate, a sort of dissatisfaction at the occasional departure from the old usage of holding the chapter of the order of the garter at Westminster instead of Windsor, as was the case once or twice in the early part of Elizabeth's reign. Comp. Evelyn's Diary, April 23, 1667. It seems to be the case that at ceremonial observances in St. George's Chapel at Windsor in the case of installations or otherwise the choristers demanded as a fee the King's spurs, which were redeemed by a pecuniary payment. In the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VII., under 1495, we find: "To the children for the King's spoures, 4s.," and there are similar entries in the Expenses of Henry VIII. under 1530. It appears that blue coats were formerly worn by people of fashion on St. George's Day. Hazlitt's Dodsley, x., 349. Among the Fins, whoever makes a riot on St. George's Day is in danger of suffering from storms and tempests. the banks of the river Styx for a hundred years, after which they were admitted to a passage. This is mentioned by Virgil: 'Hæc omnis quam cernis, inops inhumataque turba est: Portitor ille, Charon; hi quos vehit un da, sepulti. Nec ripas datur horrendas, et rauca, fluenta, Transportare prius quam sedibus ossa quierunt. Centum errant annos, volitantque hæc littora circum: Tum, demum admissi, stagna exoptata revisunt.' Sometimes ghosts appear in consequence of an agreement made, whilst living, with some particular friend, that he who first died should appear to the survivor. Glanvil tells us of a ghost of a person who had lived but a disorderly kind of life, for which it was condemned to wander up and down the earth, in the company of evil spirits, till the Day of Judgment. In most of the relations of ghosts they are supposed to be mere aërial beings, without substance, and that they can pass through walls and other solid bodies at pleasure. A particular instance of this is given in Relation the 27th in Glanvil's Collection, where one David Hunter, neat-herd to the Bishop of Down and Connor, was for a long time haunted by the apparition of an old woman, whom he was by a secret impulse obliged to follow whenever she appeared, which he "Sent Iob heale the pore, the agew if in bed with his wife; and because his says he did for a considerable time, even Sent Germayne." Germanus, St., Bishop of Auxerre. Pennant remarks that the Church of Llanarmon in Denbighshire is dedicated to this personage, who with St. Lupus, says he, "contributed to gain the famous Victoria Alleluiatica over the Picts and Saxons near Mold." Tours in Wales, 1810, ii., 17. Owing to this circumstance it doubtless was that Bishop Germanus was a favourite in Wales, and had many churches dedicated to him. There were apparently two or three sainted persons of this name, nor is it clear to which Woodes refers where in his Conflict of Conscience, 1581, he makes one of the characters say: Ghosts." A ghost," according to Grose, "is supposed to be the spirit of a person deceased, who is either commissioned to return for some especial errand, such as the discovery of a murder, to procure restitution of land or money unjustly withheld from an orphan or widow, or, having committed some injustice whilst living, cannot rest, till that is redressed. Sometimes the occasion of spirits revisiting this world is to inform their heir in what secret place, or private drawer in an old trunk, they had hidden the title deeds of the estate; or where, in troublesome times, they buried their money or plate. Some ghosts of murdered persons, whose bodies have been secretly buried, cannot be at ease till their bones have been taken up, and deposited in consecrated ground, with all the rites of Christian burial. This idea is the remain of a very old piece of heathen superstition: the ancients believed that Charon was not permitted to ferry over the ghosts of unburied persons, but that they wandered up and down wife could not hold him in his bed, she would go too, and walk after him till day, though she saw nothing but his little dog was so well acquainted with the apparition, that he would follow it as well as his master. If a tree stood in her walk, he observed her always to go through it. Notwithstanding this seeming immateriality, this very ghost was not without some substance; for, having performed her errand, she desired Hunter to lift her from the ground, in the doing of which, he says, she felt just like a bag of feathers. We sometimes also read of ghosts striking violent blows; and that, if not made way for, they overturn all impediments, like a furious whirlwind. Glanvil mentions an instance of this, in Relation 17th of a Dutch lieutenant, who had the faculty of seeing ghosts; and who, being prevented making way for one which he mentioned to some friends as coming towards them, was, with his companions, violently thrown down, and sorely bruised. We further learn, by Relation 16th, that the hand of a ghost is 'as cold as a clod.' |