Galbinus, a consular man, with having danced. Tiberius expelled the dancers from Rome, and Domitian excluded several members from the senate for having danced; but the acts of these imperial despots may be considered rather as the suggestions of caprice and folly, than as the dictates of wisdom and virtue. Our ancestors used to keep up the sport till midnight, and it was an indispensable accompaniment of weddings. The monks used to dance in their dormitories. Swords, called Dancing Rapiers, were worn in the dancing-schools; which schools existed in the Universities in Evelyn's time. In the grand rebellion, a clergyman was charged with having taught, in the pulpit, that we ought to learn to dance, and that if we could not dance we were damned. The London servants in the twelfth century used to dance before their masters' doors. Hawkins notices dancing to a bagpipe, played by a domestic; and that no dance tunes are known so early as 1400; "Sellenger's Round," to be traced nearly to Henry VIII., being the oldest. In the most ancient dances, a man and woman danced together, holding each other by the hand or arm; and a kiss was the established fee of the lady's partner. In the time of Queen Elizabeth, at a solemn dancing, were first the grave measures (as now, minuets), then the corrantoes and golliards; at length to frenchmore, or trenchmore, and the cushion dance, after which all the company danced, lord and groom, lady and kitchen-maid, without distinction! Before the reign of Francis I., they danced in France to fife and drum. Coryat notices, that the brother to the Duke of Guise, and his gentlemen, danced corrantoes and lovaltoes in the court of an inu. FANDANGO. This far-famed dance, so peculiar to the South Americans, of which writers have said so much, and which has recently been imported into this country, is intended as a dumb representation of courtship. The music begins at first slow and monotonous, but gradually increases from andante to allegro. The gentleman commences by pursuing the lady quietly and gently, who retreats in the like manner, making short circles, and turning on her heel at each time that her partner approaches, quickening her step and evolutions as the tune of the music increases, until she perceives that he seems inclined to give up the pursuit; repentance follows, and the pursuer is in his turn pursued, making similar retreats, and the same circumvolutions that the lady so recently practised; until at last relenting, he turns to meet her, and they approach each other more closely; and, being apparently reconciled, make three or four peculiar stamps with their feet, bow to each other, and retire to their seats literally exhausted, amidst the acclamations of the bystanders. SKAITING. Skaiting was first introduced into this country from Holland, at an early period, and the Dutch introduced it from Lapland.Skate or Skait, in the German, signifies to glide along a smooth surface. The Dutch are allowed to be the first skaiters in Europe; the farmers' daughters frequently skaiting on the canals to the market towns with milk, eggs, butter, &c., in baskets on their heads. Fitzstephens, who wrote in the reign of Henry II., thus notices it:-" When that great moor which washes Moorfields at the north wall of the city is frozen over, great companies of young men go to sport upon the ice, and bind to their shoes, bones, as the legs of beasts, and hold stakes in their hands, headed with sharp iron, which sometimes they strike against the ice, and then these men go with speed, as doth a bird in the air, or darts shot from some warlike engine. Sometimes two men set themselves at a distance, and run one against another, as if it were at tilt, with these stakes, wherewith one or both parties are thrown down, not without some hurt to their bodies, and after their fall, by reason of their violent motion, are carried at a good distance one from another. Thus do the young men exercise themselves in counterfeit battles, that they may bear the brunt more strongly when they come to it in good earnest." Some singular specimens of such bones, used as skaits by the citizens of London, are preserved in the curious museum of London Antiquities, collected by Mr. C. Roach Smith. BULL-BAITING IN ENGLAND. "In Lincolnshire, where virtuous worth And ruler, o'er the men of string."—Hudibras. The first bull-bait held in this country was held at Stamford in Lincolnshire, about the year 1209, and was introduced from the following circumstances:-" Earl Warrenare, lord of the town, standing upon the walls of the castle, observed two bulls fighting, until the butchers' dogs interposed and pursued one of them through the town, which sight so pleased his lordship, that he gave the meadow where the fray began to the butchers of the town, to be used as a common after the first grass was mown, on condition that they should find a mad bull the day six weeks before Christmas-day, for the continuance of that sport for ever." BEAR-BAITING. This cruel and unmanly amusement is of African origin, and was introduced into Europe by the Romans. Long, however, as it disgraced the continent, the Romans, to their credit, did not introduce it here; judging, it is presumed, that our ancestors were of themselves savage enough. The first we read of bear-baiting in England, was in the reign of king John, at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where "thys straynge passtime was introduced by some Italyans for his highness's amusement, wherewith he and his court were highly delyghted." CATS. "E'en now I see, descending from his throne, Cats were brought into England from the island of Cyprus, by some foreign merchants, who came hither for tin. In the old Welsh laws, a kitten from its birth till it could see, was valued at a penny; when it began to mouse, twopence; and after it had killed mice, at fourpence, which was the price of a calf! Wild cats were kept by our ancient kings for hunting. The officers who had the charge of these cats, seem to have had appointments of equal consequence with the masters of the king's hounds; they were called catatores. DOGS. The bull-dog was originally from Italy; the greyhound and the beagle, as well as the fox-hound, are peculiar to Britain. This country was once famous for the export of dogs; they are thus described in a passage of Appian. "There is a kind of dogs of mighty fame By painted Britons brave in war they're bred, You'd think them curs that under tables gape." The blood-hound was once peculiar to this country, but now is seldom met with save in the West India Islands, particularly St. Domingo and the island of St. Lucia. HAWKING. Hawking, according to Beckmann, was known to the Greeks and Romans; its origin, in England, cannot be traced till the reign of king Ethelbert, the Saxon monarch, in the year 760, when he wrote to Germany for a brace of falcons. In the reign of James I., Sir James Monson is said to have given a thousand pounds for a cast of hawks. In the reign of Edward III., it was made felony to steal a hawk; to take its eggs, even in a person's own ground, was punishable with imprisonment for a year and a day, together with a fine at the king's pleasure. In former times, the custom of carrying a hawk on the hand was confined to men of high dis tinction;* so that it was a saying among the Welsh, "you may know a gentleman by his hawk,† horse, and greyhound." Ev n the ladies in those days were partakers of this gallant sport, and have been represented in sculpture with hawks on their hands. -See Bewick's British Birds, vol. i. p. 26. It is recorded that a falcon belonging to a duke of Cleves, flew out of Westphalia into Prussia in one day; and in the county of Norfolk, a hawk has made a flight at a woodcock near thirty miles in an hour. Some of the larger kind have been taught to fly at the wild boar and the wolf. With this view, they should be accustomed to feed, when young, from out of the sockets of the eyes of a wolf or boar's head, the whole skin of the animal being stuffed, so as to make it appear alive. While the bird is feeding, the falconer begins to move the figure gradually, in consequence of which, the bird learns to fasten itself so as to stand firm, notwithstanding the precipitate motions which are gradually given to the stuffed animal; he would lose his meat if he quitted his hold, and therefore he takes care to secure himself. When these first exercises are finished, the skin is placed on a cart, drawn by a horse at full speed; the bird follows it, and is particularly eager in feeding; and then, when they come to fly him in the field, he never fails to dart on the first beast of the kind he discovers, and begins to scoop out the eyes. This puts the animal to such distress, that the hunters have time to approach and dispatch it with their spears. This species of inhuman education would be more honoured in the breach than the observance. The grand seignor usually keeps 6,000 falconers in his service. The French king had a grand falconer. The duke of St. Alban's is hereditary Grand Falconer of England. St. Alban's seems to have been a favourite place for hawking. Shakspeare says, "Ride unto St. Alban's, Where the king and queen do mean to hawk.” And at this place was printed, by Caxton, a Treatise on Hunting, Hawking, and Heraldry. Strutt, in his Sports and Pastimes, mentions an historical fact, related by Hall, who informs us that Henry VIII., pursuing his hawk on foot, at Hitchen, in Hertfordshire, attempted, with the assistance of his pole, to jump over a ditch that was half full of muddy water; the pole broke, and the king fell with his head into the mud, where he would have been stifled, had not a footman, named John Moody, who was near at hand, and seeing the accident, leaped into the ditch, and released his majesty from his perilous situation; "and so," says the honest historian, “ God in hys goodnesse preserved him.” 66 *See Origin of St. Alban's family. "It can be no more disgrace to a great lord to draw a fair picture, than to cut his hawk's meat."-Peacham. SWANS. Swans were first brought into England by Richard I., from Cyprus. It is a bird that has ever been held in great esteem in England, and by an act of Edward IV., none except the son of a king was permitted to keep one, unless possessed of five marks a year; and by a subsequent act, taking their eggs, in like manner as those of the hawk, was punished with imprisonment for a year and a day, and a fine at the king's will. In Coke's Reports, part 7th, in the case of swans, it is remarked, "that he who stealeth a swan in an open and common river, lawfully marked, the same swan shall be hung in a house by the beak, and he who stole it shall, in recompence thereof, give to the owner so much wheat as may cover all the swan, by putting and turning the wheat upon the head of the swan, until the head of the swan be covered with wheat." 66 Black swans, it is ascertained, are any thing but uncommon at the Cape of Good Hope, and indeed may now be met with in various parts of England; so that the proverb, “ a black swan is a rare bird on the earth," is no longer applicable. In the Thames at present, the greatest number of Swans belong to the Queen, and the Companies of Vintners and Dyers own the next largest proportion; but the birds are far less numerous than they used to be. The swan marks are made upon the upper mandible with a knife or other sharp instrument. The swanhopping or upping, that is, the catching and taking up the swans to mark the cygnets, and renew that on the old birds if obliterated, in the presence of the Royal swans' herdsman, is still continued by the Companies above mentioned. GAMING. This vice is coeval with amusement, for, however trifling the stake, when the passions become excited, it has no bounds. Pernicious gambling may be said to have been introduced into England with cock-fighting, a notice of which follows this. To discharge their gambling debts, the Siamese sell their possessions, their families, and at length themselves. The Chinese play night and day, till they have lost all they are worth, and then they usually go and hang themselves. Such is the propensity of the Japanese for high play, that they. were compelled to make a law, that whoever ventures his money at play shall be put to death. In the islands of the Pacific Ocean they venture even their hatchets, which they hold as invaluable acquisitions, on running matches. "We saw a man," as Cook writes in his last voyage, “beating his breast, and tearing his hair, in the violence of rage, for having lost three hatchets at one of these races, and which he |