CHAPTER I.
Prefatory Remarks.—Fig—Sutton—Whitaker—Peartree—Pipes—Gretting.
We have collected in our Introductory Chapter the few scattered notices of pugilism as practised and understood by the earlier Celtic nations. Despite, however, the proclivity of antiquaries, historians, and scholars to find a Roman or Greek origin for every manner, custom, and tradition—as if we had none originally of our own,—we may safely say that Boxing, in the noble manly forbearing and humane practice of the art, is the indigenous offspring of British hardihood, steady courage, and love of gymnic exercise and feats of bodily strength and skill, not unaccompanied with that amount of risk and severe exertion which lend a zest to sports unappreciated and unknown to more effeminate, more cruel, and more cowardly peoples. Let not this be taken as the hasty expression of insular prejudice. The writer, after deeply considering, and often witnessing, the personal contests of men in his own country and abroad, and dispassionately weighing the manner, accessories, and consequences of such contests, feels it a duty he owes to a half-informed and prejudiced society to express the result of his experience and his reflection, without fear, favour, or affection:—fear of the onslaughts of spiritual and moral quacks; favour for those who have degraded or debased a useful and laudable national exercise and sport; or affection, more than is due to an art which he would fain rescue from the obloquy and condemnation to which blind hostility and canting prejudice have consigned it. He would fain uphold that pugilistic combat which a fair field, no favour, and surrender at all times at the will of either party, distinguishes from every mode of conflict yet devised or practised for the settlement of those “offences” which the highest authority has told us “needs must come.” At a period within the earlier memories of the writer, a school of babblers flooded the press with theories of the perfectibility of man, the ultimate establishment of universal freedom, and the sublimation of the human faculties by general education and popular science; and a period was confidently predicted by these theorising shallowpates, when war would be an “impossibility” as against the “interests” of men and nations. We have lived to see the most sanguinary and ferocious contest in history among the people whom these sciolists set up as the bright example to the “less educated” nations of the Old World. We may, therefore, safely despise the “new light” philosophy, and revert to the eternal truth already cited—“needs must be that offences will come;” and this necessity being inevitable, the next logical step is to consider how these “offences” may be best dealt with and atoned.
So long as man is liable to the imperfections of his nature he will need the art of defending himself from attack and injury, and of redressing wrong or insult that may be offered him. All experience has taught us that the passions of pride and emulation (honourable like every human attribute within limits), and resentment for injury, are the springs of some of our noblest actions. It is to the stifling and too severe repression of the active energies of a resolute and independent spirit that the soul of man as an individual, and of a nation as a whole, sinks into the vengeful cowardice and cruel pusillanimity of the abject yet ferocious slave. As, then, a greater or less portion of evil must be attached to the best system of popular moral or civil restraint, the wisest policy is that which legislates for man as we find him, and not as the perfect or perfectible (?) creature which theorists and bigots pretend that he ought to be.
At the risk of repetition we will return to our argument. Individuals, as well as states, must have their disputes, their quarrels, and then—their battles. This is, there is no denying, the sad but natural—the regrettable but inevitable, condition and tenure on which human life—nay, all animal existence—is held. There must, then, be some mode through which the passions, when aroused, from whatever cause,—
Ambition, love, or greed and thirst of gold,—
may be assuaged, subdued, or extinguished; when the necessity for an appeal to the ultima ratio of conflict is unavoidable. And surely, in this extremity the fists—the symbol of personal courage, of prompt readiness for defence and attack—are the most harmless, the ever-present, and the least fatal weapons. We will leave, gentle or simple reader, the pistol to your higher-born countrymen of the “upper ten thousand,” if it so please them; the fatal fleuret to the fire-eating Gaul (whether soldier, litterateur, or “pekin”); the back-handed stiletto to the stabbing Italian; the sharp, triangular rapier or the dagger to the saturnine Spaniard; the slaughterous schlager to the beer-bemused burschen[[7]] of dreamy Vaterland; the gash-inflicting knife to the Dutch boor or seaman’s snicker-snee; the death-dealing “bowie,” “Kansas toothpick,” and murderous “six-shooter” to the catawampous citizen of the “univarsal Yankee nation;” the waved kreese, to the muck-running Malay; each tawny savage to his sharp tomahawk, his poisoned arrow, or his barbed assagai; and then we would ask the scribblers of the anti-pugilistic press which of these they are prepared to champion against the fist of the British boxer,—a weapon of defence which, as exemplified in the practice laid down in the latest code of Ring Law, is the perfection of the practice of cool courage, self-reticent combat, restraint, skill, and endurance that can illustrate and adorn the character of an unsophisticated and true-hearted Englishman in the supreme moment of conquest or of defeat.
It has frequently been urged by magistrates, and even ermined judges[[8]] of quasi-liberal sentiments, that pugilism, as a national practice, and an occasional or fortuitous occurrence, may be winked at by the authorities, or tacitly allowed, and prohibited or punished at discretion, as the occasion may seem to require: but that gymnastic schools where boxing is regularly taught, and pitched battles, are social nuisances which the law should rigorously suppress. Granting the possibility of this utter repression, which we deny, it may well be questioned whether we have not tried to suppress a lesser evil to evolve a greater.[[9]]
To boxing-schools and regulated combats we owe that noble system of fistic ethics, of fair play, which distinguishes and elevates our common people, and which stern, impartial, unprejudiced and logical minds must hail and foster as one of the proud attributes of our national character. We do not in the least undervalue peaceful pursuits, which constitute and uphold the blessings of peaceful life; yet a nation with no idea or principle beyond commerce would be unworthy, nay, would be impotent for national existence, much more for national power and progress. Subjection, conquest, and hence serfdom and poverty, must be its fate in presence of strong, rapacious, and encroaching neighbours. “The people that possesses steel,” said the ancient assailant of the Lydian Crœsus, “needs not long want for gold.” A portion, then, of a nation must be set apart, whose vocation it will be to secure and to defend the lives, liberties, and properties of the whole. Hence the honourable calling of the soldier and the sailor; and hence, to fit the people for these, and to prevent the too general indulgence of effeminacy, dread of enterprise, and the contagious spread of an enervating and fanatical peace-at-any-price quietism, it is wise and politic to encourage the manly and athletic sports and contests which invigorate the frame, brace the nerves, inspire contempt of personal suffering, and enable man to defend his rights as well as to enjoy them. Englishmen have learned, and we sincerely hope will continue to learn and to practise, fair boxing, as they have learned other arts of defence,—the use of the rifle among others, in which (as their sires of old did with the yeoman’s bow) they have already excelled Swiss, American, and Australian mountaineers and woodmen: men from countries celebrated for their practice of long shots, and constant handling of the weapon. Let them, therefore, see that the fair use of the fist is not sneered down by the craven or the canter. Were every pugilistic school shut up, the practice of boxing discouraged, and the fiat of our modern intolerant saints carried out, the manly spirit of fair play in our combats would disappear, and the people of this country lose one of their fairest characteristics. A retrospect of the last ten years will answer whether these are times to incur such risk; while at home, how-much-soever we may have had of the fist, we have indeed had too much of the loaded bludgeon, the mis-named “life-preserver,” the garotte, the knife, and the revolver.
Pugilistic exhibitions are falsely said to harden the heart, to induce ferocity of character, and that they are generally attended by the dregs of society. The last aspersion, for reasons that lie on the surface, has the most truth in it. The principle only, indeed the utility and necessity of the practice of boxing, is all we here propose to vindicate. Pugilism includes nothing essentially vicious; nothing, in itself, prompting to excess or debauchery. On the contrary, it asks temperance, exercise, and self-denial. If we are to argue and decide from the abuse of a custom or institution, where are we to stop? Men are not to be cured, even of errors, by the mere arbitrary force of laws, or by a cherished pursuit being vilified and contemned, mostly by those who are ignorant or averse to it. Teach men to respect themselves—this is the first step to make them respect others. Let this rule be applied to the Ring; let it be viewed as a popular institution; it may then, and we have warrant from experience, and in the history contained in these pages, become worthy of support and patronage. A series of biographies, which include the names of Cribb, Jackson, Gully, Shaw, Spring, Sayers, etc. (within the memory of men yet living) may be pointed to without a blush; while individual traits of heroism, generosity, forbearance, and humanity, will be found scattered as bright redeeming points through the lives of many of the “rough diamonds” preserved in the “setting” of our pages. We doubt not, were the character of the Ring raised, that successors of as good repute as these worthies would yet be found and arise among the brotherhood of the fist. Should this “consummation devoutly to be wished” ever be realised, our gymnasia, a public necessity, might then be licensed,—a security for their visitors, and adding respectability to their proprietors; for every government possesses the power of making expedient regulations, in the interest of society, even where it may not have the right to absolutely suppress or interdict. If free trade, and unrestricted leave to carry on profession or calling are such fundamental principles with our state economists, why not free boxing? and why not leave the morale of pugilism, as well as the morality of its professors, to find its level in the neglect or the patronage, the esteem or the contempt, of the people at large? Boxing and boxing schools, as free Britons, we must have. Let us, then, consider, how they can be best made to serve the cause of regulated pugilism. On the whole, there is no reason to doubt the practicability, as well as the desirability, of public boxing-schools as a branch of a system of national gymnastics. It is absurd as well as scandalous to assert that they must, ex necessitate, be the resort of profligates and thieves. As to the last named scourges of society, long observation and experience[[10]] have convinced us that we have our metropolitan and even rural nurseries for them; our “sin and crime gardens” for their special propagation, rearing, and multiplication; and we can conscientiously say, from an equally long observation, that among those thieves’ nurseries and “sin-gardens” the much-vilified Prize Ring has no special claim to be counted.
These remarks have extended to an extreme length, and we will here break off, premising that many opportunities will present themselves in the course of our history to illustrate and enforce the arguments and principles here laid down. Waiving, then, all question as to its origin, the ars pugilistica may be accepted as interwoven for many generations in the manners and habits of the English people; that it has become one of our “popular prejudices,” if you so please to term it; and that we will not abandon it to be suppressed by force or sneered down by cant or sophistry. It has long since, in this favoured country, been purged of its cruelty and barbarism, and restrained within well-considered bounds. No lacerating or stunning additions, such as we see pictured in our sketches of the ancient athletes, have been allowed to Nature’s weapon—the clenched fist. On the contrary, for the practice of the neophyte and the demonstration of the art by the professor, soft wool-padded gloves cover the knuckles and backs of the hands of the sparrers. Finally, foul blows, butting with the head, and deliberate falls, have been particularised and forbidden, and an unimpeachable system of fair play established, to be found in the “New Rules of the Ring.” We have nationally imbibed these principles, and hence among our lower orders the feeling of “fair play” is more remarkably prevalent than among any other people of Europe or the New World. Hence personal safety—the exceptions, though occasionally alarming, prove the rule[[11]]—is more general in England than in any other country. Here alone the fallen combatant is protected; and here the detestable practices of gouging, biting, kicking in vital parts, practised by Americans, Hiberno-Americans, and other foreigners, are heartily denounced and scouted; and to what do we owe these characteristics? We repeat it, to the Principles and Practice of Pugilism.
FIG (CHAMPION)—1719–1734.
Although, doubtless, brave boxers in every shire of “merrie England” sported their Adam’s livery on the greensward, and stood up toe to toe for “love and a bellyful,” yet the name of James Fig, a native of Thame, in Oxfordshire, is, thanks to the pen of Captain Godfrey and the pencil of the great Hogarth, the first public champion “of the Ring” of whom we have authentic record. Doubtless—
“Vixere fortes ante Agamemnon;”
but their deeds and glories, for want of a chronicler, have lapsed into oblivion (carent quia vates sacro), and—
“Sleep where lie the songs and wars of earth
Before Pelides’ death, or Homer’s birth.”
FIG’S CARD.
DISTRIBUTED TO HIS PATRONS, AND AT HIS BOOTHS AT SOUTHWARK FAIR AND ELSEWHERE.
To Captain Godfrey’s spirited and scarce quarto, entitled “A Treatise on the Useful Science of Defence,” we are indebted for the preservation of the names and descriptions of the persons and styles of the athletes who were his contemporaries. It would seem that though Fig has been acknowledged as the Father of the Ring, he was as much, if not more, distinguished as a cudgel and back-sword player then as a pugilist. Captain Godfrey thus speaks of Fig:—“I have purchased my knowledge with many a broken head, and bruises in every part of me. I chose mostly to go to Fig[[12]] and exercise with him; partly, as I knew him to be the ablest master, and partly, as he was of a rugged temper, and would spare no man, high or low, who took up a stick against him. I bore his rough treatment with determined patience, and followed him so long, that Fig, at last, finding he could not have the beating of me at so cheap a rate as usual, did not show such fondness for my company. This is well known by gentlemen of distinguished rank, who used to be pleased in setting us together.”
The reputation of Fig having induced him to open an academy (A.D. 1719), known as “Fig’s Amphitheatre,” in Tottenham Court Road, the place became shortly a great attraction, and was crowded with spectators. It was here that Captain Godfrey (the Barclay of his time) displayed his skill and elegance in manly sports with the most determined competitors, the sports being witnessed by royal and noble personages, who supported the science as tending to endue the people with hardihood and intrepidity. About 1720 Fig resided in Oxford Road, now Oxford-street, and at the period of the curious fac-simile, here for the first time engraved, we find him still in the same neighbourhood.
The science of pugilism, as we now understand it, was certainly in its infancy; the system of “give and take” was adopted, and he who could hit the hardest, or submit to punishment with the best grace, seems to have been in highest favour with the amateurs. Yet Fig’s placards profess to teach “defence scientifically,” and his fame for “stops and parries” was so great, that we find him mentioned in the Tatler, Guardian, and Craftsman, the foremost miscellanies of the time.[[13]] Fig, like modern managers, added to the attractions of his amphitheatre by “stars;” among these were Ned Sutton, the Pipemaker of Gravesend, Timothy Buck, Thomas Stokes, and others, of whom only the names remain. Bill Flanders, or Flinders, “a noted scholar of Fig’s,” fought at the amphitheatre, in 1723, with one Chris. Clarkson, known as “the Old Soldier.” The battle is highly spoken of for determined courage in the “diurnals” of the period.
Smithfield, Moorfields, St. George’s Fields, Southwark, and Hyde Park,[[14]] during this period also had “booths” and “rings” for the display of boxing and stick play. In Hogarth’s celebrated picture of “Southwark Fair” our hero prominently figures, in a caricatured exaggeration, challenging any of the crowd to enter the lists with him for “money, love, or a bellyful.” This picture we have also chosen as an interesting illustration of the great English painter,—a record of manners in a rude period. As one of the bills relating to this fair (which was suppressed in 1763) is extant, we subjoin it:
AT
FIG’S GREAT TIL’D BOOTH,
On the Bowling Green, Southwark,
During the Time of the FAIR,
(Which begins on SATURDAY, the 18th of SEPTEMBER),
The TOWN will be entertained with the
MANLY ARTS OF
Foil-play, Back-sword, Cudgelling, and Boxing,
in which
The noted PARKS, from Coventry, and the celebrated gentleman prize-fighter, Mr. MILLAR,
will display their skill in a tilting-bout, showing the advantages of Time and Measure:
ALSO
Mr. JOHNSON, the great Swordsman, superior to any man in the world for his unrivalled
display of the hanging-guard, in a grand attack of SELF-DEFENCE, against the all-powerful
arm of the renowned SUTTON.
DELFORCE, the finished Cudgeller, will likewise exhibit his uncommon feats with the
single-stick; and who challenges any man in the kingdom to enter the lists with him for a
broken-head or a belly-full!
BUCKHORSE, and several other Pugilists, will show the Art of Boxing.
To conclude
With a GRAND PARADE by the Valiant FIG, who will exhibit his knowledge in various
Combats—with the Foil, Back-sword, Cudgel, and Fist.
To begin each Day at Twelve o’clock, and close at Ten.
Vivat Rex.
N.B. The Booth is fitted up in a most commodious manner, for the better reception of Gentlemen, &c. &c.
Besides this nobly patronised amphitheatre of Fig, there were several booths and rings strongly supported. That in Smithfield, we have it upon good authority, was presided over by one “Mr. Andrew Johnson,” asserted to be an uncle of the great lexicographer,[[15]] There was also that in Moorfields, called at times “the booth,” at others “the ring.” The “ring” was kept by an eccentric character known as “Old Vinegar,” the “booth” by Rimmington, whose sobriquet was “Long Charles.” This, it appears, had a curious emblazonment,—a skull and cross-bones on a black ground, inscribed “Death or Victory.” During the high tide of Fig’s prosperity (1733) occurred the battle between Bob Whitaker and the Venetian Gondolier, narrated under the head of “Whitaker.”
Let it not be thought that Fig, among his many antagonists, was without a rival. Sutton, the Gravesend Pipemaker, already mentioned, publicly dared the mighty Fig to the combat, and met him with alternate success, till a third trial “proved the fact” of Fig’s superiority. These contests, though given in all the “Chronologies” and “Histories” of the Ring, were neither more nor less than cudgel-matches, as will be seen by the subjoined contemporary verses by Dr. John Byrom. They are printed in “Dodsley’s Collection,” vol. vi., p. 312, under the title of—
Extempore Verses upon a Trial of Skill between those two Great Masters of Defence, Messieurs Fig and Sutton.
I.
Long was the great Fig, by the prize-fighting swains,
Sole monarch acknowledged of Marybone plains,
To the towns far and near did his glory extend,
And swam down the river from Thame to Gravesend,
Where lived Mister Sutton, pipemaker by trade,
Who hearing that Fig was thought such a stout blade,
Resolved to go in for a share of his fame,
And so sent a challenge to the Champion of Thame.
II.
With alternate advantage two trials had past,
When they fought out the rubber on Wednesday last;
To see such a contest, the house was quite full,
There hardly was room to thrust in your skull.
With a prelude of cudgels we first were saluted,
And two or three shoulders were handsomely fluted,
Till, weary at last with inferior disasters,
All the company cried, “The Masters! the Masters!”
III.
Whereupon the bold Sutton first mounted the stage,
Made his honours as usual, and yearned to engage;
When Fig, with a visage so fierce, yet sedate,
Came and entered the lists with his fresh shaven pate;
Their arms were encircled with armigers too,
With a red ribbon Sutton’s, and Fig’s with a blue.
Thus advanced the two heroes, ’tween shoulder and elbow,
Shook hands, and went to’t, and the word it was, “Bilbo!”
Stanzas iv. to viii. describe the back-sword play, in which both men broke their weapons, and Fig has blood drawn by his own broken blade, whereon he appeals and another bout is granted. Fig then wounds Sutton in the arm and the sword play is over. Stanzas ix. and x. wind up the match (with cudgels), as follows:—
Then after that bout they went on to another,
But the matter must end in some fashion or other,
So Jove told the gods he had made a decree,
That Fig should hit Sutton a stroke on the knee;
Though Sutton, disabled as soon as he hit him,
Would still have fought on, strength would not permit him;
’Twas his fate, not his fault, that constrained him to yield
And thus the great Fig remained Lord of the Field.
At length the time arrived when “the valiant Fig’s” “cunning o’ the fence” no longer availed him. On December 8th, 1734,[[16]] grim death gave him his final knock down, as appears from a notice in the Gentleman’s Magazine for the month of January, 1735.
“In Fig,” says his pupil and admirer Captain Godfrey (in his “Characters of the Masters,” p. 40, ed. 1747), “strength, resolution, and unparalleled judgment, conspired to form a matchless master. There was a majesty shone in his countenance, and blazed in all his actions, beyond all I ever saw. His right leg bold and firm, and his left, which could hardly ever be disturbed, gave him the surprising advantage already proved, and struck his adversary with despair and panic.”
BOB WHITAKER—1733.
Two only of Whitaker’s battles have survived the tooth of old Tempus edax rerum: his victory over the Venetian Gondolier and his defeat by Ned Peartree.
In the year 1733 a gigantic Venetian came to this country in the suite of one of our travelling nobility, whose name not being recorded we may set down this part of the story as apocryphal; in fact, as a managerial trick to attract aristocratic patronage. Be that as it may, this immense fellow, who was known by the name of “The Gondolier,” was celebrated for feats of strength: his fame ran before him, and his length of arm and jaw-breaking power of fist were loudly trumpeted. Indeed, a challenge having been issued by the backers of the Venetian, Fig was applied to to find a man to meet this Goliath. The sequel shall be told in Captain Godfrey’s own words:—
“Bob Whitaker was the man pitched upon to fight the big Venetian. I was at Slaughter’s Coffee-house when the match was made by a gentleman of advanced station: he sent for Fig to procure a proper man for him. He told him to take care of his man, because it was for a large sum; and the Venetian was of wonderful strength, and famous for breaking the jawbone in boxing. Fig replied, in his rough manner, ‘I do not know, master, but he may break one of his countrymen’s jawbones with his fist; but I’ll bring him a man, and he shall not be able to break his jawbone with a sledge hammer.’
“The battle was fought at Fig’s amphitheatre, before a splendid company, the politest house of that kind I ever saw. While the Gondolier was stripping my heart yearned for my countryman. His arm took up all observation; it was surprisingly large, long, and muscular. He pitched himself forward with his right leg, and his arm full extended; and, as Whitaker approached, caught him a blow at the side of the head which knocked him quite off the stage, which was remarkable for its height. Whitaker’s misfortune in his fall was the grandeur of the company, on which account they suffered no common people in, that usually sat on the ground, and lined the stage all round. It was thus all clear, and Whitaker had nothing to stop him but the bottom. There was a general foreign huzza on the side of the Venetian, as proclaiming our countryman’s downfall; but Whitaker took no more time than was required to get up again, when, finding his fault in standing out to the length of the other’s arm, he, with a little stoop, dashed boldly in beyond the heavy mallet, and with one English peg in the stomach,” by which the captain in another place explains he means what is called “the mark,”—“quite a new thing to foreigners, brought him on his breech. The blow carried too much of the English rudeness with it for him to bear, and finding himself so unmannerly used, he scorned to have any more doings with such a slovenly fist.” We could not resist transcribing this graphic, terse, and natural account of a prize-fight; the rarity of Captain Godfrey’s book, and the bald, diluted, silly amplification of it in “Boxiana,” pp. 22–25, vol. i., being the moving reasons thereto.
“So fine a house,” says Captain Godfrey, alluding to the company which assembled to see Whitaker fight the Gondolier, “was too engaging to Fig not to court another. He therefore stepped up, and told the gentlemen that they might think he had picked out the best man in London on this occasion; but to convince them to the contrary, he said, that if they would come on that day se’nnight, he would bring a man who should beat this Whitaker in ten minutes by fair hitting. This brought near as great and fine a company as the week before. The ‘man’ was Nathaniel Peartree, who, knowing the other’s bottom, and his deadly way of flinging, took a most judicious manner to beat him. Let his character come in here.—He was an admirable boxer, and I do not know one he was not a match for, before he lost his finger. He was famous, like Pipes, for fighting at the face, but was stronger in his blows. He knew Whitaker’s hardiness, and, being doubtful of beating him, cunningly determined to fight at his eyes. His judgment carried his arm so well, that, in about six minutes, both Whitaker’s eyes were shut; when, groping about a while for his man, and finding him not, he wisely gave out (modernicè, gave in), with these odd words—‘Damme, I’m not beat; but what signifies my fighting when I can’t see my man?’”
The columns of the Flying Post and Daily News Letter have many advertisements of “battles royal,” but none of sufficient merit to deserve a place in this history.
TOM PIPES AND GEORGE GRETTING—1724–1734.
Two other pugilists only of the school of Fig claim our notice, and these are Pipes and Gretting. “Pipes was the neatest boxer I remember. He put in his blows about the face (which he fought at most) with surprising time and judgment. He maintained his battles for many years with extraordinary skill, against men of far superior strength. Pipes was but weakly made: his appearance bespoke activity, but his hand, arm, and body were small; though by that acquired spring of his arm he hit prodigious blows; and at last, when he was beat out of his championship, it was more owing to his debauchery than the merit of those who beat him.”
There is a moral in the downfall of Gretting, as tersely given by Captain Godfrey:—“Gretting was a strong antagonist to Pipes. They contended together for some time, and were almost alternate victors. Gretting had the nearest way of going to the stomach (which is what they call the ‘mark’) of any man I knew. He was a most artful boxer, much stronger made than Pipes, and dealt the straightest blows. But what made Pipes a match for him, was his rare bottom spirit, which would bear a great deal of beating; and this, in my mind, Gretting was not sufficiently furnished with; for after he was beaten twice by Pipes, a mere sloven of a boxer, and everybody that fought him afterwards beat him. I must, notwithstanding, do that justice to Gretting’s memory to own that his debauchery contributed to spoil a great boxer; yet, I think, he had not the bottom of the other.”
It was the opinion throughout Europe, at this period, that the English nation were more expert than any other, not only in boxing, but in the use of the back-sword; and sorry should we be were it not so at this day. The amphitheatre, boxing, foil-play, and cudgelling-schools, were openly advertised, and the amusements made known, like any of the regular theatres; the audiences were equally fashionable, and they were patronised by the noble and great, and not disturbed by the magistrates. Although it was admitted that these amphitheatrical practices were productive of some ill, as offering encouragement to idleness and extravagance among the vulgar, yet there is hardly any useful thing that does not present some opening for mischief, or is not liable to abuse.