BEAR AND TENTER.
To the Editor.
Morley, near Leeds, July, 1827.
Sir,—On surveying the plays and pastimes of children, in these northern parts especially, it has often struck me with respect to some of them, that if traced up to their origin, they would be found to have been “political satires to ridicule such follies and corruptions of the times, as it was, perhaps, unsafe to do in any other manner.” In this conjecture I have lately been confirmed, by meeting with a curious paper, copied from another periodical work by a contributor to the old London Magazine, vol. for 1738, p. 59. It is an article which many would doubtless be glad to find in the Table Book, and nobody more so than myself, as it would be a capital accompaniment to my present remarks.
To come at once to the point; we have, or rather had, a few years ago, a game called the “bear and tenter,” (or bear and bear warden, as it would be called in the south,) which seems, certainly, to have been one of the sort alluded to. A boy is made to crawl as a bear upon his hands and knees, round whose neck is tied a rope which the keeper holds at a few yards’ distance. The bystanders then buffet the bear, who is protected only by his keeper, who, by touching any of the assailants, becomes liberated; the other is then the bear, and the buffeted bear becomes the keeper, and so on. If the “tenter” is sluggish or negligent in defence of his charge, it is then that the bear growls, and the blows are turned upon the guardian, wholly or partially, as the bearbaiters elect.
Now, my conjecture as to the origin of the game of “bear and tenter” is this.—Our English youths and their tutors, or companions, were formerly distinguished in foreign countries by the names of the bear and the bear leader, from the absurd custom of sending out the former, (a boisterous, ungovernable set,) and putting them under the care of persons unfit to accompany them. These bears were at first generally sprigs of royalty or nobility, as headstrong as need be; and the tutor was often some needy scholar, a Scotsman, or a courtier, who knew little more of the world than his pupil; but who, when he had put on his bag-wig and sword, was one of the most awkward and ridiculous figures imaginable. While these people were abroad, there can be no doubt that they were formerly the dupes and laughingstocks of those who dealt with them; and that, in exchange for the cash out of which they were cheated, they brought home a stock of exotic follies, sufficient to render them completely preposterous characters in the eyes of their own countrymen. Considering therefore how much good English gold was wasted and lost in these travels, how hurtful to the national pride the practice was, and how altered for the worse were both guardian and ward, it is not to be wondered at if the middling and lower classes of Englishmen were highly incensed or disgusted. But as complaints would, at least, be unavailing when such persons as “Baby Charles” and “Stenny” Buckingham were the “bear and tenter,” the people revenged themselves, as far as they dared, by the institution of this game, in which they displayed pretty well what hard knocks, ill treatment, derision, and scorn, awaited those who forsook their homes to wander in a land of strangers. And not only so, but they illustrated, at the same time, the contamination which ensued the touch of bad tutors, and the general character of the parties ridiculed.
I am well aware, Mr. Editor, that there was formerly a pastime of buffeting the bear; but that, as I apprehend, was a very different sport from that of “bear and tenter,” and had not a political origin. That this had, I am well assured, from the game being kept up in these parts, where the Stuarts were ever almost universally execrated; where patriotism once shone forth in meridian splendour, and the finest soldiers that the world ever saw, were arranged under the banners of Cromwell, of Fairfax, or of Lambert.
I remain, yours respectfully,
N. S.