"It is worth your while to come to England, were it only to see an election and a cock-match. There is a celestial spirit of anarchy and confusion in these two scenes that words cannot paint, and of which no countryman of yours can form even an idea."—Sherlock's Letters to a friend at Paris.
THE COCKPIT.
Mr. Sherlock is perfectly right in his assertion, that neither of these scenes can be described by words; but where the writer must have failed, the artist has succeeded, and the Parisian who has never visited England may, from Mr. Hogarth's Prints, form a tolerably correct idea of the anarchy of an election, and the confusion of a cockpit. To the right learned and laborious successors of Master Thomas Hearne, it would be matter of curious speculation, and worthy of deep research, to inquire which of these "popular sportes was fyrste practysed in fair Englonde." To their grave and useful investigations I leave the decision of this knotty point. The earliest information of this gentile and royal game which my reading supplies, I find in a treatise, published in 1674, and entitled The Complete Gamester, containing instructions how to play at Billiards, Trucks, Bowls, Chess, etc. "To which is added, The Artes and Mysteries of Riding, Racing, Archery, and Cock Fighting. Printed by A. M. for R. Cutler, and to be sold by Henry Brome, at the Gun, at the west end of St. Paul's." To this curious little vade mecum there is a frontispiece divided into five compartments. One of them represents a cockpit, in the centre of which two of the feathered tribe, not unlike ducks, are fighting. The pit is surrounded by a company of crop-eared figures in round hats, with faces as demure and sanctified as are to be seen at a Quakers' meeting. Before many of these most sedate personages are heaps of gold, and (alluding to the print) the following sublime verses:—
"After these three, the cockpit claims a name;
A sport gentile, and call'd a royal game.
Now see the gallants crowd about the pit,
And most are stock'd with money more than wit;