[431] Humble Advice; or, the Heads of those Things which were offered to many honourable Members of Parliament, by Richard Baxter, at the End of his Sermon, December 24th, at the Abbey in Westminster. 1655.
Baxter recommends the version "first approved of by the late Assembly of Divines, and, after, very much corrected and bettered in Scotland." This was Rouse's. Mr. Lathbury, to whom I am indebted for the reference, incorrectly supposes it to be Barton's.—Hist. of Convocation, 510.
[432] Weekly Account, 1643, October the 4th.
Substitutes for theatrical entertainments were ingeniously contrived under the Protectorate, of which a curious example is afforded in a description of a public amusement upon Friday, May the 23rd, 1656, which I find amongst the State Papers.
[433] The following extract is worth notice:—
May the 1st, 1654, Moderate Intelligencer.
"This day was more observed by people's going a-maying than for divers years past, and indeed much sin committed by wicked meetings, with fighting, drunkenness, ribaldry, and the like. Great resort came to Hyde Park; many hundred of rich coaches, and gallants in rich attire, but most shameful powdered hair men, and painted and spotted women.
[434] Macaulay says: "If the Puritans suppressed bull-baiting it was not because it gave pain to the bull, but because it gave pleasure to spectators." Is this a fair statement? I do not discover in Scobell any act or ordinance against bull-baiting at all. There is one against cock-fighting, and the reason alleged for suppressing the practice is, that it disturbed the public peace, and was connected with dissolute practices to the dishonour of God. The prohibition of races, and the grounds of the prohibition, have been already noticed.
[435] Scobell.
[436] The following is extracted from the biography of John Bruen.—Nonconformity in Cheshire, 56:—