It not refusethe any prince or kynge.
However, I doubt not both these authors spoke agreeably to the taste of the times in which they lived. Barclay, a more early poetic writer, in his Eclogues, first published in 1508, has made a shepherd boast of his skill in archery; to which he adds,
I can dance the raye; I can both pipe and sing,
If I were mery; I can both hurle and sling;
I runne, I wrestle, I can well throwe the barre,
No shepherd throweth the axeltree so farre;
If I were mery, I could well leape and spring;
I were a man mete to serve a prince or king.
XVI.—RECREATIONS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, published in 1660, gives us a general view of the sports most prevalent in the seventeenth century. "Cards, dice, hawkes, and hounds," says he, "are rocks upon which men lose themselves, when they are imprudently handled, and beyond their fortunes." And again, "Hunting and hawking are honest recreations, and fit for some great men, but not for every base inferior person, who, while they maintain their faulkoner, and dogs, and hunting nags, their wealth runs away with their hounds, and their fortunes fly away with their hawks." In another place he speaks thus: "Ringing, bowling, shooting, playing with keel-pins, tronks, coits, pitching of bars, hurling, wrestling, leaping, running, fencing, mustering, swimming, playing with wasters, foils, foot-balls, balowns, running at the quintain, and the like, are common recreations of country folks: riding of great horses, running at rings, tilts and tournaments, horse-races, and wild-goose chases, which are disports of greater men, and good in themselves, though many gentlemen by such means gallop quite out of their fortunes." Speaking of the Londoners, he says, "They take pleasure to see some pageant or sight go by, as at a coronation, wedding, and such like solemn niceties; to see an ambassador or a prince received and entertained with masks, shows, and fireworks. The country hath also his recreations, as May-games, feasts, fairs, and wakes." The following pastimes he considers as common both in town and country, namely, "bull-baitings and bear-baitings, in which our countrymen and citizens greatly delight, and frequently use; dancers on ropes, jugglers, comedies, tragedies, artillery gardens, and cock-fighting." He then goes on: "Ordinary recreations we have in winter, as cards, tables, dice, shovelboard, chess-play, the philosopher's game, small trunks, shuttle-cock, billiards, music, masks, singing, dancing, ule-games, frolicks, jests, riddles, catches, cross purposes, questions and commands, merry tales of errant knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves, cheaters, witches, fairies, goblins, and friars." To this catalogue he adds: "Dancing, singing, masking, mumming, and stage-plays, are reasonable recreations, if in season; as are May-games, wakes, and Whitson-ales, if not at unseasonable hours, are justly permitted. Let them," that is, the common people, "freely feast, sing, dance, have puppet-plays, hobby-horses, tabers, crowds, [39] and bagpipes:" let them "play at ball and barley-brakes;" and afterwards, "Plays, masks, jesters, gladiators, tumblers, and jugglers, are to be winked at, lest the people should do worse than attend them."