CHAPTER VII.
I. Ancient Specimens of Bowling—Poem on Bowling.—II. Bowling-greens first made by the English.—III. Bowling-alleys.—IV. Long-bowling.—V. Supposed Origin of Billiards.—VI. Kayles.—VII. Closh.—VIII. Loggats.—IX. Nine-pins—Skittles.—X. Dutch-pins—XI. Four-corners.—XII. Half-bowl.—XIII. Nine-holes.—XIV. John Bull.—XV. Pitch and Hustle.—XVI. Bull-baiting in Towns and Villages.—XVII. Bull-running—At Stamford, &c.—XVIII. At Tutbury.—XIX. Badger-baiting.—XX. Cock-fighting.—XXI. Throwing at Cocks.—XXII. Duck-hunting.—XXIII. Squirrel-hunting.—XXIV. Rabbit-hunting.
I.—ANCIENT BOWLING—POEM ON BOWLING.
The pastime of bowling, whether practised upon open greens or in bowling-alleys, was probably an invention of the middle ages. I cannot by any means ascertain the time of its introduction; but I have traced it back to the thirteenth century. The earliest representation of a game played with bowls, that I have met with, occurs in a MS. in the Royal Library, [826] as here represented.
90. Bowling.—XIII. Century.
Here two small cones are placed upright at a distance from each other; and the business of the players is evidently to bowl at them alternately; the successful candidate being he who could lay his bowl the nearest to the mark. The French, according to Cotgrave, had a similar kind of game, called Carreau, from a square stone which, says he, "is laid in level with and at the end of a bowling-alley, and in the midst thereof an upright point set as the mark whereat they bowl." The following engraving, from a drawing in a beautiful MS. Book of Prayers, in the possession of Francis Douce, esq., represents two other bowlers; but they have no apparent object to play at, unless the bowl cast by the first may be considered as such by the second, and the game require him to strike it from its place.