Shall play with bowles in alayes colde."
Andrew Borde, in his Dictarie of Helthe, describing a nobleman's mansion, supposes it not to be complete without "a bowling-alley." Among the additions made by Henry VIII. at Whitehall, were "divers fair tennice-courtes, bowling-alleys, and a cock-pit." [830]
It appears that soon after the introduction of bowling-alleys they were productive of very evil consequences; for they became not only exceedingly numerous, but were often attached to places of public resort, which rendered them the receptacles of idle and dissolute persons; and were the means of promoting a pernicious spirit of gambling among the younger and most unwary part of the community. The little room required for making these bowling-alleys was no small cause of their multiplication, particularly in great towns and cities. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries these nurseries of vice were universally decried, and especially such of them as were established within the city and suburbs of London, [831] where the ill effects arising from them were most extensive.
IV.—LONG-BOWLING.
Bowling-alleys, I believe, were totally abolished before I knew London; but I have seen there a pastime which might originate from them, called long-bowling. It was performed in a narrow enclosure, about twenty or thirty yards in length, and at the farther end was placed a square frame with nine small pins upon it; at these pins the players bowled in succession; and a boy, who stood by the frame to set up the pins that were beat down by the bowl, called out the number, which was placed to the account of the player; and the bowl was returned by the means of a small trough, placed with a gradual descent from the pins to the bowlers, on one side of the enclosure. Some call this game Dutch-rubbers.
Bowling, according to an author in the seventeenth century, is a pastime "in which a man shall find great art in choosing out his ground, and preventing the winding, hanging, and many turning advantages of the same, whether it be in open wilde places, or in close allies; and for his sport, the chusing of the bowle is the greatest cunning; your flat bowles being best for allies, your round byazed bowles for open grounds of advantage, and your round bowles, like a ball, for green swarthes that are plain and level." [832]
V.—SUPPOSED ORIGIN OF BILLIARDS.
Below is a representation which seems to bear some analogy to bowling.
