V.—MARBLES AND SPAN-COUNTER.
Marbles seem to have been used by the boys as substitutes for bowls, and with them they amuse themselves in many different manners. I believe originally nuts, round stones, or any other small things that could be easily bowled along, were used as marbles. Those now played with seem to be of more modern invention. It is said of Augustus when young, that by way of amusement he spent many hours in playing with little Moorish boys cum nucibus, with nuts. [1116] The author of one of the Tatlers calls it "a game of marbles not unlike our common taw." [1117]
Taw, wherein a number of boys put each of them one or two marbles in a ring and shoot at them alternately with other marbles, and he who obtains the most of them by beating them out of the ring is the conqueror.
Nine holes; which consists in bowling of marbles at a wooden bridge with nine arches. There is also another game of marbles where four, five, or six holes, and sometimes more, are made in the ground at a distance from each other; and the business of every one of the players is to bowl a marble by a regular succession into all the holes, which he who completes in the fewest bowls obtains the victory.
Boss out, or boss and span, also called hit or span, wherein one bowls a marble to any distance that he pleases, which serves as a mark for his antagonist to bowl at, whose business it is to hit the marble first bowled, or lay his own near enough to it for him to span the space between them and touch both the marbles; in either case he wins, if not, his marble remains where it lay and becomes a mark for the first player, and so alternately until the game be won.
Span-counter is a pastime similar to the former, but played with counters instead of marbles. I have frequently seen the boys for want of both perform it with stones. This sport is called in French tapper, a word signifying to strike or hit, because if one counter is struck by the other, the game is won.
VI.—TOPS, &c.—THE DEVIL AMONG THE TAILORS.
The top was used in remote times by the Grecian boys. It is mentioned by Suidas, and called in Greek τροχος, and in Latin turbo. It was well known at Rome in the days of Virgil, [1118] and with us as early at least as the fourteenth century, when its form was the same as it is now, and the manner of using it can admit of but little if any difference. Boys whipping of tops occur in the marginal paintings of the MSS. written at this period. It was probably in use long before.
In a manuscript at the Museum I met with the following anecdote of prince Henry, the eldest son of James I., and the author assures us it is perfectly genuine; [1119] his words are these: "The first tyme that he the prince went to the towne of Sterling to meete the king, seeing a little without the gate of the towne a stack of corne in proportion not unlike to a topp wherewith he used to play; he said to some that were with him, 'loe there is a goodly topp;' whereupon one of them saying, 'why doe you not play with it then?' he answered, 'set you it up for me and I will play with it.'"
We have hitherto been speaking of the whip-top; for the peg-top, I believe, must be ranked among the modern inventions, and probably originated from the te-totums and whirligigs, which seem all of them to have some reference to the tops, saving only that the usage of the te-totum may be considered as a kind of petty gambling, it being marked with a certain number of letters: and part of the stake is taken up, or an additional part put down, according as those letters lie uppermost. The author of Martin. Scriblerus mentions this toy in a whimsical manner: "He found that marbles taught him percussion, and whirligigs the axis in peretrochio." When I was a boy the te-totum had only four sides, each of them marked with a letter; a T for take all; an H for half, that is of the stake; an N for nothing; and a P for put down, that is, a stake equal to that you put down at first. Toys of this kind are now made with many sides and letters.