Before we quit this subject, we must say a few words respecting sognettes, or, as we call them in English, battledores. They are, as every body knows, little hoops of wood bent in an oval, and the extremities, united to form a handle, are kept together by strips of white leather bound round them. The interior of the battledore is a netting made of catgut, which is stretched lightly.
Those learned people who found fault with Bochart for making use of the battledore, have written several grave dissertations, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the ancients were acquainted with this game; those who are of opinion they were, cite this verse of Ovid:
Reticuloque pilæ leves fundantur aperto.
This passage of the Latin poet evidently means a net-work, upon which not shuttlecocks, but light balls, were tossed backwards and forwards.
As to our young rattle-pates, they were not at all curious to learn whether the amusement was of ancient or modern invention; leaving that to be ascertained by graver heads, they entered with so much ardour into the spirit of the game, that time
flew unperceived, till their amusement was at last interrupted by the castle bell announcing the dinner-hour.
On the following day, as there was not a sufficient number of battledores and shuttlecocks for every body, one of the young visitors, named Valeria, contrived a very ingenious means of supplying their place. She took a small hoop, which she had procured from a barrel of oysters, and bound it round with pink and white ribbon; five or six young persons, armed with sticks, stood in a group, one of them threw this hoop to a great height in the air, and each of them caught it and threw it up again in her turn. When any one failed, they were obliged to quit the game for a moment, or to give a forfeit. This is called the game of the “flying ring,” it resembles in many respects the play of the “funnel,” which we shall speak of by-and-by.
Sometimes, in order to heighten the pleasure of the game, the players added three little bells to the ring, and these bells striking while the ring turned in the air, served to announce its approach.