The evening of Shrove-Tuesday was usually appropriated, as well in the country as in town, to the exhibition of dramatic pieces. Not only at Court, where Jonson was occasionally employed to write Masques on this night[144:B], but at both the Universities, in the provincial schools, and in the halls of the gentry and nobility, were these the amusements of Shrovetide, during the days of Elizabeth and James. Warton, speaking of these ephemeral plays, adds, in a note, "I have seen an anonymous comedy, Apollo Shroving, composed by the Master of Hadleigh-school, in Suffolk[144:C], and acted by his scholars, on Shrove-tuesday, Feb. 7, 1626, printed 1627. 8vo. published, as it seems, by E. W. Shrove-tuesday, as the day immediately preceding Lent, was always a day of extraordinary sport and feasting."—"Some of these festivities," he proceeds to say, "still remain in our universities. In the Percy Houshold-Book, 1512, it appears, that the clergy and officers of Lord Percy's chapel performed a play before his lordship upon Shrowftewesday at night." Pag. 345.[144:D]
The cruel custom of Cock-throwing, which, until lately, was a diversion peculiar to this day, seems to have originated from the barbarous,
yet less savage, amusement of Cock-fighting. "Every yeare on Shrove-Tuesday," says Fitzstephen, who wrote in the reign of Henry II., "the schoole-boyes doe bring cockes of the game to their master, and all the forenoone they delight themselves in Cock-fighting."[145:A] At what period this degenerated into Cock-throwing cannot now be ascertained; Chaucer seems to allude to it in his Nonnes Priests' Tale, where the Cock revenges himself on the Priest's son, because he
—————— "gave hym a knocke
Upon his legges, when he was yonge and nice;"
and that it was common in the sixteenth century, we have the testimony of Sir Thomas More, who, describing the state of childhood, speaks of his skill in casting a cok-stele, that is, a stick or cudgel to throw at a cock.[145:B]
The first effective blow directed against this infamous sport, was given by the moral pencil of Hogarth, who in one of his prints called The Four Stages of Cruelty, has represented, among other puerile diversions, a groupe of boys throwing at a Cock, and, as Trusler remarks, "beating the harmless feathered animal to jelly."[145:C] The benevolent satire of this great artist gradually produced the necessary reform, and for some time past, the magistrates have so generally interdicted the practice, that the pastime may happily be considered as extinct.[145:D]
Easter-tide, or the week succeeding Easter-Sunday, afforded another opportunity for rejoicing, and was formerly a season of great festivity. Not only, as bound by every tie of gratitude to do, did man rejoice on this occasion, but it was the belief of the vulgar that the sun himself partook of the exhilaration, and regularly danced on Easter-Day. To see this glorious spectacle, therefore, it was customary for the common people to rise before the sun on Easter-morning, and though, as we may conclude, they were constantly disappointed, yet might the habit occasionally lead to serious thought and useful contemplation; metaphorically considered, indeed, the idea may be termed both just and beautiful, "for as the earth and her valleys standing thick with corn, are said to laugh and sing; so, on account of the Resurrection, the heavens and the sun may be said to dance for joy; or, as the Psalmist words it, the heavens may rejoice and the earth may be glad."[146:A]
The great amusement of the Easter-holidays consisted in playing at hand-ball, a game at which, say the ritualists Belithus and Durandus,
bishops and archbishops used, upon the continent at this period, to recreate themselves with their inferior clergy[147:A]; nor was it uncommon for corporate bodies on this occasion in England to amuse themselves in a similar way with their burgesses and young people; antiently this was the custom, says Mr. Brand, at Newcastle, at the feasts of Easter and Whitsuntide, when the mayor, aldermen, and sheriff, accompanied by great numbers of the burgesses, used to go yearly at these seasons to the Forth, or little mall of the town, with the mace, sword, and cap of maintenance carried before them, and not only countenance, but frequently join in the diversions of hand-ball, dancing, &c.[147:B]