At alle exploytes a man can thynke or speake;
Att shove-grote, 'venter poynte, att crosse and pyle;
Att "Beshrewe him that's last att any style;"
Att lepynge over a Christmàs bon fyer,
Or att the "drawynge dame owte o' the myre;"
At "Shoote cock, Gregory," stoole-ball, and what not:
Pickè-poynt, top, and scourge to make him hot."[247:A]
Burton, after mentioning Hawking, Hunting, Fowling, and Fishing, says, "many other sports and recreations there be, much in use, as ringing, holding, shooting, (with the bow,) keelpins, tronks, coits, pitching bars, hurling, wrestling, leaping, running, fencing, mustring, swimming, wasters, foiles, foot-ball, balown, quintan, &c., and many such which are the common recreations of the Country folks."[247:B] He subsequently adds bull and bear baiting as common to both countrymen and[247:C] citizens, and then subjoins to the list of rural amusements, dancing, singing, masking, mumming, and stage-players.[247:D] For the ordinary recreations of Winter as well in the country as in town, he recommends "cards, tables and dice, shovelboord, chess-play, the philosopher's game, small trunks, shuttle-cock, balliards, musick, masks, singing, dancing, ule games, frolicks, jests, riddles, catches, purposes, questions and commands, and merry tales."[247:E]
From this statement it will immediately appear, that many of the rural diversions of this period are those likewise of the present day, and that no large portion of the catalogue can with propriety call for a more extended notice.
At the head of those which demand some brief elucidation, we shall place the Itinerant Stage, a country amusement, however, which, in the days of Elizabeth, was fast degenerating into contempt. The performance of secular plays by strolling companies of minstrels, had