See-Saw. Another name for this childish sport is that given by Falstaff in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), where he calls it “riding the wild mare.” Gay thus describes this well-known game:
“Across the fallen oak the plank I laid,
And myself pois’d against the tott’ring maid;
High leap’d the plank, adown Buxonia fell.”
Shove-Groat. The object of this game was to shake or push pieces of money on a board to reach certain marks. It is alluded to in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), where Falstaff says: “Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling;” or, in other words, Bardolph was to quoit Pistol down-stairs as quickly as the smooth shilling—the shove-groat—flies along the board. In a statute of 33 Henry VIII., shove-groat is called a new game, and was probably originally played with the silver groat. The broad shilling of Edward VI. came afterwards to be used in this game, which was, no doubt, the same as shovel-board, with the exception that the latter was on a larger scale. Master Slender, in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (i. 1), had his pocket picked of “two Edward shovel-boards, that cost me two shilling and two pence a-piece.” Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in describing the game in his “Archaic Dictionary,” says that “a shilling or other smooth coin was placed on the extreme edge of the shovel-board, and propelled towards a mark by a smart stroke with the palm of the hand.” It is mentioned under various names, according to the coin employed, as shove-groat,[816] etc. The game of shove-halfpenny is mentioned in the Times of April 25, 1845, as then played by the lower orders. According to Strutt, it “was analogous to the modern pastime called Justice Jervis, or Jarvis, which is confined to common pot-houses.”
Snowballs. These are alluded to in “Pericles” (iv. 6), and in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (iii. 5).
Span-counter. In this boyish game one throws a counter, or piece of money, which the other wins, if he can throw another so as to hit it, or lie within a span of it. In “2 Henry VI.” (iv. 2), Cade says: “Tell the king from me, that, for his father’s sake, Henry the Fifth, in whose time boys went to span-counter for French crowns, I am content he shall reign.” It is called in France “tapper;” and in Swift’s time was played with farthings, as he calls it “span-farthing.”[817]
Stool-ball. This game, alluded to in the “Two Noble Kinsmen” (v. 2), was formerly popular among young women, and occasionally was played by persons of both sexes indiscriminately, as the following lines, from a song written by Durfey for his play of “Don Quixote,” acted at Dorset Gardens, in 1694, show:[818]
“Down in a vale on a summer’s day,
All the lads and lasses met to be merry;
A match for kisses at stool-ball to play,
And for cakes, and ale, and sider, and perry.
Chorus—Come all, great, small, short, tall, away to stool-ball.”
Strutt informs us that this game, as played in the north, “consists in simply setting a stool upon the ground, and one of the players takes his place before it, while his antagonist, standing at a distance, tosses a ball with the intention of striking the stool; and this is the business of the former to prevent by beating it away with the hand, reckoning one to the game for every stroke of the ball; if, on the contrary, it should be missed by the hand and touch the stool, the players change places. The conqueror is he who strikes the ball most times before it touches the stool.”
Tennis. According to a story told by the old annalists, one of the most interesting historical events in connection with this game happened when Henry V. was meditating war against France. “The Dolphin,” says Hall in his “Chronicle,” “thynkyng King Henry to be given still to such plaies and lyght folies as he exercised and used before the tyme that he was exalted to the Croune, sent to hym a tunne of tennis balles to plaie with, as who saied that he had better skill of tennis than of warre.” On the foundation of this incident, as told by Holinshed, Shakespeare has constructed his fine scene of the French Ambassadors’ audience in “Henry V.” (i. 2). As soon as the first Ambassador has given the Dauphin’s message and insulting gift, the English king speaks thus: