[E133] "Camping." "Goals were pitched 150 or 200 yards apart, formed of the thrown-off clothes of the competitors." Each party had two goals 10 or 15 yards apart. The parties, 10 to 15 aside, stand in line facing their own goals and each other, at 10 yards distance, midway between the goals and nearest that of their adversaries. An indifferent spectator throws up the ball—the size of a cricket ball—midway between the confronted players, whose object is to seize and convey it between their own goals. The shock of the first onset to catch the falling ball is very great, and the player who seizes it speeds home pursued by his opponents, through whom he has to make his way, aided by the jostlings of his own sidesmen. If caught and held, or in imminent danger of it, he throws the ball, but must in no case give it, to a comrade, who, if it be not arrested in its course, or he be jostled away by his eager foes, catches it, and hurries home, winning the game or snotch if he contrive to carry, not throw, it between the goals. A holder of the ball caught with it in his possession loses a snotch. At the loss of each of these the game recommences after a breathing time. Seven or nine snotches are the game, and these it will sometimes take two or three hours to win. Sometimes a large football was used, and the game was then called "kicking camp," and if played with the shoes on, "savage camp."—Abridged from Major Moor's Description.
Ray says it prevailed, in his time, most in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex. It was new to Sir T. Browne on his settling in Norfolk, and is not mentioned by Strutt amongst the "Sports and Pastimes of the English People."
Mr. Spurdens, in his Supplement to Forby's Vocabulary, remarks: "The contests were not unfrequently fatal to many of the combatants. I have heard old persons speak of a celebrated Camping, Norfolk against Suffolk, on Diss Common, with 300 on each side. Before the ball was thrown up, the Norfolk men inquired tauntingly of the Suffolk men if they had brought their coffins. The Suffolk men after fourteen hours were the victors. Nine deaths were the result of the contest within a fortnight. These were called fighting camps, for much boxing was practised in them." Cf.
"This faire floure of womanheed
Hath two pappys also smalle,
Bolsteryd out of lenghth and breed,
Lyche a large Campyng ball."
—Lydgate.
Camping Land was a piece of ground set apart for the game. A field abutting on the churchyard at Swaffham was willed for the purpose by the Rector in 1472. At East Bilney and Stowmarket are pieces of ground still called Camping land. Sir John Cullum, in his "History of Hawstead, Suffolk," describes the Camping-pightle as mentioned A.D. 1466. "Campar or pleyar at foott balle, campyon or champyon."—Prompt. Parv. "Camping is Foot Ball playing, at which they are very dextrous in Norfolk; and so many People running up and down a piece of ground, without doubt evens and saddens it, so that the Root of the Grass lies firm.... The trampling of so many People drives also the Mole away."—T.R.
[E134] "All quickly forgot as a play on a stage." Comp. Shakspere, As you Like it, Act ii. sc. 7: "All the world's a stage," etc., and Merchant of Venice, Act i. sc. 1, where Antonio calls the world "A stage where every man must play a part." "Totus mundus agit histrionem," from a fragment of Petronius, is said to have been the motto on the Globe Theatre. Calderon wrote a play called El Teatro del Mundo (The Theatre of the World). It is remarkable for containing the lines:
"En el teatro del mundo
Todos son representantes,"
i.e. in the stage of the world all men are players.—W. W. S. In the old play of Damon and Pythias (Dodsley's Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, iv. 31) the following occurs:
"Pythagoras said that this world was like a stage,
Where many play their parts: the lookers on, the sage
Philosophers are, said he, whose part is to learn
The manners of all nations, and the good from the bad to discern."