Some rest in others' cutting out The same by whom themselves are made; And secretly the marke invade. "Some get by knocks, and so advance Whose own true bias cutts the way." • In the three delineations above mentioned, we may observe that the players have only one bowl for each person; the modern bowlers have usually three or four. Bowling-greens are said to have originated in England, and bowling upon them, in my memory, was a very popular amusement. In most country towns of any note they are to be found, and some few are still remaining in the vicinity of the metropolis; but none of them, I believe, are now so generally frequented as they were ac customed to be formerly. r. 199. Bowling, according to an author of the seventeenth century, is a pastime in which a man shall find great art in chusing out his ground, and preventing the winding, hanging, and many turning advantages of the same, whether it be in open wilde places, or in close allies; and for his sport, the chusing of the bowle is the greatest cunning; your flat bowles being best for allies, your round byazed bowles for open grounds of advantage, and your round bowles, like a ball, for green swarthes that are plain and level." game On the top of the twenty-eighth plate is the representation of a very curious ancient pastime, which seems to bear some analogy to bowling; but the bowls, instead of being cast by the hand, are driven with a battoon or mace, through an arch, towards a mark at a distance from it; and hence, I make no doubt, originated the of billiards, which formerly was played with a similar kind of arch and a mark called the king, but placed upon a table instead of the ground. The improvement by adding the table answered two good purposes; it precluded the necessity for the player to kneel, or stoop exceedingly, when he struck the bowl, and accommodated the game to the limits of a chamber.' P. 201. In the fourth book Mr. Strutt proceeds to domestic amusements of various kinds, and pastimes appropriated to particular seasons, It has been remarked by foreigners that the English are particu, larly fond of bell-ringing; and indeed most of our churches have a ring of bells in the steeple, partly appropriated to that purpose. These bells are rung upon most occasions of joy and festivity, and sometimes at funerals, when they are muffled, with a piece of woollen cloth bound about the clapper, and the sounds then emitted by them are exceeding unmelodious, and well fitted to inspire the mind with melancholy. Ringing of rounds that is, sounding every bell in succession, from the least to the greatest, and repeating the opera, tion-produces no variety; on the contrary, the reiteration of the same cadences in a short time becomes tiresome; for which reason the ringing of changes has been introduced, wherein the succession of the bells is shifted continually; and by this means a varied combination of different sounds, exceeding pleasant to the ear, is readily produced. This improvement in the art of ringing is thought to be peculiar to the people of this country. Ringing the bells backwards is sometimes mentioned, and probably consisted in beginning with the largest bell, and ending with the least: it appears to have been practised by the ringers as a mark of contempt or disgust. The antiquity of bell-ringing in England cannot readily be as certained; it is said that bells were invented by Paulinus, bishop of Nola, at the commencement of the fifth century; they were afterwards used in Brittany, and thence perhaps brought into this coun try. Ingulphus speaks of them as well known in his time, and tells us" that Turketullus, the first abbot of Croyland, gave six bells to that monastery; that is to say, two great ones, which he named Bartholomew and Betteline; two of a middling size, called Turke tulum and Beterine; and two small ones, denominated Pega and Bega; he also caused the greatest bell to be made, called Gudhlac ; which was tuned to the other bells, and produced an admirable har, mony, not to be equaled in England,” I know not how far the pastime of bell-ringing attracted the notice of the opulent in former times; at present it is confined to the lower classes of the people, who are paid by the parish for ring. ing upon certain holydays. At weddings, as well as upon other festive occurrences, they usually ring the bells, in expectance of a pe, cuniary reward.' P, 218. The billiards, and similar games, are afterwards illustrated. In the second chapter of this fourth and last book our ingenious author gives an account of various sedentary games; and his anecdotes are curious and amusing. After mentioning the supposed origin of cards, Mr. Strutt thus proceeds; A very intelligent writer upon the origin of engraving asserts that playing-cards were invented in Germany, where they were used to wards the latter end of the fourteenth century; but his reasons are by no means conclusive. An author of our own country produces a passage cited from a wardrobe computus made in the sixth year of Edward the First, which mentions a game entitled "the four kings ;" and hence, with some degree of probability, he conjectures that the use of playingcards was then known in England, which is a much earlier period than any that has been assigned by the foreign authors. It is the opinion of several learned writers well acquainted with Asiatic history, that cards were used in the eastern parts of the world long before they found their way into Europe. If this position be granted, . when we recollect that Edward the First, before his accession to the throne, resided nearly five years in Syria, it will be natural enough to suppose that he might have learned the game of "the four kings" in that country, and introduced it at court upon his return to England. An objection, which indeed at first sight seems to be a very powerful one, has been raised in opposition to this conjec. ture; it is founded upon the total silence of every kind of authority respecting the subject of card-playing from the time that the above mentioned entry was made, to an early period in the reign of Edward the Fourth, including an interval of one hundred and eighty-six years. An omission so general it is thought would not have taken place, if the words contained in that record alluded to the usage of playing-cards. A game introduced by a monarch could not fail of becoming fashionable; and, if it continued to be practised in after times, must in all probability have been mentioned occasionally in conjunction with the other pastimes then prevalent. But this silence is by no means a positive proof that the game of the four kings was not played with cards, nor that cards did not long continue to be used during the whole of the above-mentioned interval in the higher circles, though not perhaps with such abuses as were afterwards practised, and which excited the reprehension of the moral and religious writers. Besides, at the time that cards were first introduced, they were drawn and painted by the hand, without the assistance of a stamp or plate; it follows of course that much time was required to complete a set or pack of cards; the price they bore, no doubt, was adequate to the labour bestowed upon them, which necessarily must have enhanced their value beyond the purchase of the under classes of the people; and for this reason it is, I presume, that cardplaying, though it might have been known in England, was not much practised until such time as inferior sets of cards, proportion ably cheap, were produced for the use of the commonalty, which seems to have been the case when Edward the Fourth ascended the throne; for early in his reign an act was established prohibiting the importation of playing-cards; and soon after that period card-playing became a very general pastime. The increasing demand for these objects of amusement, it is said, suggested the idea of cutting the outlines appropriated to the different suits upon separate blocks of wood and stamping them upon the cards, the intermediate spaces between the outlines being filled up with various colours laid on by the hand. This expedi tious method of producing cards reduced the price of them so that they might readily be purchased by almost every class of persons; the common usage of cards was soon productive of serious evils, which all the exertions of the legislative power have not been able to eradi. cate. Another argument against the great antiquity of playing-cards is drawn from the want of paper proper for their fabrication. We certainly have no reason to believe that paper made with linen rags was produced in Europe before the middle of the fourteenth cen. tury; and even then the art of paper-making does not appear to have been carried to any great perfection, It is also granted that paper is the most proper material we know of for the manufacturing of cards; but it will not therefore follow that they could not possibly be made with any other; and if we admit of any other, the objec tion will fall to the ground. Card-playing appears to have been a very fashionable court amusement in the reign of Henry the Seventh. In an account of money disbursed for the use of that monarch, an entry is made of one hundred shillings paid at one time to him for the purpose of playing at cards. The princess Margaret, his daughter, previous to her marriage with James the Fourth, king of Scotland, understood the use of cards; and Catherine of Spain, the consort of prince Arthur, afterwards married to Henry the Eighth his brother, is said in her youth to have been well acquainted with the art of embroidery and other works of the needle proper for ladies to know, and also that she was expert in various courtly pastimes, and could play at "tables, tick-tacke or gleeke, with cardis and dyce." The universality of card-playing in the reign of this monarch is evident from a prohibitory statute being necessary to prevent ap. prentices from using cards except in the Christmas holidays, and then only in their masters' houses. Agreeable to this privilege, Stow, speaking of the customs at London, says, "From All-Hallows eve to the day following Candlemas-day, there was, among other sports, playing at cards for counters, nails, and points, in every house, more for pastime than for gain." But this moderation, I apprehend, was by no means general; for several contemporary writers are exceed ingly severe in their reflexions upon the usage of cards, which they rank with dice, and consider both as destructive to morality and good order. P. 242. Several games at cards, particularly the more ancient, are then explained; and in the third chapter our author gives an account of Christmas games, May games, &c. The barbarous and wicked diversion of throwing at cocks usually took place at all the wakes and fairs that were held about Shrove tide, and especially at such of them as were kept on Shrove-Tuesday, Upon the abolition of this inhuman custom, the place of the living birds was supplied by toys made in the shape of cocks, with large and heavy stands of lead, at which the boys, on paying some very trifling sum, were permitted to throw as heretofore; and he who could overturn the toy claimed it as a reward for his adroitness, This innocent pastime never became popular for the sport derived from the torment of a living creature existed no longer, and its want was not to be compensated by the overthrowing or breaking a mo tionlesss representative; therefore the diversion was very soon discon tinued. At present snuff-boxes, tobacco-boxes, and other trinkets of small value, or else halfpence or gingerbread, placed upon low stands, are thown at, and sometimes apples and oranges, set up in small heaps; and children are usually enticed to lay out their money for permission to throw at them by the owners, who keep continually bawling Knock down one, you have them all!" p.276. The fourth chapter contains games practised by children, and might admit of many additions. At the end is an Appendix, containing an account of the ma nuscripts from which the plates are taken, together with thirtynine plates neatly and accurately engraved. We regret, as already mentioned, the want of an index. Of the work itself we have already expressed our sentiments, as an amusing acces sion to the library of English antiquity, ART. XIII.-A Treatise on the Cow-Pox; containing the History of Vaccine Inoculation, and an Account of the various Publica tions which have appeared on that Subject in Great-Britain and other Parts of the World. By John Ring. Part I. 8vo. 85. Boards, Carpenters. 1801, THE exuberant and fulsome style of adulation which pervades this volume disgusted us no less than the exaggeration with which every minute circumstance is extolled. We mean not to detract from the merit of Dr. Jenner: we allow it all, and as much as his best friends would wish. A fact well known in the Gloucestershire dairies, viz. that a disease of the cows would secure those who had been infected with it from the small-pox, he has brought forward with additional evidence, and endeavoured to render general. He deserves, even should he prove unsuccessful, no slight commendation for this attempt, But his adulator turns what might be great into farce- the sun of science,' the prophetic eye,'' condescending to reply,'transform the promulgator of a previously observed fact into a discoverer of the first magnitude. Harvey, Copernicus, and Newton, could have obtained no more: and perhaps each would have turned with disgust from such extravagant panegyrics. Dr. Jenner from himself has advanced but one step, viz. to connect the cow-pox with a disease more disgusting and loathsome than almost any other. He has already, within our own knowledge, deprived many a valetudinarian of his salubrious diet; and for what? for a theory not worth a contest-for a doctrine which, whether true or false, cannot add an iota to science, cannot contribute to the comfort or relief of a single individual--for a spe culative question, contemptible in its source and injurious in its consequences. This is brought forward by Mr. Ring with great" pomp, and with additional evidence, for reasons which we cannot fathom; except that Dr. Jenner, being the sun of science, the god kissing carrion,' must be the cause of whatever. is most disgusting as well as most beneficial. In this treatise we find an analysis of whatever has been published on this subject; and the letters in different journals are |