well contented.' Elizabeth took especial delight in seeing the courage of her English mastiffs pitted against the cunning of Ursa and the strength of Taurus. On the 25th of May 1559, the French ambassadors were brought to court with music to dinner, and after a splendid dinner, were entertained with the baiting of bears and bulls with English dogs. The queen's grace herself, and the ambassadors, stood in the gallery looking on the pastime till six at night.' The diplomatists were so gratified, that her majesty never failed to provide a similar show for any foreign visitors she wished to honour.

Much as the royal patron of Shakspeare and Burbage was inclined to favour the players, she waxed indignant when the attractions of the beargarden paled before those of the theatre; and in 1591 an order issued from the privy-council forbidding plays to be acted on Thursdays, because bear-baiting and such pastimes had usually been practised on that day. This order was followed by an injunction from the lord mayor to the same effect, in which his lordship complained, 'that in divers places, the players do use to recite their plays to the great hurt and destruction of the game of bear-baiting, and such-like pastimes, which are maintained for her majesty's pleasure.'

An accident at the Paris Garden in 1583, afforded the Puritans an opportunity for declaring the popular sport to be under the ban of Heaven-a mode of argument anticipated years before by Sir Thomas More in his Dialogue. At Beverley late, much of the people being at a bear-baiting, the church fell suddenly down at evening-time, and overwhelmed some that were in it. A good fellow that after heard the tale told, "So," quoth he, "now you may see what it is to be at evening-prayers when you should be at the bear-baiting!" Some of the ursine heroes of those palmy-days of bearbaiting have been enshrined in verse. Sir John Davy reproaches the law-students with

'Leaving old Plowden, Dyer, and Brooke alone, To see old Harry Hunks and Sackerson.' The last named has been immortalised by Shakspeare in his Merry Wives of Windsor-Slender boasts to sweet Anne Page, 'I have seen Sackerson loose twenty times; and have taken him by the chain: but, I warrant you, the women have so cried and shrieked at it, that it passed.'

In

James I. prohibited baiting on Sundays, although he did not otherwise discourage the sport. Charles I.'s reign, the Garden at Bankside was still a favourite resort, but the Commonwealth ordered the bear to be killed, and forbade the amusement. However, with the Restoration it revived, and Burton speaks of bull and bear baiting as a pastime in which our countrymen and citizens greatly delight and frequently use.' On the 14th of August 1666, Mr Pepys went to the Paris Garden, and saw some good sports of the bulls tossing the dogs, one into the very boxes;' and that it had not lost the countenance of royalty, is proved by the existence of a warrant of Lord Arlington's for the payment of ten pounds to James Davies, Esq., master of his majesty's bears, bulls, and dogs, for making ready the rooms at the bear-garden, and baiting the bears before the Spanish ambassadors, the 7th of January last' (1675).

BEAR-BAITING.

After a coming bear-baiting had been duly advertised, the bearward used to parade the streets with his champions. 'I'll set up my bills,' says the sham bearward in The Humorous Lovers, that the gamesters of London, Horsleydown, Southwark, and Newmarket may come in, and bait him before the ladies. But first, boy, go fetch me a bagpipe; we will walk the streets in triumph, and give the people notice of our sport.' Sometimes the bull or bear was decorated with flowers, or coloured ribbons fastened with pitch on their foreheads, the dog who pulled off the favour being especially cheered by the spectators. The French advocate, Misson, who lived in England during William III.'s reign, gives a vivid description of 'the manner of these bull-baitings, which are so much talked of. They tie a rope to the root of the horns of the bull, and fasten the other end of the cord to an iron ring fixed to a stake driven into the ground; so that this cord, being about fifteen feet long, the bull is confined to a space of about thirty feet diameter. Several butchers, or other gentlemen, that are desirous to exercise their dogs, stand round about, each holding his own by the ears; and when the sport begins, they let loose one of the dogs. The dog runs at the bull; the bull, immovable, looks down upon the dog with an eye of scorn, and only turns a horn to him, to hinder him from coming near. The dog is not daunted at this, he runs round him, and tries to get beneath his belly. The bull then puts himself into a posture of defence; he beats the ground with his feet, which he joins together as closely as possible, and his chief aim is not to gore the dog with the point of his horn (which, when too sharp, is put into a kind of wooden sheath), but to slide one of them under the dog's belly, who creeps close to the ground, to hinder it, and to throw him so high in the air that he may break his neck in the fall. To avoid this danger, the dog's friends are ready beneath him, some with their backs, to give him a soft reception; and others with long poles, which they offer him slantways, to the intent that, sliding down them, it may break the force of his fall. Notwithstanding all this care, a toss generally makes him sing to a very scurvy tune, and draw his phiz into a pitiful grimace. But unless he is totally stunned with the fall, he is sure to crawl again towards the bull, come on't what will. Sometimes a second frisk into the air disables him for ever; but sometimes, too, he fastens upon his enemy, and when once he has seized him with his eye-teeth, he sticks to him like a leech, and would sooner die than leave his hold. Then the bull bellows and bounds and kicks, all to shake off the dog. In the end, either the dog tears out the piece he has laid hold on, and falls, or else remains fixed to him with an obstinacy that would never end, did they not pull him off. To call him away, would be in vain; to give him a hundred blows, would be as much so; you might cut him to pieces, joint by joint, before he would let him loose. What is to be done then? While some hold the bull, others thrust staves into the dog's mouth, and open it by main force.'

In the time of Addison, the scene of these animal combats was at Hockley in the Hole, near Clerkenwell. The Spectator of August 11, 1711, desires those who frequent the theatres merely for a laugh, would seek their diversion at the bear-garden,

where reason and good-manners have no right to disturb them.' Gay, in his Trivia, says: Experienced men, inured to city ways, Need not the calendar to count their days. When through the town, with slow and solemn air, Led by the nostril walks the muzzled bear; Behind him moves, majestically dull, The pride of Hockley Hole, the surly bull. Learn hence the periods of the week to nameMondays and Thursdays are the days of game.' The over-fashionable amusement had fallen from its high estate, and was no longer upheld by the patronage of the higher classes of society. In 1802, a bill was introduced into the Commons for the suppression of the practice altogether. Mr Windham opposed the measure, as the first result of a conspiracy of the Jacobins and Methodists to render the people grave and serious, preparatory to obtaining their assistance in the furtherance of other anti-national schemes, and argued as if the British Constitution must stand or fall with the bear-garden; and Colonel Grosvenor asked, if 'the higher orders had their Billington, why not the lower orders their Bull?' This extraordinary reasoning prevailed against the sarcasm of Courtenay, the earnestness of Wilberforce, and the eloquence of Sheridan, and the House refused, by a majority of thirteen, to abolish what the last-named orator called "the most mischievous of all amusements.' This decision of the legislature doubtless received the silent approval of Dr Parr, for that learned talker was a great admirer of the sport. A bull-baiting being advertised in Cambridge, during one of his last visits there, the doctor hired a garret near the scene of action, and taking off his academic attire, and changing his notorious wig for a night-cap, enjoyed the exhibition incog. from the windows. This predilection was unconquerable. You see,' said he, on one occasion, exposing his muscular hirsute arm to the company, that I am a kind of taurine man, and must therefore be naturally addicted to the sport'

It was not till the year 1835 that baiting was finally put down by an act of parliament, forbidding the keeping of any house, pit, or other place for baiting or fighting any bull, bear, dog, or other animal; and after an existence of at least seven centuries, this ceased to rank among the amusements of the English people.

AN EXPLOSION IN THE COURT OF KING'S
BENCH.

On the 14th of July 1737, when the courts were sitting in Westminster Hall, between one and two o'clock in the afternoon, a large brown-paper parcel, containing fireworks, which had been placed, unobserved, near the side-bar of the Court of King's Bench, exploded with a loud noise, creating great confusion and terror among the persons attending the several courts. As the crackers rattled and burst, they threw out balls of printed bills, purporting that, on the last day of term, five libels would be publicly burned in Westminster Hall. The libels specified in the bills were five very salutary but most unpopular acts of parliament, lately passed by the legislature. One of these printed bills, being taken to the Court of King's Bench, the grand-jury presented it as a wicked, false, and scandalous libel; and a proclamation

DESTRUCTION OF THE BASTILE.

was issued for discovering the persons concerned in this wicked and audacious outrage.' A reward of £200 was offered for the detection of the author, printer, or publisher of the bills; but the contrivers of this curious mode of testifying popular aversion to the measures of parliament were never discovered.

DESTRUCTION OF THE BASTILE-THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK.

The 14th of July will ever be a memorable day in French history, as having witnessed, in 1789, the demolition, by the Paris populace, of the grim old fortress identified with the despotism and cruelty of the falling monarchy. It was a typical incident, representing, as it were, the end of a wicked system, but unfortunately not inaugurating the beginning of one milder and better. Much heroism was shewn by the multitude in their attack upon the Bastile, for the defenders did not readily submit, and had a great advantage behind their lofty walls. But their triumph was sadly stained by the massacre of the governor, Delaunay, and many of his corps.

'It was now,' says Lamartine, that the mysteries of this state-prison were unveiled-its bolts broken -its iron doors burst open-its dungeons and subterranean cells penetrated-from the gates of the towers to their very deepest foundations and their summits. The iron rings and the chains, rusting in their strong masonry, were pointed out, from which the victims were never released, except to be tortured, to be executed, or to die. On those walls they read the names of prisoners, the dates of their confinement, their griefs and their prayers -miserable men, who had left behind only those poor memorials in their dungeons to attest their prolonged existence and their innocence! It was surprising to find almost all these dungeons empty. The people ran from one to the other: they penetrated into the most secret recesses and caverns, to carry thither the word of release, and to bring a ray of the free light of heaven to eyes long lost to it; they tore the locks from the heavy doors, and those heavy doors from the hinges; they carried off the heavy keys; all these things were displayed in triumph in the open court. They then broke into the archives, and read the entries of committals. These papers, then ignominiously scattered, were afterwards collected. They were the annals of arbitrary times, the records of the fears or vengeance of ministers, or of the meaner intrigues of their favourites, here faithfully kept to justify a late exposure and reproach. The people expected to see a spectre come forth from these ruins, to testify against these iniquities of kings. The Bastile, however, long cleared of all guilt by the gentle spirit of Louis XVI., and by the humane disposition of his ministers, disappointed these gloomy expectations. The dungeons, the cells, the iron collars, the chains, were only worn-out symbols of antique secret incarcerations, torture, and burials alive. They now represented only recollections of old horrors. These vaults restored to light but seven prisoners-three of whom, gray-headed men, were shut up legitimately, and whom family motives had withdrawn from the judgments of the ordinary courts of law. Tavernier and Withe, two of them, had become insane. They

or when he saw any one, are not wonderful, when we reflect upon the violent breach of the law of nations which had been committed by his imprisonment. Matthioli, at the time of his arrest, was actually the plenipotentiary of the Duke of Mantua for concluding a treaty with the king of France; and for that very sovereign to kidnap him, and confine him in a dungeon, was one of the most flagrant acts of violence that could be committed; one which, if known, would have had the most injurious effects upon the negotiations of Louis with other sovereigns; nay, would probably have indisposed other sovereigns from treating at all with him. The confinement of Matthioli is decidedly one of the deadliest stains that blot the character of Louis XIV.

The prison of Matthioli, in the fortress of St Marguerite, is now, for the first time, engraved from an original sketch. It is one of a series of five, built in a row on the scarp of the rocky cliff. The

ST SWITHIN'S DAY.

jeopardising his own life or liberty, for he was at once imprisoned, and only liberated on incontestable proof being given of his inability to read. After this, all fishermen were prohibited from casting their nets within a mile of the island. Matthioli was debarred, on pain of death, from speaking to any but his jailer; he was conveyed from one dungeon to the other in a sedan-chair, closely covered with oil-cloth, into which he entered in his cell, where it was fastened so that no one should see him; his jailers nearly smothered him on his journey to St Marguérite; and afterwards the black mask seems to have been adopted on all occasions of the kind. Lord Dover assures us, that it has been a popular mistake to affirm this famed mask was of iron; that, in reality, it was formed of velvet, strengthened by bands of whalebone, and secured by a padlock behind the head.

The same extraordinary precautions for concealment followed his death that had awaited him in life. The walls of his dungeon were scraped to the stone, and the doors and windows burned, lest any scratch or inscription should betray the secret. His bedding, and all the furniture of the room, were also burned to cinders, then reduced to powder, and thrown into the drains; and all articles of metal melted into an indistinguishable mass. By this means it was hoped that oblivion might surely follow one of the grossest acts of political cruelty in the dark record of history.

PRISON OF MAN IN IRON MASK.

The

walls are fourteen feet thick; there are three rows of strong iron gratings placed equidistant within the arched window of Matthioli's room, a large apartment with vaulted roof, and no feature to break its monotony, except a small fireplace beside the window, and a few shelves above it. Bay of Cannes, and the beautiful range of the Esterel mountains, may be seen from the window; a lovely view, that must have given but a maddening sense of confinement to the solitary prisoner. It is on record, that his mind was seriously deranged during the early part of his imprisonment; what he became ultimately, when all hope failed, and a long succession of years deadened his senses, none can knpw-the secret died with his jailers.

There is a tradition, that he attempted to make his captivity known, by scratching his melancholy tale on a metal dish, and casting it from the window; that it was found by a fisherman of Cannes, who brought it to the governor, St Mars, thereby

JULY 15.

St Plechelm, bishop and confessor, apostle of Guelderland, 732. St Swithin or Swithun, confessor, bishop and patron of Winchester, 862. St Henry II., emperor of Germany, 1024.

St Swithin's Day.

The pranks played by tradition with the memory of various noted individuals, saintly and otherwise, display not unfrequently the most whimsical anomalies both as regards praise and blame. Whilst the sordid and heretical George of Cappadocia has been transformed into the gallant and chivalrous St George, the patron saint of England, and the mirror of all knightly virtues, it has been the misfortune of the patriotic and virtuous St Swithin to be associated in the popular mind with drunkenness and excess, and at best to enjoy only a mythical reputation as the hero of a well-known saying in

connection with the state of the weather on the anniversary of his so-called translation.

The common adage regarding St Swithin, as every one knows, is to the effect that, as it rains or is fair on St Swithin's Day, the 15th of July, there will be a continuous track of wet or dry weather for the forty days ensuing.

'St Swithin's Day, if thou dost rain,
For forty days it will remain :
St Swithin's Day, if thou be fair,

For forty days 'twill rain nae mair.'

The explanation given by Brand in his Popular Antiquities of this saying-an explanation which has been pretty currently received as correct-is as follows. St Swithin, bishop of Winchester, was a

man equally noted for his uprightness and humility. So far did he carry the latter quality, that, on his death-bed, he requested to be buried, not within the church, but outside in the churchyard, on the north of the sacred building, where his corpse might receive the eaves-droppings from the roof, and his grave be trodden by the feet of the passers-by. His lowly request was complied with, and in this neglected spot his remains reposed till about a hundred years afterwards, when a fit of indignation seized the clergy at the body of so pious a member of their order being allowed to occupy such a position; and on an appointed day they all assembled to convey it with great pomp into the adjoining cathedral of Winchester. When they were about to commence the ceremony, a heavy rain burst forth, and continued without intermission for the forty succeeding days. The monks interpreted this tempest as a warning from Heaven of the blasphemous nature of their attempt to contravene the directions of St Swithin, and, instead of disturbing his remains, they erected a chapel over his grave, at which many astounding miracles were performed. From this circumstance, it is stated, arose the popular belief of the anniversary of the attempted translation of St Swithin being invested with a prophetic character in reference to the condition of the weather for the ensuing six weeks.

This statement is specious, but unfortunately rests on no authority whatever, and indeed has been traced by an annotator on Brand to no more trustworthy source than a cutting from an old newspaper. So far from the account of the repugnance of the saint to his transference from the churchyard to the church being borne out by the real facts of the case, these are diametrically the other way; and from what has been actually ascertained, the translation of St Swithin was, instead of being a disastrous failure, accomplished with the utmost éclat and success. For the most recent history of this celebrated personage we are indebted to the Rev. John Earle, professor of Anglo-Saxon in the university of Oxford, who has published a fac-simile and translation of a Saxon manuscript of the tenth century-the earliest fragment which we possess regarding St Swithin-along with an ingenious essay, in which he has collected all the reliable data connected with the saint that can be obtained. These are far indeed from being either numerous or ample, but, such as they are, may be considered as exhaustive on this subject.

Swithin, or Swithun, was born in the neighbourhood of Winchester, probably about the year 800. He became a monk of the Old Abbey of Winchester, and gradually rose to be prior of that community. He seems to have gained the favour of Egbert, king of Wessex, who intrusted him with the education of his son and successor, Ethelwulf. An authentic record of Swithin at this period is furnished by a charter granted by King Egbert in 838, and bearing the signatures of Elmstan, episcopus, and Swithunus, diaconus. Elmstan dying in 852, Swithin was appointed his successor in the see of Winchester, a situation which he filled with great credit and usefulness. Through his endeavours great improvements were effected on the city, including the erection of several churches, and the spanning of the Itchen by a fine stone bridge, the first of the kind which had been seen

ST SWITHIN'S DAY.

in these parts. After the accession of Ethelwulf, he acted as that monarch's counsellor in all matters relating to religion and the peaceful arts, whilst the charge of military and foreign affairs was assumed by Alstan, bishop of Sherbourne. It has been imagined that he was chosen by Ethelwulf to accompany his son, the great Alfred, then a boy, on his visit to Rome, and also that he acted as mediator betwixt Ethelwulf and his eldest son, the rebellious Ethelbald. Swithin seems to have died about 862, leaving directions that he should be buried in a vile place, under the eaves-droppings on the north side of Winchester church. Mr Earle conjectures that he may have chosen this locality for sepulture, to put a stop to the common superstitious prejudices against burial in that part of the churchyard. Whatever may have been his reasons, his request was acceded to, and there he would probably have been permitted to rest undisturbed, had it not suited the policy of Dunstan, more than a hundred years afterwards, to revive the popular veneration for Swithin, in furtherance of his own schemes for the establishment of monastic discipline, for Swithin appears to have been a maintainer of the stricter conventual rule, which Dunstan zealously sought to enforce; and he had, moreover, earned a most enduring mark of distinction, by being the first to get introduced the system of tithes as a provision for the clergy. This was during the reign of Ethelwulf, who was induced by Swithin to set apart a tenth of his lands for religious uses, though the payment of tithes as a legal obligation was not introduced till the time of Athelstan, nor finally established till under King Edgar. In addition to the reasons just detailed, the cathedral of Winchester was then rebuilding under Bishop Ethelwold, a confederate of Archbishop Dunstan; and the enrichment of the new temple by the possession of some distinguished relics was a most desirable object. The organised plan was now accordingly put into execution, and ingenious reports were circulated regarding certain miraculous appearances made by Swithin. The account of these forms the subject of the Saxon fragment above referred to, edited by Mr Earle. According to this, Bishop Swithin appeared one night in a dream to a poor decrepit smith, and requested him to go to a certain priest, named Eadsige, who, with others, had been ejected for misconduct from the abbey of Old-Minster, and desire him, from Swithin, to repair to Bishop Ethelwold, and command him to open his (Swithin's) grave, and bring his bones within the church. The smith, in reply to the orders of his ghostly visitant, stated that Eadsige would not believe him, whereupon Swithin rejoined that he would find the reality of the vision confirmed by going to his stone coffin, and pulling therefrom an iron ring, which would yield without the least difficulty. The smith was still unconvinced, and Swithin had to repeat his visit twice; after which the smith went to the bishop's tomb, and withdrew the ring from the coffin with the greatest ease, as had been foretold. He then delivered Swithin's message to Eadsige, who hesitated for a while, but at last communicated it to Bishop Ethelwold. Contemporaneously, various wonderful miracles took place at Bishop Swithin's tomb, including the cure of a deformed man, who was relieved of his hump, in the most astonishing manner, by praying