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Updated: June 4, 2025
Many improvements and luxuries were introduced in the course of these five-and-forty years in the general manner of living; but cock-fighting, bull-baiting, and bear-baiting, were still the national amusements; and a coach was so rarely seen, and was such an ugly and cumbersome affair when it was seen, that even the Queen herself, on many high occasions, rode on horseback on a pillion behind the Lord Chancellor.
Do you not think that would be good entertainment?" For a moment Alwin did not know what to think. He did not believe that Rolf was afraid of him; and if the challenge was withdrawn, surely that ended the matter. A horse fight? He had enjoyed no such spectacle as that since the Michaelmas Day when his father had the great bear-baiting in the pit at his English castle.
Taking no further notice of Agnes, he marched within, to be cordially welcomed, and his blessing begged, by Mistress Winter and Dorothy; for Joan was gone to see the bear-baiting in Southwark. Father Dan was a priest of the popular type florid, fat, and jovial. His penances were light and easy to those who had it in their power to ask him to dinner, or to make gifts to his Order.
"How did you get here to Alenon?" "Walked it's my custom." "Rom Rouen?" He nodded. "I'm a member of the Troupe Fabiani of Strolling Acrobats," he laughed. "I'm learning the gentle art of bear-baiting. Won't you come in?" She searched his face keenly and accepted his invitation, first handing him her fifty centime piece, which he dropped without comment into his pocket.
There never yet has been a time when the theatre could compete successfully against the amphitheatre. Plautus and Terence complained that the Roman public preferred a gladiatorial combat to their plays; a bear-baiting or a cock-fight used to empty Shakespeare's theatre on the Bankside; and there is not a matinée in town to-day that can hold its own against a foot-ball game.
The popular Paris Gardens were there, too, where the sport of bear-baiting was seen in Queen Elizabeth's time. If we went over there, we could see the former sites of these historic places, but they are now covered by unattractive, modern buildings or great breweries. It's hard to conjure up the Globe Theatre out of present-day Southwark," she added with a sigh, as if she were speaking to herself.
Was it Johnson who ventured the opinion that the Puritans put bear-baiting under the ban, not because it was painful to the bears but because it was pleasant to the people? Whether it was or no, I shall not discuss it.
No comedies or other diversions, neither cock-fighting nor bear-baiting, and abuse of my Lord Protector and his rigorous disciplinarian laws had already become stale. The women talked dress and coiffure, the new puffs, the fanciful pinners. But at the center table Segrave still sat, refusing all refreshment, waiting with obvious impatience for the ending of this unwelcome interval.
Our very sports are becoming namby pamby as those of the Bengalese, the element of danger which gave zest to them in auld lang syne being all but eliminated. Bear-baiting, cocking- mains, shin-kicking, bulldog-fighting, etc., all greatly enjoyed by the general public a generation or so ago, are now quite generally tabood.
The English are quarrelsome, Master Slender testifies, at the game of bear-baiting. They are great drinkers, says Iago, 'most potent in potting; your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander are nothing to your English'. They are epicures, says Macbeth. They will eat like wolves and fight like devils, says the Constable of France.
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