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Updated: June 4, 2025
Macaulay's epigrammatic sentence touching their attitude towards amusements undoubtedly colored the opinions of men for at least a generation. "The Puritan hated bear-baiting," he says, "not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators."
Then, who does not remember, in the love of sports and pastimes, the bull and bear-baiting theatres, and the uncouth glory of the Globe theatre, associated with the poet of all time Shakspeare. Southwark was, therefore, a fitting site for a royal palace for occasional retirement, and its contiguity to the Thames must have enhanced its pleasantness.
I would reintroduce prize-fighting and bear-baiting and gladiatorial shows to brace the nation up a bit. We'll get jammed full of rotten vices like those beastly foreigners soon." "I did not bring you into Regent's Park to hear a tirade upon the nation's needs, Crow," Anne reminded him, smiling, "but to get your sympathy and advice upon this affair of Hector.
A grand tournament at Court preceded, and a bear-baiting followed, the humiliating spectacle of the Parliament of England kneeling at the feet of Cardinal Pole, and abjectly craving absolution from Rome. One man Sir Ralph Bagenall stood out, and stood up, when all his co-senators were thus prostrate in the dust.
He once described to me his having gone to see a bear-baiting, the animal, the property of a Mr. Tom Oliver. The performance not having began, Keats was near to and watched a young aspirant, who had brought a younger under his wing to witness the solemnity, and whom he oppressively patronized, instructing him in the names and qualities of all the magnates present.
Macaulay's epigram is familiar, that the Puritan "hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators."
Macaulay has said that the Puritan did not condemn bear-baiting because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectator. The Puritan regarded beauty as a pitfall and a snare: that which gave pleasure was a sin; he found his gratification in doing without things. Puritanism was a violent oscillation of the pendulum of life to the other side.
"I shall hardly be troubled with company," I said. "There's a bear-baiting toward." Nantauquas smiled. "My brother asked me to find a bear for to-day. I bought one from the Paspaheghs for a piece of copper, and took him to the ring below the fort." "Where all the town will presently be gone," I said. "I wonder what Rolfe did that for!"
For a long time, too, the theater was a man's amusement just as bear-baiting or cock-fighting had been. There were no actresses, the women's parts were taken by boys, and at first ladies when they came to look on wore masks so that they might not be known, as they were rather ashamed of being seen at a theater.
The White Hart still survives in Hart Street, with its courtyard and gallery, where of yore the town's folk were wont to watch the bear-baiting; one of those fine old country inns which one naturally associates with Pickwickian adventure. In such surroundings the little Mary, idolised by her parents and spoiled by their disinterested guests, passed her girlhood.
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