Chapter VI: Part 6

At this time he was a widower, his first wife, Lady Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Charles Cotterell, having died in July, 1704. He soon after married Lady Judith Alexander, youngest daughter of Henry, 4th Earl of Stirling, who at that time was residing at Binfield, though in what house is not now known. Sir William was then almost seventy years of age, having been born apparently about the year 1636, and had no children. And thus it is easy to understand how the forlorn old man, riding often no doubt in the direction of Binfield in search of his second wife, frequently met the invalid poet as he left home in search of health, through the devious maze of drives in Windsor Forest, on which even then he was meditating to write a poem.

Long residence in France and Turkey had no doubt made Trumbull a citizen of the world. His capacious mind would have no room in it for the prejudices against Papists, which in England at that time were very strong, and in country districts banished them from ordinary society.

Nor was the discrepancy of their years, seventy and seventeen, any bar to their growing friendship. Like all solitary children, especially the children of aged parents, Pope, even when a boy, seems always to have preferred the company and friendship of elderly men. Another link too was doubtless their mutual incapacity for shooting and hunting, then, as now, the ordinary pursuits of country gentlemen. Sir William Trumbull's long absence from England throughout his youth (for he was educated at Montpellier, in France, during the troubles of the Commonwealth) and in middle life, when he was engaged in the service of his country abroad, indisposed him as an old man to begin a new kind of life, and Pope's crooked frame and feeble health forbad him altogether to join in such sports. In 1705 he wrote to his friend Wycherly:--

"Ours are a sort of inoffensive people, who neither have sense nor pretend to any, but enjoy a jovial kind of dulness. They are commonly known in the world by the name of honest, civil gentlemen. They live much as they ride, at random--a kind of hunting life, pursuing with earnestness and hazard something not worth the catching; never in the way nor out of it. I cannot but prefer solitude to the company of all these." ...

And in another letter he wrote to his friend Cromwell in the same strain:--

"I assure you I am looked upon in the neighbourhood for a very sober and well-disposed person, no great hunter indeed, but a great esteemer of that noble sport, and only unhappy in my want of constitution for that and drinking. They all say 'tis pity I am so sickly, and I think 'tis a pity they are so healthy; but I say nothing that may destroy their good opinion of me."

Besides this, an additional link in the chain which united the two friends was the similarity of their tastes in literature. Sir William Trumbull, who, in his early days, had been Fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford, had kept up his scholarship, and retained to the last day of his life his early fondness for Greek and Latin authors.

The results of this friendship were of immense advantage to Pope. His earliest published poems, _The Pastorals_, modelled on Virgil's Eclogues, were first submitted to and discussed with Trumbull, as they rode together about the Forest, and the first Pastoral with much propriety was dedicated to his venerable friend. It was Trumbull who first suggested to Pope that he should undertake the translation of the Iliad, and thereby laid the foundation of his affluence. But far more than this, when the poet first went to London, and seemed, under the guidance of the old reprobate Wycherly, to be falling into evil ways, it was Trumbull who implored him to retrace his steps. "I now come," he wrote, "to what is of vast moment, I mean the preservation of your health, and beg of you earnestly to get out of all tavern company, and fly away from it _tanquam ex incendio_." As long as Pope remained at Binfield, their friendship was warm and unabated. In striking contrast with every other intimacy between Pope and his friends no coldness or quarrel ever arose between them. In April, 1716, the Popes left Binfield and removed to Chiswick, and in the following December Sir William Trumbull died.

To return; in the meanwhile the elder Pope devoted himself to gardening, in the art of which, as we have seen, he was no mean proficient. A rival in the same pursuit was his friend, Mr. John Dancastle. And we find amongst the poet's correspondence a letter from Sir William Trumbull thanking Pope's father for sending him a present of "hartichokes" of superior size and excellence; and in another letter Mr. John Dancastle excuses himself, after the Popes had left, for not being able to procure them "some white Strabery plants" such as apparently the elder Pope had reared in the old garden at Binfield.

While the father was thus occupied in gardening, the son was gradually creeping into notice as a poet. His early poems and shorter pieces appeared at first in Tonson's or Lintot's "Miscellanies," or the "Spectator," and similar publications. But as he became more widely known, Pope ventured on independent publication by the then usual mode of introducing new works, namely by subscription. In this way his fine poems the _Essay on Criticism_, _Windsor Forest_, and the _Rape of the Lock_, all written and composed at Binfield, appeared successively in 1711, 1713, and 1714.

The first of these poems should be mentioned for two reasons. It led to Pope's first introduction to London life, when he made the acquaintance of the famous wits of the period, Steele, Addison, Gay, and Swift. And it also was the cause of the first of those literary quarrels in which Pope's talent for satire henceforth involved him more or less as long as he lived. Resenting some adverse criticism of his _Pastorals_, he inserted in the _Essay on Criticism_ the following lines:--

"'Twere well might critics still their freedom take,
But Appius reddens at each word you speak,
And stares tremendous with a threatening eye
Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry."

John Dennis, the writer thus lampooned as "Appius," retorted in a prose pamphlet, in which he described his assailant as a "hunch-backed toad," and went on to say: "If you have a mind to inquire between Sunninghill and Oakingham for a young, short, squab gentleman, an eternal writer of amorous pastoral madrigals and the very bow of the god of love, you will be soon directed to him. And pray, as soon as you have taken a survey of him, tell me whether he is a proper author to make personal reflections."

In his poem _Windsor Forest_ it was natural that Pope should commemorate his friendship and intercourse with Sir William Trumbull, by describing in graceful verse the peaceful occupations of his aged friend's declining years.

"Happy [the man], who to these shades retires,
Whom Nature charms, and whom the Muse inspires:
Whom humbler joys of home-felt quiet please,
Successive study, exercise, and ease.
He gathers health from herbs the forest yields,
And of their fragrant physic spoils the fields;

* * * * *

Now marks the course of rolling orbs on high;
O'er figured worlds now travels with his eye;
Of ancient writ unlocks the learned store,
Consults the dead, and lives past ages o'er.

* * * * *

Or looks on heaven with more than mortal eyes,
Bids his free soul expatiate in the skies,
Amid her kindred stars familiar roam,
Survey the region, and confess her home!
Such was the life great Scipio once admired,
Thus Atticus, and Trumbal thus retired."

Of the _Rape of the Lock_ it will suffice to say that even now some critics reckon it as Pope's masterpiece. As a specimen of the Mock Heroic Epic Poem it has no rival in the English language. Here it chiefly concerns us as a true and lifelike picture of fashionable manners prevailing in country houses in the reign of Queen Anne.

The publication of these poems made frequent journeys to London necessary, in order to settle terms with the publishers and other literary business. The _Rape of the Lock_ was immediately successful, three thousand copies being sold in four days, and it was at once reprinted. Pope's fame was therefore now established firmly, but hitherto the sums which he had received for his poems would seem to have been very inconsiderable. He appears to have received thirty pounds for _Windsor Forest_, and only half that sum each for the _Essay on Criticism_ and the _Rape of the Lock_.

He now bethought him, therefore, of Sir William Trumbull's former suggestion that he should translate Homer, and in October, 1713, he issued his Proposals to the Public. His friends in London interested themselves in the subscription. Dean Swift, in particular, said he should not rest until he had secured for him a thousand pounds. And so flattering was the response, that in 1715 the family was enabled to live more at ease. It was now evident that their present abode was too far from London, for one who had constant negotiations with the book-sellers and the Popes determined to leave Binfield, and accordingly their house there was sold towards the end of 1715. It was bought by a Mr. Tanner, whose gravestone is one of those described in the beginning of this chapter as lying in front of the altar. He was probably a Papist, certainly a Non-Juror, for Hearne, who records the fact, terms him "an honest man," which is Hearne's well-known periphrasis for denoting those who were Jacobites in politics.

The last two years of his life at Binfield, Pope spent in translating the Iliad, or rather, for he was too poor a Greek scholar to read it in the original, in versifying other people's translations of it. Good old Sir William Trumbull no doubt helped him whenever a passage of extra difficulty perplexed the poet. And Mr. Thomas Dancastle, the Squire of Binfield, was so delighted with his young friend's enterprise that at infinite pains and labour he made a fair copy of the whole translation for the press. It also appears from Pope's MSS. that he occasionally indulged his affectionate and amiable mother in allowing her to transcribe a portion. But alas! poor Mrs. Pope had had but a slender education. In the single letter of hers, which has been published, the spelling is surprisingly phonetic. Alluding to a portion of the Iliad she writes to her son: "He will not faile to cole here on Friday morning, and take ceare to cearrie itt to Mr. Thomas Doncaster. He shall dine wone day with Mrs. Dune, in Ducke (_i.e._, Duke) Street; but the day will be unsirton, soe I thincke you had better send itt to me. He will not faile to cole here, that is Mr. Mannock." And the numerous corrections made in his own hand, sufficiently show that her mode of spelling gave Pope more trouble than all the subsequent inaccuracies of the printers.

Our period draws to its close. In June, 1715, the first volume of Pope's Homer, containing the first four books of the Iliad came out. It has been calculated that for the six volumes in which the translation was comprised Pope received from Lintot more than £5,000. And as the greater portion of this sum was paid in advance his circumstances at once became not only easy but affluent. The end of the year was spent in preparing to migrate to Chiswick. It must be remembered that the new year then began in March, and on March 20, 1715/16, Pope wrote to his friend Caryll as follows:--

"I write this from Windsor Forest, which I am come to take my last look and leave of. We have bid our Papist neighbours adieu, much as those who go to be hanged do their fellow-prisoners who are condemned to follow them a few weeks after. I was at Whiteknights, where I found the young ladies I just now mentioned [Theresa and Martha Blount] spoken of a little more coldly than I could at this time especially[7] have wished. I parted from honest Mr. Dancastle with tenderness, and from Sir William Trumbull as from a venerable prophet, foretelling with lifted hands the miseries to come upon posterity which he was just going to be removed from."

Sir William died in the December following in his 78th year, leaving an only son, also William Trumbull, barely eight years old. The subsequent history of Binfield and Easthampstead does not fall within the limits of this chapter. It must suffice to say that Pope occasionally visited the Dancastles, and possibly stayed with Lady Judith Trumbull. At all events he recommended his friend, Elijah Fenton, the poet, to be her son's tutor, and frequently corresponded with him at Easthampstead. Fenton continued to reside there even after young Trumbull grew to man's estate, and when Fenton died in 1730, Pope wrote the epitaph which is still to be seen inscribed upon the tablet erected by William Trumbull to his memory, on the north wall of Easthampstead Church.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: This was the case until quite recently; but towards the end of 1893, the late Mr. Hutchinson Browne, of Moor Close, Binfield, caused the words, "_Here Pope Sung_," to be once more cut in the bark of a tree growing on the site as Pope's wood. And underneath them he affixed a brass plate inscribed with the following elegant copy of verses in Latin and English, which I was fortunate in obtaining for him from the pen of the Rev. Charles Stanwell, Vicar of Ipsden, Oxon:--

"Angliacis resonare modis qui suasit Homerum
Hic cecinit laudes, Vindelisora, tuas;
Hinc Silvae nomen vates dedit; arboris olim
Inciso testis cortice truncus evat.
Silva diu periit, sed nomen et umbra supersunt.
Umbra viri circum, nomen ubique volat."

"He to our Lyre who wooed great Homer's strain,
Here sang the praise of Windsor's sylvan reign;
Hence gained the wood a poet's name; of old
The attesting trunk, inscribed, the story told.
The wood hath perished, but surviving still
His shade these haunts, his name the world doth fill."--C.W. P.]

[Footnote 7: Mrs. Blount and her two daughters were on the point of quitting Mapledurham in consequence of the marriage of her son, Michael Blount, in 1715.]

Berkshire Words and Phrases.

BY REV. M.J. BACON.

It is not easy to determine in a subject of this kind what are the strict lines of demarcation which separate words and phrases used within a specific area from those used elsewhere, or again, in many instances, to decide what is dialect, and what mere local pronunciation. Where the area is confined to the limit of a county, the difficulties are increased, as the dwellers near the borders would naturally be influenced by the characteristics of the neighbouring county. Thus Berkshire folk on the Wiltshire side of the county would differ in many respects from those on the Hampshire side; and while the verb to _kite_, for instance, would be unknown to the one, the adjective _deedy_ would be equally strange to the other.

Probably, next to verbs and adjectives, the names given to birds and animals, implements, or any common object, would determine a man's county. Phrases are less numerous, but adjectives rank first among local peculiarities.

Many of these convey the same idea, but are applied to different objects, and in different ways. Thus in Berkshire _chuff_, _pruff_, _fess_, _peart_, and _sprack_, all imply something sharp, smart, or perky; but _pruff_ is applied solely to vegetable life, such as young and healthy shoots, buds, or growing plants; while a sharp, quick mannered man may be either _chuff_ or _fess_. "Speak up, _chuff_, now," is the adjuration of the parent to the bashful child who has just been addressed by the _quality_. _Fess_ will be recognised at once as the _fierce_ of the Eastern counties, implying a certain amount of vigour, indeed, but conveying no idea of savagery or temper. _Peart_ and _sprack_ speak for themselves.

Next come _bristle_ and _briffut_, used both as nouns and verbs, though the former is more often the substantive, expressing a sharp, active fellow, or perhaps a terrier, who would _briffut about_ in search of rats. The adjective _deedy_, on the other hand, is careful, wary, cautious, almost the Yankee _'cute_, and is usually intensified by _main_, very. "What sort of a girl is your daughter?" asked the late Baron Huddleston of the mother of a young girl who had just given evidence in an important case in the Reading Assize Court. "She be a main deedy little girl, my Lord," was the reply. "Greedy, did you say?" "No, my Lord, deedy--main deedy." But Reading is not central enough in the county for anyone in court to have replied to his Lordship's puzzled look of enquiry.

Besides _main_, _feart_, or _feartish_, is used to emphasise an expression. "He be a _main sight_, or a _feartish deal_ better," or perhaps "only _tar'blish_" a contraction of tolerablish. In like manner, the patient would _change_ for the better, but _alter_ for the worse, while _a bit altery_ would apply to the weather _tokening_ for rain. _Smart_ is used to qualify another word, as _a smart few_, meaning a good many, or it would _rain smartish_. Other words, sometimes corruptions, are common, as _unked_, awkward, in the sense of obstinate, troublesome; _stomachy_, proud, self-willed; _quisiting_, inquisitive; _querky_, querulous; _wangery_, languid; _shackelty_, shaky; _hechatty_, onomatopoean, applied to a cough; _peaked_, pronounced _pikkid_, pointed, as the end of a stick; _worriting_ for worrying, though _terrifying_ is more often used, to _terrify_ and to _worrit_ being synomymous. _Casualty_ is risky, hollies being considered _casualty things_ to plant, while it is often _casualty weather_ in hay-making time. To be _in a ferrick_ is to be in a fidget, and _all of a caddle_ in a muddle. _Heft_ is weight, and _hefty_, weighty. To poise anything in the hand to test its weight would be to _heft_ it. _Overright_ is opposite, a word unknown to the aborigines; but what a "Leicestershire mon" would call _over yon_, is expressed by his Berkshire compeer as _athurt thur_, evidently a corruption of athwart there. _Overright_ would, of course, be originally rightover, and this tendency to put the cart before the horse is common. _Droo wet_ is always used for wet through. The same peculiarity appears elsewhere, as in _breakstuff_ for breakfast, and even in monosyllables, as _hapse_ for hasp, _clapse_ for clasp, and _aks_ for ask. This last, however, is by no means confined to Berkshire.

Some of the verbs are original, while others bear signs of being simply mispronunciations. To _quilt_ is to swallow; to _plim_ to swell, like rice in the boiling; to _huck_ to dig up, or empty. A man _hucks out_ a gutter or ditch, or simply _hucks_ his potatoes. To _tuck_ is probably originally to pluck, and is applied to dressing the sides of a newly made rick with the hand to make it trim and neat. To _kite_, or _kite up_, is to look up sharp or peeringly; while bees are indifferently said to _bite_ or _tang_. "They do tang I," would seem to preclude any derivation from sting, as it undoubtedly is. To _argue_ is used in its proper sense, and is very common; but it is always turned into the monosyllable _arg_.

It is not surprising to find peculiarities in the common objects and customs of everyday life. Thus the eleven o'clock _snack_ under the hedge, known elsewhere as _elevenses_, is _nuncheon_; and so it comes to pass that a horse deficient in barrel is spoken of disparagingly as having "no nuncheon bag." A bradawl is a _nalpasser_, no doubt "nail-passer"; but a gimlet retains its name, and is not called a _twinnet_, as in some places. A _duckut_ is a small bill hook for cutting faggots; while a _fag-hook_, or _fagging-hook_, is a crooked stick used instead of the left hand in clearing a bank of nettles, etc., with an iron "hook." The new mown hay is termed _eddish_, while _tedding out_ hay is spreading it out in the sun after it has been mown. The hay-loft over the stable, often the sleeping place of the _fogger_ (_forager_), the man who tends the cattle, is called the _tallut_; the smallest pig in the litter, elsewhere either the "cad" or "darling," is invariably the _runt_; a dog's fangs are _tushes_, and a bird's claws _nippens_. In the poultry-yard and pigeon-cote the cock-bird is the _tom_; and some of the wild birds have their peculiar names assigned them. Thus the _wry_neck, or cuckoo's mate, is the _pe-pe_ bird, from its note; a _wish_ wagtail is a _dasher_; a woodpecker a _yaffingal_; and the golden plover a _whistling dovyer_. The little white moth that flits about in the twilight at sundown in the summer months is a _margiowlet_, and the steady, plodding mole, is either a _want_ or a _mouldiwarp_.

Berkshire stands confessedly at the head of all pig-breeding counties, but that is no reason why the usual call of "choog, choog, choogy," at feeding time, should be changed to "teg, teg, teggy." The cattle call of _coop, coop_, is of course a corruption of "come, come"; and _coobid, coobiddy_, the poultry call of "come hither." The carter, walking on the near side of his horses, calls them towards him by _coomither_, or _coomither-awo-oy_, or more frequently _holt_, or _holt tóward_, with the accent on the first syllable of "toward," and sends them to the off side with the monosyllable _wug_. It is not often that the Berkshire man stoops to abuse, for he is naturally easy-going, stolid, and impassive; but a driven cow taking a wrong turn would inevitably be denounced as an _old faggot_, and a troublesome boy be branded as a _young radical_, though without any political signification attached. A simile would not be looked for amongst essentially an unimaginative folk, but _as 'pright as a dish_ is common, and singularly inappropriate.

Of superstition there is comparatively little, and ghosts and witches meet with but little respect, the men believing that a good "vowld-stake" (i.e. fold-stake) is a sufficient weapon in all cases of emergency, and the women being fully as undaunted as the men. There is, however, a curious old Berkshire saying, that "a spayed bitch will catch a witch," and that there is some faith in the truth of the saying is shown by the fact that sheep dogs, if of the feminine gender, used frequently to be so treated.

Every race has its physical peculiarity, and where the negro is tenderest, the Berkshire man is toughest,--in his shins. As a backstop he prefers to stop the fastest balls with his shins, rather than with his hands, and will keep on all day without apparent inconvenience. At "backswording" Berkshire men were always renowned; but it was necessarily the privilege of the few, the ordinary farm labourer having no opportunity for practising it. Some other test of endurance must therefore be accepted; and forty years ago it was the regular custom, when two carters stopped at a way-side public-house, for the men to shake hands first, in token of friendship, and then to indulge in the pastime of either _cutlegs_ or _kickshins_, the former consisting of the men standing apart, and lashing each others legs with their long cart whips till one cried "Hold," while in _kickshins_ each man took firm grip of his opponent by twisting both hands in the overlapping collar of his smock frock, and then kicking with his hob-nailed boots at the other's shins, the vanquished one of course paying for both pots of ale before they started once more on their respective journeys. There was living in the Lambourn valley, less than forty years ago, a man who was considered the champion of the county side, and his shins were knotted and bent and twisted in the most remarkable manner, as the result of his numerous encounters.

Heavy of gait, stolid of mien, and of indomitable courage, the true Berkshire man is a staunch friend, and a very poor enemy, for he harbours no resentment. Imperturbable to the last degree, he is rarely surprised into an exclamation of surprise, excitement, or satisfaction. When he is, _Dal-lee_, with a strong accent on the last syllable, is his sole resource. "Dal-_lee_! that's got 'un," says the carpenter with a grunt of satisfaction, as he gives the finishing blow that drives home a big nail at which he has been pounding. Its derivation may not be hard to find, but it makes the Berkshire man no worse than his neighbours after all.

But all these things are relics of a past age now. Shins are tenderer, mouths less wide, or at least the dialect is less broad; and the certificated schoolmaster and the railways have done their deadly work.

_Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis._

Bull-Baiting in Berkshire.

BY REV. CANON STURGES.

The character of a people is reflected in their amusements. The gradual decline of the popularity of rough and cruel sports is a sure indication that there has been corresponding improvement in the people themselves. The History of Sports will show how slowly and yet how continuously this improvement has gone on under the influence of Christian civilization.

It was not until christian teaching had been leavening society for 400 years that public opinion was educated up to the point of abolishing the gladiatorial contests, and the wholesale massacres of the Roman amphitheatre. For nearly a thousand years more the lists, within which men-at-arms met in mortal combat to shew their skill or settle their quarrels, were the very chiefest places of amusement in our own land. There king and nobles would sit on seats raised above the crowd, and fairest ladies gave the signal to begin, and presented the reward to the victor when the games were over. The common people crowded round the enclosure, while all watched the armed men tilting at one another on horseback, or dealing mighty blows with sword and buckler, and when a spear's head penetrated a knight's corslet, and he fell from his horse, and his life's blood oozed out on the ground, or when a downward sweep of a great two-handed sword fell on a footman's helmet, cleaving it and the head beneath it in two, as sometimes happened, the men in the crowd did not turn sick, nor the women scream and faint, as would be the case now if such sights were seen, but the men clapped their hands and cheered, and the women waved their handkerchiefs, and put on their sweetest smiles for him who dealt the fatal blow. In time that class of exhibitions passed out of use, and another took its place, and survived to within the memory of living persons. No longer was the stake played for human life, but for the humbler one of the life of a brute. Sometimes, indeed, the highest in the land would mingle with the lowest, for the pleasure of seeing a couple of strong men battering one another's faces into shapeless mass with fists, until one of the two could no longer stand. But the commoner and more generally approved sport was that which transferred the duty of being done to death for the amusement of mankind, from man himself to the dumb helpless creatures that have been committed to man's care, and set apart for his lawful use. Bull-baiting, bear-baiting, cock-fighting, rat-killing, dog-fighting, and such like, were for several centuries his favourite amusements.[8] Queen Elizabeth was an enthusiastic patroness of baiting. The master of the bears, bulls, and dogs, was one of the officers of the Royal household during her reign, and in several subsequent reigns. She was wont to entertain ambassadors to her court, with bull and bear-baiting after a state dinner. In 1591 an order of the Privy council was issued forbidding plays to be acted on Thursdays, because "bear-baiting and such like pastimes had usually been practised on that day." Thus Shakespeare was silenced every Thursday, lest the bull-ring should be neglected.

It was not until the beginning of the present century that the conscience of the nation began to revolt against the continuance of this barbarous sport. In 1802 an attempt was made in the House of Commons to pass a bill to suppress it. The question was argued with much warmth, and the bill was lost. In 1835 public opinion had so far advanced that a bill was passed without much difficulty, by which it became illegal henceforth to bait or worry any bear, bull, dog, or other animal. And thus after seven centuries of popularity, bull-baiting ceased to be a public amusement.

We should like now to take our readers, as far as we can by a descriptive narrative, to one of the bull-baitings of Berkshire as they were conducted sixty years ago. There are plenty of places we might select for our visit. Every town in the county and every considerable village had its common or ground where the greensward was reddened at least once a year with the blood of bulls and dogs. Strangely enough the favourite day for the great bait of the year was Good Friday.

The best place we can select for our visit will be Wokingham. It is a comfort to know that there at least the baiting will not be on Good Friday. St. Thomas's Day, Dec. 21st, has been the day there set apart for many generations for the sacrifice of bulls by dog-torture. And there the sport enjoys an endowment and so flourishes wonderfully, outdoing in the fame of its bull-baiting all other towns and parishes in the county of Berks. The endowment arose in this way. One, George Staverton, a lover of the sport, having himself, it is said, been gored by a bull, charged his estate with £6 a year to provide a bull for baiting. Whether he meant it as a revenge on the whole bull race for his injuries, or, as the expression of a good-natured wish, that others should enjoy the sport from which he had himself received so much pleasure, we are left to guess. But this we know, that the bequest increased in value, and soon was sufficient to buy two bulls at least every year; and in 1815, which is the year to which we are going to take our readers back to witness the Wokingham bull-baiting, anyone strolling through the streets of the town, any day of the year, would have had abundant evidence that the sport was held in great estimation by the inhabitants. At many a cottage door was to be seen a specimen of the true British bull-dog. Sometimes the animal had a silver collar, betokening past victories won over the bull. All were sleek, and evidently objects of much care and interest, often of much more than were bestowed on the children of the house.

The 21st of December, 1815, was a cold, damp, dull day. Two hours before noon, a young fellow drove out of Reading with a companion to see the Wokingham bull-baiting. As they drew near the town, the road became crowded with carriages and pedestrians hurrying in the same direction.[9] Arrived at the Market Place, the younger man found a place in a window overlooking the scene, while the elder, a tall fellow, evidently a _habituè_ of the bull-ring, joined the crowd outside. The spectators filled every window, and in some cases had seated themselves on the roofs of the houses. Carriages, filled with occupants, were drawn up in front of the shops, and all available standing room on the footpaths and roadway was filled by visitors, towns-people, and parishioners. A cry arises "room for the Alderman and Burgesses." The Corporation of Wokingham dates from Saxon times, and the chief-magistrate was still called "the Alderman," the town having refused steadily for eight centuries to adopt the new-fangled Norman title of "Mayor." The remaining members of the Corporation were "burgesses." Here they come, first pushing a way through the crowd, two "ale-tasters" with wands of office surmounted by the acorn, the Corporation crest; then two sergeants of the mace, the mace-bearer, the alderman, burgesses, town clerk, and others. The alderman takes his seat with his friends in the large window of the old "Red Lion Inn," and gives the signal that the sport is to begin. Shouts are heard and a commotion is evident in a corner of the crowd. Here he comes, the first bull, led by a dozen strong men, a rope round his horns and a chain fifteen feet long, into the middle of the market place, where the end of the chain is fastened to a strong staple in a post level with the ground. Away go his keepers. In a moment the bull has cleared a ring for the coming contest. With head down and tail erect, he sweeps round at the full extent of his chain, and is all alone in the centre of a circle thirty feet in diameter.

"A lane! a lane!" and quickly the crowd has given way to form a narrow passage, at the end of which we see a man holding a dog between his knees. It is the first dog to be set on; his owner cries, "Set on!" and the dog loosed tears down the lane, through hoops held at regular intervals, right at the face of the bull, who has heard his yelp, and is waiting for him. The dog goes for the bull's nose; the animal keeps him off by always presenting a horn to his advance. We notice he does not _prod_ at the dog, but tries to sweep the horn along the ground under the dog's belly. The dog, quite conscious of the meaning of these tactics, is never for a moment still, but dancing to and fro, tries to get through the bull's guard. It seems for a while that this game of attack and defence might go on for the whole day. But suddenly the bull has managed to get his horn beneath the dog, and up he goes into the air, some twenty or thirty feet high. "Catch the dog, quick. He'll be done for if he touches ground." And see our friend from Reading holding out a pair of long arms, and down comes the dog, bespattering, as he falls into them, the man's face and clothes with blood and mud. When the day is over, many, who came out in holiday clothes, will return home sorry spectacles from dog-catching, covered with filth, and with torn and disordered clothes.

Another dog is now ready. His fate is more speedily determined than that of his predecessor. The bull, almost immediately, sends him flying into the air, so high that he falls on the roof of the Town Hall, and in coming down is impaled on some spikes.

This is a grand stroke by which the present bull has outdone all former bulls that have been fastened to that chain and stake for many a year. And while the poor dog is writhing and whining piteously, the crowd applauds vociferously. In one of the smaller carriages, two school boys occupy the back seat. These boys are now standing up, wildly clapping their hands and hurrahing, while the dog on the roof still writhes and cries out in its agony. One of those boys will live to be a farmer in Wokingham, and be well known for his love of animals. More than seventy years after the event he will often tell of this, his only visit to the bull-baiting, and express his wonder by what strange contagion he could have caught the spirit of that cruel crowd, and witnessed, with delirious delight, animal torture, which on any other day of his life would have brought tears to his eyes.[10]

And now a third dog is set on. Whether the bull is tired or demoralized by the applause he has just received we cannot tell; but certain it is that number three almost at once-succeeds in fastening his teeth in the cartilage of the bull's nose. "A pin! a pin!" "The dog has pinned the bull!" and the animal tosses its head up and down in a frenzy of wrath and terror, trying to shake off the dog. But he might as well try to shake off his own horns. A story is told of a man who made a bet, and won it, that he would cut off each of his dogs legs in succession without his letting go, when once he had got his teeth in the bull.

The owner of the present dog with the assistance of other men forces the dog's mouth open with a stick, and so gets him away, but not without tearing the bull's nose and leaving a portion of the cartilage in the dog's mouth. A note is taken of the owner's name that his dog's success may be rewarded in due time at the distribution of prizes.

Three or four more dogs are set on in turn, and the short winter afternoon is already half over. People begin to clamour for the second bull. But they are not destined to part with the first without a little more excitement. Some young men growing bold by familiarity with the scene, take an opportunity of tossing the loose chain over the animal's back. This makes him start forward with great impetuosity, and in doing so he tears the staple out of the post to which the chain is fastened. "The Bull is loose!" Away scampers the crowd in every direction. A woman who had been selling apples and cakes out of a large basket is upset in her flight, and her wares are scattered. Several others fall over her prostrate form, but before further mischief is done, the animal is again secured. A single tree grows in the middle of the market-place. In the boughs a number of small boys, early in the day, had taken up their position, and there witnessed all the fun. Not knowing how else to secure the bull while the staple in the post is undergoing repair, the men pass the chain round this tree. The bull, finding itself thus robbed of a liberty which just now had seemed to offer a prospect of escape from his tormentors, frantic with rage and terror, makes wild rushes forward, jerking and swaying the tree to the great alarm of the urchins in the boughs. The crowd enjoying their fright, cry out to increase it, "the tree is coming down." This is too much for the boys' courage, down they come like apples in a gale of wind, some on the bull's back, some in the slush and mud. The whole crowd except a few anxious parents, is convulsed with laughter. Luckily the boys are got out of the way of the bull, who seems fairly puzzled at this new form of attack, and no one is seriously hurt.[11]

It is now determined to dismiss the bull to the neighbouring slaughter-house. The poor creature is led away, covered with blood, and foam, and sweat, a very picture of distress and exhaustion, and of the madness that comes of fear, rage, and pain.

The second bull is coming out fresh and strong, and good to keep up the sport for another hour or two. But we have seen enough, and may well return to Reading with our young friend who has been looking on from the window. The light is already failing. It is damp and chill, and will be dark before he reaches home. It is well, too, to escape the rough horse-play which grows rougher as the day closes. Already there have been several fights among the dog-owners and others, and before the night is over there will be many more, and not impossibly lives may be lost. Even the lives of women were not always safe after the passions of men had been roused by these scenes of cruelty, sustained by a free flow of the drink, which makes men "full of quarrel and offence." Witness the Parish Registers, where we find the entry, "Martha May, aged 55, (who was hurt by fighters after Bull-baiting) was buried Dec. 31st 1808." Poor Martha May! she must have been badly hurt, and only lived six days, as we reckon, (allowing four days for the interval between her death and burial), after her last bull-baiting on St. Thomas's Day in Wokingham Market Place in 1808.

There remains one other point on which information is needed. The dogs were evidently highly trained. Knowing quite well what was expected of them, eager as grey-hounds with the quarry in view to escape from the master's hand, and to fly through the hoops at the bull's nose. Where and how did they get their training? There are still old inhabitants in Wokingham who can answer this question by word of mouth. For weeks before the baiting, on every moonlight night, it was common practice for a party of men with three or four dogs to visit some field or park, and there driving an ox, which they had before noted as suitable for their purpose, into a corner of the field, set on their dogs in order, according to the received rules of baiting. In the morning the owner would be furious at finding his best ox in a pitiable condition, and useless for the market for months to come. But so general was the interest in bull-baiting that he got no more pity than the farmer's wife, whose ducks are all killed by a fox, gets now from her neighbours.

Looking back on bull-baiting and similar sports, that were contemporaneous with it, and comparing them with the scenes of violence that formed popular entertainments in the generations that went before, and with the sports and games of our own day, the conclusion cannot be escaped that the world's history shews a well-marked line at progress in the gentler virtues, and the growth of sympathy between man and his fellow, and between man and the animals around him, that tends to brand cruelty wherever found as a vice.

It is the duty of every one to do what he can to further this progress to quicken this growth, and to practise and encourage only those amusements which seem suitable for the development of the best side in the character of the people.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 8: Erasmus, the reformer, speaks of 'many herds' of bears which he saw being trained for baiting when he was in England in the reign of Henry VIII.]

[Footnote 9: This description is taken from "The Reminiscences of an Octogenarian," published in _The Reading Observer_. He describes a visit made by himself when a youth, to Wokingham, under the guidance of an elder companion, to see the bull-baiting. Other particulars have been derived from information given to the writer of this article by those, most of them now dead, who were spectators of the sports.]

[Footnote 10: The particulars of this scene were given to the writer by the farmer who had been one of the boys in the chaise.]

[Footnote 11: The description of this scene is taken partly from an old picture, and partly from the narrative of an eye-witness.]

Index.

Abbot, power of, 133-134

Alfred the Great, 98-114

Agriculture languishing, 14

Albert Memorial Chapel, 41

Abingdon, chronicles of, 63-64;
Fair, 93;
Guild, 121

Bacon, M.J., Berkshire Words and Phrases, 235-243

Barber's Guild, 124-126, 129

Berkshire Words and Phrases, 235-243

Bible, Alfred attempts to translate the, 107

Binfield, 211-234

Binfield and Easthampstead, 1700-1716, and the early years
of Alexander Pope, 211-234

British tribes, 2

Bull-baiting in Berkshire, 244-258

Burney, Fanny, life at Windsor described by, 37

Burning at the Stake, 14

Celtic times, 2

Chapel Royal, 40-41

Charles I. a prisoner at Windsor, 34;
execution and burial, 34;
snow at his funeral, 35

Christianity, spread of, 8

Civil War, 14-18

Cloth-trade destroyed at Reading, 160

Cumnor Place and Amy Robsart, 63-97

Cumnor Church, 65-69

Danes destroy Churches, 7-8;
defeated, 104

Disobedience, fine for, 126

Ditchfield, P.H. Historic Berkshire, 1-20;
Guilds of Berkshire, 115-136

Dragon stories, 140

Dudley, Lord Robert, 74-91

Easthampstead, 211-234

Elfreda's crimes, 179

Elizabeth, Queen, patroness of baiting animals, 246

England united under Alfred, 7

Faringdon, Hugh, 153-159

Field, J.E., Wallingford Castle, 47-62

First Battle of Newbury, 193-203

First monarch interred at Windsor, 31

Freedom of towns sold, 131

Gardiner, E.R., Scouring of the White Horse, 137-152

Garter, institution of, 26

Gaunt, John of, marriage, 186

Gilt cup as a New Year's present, 159

Good Friday, baiting animals on, 247

Guilds of Berkshire, 115-136

Handbill, quaint, 144

Herne's oak, 44

Heart of St. George brought to Windsor, 30

Highwayman, story of a, 142-143

Historic Berkshire, 1-20

Holy Cross, Guild of, 135

Hunting, 113

Ingleby, Miss Evelyn, Windsor Castle, 21-46

Inns in Berkshire, 87

Isabella bestowes Wallingford Castle on Mortimer, 56

Jack of Newbury, 13

James, flight of, 36

Jewel, Alfred's 103

John signs the Magna Charta, 11-12

Knighthood, flower of, 26

Lamplough, E., First Battle of Newbury, 193-203;
Second Battle of Newbury, 204-210

Last of the Abbots, 153-159

Law-giver, Alfred the, 110-114

Library at Windsor, 42-43

Magna Charta, 11-12, 23

Martin, regicide, 163

Mercatory guild, 128

Merry Wives of Windsor, 33

Murder of Amy Robsart, 88

Newbury, First Battle, 193-203;
Second Battle, 204-210

Nicholas, St., College of, 60

Norman Conquest, 65

Norman invaders, 9

Oaks, ancient, 44

Origin of Guilds, 116

Parliament held at Reading, 13;
at Wallingford, 53

Parsons, Robert, Author of 'Leicester's Commonwealth,' 76-77

Penny, C.W., Binfield and Easthampstead, 211-234

Pepys at Windsor, 35

Philippa, Queen, death of, 26-28

Poet and scholar, Alfred, 106-110

Poetry, Anglo-Saxon, 100

Pomp and vanity at Windsor, 25

Pope, Alexander, 217-234

Physical peculiarity, 241

Reading Abbey, 179-192;
Guilds, 117, 123

Reformation, doctrines of, 14

Reid, H.J., F.S.A., Cumnor Place and Amy Robsart, 63-97

Restoration rejoicings, 18

Restoration of Windsor Castle, 39

Revolution of 1688, 18-19

Richard II. at Windsor, 28;
death, 29

Robsart, Amy, 74-91, 78-82

Roman times, 2-4

Rome visited by Alfred, 100

Royal county, 1

Royal prisoners, story of, 25

Saxon times, 5

Scott, Sir Walter, on Cumnor, 73

Scouring of the White Horse, 137-152

Second Battle of Newbury, 204-210

Settlements of the Saxons, 5-6

Seymour, Jane, buried at Windsor, 32

Shaw, the Lifeguardsman, 149

Ship-money, 162

Shoemaker's guild, 126-127

Siege of Reading, 160-178

Simon de Montfort, 12, 24

Snow at the funeral of Charles I., 35

Soldiers taking down a weathercock, 67

Sports, 141-142

Standard, Saxon, 138-139

Staverton, George, strange bequest, 248

Stephen and the Empress Maud, wars of, 10-11

Sturges, Canon, Bull-baiting in Berkshire, 244-258

Sunday shaving, 124-126;
Sports, 127

Superstitions, 241

Tailors ordered to make clothes for soldiers, 165

Tennyson, quoted, 46

Thompson, W.H., Alfred the Great, 98-114

Tiles as fines, 125

Tobacco, prize for smoking, 149

Trade, increase of, 12

Voting £70,000 for a tomb, 35

Victuallers' Company, 127-128

Village Feasts, 137

Wallingford Castle, 47-62

Wantage, birth place of Alfred, 98

Warrior-king, Alfred, 100-106

Wellington on a victory, 160

White Horse, 137-152

Windsor Castle, 21-46

William the Conqueror at Wallingford, 48

Wokingham, bull-baiting at 247-256

Wolsey's Tomb-House, 22

Words and Phrases, 235-243

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