Imatges de pàgina
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and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?" Shakspeare, King Lear, a. iv. sc. 6.

Mr. Malone seems to have given the best interpretation. "Handy-dandy," he says, "is, I believe, a play among children, in which something is shaken between two hands, and then a guess is made in which hand it is retained. See Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: 'Bazzicchiare, to shake between two hands; to play handy-dandy.' See Reed's edit. of Shaksp., 8vo., Lond. 1803, vol. xvii. p. 547. (1)

NOTE TO HANDY-DANDY.

(1) See also Mr. Douce's "Illustr. of Shaksp. and of Ancient Manners," vol. ii. p. 167. Coruelius Scriblerus, in forbidding certain sports to his son Martin till he is better informed of

their antiquity, says, "Neither Cross and Pile, nor Ducks and Drakes, are quite so ancient as Handy-dandy, though Macrobius and St. Augustine take notice of the first, and Minutius Foelix describes the latter; but

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Handy-dandy is mentioned by Aristotle, Plato, and Aristophanes." Pope's Works, vol. vi. p. 115.

He adds (ibid. p. 116), "The play which the Italians call Cinque and the French Mourre is extremely ancient: it was played by Hymen and Cupid at the marriage of Psyché, and termed by the Latins digitis micare.'

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(1) Mr. Malone says, "Loggeting in the fields is mentioned for the first time, among other new and crafty games and plays, in the statute of 33 Hen. VIII. c. 9. Not being mentioned in former acts against unlawful games, it was probably not practised long before the statute of Henry VIII. was made.'

"A loggat-ground," says Mr. Blount, another of the commentators on Shakspeare, "like a skittle-ground, is strewed with ashes, but is more extensive. A bowl much larger than the jack of the game of bowls is thrown first.

The pins, which I believe are called loggats, are much thinner and lighter at one extremity than the other. The bowl being first thrown, the players take the pins up by the thinner and lighter end, and fling them towards the bowl, and in such a manner that the pins may once turn round in the air, and slide, with the thinner extremity foremost, towards the bowl. The pins are about one or two and twenty inches long." See Reed's edit. of Shaksp. 1803, vol. xviii. p. 326.

MARBLES

HAD no doubt their origin in Bowls, and received their name from the substance of which the bowls were formerly made. Taw is the more common name of this play in England.

Mr. Rogers notices marbles in his "Pleasures of Memory," 1. 137:

"On yon gray stone that fronts the chanceldoor

Worn smooth by busy feet, now seen no

more,

Each eve we shot the marble through the ring." (1)

NOTE TO MARBLES.

Notwithstanding Dr. Cornelius Scriblerus's injunctions concerning playthings of "primitive and simple antiquity," we are told "he yet condescended to allow" Martinus "the use of some few modern playthings; such as might prove of any benefit to his mind, by instilling an early notion of the sciences. For example, he found that marbles taught him percussion, and the laws of motion; nutcrackers the use of the lever; swinging on the

ends of a board the balance; bottle-screws the vice; whirligigs the axis and peritrochia; birdcages the pulley; and tops the centrifugal motion." Bob-cherry was thought useful and instructive, as it taught, "at once, two noble virtues, patience and constancy; the first in adhering to the pursuit of one end, the latter in bearing disappointment." Pope's Works, vol. vi. p. 117.

MERRITOT, OTHERWISE SHUGGY-SHEW(a), OR A SWING.

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Speght, in his "Glossary," says, Meritot, in Chaucer, a sport used by children by swinging themselves in bell-ropes, or such like, till they are giddy. In Latin it is called oscillum, and is thus described by an old writer :"Oscillum est genus ludi, scilicet cum funis dependitur de Trabe, in quo pueri & puellæ sedentes impelluntur huc et illuc."

In "Mercurialis de Arte Gymnastica," p. 216, there is an engraving of this exercise.

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parts of Northamptonshire, the shepherds and other boys dig up the turf with their knives to represent a sort of imperfect chess-board. It consists of a square, sometimes only a foot diameter, sometimes three or four yards. Within this is another square, every side of which is parallel to the external square; and these squares are joined by lines drawn from each corner of both squares, and the middle of each line. One party, or player, has wooden pegs, the other stones, which they move in such a manner as to take up each other's men, as they are called, and the area of the inner square is called the pound, in which the men taken up are impounded. These figures are by the country people called Nine Men's Morris, or Merrils; and are so called because each party has nine men. These figures are always cut upon the green turf, or leys as they are called, or upon the grass at the end of ploughed lands, and in rainy seasons never fail to be choked up with mud." FARMER.

"Nine Men's Morris is a game still played by the shepherds, cow-keepers, &c., in the midland counties, as follows: A figure (of squares, one within another) is made on the ground by cutting out the turf; and two persons take

each nine stones, which they place by turns in the angles, and afterwards move alternately, as at chess or draughts. He who can play three in a straight line may then take off any one of his adversary's, where he pleases, till one, having lost all his men, loses the game." ALCHORNE.

"In Cotgrave's Dictionary,' under the article Merelles, is the following explanation: 'Le Jeu des Merelles. The boyish game called merils, or fivepenny morris: played here most commonly with stones, but in France with pawns, or men made on purpose, and termed merelles. These might originally have been black, and hence called morris, or merelles, as we yet term a black cherry a morello, and a small black cherry a merry, perhaps from Maurus, a Moor, or rather from morum, a mulberry." TOLLET.

"The Jeu de Merelles was also a table-game. A representation of two monkies engaged at this amusement may be seen in a German edition of 'Petrarch de Remedio utriusque Fortunæ,' b. i. ch. 26. The cuts to this book were done in 1520." DOUCE.(1) See Reed's edit. of Shaksp., 1803, vol. iv. p. 358.

NOTE TO NINE MEN'S MORRIS.

(1) The following is the account of this game given by Mr. Douce, in the "Illustrations of Shakspeare and of Ancient Manners," 8vo. Lond. 1807, vol. i. p. 184:

"This game was sometimes called the Nine Men's Merrils, from merelles, or mereaux, an ancient French word for the jettons, or counters, with which it was played. The other term, morris, is probably a corruption suggested by the sort of dance which, in the progress of the game, the counters performed. In the French Merelles each party had three counters only, which were to be placed in a line in order to win the game. It appears to have been the tremerel mentioned in an old fabliau. See Le Grand, Fabliaux et Contes, tom. ii. p. 208.

"Dr. Hyde thinks the Morris, or Merrils, was known during the time that the Normans continued in possession of England, and that the name was afterwards corrupted into three men's morals, or nine men's morals. If this be true, the conversion of morrals into morris, a term so very familiar to the country-people, was extremely natural. The Doctor adds, that it was likewise called Nine-penny or ninepin miracle, Three-penny morris, Five-penny morris, Nine-penny morris, or three-pin, five-pin, and nine-pin morris, all corruptions of threepin, &c., Merels. Hyde, Hist. Nederluddi, p. 202."

See also Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes,” p. 236.

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