The young Maids, who were not Lookers on at these Exercises, were themselves engaged in some Diversion; and upon my asking a Farmer’s Son of my own Parish what he was gazing at with so much Attention, he told me, That he was seeing Betty Welch, whom I knew to be his Sweet-Heart, pitch a Bar.
In short, I found the men endeavoured to shew the Women they were no Cowards, and that the whole Company strived to recommend themselves to each other, by making it appear that they were all in a perfect State of Health, and fit to undergo any Fatigues of bodily Labour.
Your Judgment upon this Method of Love
and Gallantry, as it is at
present practised amongst us in the Country,
will very much oblige,
SIR, Yours, &c.’
If I would here put on the Scholar and Politician, I might inform my Readers how these bodily Exercises or Games were formerly encouraged in all the Commonwealths of Greece; from whence the Romans afterwards borrowed their Pentathlum, which was composed of Running, Wrestling, Leaping, Throwing, and Boxing, tho’ the Prizes were generally nothing but a Crown of Cypress or Parsley, Hats not being in fashion in those Days: That there is an old Statute, which obliges every Man in England, having such an Estate, to keep and exercise the long Bow; by which Means our Ancestors excelled all other Nations in the Use of that Weapon, and we had all the real Advantages, without the Inconvenience of a standing Army: And that I once met with a Book of Projects, in which the Author considering to what noble Ends that Spirit of Emulation, which so remarkably shews it self among our common People in these Wakes, might be directed, proposes that for the Improvement of all our handicraft Trades there should be annual Prizes set up for such Persons as were most excellent in their several Arts. But laying aside all these political Considerations, which might tempt me to pass