it has a very distant resemblance, if any at all, to either, in the lines, or in the rules of playing. On the ground, the men are pebbles, broken tiles, shells, or potsherds; on a table, the same as are used at draughts or backgammon. In Nares it is said to be the same as nine-holes. With us it is certainly different."]

NINE-HOLES.

I FIND the following in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 178. Upon Raspe. Epig.:

"Raspe playes at nine-holes, and 'tis known he gets

Many a teaster by his game and bets:

But of his gettings there's but little sign,

When one hole wastes more than he gets by nine."

NINE-PINS.

[A WELL-KNOWN game, still common, under the name of skittles, thus alluded to in Poor Robin, 1707 :

"Ladies for pleasure now resort

Unto Hide Park and Totnam Court;
People to Moorfields flock in sholes,
At nine-pins and at pigeon-holes.
The country lasses pastime make
At stool-ball and at barley-break;
And young men they pass time away
At wrestling and at foot-ball play.
And every one, in their own way,
As merry are as birds in May."]

Sir Thomas Urquhart, of Cromarty, in his curious work entitled the Discovery of a most exquisite Jewel, found in the Kennel of Worcester Streets the Day after the Fight, 1651, p. 237, in continuation of a passage which will presently be quoted under "Cards," says: "They may likewise be said to use their king as the players at nine-pins do the middle kyle, which they call the king, at whose fall alone they aim, the sooner to obtain the gaining of their prize."

Poor Robin, in his Almanack for 1695, in his observations on the Spring quarter, says: "In this quarter are very much practised the commendable exercises of nine-pins, pigeon-holes, stool-ball, and barley-break, by reason Easter holydays, Whitsun holydays, and May-day, do fall in this quarter.

In the Brothers of the Blade, answerable to the Sisters of the Scaberd, 4to. 1641, we read: "I would wish thee to haunt bowling-alleys, and frequent gaming-houses, where you may live all day long upon the rooke on the Bankside, or to play at nine-pins, or pigeon-holes, in Lincolnes Inne Fieldes; these are ordinary exercises." p. 3.

NOR AND SPELL

Is a game described and represented in the work entitled the Costume of Yorkshire; where it is presumed to be the same with what Strutt, in his Sports and Pastimes, denominates Northen, or Northern spell. "The little wooden ball" (used in this game) "is in Yorkshire called the Nor, and the receptacle in which it is placed the Spell." The reader may refer to the work already quoted for the representation of this game. It approaches very nearly to the modern game of trap-ball.

[The following letter relating to this game is extracted from the Worcestershire Chronicle, Sept. 1847: "Before the commons were taken in, the children of the poor had ample space wherein to recreate themselves at cricket, nurr, or any other diversion; but now they are driven from every green spot, and, in Bromsgrove here, the nailor boys, from the force of circumstances, have taken possession of the turnpike-road to play the before-mentioned games, to the serious inconvenience of the passengers, one of whom, a woman, was yesterday knocked down by a nurr, which struck her in the head. Surely it would be an act of humanity on the part of those who have been most benefited by the inclosing of the common to afford the children of the poor in this parish a small of ground for the purposes of health and amusement."]

space

NOT.

[A GAME used in Gloucestershire, where the parties, ranged on opposite sides, with each a bat in their hands, endeavour to strike a ball to opposite goals. The game is called not, from the ball being made of a knotty piece of wood.]

PALL-MALL.

IN a most rare book, entitled the French Garden for English Ladies and Gentlewomen to walke in, 1621, in a dialogue, the lady says: "If one had paille-mails, it were good to play in this alley, for it is of a reasonable good length, straight, and even." And a note in the margin informs us: "A paille-mal is a wooden hammer set to the end of a long staffe to strike a boule with, at which game noblemen and gentlemen in France doe play much."

kr

In Sir Robert Dallington's Method for Travell, showed by taking the view of France as it stood in the year of our Lord 1598, 4to. London, we read: 'Among all the exercises of France, I prefere none before the palle-maille, both because it is a gentlemanlike sport, not violent, and yields good occasion and opportunity of discourse, as they walke from one marke to the other. I marvell among many more apish and foolish toys which we have brought out of France, that we have not brought this sport also into England." See more of this game in Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 82.

PEARIE.

DR. JAMIESON defines Pearie, "that instrument of play used by boys in Scotland, which in England is called a pegtop." It seems to have been named from its exact resemblance to a pear. The humming-top of England is in Scotland denominated a French pearie, probably as having been originally imported from France.

PICCADILLY, OR PICARDILY,

Is mentioned in Flecknoe's Epigrams, p. 90:

"And their lands to coyn they distil ye,

And then with the money

You see how they run ye

To loose it at piccadilly."

There was also a species of ruff so called. In the Honestie of this Age, by Barnaby Rich, 1615, p. 25, is the following passage: "But he that some forty or fifty yeares sithens should have asked a pickadilly, I wonder who could have understood him, or could have told what a pickadilly had been, fish or flesh."

PIGEON-HOLES.

["A game like our modern bagatelle, where there was a machine with arches for the balls to run through, resembling the cavities made for pigeons in a dove-house."—Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 622.

"In this quarter the commendable exercise of nine-pins, pigeon-holes, stool-ball, and barley-break are much practised, by reason Easter-holidays, Whitsun-holidays, and May-day fall in this quarter; besides the landlords holiday, which makes more mirth than any of the holidays aforesaid." - Poor Robin, 1738.]

PRICKING AT THE BELT.

A CHEATING game, also called Fast and Loose, of which the following is a description: "A leathern belt is made up into a number of intricate folds, and placed edgewise upon a table. One of the folds is made to resemble the middle of a girdle, so that whoever shall thrust a skewer into it would think he held it fast to the table: whereas, when he has so done, the person with whom he plays may take hold of both ends and draw it away." It appears to have been a game much practised by the gipsies in the time of Shakespeare.

PRISON-BARS, OR PRISON-BASE.

THE game of "the Country Base" is mentioned by Shakespeare in Cymbeline. Also in the tragedy of Hoffman, 1632:

"I'll run a little course At base, or barley-brake."

Again, in the Antipodes, 1638:

"My men can run at base."

Also, in the thirtieth song of Drayton's Polyolbion :
"At hood-wink, barley-brake, at tick, or prison-base.”

Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, v. 8:

"So ran they all as they had been at bace"

THE QUINTAIN.

THE quintain seems to have been used by most nations in Europe. See a very curious account of it in Menage, Diction. Etymol. de la Langue Françoise, in v. Quintain. See also Le Grand, Fabliaux et Contes, ii. 414; Du Cange, Glossar. ad Script. Lat. mediæ Ætatis; Pancirolli, Rer. mem. deperd. Comment. ii. 292, tit. xxi; Spelman Gloss. in v. Quintaen; Watts's Glossary to Matt. Paris, v. Quintena; Dugdale's Hist. Warwickshire, p. 166; Cowel's Law Dictionary; Plott's Hist. of Oxfordshire, pp. 200, 201; and Archæologia, i. 303. A description of the military quintain which was used instead of tilting, may be seen in Pluvinel, L'Instruction du Roy sur l'Exercice de monter à Cheval, p. 217. A singular specimen of the quintain is mentioned in the C. de Tressani, Corps d'Extraits de Romans, iii. 30.

RACES.

MISSON, in his Travels in England, translated by Ozell, p. 231, says: "The English nobility take great delight in horse-races. The most famous are usually at Newmarket;