SUNDAY LEGISLATION AND ITS OBSERVANCES. 235 



History of the Stuarts, goes to the length of asserting, " that the ef- 

 fect of the Book of Sports was not only to diminish the little popu- 

 larity which the mistaken policy of the king had left to him, but to 

 contribute greatly toward the fatal convulsions of the next reign." 

 Admitting this observation to be just, and allowing the view to be 

 correct, which was taken during the debate on Mr. Cayley's Amend- 

 ment to the Sunday Bill, " that the Book of Sports expelled one mem- 

 ber of the family of Stuart from the throne, and conducted another to 

 the scaffold," what are we to think of thd religion of those who 

 plunge a nation into a civil war, and, in this view of the matter, com- 

 mit a foul murder, for the purpose of putting down harmless re- 

 creations ? In a few years afterwards, in 8 James I., a Bill was 

 introduced into parliament by the Puritans, for the more melancholy 

 observance of the Sunday, which they affected to call by the Jewish 

 name of Sabbath. The Christians of the middle ages had employed 

 the word Sabbatum, to denote the whole week, but did not venture on 

 this absurdity.* On the present occasion, Mr. Shepherd, a member, 

 was expelled the House of Commons, for his opposition to the Bill, 

 declaring the appellation of Sabbath to be Puritanical, and for de- 

 fending the exercise of dancing by the example of David. The 

 House of Lords opposed so far this Puritanical spirit of the Com- 

 mons, that they proposed, that the appellation of Sabbath should be 

 changed into that of the Lord's day. (Journ. 15, 16 Feb. 1620; 28th 

 May, 1621.) In Shepherd's sentence, his offence is said by the House 

 to be " great, exorbitant, and unparalleled."t The different appella- 

 tions of this festival were at that time known symbols of the 

 different parties. J By the statute of 1 Charles I. cap 1. no persons 

 shall assemble out of their own parishes for any sport whatsoever 

 upon this day ; nor in their parishes shall use any bull or bear bait- 

 ing, interludes, plays, or other unlawful exercises or pastimes. The 

 act does not prohibit, but rather impliedly allows any innocent re- 

 creation or amusement within their respective parishes, even on the 

 Lord's day, after divine service. 



Many of the austerities and absurdities committed by the fanatics 

 with respect to religious festivals and customs, in the time of the 

 civil wars, are collected by Hume, and therefore need not be re- 

 peated ; some are melancholy, others ludicrous, and all of such a 

 nature as to fully authorize a belief that the anecdote in drunken 

 Barnaby's Itinerary is no fiction. 



* It is extremely disgusting to find a man like Sir Henry Spelman conde" 

 scending to use the language of cant. None knew better than he that the word 

 Sabbath was applicable only to the Jewish commemoration of the seventh day 

 of the creation, yet he employs it in an unwarrantable manner. He explains Do- 

 minica, Sitientes venite to be " Sabbatum ante Dominicam Passionam." Glossar. 

 p. 181. This, without the elucidation of the introit, can be taken for nothing 

 else than Saturday preceding Passion Sunday, instead of the Sunday before that 

 festival, making the difference of a week. Sabbatum, in the Mediaeval writers, 

 is invariably Saturday, the seventh day of the week, except when used for the 

 week itself, and then Saturday was termed Septimaferia Sabbati. 



t Hume, Vol. VI. ch. 47, p. 92. 



t Ibid. p. 211. 



Vol. VII. ch. 57, p. 32, note. 



