MR HAfiDT ON BOWLING. 53 



existed in Berwickshire within the memory of the present generation. 

 Then it was played with the cast-metal balls, nearly four times larger 

 than the balls now under consideration. There is, however, every reason 

 to believe, that stones were the original projectiles with which the game 

 was practised. Cast-metal balls are comparatively of recent invention, 

 to the huge mortars of the hardest granite, with which the ungainly 

 field-pieces of other times were supplied. In Northumberland and 

 Durham we find bowls of stone still employed, in conjunction with those 

 of the more solid material, which the advancement of art has introduced. 

 Bowls of stone are commonly used by boys, into whose hands have de- 

 generated many of those sports and pastimes once honoured with the 

 sanction and participation of royalty. This opinion may be farther 

 strengthened from the equally rude state in which the analogous instru- 

 ments employed in the elegant recreation of the bowling-green formerly 

 existed. What these once were, may be learned from the following 

 passage, written by Lord Shaftesbury, descriptive of an old English 

 sportsman : " In the year 1638, lived Mr Hastings at Woodlands, in 

 the county of Southampton. By his quality, son, brother, and uncle of 

 the Earl of Huntingdon, he was peradventure an original in our age, 

 or rather the copy of our ancient nobility in hunting, not in warlike 

 times. He was very low, strong, and active, with reddish flaxen hair. 

 His clothes, which, when new, were never worth five pounds, were of green 

 cloth. His house was perfectly old fashioned, in the midst of a huge 

 park, well stocked with deer and rabbits, many fish ponds, a great store 

 of wood and timber, a bowling-green in it, long but narrow, full of high 

 ridges, never having been levelled since it was ploughed ; round sand 

 bowls were usedy and it had a banqueting house like a stand, built in a 

 tree."* 



Such being the grounds upon which I infer the identity of the Ber- 

 wickshire and Northumbrian bowls, an outline of the mode in which the 

 sport is generally practised, may serve to convey an idea of its chai-acter. 

 In the vicinity of Newcastle bowling is confined chiefly to colliers. To 

 this, their favourite recreation, they are accustomed to devote the 

 Saturday afternoons, and the Monday forenoons, being at leisure from 

 their work at those times.f The ground on which it is performed is 



• Memoirs of the Honourable William Hastings ; quoted by Daniel, Rural Sports, 

 vol. i. 456. 



t The reason of Monday's being so distinguished, as well as the familiar hallowing 

 of the Saturday afternoon, is owing to religious grounds. An old rhyme ridiculing 

 the prodigal expenditure of time in the Roman Catholic ceremonial, designates Mon- 

 day as '* Sundayes brother." The practice once existed in Scotland. " On the S6 



