112 THE MASTIFF FOR BAITING PURPOSES. 



" Twas an old way of recreating 



Which learned butchers call bear baiting, 



A bear at stake 



That at the chains end wheels about 



That none presume to come so near 



As forty foot of stake of bear." 



Part 1. Canto 1. 



From this we see forty feet was the length of the bear's 

 chain. Historical accounts exist of numerous bear baitings 

 which took place during Elizabeth's reign, and it is very 

 possible that Shakespeare himself witnessed the splendid 

 royal sports at Kenilworth, in 1575, of which Sir Walter Scott 

 gives a most graphic fictitious account in the lyth chapter 

 of his novel Kenilworth. 



In Cassell's Illustrated History of England, chapter 14, 

 page 486, there is a picture of bear baiting as practised before 

 Queen Elizabeth. The original from which this illustration 

 was taken is not stated, therefore it would be unwise to hazard 

 any remarks on the dogs, beyond that they are represented 

 with the usual short heads, and of great size, and the picture 

 is well drawn. 



Hertzner, who visited England in 1598, wrote an account 

 of baiting as enacted at that period. He states "there is a 

 place built in the form of a theatre, which serves for the 

 baiting of bulls and bears. They are fastened behind, and 

 then worried by great English bulldogs, but not without risk 

 to the dogs from the horns of the one, and the teeth of the 

 other, etc. 



Samuel Pepys in his Diary, under date August i4th, 1666, 

 says : " After dinner, with my wife and Mercer to the bear 

 " garden, where I had not been I think for many years, and 

 " saw some very good sport, etc." 



