A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



dying out. 1 At Westcot, however, a case of open-field still survives 



(i95)- s 



But we are advancing too rapidly on the subject of enclosures. In so 



far as they promoted the use for which the Cotswolds were best fitted, they 

 added to the wealth of that district, which, indeed, in the seventeenth 

 century is always spoken of as highly prosperous. Even Camden had 

 spoken of the ' golden fleeces ' of the Cotswolds, while Drayton writes 

 enthusiastically of the shepherd's life there. Incidentally, too, he gives 

 an interesting description of the Cotswold sheep of his day 



No browne nor fulleyed black the face or legs doth streak, 



but Cotswold wisely fills 



Hers with the whitest kind ; whose browes so wooly be 

 As men in her faire sheepe no emptiness should see ; 

 The Staple deep and thick, thro' to the very graine, 

 Most strongly keepeth out the violentest rain ; 

 And of the fleecie face, the flanke doth nothing lack, 

 But everywhere is stored, the belly as the back, 

 As white as winter's snowe. 



The shepherd king, 



Whose flock hath chanced that yeere the earliest lambe to bring, 

 In his gay Bauldric sits at his lowe grassie Bord, 

 With flawns, curds, clowted-creame & country dainties stor'd ; 

 And whilst the bag-pipe plays, each lustie jocund swaine 

 Quaffs sillabubs in kans, to all upon the Plaine, 

 And to their country-girles whose nosegayes they doe weare ; 

 Some Roundelayes doe sing ; the rest the burthen bear.* 



These were the jolly days of Cotswold when the rustic games for 

 which it had once been famous, 4 but which had vanished under the Puritan 

 regime, were revived by Drayton's friend, Mr. Robert Dover, in the reign 

 of James I, 6 at Weston-sub-Edge. Here every Whitsuntide the Gloucester- 

 shire youth contended in coursing, horse-racing, dancing, wrestling, 

 throwing the 'sledge' (hammer?), and the bar, while chess and kindred games 

 went on in tents for their elders. Dover, a true sportsman, 6 and wise old 

 country gentleman ; Dover the ' joviall,' the attorney who * never tried but 

 two causes, having always made up the difference,' 7 thus explains his motives, 

 in reply to the ' Poeticall and Learned noble friends ' who had presented him 

 with a volume of poems celebrating his games. 



After speaking in praise of these old country sports he says that when men 



Once those pastimes did forsake, 

 And unto drinking did themselves betake, 

 So base they grew, that at this present day 

 They are not men, but moving lumps of clay. 



1 See ' The Common Fields at Upton Saint Leonards,' by Canon E. C. Scobell. Ctttestoold Naturafiiti' 

 Field Club Prof, xiii, pt. 3. ' H. A. Evans, Highways and Byways of the Cotswolds, p. 169. 



3 Drayton, Polyolbion, 1889 reprint (Spenser Soc.), p. 233. 



4 See Carving of a Whitsun Ale on north wall of Cirencester parish church. 



4 Cf. also Shakespeare, Merry (Fives, Act I, scene I. 'How does your fallow grey-hound, sir? I 

 heard say he was outrun on Cotsall.' Weston-sub-Edge Fieldsmen's Books mention the letting of the hill every 

 year for the games. C. R. Ashbee, op. cit. 



6 The sporting spirit of the games is thus described, Annafia Dubrensia (ed. A. B. Grosart, 1877), p. 41 : 



' Where horse not for his price doth ride, 



More than his truth (a match as faire), 

 And greyhound is for Coller tried, 



More than for death of harmless Hare.' 

 ' C. R. Ashbee, op. cit. 



1 66 



