178 JULY. 



pastimes of our forefathers are, in the retro- 

 spect, picturesque, and pleasant — but attempt 

 to practise them at the present day, and the 

 very villagers would laugh at them as ridiculous 

 child's play, and in fact they are child's play. 

 They were the amusements of a generation ■ — 

 children in intellectual culture, though of braw- 

 ny growth in body — they were the pastimes 

 of beings whom in the race of real knowledge, 

 our very clowns have left behind. Nay, I ques- 

 tion whether our peasantry could witness, with- 

 out an internal feeling of contempt, what were 

 at one day the highest entertainments of the 

 highest classes — at which "lords and dukes 

 and noble captains" toiled day after day, and 

 the proudest and brightest dames sate wit- 

 nesses, not in impatience, but in pleasure. In 

 vain then do we lament our Christmas sports, 

 and the old games of gentle and simple — they 

 are pleasant pictures in pleasant associations — 

 they are highly to be valued as relics and re- 

 membrances of the olden time — of the good 

 olden time — good to the good people who 

 enjoyed them — good possibly in themselves — 

 exceedingly good at a distance, but 



Another race has been, and other palms are won. 

 Knowledge has run to and fro in the earth. It 

 has penetrated into the remotest hamlet — into 

 the obscurest nook, and though many a goodly 



