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| APPENDIX. IV. 
this time. But we are told, that the fraternal 
hatred between Bassianus and Geta, sons of 
the emperor Severus, began when they were 
boys, from a quarrel they had about their 
Quails and Cocks.* 
The Britons had poultry before the arrival of 
Cesar, but they owe the barbarous custom of 
Cocking to the Romans. Yet it does not oc- 
cur among our writers, till the time of Henry IT. 
when Jitz-Stephens + mentions it as the school- 
boys diversion on Carnelevaria, or Shrove-Tues- 
day. Edward \X1. disapproved and prohibited 
Cock-fighting.f But that barbarous prince 
Henry VIII. gave it so much encouragement 
as to build a theatre, near Whitehall, for that 
purpose, to this day known by the name of the 
Cockpit. At length Ohwver Cromwell, in 1654, 
by a humane edict, suppressed these disgrace- 
ful meetings; which, after his time, revived 
with ‘full fury: yet it is some consolation, in 
this profligate age, that whatsoever other follies 
flourish, this loses credit, and drops (excepting 
among the dregs of the ign be into the utmost 
disrepute.§ 
* Herodian iii. § 33. + p. 45. Maitland London, i. 131. 
§ It will be injustice not to say, that almost the whole of this 
is borrowed from the memoir on this subject, by that able an- 
tiquary the Rev. Mr. Pegge. See Archeologia, vol. iii. 132. 
