A few remarks with reference to puppet-shows and plays 
performed by wooden figures may be interesting. When 
regular theatres were established, and regular companies of 
actors were attached to them, the strolling players fell into 
great disrepute; they were no longer received into the 
houses of the rich, and they were discountenanced by the 
law. Under these circumstances, they were not able to 
keep together in companies, and some of them probably 
were compelled to substitute wooden confederates for 
living ones. Hence arose the puppet-shows which were 
exhibited at the principal fairs. Scriptural subjects were 
often represented in the puppet plays. 
Punch, the most celebrated of all the puppets, who was 
allied to the vice of the Old Moralities, and also to the 
fool who enlivened the more regular plays which succeeded 
them, with whom, indeed, he is almost identical in dress, 
comes to us, as we have him at present, from Italy. He 
was first invented at Acerra, near Naples, by Silvio Fierillo, 
a comedian, about the early part of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. His original name was Pulcinella) Mr. Hone has 
written a book on this subject, characterized by a great 
amount of research. He considers that Punch was intro- 
duced into England before the beginning of the reign of 
Queen Anne; at all events, his popularity was quite estab- 
lished about the year 1711. The play of Punch and Fudy, 
as given by Mr. Hone, occupies about forty pages, who 
would doubtless be disgusted with his degenerate perform- 
ance in the present day. 
Having now considered the tournaments and other 
courtly amusements which in former times delighted the 
great and noble in the land, and the mysteries, moralities, 
and stage plays which amused the dwellers in cities, we 
propose to glance briefly at some of the rustic sports of 
the peasantry, some of those old customs which still linger 
among us, but which, alas! are rapidly becoming obsolete. 
The celebration of May-Day is perhaps one of the oldest 
and most famous. Before the introduction of Christianity, 
the last four days of April and the first of May were ob- 
served as a festival in honour of the goddess Flora. Nature, 
at this time, seemed to our ancestors to burst into new life 
and beauty; the earth was clothed with a fresh carpet of 
verdure, and the season was naturally held sacred to the 
beautiful goddess of flowers. The May-day games were 
doubtless relics of this old heathen feast. In our time, _ 
the very season seems to have lost its beauty, and often 
624 Ancient Sports and Pastimes. 
