The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-10-04
COURIER THURSDAY OCTOBER 1906

bowls were one of the rare indulgences which all but Puritans of the strictest sect did not care to deny themselves. Bowls flourlsed under the Stuarts for Henry's arbitrary statue was never anything more than a dead let ted The strong willed Tudors always backed out when they saw they were setting up the backs of the people. All the same, bowls were illegal till the act was repealed by a Victorian Parlia- ment, And there is the memorable anecdote of fragrant breach of the law when Frankie Drake and rug ged old John Hawkins leisurely played out their game at Plymouth when the Invlncibe Armada had been sighted in the Channel and the ships that were to shatter it were standing out to sea. The origin fthe game is lost in his- torical mists, though the dryasdusts tell us 1t came over with the Romans. But Butler in his "Anatomie of Me- laneholie," writing on the eve of the civil wars, counts it with keelpins, quolts and football among the common recreations of the country folk. Not that the game was monopoly of the vulgar. Henry, when he passed his Draconic ordinance with it penalties, expressly exempted the nobles and the knights. Then there were bowling greens everywhere-at the castle and fortified hall, in the burgh and the vil- lage The knight threw off his armor for loose bowling suit and relaxed on the green beyond the moat and be- fore the harbican. The game was one of the few recreations permitted to austere cloister life, and we can con- ceive the zest with which the young shavelings broke away from illuminat- ing manuscripts or less expressing oc- equations The mitred abbot could lay aside his dignity for the nonce, taking the gentle exercise that gave an ap- 1 petite for the refectory If he were an enthusiast the smooth green was al- most as much his care as the tlshponds | with the carp and cells, regularly fed and fattened with delicacies from the kitchen As a game bedtting the grave and the sober it has been in favor l from time lmmemorial with college dons, and one delightful green that fingers in the memory is under the se- eular trees of q secluded Cambridge college On that green l have had many pleasant afternoon with two of the most renowned of Alphine clim- bers, ..
 For bowls, which may be eIastieally played, with eight, six, four or couple is an eminently sociable game. The company is clustered together and probably made up of old cronies. For some reason it went out of fashion in the reign of Anne, and though it be- gan to gain favor again under the Georges 1t was chiefly relegated to the country The country gentry were con servatlve as were the High Tory par sons, A Squire Western would come in ravenous for his midday dinner after a long apA early morning with the har- riers. He and his friends, who had been a-huntin' of the hare, dined heavily and drank deeply of the old October. How long they might have sat over the fagons and clay pipes heaven only knows, but the bowling green basking in sunshine, broken bS fiickering shadows, tempted them ir, resistably onto the lawn and if there had been sorely needed temperance SO cieties In those hard drinking days unauestionably the bowling greer
 would have been their best ally. The parson played with the church
 wardens in the rectory garden, ant preached bowls to his parshioner'
 when he desired to draw them away
 from the beer shop. It is strange thai Goldsmith should have forgotten then
 when he painted his model vicar before the financial collapse of Dr. Primrose
 But Goldsmith came from Ireland, ant
 there the game was never in great fin, vor.