Sea Fights.

In Easter holidays they counterfeit a sea fight: a pole is set up in the middle of the river, with a target well fastened thereon, and a young man stands in a boat which is rowed with oars, and driven on with the tide, who with his spear hits the target in his passage; with which blow, if he brake the spear and stand upright, so that he hold footing, he hath his desire; but, if his spear continue unbroken by the blow, he is tumbled into the water, and his boat passeth clear away; but on either side this target, two ships stand in ward, with many young men ready to take him up, after he is sunk, as soon as he appeareth again on the top of the water: The spectators stand upon the bridge, and in solars upon the river to behold these things, being prepared for laughter.

Summer Sports.

Upon the holidays all summer the youth is exereised in leaping, shooting, wrestling, casting of stones, and throwing of javelines fitted with loops. for the purpose, which they strive to fling beyond the mark; they also use bucklers, like fighting men.

As for the maidens, they have their exercise of dancing and tripping until moon-light.

Fighting of Boars, Bulls, and Bears.

In winter, almost every holiday before dinner, the foaming boars fight for their heads, and prepare with deadly tusks to be made bacon; or else some lusty bulls or huge bears, are baited with dogs.

Sport upon Ice.

When that great moor which washeth Moor-fields, at the north wall of the city, is frozen over, great companies of young men go to sport upon the ice; then fetching a run, and setting their feet at a distance, and placing their bodies sidewise, they slide a great way. Others take heaps of ice, as if it were great mill-stones, and make seats: many going before, draw him that sits thereon, holding one another by the hand in going so fast, some slipping with their feet, all fall down together: some are better practised to the ice, and bind to their shoes bones, as the legs of some beasts, and hold stakes in their hands headed with sharp iron, which some

times they strike against the ice; and these men go on with speed as doth a bird in the air, or darts shot from some warlike engine: sometimes two men set themselves at a distance, and run one against ano, ther as it were at tilt, with these stakes, wherewith one or both parties are thrown down, not without some hurt to their bodies; and after their fall, by reason of the violent motion, are carried a good distance from one another, and wheresoever the ice doth touch their head, it rubs off all the skin and lays it bare; and if one fall upon his leg or arm, it is usually broken: but young men greedy of honour, and desirous of victory, do thus exercise themselves in counterfeit battles, that they may bear the brunt more strongly, when they come to it in good earpest.

Sport with Birds and Dogs.

Many citizens take delight in birds, as sparrow, hawks, goss-hawks, and such like, and in dogs to hunt in the woody ground. The citizens have authority to hunt in Middlesex, Hertfordshire, all the Chilterns, and in Kent, as far as Gray-water,

In tumbling over these huge volumes, I met with an account of a very remarkable effect of fear, or rather of horror, which I shall insert for its astonishing singularity.

A person lately living in this hamlet (Poplar, a village on the Thames, adjoining Blackwall,) having a great concern for the safety of a ship that was like to break her back at Blackwall, had his blood and spirits set into such an extraordinary ferment, or ebullition rather, by the fear of her miscarriage, that by the violence of it, the tops of the nails of his hands and feet were cast off to a great distance from their natural situation, and so remained to his death.

The Survey of London was compiled with astonishing industry, and commonly with equal accuracy, from the most authentic records and his torians. Stow was urged to the task (as he says himself) by a general invitation of Mr. Lambard to several of the cotemporary antiquaries, to write the histories of their native counties. The work gives a view of the government of the city both ecclesiastical and civil-of the churches, hospitals, and religious houses, down to the fortieth year of queen Elizabeth. The

most complete edition of this work, with considerable additions and improvements, is that of Strype, in two very large volumes folio, 1720; which was reprinted in 1755, still improved. The subsequent compilations of the accounts of London-those of Hatton, Seymour, and Maitland, are founded on Stow's Survey.

3. The only other work published in our author's life-time, was that entitled, Flores Historiarum, or Annals of England, from the time of the Ancient Britons to his own; which was merely an abstract of his larger work, stiled,

4. "The Chronicle, or History of England;" which work entire was considered by the bookseller to be too extensive a speculation, at that particular time, on account of the recent publication of Holinshed. This production was published from his papers after his death by Edmund Howes, in one folio volume, and which is commonly known by the name of Stow's Chronicle. It was printed in 1615, and 1631, in black letter.

5. But even this publication is said not to contain the whole of that far larger work which Stow left prepared for the press. This