down quietly on my table. We arranged all
things for our meeting the next day and it
was settled that he should call upon me, and
that I should be ready for him by half past
one o'clock.

" I moralised in a lack-a-daisical manner,
for about half an hour, upon the vices and
backslidings of this life, and then betook
myself to "The Directions for Breeding
^ame Cocks, with Calculations for Betting,"
and passed the evening in cultivating an
acquaintance with " moulting" " clutches of
eggs,"" stags," " long-law," "fighting
in silver," and the like : and long before the
clock of St. James's church had timed eleven
to the drowsy hackney-coachmen and watch-
men of Piccadilly, I was fit to sit " at the
mat," and risk my " guinea on Nash."

I think I cannot do better than treat you,
Russell, in the same manner that I treated
myself and I shall, therefore, pick my way
daintily through the book which Tom lent
me (a neat little olive-coloured pamphlet,
and writ in a friendly Waltonish tone), and
thus prepare you, in some measure, for the
cockpit itself, to which, by your favor, I mean
to introduce you.

And first, as to the choice of a bird. Observe,
Russell, how many points must be attended
to :

As to the exterior qualifications, his head
should be thin and long, or if short, very
taper; with a large full eye, his beak crooked
and stout, his neck thick and long (for a cock
with a long neck has a great advantage in
his battle, particularly if his antagonist is
one of those^kind of cocks that will fight at
no other place but the head); his body short
and compact, with a round breast (as a sharp
breasted cock carries a great deal of useless
weight about him, and never has a fine fore-
hand) ; his thighs firm and thick, and placed
well up to the shoulder (for when a cock's
thighs hang dangling behind him, be assured
he never can maintain a long battle) ; his legs
long and thick, and if they correspond with
the colour of his beak, I think it a perfection ;
and his feet should be broad and thin, with
very long claws*



With regard to his carriage, he should e
upright, but not stiffly so; his walk nhould
be stately, with his wings in some measure
extended, and not plod along a? I have seen
some cocks do, with their wings upon theii
backs like geese.

As to the colour he is of, I think it imma-
terial, for there are good cocks of all colours ;
but he should be thin of feathers, short and
very hard, which is another proof of his
being healthy : as, on the contrary, if he has
many, soft and long, it favors much of his
having a bad constitution.

Remember, that a cock with all this stout-
ness of beak, length, and thickness of leg,
rotundity of breast, a fine forehand," firm-
ness of neck, and extent of wing, ought to
weigh no more than 4lb. 8 or lOoz. If he
happens to have an ounce or two more in his
composition, he is out of the pale of uncivil
society, and is excluded by all match makers
" from fighting within the articles." A bird,
to be a bird " fit for the white bag, the trimmed
wing, the mat, and the silver spur," must
be " high upon leg, light fleshed, and large
boned ; but still no more than 4lb. 8 or lOoz.
Do not forget this."

The art is to teach in classes, and to recon-
cile as many at a time as is practicable, to
their growing duties. It is surely pleasant
to l) safely instructed how to bring up a
chicken in the way it should go. The ama-
teur writes

" I have heard many persons declare, who
could have had no experience in breeding
fowls, that they did not think it necessary
that a hen should be confined while her
chickens were young, and had just sense
enough to say, that nature never designed it ;
but let me tell those naturalists (naturals I
may call them), if a hen should lay a clutch
of eggs secretly in January, as it is not un-
common for young hens to lay in that month
and sit upon them, consequently, if there are
any chickens hatched, it must be in February,
when if she is not taken in doors, but left to
range where she pleases, I am confident that
the cold northerly winds and wet weather,
which are usual at that season of the year,
will destroy every one of them."

The little playfulness in the parenthesis,
which is like the flirt of the cock's wing,
gratifies me much. The shrewdness at the
end of the next direction is, however, of a
higher order it is the cut of the spur. It is
curious to observe how man's wit is fashioned
and coloured by the subject of which it treats.
The very style is cock-like ! It is indeed
well concerted !

" Be sure also that they do not drink any
soap suds, or get to any filthy place, for if
they do, it engenders distempers in them
which very often turn to that fatal one the
roup, a disease for which I have heard many
remedies, but never found any so effectual as
breaking their necks."

Now. to prevent their fighting from being
attended with such disagreeable consequences,



PIERCE EGAN'S BOOK OF SPORTS.



149



after they have begun, divide them into as
many parties as you can find separate apart-
ments, leaving the strongest upon the ground,
and when these have fully established their
authority over each other (which you make
them do in the course of two days, by holding
which you find the weakest in your hand, and
buffeting him with your handkerchief while
the other strikes him, and, if this won't do,
confine him without victuals for a few hours,
until he is cold, when, being stiff and sore,
and the other fresh, after a blow or two he
will not attack him again), you may put down
the strongest from one the parties that are
shut up, who, by being kept short of food, will
submit directly to run under all those that are
down ; and, when they are so far reconciled
as to permit him to run amongst them, put
down the strongest from another party, which
will submit in the same manner, and, by pur-
suing this method, in the course of a few days
you will be able to get them all down. When
once settled, they will go very peaceably to-
gether, except by accident one of them should
get disfigured, which, if such a thing should
happen, and they do not seem to be perfectly
reconciled, send him to another walk for fear
of a general quarrel.

The author is very particular in recommend-
ing you cautiously to try your stags (which
are young cocks " and such small deer !")

" Now permit me to recommend you to trans-
act the business relative to trying your stags,
without mentioning it even to the person that
feeds them."

One more quotation, and I lay aside the
book. It is an anecdote, Russell, or such
the author calls it. He is reasoning, "beak
and heel," against relying upon cocks in a
second battle, however courageous and victo-
rious they may have proved themselves in
their first fight. He says, a bird is almost
sure to receive some hurt, which neither time,
training, nor feeding can make him forget,
when he comes " to be touched" a second
time. A slight hurry (or hurt) is often re-
membered,

I recollect a circumstance (says this circum-
stantial artist) of this kind happening to a
neighbouring gentleman, who, having entered
into an agreement to fight a week's play, at a
very short notice, and not being able to get a
sufficient number of cocks he could depend
upon, had the temerity to weigh in some of
his own stags, of about ten or eleven months
old, and it so happened that one of them had
to fight against the cock the other party de-
pended most upon winning ; but after a doubt-
ful and bloody contest for near half an hour,
contrary to the opinions of every one present,
the stag came off victorious, which so elated
his master, that he sent him to one of his best
walks to run till the next season ; but what
was very extraordinary, he moulted from a
daik red to a very light ginger pile. This
slnm^e metamorphose we were totally at a
lots to account for. when svewere informed by



a person who spoke pertinently on the sub-
ject, that it was owing to his having been so
severely handled in his battle ; that he had
seen two or three instances of the same kind ;
and at the same time advised my friend never
to fight him again, for it was almost reduced
to a certainty that he would be beat if he hap-
pened to fall in weight with a good cock. But
this piece of advice my friend did not attend
to, having him weighed in the very next
match he made, and in which he was killed,
making hardly any defence, although as well
to fight with regard to the feeding part, as it
was possible for a cock to be.

In fighting a match the author recommends
a carefulness in the choice of a feeder (the
person who is to give the bird his last train-
ing food, and care), and of a setter-to (the se-
cond, in fact, of the cock in battle). Therr
are good and bad feeders and good arid bad
setters-to " I have seen " says the writer,
" many of the latter, who do not know when a
" cock wants rest, and when he should be
made to fight."*

So much for the little learned tract which
Tom put into my hands ! The moment, he
left me 1 turned to my book-shelves, and
among several old and curious volumes, I for-
tunately dropped upon The Court and City
Gamester, a rare little store-house of know-
ledge for those who would become masters in
the arts of whist, racing, tick-tack, ombre,
archery, brag, bankafalet, put, and cocking.
The style " eats short " as old ladies say of
Threadneedle-street biscuits ; and, to show
you how differently the same subject may be
treated by different writers, I shall copy out
this ancient artist's picture of a game cock,
" as he ought to be, not as he is !" You
will at once detect the hand of a gentleman a
cocker, and a scholar in the work.

His head ought to be small, with a quick,
large eye, and a strong back, and (as master
Markham observes) must be crockt and big
at the setting on, and in colour suitable to
the plume of his feathers, whether black or yel-
low, or reddish, &c. The beam of his leg must
be very strong, and, according to his plume,
blue, grey, or, yellow ; his spurs rough, long
and sharp, a little bending, and looking
inward.

His colour ought to be either grey, yellow,
or red, with a black breast; not but that there
are many other coloured piles very excellent
good, which you must find out by practice and
observation ; but the three former, by the ex-
perience of most, are found ever the best ; the
pyed pile may serve indifferently, but the
white and dun are rarely found good for any
thing.

Note, that if your cock's neck be invested
with a scarlet complexion, it is a sign he ix

* There are bettting-tables, and calculations of odds
annexed to this little pamphlet, which put the Tutor's'
Assistant quite out of countenance. The subject, auJ
the ability that marks the (execution, leads me to
think that Cocker had some hand in them.



150



PIERCE EGAN'S BOOK OF SPORTS.



strong, lusty, and courageous; but, on the
contrary, if pale and wan, it denotes the cock
to be faint, and in health defective.

You may know his courage by his proud,
upright standing, and stately tread in walking;
and, if he croweth very frequently in the pen,
it is a courageous demonstration.

His narrow heel, or sharpness of heel, is
known no otherways than by observation in
fighting, and that is when upon every rising
lie so hits that he extracts blood from his op-
ponent, gilding his spurs continually, and
every blow threatening immediate death to
his adversary.

The whole essay is admirable ; but I shut
the book of science, contenting myself and
you with extracting only the following

EXCELLENT AND ELEGANT COPY OF VERSES
UPON TWO COCKS FIGHTING, BY DR. R.
WILD.*

No so.oner were the doubtful people set,

The match made up, and all that would had bet ;

But strait the skilful judges of the play

Brought forth their sharp-heel'd warriors, and they

Were both in linen bags, as if 'twere meet

Before they died, to have their winding-sheet.

Into the pit they're brought, and, being there

Upon the st*ge, the Norfolk Chanticleer

Looks stoutly at his ne'er before seen foe,

And like a challenger bepan to crow,

And clap his wings, as if he would display

His warlike colours, which were black and prey.

Meantime the wary Wisbich walks and breathes

His active body, and in fury wreathes

His comely crest, and, often looking down,

He whets his angry beak upon the ground.

This done they meet, not like that coward breed

Of /Esop ; these can better light than feed ;

They scorn the dunghill, 'tis their only prize

To dig for pearls within each other's eyes.

They fought so nimbly, that 'twas hard to know,

To th' skilful, whether they did fight, or no j

If that the blood which dy'd the fatal floor,

Had not bore witness oft. Yet fought they more ;

As if each wound were but a spur to prick

Their fury forward. Lightning's not more quick,

Or red, than were their eyes : 'Twas hard to kuow

Whether 'twas blood or anger made them so

I'm sure they had been out, had they not stood,

More safe, by being fenced in with blood.

Thus they vy'd blows ; but yet (alas !) at length,

Altho' their courage were full try'd, their strength

And blood began to ebb. You that have seen

A watry combat on the sea, between

Two angry, roaring, boiling billows, how

They march, and meet, and dash their curled brow ;

Swelling like graves, as tho' they did intend

T'intomb each other e'er the quarrel end ;

But when the wind is down, and blust'ring weather,

They are made friends, and sweetly run together ;

May think these champions such ; their blood grows

low.
And they, which leap'd before, now scarce can go ;

* Dr. Robert Wild, the author of the above poem,
claims by our extract to be better known and remem-
bered. He was a non-conformist divine and poet ; and
was born in 1609. In 1648 he was appointed rector of
Aynho, in Northamptonshire, and was looked upon as
a wit of his time. It is told of him that he and ano-
ther preached probationary sermons for the living, and
that on his being asked whether he had obtained it,
lu> replied" We have divided it ; I have got the AY,
and he the NO." Wood speaks of him as a " Fat,
jolly, and boon Presbyterian." Some of his poems
were printed with the poems of Rochester, (no very
creditable distinction), and (apparently ,'is an atone-
ment) a few of his sermons survived him. He appears
by his poem to have been a resolute cocker and a
tolerable poet



Their wings, which lately, at each blow they clapp'd

(As if they did applaud themselves) now flapp'd.

And having lost th' advantage of the heel,

Drunk with each other's blood, they only reel :

From either eyes such drops of blood did fall,

As if they wept them for their funeral.

And yet they fain would fight ; they came so near,

Methought they meant into each other's ear

To whisper wounds ; and when they could not rissj

They lay and look'd blows int' each other's eyes.

But now the tragick part ! After this fit,

When Norfolk cock had got the best of it

And Wisbich lay a dying, so that none,

Tho' sober, but might venture sev'n to one ;

Contracting, like a dying taper, all

His strength, intending with the blow to fall,

He struggles up, and having taken wind,

Ventures a blow, and strikes the other blind,

And now poor Norfolk, having lost his eyes,

Fights only guided by antipathies :

With him (alas !) the proverb holds not true,

The blows his eyes ne'er saw, his heart roust rue.

At length, by chance, he stumbled on his foe.

Not having any pow'r to strike a blow.

He falls upon him with his wounded head,

And makes his conqu'ror's wings his feather-bed.

Tom Owen called punctually on the day,
and at the appointed hour, dressed up duti-
fully for the sport, and well fitted to rival a
horse-dealer or a groom yet with a loose-
hung gentility about him, that just left it a
matter of doubt whether you ought to ask him
into your drawing-room or your stable. We
took our way across the park with hasty, eagtr
feet, and were with very little difficulty soon:
conducted to the door of a dull, old-fashioned
buildinginTufton-street.AVestminster, around
which were sauntering a sprinkle of old gen-
tlemen, old hackney-masters, old sportsmen^
old leathern-breeches, old top-boots, old canes,
old nondescripts : all that was strange, and
vitiated, and extravagant in age seemed col-
lected about this spot ; and I could not but
remark how few I saw of the young, the
rakish, and the depraved, present at a sport
which was cruel enough for excitement, and
uncertain enough for the purposes of gam-
bling. One or two solitaries of a youthful ap-
pearance dangled about as half in shame
and half in curiosity ; but I detected
none of the enthusiastic bustle, none of the
wildness, spirit, and pleasure which light up
" young bloods" at other of the ancient and
rude sports of this country. One very re-
spectable and aged gentleman on crutches
struggled his way on the unmolested pave-
ment to the door, as though the fires of his
youth would not go out, and accident or dis-
ease could not warn him to subside into the
proprieties of his years. The doors were at
length opened, and we paid our entrance
money, and received the check for admission.
This check was cast in pewter, and had the
figure of a fighting-cock embossed upon it.
But we entered the pit !

The cock-pit is a large, lofty, and circular
building, with seats rising, as in an amphi-
theatre.* In the middle of it is a round mat-

* The Royal Cock-pit in St. James's Park has been
taken down, and never again to be rebuilt. The
Governors and Trustees of Christ's Hospital, to whom
the ground belongs, met on the spot, the very day the
lease expired ; and pave directions for the immediate
erasement of the building.



PIERCE EGAN'S BOOK OF SPORTS.



151



ted stage, of about eighteen or twenty feet
diameter, as nearly as my eye can measure it,
and rimmed with an edge eight or ten inches
in height, to keep the cocks from falling over
in their combats. There is a chalk ring in
the centre of the matted stage, of perhaps a
yard diameter, and another chalk mark within
it, much smaller, which is intended for the
setting-to, when the shattered birds are so
enfeebled as to have no power of making hostile
advances towards each other. This inner
mark admits cf their being placed beak to
beak. A large and rude branched candle-
stick is suspended low down, immediately
over the mat, which is used at the night
battles.

When we entered there were very few per-
sons in the pit ; for, as the gentlemen of the
match were not seated, the principal followers
of the sport were beguiling the time at a
public-house opposite the cockpit. A tall,
shambling, ill-dressed fellow was damping the
mat with a mop, which he constantly dipped
in a pail of water, and sparingly, and most
carefully sprinkled around him. This was
to make it soft for the birds, and to prevent
their slipping. We took our seats at the foot
of a flight of stairs, that went up into one of
the coops judging that that would be the
best spot for seeing as much as was to be seen.
There are two " tiring rooms" of course for
the separate sides. One room, or more pro-
perly, coop, is up the flight of stairs I have
mentioned ; the other is beneath it, and has
its entrance without the pit. At this time my

friend Tom's friend, Mr. D , arrived, and

I was introduced to him at once. He was a
young man (I was almost sorry for this, be-
cause it untied a theory of mine, respecting
the sport being a propensity of age only,
owing, as I had settled it, to its being easy of
enjoyment, a sedentary amusement, not trou-
blesome to the beholders, cruel enough to stir
the blood, and open to money-stakes like a
game at cards : played in fact at a table, and
under shelter. However, my theory is foolish).

Mr. D , as I said, was young, he was also

lusty, fresh-coloured, cheerful ; open as day
in his manners and in his conversation ; and
free from that slang slyness which generally
characterises the sporting man. Tom told him
that I was anxious to see and know all I
could ; and he immediately opened to me the
curiosities of the place, with a lively liberty,
and a power of description, which I wish in
my heart I could have caught from him. See-
ing that he was thus so pleasantly minded, I
began boldly at the beginning, and begged to
know something of the rules and regulations
of cocking. He turned-to at them, in high
feather, on the instant.

The birds, Russell (I am saying after him),
are weighed and matched and then marked
and numbered. The descriptions are carefully
set down in order that the cock may not be
changed ; and the lightest cocks fight first in
order. The key of the pens, in which the



weighing-table on the day of weighing;. or
the opposite party may, if he pleases, put a
lock on the door. The utmost possible care,
in short, is taken that the matched birds shall
fight, and no substitutes intruded.

Mr. D , next gave me a very particular

description of the modes of setting-to of
terminating difficult battles of betting and
of parting the entangled birds ; but as I
really could not very clearly follow his rapid
and spirited explanation, and as I am about
to relate to you a battle as I myself saw it,
I will not detain you here with my imperfect
detail of his very perfect description.

But before the birds are pitted, Mr,

D 's account of a few of the characters

must not be omitted. I cannot at all give you
them in colours, as my new friend dashed
them off : but I will follow him in a respectful
Indian-ink, and at a distance ; and you must
make the most you can of what I am able to
afford you.

" There was a tall, sallow-faced, pow-
dered man standing below us. He took
snuff industriously, wore very yellow leathern
breeches, very brown aged top-boots, and
a black coat of the same colour. He was
sixty years of age if he was a month and I
never saw a dull man so enlivened as he was
with this his betting hour t o.nd the approaching
warfare. He had a word for every one near
him, and a restlessness which would not allow
him to wait for answers. I found that he
was a hackney-coach proprietor, and that
cockfighting was his only amusement. He
thought playing at cards a waste of time, a
disgraceful kind of gambling, and he could
not endure the barbarities of a man-fight,
which he called " seeing two human crea-
tures knock each other to pieces for other
people's sport." Cockfighting was the only
game ! He was steady in his business, when
no cockfight was on the carpet, and idle and
tacit in a public-house parlour at nights.
But in the pit he was at home. Sovereigns
were golden dust, which blew about in the
breath of his opinion ; and he rose into per-
fect life only in the presence of * a Shrop-
shire Red,' or * a Ginger Pile !'

" Nearly opposite to this person was a very
orderly, quiet, respectably dressed man, with
a formal, low-crowned, broad brimmed hat,
a black suit of clothes, and a dark silk
umbrella. He was trying to look demure
and unmoved ; but I was told that he was a
clergyman, and that he would be " quite up
in the stirrups" when the cocks were brought
in. He forced himself to be at ease ; but I
saw his small, hungry, hazel eyes quite in a
fever, and his hot, thin, vein-embossed hand,
rubbing the unconscious nob of his umbrella
in a way to awaken it from the dead : and
yet all the time he was affecting the uninter-
ested incurious man ! The cloth was half in
his mind ! He would fain still be a clergy-
man but he had ' no spur to prick the sides
of his intent!'

" Another person, very small, very dap-



152



PIERCE EGAN'S BOOK OF SPORTS.



per, powdered like a gentleman of the old
school, with glossy grey silk stockings, high
ancled shoes and buckles, perked up against
the pit, affecting nothing, caring for no
one, but living, revelling in the ancient
sport. He bowed smartly around him, looked
about with a couple of nimble bird-like eyes,
crowned one or two offered bets, and sent
the little white tip of his extremely thin pig-
tail from shoulder to shoulder, with an alacrity
which showed that he was * a hearty old
cock' still ; and had neither of his little
silken legs in the grave !

" The lame old gentleman was seated close
to the mat, and sat pillowed in fatness on a
truss of straw, which one of the feeders had
procured for him, to make his position less
painful. He closed a bet quietly, with the
end of his crutch touching the ferule of the
umbrella of a tall, gaunt, white-faced man in
bright blue (a tailor as I learned) ; and thus