bear-baiting was revived,
the Hope was again fitted up as an amphitheatre and opened to the
public. The Earl of Manchester, on September 29, 1664, wrote to the
city authorities, requesting that the butchers be required, as of old,
to provide food for the dogs and bears:

He had been informed by the Master of His Majesty's Game of
Bears and Bulls, and others, that the Butchers' Company had
formerly caused all their offal in Eastcheap and Newgate
Market to be conveyed by the beadle of that Company unto
two barrow houses, conveniently placed on the river side,
for the provision and feeding of the King's Game of Bears,
which custom had been interrupted in the late troubles when
the bears were killed. His Majesty's game being now removed
to the usual place on the Bankside, by Order of the Council,
he recommended the Court of Aldermen to direct the Master
and Wardens of the Butchers' Company to have their offal
conveyed as formerly for the feeding of the bears, &c.[562]

[Footnote 562: _The Remembrancia_, p. 478. Quoted by Ordish, _Early
London Theatres_, p. 241.]

For some years the Bear Garden flourished as it had in the days of
Elizabeth and James. It was frequently visited by Samuel Pepys, who
has left vivid accounts of several performances there. In his _Diary_,
August 14, 1666, he writes:

After dinner with my wife and Mercer to the Bear-garden;
where I have not been, I think, of many years, and saw some
good sport of the bull's tossing of the dogs: one into the
very boxes. But it is a very rude and nasty pleasure. We had
a great many hectors in the same box with us (and one, very
fine, went into the pit, and played his dog for a wager,
which was a strange sport for a gentleman), where they drank
wine, and drank Mercer's health first; which I pledged with
my hat off.

John Evelyn, likewise, in his _Diary_, June 16, 1670, records a visit
to the Bear Garden:

I went with some friends to the Bear Garden, where was
cock-fighting, dog-fighting, bear- and bull-baiting, it
being a famous day for all these butcherly sports, or rather
barbarous cruelties. The bulls did exceeding well; but the
Irish wolf-dog exceeded, which was a tall greyhound, a
stately creature indeed, who beat a cruel mastiff. One of
the bulls tossed a dog full into a lady's lap as she sat in
one of the box