yhouses were to be dismantled, the spectators fined, the
actors whipped at the cart's tail. Rope-dancing, puppet-shows, bowls,
horse-racing, were regarded with no friendly eye. But bearbaiting, then
a favourite diversion of high and low, was the abomination which
most strongly stirred the wrath of the austere sectaries. It is to be
remarked that their antipathy to this sport had nothing in common with
the feeling which has, in our own time, induced the legislature to
interfere for the purpose of protecting beasts against the wanton
cruelty of men. The Puritan hated bearbaiting, not because it gave pain
to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. Indeed,
he generally contrived to enjoy the double pleasure of tormenting both
spectators and bear. [16]

Perhaps no single circumstance more strongly illustrates the temper of
the precisians than their conduct respecting Christmas day. Christmas
had been, from time immemorial, the season of joy and domestic
affection, the season when families assembled, when children came home
from school, when quarrels were made up, when carols were heard in every
street, when every house was decorated with evergreens, and every
table was loaded with good cheer. At that season all hearts not utterly
destitute of kindness were enlarged and softened. At that season the
poor were admitted to partake largely of the overflowings of the wealth
of the rich, whose bounty was peculiarly acceptable on account of
the shortness of the days and of the severity of the weather. At that
season, the interval between landlord and tenant, master and servant,
was less marked than through the rest of the year. Where there is much
enjoyment there will be some excess: yet, on the whole, the spirit in
which the holiday was kept was not unworthy of a Christian festival. The
long Parliament gave orders, in 1644, that the twenty-fifth of December
should be strictly observed as a fast, and that all men should pass it
in humbly bemoaning the great national sin which they and their fathers
had so often committed on that day by romping under the mistletoe,
eating boar's head, and drinking ale flavored with roasted apples. No
public act of that time seems to have irritated the common people more.
On the next anniversary of the festival formidable riots broke out in
many places. The constables were resisted, the magistrates insulted, the
houses of noted zealots attacked, and the prescribed service of the day