beare' George Stone at a baiting before the King of Denmark in 1606 is lamented in the petition of Henslowe and Alleyn to the King for increased fees already described. One other interesting notice of the sport may be added from the Dulwich collection, and that is an advertisement or 'bill' of the entertainment, which runs as follows:
'Tomorrowe beinge Thursdaie shalbe seen at the Beargardin on the
banckside a greate mach plaid by the gamstirs of Essex who hath
chalenged all comers what soeuer to plaie v dogges at the single beare
for v pounds and also to wearie a bull dead at the stake and for your
better content shall haue plasant sport with the horse and ape and
whiping of the blind beare. Viuat Rex.'[1]
Where then was the Bear Garden? This is a point upon
which the foreign visitors are not very explicit. From them
we could infer little more than that it was transpontine. It has
already been pointed out that in official documents, at any
rate those of a less formal character than a patent under the
great seal, the Mastership is described as the Mastership of
the Game of, or at, Paris Garden. With this common parlance
agrees.[2] In the allusions of the pamphleteers and poets, from
the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth
century, Paris or Parish Garden is regularly the place of
baiting.[3] 'The Beare-garden, commonly called Paris Garden',
says Stowe, speaking of 1583.[4] At Paris Garden, or as it is
sometimes corruptly spelt, 'Pallas Garden', Henslowe and
Alleyn have their office as Masters[5] in 1607, and near it Alleyn*
- ↑ Henslowe Papers, 106.
- ↑ Copley Accounts, s. a. 1575, in Collectanea Genealogica et Topographica, viii. 253, 'Gyven to the master of Paryshe Garden his man for goynge with Thos. Sharples into Barmensy Street to see certen mastyve dogges'.
- ↑ R. Crowley, One and thyrtye Epigrammes (1550, ed. E. E. T. S.), 381:
And yet me thynke those men be mooste foles of all,
Whose store of money is but verye smale,
And yet euerye Sondaye they will surely spende
One peny or two, the bearwardes lyuyng to mende.
At Paryse garden, eche Sundaye, a man shall not fayle
To fynde two or thre hundredes for the bearwardes vaile.
One halpenye a piece they vse for to giue,
When some haue no more in their purse, I belieue;Jonson, Execration upon Vulcan (Works, iii. 322):
a threatning to the bears,
And that accursed ground, the Paris-garden;Taylor, Bull, Bear and Horse (1638):
And that we have obtained again the game,
Our Paris Garden flag proclaims the same.Cf. Sir John Davies' lines already quoted; also Dekker, ii. 125 (News from Hell), iv. 109 (Work for Armourers), &c., &c..
- ↑ Stowe, Annales, 695.
- ↑ Henslowe Papers, 15, 104. Miss Dormer Harris kindly tells me that
