horse, and who the foot, we turned the hour-glass, which
before it was half run out, we could not possibly truly number them,
they came so exceedingly fast; but there we broke off, and made our
account of 309 horses, and 137 footmen, which course continued that day
from four o'clock in the morning till three o'clock in the afternoon,
and the day before also, as the host of the house told us, without
intermission." Besides establishing the existence of the renowned _Bell_
at this period, the foregoing passage is curious in other respects.

CHAPTER XIV.

The May-Queen and the Puritan's Daughter.

Popular sports and pastimes were wisely encouraged by James the First,
whose great consideration for the enjoyments of the humbler classes of
his subjects cannot be too highly commended; and since the main purpose
of this history is to point out some of the abuses prevalent during his
reign, it is but fair that at least one of the redeeming features should
be mentioned. It has ever been the practice of sour-spirited
sectarianism to discountenance recreations of any kind, however
harmless, on the Sabbath; and several flagrant instances of this sort of
interference, on the part of the puritanical preachers and their
disciples, having come before James during his progress through the
northern counties of England, and especially Lancashire, he caused, on
his return to London, his famous Declaration concerning Lawful Sports on
Sundays and holidays to be promulgated; wherein a severe rebuke was
administered to the Puritans and precisians, and the cause of the people
espoused in terms, which, while most creditable to the monarch, are not
altogether inapplicable to other times besides those in which they were
delivered. "Whereas," says King James, in his Manifesto, "We did justly
rebuke some Puritans and precise people, and took order that the like
unlawful carriage should not be used by any of them hereafter, in the
prohibiting and unlawful punishing of our good people for using their
lawful recreations and honest exercises upon Sundays and other holidays,
after the afternoon sermon or service: we now find that two sorts of
people wherewith that country is much infested (we mean Papists and
Puritans) have maliciously traduced those our just and honourable
proceedings. And therefore we have thought good hereby to clear and make
our pleasure to be manifested to all our good people in those parts."
And he sums up his arguments,