nt prevailing amusements, it will be
found, that if many have been dropped, at least in the metropolis, which
it might have been desirable to retain, several also have been
abandoned, of which we cannot by any means regret the loss; while those
that remain to us, participating in the advancement of civilization,
have in some instances become much more intellectual in their character,
and in others have assumed more elegant, humane, and unobjectionable
forms. Bull and bear-baiting, cock-throwing and fighting, and such like
barbarous pastimes, have long been on the wane, and will, it is to be
hoped, soon become totally extinct. That females of rank and education
should now frequent such savage scenes, seems so little within the scope
of possibility that we can hardly credit their ever having done so, even
in times that were comparatively barbarous."

Truly, as Charles Mathews says, "we are losing all our amusements." Then
follow about thirty pages of Holiday Notices; a sort of running
commentary on the Calendar. The spaces of the days, however, are sadly
disproportioned. Shrove Tuesday occupies upwards of two pages; Good
Friday and Easter are pruned into the same space; May Day has upwards of
four pages, more than half of which are taken up with the author's own
embellishment: still, not a word has he on the _poetry_ of the Day
beyond his motto from Herrick. Field Sports, as Hawking and Archery,
occupy the next thirty pages; but Mr. Smith is wofully deficient in the
latter department: for instance, how is it that he has not even
mentioned the archery at Harrow School,[4] and the existence of archery
clubs in the present day.--Bull-fights and Baiting of Animals occupy the
next forty pages in two chapters, one of which has been mostly
transcribed from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. An original account of a
Spanish Bull Fight occupies twenty pages, and is interesting, but rather
out of place among English sports. Dancing has thirty pages, for which
the Encyclopaedia Britannica has also been very freely taxed. Morris
Dancers have ten pages. Jugglers have about the same space, chiefly from
Strutt and Brand: Beckmann's chapter might have been added. Music and
Minstrels have thirty pages, from Hawkins and Burney. Mr. Singer's
curious work has furnished about twenty pages on Playing Cards. Chess is
compressed within ten pages! The English Drama, thirty pages, is
acknowledged from Hawkins's History of the English Drama, Cibber, and