rts and Pastimes," 1876, p. 143.

The phrase to "bid the base," means to run fast, challenging another to
pursue. It occurs again in "Venus and Adonis:"

"To bid the wind a base he now prepares."

In Spenser's "Fairy Queen" (bk. v. canto 8), we read:

"So ran they all as they had been at base,
They being chased that did others chase."

_Bat-fowling._ This sport, which is noticed in "The Tempest" (ii. 1) by
Sebastian, was common in days gone by. It is minutely described in
Markham's "Hunger's Prevention" (1600), which is quoted by Dyce.[773]
The term "bat-fowling," however, had another signification, says Mr.
Harting,[774] in Shakespeare's day, and it may have been in this
secondary sense that it is used in "The Tempest," being a slang word for
a particular mode of cheating. Bat-fowling was practised about dusk,
when the rogue pretended to have dropped a ring or a jewel at the door
of some well-furnished shop, and, going in, asked the apprentice of the
house to light his candle to look for it. After some peering about the
bat-fowler would drop the candle as if by accident. "Now, I pray you,
good young man," he would say, "do so much as light the candle again."
While the boy was away the rogue plundered the shop, and having stolen
everything he could find stole himself away.

[773] "Glossary," pp. 29, 30.

[774] See Harting's "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 156;
Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," 1876, p. 98. A simple mode of
bat-fowling, by means of a large clap-net and a lantern, and
called bird-batting, is alluded to in Fielding's "Joseph
Andrews" (bk. ii. chap. x.). Drake thinks that it is to a
stratagem of this kind Shakespeare alludes when he paints
Buckingham exclaiming ("Henry VIII." i. 1):

"The net has fall'n upon me; I shall perish
Under device and practice."

_Billiards._ Shakespeare is guilty of an anachronism in "Antony and
Cleopatra" (ii. 5), where he makes Cleopatra say: "Let's to
billiards"--the game being unknown to the ancients. The modern manner of
playing at billiards differs from that formerly in use. At the
commencement of the last century,[775] the billiard-table was square,
having only three pockets for the balls to run in, situated on one of
the sides--that is, at each corner, and the third between them. About the
middle of the table a small arch of iron was placed, and at a little
distance from it an upright cone called a king.