But Butler also talks of Bear baiting, both in the first and second cantos of "Hudibras," especially in canto the first, where, beginning at line 675, he says:
"But now a Sport more formidable Had rak'd together Village Rabble: 'Twas an old Way of recreating-- Which learned Butchers call Bear-Baiting: A bold advent'rous Exercise, With ancient Heroes in high Prize; For Authors do affirm it came From Isthmian or Nemean Game; Others derive it from the Bear That's fix'd in Northern Hemisphere, And round about the Pole does make A Circle like a Bear at Stake. That at the Chain's End wheels about, And overturns the Rabble Rout. For, after solemn Proclamation In the Bear's Name (as is the Fashion According to the Law of Arms, To keep men from inglorious Harms) That none presume to come so near As forty Foot of Stake of Bear; If any yet be so foolhardy T' expose themselves to vain Jeopardy; If they come wounded off, and lame, No honour's got by such a Maim; Altho' the Bear gain much; b'ing bound In Honour to make good his Ground, When he's engag'd and takes no Notice, If any press upon him, who 'tis, But let's them know, at their own Cost, That he intends to keep his Post."
Bear baiting was so identified, as a sport, to the London Citizens who frequented Hockley-in-the-Hole, that we read that in 1709 Christopher Preston, who then kept the Bear Garden, was attacked and partly eaten by one of his own bears.
Bear Gardens are proverbially rough, and this place was no exception; but there were two others in London where bears were baited, one at Marrybone Fields (at the back of Soho Square), and at Tuttle or Tothill Fields, at Westminster--thus showing the popularity of the Sports, which was not declared illegal until 1835.
Of course in these our days, we know nothing of bear baiting, and if a Pyrenean bear were now taken about the country, as I have frequently seen them, even if he "danced to the genteelest of tunes," his proprietor would be in danger of the judgment--some dear mollycoddling old woman in trousers, belonging to some special "faddy" society, being always ready to prosecute.
Bears not, at present, being indigenous to Britain, were naturally scarce, so the homely and offensive Bull had to afford rough sport to the multitude, and several towns now bear testimony to the popularity of the sport of bull baiting in their "Bull rings" (Birmingham, to wit). In the fourteenth century we know that even horses were baited with dogs, and as long as fox hunting, coursing, or wild stag hunting, are recognized as sports among us, I fail to see the superior cruelty of our ancestors. It may be that people imagine that the larger the animal, the greater the cruelty; but I cannot see it. Anyhow, far earlier than the Bear garden of Hockley-in-the-Hole, both bear and bull baiting were not only popular, but aristocratic amusements. Erasmus, who visited England in Henry VIII.'s time, speaks of many herds of bears being kept for baiting; and when Queen Mary visited her sister the Princess Elizabeth, they were "right well content" with the bear baiting. Nay, when she became Queen, Elizabeth was a great patron of the _sport_; for when, on May 25, 1559, she entertained the French Ambassadors, as an after-dinner spectacle, she gave them some bull and bear baiting. Her delight in this diversion did not decrease with age, for, twenty-seven years later, she provided the same amusement for the delectation of the Danish Ambassador. Paul Hentzner, who visited England in 1598, speaking of this sport, says:--"There is still another Place, built in the Form of a Theatre, which serves for the baiting of Bulls and Bears; they are fastened behind, and then worried by the great _English_ Bull dogs; but not without great Risque to the Dogs, from the Horns of the one, and the Teeth of the other; and it sometimes happens they are killed upon the Spot; fresh ones are immediately supplied in the Place of those that are wounded, or tired. To this Entertainment there often follows that of whipping a blinded Bear, which is performed by five or six Men standing circularly with Whips, which they exercise upon him without any Mercy, as he cannot escape from them because of his Chain; he defends himself with all his Force and Skill, throwing down all who come within his Reach, and are not active enough to get out of it, and tearing the Whips out of their Hands, and breaking them."