"I saw him beat the surges under him, And ride upon their backs; he trod the water, Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted The surge most swoln that met him; his bold head 'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd, As stooping to relieve him. I not doubt He came alive to land." There are many other allusions to swimming in the plays which indicate the writer's personal acquaintance with the exercise; as in _Macbeth_, i. 2. 8:-- "As two spent swimmers that do cling together And choke their art." The swimming match between Cæsar and Cassius (_Julius Cæsar_, i. 2. 100) is described with sympathetic vigor. Cassius says to Brutus:-- "We can both Endure the winter's cold as well as he. For once, upon a raw and gusty day, The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, Cæsar said to me, 'Dar'st thou, Cassius, now Leap in with me into this angry flood, And swim to yonder point?' Upon the word, Accoutred as I was, I plunged in, And bade him follow; so, indeed, he did. The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it With lusty sinews, throwing it aside And stemming it with hearts of controversy. But ere we could arrive the point propos'd, Cæsar cried, 'Help me, Cassius, or I sink!' I, as Æneas, our great ancestor, Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber Did I the tired Cæsar." Of course William often went a-fishing in the Avon, and understood, as Ursula says in _Much Ado About Nothing_ (iii. 1. 26), that "The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream, And greedily devour the treacherous bait." BEAR-BAITING. The boy must often have seen a bear-baiting, for the cruel sport was popular with all classes, from sovereign to peasant. Queen Elizabeth was fond of it, as was her sister Mary; and it was one of the "princely pleasures" provided for the entertainment of the former at Kenilworth in 1575, when thirteen great bears were worried by bandogs. On another occasion, when Elizabeth gave a splendid dinner to the French ambassadors, she entertained them afterwards with the baiting of bulls and bears; and she herself watched the sport till six at night. The next day the ambassadors went to see another exhibition of the same kind. A Danish ambassador, some years later, was entertained by the Queen at Greenwich with a bear-baiting and "other merry disports," as the chronicle expresses it. [Illustration: FISHING IN THE AVON]