Wrestling and Wrestlers: Biographical Sketches of Celebrated Athletes of the Northern Ring; to Which is Added Notes on Bull and Badger Baiting — John Shaqi
Wrestling and Wrestlers: Biographical Sketches of Celebrated Athletes of the Northern Ring; to Which is Added Notes on Bull and Badger BaitingRobinson, Jacob
History
Wrestling and Wrestlers: Biographical Sketches of Celebrated Athletes of the Northern Ring; to Which is Added Notes on Bull and Badger Baiting
Robinson, Jacob
Wrestlers; Wrestling
5. If any Differences shall happen concerning the
Wrestling, they shall be determined by two Men, which
shall be chosen by the most Voices of the Gamesters,
before they begin to Wrestle; and in case they can't
decide such Differences, then they shall be referr'd
solely to the Decision of the said Sir Thomas Parkyns
as UMPIRE.
6. He that Wins the Prize and Sells it, shall be
uncapable of Wrestling here any more.
7. That none shall have the Prize, that Wrestle with
Shoes that have any sort of Nails of Iron or Brass in
them.
8. He also that Winneth the Prize one Year, shall be
Excluded from Wrestling for it the Year following, but
the next year after that, viz. the third inclusive the
first, he may put in and Wrestle for the Prize again;
and ever after that, unless he shall Win a second
Prize, and from that time ever after Excluded.
Sir Thomas Parkyns, Bart, of Bunny Park, Nottinghamshire, the author of the
ingenious and singular work before us--from which we have quoted
largely--upon the Cornish Hugg, or Inn-Play Wrestling, was a man who did
not content himself with a mere theoretical knowledge of the art which he
professed mathematically to teach. There was scarcely a sinewy and
dangerous problem in his treatise, which he had not worked with his own
limbs upon the Nottinghamshire peasantry of 1705--when he was young, lusty,
and learned, and could throw a tenant, combat a paradox, quote Martial, or
sign a mittimus, with any man of his own age or country. He was, it will be
allowed, a skilful wrestler, a subtle disputant, and a fair scholar, with
certain eccentricities which he could afford to indulge in. He passed a
very reputable life; doing all the good he could to the peasantry of his
neighbourhood, both in body and mind; at once showing how to be strong and
enabling them to be happy.
Sir Thomas Parkyns was born about the year 1678--whether at his paternal
seat, Bunny Park, Nottinghamshire, or in London, we are unable to
collect--probably in London, as we find him early at Westminster school,
wrestling his way through the classics, under the celebrated Dr. Bushby.
The epigrams of Martial appear, first, to have led him to turn serious
thoughts towards wrestling--and he does not relish the poet the less for
finding that he himself practised this healthy art after his daily prayer
and family business.
From Westminster, Sir Thomas after a due course of little-to-do and Bushby,
went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and studied mathematics as we gather
afterwards for the chief purpose of making himself an accomplished
scientific wrestler. At the then celebrated place of learning, "Students,"
he says, "even at the Universities, give the Exercise of Wrestling, and lie
under a pecuniary Mulct for not appearing in the Summer evenings appointed
for that Exercise."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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