ON THE GAME OF PALL MALL. 255 althougli it appears probable that the game may have been more immediately brought to this country from France, the very name suggests that its more remote origin may possibly be traced to Italy. The term nalemaiUe seems in accordance with the Italian palamafjlio, from pnlla, a ball, and mmjlio, a mallet, whilst in old French a ball was called inlc, more conformably to the Latin, jnla!' I have, however, been unable to trace any notice of the game by Italian writers, earlier than the xvith century. Mention occurs of the " giiicator di palea a viaglio," in the Carnival songs of Florence, by Giov. dell' Ottonaio, soon after the year 1500.' The first English writer hitherto noticed as making allusion to the favourite French game of Paille Maille, is Sir Robert Dallington, who says, in his " Method for Travel," published in 1598, " Among all the exercises of France, I prefer none before the Paille Maille, both because it is a gentlemanlike sport, not violent, and yields good occasion and opportunity of discourse as they walke from one marke to the other. I marvell, among many more apish and foolish toys which we have brought out of France, that we have not brought this sport also into England." Prince Henry, eldest son of James I., delighted in all martial and athletic exercises, and we know from the characteristic anecdote cited by Strutt, from the relation of a person present on the occasion, that he occasionally amused himself with playing at goff, an ancient national game described by the writer as " not unlike to pale-maille ; " it was a sport fashionable amongst the young nobility at the commencement of the xviith century." King James, in his " Basilicon Doron," or paternal instruc- tions to Prince Henry, written as I beheve about 1610, speaking of exercises of the body in honest games and pastimes, objects to all that are rough and violent, as the foot-ball, and likewise tumbling tricks, &c. "But the exercises that I would have you to use (although but moderately, not making a craft of them) are running, leaping,
- Roquefort. Lacombe, Diet, du vieux ^ Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, p. 8L
Langaj^e, gives " Pillemaille, mailiet a Goff seems to have materially differed joucr au mail," which approaches nearer from Pall Mall, at least as played in more to the Latin pila. modern times. A crooked club was used, ^ Davanzati, who wrote later in the whence the sport was called cambuca, iu XVIth century, speaks of idle contests at the time of Edward IIL nuujlio. See Vocab. della Crusca. VOL xr, L L
