25S ON THE GAME OF TALL MAl.L.
of Pall Mall, given in Knight's "London." The original, from which a reduced engraving has been given in Smith's Antiquities of Westminster, p. 24, was in the possession of Mr. W. Stevenson, F.S.A., and the drawing is supposed to have been executed about 1660. A figure of Charles II. is introduced, and four persons are represented in the act, as supposed, of striking a ball through a ring at the top of a tall pole. This may be the game of Pall Mall.
Having enumerated certain facts connected with this subject which may give it some interest in the eyes of the London antiquary, a brief explanation is necessary as to the mode of playing. It is thus given by Cotgrave, in his French and English Dictionary. — " Palemaille: a game, wherein a round box bowle is with a mallet strucke through a high arch of iron (standing at either end of an ally one) which he that can do at the fewest blowes, or at the number agreed on, winnes."
Howell and other writers of the XVIIth century follow this explanation. Blount, in his Glossographia, 1670, adds to his extract from Cotgrave, — "this game was heretofore used in the long alley near St. James's, and vulgarly called Pell-Mell." Nicot, in his "Thresor de la Langue Francoyse," compiled about the time when, as supposed, the game was introduced into England, is somewhat more explicit. — "Palemaille videtur nomen habere a palla et malleo, quia rivera malleus est quo impellitur globus ligneus. — Mail vient du Latin malleus, et signifie une massue à deux bouts plats, emmanchée en potence d'un manche moyennement long. L'instrument appele Pallenmail, que l'Italien dit Pallemaglio. Estant le compose de ces deux, Palla et Mail, donne assez a entendre la figure dudit mail, do la matiere duquel no peut chaloir, soit fer, plomb, bois ou autre, pour veu que la figure y soit."
Several old national sports have been mentioned which seem in some degree analogous, such as bandy ball, club ball,
Florio, who compiled his Italin Dictionary about 1570, renders palamaglio "a pale-maile, that is, a sticke with a mallet at one end to play at a wooden ball with, much used among gentlement in Italy. Also the gaime or play with it." The Pere Monet, in his Inbentaire des deux Langues, 1536, gives Palemaille as signifying both the game and the place where it is played. "Mail, maille, maillet ferre, frete et morne aus deux bouts, a long manche, dont on frape et pousso la boule au jeu de maille," &c. It may deserve remark that in all cases he describes the game as "lusus — pilae amplioris, — globi majorie, or gravincie." and the "jeu de billart — lusus tudicularis pilae minoris; — Palaestra tudienlaris pilae mensarieae."
