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tween two English lads in Tokio. And further, that there is not an hour in the day when some one of his struggling rays does not light upon this familiar grouping of white lines. And further still, that ages ago, on the banks of the Nile, or perhaps the Ganges, or perhaps in the Assyrian capital, Ninevah, this noble game had its beginning in the rude sport of idle children, tossing and batting dried gourds back and forth. We know this to be true, for years afterwards these young Assyrians, grown to manhood, carved uponstone representations of one of the favorite sports in their childhood; and these sculptured slabs exist today, silent witnesses.
Tennis was played by the Greeks under the name of sphairisis; and by the Romans also, who called it trigon. It is interesting to read of the boy Magistrate, Marcus of Rome, playing at trigon with his young companions, and trying to keep the pila flying with the stoical determination which characterized him all through life; of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, causing coins to be struck bearing the device of athletes engaged in serving and receiving the ball, and using their hands for bats.
I have spoken of the batting of the ball with the hand; for it was not until the middle ages that rackets and nets, those essential features of modern tennis, were first used. The ball was struck with the hand, as the French name of the game jeu de paume very plainly indicates. The first racket was merely a glove to protect the hand. The strings were stretched across the front of the glove. The invention of the handle was the next step; and after this, change in size, shape and stringing were all that were necessary to evolve our modern racket. Then as to the courts, those opposite were first divided by a cord stretched across the middle. Afterwards a fringe was added, but not until the beginning of the eighteenth century was a net used at all similar to the one in vogue at the present day.
Early in the fifteenth century tennis was exceedingly popular in France among all classes, but a few years later we see a marked change
in this respect. The rules of the game became more complicated, the occasions more costly, and the courts the most elaborate affairs imaginable. They were made of carefully laid blocks of stone, were sometimes entirely enclosed, sometimes only roofed over. Ornamental galleries and railings abounded. The game became an indoor sport, and such an expensive one that the middle and lower classes were shut out from it altogether. Only the nobles could afford courts; but among them the game was soon so popular that they wanted to keep it entirely to themselves, along with all the other good things of life, and finally succeeded in having an edict issued forbidding it to every untitled subject.
In England, all this time, tennis had been keeping good pace with its neighbors across the channel. Its English name was partly derived from the French verb tenez, which was shouted by the server as he first sent the ball into the opposite court. The game was as popular in England as in France, and more exclusive, if that were possible. Edward III and Henry IV were veritable tennis enthusiasts, and it was a favorite amusement with monarchs of England, France and Germany. Henry II was probably the best player among the French kings. Henry of Navarre, it is said, rose at daylight, after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, to finish a game begun the day before. Henry VIII was as devoted to it before he became stout as he was to matrimony afterward; and perhaps the most royal set of tennis ever played was one in which he and the Emperor Charles V were matched against the Prince of Orange and the Marquis of Brandenburg, while Lord Edmund Howard and the Earl of Devonshire "shacked" balls and "umpired the game."
The latter was not so easily done in those days. The method of counting, though not wholly dissimilar to that employed today, was so complicated by rules and regulations that the royal young princes were forced to provide attendants to keep track of the score.
But the royal princes did not keep this royal game to themselves much longer. People be-