Shakespeare seems either to have been a capable swimmer or else well versed in the principles of the art. His description of the trial of strength between Caesar and Cassius has already been quoted. In the play of Henry the Eighth Cardinal Wolsey, in his speech to Cromwell, remarks : I have ventur'd, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, This many summers in a sea of glory, But far beyond my depth.
Again, in the play of The Tempest' there is the following description of an escape from a wreck : Sir, he may live ! I saw him beat the billows under him, And ride upon their back. He trod the water, Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted The most swollen surge that met him.
His bold head High 'hove the most contentious waves he kept, And oared himself with his strong arms to shore.
Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy,' mentions swimming as one of the pastimes both of the gentry and common people. It was, we know, part of the pleasures of the French nobles, for Louis XI. and his courtiers used frequently to bathe together in the Seine, and our English kings gradually adopted the practice. In the reign of Charles II. swimming and toot races became fashionable in England. Colonel Blood, when arrested in 1672 for stealing the Crown jewels at the Tower, confessed to King Charles II. that on one occasion he had engaged to shoot his Majesty as he went to swim in the Thames above Battersea, but that when he was about to take aim, the awe of majesty paralysed his hand, and that he not only gave up his design but bound his confederates to do the same.
The first actual work on swimming that we can trace is one published in the year 1538, termed Colymbetes, sive de Arte Natandi,' by Nicolas Wynman, a Dutchman. It is written in dialogue form, the interlocutors being Pampirus and Erotes. In 1587 a work from the pen of Everard Digby was published in England. This book is in Latin, and includes some very curious full-page woodcuts. This work was very largely plagiarised by later writers, as were also those of Wynman and Thevenot, a French writer, whose first book appeared about 1697. Digby's book was translated into English by Christopher Middleton in 1595, and practically copied by William Percey in 1658. Percey's book purports to demon
strate the rules and practice of swimming in an exact, plain and easie method, necessary to be known and practised by all who studie or desire their own preservation.' It is addressed 'to the ingenious, prudent and self-preserving reader and vigi lant practiser of the thrice noble exercise and art of swimming.' The following arguments, used by one of the earlier writers on swimming, are both interesting and amusing : It is healthful for our bodies, clearing them from sweat and out ward filth, and the greatest profit of all is the preservation of our own lives ; what more dear ? what more precious ? Skin for skin, and all that a man hath will he give for his life. As King Richard the Third, when his horse was killed under him at Bosworth Field, would have given a kingdom for another horse, that thereby he might have saved himself, and the other kingdom ; crying out, 'A kingdom for a horse !' Were the greatest potentate in the world in danger of drowning, would he not give half his dominions to anyone that could save his life ? Yea, all, rather than dye.
To excite you to this noble and self-saving exercise, modern examples I could give you many, as not long since a gentleman in danger of drowning in the Thames cried out, ' A thousand pounds for him that could help him !' Had he spent but the tythe of that time he had employed in more vain recreations in learning this art, he might have saved himself and his money too.
I could very well wish every man and woman were perfect in swimming likewise ; which with a little practice they easily may attain unto ; and that they may do it, this ensuing treatise is on purpose composed, to direct them, as I am assured it perfectly will, and that not only in one only usual posture of swimming, that is on the belly, but in very many various postures ; some far more easie than that common way of swimming on the belly, and not so toilsome nor wearysome, for a man may swim on his back with out any motion of his arms, less with his body, then he must use when he swims upon his belly, and more free from gusts of waves which sometimes, otherwise, he must be forced to receive against his face, and so consequently into his mouth.