This ensuing treatise will clearly demonstrate unto you, that man doth, or at least may, naturally swim, better than any creature ; nay, as he is the more noble, and above all other creatures, so, indeed, he excels them all in swimming, nay, fishes themselves.
The first degree of swimming is to bear ourselves up upon the water. And this may be said to be done in two wayes ; either by holding up the head only above the water, or by lying more flat upon the water, and bearing up the middle of the body.
As all other creatures have the gift of Nature in greater or lesser measure to swim without the help of art which they are incapable of, so man by art, together with the help of Nature, excels all other creatures iri swimming.
But here it may be objected, that fishes, whose perpetual motion is swimming, and that in a wonderful manner, are to be excepted.
To this we answer, that fishes are by Nature assigned to this element ; and this is their natural place, wherein they live without any respiration ; but to a man, who gives out and draws in breath, the water is violent and deadly ; wherefore, fishes being long detained in the air, or men in the water, die and perish, so that, although fishes may challenge to themselves a precellency in swimming, yet, if we consider this very reason of their habitation and nature, fishes are very far inferiour to a man who is skilful in the art of swimming.
For a man may swim with his face"upwards, downwards ; on his right side, on his left side ; stand, sit, lie, carry his clothes and other things safely, walk in the bottom of the waters ; which no fishes nor other creature can do.
The same author recommends persons not to bathe at night when toades, snakes, and other hurtful poisonous things' are abroad, and also to abstain from going into the water at thq changes of the moon. Some of the maximes in swimming' are also very quaint. To turn with both legs and arms upwards' is stated to be the best method for a swimmer desirous of avoiding ships flying under sail, in danger to run over him, of boats unad visedly coming too near him, and likewise if there should be any lions, bears, or fierce dogs lurking in the river.' A con version, or turning like a bell ; circumvolution, or turning about in the water ; a quadrupatite, or four-fold percussion or striking of the water ; retrogradation, or swimming backward ; the side-turn, circulation or turning round ; the perpendicular conversion, or turning being upright in the water, and the nimbleness of a dolphin, are some of the feats named.
Dr. E. Baynard refers to the value of swimming in a poem entitled Health,' which was issued in 1764 : There were several editions of L'Art de Nager,' by M. Thevenot. Those translated into English apparently became the standard works, and were plagiarised wholesale by later writers. The oft-quoted advice of Dr. Benjamin Franklin to swimmers is nearly all from Thevenot, who himself drew largely from Wynman and Digby. In the edition of 1782 appear some very excellent plates, although the positions and styles do not correspond with modern ideas. Oronzio de Bernardi's system of teaching swimming was described in a work published in 1797, and again in i8o7. Bernardi claimed that, after a few days' instruction, his pupils could travel incredible distances. He actually had the impudence to say that, after eleven days' teaching, a young man who had previously been quite unable to swim traversed six miles. An able criticism of his system, which was that of upright swimming, appeared in Vol. of the Quarterly Review,' 1826.
The famous work by Joseph Strutt, on The Sports and Pastimes of England,' only includes a page of swimming, of which the author evidently knew very little. He says that Boys in the country usually learn to swim with bundles of bullrushes, and with corks where the rushes cannot readily be procured, particularly in the neighbourhood of London, where we are told two centuries back there were men who could teach the art of swimming well.' In the year i816 a book on scientific swimming was written by J. Frost, for many years teacher of the art at Nottingham. It is embellished with twelve copper-plate engravings, and is really a very capable treatise on the subject. Pfuel's system of teaching by means of a drill was published in Berlin about this time. It was followed by that of Peter Heinrich Clias, in which is detailed the German system of drill, and also the methods of bringing drowning persons to land. Apart from some good magazine articles, nothing of a special nature was published until 1841, when two excellent prize essays of the National Swimming Society, by Messrs. Mason and Payne, were issued in book form.