in Cookery, a soft composition of flour, wrought up with proper fluids, as water, milk, or the like, to serve for cakes or coffins, therein to bake meats, fruits, &c. It is the basis or foundation of pyes, tarts, patties, pasties, and other works of pastry. It is also used in confectionary, &c. for a preparation of some fruit, made by beating the pulp thereof with some fluid or other admixture, into a soft pappy consistence, spreading it into a dish, and drying it with sugar, till it becomes as pliable as an ordinary paste. It is used occasionally also for making the crusts and bottoms of pyes, &c. Thus, with proper admixtures, are made almond pastes, apple pastes, apricot pastes, cherry, currant, lemon, plum, peach, and pear pastes.

Paste is likewise used for a preparation of wheaten flour, boiled up and incorporated with water; used by various artificers, as upholsterers, saddlers, bookbinders, &c. instead of glue or size, to fasten or cement their cloths, leathers, papers, &c. When paste is used by bookbinders, or for paper-hangings to rooms, they mix a fourth, fifth, or sixth, of the weight of the flour of powdered resin; and where it is wanted still more tenacious, gum arabic or any kind of size may be added. Paste may be preserved, by dissolving a little sublimate, in the proportion of a dram to a quart, in the water employed for making it, which will prevent not only rats and mice, but any other kind of vermin and insects, from preying upon it.

**Pastes**, in the glas trade, or the imitation or counterfeiting of gems in glas; see Gem.

**Pasteboard**, a kind of thick paper, formed of several single sheets pasted one upon another. The chief use of pasteboard is for binding books, making letter-cases, &c. See Paper.

**Pastern of a Horse**, in the manege, is the distance betwixt the joint next the foot and the coronet of the hoof. This part should be short, especially in middle-sized horses; because long pasterns are weak, and cannot so well endure travelling.

**Pastern-Joint**, the joint next a horse's foot.

**Pastil**, or Pastel, among painters, a kind of paste made of different colours ground up with gum-water, in order to make Crayons.

**Pastil**, in Pharmacy, is a dry composition of sweet-smelling resins, aromatic woods, &c., sometimes burnt to clear and scent the air of a chamber.

**Pastime**, a sport, amusement, or diversion. Pastimes of some kind seem to be absolutely necessary, and to none more than to the man of study; for the most vigorous mind cannot bear to be always bent. Constant application to one pursuit, if it deeply engage the attention, is apt to unhinge the mind, and to generate madness; of which the Don Quixote of Cervantes, and the astronomer of Johnson, are two admirably conceived instances. But though pastime is necessary to relieve the mind, it indicates great frivolity when made the business of life; and yet the rich and the great, who are not obliged to labour for the means of subsistence, too often rove from pastime to pastime with as constant affluency as the mechanic tools for his family, or as the philosopher devotes himself to the cultivation of science. When those pastimes tend to give elasticity to the mind or strength to the body, such conduct is not only allowable, but praiseworthy; but when they produce effects the reverse of these, it is both hurtful and criminal. The gaming-table, the masquerade, the midnight assembly of any sort, must of necessity enfeeble both the body and the mind; and yet such are the fashionable amusements of the present day, to which many a belle and many a beau sacrifice their beauty, their health, their quiet, and their virtue.

Far different were the pastimes of our wiser ancestors: Remote from vice and effeminacy, they were innocent, manly, and generous exercises. From the ancient records of this country, it appears, that the sports, amusements, pleasures, and recreations of our ancestors, as described by Fitz-Stephen (A), added strength and agility to the wheels of state mechanism, while they had a direct tendency towards utility. For most of these ancient recreations are resolvable into the public defence of the state against the attacks of a foreign enemy. The play at ball, derived from the Romans, is first introduced by this author as the common exercise of every school-boy. The performance was in a field, where the resort of the most substantial and considerable citizens, to give encouragement and countenance to this feat of agility, was splendid and numerous. The intention of this amusement at this period of time was to make the juvenile race active, nimble, and vigorous; which qualities were requisite whenever their assistance should be wanted in the protection of their country. The next species of pastime indeed does not seem to have this tendency; but it was only, as it seems, an annual custom: This was cock-fighting. The author tells us, that in the afternoon of Shrove-Tuesday, on which day this custom prevailed, they concluded the day in throwing the ball: which seems to intimate, that the cock-fighting was merely in conformity to ancient usage, and limited only to part of the day, to make way for a more laudable performance. We may reasonably suppose, although this author is entirely silent upon this head, that while cock-fighting was going on, cock-throwing was the sport of the lowest class of people, who could not afford the expense of the former (B). Another species of manly exercise was truly martial, and intended to qualify the adventurers for martial discipline. It is related by Fitz-Stephen thus: "Every Friday in Lent, a company of young men comes into the field on horseback, attended and conducted by the best horsemen: then march forth the sons of the citizens, and other young men, with disarmed lances and shields; and there practice feats of war. Many courtiers likewise, when the king is near the spot, and attendants upon noblemen, do repair to their exercises; and while the hope of victory does inflame their minds, they show by good proof how serviceable they would be in martial affairs." This evidently is of Roman descent, and immediately brings to our recollection the Ludus Troiae, supposed to be the invention, as it was the common exercise of, Alcibiades. The common people, in this age of masculine manners, made every amusement where strength was exerted the subject-matter of instruction and improvement:

---

(A) Otherwise called William Stephanides, a monk of Canterbury, who lived in the reign of King Stephen to the time of Richard I. He wrote a Latin treatise, in which he gives an account of the several pastimes which were countenanced in his time. Bale in his writings draws a pleasing portrait of him. He is likewise sketched in strong and forcible outlines of praise and commendation by Leland. Bale says thus of him: "The time which other people usually misemployed in an idle and frivolous manner, he consecrated to inquiries which tended to increase the fame and dignity of his country: in doing which, he was not unworthy of being compared to Plato; for like him, he made the study of men and heaven his constant exercise."

(B) There were places set apart for the battles of these animals, as at this day, where no one was admitted without money. These places, or pits commonly called, were schools, as at this day, in which people were instructed in the doctrines of chance, loss and gain, betting and wagers, and particularly in the liberal art of laying two to one. Cock-throwing has been laudably abolished; for it was a species of cruelty towards an innocent and useful animal; and such a cruelty as would have kindled compassion in the heart of the rankest barbarian.