BEARBAITING having been abolished and pigsticking being currently out of fashion, the public still needs spectacles, preferably vulgar and ominous.

Forgetting what he had come for, the urgency of those accounts, he turned on his heel and, since he did not trust himself to speak, he stormed out to join his courtiers who were patiently waiting to accompany him to the bearbaiting.

Shakespeare takes his place at the cutting edge of his craft, an astonishingly productive poet as well as a shrewd businessman: there was no bearbaiting at the high-end Globe, but there were fine actors, whose profession, Kermode shows, now began to garner unaccustomed respect.

Bear-baiting also took place in the latter half of the 16th century.

The bear-baiting continued, but this time it was called dancing.

As such, he deserves better than this modern form of bear-baiting.

In the end I think there was some bear-baiting going on there.

Bear-baiting was popular in England until the 19th century.

One neighbour said he had been "tormented to death - like bear-baiting".

It first emerged in pre-19th century England, when bull- and bear-baiting was a popular sport.

The playwright's references to events like bear-baiting become more accessible, too.

Man-hunting, like bear-baiting, has no place in a civilized society.

I have to see about the bear-baiting, though.

But like bear-baiting, windfall taxes may offer a spectacle, yet it is not an improving one.

He was, clearly, more interested in the bear-baiting than in Olga.

Southwark was also a favourite area for entertainment such as bull and bear-baiting.

I would exult, man; you know he brought me out o' favour with my lady about a bear-baiting here.

And they said Elizabeth greatly enjoyed bear-baiting, that it was one of her favourite pastimes.

The one man on the planet who might escape the bear-baiting is Phil Mickelson.

There was a ferocious bear-baiting with thirteen bears and packs of mastiffs.

An improvement in mores means we take less pleasure from bear-baiting, hanging and other forms of public cruelty.

The theatre offered other popular entertainments, such as swashbuckling competitions and bear-baiting.

The whipping of a blinded bear was another variation of bear-baiting.

Last month, a judge branded the Jeremy Kyle show "a form of human bear-baiting".

At another, he stands under the body of a beggar woman who has been hung from a gibbet, and remembers watching bear-baiting.

On his royal way to the bear-baiting, he was breaking his journey at the queen's apartments.