Perhaps one more extract will be sufficient to show that _circiter_ A.D. 1600, football was considered one of the national sports of England, just as it is to-day. Here is a list of British games in the year 1600. Quoth one bold swain to another his rival (in verse):-- “Man, I dare challenge thee to throw the sledge, To jumpe, or leape over a ditch or hedge; To wrastle, play at stooleballe, or to runne, To pitch the barre, or to shoote off a gunne; To play at loggets, nine-holes, or ten pinnes, _To trie it out at football by the shinnes_, To dance the morris, play at barley breake, At all esploytes a man can think or speake. At shove-groate, venter-poynte, or crosse and pile, At beshrow him that’s the last at yonder stile.” Perhaps, gentle reader, we may have more to say anon about the ancient sports of the age of Shakspeare, but at present we must needs jog on. Let not our readers think, however, that the Bard of Avon never heard of football. Let them look to the “Comedy of Errors,” Act ii. Scene 6,-- “Am I so round with you as you with me, That like a football you do spurn me thus? You spurn me hence and he will spurn me hither, If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.” Lear too, and Kent, knew something about “hacking” and “tripping.” Listen to this, “Lear,” Act i. Scene 4. _Lear._ Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal? _Steward._ I’ll not be strucken, my lord. _Kent._ Nor tripped neither, you base football-player (tripping up his heels). _Lear._ I thank thee, fellow. Lear, you see, breaks out into an exclamation of praise, when he sees a neat “trip” brought off by Kent. There are still some ancient customs in relation to the game of football, which belong to no particular age, as many of them endured through many ages, but which may well be set out here lest they should pass out of mind. The following is from MS. Harl. 2150, fol. 235:--“It hath been the custom, time out of mind, for the shoemakers yearly on Shrove Tuesday to deliver to the drapers, in the presence of the Mayor of Chester, at the cross on the Rodehee, one ball of leather called a foote-ball, of the value of three shillings and fourpence and above, to play at from thence to the Common Hall of the said city; which practice was productive of much inconvenience; and this year (1540), by consent of the parties concerned, the ball was changed into six glayves of silver of the like value, as a reward for the best runner that day upon the aforesaid Rodehee.”