first obtained and the capacities of the dribbling game for affording a genuine sport full of skill and excitement first discovered. On the whole, however, there is little doubt that the Association game must be regarded as the product of the great public schools of the kingdom, and not so much the national sport of the lower classes. _The Spectator_, which in other respects forms a mine of wealth for procuring information as to the customs and opinions of England in the beginning of the 18th century, is, unfortunately for our purpose, almost entirely silent as to the game of football. There is, however, an illusion in No. 161 (Sept. 4th, 1711). A supposed country correspondent, a dweller in the neighbourhood of the estate of Sir Roger de Coverley, writes to _The Spectator_ in town an account of a country wake. First the writer finds “a ring of cudgel-players, who were breaking one anothers’ heads in order to make some impression upon their mistresses’ hearts.” “I observed,” he goes on, “a lusty young fellow who had the misfortune of a broken pate, but what considerably added to the anguish of the wound, was his overhearing an old man who shook his head and said, ‘that he questioned now if black Kate would marry him these three years.’ I was diverted from a further observation of these combatants by a football match which was on the other side of the green, where Tom Short behaved himself so well that most people seemed to agree it was impossible that he should remain a bachelor until the next wake. Having played many a match myself, I could have looked longer on the sport, had I not observed a country girl.”... And so, forsooth, the _Spectator’s_ country correspondent gives up the further contemplation and probably the further description of a manly game, in order that he may gaze at a country wench, to the great detriment and loss of knowledge of the football student of the present day. O woman, woman, how many omissions are to be laid to thy charge through the vanity and curiosity of man when he gazeth upon thee! At any rate, however, we gather from the passage that in the 18th century the country people played at football in holiday time on the village green, that country gentlemen joined in the matches, and that the most skilful players gained the favour and encouragement of the fair sex, and were not destined to remain bachelors for ever. Verily, ye gentlemen of Blackheath, times are changed, but not manners.