And now, it may be asked, What manner of game was this football, which delighted our forefathers so hugely that they persisted in indulging in it although under ban of the law? Strange to say, there was not the chaos of conflicting rules which were found in use when the game was brought into prominence again a few decades ago. The original game appears to have been of the simplest description. Given two boundaries or goals, a ball of any make so long as it were strong enough to prevent its being torn in pieces, and the opposing sides were allowed to get the ball on and make it touch the adversaries’ goal in any manner whatever they pleased, whether by kicking, hurling, shoving, or running, or by stealth. Sometimes we hear of goals a mile or more apart; often the arena of play was a street or a high road, sometimes a whole town; and the attacking party with the ball would try and sneak round by bye-streets in order to escape notice, and plant the ball unawares through the window or against the post which was fixed as the goal. The game, in short, when played in a confined space, was none other than a rough form of the present Rugby Union football, without the rules and prohibitions which have now reduced to order and civilized that game. But it must have been a rough game, that of which the yokels and ’prentices of merry England were so fond; and of broken pates and aching shins there must have been not a few. But let us hear what the writers of the age had to say about it. But before we proceed to give a few extracts of their views, we must premise that football was always looked upon as a vulgar game, a game for clod-hoppers, Irish kernes, and ’prentice lads, which a gentleman of quality should shun, lest perchance his eye be blackened or his skin be raised in lumps by a wight of low degree. Hence we can only expect the writers of gentle birth of the age of Elizabeth and James I., and indeed of all the later ages up to the present generation, to look upon so rough a game as unfitting for a man of refinement. But a game does not need to be defended now because it brings men of different rank to meet on equal terms with no favour; and ardent footballers might indeed be still able to adhere to their game although it had been deemed vulgar by James I. and by Sir Thomas Elyot. Nor is there anything in the contempt of these dignitaries which will depress the spirits or hurt the sensitive pride of the football-player especially; for he will find upon study that football was not the only game condemned by the aristocratic classes. On the contrary, almost all athletic exercises which did not immediately and obviously conduce to knightly skill, were held in equally low esteem; and the game of cricket itself was equally lightly regarded. In fact, it is not too much to say, that it was not until the present century was well advanced that men of gentle birth and education gave up putting away boyish sports when they reached man’s estate.