"Certainly bodily exercises and games are very commendable, as well for banishing of idleness, the mother of all vice, as for making the body able and durable for travell, which is very necessarie for a king. But from this court I debarre all rough and violent exercises; as the foote-ball, meeter for lameing than making able the users thereof; likewise such tumbling tricks as only serve for comedians and balladines [theatrical dancers] to win their bread with; but the exercises that I would have you to use, although but moderately, not making a craft of them, are, running, leaping, wrestling, fencing, dancing, and playing at the caitch, or tenise, archery, palle-malle, and such like other fair and pleasant field-games." Burton, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_, published in 1660, mentions foot-ball among the "common recreations of country folks," as distinguished from the "disports of greater men," or those higher in rank. In _Romeo and Juliet_ (i. 4. 41) Mercutio says to Romeo, "If thou art Dun, we'll draw thee from the mire"--that is, of love. This is an allusion to a rural game which seems to have been a favorite for several centuries, and to which scores of references, literal and figurative, are to be found in writers of all classes. In Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ (16936) we read:-- "Ther gan our hoste for to jape and play, And sayde, 'sires, what? Dun is in the myre;'" Bishop Butler, more than three hundred years later, writes: "they mean to leave reformation, like Dun in the mire." Gifford, in his notes on Ben Jonson's _Masque of Christmas_, tells us (in 1816) that he himself had "often played at this game." He describes it substantially as follows: A log of wood called "Dun the cart-horse" is brought into the middle of the room, and some one cries, "Dun is stuck in the mire." Two of the players try, with or without ropes, to drag it out, but, pretending to be unable to do so, call for help. Others come forward, and make awkward attempts to draw out the log, which they manage, if possible, to drop upon a companion's toes, causing "much honest mirth." It is remarkable that so simple a diversion could have been popular with generation after generation of British young folk, and that they should apparently recall it with so much interest in later years. Verily, our forefathers in the old country were easily amused. In _Antony and Cleopatra_ (iii. 13. 91) we find an allusion to another game equally simple--if, indeed, it be not too simple to be called a game. Antony says:-- "Authority melts from me; of late, when I cried 'Ho!' Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth And cry 'Your will?'" A "muss" was merely a scramble for small coins or other things thrown down to be taken by those who could seize them. Ben Jonson, in _The Magnetic Lady_ (iv. 1), says:-- "The moneys rattle not, nor are they thrown To make a muss yet 'mong the gamesome suitors";