_History of Football before the Puritan Era._
The first mention of the game of football in English history is made
by Fitz-Stephen, who, writing in the 13th century, says, “Annually
upon Shrove Tuesday they (the London school-boys) go into the fields
immediately after dinner and play at the celebrated game of ball
(_ludum pilæ celebrem_).” But it is only fair to add, that the learned
Strutt himself never felt certain that the reference here was to
football. He tells us, in his commentary upon the passage, that Stowe,
in his explanation of the words, has added, “without the least sanction
from the Latin,” the word bastion, “meaning a bat or cudgel,” being of
opinion that the game signified was something of the nature of goff
(golf) or bandy-ball (_sc._, hockey). If Stowe was guilty of this bold
gloss, and there is no question that he was, then it is clear that
the game of the London school-boys is as likely to have been football
as anything else, although Strutt is of the contrary opinion. For
Strutt’s view is based upon the ground that football, as a pastime,
“does not seem to be a very proper game for children.” On the other
hand, there are strong reasons for believing that this game may have
been football, for in the first place there is good historical evidence
to the effect that Shrove Tuesday was a regular day upon which the
London apprentices and those of other great cities, such as Chester,
and the Scotch peasants, regularly indulged in the game of football.
This evidence will be set forth immediately. But it is also a matter to
be noted, that London is one of the places where football seems never
to have died out, while the London schools, notably Westminster and
the Charterhouse, were the places in which one species of the game of
football was kept alive in a period of great athletic depression, to
emerge, at the time of the recent athletic revival, in the form of the
Association game.
That this game flourished in the succeeding century is manifest from
the fact that Edward III., in A.D. 1349, found it necessary to forbid
it by law. This warlike monarch, who was not quite of the same opinion
as a man of at least equally military mind, the Duke of Wellington,
sent a formal letter of complaint to the sheriffs of the City of
London, that “the skill in shooting with arrows was almost totally laid
aside for the purpose of various useless and unlawful games,” and they
were thenceforth enjoined to prohibit all such “idle practices” as far
as their jurisdiction extended.
Football, however, seemed to have sufficient vitality to outlast the
pressure of a statute which, like some of those at present directed
against gambling and betting, seems to have been more honoured in
the breach than in the observance, for we find that in 1389 another
Act was passed by Richard II. (12 Ric. ii., cap. 6) for the purpose
of encouraging shooting, at the expense of other sports. This Act
expressly forbade throughout the kingdom “all playinge at Tennis,
Footballe, and other games called corts, dice, casting of the stone,
kailes (a kind of skittles), and other such importune games.” How
great must have been the moral effect of the statute we see from the
fact that it had to be re-enacted by Henry IV. in 1401, and again
by Henry VIII. considerably more than a hundred years later; while
the last-named monarch also passed an enactment rendering it a penal
offence for any person whatever to attempt to make gain by keeping a
house or ground for sporting purposes of any kind--an enactment which
some of the present managers of “gate-money” meetings for amateurs
would be doubtless sorry to see replaced upon the Statute Book. Another
clause of the same Act made it a penal offence for an artificer to play
at any of the games mentioned above, save at Christmastide. In Scotland
also similar measures were pursued for the purpose of separating those
canny sportsmen from their well-loved games of golf and football;
for in 1458, James III. of Scotland decreed that displays of weapons
were to be held four times a year, and that “footballe and golfe be
utterly put down.” Two other pieces of evidence show how constant and
how vain was the effort made by our sovereigns to suppress a national
sport. Twice in the reign of Elizabeth was proclamation made that
“no foteballe play be used or suffered within the City of London and
the liberties thereof, upon pain of imprisonment,” and twice were
entries of the proclamations having been made entered in the books of
the Corporation of London, upon Nov. 27th, 1572, and Nov. 7th, 1581,
where they can be seen to this day. But in spite of prohibition and
threat of fine and imprisonment, the London apprentices and the country
labourers were determined to enjoy their football; and the game was
probably never so flourishing or so prosperous as it was throughout the
sixteenth century.
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. But of this we shall speak later.
The earliest writers who discuss football critically, are of the
Elizabethan era. We have indeed been informed by a learned antiquary to
whom we are largely indebted for the materials of this work, that many
years before this there flourished in the City of London a “Guild of
Football Players;” but as our friend has lost his reference to this,
the first Football Club in existence, and as we have been unable, with
much searching, to recover the clue, we are unable to present to our
readers any report of exciting matches between the representatives of
the various wards or between the opposing teams of the cities of London
and Westminster. But of the fact that such an organization existed we
feel little or no doubt, and only regret we cannot give more accurate
information on the subject. We can only close our notice of the subject
by transcribing the comment of the gentle scholar to whom we are
indebted for the suggestion, that “probably the players, recognising
the danger of the game to soul and body, thought it necessary to
combine to employ a special chirurgeon, and a special chaplain of
their own,” from which it will be seen that our friend is more fond of
antiquities than he is of football.
The first Elizabethan critic of football whose words deserve quotation,
is Sir Thomas Elyot, the author of “The Boke called the Governour,” a
species of educational manual for the young noblemen and gentlemen of
the age. Writing, in 1583, of the sports which should be indulged in by
those of gentle birth, he expounds views which, seen through the glass
of the opinions of the nineteenth century, appear strange. Archery he
praises above tennis, because in tennis a player is compelled to play
as hard as his opponent, and cannot, so to speak, make his own pace;
so that “if he (the opponent) stryke the balle hard, the othere that
intendeth to receyve him is then constrained to use semblable violence
if he wyll to retourne the balle.” And “boulynge” (bowls), “claishe,”
and “pinnes” (skittles), and “koyting” (quoits), are also spoken of
with disfavour as being too furious; and the writer then goes on (we
quote _verbatim_, leaving more learned critics to explain the worthy
knight’s grammar): “Verilie as for two the laste” (_i.e._, pinnes
and koyting) “be to be utterly abjected of all noble men, in like
wise foote-balle wherein is nothing but beastlie furie and exstreme
violence, whereof procedeth hurte and consequently rancour and malice
do remaine with them that be wounded, wherfore it is to be put in
perpetuall silence.” Perhaps this view would have been coincided with
by a certain bridegroom whom we read elsewhere to have attended the
revels held at Kenilworth in honour of Queen Elizabeth in 1575, for the
gentleman in question, we gather from a letter of the gallant Captain
Laneham, to have been “lame of a legge, that in his youth was broeken
at foote-balle;” but modern footballers would hardly agree with Sir
Thomas or with the learned and pious Puritan writer, Stubbs, who, in
our quotations, “follows on the same side.” Stubbs, in his “Anatomie
of Abuses” in the realm of England in 1583, not only objected to
football for itself, but also for that it was generally played, both
in town and village, on Sunday; and one of his reasons for believing
that the day of doom, as foretold in Scriptural revelation, was at
hand was, that “football-playing and other develishe pastimes” were
played on Sunday. “Lord,” he prays, “remove these exercises from the
Sabaoth.” What follows is curious: in answer to a question as to
whether football-playing is a profanation of the Sabbath, he says,
“Any exercise which withdraweth us from godlinesse, either upon the
Sabaoth or any other day, is wicked and to be forbiden. Now who is so
grossly blinde that seeth not that these aforesaid exercises not only
withdraw us from godlinesse and virtue, but also haile and allure us
to wickednesse and sin? for as concerning football-playing, I protest
unto you it may rather be called a friendlie kind of fight than a play
or recreation--a bloody and murthering practise than a felowly sporte
or pastime. For dooth not everyone lye in waight for his adversarie,
seeking to overthrow him and picke him on his nose, though it be on
hard stones, in ditch or dale, in valley or hill, or what place soever
it be he careth not, so he have him downe. And he that can serve the
most of this fashion, he is counted the only felow and who but he.” We
may remark incidentally that it is at least satisfactory to know that
the footballers of the time of Elizabeth appreciated the advantages of
a good “tackler.” But to resume with Stubbs his opinions. “So that by
this means sometimes their necks are broken, sometimes their backs,
sometimes their legs, sometimes their armes, sometimes one part thrust
out of joint, sometimes another; sometimes their noses gush out with
blood, sometimes their eyes start out, and sometimes hurte in one
place sometimes in another. But whosoever scapeth away the best goeth
not scot free but is either forewounded, craised or bruised so as he
dyeth of it or else scapeth very hardlie, and no mervaile, for they
have the sleights to meet one betwixt two, to dash him against the hart
with their elbowes, to butt him under the short ribs with the griped
fists and with their knees to catch him on the hip and pick him on
his neck, with a hundred such murthering devices. And hereof groweth
envy, rancour, and malice, and sometimes brawling murther, homicide,
and great effusion of blood, as experience daily teacheth. Is this
murthering play now an exercise for the Sabaoth day?”
So much for the opinion of the pious Stubbs, who, it must be
recollected, was a Puritan, and one of the party who afterwards almost
succeeded in entirely putting down football during the supremacy of
their opinions. Perhaps it will be as well to finish the hostile
criticism with the opinion of King James I. of England, who, in his
Basilicon Doron, a manual of education written for his son, after
speaking in praise of various other sports, saith, “but from this count
I debar all rough and violent exercise, as the foot-ball meeter for
laming than making able the users thereof.” Still James I., taking him
for all in all, was something of an old woman, and can hardly have been
expected to look with favour upon a “charge” or a “scrimmage.” Added to
this, we have something more than a suspicion that his Royal Highness,
while posing as an original writer on education, was drawing a great
many of his views from Sir Thomas Elyot; for the Basilicon Doron bears
a most suspicious resemblance in many places to the work of the earlier
writer.
Perhaps the best description we have of the game at this period comes
from Carew’s “Survey of Cornwall,” published in 1602. Carew gives a
long account of the game of “hurling,” which was another form of the
football we have described above, with the addition that the players
were allowed, if they liked, to carry sticks and hit the ball towards
the goal, besides hurling, kicking, hitting, or running with it. We
thus see, as would naturally be expected, that hockey and football
started as the same sport but gradually “differentiated” into separate
games, according to the true Darwinian law of progress. Hurling is
described as a match between two large parties of men, in which each
side strives to get the ball as best it can up to the adversaries’
goal. Carew, who is a more genial critic than Elyot, Stubbs, or King
James I., describes hurling with much carefulness and acuteness of
observation. “For hurling to goales there are 15, 20, or 30 players,
more or less, chosen out on each side, who strip themselves to their
slightest apparel and then join hands in ranke one against another; out
of these ranks they matche themselves by payres, one embracing another,
and so passe away, every of which couple are especially to watch one
another during the play.” What football-player knows not the phrase,
“Mark your men”? “After this, they pitch two bushes in the ground, some
eight or ten feet asunder, and directly against them, ten or twelve
score paces off, other twain in like distance, which they term goales,
where some indifferent person throweth up a balle, the which whosoever
can catch and carry through the adversaries’ goals hath won the game.”
The hurlers also, we learn, were not allowed to _but_ or _handfast_
(charge or collar) under the girdle, or to “deale a foreballe” _i.e._,
to pass forward to one nearer the goal than the player, in which
passage we have the only explicit reference to “off-side” play which
is to be found in the early annals of the game. Besides the game in
a field of play, there was also, we learn from Carew, a game played
over country. “Two three or more parishes agree to hurl against two or
three other parishes.” In this game the goals were usually houses, or
else villages, three or four miles asunder, and “that company which can
catch or carry it by force or slight to the place assigned, gaineth the
victory. Such as see where the ball is played give notice, by crying,
‘Ware east,’ ‘Ware west,’ as the same is carried. The hurlers take
their way over hilles, dales, hedges, ditches, yea, and thorow bushes,
briars, mires, plashes and rivers whatsoever, so as you shall sometimes
see twenty or thirty lie tugging together in the water, scrambling and
scratching for the ball.” This description of what may be described as
a “maul in pond” is certainly interesting, and the whole description of
the game lucid. The criticism of the game is also eminently sensible.
“The play is verily both rude and rough, yet such as is not destitute
of policies in some sort resembling the feats of war; for you shall
have companies laid out before, on the one side to encounter them that
come with the ball, and of the other party to succour them in manner
of a fore-ward.” (Thus we see that the term “forward” in football is
no ill-chosen one, the “fore-wards” or “fore-guards” being those who
bear the first attack, and protect the rear-guards, who are manœuvring
behind.) Carew goes on, “The ball in this play may be compared to an
infernal spirit, for whosoever catcheth it fareth straightways like a
madman struggling and fighting with those that go about to hold him:
no sooner is the ball gone from him than he resigneth this fury to the
next receiver, and himself becometh peaceable as before.” (Perhaps, we
may here remark, the man who lost the ball became peaceable because he
was by that time well “blown.” We have observed the same ourselves in
the present age.) Carew ends up with some very thoughtful criticism of
the game, “I cannot well resolve,” he says, “whether I should the more
commend this game for its manhood and exercise, or condemn it for the
boisterousness and harm which it begetteth; for as on the one side it
makes their bodies strong, hard, and nimble, and puts a courage into
their hearts to meet an enemy in the face, so on the other part it is
accompanied by many dangers, some of which do ever fall to the players’
share, for the proof whereof when the hurling is ended, you shall see
them retiring home as from a pitched battle, with bloody pates, bones
broken and out of joint, and such bruises as serve to shorten their
days; yet all is good play, and never attorney or coroner troubled for
the matter.”
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.”
At the parish of Scone, in Perthshire, a similar game appears to
have been played every Shrove Tuesday, between the bachelors and the
married men, from two o’clock until sunset. The game was initiated
by the throwing up of the ball in the neighbourhood of the market
cross at Scone, and the account of it may well be given in the words
of the author of “The Statistical Account of Scotland,” as quoted by
Hone in his Year-Book of 1838. The game was this: “He who at any time
got the ball into his hands ran with it till overtaken by one of the
opposite party, and then, if he could shake himself loose from those
of the opposite party who seized him, he ran on; if not, he threw the
ball from him, unless it was wrested from him by the other party,
_but no person was allowed to kick it_. The object of the married men
was to hang it, that is, to put it three times into a small hole in
the moor, which was the ‘dool,’ or limit, on the one hand; that of
the bachelors was to drown it, or dip it three times in a deep place
in the river, the limit on the other; the party who could effect
either of these objects won the game; if neither won, the ball was
cut into equal parts at sunset. In the course of the play there was
usually some violence between the parties; but it is a proverb in this
part of the country, that ‘All is fair at the ball at Scone.’” This
annual game is supposed to have been established in commemoration of
the victory of a parishioner of Scone over an Italian braggadocio of
chivalrous times; and every man in the parish was compelled to play.
Thus, in this Perthshire game we seem to find the rough and rude
instance of the original game in Scotland, and the first instance of
compulsory football. It should further be remarked, that the same
antiquary gives an account of an annual Shrove Tuesday football match
between the married women of Inverness and the spinsters of the same
parish, which, according to him, invariably resulted in the triumph
of the married women. It appears, therefore, that the female elevens
which occasionally appear in North Country football fields, are not
without a respectable historical precedent for their acts. Still, it
is pardonable to say that the game is not exactly suitable to their
physical constitution; and even the sturdy lass of Inverness must have
been somewhat out of place in the game which Waller describes with
reasonable accuracy in the following lines:--
“As when a sort of lustie shepherd’s boy
Their force at football; care of victory
Makes them salute so rudely breast to breast,
That their encounter seems too rough for jest.”
A game of similar character to “the ball at Scone” appears also to have
been played yearly at Kingston-on-Thames on Shrove Tuesday, which, as
we shall see later, continued an annual fixture until far into the
present century.
Sunday was a great day for all sports and pastimes throughout the Tudor
times; and it was long indeed before the Puritan reaction caused them
to be entirely stopped on that day. There is an amusing extract from
Thomas Cartwright’s Admonition to Parliament, which gives some material
for the formation of an idea of the manner in which our forefathers
spent the Sunday. It should be mentioned that the learned writer
originally wrote with the object of showing that an established form of
prayer was unsuitable for church service. “Among his arguments,” says
the easily-satisfied historian, “is the following:--‘He,’ meaning the
minister, ‘posteth it over as fast as he can galloppe; for eyther he
hath two places to serve, or else there are some games to be playde in
the afternoon, as lying for the whetstone, heathenishe dauncing for the
ring, a beare or a bulle to be baited, or else a jackanapes to ride on
horsebacke, or an interlude to be playde. And, if no place else can be
gotten, this interlude must be plaide in the church.’” And, in order
that a clear idea of the details of Sunday life may be obtained, the
antiquary adds an extract from “The Pope’s Kingdom” (1570), translated
from the Latin of T. Neorgeorgus by Barnaby Googe:--
“Now when the dinner our is done, and that they well have fed,
To play they go; to casting of the stone, to runne or shoote;
To tosse the light and windy ball aloft with hand or foote;
Some others trie their skille in gonnes; some wrastel all the day;
And some to schooles of fence do goe, to gaze upon the play;
Another sort there is that does not love abroad to roame,
But for to pass their time at cardes, or tables, still at home.”
Writings of this kind were abundant in the time of Elizabeth, and
eventually became so influential as to cause that most prudent of
stateswomen to issue a general proclamation enjoining a more strict
observance of the Sabbath. It would be most erroneous, however, to
trace in this proclamation any characteristic quality of Elizabeth
other than natural prudence, for there have been few English monarchs,
male or female, to whom the Puritan tenets were more distasteful at
heart than they were to the peerless but somewhat out-spoken virgin
queen. James I., for whom Strutt has a great admiration, repeated this
declaration in general; but he, as a timid man, averse to muscular
exercise, and an indifferent sportsman, had a rooted objection to
football, which, as we have stated before, was not wonderful.
Enough has now been written to prove that the game of football is, in
name at least, of extreme antiquity, and to give a general idea of its
characteristics in early times. But it may not be amiss to examine
these latter in more detail. It is to be noted in the first place that
there appear in early days to have been hardly any rules; but it is
nevertheless possible to discover certain general characteristics. The
main principle of the game appears to have been, that a ball should
be driven from one place to another; but as to the means appropriate
to its conveyance, there would seem to have been a great difference.
The men of Perthshire never, by any chance, kicked the ball; the
Southerners kicked, carried, and struck it with their hands or with
sticks.
But for any trace of what is now known as the Association game, in
which almost the only method of propulsion of the ball allowed is by
kicking with the feet, we look in vain in ancient times. It seems
probable that such a game originated in schools, and was confined
to them, until brought before the public as a pastime for men by
school-boys from the great public foundations, who wished to continue
their games after they had left school for the world. The real and
substantial difference between the two games as at present played is,
that in the Association game no collaring, and therefore no running
with the ball, is allowed; so that it may be not unsafe to conjecture
that the dribbling game was invented, or rather grew, in schools where
young boys were not allowed to tear each others’ clothes and break each
others’ bones in the intervals of school hours. But of the Association
game we shall have more to say anon.
We think we have said enough of the history of the game of football in
the days preceding the Great Revolution and the Puritan supremacy. This
was a period in which the star of athleticism waned to an exceeding
paleness; and there is no question that those who appreciate the
benefits of innocent enjoyment in exercise of the body, owe a deep debt
of enmity to the Roundheads. With their politics, their religion, their
love of independence, and with many other points good and bad in their
character, we have no concern in the present work.
The death of Charles on the scaffold, the history of the Long
Parliament, Cromwell with his spot of blood upon his collar, the
steeple-crowned hats, and the sad-coloured cloaks touch us not at
all. But the influence which the Puritans exercised in determining
the pastimes of the nation is a serious matter. From an athletic
point of view, the Puritan creed is this--“Be always morose, always
ponderous, absorbed in continual thought and everlasting sermonizing
concerning your latter end. Now, if you play football or cricket, or
indulge in any English pastimes, you will unquestionably forget your
latter end, and will develop such a healthy energy as will be fatal to
despondent bitterness of spirit, which makes the true Puritan.” The
result was simple. Exercise was a waste of time, innocent pleasure
an unwarrantable pampering of the flesh, an unholy coaxing of the
old Adam. Now we all know the result of insufficient exercise to be
derangement of the liver, the spleen, and all organs and functions
of the body. Upon this follows loss of temper, which passes from
the condition of casual irritability to that of unrelenting and
constitutional rancour. Thus men of dispositions naturally bitter
and gloomy, not only took steps to develop their naturally ungracious
tendencies, but also sought to run the rest of the nation into the
same mould. They did their endeavour to convert merry England,--for we
were once, in very truth, the merriest of nations,--into a melancholy
country; and it may well be believed that the Restoration was due as
much to weariness of the Puritan discipline in matters of daily life
and amusement, as to any strong political feeling. The rule of politics
which the Puritans seem to have forgotten, is the practical one, that
the first principle of good government is to keep the people who
are governed in a good humour. The natural result of a system which
inculcated bitterness of thought, fostered ill-humour, and encouraged
conceit, was, that it should perish at the hands of the bitterness, the
ill-humour, and conceit which it had itself engendered.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]