Foot-ball

Historical Sporting Series No. I.
BY MONTAGUE SHEARMAN AND JAMES E. VINCENT.
LONDON: Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. Simpkin, Marshall & Co.; Hamilton, Adams & Co.
FIELD & TUER, THE LEADENHALL PRESS, E.C. T 4,192.
THE Authors, who welcome this opportunity of addressing their readers through the conventional channel of a preface, have not written without an object. That object has not been to teach the art of football, which art can only be attained by practice. It has been to collect the scattered and fragmentary knowledge which surrounds the history of an ancient pastime. In the pursuit of this object they have performed the pleasant duty of exploring many literary storehouses, and have not seldom been compelled to wander far out of the beaten track. They will have attained their object if they can pass on to their readers one-tenth of the delight which resulted to themselves from their wanderings. There also resulted a theory, which was not adopted without anxious argument, that the games of football now in vogue owe their origin almost entirely to the public schools; and that in the public schools rules were the consequence of circumstances and environment. At the same time football has a history which has been faithfully followed.
In addition to the thanks, which we cannot adequately express, to ancient authors, we owe a debt of gratitude to Walter Rye, Esq., than whom none is better versed in the antiquities of sport, for valuable advice as to sources of information.
M. SHEARMAN. J. E. VINCENT.
WHEN a national taste or a national trait is under consideration, sound criticism often falls from a foreign observer. At the present day an American novelist, whose subtle analysis of character is charming English readers, has pronounced his opinion that an Englishman is only to be understood and appreciated when he is seen out of doors in a flannel suit; while a French critic goes further, and assigns a narrower sphere to British ability, by making the observation that an Englishman is only perfectly happy when he has a ball to play with. Certain it is, that, good as they are in any branch of sport, it is in games in which a ball of any kind is used that the members of the English race are the most enthusiastic and proficient players. There is another feature, too, in such games which renders them peculiarly interesting; they have all an ancient and an honourable history. So far back indeed does the history of the different kinds of ball-play reach, that the investigation of their origin, and for the present in particular of the earliest records of the game of football, can hardly fail to produce interesting fruit.