hat
will hang themselves for love, or eat candles' ends, etc., as the
sublunary lovers do."

[792] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 131.

_Football._ An allusion to this once highly popular game occurs in
"Comedy of Errors" (ii. 1). Dromio of Ephesus asks:

"Am I so round with you as you with me,
That like a football you do spurn me thus?

* * * * *

If I last in this service, you must case me in leather."

In "King Lear" (i. 4), Kent calls Oswald "a base football player."

According to Strutt,[793] it does not appear among the popular exercises
before the reign of Edward III.; and then, in 1349, it was prohibited by
a public edict because it impeded the progress of archery. The danger,
however, attending this pastime occasioned James I. to say: "From this
Court I debarre all rough and violent exercises, as the football, meeter
for laming than making able the users thereof."

[793] "Sports and Pastimes," pp. 168, 169.

Occasionally the rustic boys made use of a blown bladder, without the
covering of leather, by way of a football, putting beans and horse-beans
inside, which made a rattling noise as it was kicked about. Barclay, in
his "Ship of Fools" (1508) thus graphically describes it:

"Howe in the winter, when men kill the fat swine,
They get the bladder and blow it great and thin,
With many beans or peason put within:
It ratleth, soundeth, and shineth clere and fayre,
While it is thrown and caste up in the ayre,
Eche one contendeth and hath a great delite
With foote and with hande the bladder for to smite;
If it fall to grounde, they lifte it up agayne,
This wise to labour they count it for no payne."

Shrovetide was the great season for football matches;[794] and at a
comparatively recent period it was played in Derby, Nottingham,
Kingston-upon-Thames, etc.

[794] See "British Popular Customs," 1876, pp. 78, 83, 87, 401.

_Gleek._ According to Drake,[795] this game is alluded to twice by
Shakespeare--in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iii. 1):

"Nay, I can gleek upon occasion."

[795] "Shakespeare and his Times," vol. ii. p. 170; see Douce's
"Illustrations of Shakspeare," pp. 118, 435.

And in "Romeo and Juliet" (iv. 5):

"_1 Musician._ What will you give us?

_Peter._ No money, on my faith, but the gleek."

Douce, however, considers that the word _gleek_ was simply used to
express