1

tioned in connection with Viterbo. It has been stated that the convent of Saint Catherine was the special object of her fostering care. Now, it is briefly recorded by Moroni that in 1555-that is to say, only eight years after Vittoria's death, and when the younger members of the sisterhood whom she had trained may be supposed to have obtained some standing and influence—many nuns became infected with heresy.' Afterwards, he says, the convent came again into good odour.' But not until 1731 do we hear of any specially pious or distinguished sisters there; so that the infection of heresy' must have been strong and not quickly got rid of. It is fair to add that an authentic letter of Vittoria's is extant, in which she strongly blames her former favourite, Fra Bernardino Ochino, for his abandonment of the Roman Catholic Church, and says that he is out of the ark which saves and secures.' In a word, Vittoria was one of the many Italians who considered that schism and a denial of the supremacy of Rome were, on the whole, worse evils than the endurance of corrupt teachers and immoral doctrine at the expense of some violence to conscience. For a time some good persons-she, doubtless, among them-thought that reform and orthodoxy might be made compatible with each other.

At the end of the year 1544 Vittoria returned once more to Rome, where she took up her abode in the convent of the Benedictines of Saint Anne. Her health began to fail rapidly, and her friends became so uneasy as to importune her physician to lavish every care and skill on his illustrious patient. Fracostoro, a celebrated physician and poet, was written to at Verona for his advice and opinion on the case. He does not appear to have understood clearly the nature of her malady, but attributes it partly to moral causes.

The latter years of Vittoria's life were certainly clouded by sorrow. The fortunes of her family were no longer flourishing, and the enmity between her brother and the Pope must have grieved her on other grounds. And then, too, the death of the Marchese del Vasto in the prime of his life, was a very heavy blow. Vittoria grieved for him as though she had been in truth his mother.

As she became gradually weaker she was removed from the convent of St. Anne to the house of Giuliano Cesarini, the husband of Giulia Colonna, the only one of her kindred then in Rome. And there she died in the month of February, 1547, being about fifty-seven years old. Her devoted and affectionate friend, Michael Angelo, visited her in her last moments. The pupil and biographer of Michael Angelo, Ascanio Condivi, speaking of this circumstance,

1 Dizionario d'Erudizione, cii. 200.

says: "He (Michael Angelo), on his part, so loved her, that I remember hearing him say that, when he went to see her when she was dying, he lamented that he had not kissed her face as he did her hand.'

So passed away Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa di Pescara; a woman whose intellect, and still more the unblemished purity of her character, make her a figure worthy of all reverence in the gallery of Italian women of letters. She especially directed that her funeral should be in all respects like that of one of the nuns of the convent which had last received her, and her behest was obeyed. Not a stone, not a tablet, remains to record the place where she was buried.

473

Old Football Gossip.

It is within comparatively recent times that football ceased to be a pastime of the people of this country, and became, first a school game, and then, under the fostering care of Union or Association, the scientific winter sport so popular just now. This later phase of the game lies outside the purpose of the present paper, which is to gather together some of the many notable incidents in the long career of the old football-the rough, unscientific game of our ancestors for many centuries on both sides of the Border.

Indeed, except in name, the new and the old games have little in common. The roughest Rugby game' of to-day is mild and harmless when compared with the contests of two or three hundred years ago, when parish fought parish, or all the men of one county kicked their hardest to defeat a neighbouring shire. In its primitive form the game was merely a trial of speed, strength, and en. durance; there were no rules, and little science. Naturally, therefore, when the player could use any means to bring victory to his side, the violence of the game soon greatly increased. The heroes of the field became those who could plunge into the struggling mass of players, grappling right and left, and giving at least as good as they got in 'hacks' on the shins, or more direct blows that laid opposing players sprawling on their backs, with a strong probability of serious damage to limb or even to life. Victory in such a struggle was to be looked for more from the reckless use of muscular strength than from agility or skill; so violent, indeed, did many of the matches become, that at a very early period they were put down by authority as a public nuisance. From this court,' writes James I. to his eldest son, 'I debarre all rough and violent exercises, as the footeball, meeter for lameing than making able the users thereof.'

It is difficult to determine when football originated among us. It is doubtful whether this is the ball-game Fitzstephen speaks of among the pastimes of the Londoners in the time of Henry II.; perhaps the first authentic mention of it in English history is when Edward III., in 1349, found it necessary to put down our game and several others, because they interfered with the all-important practice of archery among his subjects. Eighty years afterwards the Scottish king had, for the same reason, to pass the first of a series of Acts against this and other 'unprofitabill sportis ;'

but as he and his followers, keen players all, paid little attention to their own edicts, the game naturally continued quite as popular

as ever.

Shrove Tuesday was the great day in the year for footballmatches in all parts of the kingdom. A great many of these contests were held in the streets of towns, when windows had to be barricaded, women kept indoors, and the place given over for the day to a contest that too often ended in fights and broken bones. Strutt quotes a Chester antiquary, who says that it had been the custom, time out of mind, for the shoemakers yearly on the 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 footeball, of the value of three shillings and fourpence, or above, to play at from thence to the Common Hall of the said city; which practice was productive of much inconvenience, and therefore this year (1540), by consent of the parties concerned, the ball was changed into six glayves of silver of the like value, as a prize for the best runner that day upon the aforesaid Rodehee.'

Perhaps in no place was this Shrovetide sport pursued with greater energy than at Scone, in Perthshire. The sides consisted of the married and single men of the neighbourhood, who assembled at the village cross at two in the afternoon of the 'Fastern's E'en,' as Shrove Tuesday is called in Scotland. At that hour the ball was thrown up, and the game, by immemorial custom, had to last till sunset. The minister of the parish describes the game thus in Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland: The player who at any time got the ball into his hands ran with it till he was overtaken by one of the opposite party; then, if he could shake himself loose from those on the opposite side 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 one 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 on the moor, which was the dool or limit on the one hand; that of the bachelors was to drown' the ball, or dip it three times into a deep place in the river, the goal on their side. The party who could effect either of these objects won the game; but if neither side succeeded in winning a goal, the ball was cut into two equal parts at sunset. In the course of the game there was usually such violence between the parties that this match gave rise to a proverb in Scotland, All is fair at the Ba' of Scone.' Tradition said that this match was instituted centuries ago to commemorate the victory of a Scone champion over an Italian knight who had challenged the chivalry of the county. However this may be, while the custom lasted,

every man, gentle or simple, in the district had to turn out to support his side, on pain of fine. At the time the minister wrote -1796-this old match had been discontinued for a few years, and it has never been revived.

The famous match that up to about forty years ago used to begin in the market-place of Derby on Shrove Tuesday afternoon is a good example of the old game south of the Tweed. The good folks of Derby turned out in all their bravery to witness the struggle. Ladies filled the windows overlooking the market-place, where, at 2 P.M., the men of St. Peter's parish met to do battle with all comers from the other parishes of the town. The ball was of very strong leather, a foot in diameter, and stuffed hard with cork shavings. At the appointed hour this ball was tossed into the air, and the mass of about a thousand players made a rush at it, the one side, whose rallying-cry was 'St. Peter's,' trying to drive the ball towards their goal, the gate of a nursery ground about a mile out of town, while the All Saints' party as strenuously fought to goal the ball against a distant water-mill wheel. It was the policy of the St. Peter's party to get the ball into the river which leads towards their goal. A man swimming with the floating ball had a good chance of getting it far on its way; but the great struggle was in carrying it across the ground that separated the landingplace and the goal-gate. The brook on which was the water-mill sometimes helped the other party; but so great was the press of players that goals were generally taken by stratagem, very seldom by direct and open kicking. Many amusing stories are told of how wily players have slipped unawares through the strong guard that surrounded the goals and brought victory to their side. Sometimes the shavings were taken out and the cover smuggled in under a smock-frock or a woman's shawl. Once the ball was in the middle of a big scrimmage, where everyone was kicking and no one could see the ball. A cunning fellow outside just then threw his hat over the mass; they saw a dark object, called out There it goes,' and dispersed, while he picked up the ball, hid it under his coat, and sauntered to the brook, dropped in the ball, which he did not follow closely but merely kept in view. The goalkeepers saw the mass of players far off, and suspected nothing till the clever fellow slipped past them, jumped into the water, and pushed the ball in triumph against the wheel.

The following day, Ash Wednesday, was the Boys' Day,' when the men of both sides attended to see fair play and to decide delicate questions as to whether claimants were small men or great boys. Disputes were much more frequent on this day than on that of the match proper; indeed, it was said that if a cause of quarrel