This Edition is greatly improved by various additions and corrections, for which we gratefully acknowledge our obligations to the Rev. R. T. King and Mr. A. Haygarth, as also once more to Mr. A. Bass and Mr. Whateley of Burton. For our practical instructions on Bowling, Batting, and Fielding, the first players of the day have been consulted, each on the point in which he respectively excelled. More discoveries have also been made illustrative of the origin and early history of Cricket; and we trust nothing is wanting to maintain the high character now accorded to the “Cricket Field,” as the Standard Authority on every part of our National Game.
J. P.
May, 18. 1854.
The following pages are devoted to the history and the science of our National Game. Isaac Walton has added a charm to the Rod and Line; Col. Hawker to the Dog and the Gun; and Nimrod and Harry Hieover to the “Hunting Field:” but, the “Cricket Field” is to this day untrodden ground. We have been long expecting to hear of some chronicler aided and abetted by the noblemen and gentlemen of the Marylebone Club—one who should combine, with all the resources of a ready writer, traditionary lore and practical experience. But, time is fast thinning the ranks of the veterans. Lord Frederick Beauclerk and the once celebrated player, the Hon. Henry Tufton, afterwards Earl of Thanet, have passed away; and probably Sparkes, of the Edinburgh Ground, and Mr. John Goldham, hereinafter mentioned, are the only surviving players who have witnessed both the formation and the jubilee of the Marylebone Club—following, as it has, the fortunes of the Pavilion and of the enterprising Thomas Lord, literally through “three removes” and “one fire,” from White Conduit Fields to the present Lord’s.
How, then, it will be asked, do we presume to save from oblivion the records of Cricket?
As regards the Antiquities of the game, our history is the result of patient researches in old English literature. As regards its changes and chances and the players of olden time, it fortunately happens that, some fifteen years ago, we furnished ourselves with old Nyren’s account of the Cricketers of his time and the Hambledon Club, and, using Bentley’s Book of Matches from 1786 to 1825 to suggest questions and test the truth of answers, we passed many an interesting hour in Hampshire and Surrey, by the peat fires of those villages which reared the Walkers, David Harris, Beldham, Wells, and some others of the All England players of fifty years since. Bennett, Harry Hampton, Beldham, and Sparkes, who first taught us to play—all men of the last century—have at various times contributed to our earlier annals; while Thomas Beagley, for some days our landlord, the late Mr. Ward, and especially Mr. E. H. Budd, often our antagonist in Lansdown matches, have respectively assisted in the first twenty years of the present century.
But, distinct mention must we make of one most important Chronicler, whose recollections were coextensive with the whole history of the game in its matured and perfect form—William Fennex. And here we must thank our kind friend the Rev. John Mitford, of Benhall, for his memoranda of many a winter’s evening with that fine old player—papers especially valuable because Fennex’s impressions were so distinct, and his observation so correct, that, added to his practical illustrations with bat and ball, no other man could enable us so truthfully to compare ancient with modern times. Old Fennex, in his declining years, was hospitably appointed by Mr. Mitford to a sinecure office, created expressly in his honour, in the beautiful gardens of Benhall; and Pilch, and Box, and Bayley, and all his old acquaintance, will not be surprised to hear that the old man would carefully water and roll his little cricket-ground on summer mornings, and on wet and wintry days would sit in the chimney-corner, dealing over and over again by the hour, to an imaginary partner, a very dark and dingy pack of cards, and would then sally forth to teach a long remembered lesson to some hob-nailed frequenter of the village ale-house.
So much for the History: but why should we venture on the Science of the game?
Many may be excellently qualified, and have a fund of anecdote and illustration, still not one of the many will venture on a book. Hundreds play without knowing principles; many know what they cannot explain; and some could explain, but fear the certain labour and cost, with the most uncertain return, of authorship. For our own part, we have felt our way. The wide circulation of our “Recollections of College Days” and “Course of English Reading” promises a patient hearing on subjects within our proper sphere; and that in this sphere lies Cricket, we may without vanity presume to assert. For in August last, at Mr. Dark’s Repository at Lord’s, our little treatise on the “Principles of Scientific Batting” (Slatter: Oxford, 1835) was singled out as “the book which contained as much on Cricket as all that had ever been written, and more besides.” That same day did we proceed to arrange with Messrs. Longman, naturally desirous to lead a second advance movement, as we led the first, and to break the spell which, we had thus been assured, had for fifteen years chained down the invention of literary cricketers at the identical point where we left off; for, not a single rule or principle has yet been published in advance of our own; though more than one author has been kind enough to adopt (thinking, no doubt, the parents were dead) our ideas, and language too!
“Shall we ever make new books,” asks Tristram Shandy, “as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?” No. But so common is the failing, that actually even this illustration of plagiarism Sterne stole from Burton!
Like solitary travellers from unknown lands, we are naturally desirous to offer some confirmation of statements, depending otherwise too much on our literary honour. We, happily, have received the following from—we believe the oldest player of the day who can be pronounced a good player still—Mr. E. H. Budd:—
“I return the proof-sheets of the History of my Contemporaries, and can truly say that they do indeed remind me of old times. I find one thing only to correct, which I hope you will be in time to alter, for your accuracy will then, to the best of my belief, be wholly without exception:—write twenty guineas, and not twenty-five, as the sum offered, by old Thomas Lord, if any one should hit out of his ground where now is Dorset Square.
“You invite me to note further particulars for your second edition: the only omission I can at present detect is this—the name of Lord George Kerr, son of the Marquis of Lothian, should be added to your list of the Patrons of the Old Surrey Players; for, his lordship lived in the midst of them at Farnham; and, I have often heard Beldham say, used to provide bread and cheese and beer for as many as would come out and practise on a summer’s evening: this is too substantial a supporter of the Noble Game to be forgotten.”
We must not conclude without grateful acknowledgments to some distinguished amateurs representing the science both of the northern and the southern counties, who have kindly allowed us to compare notes on various points of play. In all of our instructions in Batting, we have greatly benefited by the assistance, in the first instance, of Mr. A. Bass of Burton, and his friend Mr. Whateley, a gentleman who truly understands “Philosophy in Sport.” Then, the Hon. Robert Grimston judiciously suggested some modification of our plan. We agreed with him that, for a popular work, and one “for play hours,” the lighter parts should prevail over the heavier; for, with most persons, a little science goes a long way, and our “winged words,” if made too weighty, might not fly far; seeing, as said Thucydides[1], “men do find it such a bore to learn any thing that gives them trouble.” For these reasons we drew more largely on our funds of anecdote and illustration, which had been greatly enriched by the contributions of a highly valued correspondent—Mr. E. S. E. Hartopp. When thus the science of batting had been reduced to its fair proportions, it was happily undertaken by the Hon. Frederick Ponsonby, not only through kindness to ourselves personally, but also, we feel assured, because he takes a pleasure in protecting the interests of the rising generation. By his advice, we became more distinct in our explanations, and particularly careful of venturing on such refinements of science as, though sound in theory, may possibly produce errors in practice.
For our artist we have one word to say: not indeed for the engravings in our frontispiece—these having received unqualified approbation; but, we allude to the illustrations of attitudes. In vain did our artist assure us that a foreshortened position would defy every attempt at ease, energy, or elegance; we felt bound to insist on sacrificing the effect of the picture to its utility as an illustration. Our principal design is to show the position of the feet and bat with regard to the wicket, and how every hit, with one exception, the Cut, is made by no other change of attitude than results from the movement of the left foot alone.
J. P.
Barnstaple,
April 15th, 1851.
[1] B. i. c. 20.
[xvii]
[xviii]
H. Adlard sc.
THE BATSMAN.
Fuller Pilch.
London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans.
The Game of Cricket, in some rude form, is undoubtedly as old as the thirteenth century. But whether at that early date Cricket was the name it generally bore is quite another question. For Club-Ball we believe to be the name which usually stood for Cricket in the thirteenth century; though, at the same time, we have some curious evidence that the term Cricket at that early period was also known. But the identity of the game with that now in use is the chief point; the name is of secondary consideration. Games commonly change their names, as every school-boy knows, and bear different appellations in different places.
Nevertheless, all previous writers acquiescing quietly in the opinion of Strutt, expressed in his “Sports and Pastimes,” not only forget that Cricket may be older than its name, but erroneously suppose that the name of Cricket occurs in no author in the English language of an earlier date than Thomas D’Urfey, who, in his “Pills to purge Melancholy,” writes thus:—
The words “How featly” Strutt properly writes in place of a revolting old-fashioned oath in the original.
Strutt, therefore, in these lines quotes the word Cricket as first occurring in 1710.
About the same date Pope wrote—
And Duncome, curious to observe, laying the scene of a match near Canterbury, wrote—
Soame Jenyns, also, early in the same century, wrote in lines that showed that cricket was very much of a “sporting” amusement:—
However, we are happy to say that even among comparatively modern authors we have beaten Strutt in his researches by twenty-five years; for Edward Phillips, John Milton’s nephew, in his “Mysteries of Love and Eloquence” (8vo. 1685), writes thus:—
“Will you not, when you have me, throw stocks at my head and cry, ‘Would my eyes had been beaten out of my head with a cricket-ball the day before I saw thee?’ ”
We shall presently show the word Cricket, in Richelet, as early as the year 1680.
A late author has very sensibly remarked that Cricket could not have been popular in the days of Elizabeth, or we should expect to find allusions to that game, as to tennis, foot-ball, and other sports, in the early poets; but Shakspeare and the dramatists who followed, he observes, are silent on the subject.
As to the silence of the early poets and dramatists on the game of cricket—and no one conversant with English literature would expect to find it except in some casual allusion or illustration in an old play—this silence we can confirm on the best authority. What if we presumed to advance that the early dramatists, one and all, ignore the very name of cricket. How bold a negative! So rare are certain old plays that a hundred pounds have been paid by the Duke of Devonshire for a single copy of a few loose and soiled leaves; and shall we pretend to have dived among such hidden stores? We are so fortunate as to be favoured with the assistance of the Rev. John Mitford and our loving cousin John Payne Collier, two English scholars, most deeply versed in early literature, and no bad judges of cricket; and since these two scholars have never met with any mention of cricket in the early dramatists, nor in any author earlier than 1685, there is, indeed, much reason to believe that “Cricket” is a word that does not occur in any English author before the year 1685.
But though it occurs not in any English author, is it found in no rare manuscript yet unpublished? We shall see.
Now as regards the silence of the early poets, a game like cricket might certainly exist without falling in with the allusions or topics of poetical writers. Still, if we actually find distinct catalogues and enumerations of English games before the date of 1685, and Cricket is omitted, the suspicion that Cricket was not then the popular name of one of the many games of ball (not that the game itself was positively unknown) is strongly confirmed.
Six such catalogues are preserved; one in the “Anatomy of Melancholy,” a second in a well-known treatise of James I., and a third in the “Cotswold Games,” with three others.
I. For the first catalogue, Strutt reminds us of the set of rules from the hand of James I. for the “nurture and conduct of an heir-apparent to the throne,” addressed to his eldest son, Henry Prince of Wales, called the ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΟΝ ΔΩΡΟΝ, or a “Kinge’s Christian Dutie towards God.” Herein the king forbids gaming and rough play: “As to diceing, I think it becometh best deboshed souldiers to play on the heads of their drums. As to the foote-ball, it is meeter for laming, than making able, the users thereof.” But a special commendation is given to certain games of ball; “playing at the catch or tennis, palle-malle, and such like other fair and pleasant field-games.” Certainly cricket may have been included under the last general expression, though by no means a fashionable game in James’s reign.
II. For the second catalogue of games, Burton in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” “the only book,” said Dr. Johnson, “that ever took me out of bed two hours sooner than I wished to rise,”—gives a view of the sports most prevalent in the seventeenth century. Here we have a very full enumeration: it specifies the pastimes of “great men,” and those of “base inferior persons;” it mentions “the rocks on which men lose themselves” by gambling; how “wealth runs away with their hounds, and their fortunes fly away with their hawks.” Then follow “the sights and shows of the Londoners,” and the “May-games and recreations of the country-folk.” More minutely still, Burton speaks of “rope dancers, cockfights,” and other sports common both to town and country; still, though Burton is so exact as to specify all “winter recreations” separately, and mentions even “foot-balls and ballowns,” saying “Let the common people play at ball and barley-brakes,” there is in all this catalogue no mention whatever of Cricket.
III. As a third catalogue, we have the “Cotswold Games,” but cricket is not among them. This was an annual celebration which one Captain Dover, by express permission and command of James I., held on the Cotswold Hills, in Gloucestershire.
IV. Fourthly: cricket is not mentioned in “The compleat Gamester,” published by Charles Browne, in 1709.
V. “I have many editions of Chamberlayne’s ‘State of England,’ ” kindly writes Mr. T. B. Macaulay, “published between 1670 and 1700, and I observe he never mentions cricket among the national games, of which he gives a long list.”
VI. The great John Locke wrote in 1679, “The sports of England for a curious stranger to see, are horse-racing, hawking, hunting, and Bowling: at Marebone and Putney he may see several persons of quality bowling two or three times a week: also, wrestling in Lincoln’s Inn Fields every evening; bear and bull-baiting at the bear garden; shooting with the long bow, and stob-ball, in Tothill Fields; and cudgel playing in the country, and hurling in Cornwall.” Here again we have no Cricket. Stob-ball is a different game.
Nevertheless we have a catalogue of games of about 1700, in Stow’s “Survey of London,” and there Cricket is mentioned; but, remarkably enough, it is particularised as one of the amusements of “the lower classes.” The whole passage is curious:—
“The modern sports of the citizens, besides drinking(!), are cock-fighting, bowling upon greens, backgammon, cards, dice, billiards, also musical entertainments, dancing, masks, balls, stage-plays, and club-meetings in the evening; they sometimes ride out on horseback, and hunt with the lord mayor’s pack of dogs, when the common hunt goes on. The lower classes divert themselves at foot-ball, wrestling, cudgels, nine-pins, shovel-board, cricket, stow-ball, ringing of bells, quoits, pitching the bar, bull and bear baitings, throwing at cocks, and lying at ale-houses.”(!)
The lawyers have a rule that to specify one thing is to ignore the other; and this rule of evidence can never be more applicable than where a sport is omitted from six distinct catalogues; therefore, the conclusion that Cricket was unknown when those lists were made would indeed appear utterly irresistible, only—audi semper alteram partem—in this case the argument would prove too much; for it would equally prove that Club-ball and Trap-ball were undiscovered too, whereas both these games are confessedly as old as the thirteenth century!
The conclusion of all this is, that the oft-repeated assertions that Cricket is a game no older than the eighteenth century is erroneous: for, first, the thing itself may be much older than its name; and, secondly, the “silence of antiquity” is no conclusive evidence that even the name of Cricket was really unknown.
Thus do we refute those who assert a negative as to the antiquity of cricket: and now for our affirmative; and we are prepared to show—
First, that a single-wicket game was played as early as the thirteenth century, under the name of Club-ball.
Secondly, that it might have been identical with a sport of the same date called “Handyn and Handoute.”
Thirdly, that a genuine double-wicket game was played in Scotland about 1700, under the name of “Cat and Dog.”
Fourthly, that “Creag,”—very near “Cricce,” the Saxon term for the crooked stick, or bandy, which we see in the old pictures of cricket—was the name of a game played in the year 1300.
First, as to a single-wicket game in the thirteenth century, whatever the name of the said game might have been, we are quite satisfied with the following proof:—
“In the Bodleian Library at Oxford,” says Strutt, “is a MS. (No. 264.) dated 1344, which represents a figure, a female, in the act of bowling a ball (of the size of a modern cricket-ball) to a man who elevates a straight bat to strike it; behind the bowler are several figures, male and female, waiting to stop or catch the ball, their attitudes grotesquely eager for a ‘chance.’ The game is called Club-ball, but the score is made by hitting and running, as in cricket.”
Secondly, Barrington, in his “Remarks on the More Ancient Statutes,” comments on 17 Edw. IV. A.D. 1477, thus:—
“The disciplined soldiers were not only guilty of pilfering on their return, but also of the vice of gaming. The third chapter therefore forbids playing at cloish, ragle, half-bowle, quekeborde, handyn and handoute. Whosoever shall permit these games to be played in their house or yard is punishable with three years’ imprisonment; those who play at any of the said games are to be fined 10l., or lie in jail two years.”
“This,” says Barrington, “is the most severe law ever made in any country against gaming; and, some of those forbidden seem to have been manly exercises, particularly the “handyn and handoute,” which I should suppose to be a kind of cricket, as the term hands is still (writing in 1740) retained in that game.”
Thirdly, as to the double-wicket game, Dr. Jamieson, in his Dictionary, published in 1722, gives the following account of a game played in Angus and Lothian:—
“This is a game for three players at least, who are furnished with clubs. They cut out two holes, each about a foot in diameter and seven inches in depth, and twenty-six feet apart; one man guards each hole with his club; these clubs are called Dogs. A piece of wood, about four inches long and one inch in diameter, called a Cat, is pitched, by a third person, from one hole towards the player at the other, who is to prevent the cat from getting into the hole. If it pitches in the hole, the party who threw it takes his turn with the club. If the cat be struck, the club-bearers change places, and each change of place counts one to the score, like club-ball.”
The last observation shows that in the game of Club-ball above-mentioned, the score was made by “runs,” as in cricket.
In what respect, then, do these games differ from cricket as played now? The only exception that can be taken is to the absence of any wicket. But every one familiar with a paper given by Mr. Ward, and published in “Old Nyren,” by the talented Mr. C. Cowden Clarke, will remember that the traditionary “blockhole” was a veritable hole in former times, and that the batsman was made Out in running, not, as now, by putting down a wicket, but by popping the ball into the hole before the bat was grounded in it. The same paper represents that the wicket was two feet wide—a width which is only rendered credible by the fact that the said hole was not like our mark for guard, four feet distant from the stumps, but cut like a basin in the turf between the stumps; an arrangement which would require space for the frequent struggle of the batsman and wicket-keeper, as to whether the bat of the one, or the hand of the other, should reach the blockhole first.
The conclusion of all is, that Cricket is identical with Club-ball—a game played in the thirteenth century as single-wicket, and played, if not then, somewhat later as a double-wicket game; that where balls were scarce, a Cat, or bit of wood, as seen in many a village, supplied its place; also that “handyn and handoute” was probably only another name. Fosbroke, in his Dictionary of Antiquities, said, “club-ball was the ancestor of cricket:” he might have said, “club-ball was the old name for cricket, the games being the same.”
The points of difference are not greater than every cricketer can show between the game as now played and that of the last century.
But, lastly, as to the name of Cricket. The bat, which is now straight, is represented in old pictures as crooked, and “cricce” is the simple Saxon word for a crooked stick. The derivation of Billiards from the Norman billart, a cue, or from ball-yard, according to Johnson, also Nine-pins and Trap-ball, are obvious instances of games which derived their names from the implements with which they are played. Now it appears highly probable that the crooked stick used in the game of Bandy might have been gradually adopted, especially when a wicket to be bowled down by a rolling ball superseded the blockhole to be pitched into. In that case the club having given way to the bandy or crooked bat of the last century, the game, which first was named from the club “club-ball,” might afterwards have been named from the bandy or crooked stick “cricket.”
Add to which, the game might have been played in two ways—sometimes more in the form of Club-ball, sometimes more like Cricket; and the following remarkable passage proves that a term very similar to Cricket was applied to some game as far back as the thirteenth century, the identical date to which we have traced that form of cricket called club-ball and the game of handyn and handoute.
From the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. lviii. p. 1., A.D. 1788, we extract the following:—
“In the wardrobe account of the 28th year of King Edward the First, A.D. 1300, published in 1787 by the Society of Antiquaries, among the entries of money paid one Mr. John Leek, his chaplain, for the use of his son Prince Edward in playing at different games, is the following:—
“ ‘Domino Johanni de Leek, capellano Domini Edwardi fil’ ad Creag’ et alios ludos per vices, per manus proprias, 100 s. Apud Westm. 10 die Aprilis, 1305.’ ”
The writer observes, that the glossaries have been searched in vain for any other name of a pastime but cricket to which the term Creag’ can apply. And why should it not be Cricket? for, we have a singular evidence that, at the same date, Merlin the Magician was a cricketer!
In the romance of “Merlin,” a book in very old French, written about the time of Edward I., is the following:—
“Two of his (Vortiger’s) emissaries fell in with certain children who were playing at cricket.”—Quoted in Dunlop’s “History of Fiction.”
The word here rendered cricket is la crosse; and in Richelet’s Dict. of Ant. 1680, are these words:
“Crosse, à Crosier. Bâton de bois courbé par le bout d’en haut, dont on se sert pour jouer ou pousser quelque balle.”
“Crosseur, qui pousse—‘Cricketer.’ ”
Creag’ and Cricket, therefore, being presumed identical, the cricketers of Warwick and of Gloucester may be reminded that they are playing the same game as was played by the dauntless enemy of Robert Bruce, afterwards the prisoner at Kenilworth, and eventually the victim of Mortimer’s ruffians in the dark tragedy of Berkeley Castle.
To advert to a former observation that cricket was originally confined to the lower orders, Robert Southey notes, C. P. Book. iv. 201., that cricket was not deemed a game for gentlemen in the middle of the last century. Tracing this allusion to “The Connoisseur,” No. 132. dated 1756, we are introduced to one Mr. Toby Bumper, whose vulgarities are, “drinking purl in the morning, eating black-puddings at Bartholomew Fair, boxing with Buckhorse,” and also that “he is frequently engaged at the Artillery Ground with Faukner and Dingate at cricket, and is esteemed as good a bat as either of the Bennets.” Dingate will be mentioned as an All-England player in our third chapter.
And here we must observe that at the very date that a cricket-ground was thought as low as a modern skittle-alley, we read that even
and also that a Duchess of Devonshire could be actually watching the play of her guests in the skittle-alley till nine o’clock in the evening.
Our game in later times, we know, has constituted the pastime and discipline of many an English soldier. Our barracks are now provided with cricket grounds; every regiment and every man-of-war has its club; and our soldiers and sailors astonish the natives of every clime, both inland and maritime, with a specimen of a British game: and it deserves to be better known that it was at a cricket match that “some of our officers were amusing themselves on the 12th June, 1815,” says Captain Gordon, “in company with that devoted cricketer the Duke of Richmond, when the Duke of Wellington arrived, and shortly after came the Prince of Orange, which of course put a stop to our game. Though the hero of the Peninsula was not apt to let his movements be known, on this occasion he made no secret that, if he were attacked from the south, Halle would be his position, and, if on the Namur side, Waterloo.”
The game of cricket, philosophically considered, is a standing panegyric on the English character: none but an orderly and sensible race of people would so amuse themselves. It calls into requisition all the cardinal virtues, some moralist would say. As with the Grecian games of old, the player must be sober and temperate. Patience, fortitude, and self-denial, the various bumps of order, obedience, and good-humour, with an unruffled temper, are indispensable. For intellectual virtues we want judgment, decision, and the organ of concentrativeness—every faculty in the free use of all its limbs—and every idea in constant air and exercise. Poor, rickety, and stunted wits will never serve: the widest shoulders are of little use without a head upon them: the cricketer wants wits down to his fingers’ ends. As to physical qualifications, we require not only the volatile spirits of the Irishman Rampant, nor the phlegmatic caution of the Scotchman Couchant, but we want the English combination of the two; though, with good generalship, cricket is a game for Britons generally: the three nations would mix not better in a regiment than in an eleven; especially if the Hibernian were trained in London, and taught to enjoy something better than what Father Prout terms his supreme felicity, “Otium cum dig-gin-taties.”
It was from the southern and south-eastern counties of England that the game of Cricket spread—not a little owing to the Propaganda of the metropolitan clubs, which played chiefly first at the Artillery Ground, then at White Conduit Fields, and thirdly at Thomas Lord’s Grounds, (of which there were two before the present “Lord’s,”) as well as latterly at the Oval, Kennington, and on all sides of London—through all the southern half of England; and during these last twenty years the northern counties, and even Edinburgh, have sent forth distinguished players. But considering that the complement of the game is twenty-two men, besides two Umpires and two Scorers; and considering also that cricket, unlike every other manly contest, by flood or field, occupies commonly more than one day; the railways, as might be expected, have tended wonderfully to the diffusion of cricket—giving rise to clubs depending on a circle of some thirty or forty miles, as also to that club in particular under the canonised saint, John Zingari, into whom are supposed to have migrated all the erratic spirits of the gipsy tribe. The Zingari are a race of ubiquitous cricketers, exclusively gentlemen-players; for cricket affords to a race of professionals a merry and abundant, though rather a laborious livelihood, from the time the first May-fly is up to the time the first pheasant is down. Neither must we forget the All England and United Elevens, who, under the generalship of Clarke or Wisden, play numbers varying from fourteen to twenty-two in almost every county in England. So proud are provincial clubs of this honour that, besides a subscription of some 70l., and part or all of the money at the field-gate being willingly accorded for their services, much hospitality is exercised wherever they go. This tends to a healthy circulation of the life’s blood of cricket, vaccinating and inoculating every wondering rustic with the principles of the national game. Our soldiers, we said, by order of the Horse Guards, are provided with cricket-grounds adjoining their barracks; and all of her Majesty’s ships have bats and balls to astonish the cockroaches at sea, and the crabs and turtles ashore. Hence it has come to pass that, wherever her Majesty’s servants have “carried their victorious arms” and legs, wind and weather permitting, cricket has been played. Still the game is essentially Anglo-Saxon. Foreigners have rarely, very rarely, imitated us. The English settlers and residents everywhere play; but of no single cricket club have we ever heard dieted either with frogs, sour crout, or macaroni. But how remarkable that cricket is not naturalised in Ireland! the fact is very striking that it follows the course rather of ale than whiskey. Witness Kent, the land of hops, and the annual antagonists of “All England.” Secondly, Farnham, which, as we shall presently show, with its adjoining parishes, nurtured the finest of the old players, as well as the finest hops—cunabula TrojæMens sana in corpore sanonati consumere frugesnimium ne crede colori