I shall use for this purpose every scrap which I have found, or may find, of literature, anecdote, history, or biography; filling my page with contributions now from Xenophon, and again from Nimrod; jumping, without ceremony, from the Circus or Hippodrome, to Newmarket or Doncaster; and placing Day, or James Robinson, side by side with Boculus or Scorpus of old.

The peculiar amusements of every age, especially those details which are least known-the eccentricities which local or individual caprice may have introduced—the modifications which the same sport has, at different times, or in different countries, undergone-these will form the ordinary subjects of inquiry. There are others which may, occasionally, be introduced. The lives and writings of sporting literati, anecdotes of remarkable sportsmen of the olden time, contrasts of ancient sports with their more modern usages, will naturally come within the same range; and an occasional notice of rare and curious books upon these subjects will have the double advantage of interesting the cursory reader, and engaging the attention of the inquiring student.

Nor can this be regarded as devoid of, at least, professional utility. To trace thus the analogy of ancient and modern sporting, to investigate how far we are indebted to our predecessors for what we possess, and whether we have turned to the full account the advantages which they bequeathed us, may almost be considered a philosophical inquiry if sporting possess a philosophy. And, unquestionably, there is no philosophy more agreeable, or less harmless. To make a "classical hunting tour," for example-to compare a hare-hunt at Scillus, in the delightful company of Xenophon, with a brisk ring after a modern pack of harriers to contrast Arrian's rules of coursing with the latest code of the Thatched-House Clubto examine how far the increased knowledge of the doctrine of chances has modified our system of betting; and compare the "betting at Tattersall's" with the state of the odds in the Roman circus, where each of the sporting gentry

"Tangitque manum, poscitque libellum,
Et quærit, posito pignore, vincat uter:"

-this has ever been to me a favourite inquiry, and, unless the prejudice which long familiarity is apt to beget misleads me, cannot fail to interest every literary amateur.

I

But my "proem" is becoming a book, and the increasing number of my pages reminds me that it is more than time to have done. shall take leave, therefore, applying to my favourite studies the wellknown words of Cicero: Hæc studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant; secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solatium præbent; delectant domi, non impediunt foris; pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur-thus freely paraphrased into doggerel:

""Tis writ alike for Whig and Tory,

For merry youths, and sages hoary;
To make you laugh when stars are lucky,
And solace if the "legs" should pluck ye;
To while the solitary ride,

And cheer your home at eventide;

In the silence of night, mid the din of the road,

A rational recreation

And a pleasant friend in your country abode,
Through the gloom of the "long vacation."

44

A CHAPTER ON CRICKETING.

BY LORD WILLIAM LENNOX.

"The youthful train,

Who move in joy, and dance along the plain,
In scattered groups each favour'd haunt pursue,
Repeat old pastimes, and discover new;
Flush'd with his rays, beneath the noontide sun,
In rival bands, between the wickets run,
Drive o'er the sward the ball with active force,
Or chase, with nimble feet, its rapid course."

HOURS OF IDLENESS-BYRON.

THE newspapers have teemed with the following paragraph: "We understand, from pretty good authority, that Prince Albert has signified his intention of patronizing the national game of cricket." And standing forth, as we do, the professed champions of British sports, it is with no ordinary gratification we congratulate our readers on the aspect of affairs. Happy, indeed, must every lover of the manly sports of "merrie England" be, at this announcement: for the noble, purely national game of cricket has a peculiar claim to the people generally; and is one of those games open alike to all,-to the highest and the lowest, the rich and the poor, the prince and the peasant: it is free from selfishness, cruelty, or oppression; it encourages activity; it binds gentlemen to country life; it preserves the manly character of the Briton; and has been truly characterized as a healthful, manly recreation; giving strength to the body and cheerfulness to the mind; producing, in the words of Juvenal, 66 mens sana in corpore sano." Some ancient writer has described it as, "a goodlye arte, a wholesome kynde of exercise, and much commended in physik, as wrastling agaynste manye kyndes of diseases." It is one of the few sports that has not been made the subject of some invidious anathema. Sheridan vilified hunting, as his reply will prove: when asked, "whether he would go hunting to-day?" "No, thank you; I have been." The surly pedant, Johnson, and others, have denounced fishing, as the pastime of the idler,- a fool at one end, a worm at the other." Racing has been the subject of invective from the pulpit. Cricket has, hitherto, been unassailed.

Of the date that cricket was introduced, nothing is known it is supposed to be derived from the chugar of the Persians; but is more nearly allied to the bandy-ball of the Welsh, still played in the vale of Glamorgan; the hurling of the Irish, or the golf of the Scotch. Formerly the chugar was played on horseback. The first notice of the game of cricket may be dated from early in the eighteenth century. Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, and Surrey were, formerly, the principal cricketing counties; but its attraction has spread through most parts of England; and it has been, for some years, the favourite amusement in Scotland. The Edinburgh University Clubs have, on many occasions, displayed some particularly fine play.

In the wilds of the North American English settlements, under

Italy's cloudless sky, under the burning sun of India, wherever the manly sons of Britain sojourn, this popular game is sure to be patronized. Cochrane, in his "Wanderings in Greece," mentions a game of cricket, played May 29th, 1836, at Port Munychia (formerly a strong garrison of the Lacedemonians), between the officers of H. M. frigate, the Portland, lying at Piræus.

This game is admirably calculated to keep up a manly character, to encourage a friendly feeling, and promote a good understanding between parties at other times separated. Nothing tends more powerfully to conciliate the affections of the humbler classes than a similarity of tastes and pursuits: all must have something to do in the interval of their toils; and, as the educated can find recreation for themselves, it behoves the higher orders to be especially careful in furnishing innocent amusement to their less fortunate brethren, who are less fitted to choose their own pleasures well. With this view, George IV. formed a cricket-ground near the Pavilion at Brighton; and William IV. became the patron of the Clarence Cricket Club, at Hampton. The late Dukes of Richmond and Hamilton, Lords Winchelsea, F. Beauclerc, Hon. A. Upton, Lord Strathaven, now Lord Aboyne, were great supporters of the game. In the present day, the Grimstons, Lowthers, Bathursts, Cavendishes, Russells, Ponsonbys, still patronize this noble exercise.

The confined limit of our article has prevented our offering more than a sketch of the origin of the game, instead of a full picture. We must now proceed to give our early impressions of cricket. "Associations are the bees of imagination, and, wandering through all nature, may be said to distil honey from every fair object on which they light." So writes the talented author of "Darnley" and "Richelieu ;” and certainly there is no amusement that brings back the associations of the days," the merry days when we were young," more vividly to our remembrance than the game of cricket. "In our mind's eye" we see our first juvenile attempt at tip and run; when hats, piled upon one another, formed the wicket; and we were as proud of our bowling and batting, as if we were precocious Lillywhites and Broadbridges. We next picture to ourselves the fagging-out system, at Westminster, when our hours of recreation were devoted to standing long-stop" to some merciless master, who rewarded our labours by bowling at our legs, "shying" the ball at our heads, and taunting us with the agreeable appellations of milk-sop and butter-fingers. A bright spot now appears; we are in the fifth form, and have fags of our own,-are one of the eleven "town-boys against king's scholars." Tothill-fields is the scene of our glory: dressed in the extreme of cricketing fashion, straw hats, flannel jackets, white trousers, we fancy the world looking upon us :

"But pleasures are like poppies spread;
We seize the flower, the bloom is shed;
Or like the snowfall in the river,

A moment white, then lost for ever;
Or like the Borealis race,

That fit ere you can point the place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form,
Evanishing amidst the storm."

66

Before a dozen balls are delivered, a regular "swiper," the "pila

velox," as Horace calls it, from an Herculean tugmutton—anglice, king's scholar-" cuts us down," puts us hors de combat, and we are reluctantly carried off the ground, and placed under the care of our dame's housekeeper, to enjoy that universal school panacea against all ills—a blackdraught; leaving the game, and, what was worse, the dinner we had all subscribed to, to be devoured by the hungry eleven, now reduced to a "council of ten." Imagination then takes us to the Prater, at Vienna, where, during the congress of crowned heads, in 1814, we, with a few English attachés, shewed la créme of the Austrians our national game. Then we are carried to the Park of Enghein, near Bruxelles, where, a month previous to the battle of Waterloo, were assembled as fine a division as ever bore arms, or stood more bowling out the division of Guards. The names of many gallant spirits rise up before us; many of whom are gone to "that bourne from whence no traveller returns.' Maitland, Saltoun, Hesketh, Bowater, Bowles, Standen, Allix, J. Rous, now Earl of Stradbroke, and poor Hay, killed on the 16th of June. Here I must pause, to offer a tribute which I owe to his memory, as my brother aide-de-camp and old schoolfellow. To those who knew him, no words of mine are wanting; and to those who knew him not, no words of mine could convey any just idea of his worth. Suffice it to say, he possessed a truly generous nature, a heart open as the day, and that, through life, he never lost a friend. Peace to his manes!

F

"There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee;

And mine were nothing, had I such to give:

But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree,

Which, living, waves where thou didst cease to live,

And saw around me the wide field revive

With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring

Come forth, her work of gladness to contrive,

With all her reckless birds upon the wing,

I turned from all she brought, to those she could not bring."

But, while we mourn poor Hay, we find a living prototype in his brother, the Earl of Erroll, whose urbanity and kindness are well known to every sportsman, and who has won "golden opinions" from all men, by the spirited manner in which he fulfilled his duties as Master of the Royal buckhounds.

Our mind then wafts our ideas to Quebec-rayther "a long hop"where we remember scoring twenty on the plains of Abraham; and, higher up in the country, making one of an eleven, within the roaring of Niagara's cataract. The Falls of Niagara! We will spare our readers a description. Why for? as the Frenchman said. Because they are indescribable. Fanny Kemble (we beg her pardon, Mrs. Butler), though with the former name are associated the days when first, in the lines of one of her numerous panegyrists,

"We saw her tread the mimic scene

With true Siddonian grace,

Ere yet the bloom of sweet sixteen
Had flush'd upon her face."

Fanny Kemble's description, then, though it may appear an Irishism, is the best, inasmuch as it is no description at all. "Oh God! who can describe that sight?" We descend from the sublime to the

ridiculous, and give an extract from an American poem, by Halleck, descriptive of a party of tradesmen at the Falls; among whom was a New York Broadway Stultz :

"The tailor made one single note

Gods! what a place to sponge a coat!'"

Another Americanism flashes upon us: we give it in Jonathan's words. "Dip the Mississippi dry, with a tea-spoon; twist your heel into the toe of your boot; make post-masters perform their promises; send up fishing-hooks with balloons, and bob for stars; get astride of a gossamer, and chase a comet; when a rain-storm is coming down like the cataract of Niagara, remember where you left your umbrella; choke a musquitto with a brickbat. In short, prove all things, hitherto considered impossible, to be possible; but never attempt to describe our never-even-to-be-imagined wonder of the universal world -Niagara! They talk of Etna and Vesuvius; why, they may be fine; but, may I be teetotaciously exflunctified if our Fall could not put them out in five minutes." Is this a digression ?-Pardon it, reader, if it be; we are apt to write as we talk,-without judgment, perhaps : but, to proceed.

From time immemorial cricket has been a favourite game at Goodwood. The late Duke of Richmond was, in early life, passionately fond of the game; and, as Colonel Lennox, the annals of Lord's proclaim his superior prowess. Under his auspices, a cricket club was established at Bruxelles, the progress of which was arrested, and many of its members were, alas! dispersed, by the hard hitting of the grand national match, on the 18th June, 1815. England, Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, Holland, Nassau, Brunswick, and Hanover, against all France-70,000 veterans. At Quebec, too, as Governor-General of the British settlement of North America, His Grace was the patron of cricket; and it was an interesting sight to witness the enthusiasm with which the noble game was carried on, on a spot famous in history— the heights of Abraham, on which Wolfe defeated Montcalm, in the year 1759, and fell in the moment of victory. The present Duke, whose youthful days were passed 'midst "the cannon's roar," in the Peninsula, was partial to the game. An ugly ball, a very difficult one to stop, at Orthes, nearly deprived the army of a brave soldier, and his family of a kind friend. The Earl of March is a worthy scion of a worthy sire and grandsire; and Lord Fitzroy Gordon Lennox, of the 43rd light infantry, is first-rate at all games and sports; as Durfey writes:

"He was the prettiest fellow

At foot-ball or at cricket;

At hunting, chase, or nimble race,

How featly he could prick it."

The Goodwood Cricket Club is held in the park. The arena is a beautiful spot of ground, in the front of Goodwood House; its situation is most picturesque, surrounded by a park, comprising upwards of 1,200 acres, planted with the finest timber, and commanding, from various parts, extensive and almost unequalled prospects of the highly cultivated and garden-like scenery for which the west of Sussex is so remarkable. That species of landscape known as park