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manuscript yet unpublished?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 10_l._, 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
“Some Dukes at Mary’bone _bowled_ time away;”
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.”