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 70_l._, 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 Trojæ_, the infant school of
cricketers. Witness also the Burton Clubs, assisted by our excellent
friend next akin to bitter ale. Witness again Alton ale, on which old
Beagley throve so well, and the Scotch ale of Edinburgh, on which
John Sparkes, though commencing with the last generation, has carried
on his instructions, in which we ourselves once rejoiced, into the
middle of the present century. The mountain mists and “mountain dew”
suit better with deer-stalking than with cricket: our game disdains
the Dutch courage of ardent spirits. The brain must glow with Nature’s
fire, and not depend upon a spirit lamp. _Mens sana in corpore sano_:
feed the body, but do not cloud the mind. You, sir, with the hectic
flush, the fire of your eyes burnt low in their sockets, with beak as
sharp as a woodcock’s from living upon suction, with pallid face and
shaky hand,--our game disdains such ghostlike votaries. Rise with the
lark and scent the morning air, and drink from the bubbling rill, and
then, when your veins are no longer fevered with alcohol, nor puffed
with tobacco smoke,--when you have rectified your illicit spirits
and clarified your unsettled judgment,--“come again and devour up my
discourse.” And you, sir, with the figure of Falstaff and the nose
of Bardolph,--not Christianly eating that you may live, but living
that you may eat,--one of the _nati consumere fruges_, the devouring
caterpillar and grub of human kind--our noble game has no sympathy with
gluttony, still less with the habitual “diner out,” on whom outraged
nature has taken vengeance, by emblazoning what was his face (_nimium
ne crede colori_), encasing each limb in fat, and condemning him to
be his own porter to the end of his days. “Then I am your man--and
I--and I,” cry a crowd of self-satisfied youths: “sound are we in wind
and limb, and none have quicker hand or eye.” Gently, my friends, so
far well; good hands and eyes are instruments indispensable, but only
instruments. There is a wide difference between a good workman and a
bag of tools, however sharp. We must have heads as well as hands. You
may be big enough and strong enough, but the question is whether, as
Virgil says,
“_Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus_
_Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet._”
And, in these lines, Virgil truly describes the right sort of man for
a cricketer: plenty of life in him: not barely soul enough, as Robert
South said, to keep his body from putrefaction; but, however large his
stature, though he weigh twenty stone, like (we will not say Mr. Mynn),
but an olden wicket-keeper, named Burt, or a certain _infant_ genius in
the same line, of good Cambridge town,--he must, like these worthies
aforesaid, have νους in perfection, and be instinct with sense all
over. Then, says Virgil, _igneus est ollis vigor_: “they must always
have the steam up,” otherwise the bard would have agreed with us, they
are no good in an Eleven, because--
“_Noxia corpora tardant,_
_Terrenique hebetant artus, moribundaque membra;_”
that is, you must suspend the laws of gravitation before they can
stir,--dull clods of the valley, and so many stone of carrion; and
then Virgil proceeds to describe what discipline will render those,
who suffer the penalties of idleness or intemperance, fit to join the
chosen _few_ in the cricket-field:
“_Exinde per amplum_
_Mittimur Elysium et pauci læta arva tenemus._”
Of course _Elysium_ means “Lords,” and _læta arva_, “the shooting
fields.” We make no apology for classical quotations. At the
Universities, cricket and scholarship very generally go together.
When, in 1836, we played victoriously on the side of Oxford against
Cambridge, seven out of our eleven were classmen; and, it is doubtless
only to avoid an invidious distinction that “Heads _v._ Heels,” as was
once suggested, has failed to be an annual University match; though the
_seri studiorum_--those put to school late--would not have a chance. We
extract the following:--
“In a late Convocation holden at Oxford, May 30, 1851, it was
agreed to affix the University seal to a power of attorney
authorising the sale of 2000_l._ three per cent. consols, for
the purpose of paying for and enclosing certain allotments of
land in Cowley Common, used as cricket grounds by members of
the University, in order to their being preserved for that
purpose, and let to the several University cricket clubs in
such manner as may hereafter appear expedient.”
From all this we argue that, on the authority of ancient and the
experience of modern times, cricket wants mind as well as matter,
and, in every sense of the word, a good understanding. How is it that
Clarke’s slow bowling is so successful? ask Bayley or Caldecourt; or
say Bayley’s own bowling, or that of Lillywhite, or others not much
indebted to pace. “You see, sir, they bowl with their heads.” Then
only is the game worthy the notice of full-grown men. “A rubber of
whist,” says the author of the “Diary of a late Physician,” in his “Law
Studies,” “calls into requisition all those powers of mind that a
barrister most needs;” and nearly as much may be said of a scientific
game of cricket. Mark that first-rate bowler: the batsman is hankering
for his favourite cut--no--leg stump is attacked again--extra man on
leg side--right--that’s the spot--leg stump, and not too near him.
He is screwed up, and cannot cut away; Point has it--persevere--try
again--his patience soon will fail. Ah! look at that ball;--the bat was
more out of the perpendicular--now the bowler alters his pace--good. A
dropping ball--over-reached and all but a mistake;--now a slower pace
still, with extra twist--hits furiously to leg, too soon. Leg-stump is
grazed, and bail off. “You see, sir,” says the veteran, turning round,
“an old player, who knows what is, and what is not, on the ball, alone
can resist all the temptations that leg-balls involve. Young players
are going their round of experiments, and are too fond of admiration
and brilliant hits; whereas it is your upright straight players that
worry a bowler--twenty-two inches of wood, by four and a quarter--every
inch of them before the stumps, hitting or blocking, is rather
disheartening; but the moment a man makes ready for a leg hit, only
about five inches by four of wood can cover the wicket; so leg-hitting
is the bowler’s chance: cutting also for a similar reason. If there
were no such thing as leg-hitting, we should see a full bat every time,
the man steady on his legs, and only one thing to think of; and what a
task a bowler would have. That was Mr. Ward’s play--good for something
to the last. First-rate straight play and free leg-hitting seldom last
long together: when once exulting in the luxurious excitement of a leg
volley, the muscles are always on the quiver to swipe round, and the
bowler sees the bat raised more and more across wicket. So, also, it is
with men who are yearning for a cut: forming for the cut, like forming
for leg-hit--aye, and almost the idea of those hits coming across the
mind--set the muscles off straight play, and give the bowler a chance.
There is a deal of head-work in bowling: once make your batsman set his
mind on one hit, and give him a ball requiring the contrary, and he is
off his guard in a moment.”
Certainly, there is something highly intellectual in our noble and
national pastime. But the cricketer must possess other qualifications;
not only physical and intellectual, but moral qualifications also.
Of what avail is the head to plan and hand to execute, if a sulky
temper paralyses exertion, and throws a damp upon the field; or if
impatience dethrones judgment, and the man hits across at good balls,
because loose balls are long in coming; or, again, if a contentious and
imperious disposition leaves the cricketer all ‘alone in his glory,’
voted the pest of every eleven?
The pest of the hunting-field is the man always thinking of his own
horse and own riding, galloping against MEN and not after HOUNDS.
The pest of the cricket-field is the man who bores you about his
average--his wickets--his catches; and looks blue even at the success
of his own party. If unsuccessful in batting or fielding, he gives
up all--“the wretch concentred all in self.” No! Give me the man who
forgets himself in the game, and, missing a ball, does not stop to
exculpate himself by dumb show, but rattles away after it--who does
not blame his partner when he is run out--who plays like play and
not like a painful operation. Such a chilly, bleak, northwest aspect
some men do put on--it is absurd to say they are enjoying themselves.
We all know it is trying to be out first ball. “Oh! that first look
back at rattling stumps--why, I couldn’t have had right guard!”--that
conviction that the ball turned, or but for some unaccountable
suspension of the laws of motion (the earth perhaps coming to a
hitch upon its ungreased axis) it had not happened! Then there’s the
spoiling of your average, (though some begin again and reckon anew!)
and a sad consciousness that every critic in the three tiers of the
Pavilion, as he coolly speculates “_quis cuique dolor victo, quæ
gloria palmæ_,” knows your mortification. Oh! that sad walk back, a
“returned convict;” we must all pace it, “_calcanda semel via leti_.”
A man is sure never to take his eyes off the ground, and if there’s
a bit of stick in the way he kicks it instinctively with the side of
his shoe. Add, that cruel _post mortem_ examination into your “case,”
and having to answer the old question, How was it? or perhaps forced
to argue with some vexatious fellow who imputes it to the very fault
on which you are so sore and sensitive. All this is trying; but since
it is always happening, an “inseparable accident” of the game, it is
time that an unruffled temper should be held the “differentia” of the
true cricketer and bad temper voted bad play. Eleven good-tempered
men, other points equal, would beat eleven sulky or eleven irritable
gentlemen out of the field. The hurling of bats and angry ebullitions
show inexperience in the game and its chances; as if any man in England
could always catch, or stop, or score. This very uncertainty gives the
game its interest. If Pilch or Parr were sure of runs, who would care
to play? But as they make sometimes five and sometimes fifty, we still
contend with flesh and blood. Even Achilles was vulnerable at the heel;
or, mythologically, he could not stop a shooter to the leg stump. So
never let the Satan icagency of the gaming-table brood on those “happy
fields” where, _strenua nos exercet inertia_, there is an energy in
our idle hours, not killing time but enjoying it. Look at good honest
James Dean; his “patient merit” never “goes Out sighing” nor In,
either--never in a mumbling, though a “melting mood.” Perspiration may
roll off him, like bubbles from a duck’s back, but it’s all down to the
day’s work. He looks, as every cricketer should look, like a man out
for a holiday, shut up in “measureless content.” It is delightful to
see such a man make a score.
Add to all this, perseverance and self-denial, and a soul above
vain-glory and the applause of the vulgar. Aye, perseverance in
well-doing--perseverance in a straightforward, upright, and consistent
course of action.--See that player practising apart from the rest. What
an unpretending style of play--a hundred pounds appear to depend on
every ball--not a hit for these five minutes--see, he has a shilling on
his stumps, and Hillyer is doing his best to knock it off. A question
asked after every ball, the bowler being constantly invited to remind
him of the least inaccuracy in hitting or danger in defence. The
other players are hitting all over the field, making every one (but
a good judge) marvel. Our friend’s reward is that in the first good
match, when some supposed brilliant Mr. Dashwood has been stumped from
leg ball--(he cannot make his fine hits in his ground)--bowled by a
shooter or caught by that sharpest of all Points Ἄναξ ἄνδρων, then our
persevering friend--ball after ball dropping harmless from his bat,
till ever and anon a single or a double are safely played away--has
two figures appended to his name; and he is greeted in the Pavilion as
having turned the chances of the game in favour of his side.
Conceit in a cricketer, as in other things, is a bar to all
improvement--the vain-glorious is always thinking of the lookers-on,
instead of the game, and generally is condemned to live on the
reputation of one skying leg-hit, or some twenty runs off three or four
overs (his merriest life is a short one) for half a season.
In one word, there is no game in which amiability and an unruffled
temper is so essential to success, or in which virtue is rewarded,
half as much as in the game of cricket. Dishonest or shuffling ways
cannot prosper; the umpires will foil every such attempt--those truly
constitutional judges, bound by a code of written laws--and the
public opinion of a cricket club, militates against his preferment.
For cricket is a social game. Could a cricketer play a solo, or with
a dummy (other than the catapult), he might play in humour or out of
humour; but an Eleven is of the nature of those commonwealths of which
Cicero said that, without some regard to the cardinal virtues, they
could not possibly hold together.
Such a national game as cricket will both humanise and harmonise the
people. It teaches a love of order, discipline, and fair play for
the pure honour and glory of victory. The cricketer is a member of a
wide fraternity: if he is the best man in his club, and that club is
the best club in the county, he has the satisfaction of knowing his
high position, and may aspire to represent some large and powerful
constituency at Lord’s. How spirit-stirring are the gatherings of rival
counties! And I envy not the heart that glows not with delight at
eliciting the sympathies of exulting thousands, when all the country is
thronging to its battle-field studded with flags and tents. Its very
look makes the heart beat for the fortune of the play; and for miles
around the old coachman waves his whip above his head with an air of
infinite importance if he can only be the herald of the joyous tidings,
“We’ve won the day.”
Games of some kind men must have, and it is no small praise of cricket
that it occupies the place of less innocent sports. Drinking, gambling,
and cudgel-playing, insensibly disappear as you encourage a manly
recreation which draws the labourer from the dark haunts of vice and
misery to the open common, where
“The squire or parson o’ the parish,
Or the attorney,”
may raise him, without lowering themselves, by taking an interest,
if not a part, in his sports. “Nature abhors a vacuum,” especially of
mirth and merriment, resenting the folly of those who would disdain
her bounties by that indifference and apathy which mark a very dull
boy indeed. Nature designed us to sport and play at cricket as truly
as to eat and drink. Without sport you have no healthful exercise: to
refresh the body you must relax the mind. Observe the pale dyspeptic
student ruminating on his logic, algebra, or political economy while
describing his periodical revolutions around his college garden or on
Constitution Hill: then turn aside and gladden your eyes and ears with
the buoyant spirits and exulting energies of Bullingdon or Lord’s. See
how nature rebels against “an airing,” or a milestone-measured walk!
While following up a covey, or the windings of a trout-stream, we cross
field after field unconscious of fatigue, and retain so pleasing a
recollection of the toil, that years after, amidst the din and hum of
men, we brighten at the thought, and yearn as did the poet near two
thousand years ago, in the words,--
“_O rus, quando te aspiciam, quandoque licebit,_
_Ducere sollicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ._”
That an intelligent and responsible being should live only for
amusement, is an error indeed, and one which brings its own punishment
in that sinking of the heart when the cup is drained to the dregs, and
pleasures cease to please.
“_Nec lusisse pudet sed non incidere ludum._”
Still field-sports, in their proper season, are Nature’s kind provision
to smooth the frown from the brow, to allay “life’s fitful fever,” to--
“Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And by some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom from that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart.”
And words are these, not a whit too strong for those who live laborious
days, in this high-pressure generation. And, who does not feel his
daily burthen lightened, while enjoying, _pratorum viva voluptas_, the
joyous spirits and good fellowship of the cricket-field, those sunny
hours when “the valleys laugh and sing,” and, between the greensward
beneath and the blue sky above, you hear a hum of happy myriads
enjoying their brief span too!
Who can describe that tumult of the breast, described by Æschylus,
----νεαρὸς μυελὸς στέρνων
ἐντὸς ἀνάσσων--
those yearning energies which find in this sport their genial exercise!
How generous and social is our enjoyment! Every happy moment,--the
bail springing from the bat, the sharp catch sounding in the palm,
long reach or sudden spring and quick return, the exulting throw, or
bails and wicket flying,--these all are joys enhanced by sympathy,
purely reflected from each other’s eyes. In the cricket-field, as by
the cover’s side, the sport is in the free and open air and light of
heaven. No incongruity of tastes nor rude collision interferes. None
minds that another, how “unmannerly” soever, should “pass betwixt the
wind and his nobility.” One common interest makes common feeling,
fusing heart with heart, thawing the frostwork of etiquette, and
strengthening those silken ties which bind man to man.
Society has its ranks and classes. These distinctions we believe to be
not artificial, but natural, even as the very courses and strata of the
earth itself. Lines there are, nicely graduated, ordained to separate,
what Burns calls, the tropics of nobility and affluence, from the
temperate zones of a comfortable independence, and the Arctic circles
of poverty: but these lines are nowhere less marked, because nowhere
less wanted, than in the cricket-field. There we can waive for awhile
the precedence of birth,--
“Contented with the rank that merit gives.”
And many an humble spirit, from this temporary preferment, learning
the pleasure of superiority and well-earned applause, carries the same
honest emulation into his daily duties. The cricket-field suggests a
new version of the words
“_Æqua tellus_
_Pauperi recluditur_
_Regumque pueris._”
“A fair stage and no favour.” Kerseymere disdains not corduroys, nor
fine clothes fustian. The cottager stumps out his landlord; scholars
dare to beat their masters; and sons catch out those fathers who so
often _catch out_ them. William Beldham was many hours in the day “as
good a man” as even Lord Frederick Beauclerk; and the gallant Duke of
Richmond would descend from his high estate to contest the palm of
manly prowess with his humblest tenantry, so far acknowledging with
Robert Burns,--
“The rank is but the guinea stamp.
The man’s the gowd for a’ that.”
Cricket forms no debasing habits: unlike the bull-fights of Spain, and
the earlier sports of England, it is suited to the softer feelings of
a refined age. No living creature suffers for our sport: no frogs or
minnows impaled, or worms writhing upon fish-hooks,--no hare screaming
before the hounds,--no wounded partridge cowering in its agony, haunts
the imagination to qualify our pleasure.
Cricket lies within the reach of average powers. A good head will
compensate for hand and heels. It is no monopoly for a gifted few, nor
are we soon superannuated. It affords scope for a great diversity
of talent. Bowling, fielding, wicket-keeping, free hitting, safe and
judicious play, and good generalship--in one of these points many a man
has earned a name, though inferior in the rest. There are good batsmen
and the best of fields among near-sighted men, and hard hitters among
weak and crippled men; in weight, nine stone has proved not too little
for a first-rate, nor eighteen stone too much; and, as to age, Mr. Ward
at sixty, Mr. E. H. Budd at sixty-five, and old John Small at seventy
years of age, were useful men in good elevens.
Cricket is a game available to poor as well as rich; it has no
privileged class. Unlike shooting, hunting, or yachting, there is no
leave to ask, licence to buy, nor costly establishment to support:
the game is free and common as the light and air in which it is
played,--the poor man’s portion: with the poorer classes it originated,
played “after hours” on village greens, and thence transplanted to
patrician lawns.