What have become of the old scores and the earliest records of the game
of cricket? Bentley’s Book of Matches gives the principal games from
the year 1786; but where are the earlier records of matches made by
Dehaney, Paulet, and Sir Horace Mann? All burnt!
What the destruction of Rome and its records by the Gauls was to
Niebuhr,--what the fire of London was to the antiquary in his walk
from Pudding Lane to Pie Corner, such was the burning of the Pavilion
at Lord’s, and all the old score books--it is a mercy that the old
painting of the M.C.C. was saved--to the annalist of cricket. “When
we were built out by Dorset Square,” says Mr. E. H. Budd, “we played
for three years where the Regent’s Canal has since been cut, and still
called our ground ‘Lord’s,’ and our dining-room ‘the Pavilion.’”
Here many a time have I looked over the old papers of Dehaney and
Sir H. Mann; but the room was burnt, and the old scores perished
in the flames. The following are curious as the two oldest scores
preserved,--one of the North, the other of the South:--