Three things are prejudicial to Scotch cricket. First, there is the climate, about which more words were superfluous. Next, boys leave school earlier than in England, for professions or for college. Lastly, the University ‘session’ is in the winter months, and the University clubs are therefore at a great disadvantage. I shall never forget the miraculous wickets we tried to pitch on the old College Green at Glasgow, and the courage displayed by divinity students in standing up to Mr. Barclay there. As for St. Andrews, golf is too much with us on that friendly shore, and will brook no rival.
*** The author of the historical introduction is much indebted to the Bishop of St. Andrews, a veteran of the first University Match, for his kindness in revising proofs, and adding notes. He has also to thank the Viscountess Wolseley for the loan of her picture of ‘Miss Wicket’; and Mr. Charles Mills, M.P., for a sight of the silver ball of the Vine Club. It was filled with snuff, and tossed from hand to hand after dinner; he who dropped it being fined in claret, or some other liquor.
FOOTNOTES:
- [1] Outside of England Mrs. Piozzi found ‘a game called Pallamajo, something like our cricket.’ If she meant Pallone, she merely proved herself no cricketer. Mr. Arthur Evans has noticed, in Dalmatia, a kind of trap-bat, a ‘cat’ being used in place of a ball, and the length of hits being measured by the stick that serves as bat.
- [2] The learned have debated as to the origin of the local term ‘Dex.’ Let it suffice to say that it is not what they suppose.
- [3] See M. de Charnay’s Ancient Cities of the New World, p. 96. London, 1887.
- [4] Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes, 1810, pp. 89, 90; cf. Durfey’s Pills to Purge Melancholy, i. 91.
- [5] Popular Antiquities, i. 153, note. London, 1813. The lines are quoted by Brand from A Pleasant Grove of New Fancies, p. 74. London, 1657. He might have gone straight to Herrick, Hesperides (1648), p. 280.
- [6] Edinburgh, 1841.
- [7] In married life, two are quite enough to play ‘cat and dog.’
- [8] Compare Loggat. See Hamlet, v. 1, and Nares’ Glossary, s. v.
- [9] Brand, ii. 287, quotes a reference to ‘cat and doug’ from the Life of the Scotch Rogue. London, 1722. The Scotch Rogue says nothing about cricket.
- [10] P. 101.
- [11] The miniature in which a woman bowls to a back-handed player with no wicket is dated 1344. Bodl., 264. But the evidence of art is never very trustworthy. The painter may have been a woman, or a monk, or an uneducated person. Many of the pictures in modern books give a misleading view of cricket.
- [12] Etymological Dictionary, 1882. The writer here owes a great deal to Dr. Murray, of the English Dictionary, who kindly lent him the ‘slips’ (short, of course) on Cricket, as far as they have been collected.—A. L.
- [13] See M. Charles Deulin’s tale, ‘Le Grand Choleur,’ in Contes du Roi Gambrinus. There is a good deal of information in Germinal, by M. Zola. The balls are egg-shaped, and of boxwood. The game is a kind of golf, played across country.
- [14] Cotgrave’s French Dictionary, ‘Crosse,’ 1611.
- [15] Diary, p. 159; May, 1676.
- [16] i. p. 197. Letter xxi.
- [17] The bibliography of the Dunciad is not a subject to be rushed into rashly, nor in a note; but this must have been written between 1726–1735, there or thereabouts. The Scholiasts recognise Lord John Sackville as the Senator, and quote a familiar passage from Horace Walpole (June 8, 1747) about Cricketalia, instituted in his honour. We may, perhaps, regard Lord John as one of the early patrons of the game.
- [18] Gray’s Works, 1807, ii. p. 2. See also ‘urge the flying ball,’ which must refer, I think, to cricket. That ode was first published in 1747. Johnson carelessly paraphrases ‘drives the hoop, or tosses the ball!’—C. W.
- [19] To George Montagu, May 6, 1726.
- [20] See also his Wiccamical Chaplet, 1804, where there is an excellent ‘Cricket Song’ (p. 131 to 133) for the Hambledon Club, Hants, 1767, in the course of which the following names of cricketers occur: Nyren, Small, Buck, Curry, Hogsflesh, Barber Rich (‘whose swiftness in bowling was never equalled yet’), ‘Little George, the longstop, and Tom Suter, the Stumper,’ Sackville, Manns, Boyton, Lanns, Mincing, Miller, Lumpy, Francis.—C. W.
- [21] The Cricketers Guide, fourth edition, s. a., p. 58.
- [22] The Bishop of St. Andrews can remember when the creases were cut, before chalk was used.
- [23] Cricket, An Heroic Poem, illustrated with the critical observations of Scriblerus Maximus. By James Love, Comedian, London. Printed for the Author, MDCCLXX. (Price, One Shilling.)
- [24] Talking of appearances, there is just one story of a ghost at a cricket match. He took great interest in the game, and went home in a dog-cart as it seemed to the spectators, though he (the real man, not the wraith) was on his death-bed at a considerable distance. The spectral dog-cart is the puzzle of the Psychical Society. The scene of the apparition was the cricket ground of a public school.
- [25] The edition of Nyren’s Cricketer’s Guide, used here, is the fourth, London, s. a. I owe it to Mr. Gerald Fitzgerald. Any cricketer who has borrowed my own copy of the Editio Princeps will oblige me by returning it.—A. L.
- [26] Sketches of the Players, p. 23.
- [27] Nyren, op. cit. p. 50.
- [28] It was three or five—I forget which. I know it was the lowest score he had that year!—C. W.
- [29] Was this so? The long scores caused the introduction of round-hand bowling. From among my brother’s papers (late Bishop of Lincoln) a letter has lately been returned to me which contains the following:—‘Christ Church, Oxford: May 24, 1831.—Cricket, I suppose, does not interest you; but you may like to know that in three following innings, on three following days last week, I got 328 runs. Christ Church has been playing—and beating—the University.’—C. W.
- [30] My experience, in one respect, is, I suppose, unique. Hitting a leg-ball, I alarmed the umpire, who turned round, and I was caught by the wicket-keeper off his back! Naturally enough—but yet—justly? he gave me out!—C. W.
- [31] London, 1776, p. 76.
[CHAPTER II.]
BATTING.
(By the Hon. R. H. Lyttelton.)
