The following is from the St. James's Gazette, January 14, 1881.

THE PLAYERS.

A Lawn Tennisonian Idyl.

I, who a decade past had lived recluse,

Left for awhile the dust of books and town

To share the pastimes of a country house;

And thus it chanced that I beheld a scene

That steep'd my rusted mind in wonderment.

The morn was passing fair; no vagrant cloud

Obscured the summer sun, as from the porch