inspired 'by a recollection of many Particulars at a time when the Game was cultivated with the utmost Assiduity, and patronised by the personal Appearance[1] and Management of some of the most capital People in the Kingdom.' Mr. Love, in his enthusiasm, publishes an exhortation to Britain, to leave all meaner sports, and cultivate cricket only.
Hail Cricket, glorious, manly, British game.
First of all sports, be first alike in fame,
sings Love, as he warms to his work. He denounces 'puny Billiards,' played by 'Beaus, dressed in the quintessence of the fashion. The robust Cricketer plays in his shirt, the Rev. Mr. Wd, particularly, appears almost naked.'
One line of Mr. Love's,
Where fainting vice calls folly to her aid,
appears to him so excellent that he thinks it must be plagiarised, and, in a note, invites the learned reader to find out where he stole it from. To this a critic, Britannicus Severus, answers that 'Gentlemen who have Cricket in their heads cannot afford to pore over a parcel of musty Authors.' Indeed, your cricketer is rarely a bookworm.
'Leave the dissolving song, the baby dance,
To soothe the slaves of Italy and France,
and play up,' cries this English bard.
In the second book, the poet comes to business—Kent v. All England. The poet, after the custom of his age, gives dashes after an initial, in place of names. In notes he interprets his dashes, and introduces us to Newland, of Slendon, in Sussex, a farmer, and a famous batsman; Bryan, of London, bricklayer; Rumney, gardener to the Duke of Dorset; Smith,
- ↑ 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.
