The Cricket Field. James Pycroft
as the term hands is still (writing in 1740) retained in that game.”
Thirdly, as to the double-wicket game, Dr. Jamieson, in his Dictionary, published in 1722, gives the following account of a game played in Angus and Lothian:—
“This is a game for three players at least, who are furnished with clubs. They cut out two holes, each about a foot in diameter and seven inches in depth, and twenty-six feet apart; one man guards each hole with his club; these clubs are called Dogs. A piece of wood, about four inches long and one inch in diameter, called a Cat, is pitched, by a third person, from one hole towards the player at the other, who is to prevent the cat from getting into the hole. If it pitches in the hole, the party who threw it takes his turn with the club. If the cat be struck, the club-bearers change places, and each change of place counts one to the score, like club-ball.”
The last observation shows that in the game of Club-ball above-mentioned, the score was made by “runs,” as in cricket.
In what respect, then, do these games differ from cricket as played now? The only exception that can be taken is to the absence of any wicket. But every one familiar with a paper given by Mr. Ward, and published in “Old Nyren,” by the talented Mr. C. Cowden Clarke, will remember that the traditionary “blockhole” was a veritable hole in former times, and that the batsman was made Out in running, not, as now, by putting down a wicket, but by popping the ball into the hole before the bat was grounded in it. The same paper represents that the wicket was two feet wide—a width which is only rendered credible by the fact that the said hole was not like our mark for guard, four feet distant from the stumps, but cut like a basin in the turf between the stumps; an arrangement which would require space for the frequent struggle of the batsman and wicket-keeper, as to whether the bat of the one, or the hand of the other, should reach the blockhole first.
The conclusion of all is, that Cricket is identical with Club-ball—a game played in the thirteenth century as single-wicket, and played, if not then, somewhat later as a double-wicket game; that where balls were scarce, a Cat, or bit of wood, as seen in many a village, supplied its place; also that “handyn and handoute” was probably only another name. Fosbroke, in his Dictionary of Antiquities, said, “club-ball was the ancestor of cricket:” he might have said, “club-ball was the old name for cricket, the games being the same.”
The points of difference are not greater than every cricketer can show between the game as now played and that of the last century.
But, lastly, as to the name of Cricket. The bat, which is now straight, is represented in old pictures as crooked, and “cricce” is the simple Saxon word for a crooked stick. The derivation of Billiards from the Norman billart, a cue, or from ball-yard, according to Johnson, also Nine-pins and Trap-ball, are obvious instances of games which derived their names from the implements with which they are played. Now it appears highly probable that the crooked stick used in the game of Bandy might have been gradually adopted, especially when a wicket to be bowled down by a rolling ball superseded the blockhole to be pitched into. In that case the club having given way to the bandy or crooked bat of the last century, the game, which first was named from the club “club-ball,” might afterwards have been named from the bandy or crooked stick “cricket.”
Add to which, the game might have been played in two ways—sometimes more in the form of Club-ball, sometimes more like Cricket; and the following remarkable passage proves that a term very similar to Cricket was applied to some game as far back as the thirteenth century, the identical date to which we have traced that form of cricket called club-ball and the game of handyn and handoute.
From the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. lviii. p. 1., A.D. 1788, we extract the following:—
“In the wardrobe account of the 28th year of King Edward the First, A.D. 1300, published in 1787 by the Society of Antiquaries, among the entries of money paid one Mr. John Leek, his chaplain, for the use of his son Prince Edward in playing at different games, is the following:—
“ ‘Domino Johanni de Leek, capellano Domini Edwardi fil’ ad Creag’ et alios ludos per vices, per manus proprias, 100 s. Apud Westm. 10 die Aprilis, 1305.’ ”
The writer observes, that the glossaries have been searched in vain for any other name of a pastime but cricket to which the term Creag’ can apply. And why should it not be Cricket? for, we have a singular evidence that, at the same date, Merlin the Magician was a cricketer!
In the romance of “Merlin,” a book in very old French, written about the time of Edward I., is the following:—
“Two of his (Vortiger’s) emissaries fell in with certain children who were playing at cricket.”—Quoted in Dunlop’s “History of Fiction.”
The word here rendered cricket is la crosse; and in Richelet’s Dict. of Ant. 1680, are these words:
“Crosse, à Crosier. Bâton de bois courbé par le bout d’en haut, dont on se sert pour jouer ou pousser quelque balle.”
“Crosseur, qui pousse—‘Cricketer.’ ”
Creag’ and Cricket, therefore, being presumed identical, the cricketers of Warwick and of Gloucester may be reminded that they are playing the same game as was played by the dauntless enemy of Robert Bruce, afterwards the prisoner at Kenilworth, and eventually the victim of Mortimer’s ruffians in the dark tragedy of Berkeley Castle.
To advert to a former observation that cricket was originally confined to the lower orders, Robert Southey notes, C. P. Book. iv. 201., that cricket was not deemed a game for gentlemen in the middle of the last century. Tracing this allusion to “The Connoisseur,” No. 132. dated 1756, we are introduced to one Mr. Toby Bumper, whose vulgarities are, “drinking purl in the morning, eating black-puddings at Bartholomew Fair, boxing with Buckhorse,” and also that “he is frequently engaged at the Artillery Ground with Faukner and Dingate at cricket, and is esteemed as good a bat as either of the Bennets.” Dingate will be mentioned as an All-England player in our third chapter.
And here we must observe that at the very date that a cricket-ground was thought as low as a modern skittle-alley, we read that even
“Some Dukes at Mary’bone bowled time away;”
and also that a Duchess of Devonshire could be actually watching the play of her guests in the skittle-alley till nine o’clock in the evening.
Our game in later times, we know, has constituted the pastime and discipline of many an English soldier. Our barracks are now provided with cricket grounds; every regiment and every man-of-war has its club; and our soldiers and sailors astonish the natives of every clime, both inland and maritime, with a specimen of a British game: and it deserves to be better known that it was at a cricket match that “some of our officers were amusing themselves on the 12th June, 1815,” says Captain Gordon, “in company with that devoted cricketer the Duke of Richmond, when the Duke of Wellington arrived, and shortly after came the Prince of Orange, which of course put a stop to our game. Though the hero of the Peninsula was not apt to let his movements be known, on this occasion he made no secret that, if he were attacked from the south, Halle would be his position, and, if on the Namur side, Waterloo.”
CHAP II.
THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF CRICKET.
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