Country Life Library of Sport

Cricket

Surely it is sheer neglect of opportunity offered by an official position if, being an editor, one has no prefatory word to say of the work that one is editing. It is said that that which is good requires no praise, but it is a saying that is contradicted at every turnor else all that is advertised must be very bad. While it is our firm belief that the merits of the present bookThe Country Life Cricket Bookare many and various (it would be an insult to the able heads of the different departments into which the great subject is herein divided to think otherwise), we believe also that the book has one very special and even unique merit. We believe, and are very sure, that there has never before been given to[vi] the public any such collection of interesting old prints illustrative of Englands national game as appear in the present volume. It is due to the kind generosity of the Marylebone Cricket Club, as well as of divers private persons, that we are able to illustrate the book in this exceptional way; and we (that is to say, all who are concerned in the production) beg to take the opportunity of giving most cordial thanks to those who have given this invaluable help, and so greatly assisted in making the book not only attractive, but also original in its attraction. In the first place, the prints form in some measure a picture-history of the national game, from the early days when men played with the wide low wicket and the two stumps, down through all the years that the bat was developing out of a curved hockey-stick into its present shape, and that the use of the bat at the same time was altering from the manner of the man with the scythe, meeting the balls called daisy-cutters, to the straightforward upright batting of the classical examples. The classical examples perhaps are exhibited most ably in the pictures of Mr. G. F. Watts, which show us that the human form divine can be studied in its athletic poses equally well (save for the disadvantage of the draping flannels) on the English field of cricket as in the Greek gymnasium. The prints, too, give us a picture-history of the costumes of the game. There are the anointed[vii] clod-stumpers of Broadhalfpenny going in to bat with the smock, most inconvenient, we may think, of dresses. There are the old-fashioned fellows who were so hardly parted from their top-hats. These heroes of a bygone age are also conspicuous in braces. We get a powerful hint, too, from the pictures, of the varying estimation in which the game has been held at different times. There is a suggestion of reverence in some of the illustrationsa sense that the artist knew himself to be handling a great theme. In others we see with pain that the treatment is almost comic, certainly frivolous. We hardly can suppose that the picture of the ladies cricket match would encourage others of the sex to engage in the noble game, although Miss Wicket of the famous painting has a rather attractive although pensive airshe has all the aspect of having got out for a ducks egg. More decidedly to the same effectof its differing hold on popular favourdo we get a hint from the spectators assembled (but assembled is too big a word for their little number) to view the game. Lords on an Australian match day, or a Gents v. Players, or Oxford and Cambridge, hardly would be recognised by one of the old-time heroes, if we could call him up again across the Styx to take a second innings. He would wonder what all the people had come to look at. He hardly would believe that they were[viii] come to see the game he used to play to a very meagre gallery in his life. But he would be pleased to observe the progress of the worldhow appreciative it grew of what was best in it as it grew older. Another thing that the collection illustrates is the various changes of site of the headquarters of the game, if it had a headquarters before it settled down to its present place of honour in St. Johns Wood. There is a picture (vide p. v) of Thomas Lords first Cricket Ground, Dorset Square, Marylebone. Match played June 20, 1793, between the Earls of Winchilsea and Darnley for 1000 guineas. With regard to this interesting picture, Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane, in his catalogue of the pictures, drawings, etc., in possession of the Marylebone Cricket Club, has a note as follows:This match was Kent (Lord Darnleys side) v. Marylebone, with Walker, Beldham, and Wills (Lord Winchilseas side). M.C.C. won by ten wickets. It will be noticed that only two stumps are represented as being used, whereas, according to Scores and Biographies, it is known that as far back as 1775 a third stump had been introduced; many representations, however, of the game at a later date show only two stumps. No doubt at this early period there was no very fully acknowledged central authority, and such little details as these were much a matter of local option. The wicket shown in this picture does not seem to differ at all[ix] from the wicket in the picture of Cricket by F. Hayman, R.A. (vide p. 1), in the possession of the Marylebone Club, though the date of the latter is as early as 1743. Neither does the bat appear to have made much evolution in the interval. It is on the authority of Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane, in the catalogue above quoted, that we can give about 1750 for the date of the picture named A Match in Battersea Fields (vide p. 3), in which St. Pauls dome appears in the background. Here they seem to be playing with the three stumps, early as the date is. Again, in the fine picture, painted for David Garrick by Richard Wilson, of Cricket at Hampton Wick (vide p. 375), three stumps are in use, and the bat has become much squared and straightened. Of course the pictures obviously fall into two chief classesone in which the plays the thing; the cricket is the object of the artists representation; the other in which the cricket is only used as an incidental feature in the foreground, to enliven a scene of which the serious interest is in the background or surroundings. But the pictures in which the cricket is the main, if not the only, interest are very much more numerous. A quaintly suggestive picture enough is that described in Sir S. Ponsonby-Fanes catalogue as, Situation of H.M.s Ships Fury and Hecla at Igloolie. Sailors playing Cricket on the Ice. In this, of[x] course, there is no historical interest about the cricket (vide p. 392). The one-legged and one-armed cricketers make a picture that is curious, though not very pleasant to contemplate; and the same is to be said of the rather vulgar representation of the ladies cricket match noticed above. The Ticket to see a Cricket Match (vide p. 40) shows a bat of the most inordinate, and probably quite impossible, length; but we may easily suppose that the artist, consciously or unwittingly, has exaggerated the weapon of his day. Here too are two stumps only. We may notice the price of the ticket as somewhat remarkably high, 2s. 6d.; but it was in the days when matches were played for large sums of money, so perhaps all was in proportion (length of bat excepted, be it understood). There is a picture of the celebrated Cricket Field near White Conduit House, 1787 (vide p. 17), which is named a Representation of the Noble Game of Cricket. It is a picture of some merit, and evidently careful execution, and here too the players are seen with bats of a prodigious length; so it may be that these huge weapons came into fashion for a while, only to be abandoned again when their uselessness was proved, or perhaps when the legislature began to make exact provision with regard to the implements used. In this same picture of the Noble Game of Cricket a man may be seen standing at[xi] deep square leg, who is apparently scoring the notches, or notching the runs, on a piece of stick. This at least appears to be his occupation, and it is interesting to observe it at this comparatively late date, and at headquarters. In the match between the sides led by Lord Winchilsea and Lord Darnley respectively, it is seen that there are two tail-coated gentlemen sitting on a bench, and probably scoring on paper, for it is hardly likely that they can have been reporting for the press at that time. England did not then demand the news of the fall of each wicket, as it does now. Nevertheless, that there must have been a good deal of enthusiasm for the game, even at a pretty early date, is shown conclusively enough by the engraving (vide p. 190) of the North-East View of the Cricket Grounds at Darnall, near Sheffield, Yorkshire. What the precise date of this picture may be I do not know, but it is evident that it must be old, from the costumes of the players, who are in knee-breeches and the hideous kind of caps that have been reintroduced with the coming of the motor-car. Also the umpires, with their top-hatted heads and tightly-breeched lower limbs, show that this picture is not modern. And yet the concourse of spectators is immense. Even allowing for some pardonable exaggeration on the part of the artist, it is certain that many people must have been in the habit of[xii] looking on at matches, otherwise this picture would be absurd; and this, be it observed, was not in the southern counties, which we have been led to look on as the nurseries of cricket, but away from all southern influence, far from headquarters, in Yorkshire, near Sheffield. To be sure, it may have been within the wide sphere of influence of the great Squire Osbaldeston, but even so the picture is suggestive. The scorers are here seated at a regular table. A very curious representation of the game is that given in the picture by James Pollard, named A Match on the Heath (vide p. 29). It is a good picture. What is curious is that, though the period at which Pollard was producing his work was from 1821 to 1846, the bats used in the game are shown as slightly curved, and, more notably, the wicket is still of the two stumps only. There are only two alternative ways of accounting for this: either they still played in certain places with the two-stump wicket, or else, which is not likely, Pollard was very careless, and no cricketer, and took his cricket apparatus from some older picture. I observe, by the way, that I have, on the whole, done less than justice to the ladies, as they are portrayed playing the game, for though it is true that the one picture is, as noticed, vulgar enough, there is another, An Eleven of Miss Wickets (vide p. 248), that is pretty and[xiii] graceful. While some of the pictures in this collection are interesting mainly for their curiosity, or as being something like an illustrated history or diary of events and changes in the game, there are others that are real works of art and beauty, sometimes depending mainly on their expression of the game itself, and sometimes only using it as an adjunct to the scenery. Of the former kind, we must notice most especially the remarkable series of drawings by Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A., which show the batsman in the various positions of defence or attack. To very many it will be a revelation that the great artist could lend his pencil to a matter of such trivial importance (as some base souls may deem it) as the game of cricket; but without a doubt that great knowledge of anatomy, which has been one of the strong points in all his paintings, has been learned in some measure from these studies, which also give it a very high degree of expression. There is a force, a vigour, a meaning about these sketches which are interesting enough, if for no other reason than because they show so vividly the inadequacy of the mechanical efforts of photography, when brought into competition, as a means of expression, with the pencil of a really great artist. You feel almost as if you must jump aside out of the way of the fellow stepping forward to drive the leg volley, or of the fearful man drawn back to cut, so forcefully is the force expressed[xiv] with which the batsman is inevitably going to hit the ball (vide p. 67). One of the most charming pictures of those who have taken cricket for their theme is that which is lent by His Majesty the King to the M.C.C., and is styled A Village Match. It is by Louis Belanger, of date 1768 (vide p. 361). Charming, too, is the picture attributed to Gainsborough, Portrait of a Youth with a Cricket-bat; it is said to be a portrait of George IV. as a boy, but it seems doubtful. The bat here is curved, but hardly perceptibly; it shows the last stage in evolution before the straight bat was reached (vide p. 208). Our frontispiece is a jolly scenethe ragged boys tossing the bat for inningsFlat or Round? and the fellow in the background heaping up the coats for a wicket. We all of us have played and loved that kind of cricket. A wonderfully good and detailed picture is that of Kent v. Sussex (vide p. 137). It is a picture of a match in progress on the Brighton ground, and Brighton is seen in the background; in the foreground is a group of celebrated cricketers in the spectators ring, yet posed, in a way that gives a look of artificiality to the whole scene, so as to show their faces to the artist. Even old Lillywhite, bowling, is turning his head quaintly, to show his features. One of the most conspicuous figures is the great Alfred Mynn, who was to a former generation[xv] what W. G. Grace has been to ours. All the figures are portraits, and every accessory to the scene is worked out most carefully. The drawing is by W. H. Mason. Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane has a note on this picture: As a matter of fact, this match, as here represented, did not take place, the men shown in the engraving never having played together in such a match, but they all played for their respective counties about 1839-1841. Very delightful, too, is the picture that is the last in our book (p. 433), At the End of the Inningsan old veteran with eye still keen, and firm mouth, telling of a determination to keep his wicket up and the ball down as well as he knows how, and with an interest in the game of his youth unabated by years. A jolly painting is that of Old Charlton Church and Manor House (vide p. 415), with the coach and four darting past, and the boys at cricket on the village green. And last, but to many of us greatest of all, there is the portrait of Dr. W. G. Grace, from Mr. A. Stuart Wortleys picture, which sums up a modern ideal of cricket that we have not yet found ourselves able to get past (vide p. 228). ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 50373
Author: Hutchinson, Horace G. (Horace Gordon)
Release Date: Nov 3, 2015
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Hutchinson, Horace G. (Horace Gordon), 1859-1932