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standing still to be shot at like a tame cock-robin. He hit the first ball he received, as nineteen men out of every twenty in the Pavilion expected him to hit it, to the boundary, and the shouting followed in due course. That it should have fallen to the great cricketer's lot to make the winning hit for his side in his last 'Varsity match was a fitting sequel to his unusually successful career, not indeed to be regarded as the coping-stone of his triumphal arch, but rather as a supererogatory, welcome, and highly appropriate bit of ornamental tracery. Still those 41 runs made by Foley will always rank as among the most valuable runs made throughout the long series of these matches; and Berkeley's bowling in an uphill game was a thing that had to be seen in order to be properly appreciated. The theory does not always work out well when it comes to practice, we admit, but to our thinking the prince of all bowlers is "the man who hits the sticks."

Unusually strong in batting were both these great Elevens. And, wherever MacGregor was playing, the wicket-keeping was bound to be possibly the very best of the day. And yet we are still inclined to fancy that in the latter of the two years at all events bowling was Cambridge's strongest point. No University side, certainly, since Mitchell's famous year, ever took the field with so formidable an array of bowlers; and, indeed, it is an open question whether, with the moral effect

of Woods's presence thrown in, the Cambridge attack was not more to be dreaded in either '90 or '91 than that of the Oxonians in '65. In either of the two later years four men were found playing on the Cambridge side, all of whom, at one time or another, and two certainly more than once, opened the ball against the Players at Lords. And even if by any chance that first quartette were knocked off, there were still some distinctly useful bowlers in reserve.

That an Oxford side, which its warmest supporters could only damn with the faint praise of being "averagely good," where harsher critics pronounced it to be more than "averagely bad," could ever live in the same street as an Eleven of this calibre was in itself wonderful. That after having held all the losing cards, having lost the toss, that is, and been compelled to follow on, the Oxonians should have come within measurable distance of pulling the game out of the fire, must rank as even miraculous.

But after all, the '91 match is only another instance of the glorious uncertainty of a game, which in no small degree owes the strong hold it has taken upon the imagination of the English people to the circumstance that in it the race does not invariably go to the swift or the battle to the strong. If by mere calculating of averages we could reduce the matter beforehand to a mathematical certainty, or by the application of syllogistie reasoning arrive

at a positive and indisputable conclusion, cricket would lose no small part of its charm, and the Pavilion at Lords might be found an empty desert.

And yet, after all, having paid my due respects to the great years of Woods and MacGregor, we have grave doubts whether the last side captained by Jackson was not the best that Cambridge ever turned out. Not stamped as a great side only in virtue of a very easy victory at Lords, for the temporary loss of form on Lionel Palairet's part, his brother's crippled condition, and the failure "to come off" on the part of an extraordinarily good nucleus of Freshmen, converted an Oxford side that started with fair promise into a distinctly weak one,-but a great side because, where the leading lights were brightburning lamps indeed, there was not even the faintest suspicion of a tail. Very strong and very sound from start to finish in every department of the game. If in the first six men, headed by Jackson, who, having started his University career with great confidence as a batsman, seemed to take in a fresh supply of that valuable article year after year, lay the recognised batting strength of the side, the last five in the batting order were quite good enough to play on their batting merits only in pretty well any 'Varsity side. Exceptionally strong again in bowling. Though the strong personality of the invincible Woods was missing from the "firing line," not only had

the

Wells improved beyond all knowledge, but the newspaper reports of his brilliant performances against good sides had revived in the minds of Oxford's supporters memories of the havoc wrought some years before by Steel. That excellent bowler Jackson could, of course, be relied upon to keep up an end for any length of time and to gather in his occasional wickets. If the bowling of Streatfield, who, though occasionally short of first-class practice, was at no period in his career lacking in first-class ability, had slightly fallen off in quality, the Oxford batsmen showed themselves signally unable to take advantage of the fact. And in Bromley Davenport, junior member of the quartette of bowlers actually employed, lay the capacity to serve up in the middle of an otherwise poor over a wellnigh unplayable ball. In this particular match the unplayable ball-unplayable, at any rate, to the Oxonians-seemed to be very much in evidence where the punishable escaped scot - free. Further available reserves, whose services there was no occasion to call up, lay in Hill, who could send down a good ball now and again; and in Douglas, who had had time to forget the terrible punishment meted out to him by Vernon Hill in the preceding year. Finally, the fielding was of an unusually high standard. Gay, if not quite in the same class as MacGregor, kept wicket admirably well: in point of fact this may interest the

student of statistics-in two years he either caught or stumped eight men, while MacGregor, in four years, had to rest content with one victim less. And the outfielding, as it was easy to imagine was likely to be the case where Ranjitsinhji, then as quick of eye and foot as any cat, Douglas, Jones, and Wells were playing on the same side, was well calculated to stand a sterner test than that which the match afforded. Unfortunately for the spectators, who too seldom in the course of the season get the chance of seeing two sides of young and active players in the field, the Oxford batting broke down entirely, and, save for a typical though all too short display by Palairet in one innings, and Fry's plucky hitting in the other, the affair resolved itself into a melancholy procession.

One word in conclusion. No one who was watching the '93

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match was gifted to realise at the time that he was being privileged to see playing in the same game so many of the future makers of cricket history. It is equally impossible to play tricks with time, or to assign to every cricketer a "fixed period" of full cricket maturity. Unfortunate the latter, from the spectatorial point of view, as well as impossible. For those extra years, which are supposed to add nerve and experience, are at the least calculated to bring in their train a certain maturity of figure as well as of experience, and a corresponding diminution of youthful spring and vitality.

But imagine those twentytwo boys at their best, as we shall always hold that the cricketer should be, at we will say something under twentyfive. What a side was there to represent either the Gentlemen at Lords, or even England in a Test Match!

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ROWTON HOUSE RHYMES.-III.

GHOSTS.

This is no blasted Moated Grange, yet here's a multitude of ghosts

Grimmer than Dante ever knew, or any Dickens Christmas boasts;

For when I've shut my two-foot door, and shot the bolt, and sighed for sleep,

Round crowd they, one by lean-ribb'd one, and are not dumb, but creek and cheep

(Like the cicadas long ago, when high above Las Palmas town, Amid the gold of cactus-bloom, and runnel-song, I laid me down),

For they are frail and famished things, these shadows of the dreams that were

My acolytes when I was God, and Fortune was my thurifer.

Prone is the altar in the dust, and well, ah! well that it is soFor my Olympus, after all, was but a mole-hill, now I know;

Yet these old dreams that waked with me, singing me songs high romance,

That made my royal retinue, fluted to feast and piped to dance,

of

And spoke the Sun fair for my sake that not too rudely should he burn,

Cajoled the wind, and coaxed the rain, and back the hurrying hours did turn,

And

gave me roses for my bed, and fanned me with their wings'

caress

They will not let me be, and O! I loathe them for their faithfulness.

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I am a king whose realm is gone, whose crown is pawned, whose robes are rags,

And yet whose nerveless ministers show faultless fealty never flags,

Perfervid constancy that frets, and haste to serve that has no

sense,

Since where's the sceptre, where the crown, and where the old magnificence?

Here's one-Ambition, these long years my bosom's friend, my

counsellor,

That ever had the spurring word, the bugle-word of "Conqueror."

'Twas he was wont to show me worlds like clustered globes of gold-and all

Easy to pluck as peaches are that ripen on a southern wall;

And Himalayan summits I alone might tread of Power and Fame,

Heaped treasures Song had kept for me, and laurelled glories without name;

And wondrous women kings might crave, with breasts of snow, and eyes of fire,

And hair of night. "All these are thine," he'd trumpet, "King, my King, aspire!"

And now—what swinging sphere, what toppling pinnacle, what queen,

Is it he flings upon Imagination's hunger-tautened screen?

(Pity for me that see the thing! Pity for him shall look and jeer!

I'd laugh if I had laughter left, and I would weep had I a tear.)

He shows me plain a heaped-up plate-a meal to glut the animal

Easy to pluck as is a peach that ripens on a southern wall!

And is't Ambition, or the gas-jet whimp'ring in the corridor, That creaks "To-morrow's dinner! King, aspire! Aspire, Conquistador!"?

And here comes Hope, Ambition's bride! If any cheer is to be said, She'll surely say it. What says she? "Hope for the seven pence pays your bed!"

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And here is Faith, her samite dun, and mildewed all her asphodel, Who creaks, "Believe, believe, believe, you must, you must believe in Hell!"

And Truth, whom I denied, will now take no denial-I must hark:

"You've sixpence, and you're starving, and both Life and Death are hidden dark!”

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