The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-09-22
The General Character OF Cricket.
From The Cricket Field

from the Cricket Field
The game OF cricket calls into requisitiou all
the cardinal virtues, some moralist would say.
As with the Grecian games of old, the cricketer
must be sober and temperate, Patience, fortt.
tude aud selfdenial, the various bumps of order,
obedience, and good humor, with an unrufflei I
temper, are indispensable. For intellectual
virtues We want Judgment decision, aud the
organ of concentrativeness-evcry faculty In
the free use Of all its limbs-and every idea in
constant exercise. Poor, rickety, and stunted
wits WIN never serve-the widest shoulders are
of little use without head upon them-the
cricketer wants wits down to his fingers
ends. As TO physical qualifications. we
require not only the volatile spirits of the Irish.
man rampant aud the Scotchman couchdnt. but
we wait the Anglo.Saxon combination OF the
two. The brain must glow with Natures Gre
and not depend upon spirit-lamp. Mems sana
an c0TpOTe s0no: feed the body, but do not cloud
the mind. You, sir, with the hectic hust the
fire of your eyes burnt low in their sockets, with
beak as sharp as woodcock's from living upon
suction, with palhd face and shaky hand-our
game disdains such ghost-like votares Rise
with the lark and scent the morning air, and
drink from the buobling fill, and then when
your veins are no longer fevered with alcohol
nor pbfed with tobacco smoke-wheu you have
ractifed Your Illicit spirits and clarified your
unsettled judgment-"come again and deYour
up my DISCOURSE"
workman and bag OF tools, however sharp.
We must have heads as well as hands. You
may be big enough and strong enough, but the
question is whether, as Virgil says:-
"Spirius intus alt, tetamque Infusa per artus
Mems agiat mo-em, ct magus Sc corpore INSECT"
And in these lines Virgil truly describes the
right sort of man for cricketer-plenty of life
in hlm; not barely soul enough (as Robert
South sad) TO keep his body from putrefaction;
but. however large his stature, he must have
UouS IN proportion, and be instinct with sense
all over. Then. says Virgil, igneus est aUls
Uigor-he must always have the steam up: and
then our bard proceeds to describe what disci
pline will render those who suffer the penalties
of idleness or intemperauce lit to join the
chosen few in the cricketheld:-
"Exinde per amplum
M'timur Elysium ct pauc &c a arva tenemus."
We make no apology Tor classical quotations
kt the schools and universities, cricket and
scholarship very generally 90 togethe Heads
We. HeetS was once sugge ted, and 1t is doubtless
only 10 AVOID an lnVldlous distinction that it
has failed TO be an annual university match.
"A rubber OF whist says the author of the
"Dlary OF a Late Physician" in his Law Studies -
''calls into requisitlon all those 90 wers of mind
that 0arrister most needs;" and nearly as
much may be said of a scientific game of cricket
But the crlketer mus possess other ouaidcA-
tions; not only physical and intellectual, bat
moral oualtdcations also. Or what avail is the
head TO plan and hand to execute, if sulky
temper paralyzes exertion and throws a damp
over the field; or If impotence dethr Oues iudg-
ment, and the man h Is across al good balls
because loose balls are long in comiug; or
again, If contentious ana i'm perious disposi.
tion leaves the cricketer all alone in his glory
voted the pest of every eleven? Eleven good
tempered men, other points equal, would beat
eleven sulky or eleven irritable gentlemen out
of the field.
Cricket is not solely a game of skill-chance
has sway enough TO leaSe the vanquished au if
and om. This very III certainty gives the game
Its interest. If Hayward or Carpenter were sure
OF runs who would care to play But as thew
sometimes make i've and sometimes fifty, we
still contend with flesh and blood. Even Achi-
les was Vulnerable at the heel; or, mythoogi-
ccally speaking, he could not stop shooter on
the leg stump.
Cricket is a social game. Could crcketer
play solo, Oh. with dummy, he might play in
humor or out Of humor; but an Eleven is of the
nature of those commonwealths of which Cicero
said that, without some regard to the cardiu al
virtues, they could not poss bly, hold together.
Games of some kind men must have, and it is
no small praise of cricket that it occupies the
place of less innocent sports. Without sport
you have no heathful exercises; to refresh the
body you must relax the mind aud to this end
cricket doth most strongly tend"