Monday morning we set off to the cricket-ground, which lies about a mile from the town, in the Forest, as it is still called, though not a tree is left upon it,— a long, furzy common, crowned at the top by about twenty wind-mills, and descending in a steep slope to a fine level, round which the race-course runs. Within the race-course, lies the cricket-ground, which was enclosed at each end with booths; and all up the foresthill were scattered booths, and tents with flags flying, fires burning, pots boiling, ale-barrels standing, and asses, carts, and people bringing still more good things. There were plenty of apple and ginger-beer stalls; and lads going round with nuts and with waggish looks, crying" nuts, lads! nuts, lads!" In little hollows the nine-pin, and will-peg men had fixed themselves to occupy loiterers; and, in short, there was all the appearance of a fair.

Standing at the farther side of the cricket-ground, it gave me the most vivid idea possible, of an amphitheatre filled with people. In fact, it was an amphitheatre. Along each side of the ground ran a bank sloping down to it, and it, and the booths and tents at the ends were occupied with a dense mass of people, all as silent as the ground beneath them; and all up the hill were groups, and on the race-stand an eager, forward-leaning throng. There were said to be twenty thousand people, all hushed as death, except when some exploit of the players produced a thunder of applause. The playing was beautiful. Mr. Ward, late member of parliament for London, a great cricketplayer, came from the Isle of Wight to see the game, and declared himself highly delighted. But nothing was so beautiful as the sudden shout, the rush, and

breaking up of the crowd, when the last decisive match was gained. To see the scorers suddenly snatch up their chairs, and run off with them towards the players' tent; to see the bat of Bart Goode, the batsman on whom the fate of the game depended, spinning up in the air, where he had sent it in the ecstasy of the moment; and the crowd, that the instant before was fixed and silent as the world itself, spreading all over the green space where the white figures of the players had till then been so gravely and apparently calmly contending, spreading with a murmur as of the sea; and over their heads, amid the deafening clamour and confusion, the carrier-pigeon with a red ribbon tied to its tail, the signal of loss, beating round and round as to ascertain its precise position, and then flying off to bear the tidings to Brighton,-it was a beautiful sight, and one that the most sedate person must have delighted to see.

My thoughts on such occasions, overpass the things moving before me, and run on into consequences; and I could not help feeling what a great change the last thirty years had produced in the mind, taste, feeling, and moral character of our working population. What a wide difference was here presented to the rude rabbles formerly assembled to the most barbarous and blackguard amusements imaginable. Why this is a near approach to the athletic games of the Greeks; and no Greek crowd could have behaved with more order and propriety, and an intense interest, excited, not by any vulgar and unworthy cause, but by a fine trial of skill and activity between their townsmen and their countrymen of a distant county. Such an interest arising out of such an emulation, not only shews

a great progression of the public taste, but will wonderfully promote that progression. Here, if we have been disappointed in many other instances, we see the actual and legitimate effect of general education. It is because the general mind is quickened, raised, and made capable of more refined impulses, that twenty thousand people can now sit, day after day, to witness a contest of manly activity and pure skill, and enjoy a high delight without drunkenness and brutal rows. Never was a more respectable collection of people seen; and although there were plenty of booths and tents well supplied with all sorts of eatables and drinkables, and a good many took a necessary refreshment, or a comfortable glass and a pipe as they sat and looked on, at the time we left there were no symptoms of drunkenness, but a sight the most gratifying imaginable— thousands of poor workmen streaming off homewards the moment the game was over, many of them with their children, wives, or sweethearts.

I say, therefore, that my thoughts ran on into consequences, and I saw, in prospect, the great good which this better taste for amusement, this purer species of emulation, will produce. It is a beautiful sight to see men coming from a distant part of England to contend in a noble gymnastic excercise with those of another part of the country; and the spirit of generous rivalry thus is spread wider and wider. You see while a match is impending, what numbers of cricket players are out in the fields, from grown men to boys that can but just wield the lightest bat. You see, even while the great game is going on, boys playing their lesser games in the outskirts of the crowd; and when the match is decided, the spirit is kindled and diffused

farther than ever by the warm discussions of the various merits of the players, and the glory acquired by the best.

This is a spirit which deserves the attention both of the public and the legislature, and if ever we come to see public grounds appropriated to every large town for such exercises, as has been proposed in Parliament by Mr. Buckingham, then not merely cricket but kindred sports will be pursued,-quoits, nine-pins, bowls, archery, leaping and running; all having a direct tendency to strengthen the body and quicken the mind; to counteract both the physical and moral poisons of crowded factories and thickly populated towns.

I

It may, indeed, be objected, that all such games would lead to betting; but are we to shrink from every useful measure through fear of its abuse? say fearlessly, let us set the brand of public abhorrence on such a practice, boldly and firmly, and the practice will disappear. It is not long since the brutal practice of boxing had become a mania, and seemed to set all public censure at defiance, but it did but seem,public censure put it down. Let the higher classes too, sanction these laudable exercises by their presence as a public duty, and the British people will, in my opinion, in coming years, exhibit scenes of beautiful skill, activity and grace, as imposing as Greece ever saw. In the instance here selected, the two most obvious circumstances were,-first, the absence of the higher classes, especially of the ladies; and secondly, the most perfect and admirable decorum of the people.

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CHAPTER XI.

WRESTLING.

We must not close this department of our subject, without saying a word or two on wrestling. This exercise, which at one time was almost universal, is now, like many others, fallen into general disuse; and is confined almost entirely to Cornwall and Devon in the west, and the counties of Chester, Lancaster, Cumberland, and Westmorland in the north. These counties, indeed, have always been pre-eminent in the science of wrestling, and have possessed practices peculiar to themselves. Formerly, the citizens of London were great wrestlers. Stow tells us, that in the month of August, about the feast of St. Bartholomew, there were divers days spent in wrestling. The lord mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs being present, in a large tent pitched for that purpose, near Clerkenwell; the officers of the city, namely, the sheriffs, sergeants, and yeomen; the porters of the king's beam, or weighing-house, etc., gave a general challenge to such of the inhabitants of the suburbs as