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10 Horace pretty to recollect, but when Horace pretends that he might have been in the Eleven if he liked, the absurdity becomes too glaring. We are reminded of Charles Lamb's 'Here is Wordsworth saying he might have written "Hamlet" if he had had the "mind."' Cowper pretends (in 1781) that 'as a boy I excelled at cricket and football,' but he adds, with perfect truth, 'the fame I acquired by achievements that way is long since forgotten.' The author of the 'Task,' and of a good many hymns, was no Mynn nor Grace. We shall find but few of the English poets distinguished as cricketers, or fond of tuning the lyre to sing Pindaric strains of batters and bowlers. Byron tells a friend how they 'together joined in cricket's manly toil' (1807). Another noble exception is George Huddesford, author of 'Salmagundi' ' (1791, p. 66) —

This passage gives us the costume—white drawers and red slippers. The contemporary works of art, whereof see a little gallery on the walls of the pavilion at Lord's, show that men when they played also wore a kind of jockey cap. In a sketch of the Arms of Shrewsbury School, little boys are playing; the bat is a kind of hockey-stick as in the preceding century. There are only two stumps, nor more in Hayman's well-known picture engraved 1755. The fields are well set for the bowling, and are represented with their hands ready for a catch. There