Page:Cricket (Steel, Lyttelton).djvu/390

 took a wicket with the last ball he ever bowled. He was head and captain of the 'All England Eleven' which used to tour about the country. Very amusing work it must have been for old Clarke, bowling on rough provincial grounds to provincial batsmen; and who can wonder that he, with several other bowling captains, had a great dislike to taking himself off? He was one-eyed, having lost his right eye while indulging in the manly game of fives. He certainly got a lot of wickets in the best of matches, but there is nothing to guide speculation as to how Clarke and Lillywhite would have fared if they had bowled to W. G. Grace and McDonnell. Round old Clarke's head, as round the heads of Fuller Pilch, Alfred Mynn, and William Lillywhite, an aureole has gathered; they are the great lights of that epoch of cricket, and during his career old Clarke must have been one of those few bowlers who generally made fools of batsmen.

To return to this year of 1846, as it was Parr and Clarke's first Gentlemen and Players, so it was C. G. Taylor's last. This great player at all games was an Eton and Cambridge man; and, like many old cricketers, formed the theme of poets, 'Taylor the most graceful of all,' one writes, and again he is represented as being

Mr. C. G. Taylor was evidently born with an eye; he often ran out to bowling to drive, could field splendidly either at point, coverpoint, or mid-wicket, and bowled slow round-arm, we are told, both well and gracefully. We suspect that, as may be inferred from the description of his style of play, there was a weak place in his defence, and he used to have long bouts of small scores. But so graceful and altogether fascinating was his style, that all his great innings were indelibly stamped on the memory of those who witnessed them. In this his last Gentlemen and Players match he got 23 and 44. It was a