Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/290

 Charles Lamb. In his ‘London Journal’ for 9 July 1834 Leigh Hunt prints a letter from Nyren describing a cricket match. He speaks of the writer as ‘his old, or rather his ever young friend,’ while of the letter he says ‘there is a right handling of it, with relishing hits.’

Nyren's securest title to fame, however, is of course the book published in 1833, and entitled ‘The Young Cricketer's Tutor, comprising full directions for playing the elegant and manly game of cricket, with a complete version of its laws and regulations, by John Nyren; a Player in the celebrated Old Hambledon Club and in the Mary-le-Bone Club. To which is added The Cricketers of my Time, or Recollections of the most famous Old Players. The whole collected and edited by Charles Cowden Clarke,’ London, 8vo. Prefixed is a ‘View of the Mary-le-Bone Club's Cricket Ground.’ The work, which was dedicated to William Ward, the champion cricketer of his day, seems to have originated in Nyren's admiration for Vincent Novello [q. v.] the musician, at whose house he was a frequent visitor. There he used to talk music with Novello and cricket with Novello's son-in-law, Charles Cowden-Clarke, who, like himself, was an enthusiast about the game. Clarke jotted down, with but little addition of his own, the animated phrases in which his friend related the exploits of the Hambledonians, and the result was this prose epic of cricket, which passed to a fourth edition in 1840. It was reprinted, with Lillywhite's ‘Cricket Scores’ and Denison's ‘Sketches,’ in 1888. A new edition appeared in 1893, with an introduction by Mr. Charles Whibley.

The style is often slipshod, but this is more than atoned for by the interest of the subject, the grave sincerity of Nyren's enthusiasm, and the frequency of the graphic touches. In its pages Tom Walker, of ‘the scrag of mutton frame and wilted applejohn face,’ with ‘skin like the rind of an old oak,’ the heresiarch who invented round-arm bowling; John Small, who once charmed a vicious bull with his fiddle; George Lear, the longstop, ‘as sure of the ball as if he had been a sand-bank;’ Tom Sueter, sweetest of tenors; Harris, ‘the best bowler who ever lived;’ William Beldham, alias Silver Billy, equally the best bat, who reached the patriarchal age of 96—these and the rest live again, and people once more Broad Halfpenny and Windmill Down.

Nyren died at Bromley on 30 June 1837, and was buried in Bromley churchyard. By his wife, who predeceased him, he left five children, of whom a daughter, Mary A. Nyren (1796–1844), became superior lady abbess of the English convent at Bruges. A portrait by a granddaughter is extant.

(fl. 1830), author of ‘Tables of the Duties, Bounties, and Drawbacks of Customs,’ 1830, 12mo, with whom the cricketer is confused in the ‘Catalogue’ of the British Museum Library, was a first cousin.



O

OAKELEY, CHARLES, first  (1751–1826), governor of Madras, second son of William Oakeley, M.A., of Balliol College, Oxford, rector of Forton, Staffordshire, by his wife Christian, daughter of Sir Patrick Strahan, was born at Forton on 27 Feb. 1751. After being educated at Shrewsbury school, he obtained, through his father's friend, Lady Clive, a nomination to a writership on the East India Company's Madras establishment, received his appointment in October 1766, and arrived at his station on 6 June 1767. For five or six years he was assistant to the secretary to the civil department; was then, in January 1773, promoted to succeed Mr. Goodlad in the secretaryship; and in May 1777 was removed to the corresponding post in the military and political department, combined with the offices of judge-advocate-general and translator. These duties he discharged with diligence and commendation till November 1780, when he was compelled to resign them in consequence of ill-health.

When Lord Macartney, in the summer of 1781, had succeeded in obtaining from the nabob of Arcot an assignment of his revenues to defray the expenses of the war in the Carnatic, a committee, called the committee of assigned revenue, was appointed to superintend the collection of the revenues and to apply them. Of this committee Oakeley was made president. He began his duties in January 1782. In spite of the hostility of the nabob's servants and subjects, and of the great extent of Hyder Ali's conquests in the territories of the nabob, the board succeeded in raising the Arcot contribution to the war