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is due in great part to John Nyren's humility, which places him in his book a little lower than any of the good fellows who batted and bowled for the old Hambledon Club, that the erroneous impression is abroad that the author of the noble pages of The Cricketers of My Time was an illiterate rustic, incapable of writing his own memories.

I do not suggest that every one is so mistaken; but too many people who have read or have heard of Nyren seem to entertain this view. Again and again in conversation I have had to try to put the matter right, although it needs but a little thought to realize that only very fine qualities of head and heart—only a very rare and true gentlemanliness—could have produced the record of such notable worth and independence and sterling character as shine in that book. Good literature is no accident; before it can be, whether it is the result of conversations or penmanship, there must have been the needful qualities, as surely as the egg precedes the chicken. I do not mean that it is not in the power of an illiterate rustic to talk greatly; but it is not in the power of one who remains an illiterate rustic to talk such great talk as The Cricketers of My Time.

A fortunate error in an article on John Nyren, which I wrote five years ago, brought me acquainted with Miss Mary Nyren and her sisters—John Nyren's