Page:The Hambledon Men (1907).djvu/16

x my principal reason for quoting the passage, together with that on the title-page (from Mary Turner of East Hoathly in Sussex to her son at Brighthelmstone, some years earlier), was to show that cricket, even so long ago, was exercising its subtle spell and claiming its slaves just as it does to-day—and was not, as some may have thought, confined to the few illustrious players who in the pages of Nyren and Bentley and Lillywhite represent all the enterprise in the game that was shown for so long a period. Beneath the surface on which they glitteringly performed were depth on depth of that village-green enthusiasm which, for us, Mrs. Turner and little Tom Clement symbolize.

My object in the present book has been to bring together as many authentic praises of the early cricketers first celebrated by Nyren as I could find—together with a few new facts concerning Nyren himself: the whole to form rather a eulogy of the fathers of the noblest of games than a history of its rise or contribution to the literature of its theory. The reader will find few dates, but many traits and virtues; no well-ordered facts, but much enthusiasm.

I have made the introduction of round-arm bowling the end of what may be called the Hambledon period in cricket, for two reasons—one being that I had to fix upon some limit or I should have been tempted to go on for ever; and the other that Nyren himself so sturdily disapproved of it. Some of his strictures will be found on page 40, while in Cowden Clarke's