Page:The Hambledon Men (1907).djvu/23

Rh including a novel or two. I should also remark that as early as 1835 he had put forth a pamphlet on The Principles of Scientific Batting. His last book was Oxford Memories, 1886, a work in which the author doubtless meant to be faithful to his theme, but in which the bat beats the University again and again and at length drives it from the field altogether.

Like his great predecessor John Nyren, Mr. Pycroft was a left-hander. During his latter years he lived at Brighton, and I remember well his tall, erect, clerical figure, clad always in black, with a cape and a silk hat, his pure white hair and a fringe of white whisker, his pink cheeks and bright eyes. He disliked to sit formally in the Pavilion; but would walk round and round the ground, pausing, or I might say, hovering, every few steps, to watch the play more closely.

He died in 1895, aged eighty-two sharing some of the longevity of his friends, Mr. Budd, who was ninety, and Beldham, ninety-eight.

Old Clarke's letter I take from William Bolland's Cricket Notes, 1851. William Bolland was Perpetual President of the I Zingari and a great friend of the Ponsonbys, with whom and Tom Taylor and others he founded the Old Stagers' Dramatic Club in 1842. His other claim to memory (could there be a better?) is that he was a friend of Thackeray and the original of Fred Bayham in The Newcomes William Bolland was the son of Judge Bolland, for whom he acted as marshal, but he took his legal duties