Page:The Hambledon Men (1907).djvu/309

 was, Budd was a man of commanding strength and quickness, audax viribus, and he confessed to us—"I used to delight in hard hitting, and in seeing the ring obliged to fall back further and further as I warmed in my play. To step in to an overpitched ball, and drive with all the impetus of my heavy bat, weighing three pounds of good stuff, was my favourite play." Lord Frederick might naturally envy that dashing, powerful style, which was not in the nature of his play; yet his lordship was a compact, strongly-built man, large about the loins, and one of the best men at a hundred-yard race, of which he ran no small number—five feet nine inches high, and weighing about eleven stone and a half.

'Lord Frederick was one of the slowest of the slow bowlers of that day. Mr. Budd was certainly almost as slow as he could be to make good bowling, but Lord Frederick was slower still; but, being a good judge of play, pitching within an inch of where he desired to pitch, and with a delivery which caused a quick and abrupt rise, he was very effective, especially in days when "going in to hit" had not become the fashion. . ..

'Mr. Budd, holding an appointment in the War Office, played in all the great matches at Marylebone from the year 1805 to 1825. He then left London, but gladdened the eyes of many by making his appearance with the Wanstead Park Eleven in 1837. The success of his bowling in the first innings made the veteran rather chuckle at the thought of showing that old ways were sometimes best; but next innings Mr. Ward went in with Mr. Charles Taylor, and then Mr. Budd's game was up. Of course Mr. Ward knew all about it, having regularly encountered him for many years—not forgetting the occasion of his great innings. Mr. Budd played full fifty years in town and country, playing for Purton against Marlborough College as late as 1851, when, to his great disgust, some boy umpire gave the old man out "leg-before-wicket"—a thing next to impossible with Mr. Budd's style—and which, he declared, had never happened in his whole life.'