History of Cricket Part 3

Poems could give advice, on cricket (1772):

Ye bowlers take heed, to my precepts attend,
On you the whole state of the game must depend,
Spare your vigour at first nor exert all your strength,
But measure each step, and be sure pitch a length.
Ye strikers observe when the foe shall draw nigh,
Mark the bowler advance with a vigilant eye;
Your skill all depends upon distance and sight,
Stand firm to your scratch, let your bat be upright.

and even through cricket on life (1756):

The outward side, who place and profit want,
Watch to surprise and labour to supplant;
While those who taste the sweets of present winnings
Labour as heartily to keep their innings.

On either side the whole great game is play'd -
Untry'd no shift is left, unsought no aid;
Skill vies with skill, and pow'r contends with pow'r ,
And squint-eyed prejudice computes their score.

The enthusiasm for cricket in the eighteenth century is well represented by a letter from Mary Turner of East Hoathly to her son in September 1739: "Last Munday youre Father was at Mr Payns and plaid at Cricket and come home pleased anuf for he struck the best Ball in the game and whished he had not anny thing else to do he wuld play Cricket all his life". However, the active participation in cricket of members of the nobility called forth adverse criticism from both poets and poetasters. Alexander Pope attacks probably Lord John Sackville in his "The Judge to dance his brother serjeant call, / The Senator at cricket urge the ball", while in 1778 a lampooner inveighs against the Duke of Dorset in his The Noble Cricketers:

When Death (for Lords must die) your doom shall seal,
What sculptured Honors shall your tomb reveal?
Instead of Glory , with a weeping eye,
Instead of Virtue pointing to the sky,
Let Bats and Balls th' affronted stone disgrace,
While Farce stands leering by, with Satyr face,
Holding, with forty notches mark'd, a board -
The noble triumph of a noble Lord!

The last words for the eighteenth century must, however, be for its most famous club, Hambledon, for which the Rev. Reynell Cotton, master of Hyde Abbey School, Winchester, wrote his Cricket Song:

...The wickets are pitch'd now, and measured the ground;
Then they form a large ring, and stand gazing around -
Since Ajax fought Hector, in sight of all Troy,
No contest was seen with such fear and such joy.

Derry down, etc Then fill up your glass, he's the best that drinks most.
Here's the Hambledon Club! - who refuses the toast ?
Let's join in the praise of the bat and the wicket,
And sing in full chorus the patrons of cricket.
Derry down, etc.

And when the game's o'er, and our fate shall draw nigh
(For the heroes of cricket, like others, must die),
Our bats we'll resign, neither troubled nor vex'd,
And give up our wickets to those that come next.
Derry down, etc.