Sir Ashton Lever died suddenly in 1788, at Manchester. Meanwhile Mr. Parkinson had built the Rotunda in Albion Place, at the south end of Blackfriars Bridge, for the display of the “Museum Leverianum.” The scheme failed, and in 1806 the museum was sold by auction at King & Lochee’s rooms in King Street, Covent Garden, the sale lasting sixty-five days. The catalogue filled 410 octavo pages, and there were 7879 lots. The deserted “Rotunda” at Blackfriars deteriorated until it was known to Tom Taylor as “something very much like a penny gaff.” Taylor, by the way, tells us that Sir Ashton Lever conceived the idea of sending a ship-load of potatoes to the defenders of Gibraltar, and this was done. [317] By “this year” Smith means 1784. His note is little more than a copy of the following newspaper paragraph of May 29, 1784, quoted by Lewis in his _History of Islington_: “Thursday a grand cricket-match was played in the White Conduit Fields. Among the players were the Duke of Dorset, Lord Winchilsea, Lord Talbot, Colonel Tarleton, Mr. Howe, Mr. Damer, Hon. Mr. Lennox, and the Rev. Mr. Williams. A pavilion was erected for refreshments, and a number of ladies attended.” John Frederick Sackville, third Duke of Dorset (1745-99), was a member of the Hambledon Club, and of the committee which drew up the original laws of the M.C.C. He employed several of the best cricketers of his day, and presented Sevenoaks with a cricket ground. As our Ambassador to France he arranged for a British cricket eleven to play in Paris, but the Revolution disturbances prevented the match. The Earl of Winchilsea (1752-1826) was also a member of the Hambledon. He introduced four wickets, two inches higher than the standard. “The game is then rendered shorter by easier bowling out,” said the _Hampshire Chronicle_, but the Earl’s plan is still a dream and a controversy. The Hon. Mr. Lennox is referred to in a newspaper of the period as “nephew to his grace of Richmond,” and he and Lord Winchilsea are described as the chief performers at White Conduit House. Colonel Sir Banastre Tarleton went through the War of Independence with distinction, and lived with “Perdita” (Mary Robinson) for some years, receiving from her much devotion. He represented Liverpool in Parliament for twenty-two years, and attained the rank of General. The White Conduit Club, of which these gentlemen were members, has a high importance in the history of cricket, for out of it sprang, in 1787, the Marylebone Cricket Club. “The M.C.C. Club,” says Mr. Andrew Lang in a sketch of cricket history, “may be said to have sprung from the ashes of the White Conduit Club, dissolved in 1787. One Thomas Lord, by the aid of some members of the older association, made a ground in the space which is now Dorset Square. This was the first ‘Lord’s’.” Two removals brought the ground to its present location in St. John’s Wood, where the first recorded match was played, June 22, 1814.