Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 52022-h.htm or 52022-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/52022/52022-h/52022-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/52022/52022-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/cricketfieldorhi00pycr [Illustration: H. Adlard sc. THE BOWLER. _William Clarke. The Slow Bowler & Sec’y to the All England Eleven._ London. Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans.] THE CRICKET FIELD: Or, The History and the Science of the Game of Cricket. by The Author of “The Principles of Scientific Batting,” “Recollections of College Days,” etc. etc. “Gaudet … aprici gramine campi.” “Pila velox, Molliter austerum studio fallente laborem.”--HOR. Second Edition. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans 1854. “’Twas in the prime of summer time, An evening calm and cool, And five and twenty happy boys Came bounding out of school. Away they sped with gamesome minds And souls untouched with sin; To a level mead they came, and there They drove the wickets in.” HOOD. LONDON: A. and G. A. SPOTTISWOODE, New-street-Square. DEDICATED TO J. A. B. MARSHALL, ESQ., AND THE MEMBERS OF THE LANSDOWN CRICKET CLUB, BY ONE OF THEIR OLDEST MEMBERS AND SINCERE FRIEND, THE AUTHOR. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. This Edition is greatly improved by various additions and corrections, for which we gratefully acknowledge our obligations to the Rev. R. T. King and Mr. A. Haygarth, as also once more to Mr. A. Bass and Mr. Whateley of Burton. For our practical instructions on Bowling, Batting, and Fielding, the first players of the day have been consulted, each on the point in which he respectively excelled. More discoveries have also been made illustrative of the origin and early history of Cricket; and we trust nothing is wanting to maintain the high character now accorded to the “Cricket Field,” as the Standard Authority on every part of our National Game. J. P. _May, 18. 1854._ PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.