Certainly, there is something highly intellectual in our noble and national pastime. But the cricketer must possess other qualifications; not only physical and intellectual, but moral qualifications also. Of what avail is the head to plan and hand to execute, if a sulky temper paralyses exertion, and throws a damp upon the field; or if impatience dethrones judgment, and the man hits across at good balls, because loose balls are long in coming; or, again, if a contentious and imperious disposition leaves the cricketer all ‘alone in his glory,’ voted the pest of every eleven? The pest of the hunting-field is the man always thinking of his own horse and own riding, galloping against MEN and not after HOUNDS. The pest of the cricket-field is the man who bores you about his average--his wickets--his catches; and looks blue even at the success of his own party. If unsuccessful in batting or fielding, he gives up all--“the wretch concentred all in self.” No! Give me the man who forgets himself in the game, and, missing a ball, does not stop to exculpate himself by dumb show, but rattles away after it--who does not blame his partner when he is run out--who plays like play and not like a painful operation. Such a chilly, bleak, northwest aspect some men do put on--it is absurd to say they are enjoying themselves. We all know it is trying to be out first ball. “Oh! that first look back at rattling stumps--why, I couldn’t have had right guard!”--that conviction that the ball turned, or but for some unaccountable suspension of the laws of motion (the earth perhaps coming to a hitch upon its ungreased axis) it had not happened! Then there’s the spoiling of your average, (though some begin again and reckon anew!) and a sad consciousness that every critic in the three tiers of the Pavilion, as he coolly speculates “_quis cuique dolor victo, quæ gloria palmæ_,” knows your mortification. Oh! that sad walk back, a “returned convict;” we must all pace it, “_calcanda semel via leti_.” A man is sure never to take his eyes off the ground, and if there’s a bit of stick in the way he kicks it instinctively with the side of his shoe. Add, that cruel _post mortem_ examination into your “case,” and having to answer the old question, How was it? or perhaps forced to argue with some vexatious fellow who imputes it to the very fault on which you are so sore and sensitive. All this is trying; but since it is always happening, an “inseparable accident” of the game, it is time that an unruffled temper should be held the “differentia” of the true cricketer and bad temper voted bad play. Eleven good-tempered men, other points equal, would beat eleven sulky or eleven irritable gentlemen out of the field. The hurling of bats and angry ebullitions show inexperience in the game and its chances; as if any man in England could always catch, or stop, or score. This very uncertainty gives the game its interest. If Pilch or Parr were sure of runs, who would care