may raise him, without lowering themselves, by taking an interest, if not a part, in his sports. “Nature abhors a vacuum,” especially of mirth and merriment, resenting the folly of those who would disdain her bounties by that indifference and apathy which mark a very dull boy indeed. Nature designed us to sport and play at cricket as truly as to eat and drink. Without sport you have no healthful exercise: to refresh the body you must relax the mind. Observe the pale dyspeptic student ruminating on his logic, algebra, or political economy while describing his periodical revolutions around his college garden or on Constitution Hill: then turn aside and gladden your eyes and ears with the buoyant spirits and exulting energies of Bullingdon or Lord’s. See how nature rebels against “an airing,” or a milestone-measured walk! While following up a covey, or the windings of a trout-stream, we cross field after field unconscious of fatigue, and retain so pleasing a recollection of the toil, that years after, amidst the din and hum of men, we brighten at the thought, and yearn as did the poet near two thousand years ago, in the words,-- “_O rus, quando te aspiciam, quandoque licebit,_ _Ducere sollicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ._” That an intelligent and responsible being should live only for amusement, is an error indeed, and one which brings its own punishment in that sinking of the heart when the cup is drained to the dregs, and pleasures cease to please. “_Nec lusisse pudet sed non incidere ludum._” Still field-sports, in their proper season, are Nature’s kind provision to smooth the frown from the brow, to allay “life’s fitful fever,” to-- “Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And by some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuffed bosom from that perilous stuff, Which weighs upon the heart.” And words are these, not a whit too strong for those who live laborious days, in this high-pressure generation. And, who does not feel his daily burthen lightened, while enjoying, _pratorum viva voluptas_, the joyous spirits and good fellowship of the cricket-field, those sunny hours when “the valleys laugh and sing,” and, between the greensward beneath and the blue sky above, you hear a hum of happy myriads enjoying their brief span too! Who can describe that tumult of the breast, described by Æschylus, ----νεαρὸς μυελὸς στέρνων ἐντὸς ἀνάσσων-- those yearning energies which find in this sport their genial exercise!