Cricket, we said, is a game chiefly of skill, but partly of chance. Skill avails enough for interest, and not too much for friendly feeling. No game is played in better humour--never lost till won--the game’s alive till the last ball. For the most part, there is so little to ruffle the temper, or to cause unpleasant collision, that there is no place so free from temptation--no such happy plains or lands of innocence--as our cricket-fields. We give bail for our good behaviour from the moment that we enter them. Still, a cricket-field is a sphere of wholesome discipline in obedience and good order; not to mention that manly spirit which faces danger without shrinking, and bears disappointment with good nature. Disappointment! and say where is there more poignant disappointment, while it lasts, than, after all your practice for a match, and anxious thought and resolution to avoid every chance, and score off every possible ball, to be balked and run out, caught at the slip, or stumped even off a shooter. “The course of true love (even for cricket) never did run smooth.” Old Robinson, one of the finest batsmen of his day, had six unlucky innings in succession: once caught by Hammond, from a draw; then bowled with shooters, or picked up at short slip: the poor fellow said he had lost all his play, thinking “the fault is in ourselves, and not our stars;” and was with difficulty persuaded to play one match more, in which--whose heart does not rejoice to hear?--he made one hundred and thirty runs!