So far we have traced the diffusion of the game, and the degrees of proficiency attained, to the beginning of the present century. To sum up the evidence, by the year 1800, cricket had become the common pastime of the common people in Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex, and Kent, and had been introduced into the adjoining counties; and though we cannot trace its continuity beyond Rutlandshire and Burley Park, certainly it had been long familiar to the men of Leicester and Nottingham as well as Sheffield;--that, in point of Fielding generally, this was already as good, and quite as much valued in a match, as it has been since; while Wicket-keeping in particular had been ably executed by Sueter, for he could stump off Brett, whose pace Nyren, acquainted as he was with all the bowlers to the days of Lillywhite, called quite of the steam-engine power, albeit no wicket-keeper could shine like Wenman or Box, except with the regularity of overhand bowling; and already Bowlers had attained by bias and quick delivery all the excellence which underhand bowling admits. Still, as regards Batting, the very fact that the stumps remained six inches wide, by twenty-two inches in height, undeniably proves that the secret of success was limited to comparatively a small number of players. CHAP. V. THE FIRST TWENTY YEARS OF THE PRESENT CENTURY. Before this century was one year old, David Harris, Harry Walker, Purchase, Aylward, and Lumpy had left the stage, and John Small, instead of hitting bad balls whose stitches would not last a match, had learnt to make commodities so good that Clout’s and Duke’s were mere toy-shop in comparison. Noah Mann was the Caldecourt, or umpire, of the day, and Harry Bentley also, when he did not play. Five years more saw nearly the last of Earl Winchelsea, Sir Horace Mann, Earl Darnley, and Lord Yarmouth; still Surrey had a generous friend in Mr. Laurell, Hants in Mr. T. Smith, and Kent in the Honourables H. and J. Tufton. The Pavilion at Lord’s, then and since 1787 on the site of Dorset Square, was attended by Lord Frederick Beauclerk, then a young man of four-and-twenty, the Honourables Colonel Bligh, Colonel Lennox, H. and J. Tufton, and A. Upton. Also, there were usually Messrs. R. Whitehead, G. Leycester, S. Vigne, and F. Ladbroke. These were the great promoters of the matches, and the first of the amateurs. Cricket was one of Lord Byron’s favourite sports, and that in spite of his lame foot: witness the lines,-- “Together join’d in cricket’s manly toil, Or shared the produce of the river’s spoil.” Byron mentions in his letters that he played in the eleven of Harrow against Eton in 1805. The score is given in Lillywhite’s Public-School Matches. The excellent William Wilberforce was fond of cricket, and was laid up by a severe blow on the leg at Rothley while playing with his sons: he says the doctor told him a little more would have broken the bone.