to devote themselves vigorously to the attack. These are some of the reasons for 'the present pale presentment in lieu of positive punitive pugnacity.' In those exceptional demonstrations which have been so enjoyed, for instance that by A. P. F. Chapman and A. W. Carr for the Gentlemen, by Hobbs and P. G. H. Fender and only too few others in addition, the results have been attained by a hard offensive or by perfect timing. It is not given to all to reach this standard; but a mere patball negative occupation of the wicket ought not to be encouraged against bowling which, when not experimental, is distinctly of only mediocre much of a muchness.' Moreover, spectators, constantly wearied with philandering displays, tire of watching such travesties of the intention of cricket-this poor apathy differing intrinsically from the science of defence, which has furnished some of the most effective and pleasurable efforts in cricket-and soon, if it continues, the financial wail will be heard. No side that has regularly played enthusiastic cricket has ever failed to win popular support. The one-time sad fate of Notts should be remembered: for the latest period of Shrewsbury and William Gunn caused such local abstention that even a test-match failed adequately to attract the public to Trent Bridge.

There are, however, brighter features in the cricket of to-day. Never has the general standard of fielding reached so high a level; whilst there are well-nigh a score of wicketkeepers, each of whom might wear the gloves for England with distinction. Also, the absolute fairness of modern bowling affords a welcome contrast to the old-time discussion as to the legality of the action of this one bowler or that. The game is played in a spirit of perfect sportsmanship. If there is an aggravating and aggravated tendency to play with the pads instead of the bat, never before have so many batsmen been penalised by the umpires, for over twelve per cent. of the wickets captured have been due to appeals for 1.b.w. given in favour of the bowler.

For good or evil, in a season without a colonial invasion, public attention has been concentrated on the county championship. Since it is impossible for all the counties to meet each other, it is lamentable that no

mathematician has yet evolved a system of proportion whereby a lead on the first innings does not penalise one of the foremost counties. To abolish a decision on the first innings would be impossible, because, otherwisefor example-after rain had marred the first day and half the second, the rest of the match would be reduced to absurdity if there were no struggle for points. Surely, by increasing the number given for a win outright, some ratio could be found by which the victory on first innings by a leading county would not penalise it in the championship table. Moreover, seven points for a win outright would be a truer proportionate sporting reward compared with the two points for success on the first innings. No adequate argument has yet been advanced for the fallacy of allotting a point to the loser. It may be of interest to state that, over a long term of years, eighty per cent. of concluded matches have been won by the side leading on the first innings. That too many counties now compete for the championship is agreed; but a division into two sections I now see is impracticable, though I it was who originally propounded the scheme more than a dozen years ago. Apart from the fact that a county falling into the second division might be faced with a severe reduction in membership and attendance, it has always been part of the plan that the leading counties should play additional matches with some of those in the lower rank. Abundant proof has been afforded, since the war, that for outside encounters executives do not trouble to collect representative sides, thereby destroying the attractiveness of such games.

It is a matter for regret that M.C.C. no longer play any first-class county, except Yorkshire at Scarborough. Apart from financial considerations, this has resulted from the wretched sides that too often failed to uphold the reputation of the leading club. The Jam Sahib (the famous Ranjitsinhji) told me this summer that if it had not been for the M.C.C. matches with the counties, he would never have become the batsman he proved himself, because they enabled him to encounter some of the best bowling; while to-day, through the absence of such fixtures, no member of a minor county has an opportunity of meeting important sides. If ever Middlesex

decided to use a ground of its own, members of M.C.C. would have to. be content with a singularly small programme of first-class matches. The widespread expressions of dissatisfaction over various pronouncements of M.C.C. also possess significance. Any autocracy is so contrary to the spirit of the times that, at least, its dominance should be expressed in felicitous terms.

Systematic effort will have to be made to preserve the position of the amateur in county cricket. If it were arranged that any selected amateur should be guaranteed four matches, many would arrange their holidays in order to be able to play. What matter if thirty amateurs were thus chosen for a single county in a summer? It would be difficult to over-estimate the value of the influence they would impart on returning to their local clubs. Moreover, this, in turn, would benefit the professionals, for it would have the effect of eliminating those semi-supernumeraries on the ground staff, who hang on the fringe of the county side, pleasantly wasting the best years of their lives on the chance of at some time being wanted. The ideal side for a county is a due combination of the paid and the unpaid elements; the professionals to provide the solidity, the amateurs the brilliance; so long as both the elements possess, at least, efficiency. It is this problem of the maintenance in the best matches of the amateur, after he has adopted some calling, which forms the only present menace of first-class cricket.

It must also be incumbent on the executives to insist on their representatives playing with animation, so as not to weary the public, on whose support county cricket must depend, until the appearance of new cricketers of the finest class. It is certain that such will come, and when they do will be welcomed most eagerly by generations that have not seen Ranjitsinhji, Palairet, MacLaren, Spooner, or Jessop, just as those who remember Alfred Shaw, Attewell, and J. T. Hearne to-day appreciate the skill of J. C. White, Freeman, and Parker. The game must be played in the present spirit; but with increased energy and joy. When the new men come, they will pass on the splendid traditions handed down by former masters of England's and the world's greatest game.

HOME GORDON.

Art. 8.-THE COLLECTED PAPERS OF A. W. WARD. Collected Papers, Historical, Literary, Travel and Miscel laneous. By Sir Adolphus William Ward, Litt.D. Five vols. Cambridge: University Press, 1921.

IN a graceful preface to the first volume of these 'Collected Papers' the Master of Peterhouse acknowledges the compliment paid to him by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press in offering to publish this selection from his contributions to periodical literature, and from his lectures and addresses, written in the course of the last sixty years, or thereabouts.' We should like to join to this acknowledgment our own expression of gratitude for the preservation of so much that is of value in what might well have been the fugitive work of a true scholar in History and Literature. While he is far from having abandoned the production of books more detailed and continuous, it is well, indeed, that the distinguished historian and man of letters has found time to recover these more brief and scattered expressions of the varied interests and the wide knowledge which have made him one of the most eminent English writers during more than half a century of valuable public service.

They date back, even beyond the period of his appointment to the professorship of English Language and Literature and of Ancient and Modern History in Owens College, Manchester, so long ago as 1866, to the generous and discriminating tribute which he paid in 1861 to the memory of his friend and schoolmaster, Dr John William Donaldson, whose fame as one of the very best class of Cambridge scholars, an incomparable teacher and a scholar of rare acumen and still rarer courage,' time has as yet scarcely dimmed-a notice which the writer tells us was submitted to the critical censure of the great Master of Trinity, W. H. Thompson. They include almost every subject in which the writer has for these many years been interested; not only pure history and pure literature but descriptive sketches, much like those in which Mr Freeman delighted to set down his impressions and memories of places he had seen; biographical studies, and elucidations of educational projects and progress. They make a record of varied study and criticism, illustrating the

writer's personal interests and his contributions to learning, of which any scholar might be proud; and they will remain as a valuable example of the work of English scholars in the later Victorian period and the first quarter of the 20th century, before it came to be regarded as indiscreet to betray an interest in more than two or three subjects, and as almost indecent to attempt to be a master of more than one. Sir Adolphus Ward's 'Collected Papers' will thus be not only a memorial of his own many-sided intellectual activities, but also an illustration of the width of outlook which marked the men of his time.

And the papers, short as well as long, which are here collected, were worthy of preservation in themselves, and not merely because they were written by a man of eminence in the educational world. Too many of the lesser-writings of such men, often most characteristic and illuminative, have been allowed in past days to perish. What would we give for the unfinished studies, the chance notes, of Dr Johnson-for surely there must have been many consigned to the place where he told the lady to put her trivial verses-though he dismissed them even more contemptuously than the essay' of his contemporaries which was to him but a loose sally of the mind, an ill-digested, ill-conditioned piece'? Whatever may be said of the zeal with which the unconsidered trifles of R. L. Stevenson are now hunted out and printed, there can be no doubt that all lovers of letters would give much for the dust of the writings of Charles Lamb or George Meredith, as we see that they do for that of Byron or Jane Austen. Mr Oliver Elton rendered perhaps his greatest service to the memory of York Powell when he added to his admirable biography a delightful volume of short sketches, and reviews, and poems, and epigrams, portraits and surveys. No historian of our time could be much more unlike the undisciplined Oxford genius than the sound and conscientious Cambridge scholar; but they both illustrate the outstanding interests and opinions of their age; and it may well be that the enterprise of the Oxford Press in collecting the occasional writings of the one has encouraged the Cambridge Press to produce the Collected Papers of the other.

York Powell was an omnivorous reader; but he wrote