Page:The Cricket Field (1854).djvu/109

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ROYAL AND NOBLE PATRONS.
85

house. For the Prince was a great lover of the game, and caused the "Prince's Cricket Ground" to be formed at Brighton. The late Lord Barrymore, killed by the accidental discharge of a blunderbuss in his phaeton, was an enthusiastic cricketer. The Duke of Richmond, when Colonel Lennox, a nobleman whose life and spirits and genial generous nature made him beloved by all, exulted in this as in all athletic sports: the bite of a fox killed him. Then, as you drive through Russell Square, behold the statue of another patron, the noble-born and noble-minded Duke of Bedford; and in Dorset Square, the site of old Lord's Ground, you may muse and fancy you see, where now is some "modest mansion," the identical mark called the "Duke's strike," which long recorded a hit, 132 yards in the air, from the once famous bat of Alexander, late Duke of Hamilton. Great matches in those days, as in these, cost money. Six guineas if they won and four if they lost, was the player's fee; or, five and three if they lived in town. So, as every match cost some seventy pounds, over the fire-place at Lord's you would see a Subscription List for Surrey against England, or for England against Kent, as the case might be, and find notices of each interesting match' at Brookes's and other clubs.

This custom of advertising cricket matches is of very ancient date. For, in the "British Cham-