young students, Hall perpetually enforced the principle of keeping the left elbow well up (this charge was of course delivered to the right-handed hitters), and excellent instruction it was; for if you do keep that elbow well up, and your bat also upright (in stopping a length ball), you will not fail to keep the balls down; and, vice versa, lower your elbow, and your balls will infallibly mount when you strike them.
Beldham was quite a young man when he joined the Hambledon Club; and even in that stage of his playing I hardly ever saw a man with a finer command of his bat; but, with the instruction and advice of the old heads superadded, he rapidly attained to the extraordinary accomplishment of being the finest player that has appeared within the latitude of more than half a century. There can be no exception against his batting, or the severity of his hitting. He would get in at the balls, and hit them away in a gallant style; yet, in this single feat, I think I have known him excelled; but when he could cut them at the point of the bat he was in his glory; and upon my life, their speed was as the speed of thought. One of the most beautiful sights that can be imagined, and which would have delighted an artist, was to see him make himself up to hit a ball. It was the beau ideal of grace, animation, and concentrated energy. In this peculiar exhibition of elegance with vigour, the nearest approach to him, I think, was Lord Frederick Beauclerc. Upon one occasion at Mary-le-bone, I remember these two admirable batters being in together, and though Beldham was then verging towards his climacteric, yet both were excited to a competition, and the display of talent that was exhibited between them that day was the most interesting sight of its kind I ever witnessed. I should not forget, among his other excellences, to mention that Beldham was one of
