and cold that are characteristic of a severe attack of ague. It is for the historian and the student of human nature to decide whether our nature is phlegmatic or merely proud, and whether these rare outbursts are not in reality a genuine eruption of violent volcanic feelings which have long smouldered beneath the crust of our real nature. The true account seems to be that in matters of a public and, still more, of an international character, insular pride does not allow us to reveal the fact that the Englishman possesses a certain amount of that excitability which we choose to attribute to the southern and the Latin races: it is only a special stress that reveals this side of our nature. When, however, the Englishman's foot is on English soil, and when his only critics are of the same blood as himself, then and only then does he allow the true keenness of his disposition to run riot. The Englishman, in short, only casts aside his phlegm, his reserve, and his pride when he is in congenial society, and the presence of the necessary society is in no place more apparent than on the scenes of those sports that afford him the amusement and, in some cases, the means of life. Those scenes may be narrowed down to the football field, the racecourse, and the cricket ground. It is with the last of these that our business at present lies.
It would be impossible to lay down any cast-iron reason for the fact that general interest in cricket has increased by leaps and bounds in the last twenty years. The fact is incontrovertible, whatever the cause may be, but to most of those who have watched
