Exeter in 1845, blocked away till his party, the N. Devon, won the match, chiefly by byes and wide balls! Such men might have turned their powers to much better account.
Some maintain that anything that succeeds is cricket; but not such cricket as full-grown men should vote a scientific and a manly exercise; otherwise, to "run cunning" might be Coursing, and to kill sitting Shooting. A player may happen to succeed with what is not generally a successful style,—winning in spite of his awkwardness, and not by virtue of it.
But there is another cogent reason for letting your arms, and not your body, do the work,—namely, that it makes all the difference to your sight whether the level of the eye remains the same as with a composed and easy hitter; or, unsteady and changing, as with the wriggling and the clumsy player. Whether a ball undulates in the air, or whether there is an equal undulation in the line of the eye which regards that ball, the confusion and indistinctness is the same. As an experiment, look at any distant object, and move your head up and down, and you will understand the confusion of sight to which I allude. The only security of a good batsman, as of a good shot, consists in the hand and eye being habituated to act together. Now, the hand may obey the eye when at rest, but have no such habit when in un-
