met him. Canon Benham tells me that a story illustrating Nyren's judgement in the field used to be told, in which that player calculated so accurately the fall of a ball hit high over his head that, instead of running backwards to it in the ordinary way, keeping his eye on it all the time, he ran forwards and then turned at the right moment and caught it. Canon Benham also recalls a great story of a Hambledon match at Southsea. When the time came for Hambledon's second innings, six runs only were wanted. The first ball, therefore, the batsman—whose name, I regret, is lost—hit clean out of the ground into the sea, and the match was won. Canon Benham can remember the striker's tones as he corroborated the incident: 'Yes, I sent hurr to say.'
I now resume Miss Nyren's narrative: 'My grandfather was enthusiastic about cricket and all that concerned it to the last day of his life, but only as a pastime and recreation, not as an occupation, as writers of the day would make out. I will quote en passant a passage written by his eldest son, Henry. "My father, John Nyren, was known to the cricketers of his time at the Marylebone Club as 'young Hambledon'. He was a constant player of that manly game, and excelled in all its points, generally carrying out his bat, often keeping the bat two whole days, and once three. [This would be, I assume, in minor matches.] When fielding, by the quickness of his smart, deep-set eyes, he would catch out at the point; this was his favourite feat, and his fingers carried the marks of it to his grave. With some batters one might as soon catch a cannon-ball."
'My grandfather could use his left hand as dexterously as his right. He was a good musician, and a clever performer on the violin, an intimate friend of Vincent Novello's, and a constant attendant at the celebrated "Sunday Evenings" at his house. There he met Charles Lamb, Leigh Hunt, Cowden Clarke, Malibran, and other celebrities. He often took with him his youngest son, John William Nyren, my father, then a lad, who in later years often told me and my sisters how he enjoyed
