listening to the witty conversation and the good music which always formed part of the entertainment.'
That Nyren loved music is very clear to the reader of The Cricketers of My Time. He says, it will be remembered, of Lear and Sueter's glees at the 'Bat and Ball', on Broad-Halfpenny:—
I have been there, and still would go;
'Twas like a little heaven below.
It is interesting to note that Charles Lamb uses the same quotation from Dr. Watts in his account of the musical evenings at Novello's.
Both Leigh Hunt and Cowden Clarke, as we shall see, have written of their friend; but I cannot find any reference to him in the writings of Charles Lamb. I wish I could, for Lamb, although he would have cared even less for cricket than for music, would have been one of the first to detect the excellences of Nyren' s book, especially such passages as the robustly lyrical praise of ale, and the simple yet almost Homeric testimony to the virtues of the old players and celebration of their unflinching independence.
Miss Nyren continues: ' My grandfather was very fond of all children, and much beloved by all Vincent Novello's family: they called him "Papa Nyren". One of the daughters, the late Mary Sabilla Novello, wrote as recently as 1903, that she well remembered him when she was very young, as being "very kind and indulgent to little children, always ready to join heartily in all their merriments". We still have heaps of music inscribed to him by Vincent Novello, with all kinds of playful and affectionate words. It was my grandfather who first remarked the beauty of Clara Novello's voice, and advised her father to have it carefully trained. He composed three pieces of music which Novello published, two of which were "Ave Verum" and the accompaniment to Byron's spirited song "Fill the Goblet again"; I do not know what the third was.' I give a reproduction of the drinking song from Miss Nyren's copy.
