Better counsel on cricket than Old Clarke's, in this Letter, I never read. It is so wise and so racy too. He thought of everything, and, one feels, by innuendo paid off several old scores on the way. The reference to the funny man, for example, on p. 170 one imagines a distinct offender in the old man's eye.
The conversation with the Sixth Earl of Bessborough I have extracted by the kind permission of the author from a little gossiping and entertaining History of Kennington, which Bishop Montgomery, himself a cricketer, wrote in 1889, with a very interesting account of Old Cricket and Surrey Cricket at the end of it. Against the score of the Eton and Harrow match of 1864, Mr. Haygarth writes in Lilly white's book:—
'Mr. Henry Hutchinson Montgomery's first match at Lord's. Is a fine free hitter, combined with great steadiness; and had he only been able to participate in the great matches of the day, he would most likely have highly distinguished himself in the national pastime of Old England. As a field he excels at point, standing up close and pluckily to the opposing batsman. On the three occasions he appeared in the Harrow Eleven against Eton, he had the good fortune each time to be on the winning side, and each time in a single innings. In May 1866, at Harrow, he won (distance 200 yards) the Champion Ebrington cup.'
Lord Bessborough is better known to cricketers
