seem to be at least as well occupied with natural and useful pursuits as those of any other rank; and more so perhaps, in proportion to their greater command of means for accomplishing their purposes and gratifying their tastes. Some may do a little mischief in attempting to do good: some may get into a foolish metaphysical school in their study of German: some may lose themselves among the religious sects of the day in the course of their polemical or antiquarian studies: but I doubt whether one could anywhere find more satisfactory specimens of single women, amiable and cheerful, because satisfied and occupied,—with friends enough for their hearts, and business enough for head and hands.
What is the truth, I wonder, about the “fast young ladies” we read so much about? I am out of the world; but I cannot find that anybody who is in it has actually seen the young ladies who talk of “awful swells” and “deuced bores,” who smoke, and venture upon free discourse, and try to be like men. In Horace Walpole’s time, as in Addison’s, there were “fast young ladies,” as we see in many a letter of Walpole’s, and many a paper of the “Spectator.” Probably there were some in every age, varying their doings and sayings, according to the fopperies of the time. Have we more than the average proportion? I do not know. One obvious remark on the case of the girls so freely discussed has scarcely, I think, been sufficiently made; that the two commonest allegations against them are incompatible. We hear of their atrocious extravagance in dress and peculiarity of personal habits; and, in the next breath, of their lives being one unremitting effort to obtain a husband. Now, in my long life, I have witnessed nothing like the opposition set up by men, within the last seven years, to certain modes of female dress and manners: yet the modes remain. The ladies are steady. I wish their firmness was shown in a better cause; for I admire the fashions of the day as little as any man: but it is plain that the ladies, young and old, daughters and mothers, do not try to please men in their dress and behaviour. They choose to please themselves: and, whatever we may think of their taste, we cannot but admit their spirit of independence.
On the whole, I cannot see any evidence that women of any rank are, generally speaking, educated with a view to getting married: nor yet for the purpose of being companions to men, or the mothers of heroes; nor yet for the purpose of inspiring men to great deeds, and improving society; nor yet, except in a few scattered instances, to make the most of their own individual nature. There will be less confusion of thought, and dimness of aim, when the better instructed generation grows up. Meantime, in the midst of the groping among sympathies, and sentiments, and imitations, and ambitions, and imperfect views of all sorts, let us only have some few who uphold the claim of every human being to be made the most of, in all the provinces of its nature, and the female sex is redeemed. Women will quietly enter into their “rights,” without objection on any hand, when those rights consist in their being more reasonable, more able, more useful, and more agreeable than ever before, without losing anything in exchange for the gain.
OUR CRITIC UPON CRICKET.
SECOND INNINGS.
The reader may remember that I scored in my last innings some remarks upon the modern catapultive style of bowling, and some regrets that, to my thinking, the pleasure of the game has in some degree been lessened by it. We live in a fast age, and I suppose our bowlers fancy they must keep pace with the times: but I am pretty sure that certainty is often sacrificed to speed, and that many a young cricketer has spoilt his style in bowling by aiming too exclusively at quickness in delivery. The great thing to be learnt is to make sure of a good length, and to vary pace and pitch with ease as well as accuracy.
To practise this, the best way is to go out with a friend, and stand at two grounds’ length apart, with a single stump between you. Peg a bit of paper, each at three or four yards from the wicket, and bowl alternate balls for an hour at a time, only scoring when you hit both the paper and the wicket. Change the distance of the former after every dozen balls, so as to acquire the knack of varying four lengths: and especially endeavour to deliver with a twist, which by beginning with slow balls you will speedily acquire, and by practice will be able to introduce with swift ones. An old bowler I knew (I believe he was among the very first of the round-handers) could pitch a ball at least a yard wide of the stumps, and yet make it shoot straight into them. I have often heard him boast that he could bowl a “bailer” that should pitch behind the batsman: and after hitting round at what one thought a safe leg-ball from him, I have often been disgusted to find it take the wicket.
Good bowling is so vitally essential to good cricket, that I wonder that more pains are not taken in the practice of it. The annual defeat of the Gentlemen by the Players, which is becoming every year, it seems, more sure in its recurrence, I attribute in chief measure to the fact that as a rule the Gentlemen bowl badly, because they never practise it. Last year at the Oval, the Players beat them in one innings, with near 200 runs to spare: and at Lord’s this year a like defeat occurred, the Players scoring, in their one innings, 246, while the Gentlemen made 70 and 116. The return match, too, the Players have won easily in one innings, making the large score of 358, while the Gentlemen scored 154 and 136. This result I see is, in the “Times” account assigned to “the fine bowling of Jackson and Willsher throughout, combined with the general good fielding of the Players:” but there is no doubt the inferior bowling of the Gentlemen had quite as much to do with it. Of course it would not be in reason to expect an amateur to bowl as well as a professional without like constant practice; and gentlemen, it may be said, have neither need nor wish to take up cricket as a business, and so give up much time to it. But surely if they can spare time to practise it at all, they ought not to confine themselves exclusively
