Clarke fell down (while playing) and broke his arm. It was thought he would not have been able to appear any more, but he continued to do so till the last year of his life.'
An article in the Quarterly for October, 1884, testifies not only to Clarke's technical skill, but his humours too: 'About 1836, W. Clarke, perhaps the most famous slow bowler of the century, appeared at Lord's (making his début, oddly enough, when he was 37 years of age), and for many years held a most commanding position from the skill with which he used to defeat even the best batsmen. He carried, we think, further than any bowler before him, the theory of bowling not merely to hit the wicket but to get his opponent out. He used to study each man's play, find out his weak points, and cruelly press his knowledge. "We shall have a 'haccident', sir, soon, I know we shall!"[1] was his favourite expression when a batsman had apparently mastered him—nd accident we are bound to state there usually was. "How do you get out Mr. A.?" he was once asked. "Nothing easier," he replied. "I bowl him three balls to make him proud of his forward play, and then with the fourth I pitch shorter twist and catch him at the slip."
'If Clarke had a fault, it was the somewhat English one of never knowing when he was defeated. He was always sanguine of a wicket next over. Lord Frederick Beau clerk had the same failing, if failing it be. "I knew I should get you!" he once said to Mr. Ward. "Yes, but I have scored eighty," was the reply. It has been the same with other celebrated bowlers. "Do you not think we had better have a change? " was once said to one of the best slow round-arm amateur bowlers of the last decade, by a somewhat weary cover-point. "Yes, I think we had—I will go on at the other end."'
In The Cricket Field Mr. Pycroft wrote of the veteran thus: 'He is a man who thinks for himself, and knows men and manners, and has many wily devices, "splendide
- ↑ See p. 168.
