298 THE COUNTRY CLERGYMAN. 



matches, arranged our sides, ordered our dinners, 

 received the subscriptions, and defrayed the ex- 

 penses when we were from home. Next to him I 

 should mention the Curate of the parish, who was a 

 warm lover of the game, which he had learned at 

 Harrow, and perfected with the Bullington Club 

 at Oxford. He was nothing as a field, and, in- 

 deed, he generally got a substitute for that part of 

 the game, often under the pretence (we all knew it 

 was a pretence) that he must go away for a few 

 hours to write his sermon, or visit some sick old 

 maid: but his batting was very elegant, and his 

 off-hits between point and slip, were the admiration 

 of the club ; he was one of our constant attendants, 

 and played in most of the matches. Our's being 

 emphatically a cricket-county, many of the clergy 

 played without thinking that it was at all deroga- 

 tory to the dignity or sanctity of their profession ; 

 indeed, such was the general feeling on that head, 

 that I remember two or three years ago, when there 

 was one of those foolish and intemperate outcries 

 against the church, a paragraph in our county 

 paper ; which, after some reflections on the distant 

 and reserved carriage of the clergy to their flock, 

 said * If a clergyman wants to get his tithes with- 

 ' out trouble, let him PLAY AT CRICKET WITH HIS 



' PARISHIONERS.'* 



* This paragraph was actually copied into one of the morning 

 London papers, with notes of admiration to it. Certainly it 



