260 SHOOTING THE GROUSE 



question. We can all remember how when Mr. W. 

 G. Grace produced a series of scores such as had 

 never been dreamt of in the cricket field, people 

 began to talk of altering the rules to assist the 

 bowlers ; of adding a stump, or narrowing the pro- 

 portions of the bat, in order to restore the balance of 

 the game. But these scores, like those named above, 

 now remain recorded as the meteors or comets in the 

 celestial field of great reputations, of rare and spas- 

 modic recurrence, and valuable only as a standard of 

 possibility to stimulate minor constellations to greater 

 brilliancy. 



The first-rate performer, as before remarked, is 

 good under all circumstances. I have met those who 

 have seen W. G. Grace in a rustic cricket match, or 

 John Roberts on a country house table, just as I have 

 seen De Grey walking for an ordinary bag of partridges, 

 or pursuing the occasional snipe or rabbit. The per- 

 formance shows the same excellence under all these 

 circumstances, and the quality which excites merely 

 pleasure and admiration under the average conditions 

 should not produce jealousy or carping criticism when 

 reproduced on the rare opportunity which admits of 

 the execution of a sensational feat. 



There is no danger of the frequent recurrence of 

 Lord Walsingham's 500 brace in a day, of Lord de 



