ch to the old Club at
Hambledon for the improvements which it wrought in the game, which
has become our great national pastime.

Miss Mitford, in her charming book, _Our Village_, describes the
rivalry which existed between the village elevens at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, and gives a sketch of a match between two
Berkshire village teams, which brought about some very happy results
of a romantic nature. She tells us, too, of the comments of the
rustics on the "new-fashioned" style of bowling which one of the
team had introduced from London, which did not at all commend itself
to them, but effectually took their wickets. When that celebrated
company of cricketers, dressed in frock-coats and tall hats, whose
portraits adorn many a pavilion, competed for the honour of All
England, they were quite ignorant of "round-arm" bowling, which is,
of course, an invention of modern times. Only "lobs," or
"under-hands," were the order of the day. It has been stated that we
are indebted to the ladies for the important discovery of the modern
style of delivering the ball. The story may be legendary, but I have
read somewhere that the elder Lillywhite used to practise cricket
all through the winter, and that his daughters used to bowl to him.
During the bitter cold of a winter's day they wore their shawls, and
found it more convenient to bowl with extended arms than in the old
method. Their balls so delivered used to puzzle their father, and
often take his wicket; so he began to imitate them, and introduced
his new method into matches, and thus the age of round-arm bowling
was inaugurated. I cannot vouch for the truth of the story, and only
tell it as it was told to me.[12] At any rate Lillywhite was the
father of modern bowling, which would have startled and considerably
puzzled the veteran cricketers in the early part of the present
century.

The proper parent of cricket seems to have been club-ball, which is
a very old game, and of which there is a picture in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford, dated 1344 A.D. It represents a female throwing a
ball to a man who is in the act of raising his bat to strike it.
Behind the woman, at a little distance, appear several other figures
of men and women waiting attentively to catch or stop the ball when
hit by the batsman. There is a still more ancient picture of two
club-ball players, representing the batsman holding the ball also
and preparing to hit it, while the other player hol