lyric prose, nor short of the mark like Mr.
Brougham's speeches, nor wide of it like Mr. Canning's wit, nor foul
like the _Quarterly_, nor _let_ balls like the _Edinburgh Review_.
Cobbett and Junius together would have made a Cavanagh. He was the best
_up-hill_ player in the world; even when his adversary was fourteen, he
would play on the same or better, and as he never flung away the game
through carelessness and conceit, he never gave it through laziness
or want of heart. The only peculiarity of his play was that he never
_volleyed_, but let the balls hop; but if they rose an inch from the
ground he never missed having them. There was not only nobody equal, but
nobody second to him. It is supposed that he could give any other
player half the game, or beat him with his left hand. His service was
tremendous. He once played Woodward and Meredith together (two of the
best players in England) in the Fives-court, St. Martin's street, and
made seven and twenty aces following by services alone--a thing unheard
of. He another time played Peru, who was considered a first-rate
fives-player, a match of the best out of five games, and in the three
first games, which of course decided the match, Peru got only one ace.
Cavanagh was an Irishman by birth, and a house-painter by profession.
He had once laid aside his working-dress, and walked up, in his smartest
clothes, to the Rosemary Branch to have an afternoon's pleasure. A
person accosted him, and asked him if he would have a game. So they
agreed to play for half a crown a game and a bottle of cider. The first
game began--it was seven, eight, ten, thirteen, fourteen, all. Cavanagh
won it. The next was the same. They played on, and each game was hardly
contested. "There," said the unconscious fives-player, "there was a
stroke that Cavanagh could not take: I never played better in my life,
and yet I can't win a game. I don't know how it is!" However, they
played on, Cavanagh winning every game, and the bystanders drinking the
cider and laughing all the time. In the twelfth game, when Cavanagh was
only four, and the stranger thirteen, a person came in and said, "What!
are you here, Cavanagh?" The words were no sooner pronounced than the
astonished player let the hall drop from his hand, and saying, "What!
have I been breaking my heart all this time to beat Cavanagh?" refused
to make another effort. "And yet, I give you my word," said Cavanagh,
telling the story with some triumph, "I