AND this is what the brighteners of cricket are doing. They are inventing a new game, a game which those of us who love cricket have not the least desire to watch. If anybody says that he finds Lord’s or the Oval boring, I shall not be at all surprised; the only thing that would surprise me would be to hear that he found it more boring than I find Epsom or Newmarket. Cricket is not to everybody’s taste; nor is racing. But those who like cricket like it for what it is, and they don’t want it brightened by those who don’t like it.

Lord's as it is, which is as it was five years ago,* is good enough for me. I would not alter any of it. To hear the pavilion bell ring out again was to hear the most musical sound in the world. When people talk of the score of this or that opera I smile pityingly to myself. They have never heard the true music.