Ah, gentlemen of Loamshire! if you want to win this match why can't you keep quiet? Don't you think the sight of that fatal little ball, nestling close up to his wicket, is enough to disconcert any batsman in the last over of a good match? And yet you cry, Steady, Thompson, steady!" Poor chap, you can see that he is all abroad, and the boy's eyes at the other end are glittering with repressed excitement. He is fighting his first great battle in public, and knows it is a winning one. There is a sting in the fourth ball which would have made even Grace pull himself together. It sent Thompson's bails over the long-stop's head, and mowed down his wicket like ripe corn before a thunder-shower.

And now the chivalry of good cricket was apparent; Loamshire had no desire to "play out the time". Even as Thompson was bowled, another Loamshire man left the pavilion, ready for the fray. If it had been "cricket," Hawker, the Loamshire captain, would have gladly played out the match. As it was, his man was ready to finish the over. As the two men passed each other the new-comer gave his defeated friend a playful dig in the ribs, and remarked, "Here goes for the score of the match, Edward Anson, duck, not out!"

As there was only one more ball to be bowled, and only two runs to be made to secure a win for Loamshire, I'm afraid Anson hardly meant what he said. Unless it shot underground or was absolutely out of reach, that young giant, who "could hit like anything, though not much of a bat," meant at any rate to hit that one ball for four. How he opened his shoulders! how splendidly he lunged out! you could see the great muscles swell as he made the bat sing through the air,

you could almost see the ball going seaward; and yet— and yet

The school had risen like one man; they had heard that rattle among the timber; they knew that Snap's last "yorker" had done the trick; cool head and quick hand had pulled the match out of the fire, and even his rival Poynter was one of the crowd who caught young Hales, tossed him on to their shoulders, and bore him in triumph to the pavilion, whilst the chapel clock struck the half-hour.

From "Snap," by C. PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY.

Autocrat. A ruler on whose power there is no check. The root of the first part of the word is the Greek autos, oneself. (Give the meanings of auto-biography, autograph, and auto-matic.) The

"young autocrat" of the story was Frank Winthrop, the captain of the Fernhall School eleven. The team was about to play a match with Loamshire, and the boy generally known as Snap had got into trouble as usual, and was kept in when he was wanted to bowl.

Poynter.

One of the bowlers for

the school. Cassock. A kind of robe worn by university men. The "figure in a long cassock" was the headmaster.

The Rev. Erasmus Cube-Root was

the mathematical master of the school, and it was for offending him that Snap was kept in. The long field. A position some way behind and to the right of the bowler. Antipodes. That part of the world where the people have their feet opposite to our own (Australia). Get up his average. Good batters are anxious to make as many runs as possible in an innings,

and when they have had a poor score at one match they try to bring up the average by making a good score at another. Hawker felt certain of scoring well when playing against boys only. Exasperating. Annoying, trying to the temper.

Yorker. A ball that pitches directly
underneath the bat. A careful
player like Grey merely stops it.
A more rash player gets ready to
hit it, and finds too late that it
has come nearer than he ex-
pected, and that he cannot stop it.
A "bumpy' one. Another ball
which a very careful player will
"stop" rather than "play".
His shutter. His bat, with which
he protected his wicket as shutters
protect a window.

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very new colours. Snap had only just been promoted to the eleven out of the twenty-two.

The ink-pot. Snap had been writing "lines".

Short-slip. A little way behind
and rather to the right of the
wicket-keeper.

Towzer. The nickname of the
captain's younger brother.
Long-slip. A fielder nearly in a
line with short-slip but further
from the wicket.

Stump orator. A man who goes
about making speeches in the
open air. The name came from
America, where, in young settle-
ments, such speakers used to
stand on the stumps of newly
felled trees.

A maiden. An over in which no
runs have been made.
Thompson. The Loamshire player
who has narrowly escaped being
bowled.

Grace. W. G. Grace, probably the

best, batsman England has ever had.

Play out the time. If Loamshire players had dawdled, the time for stopping would arrive without either side being able to win, and the match would have been "drawn ".

His rival. Poynter thought himself the best bowler of the school, and was not pleased that the captain should put on Snap.

COMPOSITION.-Describe how Snap saved the match.

LESSON 3.

SHAKSPEARE.

WE who speak the tongue that Shakspeare spoke place him before all the other poets of the world, and no foreigner who has learned to read his works desires to place any other poet before him.

William Shakspeare died on the 23rd April, 1616, and there is a tradition that he was also born on the same date. It is

SHAKSPEARE.

certain that he was

christened on the

26th, but there is nothing to prove that his birth did or

did not occur on the 23rd. The year of his birth was 1564, and the place Stratford-on-Avon.

His father, John Shakspeare, was bailiff, or chief magistrate, of Stratford in 1568, and his mother, Mary Arden, belonged to one of the oldest Warwickshire families, and she brought to her husband a tiny estate of arable and pasture land and a house. John Shakspeare had land of his own, and rented more, and he cultivated the land and sold the produce; and the stories of his being a butcher, or wool merchant, or glover, may be dismissed as worthless.

The boy William was sent to the Free Grammar School in Stratford, and when he was a man he was less learned than his brother authors in London, many of whom were university men. "He had small Latin and less Greek," says Ben Jonson. But he was receiving from Nature a higher teaching than any he could gain from books. The neighbourhood of Stratford is a smiling pleasant country, through which the Avon flows peacefully—

Making sweet music with the enamelled stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge

He overtaketh in his pilgrimage.

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Pretty hamlets - Wilmcote, Binton, Shottery, Charlecote, and many others-lie within easy distance, and we may be sure he knew them all. Images of mead and grove, of dale and upland, of forest depths, of quiet walks by gentle rivers, spread themselves without an effort over all his writings. The sports, the festivals of the secluded hamlet are presented by him with all the charms of an Arcadian age, but with a truthfulness that is not found in Arcadia. He

wreathes all the flowers of the field in his delicate chaplets."

In 1578, when William was fourteen years old, his father appears to have become greatly reduced in circumstances, for he mortgaged his wife's land, and he was unable to meet certain claims made upon him. There were then living five children, of whom William was the eldest boy, and probably for some years to come he worked with his father on the farm. There is also a tradition that he was engaged in a notary's office; and it is remarked that in his writings he makes use of many technical legal terms and expressions, and always with the nicest accuracy. But too much stress must not be laid upon this argument; for there is no art or profession which Shakspeare has not laid under contribution for his beautiful and expressive similes.

In November, 1582, while still a youth of eighteen, William married Anne Hathaway, from the village of Shottery; and a daughter, Susannah, was born to them the next year.

In 1585 two more children, twins, a boy and girl, Hamnet and Judith, were born to Shakspeare; and some time afterwards-perhaps the next year-he went to seek his fortune in London, leaving his wife and children with his father and mother in Stratford.

A very old tradition states, "This William, being naturally inclined to poetry and acting, came to London-I guess about eighteen-and was an actor at one of the playhouses, and did act exceedingly well". A later tradition runs, "He was obliged to leave his business and family in Warwickshire for some time, and shelter himself in London," connecting his leaving