for when once the first drudgery of learning is past, the fascination it exercises over its votaries is such that the love of the game becomes almost a passion. Nor is it, perhaps, less worthy the name (ne vous en déplaise) than other tastes which are honoured with it. Speaking diffidently, and with all respect for love and ambition, it may be just possible-may it not, unsophisticated reader, to whom I have before introduced myself?-I say just possible that the pleasure derived from banging a ball about to make an ace, the most serious result of which is an expense of fourpence a game to the loser, may be as noble and harmless as that derived from banging about the interests of the nation for self-aggrandisement, or whispering stale platitudes filched from the minor novelists into ears which may have to blush for their credulity through a lifetime. Let no one cry out at the comparison of racquets with politics. A thousand points of resemblance will immediately suggest themselves to the player, and need not be here set down. It is enough to say that in racquets, the out-player is under no obligation to abuse his adversary, and that he owes his innings, when he gets it, to his own exertions and not to the pleasure of the gallery. Love, perhaps, is a game of a noble nature, but then the effects of it are deplorable, while racquets give, even to the unsuccessful player, health, strength, and an appetite for dinner.

It is a humiliating proof of the imperfection of human nature that this noble game is not universal. The British Isles are its chosen home and birthplace; and it has never, as the lawyers say, lost its domicile of origin or gained a fresh one elsewhere. It is of comparatively modern origin, and the tradition is, that it was first played in Ireland; the racquet itself being, as Freddy suggests, nothing but an improvement of the Irish harp, and the first court probably one of Tara's halls so utilized. Thence it found its way to England, and, naturally enough, considering its origin, made its first appearance in the King's Bench Prison, where it

solaced the abundant leisure of many an indebted son of Erin, and made captivity pleasant by the help of the very walls that shut out every other pleasure. Then, in some unexplained way, the military men heard of the game and adopted it. Woolwich, Winchester, Plymouth, and other garrison towns soon possessed courts, where linesmen learnt to return a plunger,' and plungers learnt to respect the line.' The Public Schools, too, always ready to welcome sports, followed the example. Harrovians and Etonians grew up with the taste, and now racquets is perhaps, among those who can afford it, the most popular of all games.

The courts vary in size; but the smaller ones find most favour among the habitués of Prince's. They are rectangular in shape, and some sixty feet long, by thirty wide, lit from above, the walls and floor presenting a smooth black surface for the rebound of the ball. Very affectionate is the regard the player has for those ugly walls and floor. The slightest flaw or crack in either would affect the truth of the rebound in any ball touching it, would probably cause the loss of an ace, possibly of a game; and as both walls and floor are as valuable in his eyes as the cloth of a billiard-table to its own particular marker, imperfections are carefully looked for and tenderly plastered over as soon as discovered. Every court is swept out morning and evening, and, as in an Eastern mosque, when the true believer comes to pay his devotions, he leaves outside his accustomed sandals, stained with the dust (and perhaps nailed with the nails) of daily life, and puts on the slipper, soft, pliant, and soled with indiarubber.

Courts differ one from the other no less than the stars, both in magnitude and in brightness; and they have this further element of difference, that the service-line varies in height from the floor, and the floor itself in the 'quickness' or readiness with which the ball rebounds, so that it is sometimes very trying to play in a strange court, where the strokes most successfully

practised at home are found either to be impossible or quite ineffectual; for a difference of three or four inches in the line is enough to take all the vice out of some of the finer sorts of service. Then they are built of different materials; some, as at the private court at Eglinton, have a marble floor; while at Halifax, and some places in Canada intelligent enough to like the game, they are built entirely of wood, carefully joined with mortice and tenon, and presenting an equally good surface with the plaster and asphalte used at Prince's. Again, there is the 'open court,' as at Lord's Cricketground and at Kennington, consisting of nothing but an end wall and a floor, open to the weather, without side or back walls at all-an abomination to the close-court player, whose pretty strokes into the corner are there impossible. There is, indeed, as there must be, an entire dissimilarity between the 'open' and the'close' court games, the former of which is no more like the latter (nor more worthy to be classed with it) than marbles are like billiards.

In the gallery sits the marker, a small urchin who calls the score in a peculiar ringing chant thereto affected. He acts, too, as umpire, and decides upon cuts,' 'lets,' and 'faults' with the gravity of a judge, and with about the same measure of infallibility. If he is found to be obstinately careless, or incurably sleepy, the only remedy open to the victim of his mistakes is to cut a ball at him-a summary mode of appeal, which, it is to be regretted, cannot be applied to some of the courts in Westminster Hall.

The balls used in the game are an expensive item to the racquet player. They are of the size of a greengage, white as snow (when new), and very hard; but after being banged up and down for an ace or two, they split and break, or, if particularly tough, become gradually covered with the black from the walls, and at last present the

appearance and consistency of a half-boiled potato. Thus a great number are spoilt in the course of a single game, and an equally large number of twopences are thereby

added to the bill. These balls are made with great care, of small shreds of cloth, wetted and pressed in moulds, of very small size at first, but increasing gradually, as more cloth is added, until the proper size is reached. The ball is then 'paid' or wound tightly round with packthread, and finally covered with a thin skin of white leather. So prepared, they are light as feathers and hard as stones-very disagreeable to receive unexpectedly on any part of the body, and most dangerous if on any part of the head; indeed, there have been many instances of men losing an eye in the game from a stroke of the ball. Every player is certain to be 'cut over' every now and then-the clumsy player most certain of all; and the best that can be hoped is that one may be so lucky as to receive one's allotted share on some of the better padded and less seen parts of the physical economy. The head can generally be guarded by holding the racquet before it and looking through the strings, or, failing that, by dropping flat on the floor, a proceeding much practised in the four games.

The racquet is simply an elaborated battledore, the frame made of ash wood, which is steamed and bent to the required shape, and across which catgut is tightly strung in a firm elastic network. Racquets vary no less than courts; a well-balanced one, of the proper length, and which has yet sufficient weight to give upon occasion a good drive' to the ball, is a great prize, and should be proportionately well cared for, by being kept tightly screwed in a proper wooden frame, to prevent warping.

The game is usually played by two players, though there is also the four game,' in which there are two on each side; but, besides the inevitable confusion it produces, the exercise is not so good, and the exertions (of the players are often chiefly directed to getting out of the way of each other and of the ball, the latter sometimes necessitating very wonderful acrobatic feats. The best two of three games form a short rubber; the best three of five, a long rubber; and each game consists of

fifteen points or 'aces,' one of which is made whenever the server can succeed in being the last to return the ball against the end wall. Should the out-player last return it, it is said to be his hand in,' and he in turn endeavours to make his aces.* Of course, it is an object so to serve the ball as to prevent the out-player returning it at all whence arises the great importance attached to a good service,' to have which is to go a long way towards being a good player, and whence also many players have studied service alone, and have so learnt to beat others who could return two balls to their one. That the possibility of such a state of things should exist, is the one defect in the game; and it is made the most of by the tennis players, who are its born enemies, and affect to despise it in comparison with their own. The 'cut service' is very effective, and consists in striking the ball, not as the natural man would, with the flat of the racquet, but with a cut edgewise, so that the ball scrapes along the strings, and so receives a rotary motion, which makes it shoot on touching the wall or floor; and when served with force, just over the line and into the corner, it is a most difficult one to return. The drop,' again, is very provoking, falling, as it should, gently at the back of the court, and, if well served, hugging the wall so closely as to render its return next to impossible. The 'twist,' too, is even more deceiving, since the effect of it is to make the ball bound falsely. The ball may bound once, but must be struck before it touches the ground a second time, or the stroke is foul. It is, however, sometimes an advantage to 'volley' it, or return it before it has touched at all, which gives the adversary less time to recover himself and meet it again. Naturally, the great object is so to

*If the score, however, be 13 all' or 15 all,' there is a saving clause in the rules which allows the out-player to set the game' in the former case to 3 or 5, and in the latter to 3 only; the meaning of which is, that those 3 or 5 additional points are to be made, instead of the number that would naturally make up the 15.

strike it as to make it as difficult as possible for the adversary to return it; and to accomplish this, it should be directed so as just to clear the wood or red line (below which all strokes are foul), and should have a good 'cut' on it, which kills it for the rebound. It is important to wait till the ball is low before striking, as, if taken at the wrong time, it is certain to bound high instead of shooting along, as it should, close to and parallel with the floor. A very pretty and telling stroke is made by striking the ball, not directly to the end wall, but diagonally to the side, so that it describes a zig-zag, and ends by just grazing the end wall, and falling close to its base, out of reach of the adversary, who has probably been awaiting its return at the back of the court, and who, when he recognizes the nature of the stroke, vainly endeavours to run up in time to reach it.

In racquets, as in all games of skill that deserve the name, the first and most important thing is to study the character of the opponent, and to act accordingly; and, having discovered his physical and mental weakest points, to take every possible advantage of them to prevent his returning the ball. If he is timid, it may be made to fly back like a flash of lightning, straight at his wind, which confuses him, and, barring the accident of his racquet being in the way, wins the ace. If he is sanguine and adventurous, it may be advisable to let him make the first few aces with apparent ease, which induces confidence and a careless style of play; if, on the other hand, he is of a desponding disposition and easily discouraged, it is best to work hard, and to get the lead at once at any cost, and so demoralize him. If he is at all slow or short-winded, it will be best to serve balls that come freely off the back wall, and fall half-way up the court, so that he may lose his wind and his temper by running all over the place, when he will fall an easy victim. If he is quick and active, the scientific play must then be practised, and a drop service into the corner, or a violent twist to deceive his judgment, will be most effective.

In short, the game is played with the head even more than with the hand and legs, and for that reason the attention must not be allowed to wander from it for an instant. Many a player, of too active imagination, has been so unfortunate during the game as to have an idea cross his mind, and has lost his rubber in consequence. The unexpected arrival of a dear friend in the gallery often costs one an ace (and what a kindly feeling one has for the dear friend then!); and the remarkably good tale one heard last night at dinner, if one cannot forget it, is perhaps fatal to the game.

Great judgment and activity are the every-day virtues of the racquetplayer; and to these, if he would excel, must be added great temper and courage, the temper to endure reverses with an equal mind, and the courage to fight an up-hill battle with all the chances against him, and to play as well when the game is at 14 to 1, with his opponent's 'hand in,' as if the odds were reversed.

Such qualities, it will be said, would insure success in any pursuit. That is true; and there are very few who possess them: were it otherwise, we should live in a world of paragons, everybody as good as everybody else, and you and I, dear reader, would lose the small advantage we possess in being slightly above the average; and therefore, as there are few who possess these qualities in the requisite degree, so there are as few who excel in racquets as in literature, science, or tailoring. But those few are as planets among rushlights; and yet, so beneficial is the mental discipline of the game, that I have known many great racquet players who, when they had attained to the first rank, have been capable of conversing upon a limited number of subjects other than their own preeminence, or even (some of them), to admit that there may be good in one or two other things under the canopy of heaven.

Racquets is essentially a gentleman's game. It is too expensive for the great masses, both in the time it takes to learn, and the cost of play

ing it when learnt. Another reason is, that it can only be played in the hours of daylight, when all those who have to work for their bread are engaged in earning it. Attempts have indeed been made (one notably in Liverpool), to play by gaslight, but hitherto without success. Perhaps at some future day, when the Saturday half-holiday is universal, and all London consumes its own smoke, the additional daylight which the million will then enjoy, may enable them also to participate in the delights of the game; but at present it remains in the hands of that select class whose day begins at four o'clock, and whose sole business it is to find a pleasant appetite for dinner between that time and halfpast seven. To them it is indeed a boon, since, as it can be played in all weathers (I speak of close courts), it has, as Freddy says 'jockeyed the climate.' I myself have always had a lurking suspicion that this same climate of ours (so called) could not have been intended, in the original scheme of things, for human beings to exist in, but only to grow such things as beet-root, celery, and potatoes, while humankind must have been expected to live somewhere on the Continent (say at Paris), and to come over once a fortnight to look after the cultivation, and then to go back again: and the fact that one can go to Paris in ten hours and ahalf goes to prove the theory. However, having once entered upon the mistaken course of living in it, racquets has fortunately made it endurable. It vanquishes frost, snow, rain, hail-even the east wind itself. For those who crouch before their coal fires, with which they pollute the sky and spoil the light, and blow upon the blue tips of their fingers, for the foolish ones who complain of dyspepsia and liver, we pity them

For racquets to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unrol.'

For us, the Racquet Court is always open, the liver does not exist, and the only pain we know is that which our well-earned dinner allays. BLANC-BEC.