10. Most men have a length they cannot play. I have heard it said that Goethe used to go to the top of a tower every day in order to accustom himself to look down without growing giddy. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. The Old Beckfordians' match came off in due season, what is billiards and Pringle enjoyed it thoroughly. 2. Never bowl a single ball but in your chosen and adopted form and style-with the same steps, and with the ball held in the same way, "If these seem small things, habit is not a small thing." Also, never go on when you are too tired to command your muscles; else, you will be twisting yourself out of form, and calling new and conflicting muscles into action. Also, adopt a run of from five to seven yards. He has lost some of his length, he cannot force a ball out of its bunker as he did formerly, and his eye is not quick at judging the distance of about eighty yards which he has to carry to get over some danger. Such are the effects of a ball spinning or rotating vertically.

This is similar to the "following stroke" at billiards, made by striking the ball high and rotating it in the line of the stroke. The object of the player is to score the points of the game by striking his ball through each of the hoops and against each of the pegs in a fixed order; and the side wins which first succeeds in scoring all the points with both the balls of the side. The chief skill in the game perhaps consists in playing the stroke called "taking croquet" (but see below on the "rush"). I do not pretend to say that an average player is always "off" with this or that club, but as every golfer knows there come times or spells of times when all skill with one class of club seems to vanish. It will always be choosing first one and then the other, and will never be able to make up its mind permanently.

To assist the spin of the ball, a good bowler will not stop short, but will rather follow the ball, or, give way to it, after delivery, for one or two steps. Be contented with being rather a slow bowler. To form a steady habit of bowling, the nerves and muscles being a very delicate machinery, you must be careful to use them in one way, and one way only; for then they will come to serve you truly and mechanically: but, even a few hours spent in loose play-in bowling with few steps or many, or with a new mode of delivery-will often establish conflicting habits, or call into action a new set of muscles, to interfere with the muscles on which you mainly depend. 4. A golden rule for straight bowling is to present, at delivery, a full face to the opposite wicket; the shoulders being in the same line, or parallel with, the crease. Redgate showed how bowling may be most fair and most effective. You may find a Redgate, a Wisden, or a Mynn, who can bring fast bowling under command for one or two seasons; but these are exceptions too solitary to afford a precedent.

Look at diagrams page 179. Clarke is there represented as bowling two balls of different lengths; but the increased height of the shorter pitched ball, by a natural ocular delusion, makes it appear as far pitched as the other. The effect of a spin on its own axis is best exemplified by bowling a child's hoop. Cobbett, and others of the best bowlers, began underhand. The first ball just grazed Pilch's wicket; the second took his bails; the third ball levelled Mynn, and the fourth Stearman; three of the best bats of the day. Cobbett's delivery designed a spin, and the ball at the pitch had new life in it. Theory of Bowling.-What characterises a good delivery? 7. The essence of a good delivery is to send the ball forth rotating, or turning on its own axis. A throw, or the catapult which strikes the ball from its rest, gives no spin; hence, the ball is regular in its rise, and easy to calculate.