A Forgotten Master Our sports correspondent, Bill "Dink" Hazlitt, was a little late with this article, too. This time he's submitted an obituary for a man who died in 1819. Nevertheless it is the obituary of a man who was great and is now forgotten, and we thank Bill for reminding us so eloquently of him.Some background information: Fives is a form of handball now played chiefly by students and graduates of the great British public schools. John Cavanagh seems to have played the Rugby version.
When a person dies, who does any one thing better than anyone else in the world, which so many others are trying to do well, it leaves a gap in society. It is not likely that anyone will now see the game of fives played in its perfection for many years to come – for John Cavanagh is dead, and has not left his peer behind him.
It may be said that there are things of more importance than striking a ball against a wall – there are things indeed which make more noise and do as little good, such as making war and peace, making speeches and answering them, making verses and blotting them: making money and throwing it away. But the game of fives is what no one despises who has ever played at it. It is the finest exercise for the body, and the best relaxation for the mind.
The Roman poet said that "Care mounted behind the horseman and stuck to his skirts." But this remark would not have applied to the fives player. He who takes to playing at fives is twice young. He feels neither the past nor future "in the instant." Debts, taxes, "domestic reason, foreign levy, nothing can touch him further." He has no other wish, no other thought, but that of striking the ball, of placing it, of making it!
This Cavanagh was sure to do. Whenever he touched the ball, there was an end of the chase. His eye was certain, his hand fatal, his presence of mind complete. He could do what he pleased, and he always knew exactly what to do. He saw the whole game, and played it; took instant advantage of his adversary's weakness, and recovered balls, as if by a miracle and from sudden thought, that everyone gave for lost.
He had equal power and skill, quickness and judgment. He could either outwit his antagonist by finesse, or beat him by main strength. Sometimes, when he seemed preparing to send the ball with the full swing of his arm, he would by a slight turn of his wrist drop it within an inch of the line. In general, the ball came from his hand, as if from a racket, in a straight horizontal line; so that it was in vain to attempt to overtake or stop it. As it was said of a great orator that he never was at a loss for a word, and for the properest word, so Cavanagh always could tell the precise direction in which it should be sent. He did his work with the greatest ease; never took more pains than was necessary; and while others were fagging themselves to death was as cool and collected as if he had just entered the court. His style of play was as remarkable as his power of execution. He had no affectation, no trifling. He did not throw away the game to show off an attitude or try an experiment. He was a fine, sensible, manly player, who did what he could, but that was more than anyone else could even affect to do. His blows were not undecided and ineffectual – lumbering like Mr. Wordsworth's epic poetry, nor wavering like Mr. Coleridge's 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 uphill player in the world; even when his adversary was fourteen he would play on the same or better, and as he never flung the game away through carelessness and conceit, he never gave it up 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. 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 service 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 first three games, which of course decided the match, Peru got only one ace.
Cavanagh was an Irishman by birth, and a housepainter 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 ball drop from his hand, and saying "What, have I been breaking my heart all this time to beat Cavanagh?" refused another effort. "And yet I give you my word," said Cavanagh, telling the story with some triumph, "I played all the while with my clenched fist."
He used frequently to play matches at the Copenhagen House for wagers and dinners. The wall against which they play is the same that supports the kitchen chimney, and when the wall resounded louder than usual the cooks exclaimed "Those are the Irishman's balls," and the joints trembled on the spit! Goldsmith consoled himself that there were places where he too was admired, and Cavanagh was the admiration of all the fives courts where he ever played. Mr. Powell, when he played matches in the court at St. Martin's Street, used to fill his gallery at half a crown a head with amateurs and admirers of talent in whatever department it is shown. He could not have shown himself in any ground in England, but he would have been immediately surrounded with inquisitive gazers, trying to find out in what part of his frame his unrivalled skill lay, as politicians wonder to see the balance of Europe suspended in Lord Castlereagh's face, and admire the trophies of the British navy lurking under Mr. Croker's hanging brow.
Now Cavanagh was as good-looking a man as the Noble Lord, and much better looking than the Rt. Hon. Secretary. He had a clear, open countenance, and did not look sideways or down, like Mr. Murray the bookseller. He was a young fellow of sense, humour, and courage. He once had a quarrel with a waterman at Hungerford stairs and, they say, served him out in great style. In a word, there are hundreds at this day who cannot mention his name without admiration as the best fives player that perhaps ever lived (the greatest excellence of which they have any notion) and the noisy shout of the ring happily stood him in stead of the unheard voice of posterity!
The only person who seems to have excelled as much in another way as Cavanagh did in his was the late John Davies, the rackets player. It was remarked of him that he did not seem to follow the ball, but the ball seemed to follow him. Give him a foot of wall, and he was sure to make the ball. The four best rackets players of that day were Jack Spines, Jem Harding, Armitage, and Church. Davies could give any one of them two hands a time – that is, half the game – and each of these, at their best, could give the best player now in London the same odds. Such are the gradations in all exercises of human skill and art. He once played four capital players together, and beat them. He was also a first-rate tennis player and an excellent fives player. In the Fleet or King's Bench he would have stood against Powell, who was reckoned the best open ground player of his time. This last mentioned player is at present the keeper of the Fives Court, and we might recommend to him for a motto over his door "Who enters here forgets himself, his country, and his friends." And the best of it is that by the calculation of the odds none of the three are worth remembering!
Cavanagh died from the bursting of a blood vessel, which prevented him from playing for the last two or three years of his life. This, he was often heard to say, he thought hard upon him. He was fast recovering, however, when he was suddenly carried off, to the regret of all who knew him. As Mr. Peel made it a qualification of the Speaker, Mr. Manners Sutton, that he was an excellent moral character, so Jack Cavanagh was a zealous Catholic, and could not be persuaded to eat meat on a Friday the day on which he died. We have paid this willing tribute to his memory.
"Let no rude hand deface it,
And his forlorn 'Hic Jacet'"
