JOHN ROBERTS, SEN.

THE history of billiards may almost be said to be summed up in the life of the man whose portrait we publish to-day. Fifty years ago the game was looked upon as essentially a pastime for the wealthy, and even for them as an imprudent amusement likely to lead to gambling.

John Roberts Senior

Before the introduction of slate beds and indiarubber cushions for billiard tables, or leathern tops for cues, the game of billiards differed so essentially from the billiards of the present day that any discussion of the game as then played would be as uninteresting to a billiard enthusiast as a dissertation on base-ball to a modern cricketer.

The inventions, however, that we have mentioned soon wrought a marvellous change in the history of the game. The element of skill slowly but surely asserted its superiority over the element of chance, and equally slowly but equally surely has the game emerged from the old position of a sport of somewhat doubtful morality adapted to the means of but a small class to its present one—viz., the most popular, and, at the same time, most innocent of British indoor pastimes. Nor is this change to be wondered at. It will invariably be found that in all games, as the element of skill predominates, so is the necessity for gambling diminished. Four good whist players could pass hours playing for "love," but it would be hard to find the same number of reasonable men who would care to spend one hour at vingt-et-un without a stake. So, too, pool is a game into which chance, or, as it is often termed, luck, enters so largely, that it differs from billiards in this respect— that it would be impossible to play except for money, whereas a bet on a game of billiards as, in the present day, a somewhat rare exception.

Perhaps few facts speak stronger in proof of the change that the game has undergone during the last half-century than the alteration in the number of points which must be scored to constitute "game." There are at the present moment thousands of old wormeaten and smoke-discoloured boards hanging up in different billiard rooms throughout the country on which feeble print is struggling to show itself on a dirty yellow ground. In a strong light may be deciphered, "Rules of the winning and losing carambole game," which rules commence with the startling announcement, "This game is generally played 21 up."

Who the original author of these rules was it is impossible to say. They appear in a more or less varied arm in every work on billiards ever published, from those of Bennett and Roberts in the present day, to that of Mr. Kentfield in a generation passed, and for aught we know, may have appeared in suitable hieroglyphics in the billiard saloon of Queen Cleopatra herself.

Whenever these rules were first written, we can well imagine the look of mingled pity and astonishment with which the framer would have met the following difficulty had it been represented to him at the time: What is the use of making the game 21 up, when perhaps a man might score 936 off the balls? With such a look, indeed, might Julius Caesar have met a warning that he was approaching within range of the guns of Dover Castle. Just as the discovery of gunpowder has revolutionised modern warfare, or the discovery of printing modern literature, so has the substitution of slate for wood, and indiarubber for list, revolutionised modern billiards.

But though Jansen might discover the telescope, it required the genius of a Galileo to direct it to the heavens.

To no one is billiards more indebted than to Roberts; his genius did more to raise the game from an idle and almost puerile sport to the front rank amongst games of science than any other cause past or present. For a long period he stood alone, not only unequalled, but unapproached by any living player. Like Gloucester, he might have said:—

The life of Roberts, from the time when, in the prime of youthful vigour, he, in 1850, defeated the much-vaunted American champion Starke, till, in 1870, the champion of twenty years, with his eye still brilliant, his nerves still of iron, was forced to bow his head, now touched with the hoar-frost of time, to young Cook, the still rising billiard genius of the day, sums up, as we have said, tho history of modern billiards.

It was a memorable scene, the great match of 1870, and marks an epoch in the history of the game. The sympathies of the public were very divided. On the one hand, it was only with feelings of regret that they could contemplate seeing the sceptre at last wrenched from the firm grasp of one who had held it so long and so deservedly.

It was the wish, too, of many that the old man should win once more, and then retire from the field of billiards for ever, and leave his son to do battle for his father's crown.

On the other hand, no one present could help sympathising with the bold boy, whose modest bearing augured well for the future of billiards, should he ever wear the laurel, who had dared to engage in single combat with the hitherto invincible giant. The great St. James's Hall was crowded from floor to roof with row upon row of eager and excited faces. Royalty itself graced with its presence a scene never before witnessed in the world of billiards. The end is well known: the old man met defeat, but by no means met disgrace. In a game of 1,200 up, Roberts was the first to score 1,000.

W. Cook, however, young as he was, remained undaunted. Playing quietly on, combining the keen sight of youth with a judgment and nerve far above his years, he won the game by 117 points.

But though Roberts was overthrown after so long and unbroken a series of victories, Cook himself would be the first to raise his voice in his honour.

Roberts had, during the greater part of his career, to contend against the enormous disadvantage of a want of stimulus to exertion in the shape of any rival treading close upon his footsteps. For many years he was able to give 300 points in 1,000 to all competitors, and when we judge of a man's merits, we must compare him with the men of his own time, and not with the generations "before or after him."

The amount of learning acquired by a fourth-form.boy at a public school in the present day is probably far in advance of the knowledge possessed by the greatest men of a few centuries back, to whom, nevertheless, he is much indebted for what he knows. So probably there are many young players in the present day who can snake far higher breaks off "the spot" than Roberts ever did; but notwithstanding they owe it much to him that they are able to play the spot stroke at all.

Few men who ever lived had such complete mastery over the balls as Roberts. His style in one respect resembled the Nasmyth steam hammer—it appeared equally capable of crushing an iron bar or cracking a nut! He could make the most delicate cannon one moment, and the next, apparently without an effort, send the balls flying off the table, with a force sufficient to double up a hat placed twelve feet higher than the level of the board.

But all of us must succumb to that greatest of conquerors, Time. "We believe that in the future few men will be found who will retain the championship after the age of forty. So many qualities are required to make a perfect player, and in the present day men work so far harder at the game than they did a few years ago, that they will probably find the wear and tear and strain, not only on the body, but on the mind, begin to show its, effect even in, comparatively speaking, early life.

There are perhaps few points on which Roberts ought to be more justly proud than that of having held the championship to the time of life he did, and time alone will show whether in this respect he will ever be surpassed.

That billiards in the present day is far in advance of what it was in his, no one can deny. Still we can give praise where praise is due to the great men of a generation past, without in the least detracting from the merits of the great in the generation present. There are a certain class of men who seem incapable of any worship but that of the rising sun. Such men are too apt to underrate and cry down the performances of the older players, being apparently too dazzled by the light to which they are accustomed, to see clearly the merits of those who may be said to have passed away. But, as we have said, men to be judged fairly must be compared -with men of their own day. It is the hand of cruelty that lashes the old hound when first his tooth fails him in the chase. It is the heel of the ass that kicks the dying lion.