The following lines were written by Butler in February, 1864, and appeared in the Press. They refer to a visit paid to New Zealand by a team of English cricketers, and have kindly been copied and sent to me by Miss Colborne-Veel, whose father was editor of the Press at the time that Butler was writing for it. Miss Colborne-Veel has further permitted to me to make use of the following explanatory note: “The coming of the All England team was naturally a glorious event in a province only fourteen years old. The Mayor and Councillors had ‘a car of state’—otherwise a brake—‘with postilions in the English style.’ Cobb and Co. supplied a six-horse coach for the English eleven, the yellow paint upon which suggested the ‘glittering chariot of pure gold.’ So they drove in triumph from the station and through the town. Tinley for England and Tennant for Canterbury were the heroes of the match. At the Wednesday dinner referred to they exchanged compliments and cricket balls across the table. This early esteem for cricket may be explained by a remark made by the All England captain, that ‘on no cricket ground in any colony had he met so many public school men, especially men from old Rugby, as at Canterbury.’”