James Love

Who was James Love?

James Love was the pseudonym of British poet, playwright and actor James Dance. He is famous within sporting circles for his Cricket: An Heroic Poem, whose line "The strokes re-echo o'er the spacious ground" has been quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary. Its subtitle reads thus:

Illustrated with the Critical Observations of Scriblerus Maximus. To which is Added an Epilogue, Call'd Bucks Have at Ye All. Spoken by Mr. King, at the Theatre Royal in Dublin, in the Character of Ranger, in the Suspicious Husband

On 4 July 1745, the Daily Advertiser advertised it at 1/-. A footnote to the publication adds that it was "[p]rinted for W Bickerton at the Gazette in the Temple Exchange near the Inner Temple Gate, Fleet Street."