under to golf, can live." It was, however, on Musselburgh Links greatest golfing rival of St. Andrews-that women first took to the club and ball, as we see from this extract from the minutes of the Musselburgh Golf Club: "December 14th, 1810.-The club resolved to present by subscription a handsome new creel (fish basket) and shawl to the best female golfer who plays on the annual occasion, on January 1st next, old style; to be intimated to the fish ladies by William Robertson, the officer of the club. Two of the best Barcelona silk handkerchiefs to be added to the above premium of the creel." These "fish ladies" were those of Fisherrow, near Musselburgh, of whom the Rev. Dr. Carlyle, of Inveresk, gives so amusing a sketch in the old "Statistical Account""they frequently play at golf," he writes in 1795.

The chief prize of the "Royal and Ancient"—the gold challenge medal played for every autumn, presented in 1837 by King William IV.—is the "Blue Ribbon of Golf." To win it is the dream of every member of the club. Other clubs, such as North Berwick, Musselburgh, Montrose, Perth, Prestwick, Edinburgh Burgess, &c., have each its own timehonoured challenge trophy, that of the Royal Musselburgh being laden with more than a century of medals, each commemorating a winner's name.

So much for the history of the game; let us now glance at its literature. In the interesting collection of prose papers Mr. Clark has gathered from various quarters, we can study the peculiar features of the game and the effect it has, for the time, on the tempers of its votaries. As we have seen, at St. Andrews the ardent golfer has little time for thought or conversation unconnected with the game. For the time being, the be-all and end-all of his life lies within the pothookshaped course he has to traverse; and not a little of his happiness or his misery for the day depends on the nature of the match he succeeds in getting.

The true golfer at work is essentially a man of silence

chattering during the crises of the game is as abhorrent to him as conversation during whist; one thing only is as obnoxious as the human voice to him then-that is, any movement of the human body near him.

This over-sensitiveness to external influences may explain the seeming ungallantry of the "Colonel" in "H. J. M.'s" amusing account of "The Golfer at Home," which appeared in the Cornhill Magazine a few years ago. After a charming little picture of the "Colonel" resenting, though he does not openly object to, Browne being accompanied over the course by "his women," as he ungallantly terms Mrs. Browne and her sister, he says to his partner: "The links is not the place for women; they talk incessantly, they never stand still, and if they do, the wind won't allow their dresses to stand still." However, as they settle down to their game, the "Colonel's" good temper returns, under the healthy influence of an invigorating "round," and gives "H.J.M." an opportunity of pointing out how all ill-humours of body and mind give way before the equable and bracing exercise of a round or two of the links of St. Rule.

That the reader may see the amount of walking exercise taken in a round of St. Andrews Links, it may be interesting to note that the exact distance, as the crow flies, is three miles eleven hundred and fifty-four yards; so that the golfer who takes his daily three rounds walks at least eleven miles. It is no wonder, then, that in addition to its own attractions, golf is esteemed as a capital preparation for the moors or the stubbles, hardening as it does the muscles both of arms and legs.

Pages might be filled with genial gossip about St. Andrews and St. Andrews players-amateur and professionalso interesting to frequenters of the links of "Great Golfington," but unfortunately too local for very general favour. Three names, however, demand mention in any notice of golf. Green to every golfer are the memories of the great champion

of the professionals, Allan Robertson, who was "never beaten in a match"; of the brilliant but short-lived career of poor "Young Tom Morris," the champion player of his day-son of a worthy sire who still survives; of Mr. Sutherland, an old gentleman who made golf the chief business of his life, whose interest in his fellow-men, not as men but as golfers, is well shown in this anecdote. His antagonist was about to strike off for the finishing hole at St. Andrews, when a boy appeared on the bridge over the burn. Old Sutherland shouted out: "Stop, stop! Don't play upon him; he's a fine young golfer!" It is in verse, however, that the votary of golf finds the field most congenial to his subject.

Perhaps the earliest mention of golf in verse is to be found in a scrap that occurs in a very rare book called "Westminster Drollery" (London, 1671), where Thomas Shadwell sings of this and other games :—

Thus all our life long we are frolick and gay,
And instead of Court revels we merrily play
At trap, at rules, and at barley break run,
At golf, and at foot-ball, and when we have done
These innocent sports we'll laugh and lie down ;
And to each pretty lass

We will give a green gown.

In 1743 appeared a heroi-comic poem in three cantos, called "The Goff," written by Thomas Mathison, minister of Brechin, which commemorates the Edinburgh players of his day. In it occurs two lines on President Forbes, of Culloden, that one finds occasionally quoted. Mathison calls the Lord President the

Patron of the just,

The dread of villains, and the good man's trust.

Many of the excellent song writers of our grandfathers' day wrote merry ditties on the game, but no long set of verses was published until there appeared, in 1842, a clever collection of poems, entitled "Golfiana," by George Fullerton Carnegie, of

Pittarrow, which delighted the golfers of that day by the humorous way in which it hit off the playing characteristics of the men he introduced into it. He begins by throwing down the gauntlet to those students of Scottish history who sigh over the musty memories and deplore the decayed glories of the city of their patron saint :

St. Andrews! they say that thy glories are gone,

That thy streets are deserted, thy castles o'erthrown :
If thy glories be gone, they are only, methinks,
As it were by enchantment transferred to thy links.
Though thy streets be not now, as of yore, full of prelates,
Of abbots and monks, and of hot-headed zealots,
Let none judge us rashly, or blame us as scoffers,
When we say that instead there are links full of golfers,

With more of good heart and good feeling among them

Than the abbots, the monks, and the zealots who sung them!

Then in various short poems Carnegie sings the praises of the game, for which he claims, as an early scene, fields more celebrated even than those of St. Andrews.

I heard it whispered once
That he who could not play was held a dunce

On old Olympus, when it teemed with gods,

Golf poems of recent date are legion, and there are many capital songs in honour of the game; amongst others a parody of Lord Houghton's well-known song, "Strangers yet," from which it will be seen that something more is necessary to make a good golfer than a set of clubs and an anxious "cady" to carry them :—

DUFFERS YET!-BY TWO "LONG SPOONS."

After years of play together,
After fair and stormy weather,

After rounds of every green

From Westward Ho! to Aberdeen ;

Why did e'er we buy a set

If we must be duffers yet!

Duffers yet! Duffers yet!

After singles, foursomes-all,
Fractured club and cloven ball;
After grief in sand and whin,

Foozled drives and "putts" not in-
Ev'n our cadies scarce regret

When we part as duffers yet,

Duffers yet! Duffers yet!

After days of frugal fare,

Still we spend our force in air;
After nips to give us nerve,

Not the less our drivers swerve;
Friends may back and foes may bet,

And ourselves be duffers yet,

Duffers yet! Duffers yet!

Must it ever then be thus ?
Failure most mysterious !
Shall we never fairly stand
Eye on ball as club in hand?
Are the bounds eternal set
To retain us duffers yet?

Duffers yet! Duffers yet!