Chapter XVII: Part 17

In May 1770 appeared the _Deserted Village_. In mere diction and versification this celebrated poem is fully equal, perhaps superior, to the _Traveller_; and it is generally preferred to the _Traveller_ by that large class of readers who think, with Bayes in the _Rehearsal_, that the only use of a plot is to bring in fine things. More discerning judges, however, while they admire the beauty of the details, are shocked by one unpardonable fault which pervades the whole. The fault which we mean is not that theory about wealth and luxury which has so often been censured by political economists. The theory is indeed false; but the poem, considered merely as a poem, is not necessarily the worse on that account. The finest poem in the Latin language--indeed, the finest didactic poem in any language--was written in defence of the silliest and meanest of all systems of natural and moral philosophy. A poet may easily be pardoned for reasoning ill; but he cannot be pardoned for describing ill, for observing the world in which he lives so carelessly that his portraits bear no resemblance to the originals, for exhibiting as copies from real life monstrous combinations of things which never were and never could be found together. What would be thought of a painter who should mix August and January in one landscape, who should introduce a frozen river into a harvest scene? Would it be a sufficient defence of such a picture to say that every part was exquisitely coloured, that the green hedges, the apple-trees loaded with fruit, the waggons reeling under the yellow sheaves, and the sun-burned reapers wiping their foreheads were very fine, and that the ice and the boys sliding were also very fine? To such a picture the _Deserted Village_ bears a great resemblance. It is made up of incongruous parts. The village in its happy days is a true English village. The village in its decay is an Irish village. The felicity and the misery which Goldsmith has brought close together belong to two different countries and to two different stages in the progress of society. He had assuredly never seen in his native island such a rural paradise, such a seat of plenty, content and tranquillity, as his Auburn. He had assuredly never seen in England all the inhabitants of such a paradise turned out of their homes in one day and forced to emigrate in a body to America. The hamlet he had probably seen in Kent; the ejectment he had probably seen in Munster; but by joining the two, he has produced something which never was and never will be seen in any part of the world.

In 1773 Goldsmith tried his chance at Covent Garden with a second play, _She Stoops to Conquer_. The manager was, not without great difficulty, induced to bring this piece out. The sentimental comedy still reigned, and Goldsmith's comedies were not sentimental. The _Good Natur'd Man_ had been too funny to succeed; yet the mirth of the _Good Natur'd Man_ was sober when compared with the rich drollery of _She Stoops to Conquer_, which is, in truth, an incomparable farce in five acts. On this occasion, however, genius triumphed. Pit, boxes and galleries were in a constant roar of laughter. If any bigoted admirer of Kelly and Cumberland ventured to hiss or groan, he was speedily silenced by a general cry of "turn him out," or "throw him over." Later generations have confirmed the verdict which was pronounced on that night.

While Goldsmith was writing the _Deserted Village_ and _She Stoops to Conquer_, he was employed on works of a very different kind--works from which he derived little reputation but much profit. He compiled for the use of schools a _History of Rome_, by which he made L250; a _History of England_, by which he made L500; a _History of Greece_, for which he received L250; a _Natural History_, for which the booksellers covenanted to pay him 800 guineas. These works he produced without any elaborate research, by merely selecting, abridging and translating into his own clear, pure and flowing language, what he found in books well known to the world, but too bulky or too dry for boys and girls. He committed some strange blunders, for he knew nothing with accuracy. Thus, in his _History of England_, he tells us that Naseby is in Yorkshire; nor did he correct this mistake when the book was reprinted. He was very nearly hoaxed into putting into the _History of Greece_ an account of a battle between Alexander the Great and Montezuma. In his _Animated Nature_ he relates, with faith and with perfect gravity, all the most absurd lies which he could find in books of travels about gigantic Patagonians, monkeys that preach sermons, nightingales that repeat long conversations. "If he can tell a horse from a cow," said Johnson, "that is the extent of his knowledge of zoology." How little Goldsmith was qualified to write about the physical sciences is sufficiently proved by two anecdotes. He on one occasion denied that the sun is longer in the northern than in the southern signs. It was vain to cite the authority of Maupertuis. "Maupertuis!" he cried, "I understand those matters better than Maupertuis." On another occasion he, in defiance of the evidence of his own senses, maintained obstinately, and even angrily, that he chewed his dinner by moving his upper jaw.

Yet, ignorant as Goldsmith was, few writers have done more to make the first steps in the laborious road to knowledge easy and pleasant. His compilations are widely distinguished from the compilations of ordinary bookmakers. He was a great, perhaps an unequalled, master of the arts of selection and condensation. In these respects his histories of Rome and of England, and still more his own abridgments of these histories, well deserved to be studied. In general nothing is less attractive than an epitome; but the epitomes of Goldsmith, even when most concise, are always amusing; and to read them is considered by intelligent children not as a task but as a pleasure.

Goldsmith might now be considered as a prosperous man. He had the means of living in comfort, and even in what to one who had so often slept in barns and on bulks must have been luxury. His fame was great and was constantly rising. He lived in what was intellectually far the best society of the kingdom, in a society in which no talent or accomplishment was wanting, and in which the art of conversation was cultivated with splendid success. There probably were never four talkers more admirable in four different ways than Johnson, Burke, Beauclerk and Garrick; and Goldsmith was on terms of intimacy with all the four. He aspired to share in their colloquial renown, but never was ambition more unfortunate. It may seem strange that a man who wrote with so much perspicuity, vivacity and grace should have been, whenever he took a part in conversation, an empty, noisy, blundering rattle. But on this point the evidence is overwhelming. So extraordinary was the contrast between Goldsmith's published works and the silly things which he said, that Horace Walpole described him as an inspired idiot. "Noll," said Garrick, "wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll." Charnier declared that it was a hard exercise of faith to believe that so foolish a chatterer could have really written the _Traveller_. Even Boswell could say, with contemptuous compassion, that he liked very well to hear honest Goldsmith run on. "Yes, sir," said Johnson, "but he should not like to hear himself." Minds differ as rivers differ. There are transparent and sparkling rivers from which it is delightful to drink as they flow; to such rivers the minds of such men as Burke and Johnson may be compared. But there are rivers of which the water when first drawn is turbid and noisome, but becomes pellucid as crystal and delicious to the taste, if it be suffered to stand till it has deposited a sediment; and such a river is a type of the mind of Goldsmith. His first thoughts on every subject were confused even to absurdity, but they required only a little time to work themselves clear. When he wrote they had that time, and therefore his readers pronounced him a man of genius; but when he talked he talked nonsense and made himself the laughing-stock of his hearers. He was painfully sensible of his inferiority in conversation; he felt every failure keenly; yet he had not sufficient judgment and self-command to hold his tongue. His animal spirits and vanity were always impelling him to try to do the one thing which he could not do. After every attempt he felt that he had exposed himself, and writhed with shame and vexation; yet the next moment he began again.

His associates seem to have regarded him with kindness, which, in spite of their admiration of his writings, was not unmixed with contempt. In truth, there was in his character much to love, but very little to respect. His heart was soft even to weakness; he was so generous that he quite forgot to be just; he forgave injuries so readily that he might be said to invite them, and was so liberal to beggars that he had nothing left for his tailor and his butcher. He was vain, sensual, frivolous, profuse, improvident. One vice of a darker shade was imputed to him, envy. But there is not the least reason to believe that this bad passion, though it sometimes made him wince and utter fretful exclamations, ever impelled him to injure by wicked arts the reputation of any of his rivals. The truth probably is that he was not more envious, but merely less prudent, than his neighbours. His heart was on his lips. All those small jealousies, which are but too common among men of letters, but which a man of letters who is also a man of the world does his best to conceal, Goldsmith avowed with the simplicity of a child. When he was envious, instead of affecting indifference, instead of damning with faint praise, instead of doing injuries slyly and in the dark, he told everybody that he was envious. "Do not, pray, do not, talk of Johnson in such terms," he said to Boswell; "you harrow up my very soul." George Steevens and Cumberland were men far too cunning to say such a thing. They would have echoed the praises of the man whom they envied, and then have sent to the newspapers anonymous libels upon him. Both what was good and what was bad in Goldsmith's character was to his associates a perfect security that he would never commit such villainy. He was neither ill-natured enough, nor long-headed enough, to be guilty of any malicious act which required contrivance and disguise.

Goldsmith has sometimes been represented as a man of genius, cruelly treated by the world, and doomed to struggle with difficulties, which at last broke his heart. But no representation can be more remote from the truth. He did, indeed, go through much sharp misery before he had done anything considerable in literature. But after his name had appeared on the title-page of the _Traveller_, he had none but himself to blame for his distresses. His average income, during the last seven years of his life, certainly exceeded L400 a year, and L400 a year ranked, among the incomes of that day, at least as high as L800 a year would rank at present. A single man living in the Temple, with L400 a year, might then be called opulent. Not one in ten of the young gentlemen of good families who were studying the law there had so much. But all the wealth which Lord Clive had brought from Bengal and Sir Lawrence Dundas from Germany, joined together, would not have sufficed for Goldsmith. He spent twice as much as he had. He wore fine clothes, gave dinners of several courses, paid court to venal beauties. He had also, it should be remembered, to the honour of his heart, though not of his head, a guinea, or five, or ten, according to the state of his purse, ready for any tale of distress, true or false. But it was not in dress or feasting, in promiscuous amours or promiscuous charities, that his chief expense lay. He had been from boyhood a gambler, and at once the most sanguine and the most unskilful of gamblers. For a time he put off the day of inevitable ruin by temporary expedients. He obtained advances from booksellers by promising to execute works which he never began. But at length this source of supply failed. He owed more than L2000; and he saw no hope of extrication from his embarrassments. His spirits and health gave way. He was attacked by a nervous fever, which he thought himself competent to treat. It would have been happy for him if his medical skill had been appreciated as justly by himself as by others. Notwithstanding the degree which he pretended to have received on the continent, he could procure no patients. "I do not practise," he once said; "I make it a rule to prescribe only for my friends." "Pray, dear Doctor," said Beauclerk, "alter your rule; and prescribe only for your enemies." Goldsmith, now, in spite of this excellent advice, prescribed for himself. The remedy aggravated the malady. The sick man was induced to call in real physicians; and they at one time imagined that they had cured the disease. Still his weakness and restlessness continued. He could get no sleep. He could take no food. "You are worse," said one of his medical attendants, "than you should be from the degree of fever which you have. Is your mind at ease?" "No; it is not," were the last recorded words of Oliver Goldsmith. He died on the 4th of April 1774, in his forty-sixth year. He was laid in the churchyard of the Temple; but the spot was not marked by any inscription and is now forgotten. The coffin was followed by Burke and Reynolds. Both these great men were sincere mourners. Burke, when he heard of Goldsmith's death, had burst into a flood of tears. Reynolds had been so much moved by the news that he had flung aside his brush and palette for the day.

A short time after Goldsmith's death, a little poem appeared, which will, as long as our language lasts, associate the names of his two illustrious friends with his own. It has already been mentioned that he sometimes felt keenly the sarcasm which his wild blundering talk brought upon him. He was, not long before his last illness, provoked into retaliating. He wisely betook himself to his pen; and at that weapon he proved himself a match for all his assailants together. Within a small compass he drew with a singularly easy and vigorous pencil the characters of nine or ten of his intimate associates. Though this little work did not receive his last touches, it must always be regarded as a masterpiece. It is impossible, however, not to wish that four or five likenesses which have no interest for posterity were wanting to that noble gallery, and that their places were supplied by sketches of Johnson and Gibbon, as happy and vivid as the sketches of Burke and Garrick.

Some of Goldsmith's friends and admirers honoured him with a cenotaph in Westminster Abbey. Nollekens was the sculptor, and Johnson wrote the inscription. It is much to be lamented that Johnson did not leave to posterity a more durable and a more valuable memorial of his friend. A life of Goldsmith would have been an inestimable addition to the Lives of the Poets. No man appreciated Goldsmith's writings more justly than Johnson; no man was better acquainted with Goldsmith's character and habits; and no man was more competent to delineate with truth and spirit the peculiarities of a mind in which great powers were found in company with great weaknesses. But the list of poets to whose works Johnson was requested by the booksellers to furnish prefaces ended with Lyttelton, who died in 1773. The line seems to have been drawn expressly for the purpose of excluding the person whose portrait would have most fitly closed the series. Goldsmith, however, has been fortunate in his biographers. (M.)

Goldsmith's life has been written by Prior (1837), by Washington
Irving (1844-1849), and by John Forster (1848, 2nd ed. 1854). The
diligence of Prior deserves great praise; the style of Washington
Irving is always pleasing; but the highest place must, in justice, be
assigned to the eminently interesting work of Forster. Subsequent
biographies are by William Black (1878), and Austin Dobson (1888,
American ed. 1899). The above article by Lord Macaulay has been
slightly revised for this edition by Mr Austin Dobson, as regards
questions of fact for which there has been new evidence.

GOLDSTUCKER, THEODOR (1821-1872), German Sanskrit scholar, was born of Jewish parents at Konigsberg on the 18th of January 1821, and, after attending the gymnasium of that town, entered the university in 1836 as a student of Sanskrit. In 1838 he removed to Bonn, and, after graduating at Konigsberg in 1840, proceeded to Paris; in 1842 he edited a German translation of the _Prabodha Chandrodaya_. From 1847 to 1850 he resided at Berlin, where his talents and scholarship were recognized by Alexander von Humboldt, but where his advanced political views caused the authorities to regard him with suspicion. In the latter year he removed to London, where in 1852 he was appointed professor of Sanskrit in University College. He now worked on a new Sanskrit dictionary, of which the first instalment appeared in 1856. In 1861 he published his chief work: _Panini: his place in Sanskrit Literature_; and he was one of the founders and chief promoters of the Sanskrit Text Society; he was also an active member of the Philological Society, and of other learned bodies. He died in London on the 6th of March 1872.

As _Literary Remains_ some of his writings were published in two
volumes (London, 1879), but his papers were left to the India Office
with the request that they were not to be published until 1920.

GOLDWELL, THOMAS (d. 1585), English ecclesiastic, began his career as vicar of Cheriton in 1531, after graduating M.A. at All Souls College, Oxford. He became chaplain to Cardinal Pole and lived with him at Rome, was attainted in 1539, but returned to England on Mary's accession, and in 1555 became bishop of St Asaph, a diocese which he did much to win back to the old faith. On the death of Mary, Goldwell escaped from England and in 1561 became superior of the Theatines at Naples. He was the only English bishop at the council of Trent, and in 1562 was again attainted. In the following year he was appointed vicar-general to Carlo Borromeo, archbishop of Milan. He died in Rome in 1585, the last of the English bishops who had refused to accept the Reformation.

GOLDZIHER, IGNAZ (1850- ), Jewish Hungarian orientalist, was born in Stuhlweissenburg on the 22nd of June 1850. He was educated at the universities of Budapest, Berlin, Leipzig and Leiden, and became privat docent at Budapest in 1872. In the next year, under the auspices of the Hungarian government, he began a journey through Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and took the opportunity of attending lectures of Mahommedan sheiks in the mosque of el-Azhar in Cairo. He was the first Jewish scholar to become professor in the Budapest University (1894), and represented the Hungarian government and the Academy of Sciences at numerous international congresses. He received the large gold medal at the Stockholm Oriental Congress in 1889. He became a member of several Hungarian and other learned societies, was appointed secretary of the Jewish community in Budapest. He was made Litt. D. of Cambridge (1904) and LL.D. of Aberdeen (1906). His eminence in the sphere of scholarship is due primarily to his careful investigation of pre-Mahommedan and Mahommedan law, tradition, religion and poetry, in connexion with which he published a large number of treatises, review articles and essays contributed to the collections of the Hungarian Academy.

Among his chief works are: _Beitrage zur Literaturgeschichte der
Schi'a_ (1874); _Beitrage zur Geschichte der Sprachgelehrsamkeit bei
den Arabern_ (Vienna, 1871-1873); _Der Mythos bei den Hebraern und
seine geschichtliche Entwickelung_ (Leipzig, 1876; Eng. trans., R.
Martineau, London, 1877); _Muhammedanische Studien_ (Halle, 1889-1890,
2 vols.); _Abhandlungen zur arabischen Philologie_ (Leiden, 1896-1899,
2 vols.); _Buch v. Wesen d. Seele_ (ed. 1907).

GOLETTA [LA GOULETTE], a town on the Gulf of Tunis in 36 deg. 50' N. 10 deg. 19' E., a little south of the ruins of Carthage, and on the north side of the ship canal which traverses the shallow Lake of Tunis and leads to the city of that name. Built on the narrow strip of sand which separates the lake from the gulf, Goletta is defended by a fort and battery. The town contains a summer palace of the bey, the old seraglio, arsenal and customhouse, and many villas, gardens and pleasure resorts, Goletta being a favourite place for sea-bathing. A short canal, from which the name of the town is derived (Arab. _Halk-el-Wad_, "throat of the canal"), 40 ft. broad and 8-1/2 ft. deep, divides the town and affords communication between the ship canal and a dock or basin, 1082 ft. long and 541 ft. broad. An electric tramway which runs along the north bank of the ship canal connects Goletta with the city of Tunis (q.v.). Pop. (1907) about 5000, mostly Jews and Italian fishermen.

Beyond Cape Carthage, 5 m. N. of Goletta, is La Marsa, a summer resort overlooking the sea. The bey has a palace here, and the French resident-general, the British consul, other officials, and many Tunisians have country-houses, surrounded by groves of olive trees.

Before the opening of the ship canal in 1893 Goletta, as the port of Tunis, was a place of considerable importance. The basin at the Goletta end of the canal now serves as a subsidiary harbour to that of Tunis. The most stirring events in the history of the town are connected with the Turkish conquest of the Barbary states. Khair-ed-Din Barbarossa having made himself master of Tunis and its port, Goletta was attacked in 1535 by the emperor Charles V., who seized the pirate's fleet, which was sheltered in the small canal, his arsenal, and 300 brass cannon. The Turks regained possession in 1574. (See TUNISIA: _History_.)

GOLF (in its older forms GOFF, GOUFF or GOWFF, the last of which gives the genuine old pronunciation), a game which probably derives its name from the Ger. _kolbe_, a club--in Dutch, _kolf_--which last is nearly in sound identical and might suggest a Dutch origin,[1] which many pictures and other witnesses further support.

_History._--One of the most ancient and most interesting of the pictures in which the game is portrayed is the tailpiece to an illuminated _Book of Hours_ made at Bruges at the beginning of the 16th century. The original is in the British Museum. The players, three in number, have but one club apiece. The heads of the clubs are steel or steel covered. They play with a ball each. That which gives this picture a peculiar interest over the many pictures of Dutch schools that portray the game in progress is that most of them show it on the ice, the putting being at a stake. In this _Book of Hours_ they are putting at a hole in the turf, as in our modern golf. It is scarcely to be doubted that the game is of Dutch origin, and that it has been in favour since very early days. Further than that our knowledge does not go. The early Dutchmen played golf, they painted golf, but they did not write it.

It is uncertain at what date golf was introduced into Scotland, but in 1457 the popularity of the game had already become so great as seriously to interfere with the more important pursuit of archery. In March of that year the Scottish parliament "decreted and ordained that _wapinshawingis_ be halden be the lordis and baronis spirituale and temporale, four times in the zeir; and that the fute-ball and _golf be utterly cryit down, and nocht usit_; and that the bowe-merkis be maid at ilk paroche kirk a pair of buttis, and _schuttin be usit ilk Sunday_." Fourteen years afterwards, in May 1471, it was judged necessary to pass another act "anent wapenshawings," and in 1491 a final and evidently angry fulmination was issued on the general subject, with pains and penalties annexed. It runs thus--"Futeball and Golfe forbidden. Item, it is statut and ordainit that in na place of the realme there be usit fute-ball, _golfe, or uther sik unprofitabill sportis_," &c. This, be it noted, is an edict of James IV.; and it is not a little curious presently to find the monarch himself setting an ill example to his commons, by practice of this "unprofitabill sport," as is shown by various entries in the accounts of the lord high treasurer of Scotland (1503-1506).

About a century later, the game again appears on the surface of history, and it is quite as popular as before. In the year 1592 the town council of Edinburgh "ordanis proclamation to be made threw this burgh, that na inhabitants of the samyn be seen at ony pastymes within or without the toun, upoun the Sabboth day, sic as golfe, &c."[2] The following year the edict was re-announced, but with the modification that the prohibition was "in tyme of sermons."

Golf has from old times been known in Scotland as "The _Royal and Ancient_ Game of Goff." Though no doubt Scottish monarchs handled the club before him, James IV. is the first who figures formally in the golfing record. James V. was also very partial to the game distinctively known as "royal"; and there is some scrap of evidence to show that his daughter, the unhappy Mary Stuart, was a golfer. It was alleged by her enemies that, as showing her shameless indifference to the fate of her husband, a very few days after his murder, she "was seen playing _golf_ and pallmall in the fields beside Seton."[3] That her son, James VI. (afterwards James I. of England), was a golfer, tradition confidently asserts, though the evidence which connects him with the personal practice of the game is slight. Of the interest he took in it we have evidence in his act--already alluded to--"anent _golfe ballis_," prohibiting their importation, except under certain restrictions. Charles I. (as his brother Prince Henry had been[4]) was devotedly attached to the game. Whilst engaged in it on the links of Leith, in 1642, the news reached him of the Irish rebellion of that year. He had not the equanimity to finish his match, but returned precipitately and in much agitation to Holyrood.[5] Afterwards, while prisoner to the Scots army at Newcastle, he found his favourite diversion in "the royal game." "The King was nowhere treated with more honour than at Newcastle, as he himself confessed, both he and his train having liberty to go abroad and play at goff in the Shield Field, without the walls."[6] Of his son, Charles II., as a golfer, nothing whatever is ascertained, but James II. was a known devotee.[7] After the Restoration, James, then duke of York, was sent to Edinburgh in 1681/2 as commissioner of the king to parliament, and an historical monument of his prowess as a golfer remains there to this day in the "Golfer's Land," as it is still called, 77 Canongate. The duke having been challenged by two English noblemen of his suite, to play a match against them, for a very large stake, along with any Scotch ally he might select, chose as his partner one "Johne Patersone," a shoemaker. The duke and the said Johne won easily, and half of the large stake the duke made over to his humble coadjutor, who therewith built himself the house mentioned above. In 1834 William IV. became patron of the St Andrews Golf Club (St Andrews being then, as now, the most famous seat of the game), and approved of its being styled "The _Royal and Ancient_ Golf Club of St Andrews." In 1837, as further proof of royal favour, he presented to it a magnificent gold medal, which "should be challenged and played for annually"; and in 1838 the queen dowager, duchess of St Andrews, became patroness of the club, and presented to it a handsome gold medal--"The Royal Adelaide"--with a request that it should be worn by the captain, as president, on all public occasions. In June 1863 the prince of Wales (afterwards Edward VII.) signified his desire to become patron of the club, and in the following September was elected captain by acclamation. His engagements did not admit of his coming in person to undertake the duties of the office, but his brother Prince Leopold (the duke of Albany), having in 1876 done the club the honour to become its captain, twice visited the ancient city in that capacity.

In more recent days, golf has become increasingly popular in a much wider degree. In 1880 the man who travelled about England with a set of golf clubs was an object of some astonishment, almost of alarm, to his fellow-travellers. In those days the commonest of questions in regard to the game was, "You have to be a fine rider, do you not, to play golf?" so confounded was it in the popular mind with the game of polo. At Blackheath a few Scotsmen resident in London had long played golf. In 1864 the Royal North Devon Club was formed at Westward Ho, and this was the first of the seaside links discovered and laid out for golf in England. In 1869 the Royal Liverpool Club established itself in possession of the second English course of this quality at Hoylake, in Cheshire. A golf club was formed in connexion with the London Scottish Volunteers corps, which had its house on the Putney end of Wimbledon Common on Putney Heath; and, after making so much of a start, the progress of the game was slow, though steady, for many years. A few more clubs were formed; the numbers of golfers grew; but it could not be said that the game was yet in any sense popular in England. All at once, for no very obvious reason, the qualities of the ancient Scottish game seemed to strike home, and from that moment its popularity has been wonderfully and increasingly great. The English links that rose into most immediate favour was the fine course of the St George's Golf Club, near Sandwich, on the coast of Kent. To the London golfer it was the first course of the first class that was reasonably accessible, and the fact made something like an epoch in English golf. A very considerable increase, it is true, in the number of English golfers and English golf clubs had taken place before the discovery for golfing purposes of the links at Sandwich. Already there was a chain of links all round the coast, besides numerous inland courses; but since 1890 their increase has been extraordinary, and the number which has been formed in the colonies and abroad is very large also, so that in the _Golfer's Year Book_ for 1906 a space of over 300 pages was allotted to the Club Directory alone, each page containing, on a rough average, six clubs. To compute the average membership of these clubs is very difficult. There is not a little overlapping, in the sense that a member of one club will often be a member of several others; but probably the average may be placed at something like 200 members for each club.

The immense amount of golf-playing that this denotes, the large industry in the making of clubs and balls, in the upkeep of links, in the actual work of club-carrying by the caddies, and in the instruction given by the professional class, is obvious. Golf has taken a strong hold on the affections of the people in many parts of Ireland, and the fashion for golf in England has reacted strongly on Scotland itself, the ancient home of the game, where since 1880 golfers have probably increased in the ratio of forty to one. Besides the industry that such a growth of the game denotes in the branches immediately connected with it, as mentioned above, there is to be taken into further account the visiting population that it brings to all lodging-houses and hotels within reach of a tolerable golf links, so that many a fishing village has risen into a moderate watering-place by virtue of no other attractions than those which are offered by its golf course. Therefore to the Briton, golf has developed from something of which he had a vague idea--as of "curling"--to something in the nature of an important business, a business that can make towns and has a considerable effect on the receipts of railway companies.

Moreover, ladies have learned to play golf. Although this is a crude and brief sentence, it does not state the fact too widely nor too forcibly, for though it is true that before 1885 many played on the short links of St Andrews, North Berwick, Westward Ho and elsewhere, still it was virtually unknown that they should play on the longer courses, which till then had been in the undisputed possession of the men. At many places women now have their separate links, at others they play on the same course as the men. But even where links are set apart for women, they are far different from the little courses that used to be assigned to them. They are links only a little less formidable in their bunkers, a little less varied in their features than those of men. The ladies have their annual championship, which they play on the long links of the men, sometimes on one, sometimes on another, but always on courses of the first quality, demanding the finest display of golfing skill.

The claim that England made to a golfing fellowship with Scotland was conceded very strikingly by the admission of three English greens, first those of Hoylake and of Sandwich, and in 1909 Deal, into the exclusive list of the links on which the open championship of the game is decided. Before England had so fully assimilated Scotland's game this great annual contest was waged at St Andrews, Musselburgh and Prestwick in successive years. Now the ancient green of Musselburgh, somewhat worn out with length of hard and gallant service, and moreover, as a nine-holes course inadequately accommodating the numbers who compete in the championships to-day, has been superseded by the course at Muirfield as a championship arena.

While golf had been making itself a force in the southern kingdom, the professional element--men who had learned the game from childhood, had become past-masters, were capable of giving instruction, and also of making clubs and balls and looking after the greens on which golf was played--had at first been taken from the northern side of the Border. But when golf had been started long enough in England for the little boys who were at first employed as "caddies"--in carrying the players' clubs--to grow to sufficient strength to drive the ball as far as their masters, it was inevitable that out of the number who thus began to play in their boyhood some few should develop an exceptional talent for the game. This, in fact, actually happened, and English golfers, both of the amateur and the professional classes, have proved themselves so adept at Scotland's game, that the championships in either the Open or the Amateur competitions have been won more often by English than by Scottish players of late years. Probably in the United Kingdom to-day there are as many English as Scottish professional golf players, and their relative number is increasing.

Golf also "caught on," to use the American expression, in the United States. To the American of 1890 golf was largely an unknown thing. Since then, however, golf has become perhaps a greater factor in the life of the upper and upper-middle classes in the United States than it ever has been in England or Scotland. Golf to the English and the Scots meant only one among several of the sports and pastimes that take the man and the woman of the upper and upper-middle classes into the country and the fresh air. To the American of like status golf came as the one thing to take him out of his towns and give him a reason for exercise in the country. To-day golf has become an interest all over North America, but it is in the Eastern States that it has made most difference in the life of the classes with whom it has become fashionable. Westerners and Southerners found more excuses before the coming of golf for being in the open country air. It is in the Eastern States more especially that it has had so much influence in making the people live and take exercise out of doors. In a truly democratic spirit the American woman golfer plays on a perfect equality with the American man. She does not compete in the men's championships; she has championships of her own; but she plays, without question, on the same links. There is no suggestion of relegating her, as a certain cynical writer in the Badminton volume on golf described it, to a waste corner, a kind of "Jews' Quarter," of the links. And the Americans have taken up golf in the spirit of a sumptuous and opulent people, spending money on magnificent clubhouses beyond the finest dreams of the Englishman or the Scot. The greatest success achieved by any American golfer fell to the lot of Mr Walter Travis of the Garden City club, who in 1904 won the British amateur championship.

So much enthusiasm and so much golf in America have not failed to make their influence felt in the United Kingdom. Naturally and inevitably they have created a strong demand for professional instruction, both by example and by precept, and for professional advice and assistance in the laying-out and upkeep of the many new links that have been created in all parts of the States, sometimes out of the least promising material. By the offer of great prizes for exhibition matches, and of wages that are to the British rate on the scale of the dollar to the shilling, they have attracted many of the best Scottish and English professionals to pay them longer or shorter visits as the case may be, and thus a new opening has been created for the energies of the professional golfing class.

_The Game._--The game of golf may be briefly defined as consisting in hitting the ball over a great extent of country, preferably of that sand-hill nature which is found by the seaside, and finally hitting or "putting" it into a little hole of some 4 in. diameter cut in the turf. The place of the hole is commonly marked by a flag. Eighteen is the recognized number of these holes on a full course, and they are at varying distances apart, from 100 yds. up to anything between a 1/4 and 1/2 m. For the various strokes required to achieve the hitting of the ball over the great hills, and finally putting it into the small hole, a number of different "clubs" has been devised to suit the different positions in which the ball may be found and the different directions in which it is wished to propel it. At the start for each hole the ball may be placed on a favourable position (e.g. "tee'd" on a small mound of sand) for striking it, but after that it may not be touched, except with the club, until it is hit into the next hole. A "full drive," as the farthest distance that the ball can be hit is called, is about 200 yds. in length, of which some three-fourths will be traversed in the air, and the rest by bounding or running over the ground. It is easily to be understood that when the ball is lying on the turf behind a tall sand-hill, or in a bunker, a differently-shaped club is required for raising it over such an obstacle from that which is needed when it is placed on the tee to start with; and again, that another club is needed to strike the ball out of a cup or out of heavy grass. It is this variety that gives the game its charm. Each player plays with his own ball, with no interference from his opponent, and the object of each is to hit the ball from the starting-point into each successive hole in the fewest strokes. The player who at the end of the round (i.e. of the course of eighteen holes) has won the majority of the holes is the winner of the round; or the decision may be reached before the end of the round by one side gaining more holes than there remain to play. For instance, if one player be four holes to the good, and only three holes remain to be played, it is evident that the former must be the winner, for even if the latter win every remaining hole, he still must be one to the bad at the finish.

The British Amateur Championship is decided by a tournament in matches thus played, each defeated player retiring, and his opponent passing on into the next round. In the case of the Open Championship, and in most medal competitions, the scores are differently reckoned--each man's total score (irrespective of his relative merit at each hole) being reckoned at the finish against the total score of the other players in the competition. There is also a species of competition called "bogey" play, in which each man plays against a "bogey" score--a score fixed for each hole in the round before starting--and his position in the competition relatively to the other players is determined by the number of holes that he is to the good or to the bad of the "bogey" score at the end of the round. The player who is most holes to the good, or fewest holes to the bad, wins the competition. It may be mentioned incidentally that golf occupies the almost unique position of being the only sport in which even a single player can enjoy his game, his opponent in this event being "Colonel Bogey"--more often than not a redoubtable adversary.

The links which have been thought worthy, by reason of their
geographical positions and their merits, of being the scenes on which
the golf championships are fought out, are, as we have already said,
three in Scotland--St Andrews, Prestwick and Muirfield--and three in
England--Hoylake, Sandwich and Deal. This brief list is very far from
being complete as regards links of first-class quality in Great
Britain. Besides those named, there are in Scotland--Carnoustie, North
Berwick, Cruden Bay, Nairn, Aberdeen, Dornoch, Troon, Machrihanish,
South Uist, Islay, Gullane, Luffness and many more. In England there
are--Westward Ho, Bembridge, Littlestone, Great Yarmouth, Brancaster,
Seaton Carew, Formby, Lytham, Harlech, Burnham, among the seaside
ones; while of the inland, some of them of very fine quality, we
cannot even attempt a selection, so large is their number and so
variously estimated their comparative merits. Ireland has Portrush,
Newcastle, Portsalon, Dollymount and many more of the first class; and
there are excellent courses in the Isle of Man. In America many fine
courses have been constructed. There is not a British colony of any
standing that is without its golf course--Australia, India, South
Africa, all have their golf championships, which are keenly contested.
Canada has had courses at Quebec and Montreal for many years, and the
Calcutta Golf Club, curiously enough, is the oldest established (next
to the Blackheath Club), the next oldest being the club at Pau in the
Basses-Pyrenees.

The Open Championship of golf was started in 1860 by the Prestwick
Club giving a belt to be played for annually under the condition that
it should become the property of any who could win it thrice in
succession. The following is the list of the champions:--

1860. W. Park, Musselburgh 174--at Prestwick.
1861. Tom Morris, sen., Prestwick 163--at Prestwick.
1862. Tom Morris, sen., Prestwick 163--at Prestwick.
1863. W. Park, Musselburgh 168--at Prestwick.
1864. Tom Morris, sen., Prestwick 160--at Prestwick.
1865. A. Strath, St Andrews 162--at Prestwick.
1866. W. Park, Musselburgh 169--at Prestwick.
1867. Tom Morris, sen., St Andrews 170--at Prestwick.
1868. Tom Morris, jun., St Andrews 154--at Prestwick.
1869. Tom Morris, jun., St Andrews 157--at Prestwick.
1870. Tom Morris, jun., St Andrews 149--at Prestwick.

Tom Morris, junior, thus won the belt finally, according to the
conditions. In 1871 there was no competition; but by 1872 the three
clubs of St Andrews, Prestwick and Musselburgh had subscribed for a
cup which should be played for over the course of each subscribing
club successively, but should never become the property of the winner.
In later years the course at Muirfield was substituted for that at
Musselburgh, and Hoylake and Sandwich were admitted into the list of
championship courses. Up to 1891, inclusive, the play of two rounds,
or thirty-six holes, determined the championship, but from 1892 the
result has been determined by the play of 72 holes.

After the interregnum of 1871, the following were the champions:--

1872. Tom Morris, jun., St Andrews 166--at Prestwick.
1873. Tom Kidd, St Andrews 179--at St Andrews.
1874. Mungo Park, Musselburgh 159--at Musselburgh.
1875. Willie Park, Musselburgh 166--at Prestwick.
1876. Bob Martin, St Andrews 176--at St Andrews.
1877. Jamie Anderson, St Andrews 160--at Musselburgh.
1878. Jamie Anderson, St Andrews 157--at Prestwick.
1879. Jamie Anderson, St Andrews 170--at St Andrews.
1880. Bob Fergusson, Musselburgh 162--at Musselburgh.
1881. Bob Fergusson, Musselburgh 170--at Prestwick.
1882. Bob Fergusson, Musselburgh 171--at St Andrews.
1883. W. Fernie, Dumfries 159--at Musselburgh.
1884. Jack Simpson, Carnoustie 160--at Prestwick.
1885. Bob Martin, St Andrews 171--at St Andrews.
1886. D. Brown, Musselburgh 157--at Musselburgh.
1887. Willie Park, jun., Musselburgh 161--at Prestwick.
1888. Jack Burns, Warwick 171--at St Andrews.
1889. Willie Park, jun., Musselburgh 155--at Musselburgh.
1890. Mr John Ball, jun., Hoylake 164--at Prestwick.
1891. Hugh Kirkaldy, St Andrews 166--at St Andrews.
1892. Mr H. H. Hilton, Hoylake 305--at Muirfield.
1893. W. Auchterlonie, St Andrews 322--at Prestwick.
1894. J. H. Taylor, Winchester 326--at Sandwich.
1895. J. H. Taylor, Winchester 322--at St Andrews.
1896. H. Vardon, Scarborough 316--at Muirfield.
1897. Mr H. H. Hilton, Hoylake 314--at Hoylake.
1898. H. Vardon, Scarborough 307--at Prestwick.
1899. H. Vardon, Scarborough 310--at Sandwich.
1900. J. H. Taylor, Richmond 309--at St Andrews.
1901. J. Braid, Romford 309--at Muirfield.
1902. A. Herd, Huddersfield 307--at Hoylake.
1903. H. Vardon, Ganton 300--at Prestwick.
1904. J. White, Sunningdale 296--at Sandwich.
1905. J. Braid, Walton Heath 318--at St Andrews.
1906. J. Braid, Walton Heath 300--at Muirfield.
1907. Arnaud Massey, La Boulie 312--at Hoylake.
1908. J. Braid, Walton Heath 291--at Prestwick.
1909. J. H. Taylor, Richmond 295--at Deal.
1910. J. Braid, Walton Heath 298--at St Andrews.

The Amateur Championship is of far more recent institution.

1886. Mr Horace Hutchinson at St Andrews.
1887. Mr Horace Hutchinson at Hoylake.
1888. Mr John Ball at Prestwick.
1889. Mr J. E. Laidlay at St Andrews.
1890. Mr John Ball at Hoylake.
1891. Mr J. E. Laidlay at St Andrews.
1892. Mr John Ball at Sandwich.
1893. Mr P. Anderson at Prestwick.
1894. Mr John Ball at Hoylake.
1895. Mr L. Balfour-Melville at St Andrews.
1896. Mr F. G. Tait at Sandwich.
1897. Mr J. T. Allan at Muirfield.
1898. Mr John Ball at Prestwick.
1899. Mr F. G. Tait at Hoylake.
1900. Mr H. H. Hilton at Sandwich.
1901. Mr H. H. Hilton at St Andrews.
1902. Mr C. Hutchings at Hoylake.
1903. Mr R. Maxwell at Muirfield.
1904. Mr W. J. Travis at Sandwich.
1905. Mr A. G. Barry at St Andrews.
1906. Mr J. Robb at Hoylake.
1907. Mr John Ball at St Andrews.
1908. Mr E. A. Lassen at Sandwich.
1909. Mr Robert Maxwell at Muirfield.
1910. Mr John Ball at Hoylake.

The Ladies' Championship was started in 1893.

1893. Lady M. Scott at St Annes.
1894. Lady M. Scott at Littlestone.
1895. Lady M. Scott at Portrush.
1896. Miss A. B. Pascoe at Hoylake.
1897. Miss E. C. Orr at Gullane.
1898. Miss L. Thompson at Yarmouth.
1899. Miss M. Hezlet at Newcastle.
1900. Miss R. K. Adair at Westward Ho.
1901. Miss M. A. Graham at Aberdovy.
1902. Miss M. Hezlet at Deal.
1903. Miss R. K. Adair at Portrush.
1904. Miss L. Dod at Troon.
1905. Miss B. Thompson at Cromer.
1906. Mrs Kennion at Burnham.
1907. Miss M. Hezlet at Newcastle (Co. Down).
1908. Miss M. Titterton at St Andrews.
1909. Miss D. Campbell at Birkdale.
1910. Miss Grant Suttie at Westward Ho.

There have been some slight changes of detail and arrangement as time has gone on, in the rules of the game (the latest edition of the Rules should be consulted). A new class of golfer has arisen, requiring a code of rules framed rather more exactly than the older code. The Scottish golfer, who was "teethed" on a golf club, as Mr Andrew Lang has described it, imbibed all the traditions of the game with his natural sustenance. Very few rules sufficed for him. But when the Englishman, and still more the American (less in touch with the traditions), began to play golf as a new game, then they began to ask for a code of rules that should be lucid and illuminating on every point--an ideal perhaps impossible to realize. It was found, at least, that the code put forward by the Royal and Ancient Club of St Andrews did not realize it adequately. Nevertheless the new golfers were very loyal indeed to the club that had ever of old held, by tacit consent, the position of fount of golfing legislation. The Royal and Ancient Club was appealed to by English golfers to step into the place, analogous to that of the Marylebone Cricket Club in cricket, that they were both willing and anxious to give it. It was a place that the Club at St Andrews did not in the least wish to occupy, but the honour was thrust so insistently upon it, that there was no declining. The latest effort to meet the demands for some more satisfactory legislation on the thousand and one points that continually must arise for decision in course of playing a game of such variety as golf, consists of the appointment of a standing committee, called the "Rules of Golf Committee." Its members all belong to the Royal and Ancient Club; but since this club draws its membership from all parts of the United Kingdom, this restriction is quite consistent with a very general representation of the views of north, south, east and west--from Westward Ho and Sandwich to Dornoch, and all the many first-rate links of Ireland--on the committee. Ireland has, indeed, some of the best links in the kingdom, and yields to neither Scotland nor England in enthusiasm for the game. This committee, after a general revision of the rules into the form in which they now stand, consider every month, either by meeting or by correspondence, the questions that are sent up to it by clubs or by individuals; and the committee's answers to these questions have the force of law until they have come before the next general meeting of the Royal and Ancient Club at St Andrews, which may confirm or may reject them at will. The ladies of Great Britain manage otherwise. They have a Golfing Union which settles questions for them; but since this union itself accepts as binding the answers given by the Rules of Golf Committee, they really arrive at the same conclusions by a slightly different path. Nor does the American Union, governing the play of men and women alike in the States, really act differently. The Americans naturally reserve to themselves freedom to make their own rules, but in practice they conform to the legislation of Scotland, with the exception of a more drastic definition of the status of the amateur player, and certain differences as to the clubs used.