CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER.

I.--GOLF.

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THE Fairies who came to my Christening provided me with a large collection of toys, implements, and other articles. There was a heart, a tender one, a pen of gold, a set of Golf-clubs, a bat, wickets, and a ball, oars and a boat, boxing gloves, foils, guns, rifles, books, everything, except ready money, that heart could desire. Unluckily one Fairy, who was old, deaf, plain, and who had not been invited, observed, "It is all very well, my child, but not one of these articles shall you be able to use satisfactorily." This awful curse has hung heavy on my doom. With a restless desire to shine and excel, at Lord's, on the river, on the Moors, in the forests, in Society, on the Links, bitter personal experience and the remarks of candid friends, tell me that the doom has come upon me. I am an allround Duffer," as my youngest nephew, atat. XI., freely informed me, when I served twice out of court (once into the conservatory, the other time through the study window). I was a Duffer at marbles, also at tops, and my personal efforts in these kinds were constantly in liquidation. But what are marbles and tops! The first regular game I was entered at was Golf. Five is not too early to begin, and I began at five by being knocked down with a club which another small boy was brandishing. This naturally gave me an extreme zeal for the sport of MARY STUART, the Great Marquis of MONTROSE, CHARLES EDWARD (who introduced Golf into Italy), DUNCAN FORBES of Culloden, Mr. HORACE HUTCHINSON, and other eminent historical characters.

now

Almost everybody knows that Golf is not Hockey. Nobody runs after the ball except young ladies at W-m-n! The object is to put a very small ball into a very tiny and remotely distant hole, with engines singularly ill adapted for the purpose. There are many engines. First there is the Driver, a long club, wherewith the ball is supposed to be propelled from the tee, a little patch of sand. The Tee and the Caddie have nothing to do with each other; nobody but a flippant Cockney sees any fun in plays upon words which, in themselves, are only too serious. Then there is a weapon called a Brassey. It is like unto a club, but is shod with brass, and is used for hitting a ball in "a bad lie" among long grass or heather.

A small tomahawk, styled a Cleek, is employed when you dor 't know what else to play with. The same remark applies to an Iron, which is very good for missing the ball with, also for hitting to square leg when you meant to go straight. AMashy" is a smaller "iron." The skilful use these when the ball lies in sand, in gorse, or when they wish to make the ball soar for a short distance and then fall dead. A Putter is a short thickish club used for jogging the ball into the hole with. There are plenty of other kinds of clubs, also spoons, but these are enough to break the heart of any Duffer.

I am an old player, of forty years' standing, but, like Parolles I was "made for every man to breathe himself on." When my form is espied near the links, the players shirk off as if I were a leper. They are afraid I may want to make a match with them, and there is no falsehood from which they will shrink, in their desire to escape me. Even Ladies,-but this is a delicate theme. Beginners breathe themselves on me, and give me odds after two or three engagements.

Yet I don't know why I am so bad. True, I am short-sighted, never see the flag at the hole, play in the wrong direction, and talk a good deal on topics of academic interest during the round. The Golfer's mind should be a blank, and generally is "blank enough," like Sir Tor's shield. My mind is, perhaps, too active that may be what is the matter with me. It is the same thing at

whist-but of this hereafter. My Caddie, or arm-bearer, has his own views about the causes of my incompetence.

"Ye're no standing richt. Ye haud yer hands wrang. Ye tak' yer ee off the ba'. Ye're ower quick up. Ye're ower slow doun. Ye dinna swing. Ye fa' back. Ye haud ower ticht wi' yer richt hand. Ye dinna let your arms gang easy. Ye whiles tap, and whiles slice, and whiles heel, or ye hit her aff the tae. Ye're hooking her. Ye're no thinking o' what ye're doing. Ye'll never be a Gowfer. Lord! ony man can lairn Greek, but Gowf needs a heid."

Here are fifteen ways of going wrong, and there is only one way of going right! Fifteen things to think of, every time you take a driver in hand. And, remember, that is not nearly all. These fifteen fatal errors apply to long driving. You may (or at least I may, and do) make plenty of other blunders with the other weapons. Say the ball lies in sand-"a bunker," technically. If you hit it whack on the top, it disappears in a foot-mark. If you" tak' plenty o' sand," why, you get plenty of sand in your mouth, your eyes, down the back of your neck, and the ball is no forwarder. If you strike her quite clean, she goes like a bullet against the face of the bunker, soars in the air, falls on your head, and you lose the hole! Oh, Golf is full of bitterness!

Suppose we play a round. The ball is neatly "tee'd" on a patch of sand. I approach, I shuffle with my feet for a secure footing, I waggle my club in an airy manner. Then I take it up and whack it down. A variety of things may occur. I may smite the top of the ball, when it runs on for twenty yards and lies in a rut on the road. I may hit her on the heel of the club, when she spins, with much cut" on, into the sea. I may hit her with the toe of the club, when she soars to square leg, and perhaps breaks a window. I used to try running in at the ball, as if it were a half-volley at Cricket, but that way lies madness. However, suppose that, in a lucid interval (as will happen), I hit her clean. She soars

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away, and falls within forty yards of a meandering burn. The hole, the haven where one would be, is beyond the burn.

I seize a cleek or an iron, it turns in my hand, cuts up the turf, and the ball rolls half a dozen feet. My opponent has crossed the burn. I try again; a fearful misdirected shot; the ball soars over the burn, and lands in a road behind the hole. There is no hitting out of this road, or, if one does hit a desperate blow, the ball lands in an eccentric sand-hole, called the Scholar's Bunker. We start for the next hole. Même jeu! Now we are in the gorse, now among the Station Master's potatoes, now in the railway, where all hope may be abandoned, now in bunkers many, now missing the ball altogether, when you feel as if your arms had flown off. As for "putting." the short strokes on the green, near the hole, if I hit sharp, the ball runs over the hole yards and yards beyond, or if I hit mild, it stops with an air of plaintive resignation, after dribbling for a foot or two. And the worst of it is that, sometimes, you will play as well as another for half-a-dozen holes. Then one thinks one has The Secret! But it falls from us, vanishes, we are topping and slicing, and heeling, and missing again as sorrily as ever.

The beauty of Golf is that there are so many ways of going wrong, and so many things to think of. A person of very moderately active mind has his ideas diverted by the landscape, the sea, the blossom on the gorse, the larks singing overhead, not to mention the whole system of the universe. He forgets to keep his eye on the ball, in devoting his energy to holding tight with his left, and being slow up. Or he remembers to keep his eye on the ball, and forgets the other essentials. Then an awful moment comes when he loses his temper. Thereby all is lost, honour (not to mention "the honour,") and everything. People in front, old people, are so provoking. They potter tardily along, pass ten minutes in considering a putt, shout and swear if you hit into them, and are not pleased if you sit down and smoke while you wait. The only entity that I don't lose my temper with is my partner. The worse he plays, the better am I pleased to have a brother in adversity. The subjective Golfer, however, is certainly a bore. He is "put off" by every simple circumstance, by his opponent wearing an unbecoming cap and the like. Afterwards, he will hold forth for hours on all his sorrows and

all the sins of others. The Duffer is more modest and less apologetic. He is kept always playing (as I said) by the diabolical circumstance that he has lucid intervals, though rarely, when he plays like other people for three or four holes. I once, myself did the long hole in- -but never mind. Nobody would believe me. The most amiable of Duffers was he who, after ten strokes in a bunker, cut his ball into three parts. "I am bringing it out," he said, "in penny numbers."

The born Duffer, I speak feelingly, is incurable. No amount of odds will put him on the level even of Scotch Professors. For the learned have divided Golf into several categories. There is Professional Golf, the best Amateur Golf, Enthusiasts' Golf, Golf, Beginners' Golf, Ladies' Golf, Infant Golf, Parlour Golf, the Golf of Scotch Professors. But the true Duffer's Golf is far, far below that. A Duffer like me is too bad for hanging. He should be condemned to play for life at Chorley Wood, or to bush-whack at Bungay.

FREE AND EASY THEATRES.-We have no sympathy whatever with the idea of a Théâtre Libre or with a Free-and-Easy Theatre, but we shall be very glad when all Theatres are made Easy, Easy, that is, as to sitting accommodation, and Easy of egress and ingress. But if the space is to be enlarged, will not the prices have to be enlarged too? 'Tis a problem in the discussion of which The Players, which is a new journal, solely devoted to things Dramatic and Theatrical, would find congenial employment.

On Shibboleths, and written by W. S. LILLY. In a recent trial it came out that Mr. GEORGE MEREDITH is the accredited and professional reader for Messrs. CHAPMAN AND HALL. Is it possible that this eminent philosophical Novelist is indebted to a quiet perusal of Shibboleths for some of the quaint philosophical touches not to be read off schoolboy wise, with hurried ellipses, blurting lips, and unintelligent brain, if

?

any, which make One of Our Conquerors and others, worth perusal Be this as it may, which is a convenient shibbolethian formula, the Baron read this book, and enjoyed it muchly. There is an occasional dig into the Huxleian anatomy, given with all the politeness of a Louis-the-Fifteenthian "M.A.," otherwise Maître d' Armes, and a passing reference to "The People's WILLIAM" and the carrying out of the People's will-which is quite another affair,-all, to quote Sir PETER," vastly entertaining." The chapter on the Shibboleth "Education" is, thinks the Baron, about the best. Mr. LILLY is a Satirist who, as GEORGIUS MEREDITHIUS MAGNUS might express it, is, in his fervour, near a truth, grasps it, and is moved to moral distinctness, mental intention, with a preference of strong, plain speech, and a chuck of interjectory quotation over the crack of his whip, with which tramping active he flicks his fellows sharply. With which Meredithism concludes THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS.

Vide the Press on" Venice at Olympia."]

I will not throw-as others throw-
My manly form, without compunction,
Before the frequent trains that go
At lightning speed through Clapham Junc-

[tion.

For though my spirit seeks escape
From all the carking cares that vex it,
I will not plunge thee into crape

By any ordinary exit:

So when-in slang-I "take my hook,"
Detesting all that's mean and skimpy, a
Reserved and numbered seat I'll book,
And hie to Venice at Olympia.

I'll see the Show that draws the town-
Its pageantry delight affording-

As per the details noted down

Where posters flame on every hoarding;

And then the sixpence I will pay,

Which in my pocket now I'm fondling,

And try upon the water-way

The new experience of gondling.

I know that death will seem delight
When in the gondola I'm seated,
For up to sixty Fahrenheit

The Grand Canal is nicely heated;
So-sick of life's incessant storm,

Impatient of its kicks and pinchesI'll plunge within the water warm, And drown-in four-and-twenty inches!

PREUX CHEVALIER.

SIR,-The amazing popularity of the Costermonger Songs seems to me a significant phenomenon. While no humane person would deny to the itinerant vendor of comestibles that sympathy which is accorded to the joys and sorrows of his more refined fellow-creatures, it is impossible to view without alarm the hold which his loose and ungrammatical diction is obtaining in the most cultured salons of to-day. Anxious to minimise the danger, yet loth to check a sentiment of fraternity so creditable to our common humanity, I have devised a plan by which Mr. CHEVALIER'S songs may be rendered in such-wise that while all their deep humanity is preserved, their English is so elevated as to be innocuous to the nicest sensibility. Permit me to give, just as a sample, my treatment of that very popular ballad, known, rubesco referens, as "Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road." Not being a singer, I have adopted Mr. CLIFFORD HARRISON'S charming plan of speaking through the music of the song, and this is how I render the chorus:

How is it with you?' was the universal exclamation of the residents in the vicinity.

"With whom, WILLIAM, have you made an appointment?' "Have you, WILLIAM, purchased all the house-property in this thoroughfare?

"Were my risible faculties exercised?-you ask me. Nay. Indeed I was actually apprehensive of a fatal issue.

"So striking was the effect produced upon those in the ancient Cantian highway."

This, Sir, not only gives the sense, but gives it, I venture to claim, in a form fit for the apprehension of the most refined. Judging, too, by the reception it met with at our recent Penny Readings, I am convinced that Mr. CHEVALIER's peculiar humour is thoroughly preserved, for, indeed, many of the audience laughed till I became positively concerned for their safety. Yours faithfully,

ROBERT BOWDLER SPALDING.

GOOD NEWS INDEED!

THAT fiendish malefactor, the Influenza Bacillus, has been caught at last! The peculiarity about him, confound him, is said to be his "immobility." Ugh! the hard-hearted infinitesimally microscopic monster! No tears, short-breathings, sighs, no groans, no sufferings, nothing will move him. There he remains, untouched, immobile. But there was one hopeful sign mentioned in the Times of last Saturdaythe Bacillus was found in chains, and in strings." Let the chains be the heaviest possible till he can be tried by a Judge and Jury; and don't resort to "strings" till the supply of chains has failed.

A DIALOGUE OF THE FUTURE.

SCENE-Rooms of a Cambridge Tutor.
PERSONS-A Tutor and an Undergraduate.

Tutor. I understand you were at Newmarket yesterday. Is that so?
Undergraduate. It is. I was.
Tutor. A shameless avowal. Are you aware that you have broken
one of the disciplinary regulations of
your College? I fear I must punish
you severely. Have you anything to say
why sentence should not be passed upon
you. [Assumes the black College Cap.
Undergraduate. Yes, Sir, I have.
Tutor. Then say it at once.
Undergraduate. I went to Newmarket
to see-
[Hesitates.
Tutor. Proceed, Sir. Time presses.
You went to see what?
Undergraduate. As a matter of fact, I
was particularly anxious to see the Head
of the University.

Tutor. What do you mean, Sir? Undergraduate. The chief Dignitary of Cambridge, the Chancellor, the Duke of DEVONSHIRE.

Tutor. You are trifling with me. Undergraduate. Not at all, Sir. The Chancellor was there in state. I saw him. My curiosity was satisfied, and I returned to Cambridge.

Tutor (after a pause). Ah, of course that alters the case. If you can assure me you did not go for the purpose of watching horse-races

Undergraduate (breaking in). Certainly, Sir. I do give you the

assurance.

Tutor. That being so, I dismiss you with a caution.

RESPECTABILITY.

["What is Respectability?"-Daily Telegraph, Jan. 12.]

IT's having money at the Bank.

It's being a personage of rank.

It's having spent three years at College

With great, or little, gain of knowledge.

It's going to Church twice every Sunday,

And keeping in with Mrs. GRUNDY.

It's clothes well-cut, and shiny hat,

And faultless boots, and nice cravat.

It may be Law, or Church, or Ale,

Or Trade-on a sufficient scale.

It's being" something in the City."

It's carefully to shun being witty.

It's letting tradesmen live on credit.

It's "Oof "-to earn it, or to wed it.

PROFESSOR JOLLY, of Berlin, who, if his name express his disposition, ought to be a follower of Mark Tapley, reckons that twenty-five per cent. of the inmates of asylums have been inebriates. Is the Professor" Jolly well right?"

ANOTHER RURAL CONFERENCE.

[A Church Dignitary, writing to The Globe, suggests that the rural reform most urgently needed is a better postal system in the shires.]

Radical Reformer (meeting Rural Labourer tramping to London). Yours is a typical case, my man. You are a victim of our insensate Land Laws, or exploded Feudalism. No doubt you are leaving the country because you could not find employment there? Rural Labourer. "Tisn't that so much. Old Gaffer always had summat for a man to do, I can tell ye.

Radical Reformer. Glad to hear it, though it's unusual. Then I suppose it is the intolerable dulness of the country that drives you away from it.

Rural Labourer. 'Tisn't that either. Things be a bit dull in winter - time, cert'nly. But there-we've a Public, also a Free Reading Room, and

Radical Reformer (disappointed). Glad to hear it, again, I'm sure, though that also is unusual. Your house, now-rather, I ought to call it, your hovel, perhaps-lets in the rain badly-reeks with damp-only one room, and that a pigstye, eh?

Rural Labourer (offended). Come now, don't you call my house a pigstye! Three good rooms, and not a bit o' damp or dirt about it. Radical Reformer. Then the wages are low, and a tyrannical landlord refuses allotments, eh?

Rural Labourer. Allotments! I could have as many as I wanted for the asking. But there I didn't want 'em, y' see, and I didn't ask.

Radical Reformer (gravelled). Then would you explain to me what is the real reason of your determination to quit the country for Town? Rural Labourer (surprised). Why, don't you know? There was only one collection and one delivery of letters daily! I couldn't stand that, of course. I expect I shall find more in Lunnon.