many men in agreement as to what ought to go down in the book and what ought not. One will want spaces reserved for full particulars as to wind and weather, of the ball with which he played, and of the many other little details of varying importance, forming the sum of the circumstance of the day’s golf. Another will have a horror of such conceits, and will limit his confessions to statements of the date, the opponent, and the result. As in other matters, the medium is the happiest choice; but the difference of taste which could not be accommodated by so many different varieties of match-book, suggests at once that the proper course to pursue is for each player to purchase a perfectly plain book and rule it off in so many columns to his own satisfaction; or even, indeed, for the sake of a neater and less formal appearance, and an arrangement which is more accommodating, leave it blank, and let the facts of the match be inserted in order, just as the man is disposed to insert them at the time of the entry. Then a blank column will not in after years convey any reproach in the matter of a possible suppression of the truth, nor one overcrowded tell too much a tale of despondency and excuse on the one hand, or on the other of that boastfulness that comes not well from the heart of a good golfer.

Now the beginning and the continuation of a match-book is a serious matter, and the golfer will do well to come to an understanding with himself beforehand as to the policy that he will pursue in regard to it. It is essential that the strictest truth, and all the essential truth, should at all times be set down, and it is only a simple extension of the principle involved that if any matches are to be recorded they must all be so. The chronicler of the time must not consider himself as historian, and set himself to discriminate between what is important and what is trivial; for, as in all things, it will be many years hence, when the matters have been well sifted in the cold recollection of the mind, before such a determination can be accurately made. Therefore it is the duty of the chronicler to state the full facts, that is to say, as full as he determined they should ever be according to his system of match-book keeping, and he must leave it to himself in after years, when, the chronicler now exalted to the student of his own history, he can ponder over the statements in his leisure and make such judgments upon them as he is disposed. Thus it is of the essence of the proper making of such match-books that no fault of the maker at any time or in any game shall be in any way extenuated, and that nothing to the discredit of the opponent shall be set down maliciously, so that in days to come, when the player shall have advanced many more seasons towards the end of his golf, in turning over these pages and with their honest help fighting his matches over again, he shall truly behold “the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies.” So it seems that the best match-book should rightly be a strictly private thing; if it were meant as a book for the table or any other place where it might be exposed to the gaze of the curious, there might at some time come a reluctance to the owner to state in full the truth of the day’s play, since the honest criticism of a partner in a foursome or of an opponent, to some who did not understand, might not appear so necessary as was actually the case. This faithful record should be kept under lock and key, and it should be taken with him when the golfer goes far afield for play which is to last more than a day, and the entries should be made on the night of each day. It will be soon enough for others to pry into this confessional when the golfer who whispered into it at nights is no more. That such present labour will afford a rich sequence of future pleasure there can be no doubt. Just as there are no friends like the old friends, and no wine like the old wine, so one is sometimes disposed to fancy that there is no golf like the old golf that is now indeed but a memory, and one often much too dim at that. The match-book will refresh the mind to the recollection of dear friends with whom one is no longer associated, and of fine sport that one had with them on days when the thrills of life seemed to be a little quicker than they are now. By the mention of an incident, and occasionally by giving the score of a few holes, much of the whole game, shot and shot, is conjured up in the memory in all its keenness and its tensity.

And it shall come as a good recommendation in this matter that the golfer who is the favourite hero of us all, as he was a pattern of the golfing virtues, made a match-book for himself while he was still playing the schoolboy golf, and kept it continuously for the rest of his time. Freddie Tait’s match-book was just what we might expect it to be. It was a very honest thing, and Mr. Low, who has handled it and copied some of it for the deep interest of us all, remarks on the way in which the brave soldier golfer never spared himself, his partner, nor his opponents, but dealt out praise and censure with a level hand. One day, though he had halved his round, he says, “Played as bad a round as possible”; and at another time his comment is, “Never played worse with the exception of a few iron shots.” Then as to a foursome it is, “The characteristic of the game was the bad play of both”; and of his partner in another match he remarks, “The play of Mr. —— was feeble in the extreme.”

There were eight column divisions in Tait’s match-book. First there was the place for the date, then for the name of the links, and the third for the statement of the parties to the match. The fourth column was for the mention of the odds of the handicap if any, or for the name of the competition if he was engaged in one. Then there was one column for holes won and another for holes lost, a broad one for “remarks,” and a last little one at the side of the page for the total of the score. Generally the “remarks” were brief and pointed, and it is these which make the record of the play of the most beloved golfer we have known so real and human, so that it is a pleasure to sit by the fire and create some fancies of these matches. Now and then there is a little humour; here and there a touch of sarcasm at the expense of “F. G. T.,” as he generally referred to himself. Round by round there is the full story of the way in which he won the championship at Sandwich, and the next entry concerns the very next match that he played, which was the day after at Rye, when, with his honours new upon him, he essayed the task of playing the best ball of Mr. H. S. Colt and Mr. J. O. Fairlie. The remarks run: “H. S. C. and J. O. F. too strong for the golfed-out Champion, to whom they showed no mercy. H. S. C. and J. O. F. both played a good game and did some very fine holes.” Here there is a 6 in the “Lost” column, and it is a notable thing that this, on 23rd May, was the first figure that had appeared in this column of defeat since 16th April, though golf was being played almost every day. In his comments on the final of that same championship he twice pays compliments to the pluck of Mr. Hilton, who in the game was very soon left without the slightest chance of victory, and was beaten by a full eight holes. The gods would never permit the favourite Freddie to be beaten by the finest player of his time, and that player now refers to his early engagements with the soldier as the day when Tait “commenced his career as the slaughterer of Hilton.” Another day we find Freddie revelling in two glorious matches with Andrew Kirkaldy on the new course at St. Andrews. In the morning he lost by a couple of holes, but in the