hit so hard; but you are just as likely to be hit. The philosopher himself, while in a ravine of the sixth hole, musing on transcendental matters, heard a rushing noise, and was smitten violently on the haunch, no man being within sight. After climbing in agony to an adjacent eminence, the sage descried his own familiar friend, the philologist of the game and the demonstrator of its Batavian origin, wielding the club which dealt the fatal blow. As one result of these perils, the metaphysical genius of the professors of metaphysics must dwindle for lack of a place of peripatetic meditation, and, as far as St. Andrews goes, the chances of tackling the Nature of the Absolute are practically lost.

Where would the Platonic philosophy be, if the Garden of Plato had been eternally disturbed by cries of 'Fore!' or "Eμm poσ0εv? There would have been no Stoicism if Athenians had been allowed to regard the Porch as a hazard. The metaphysicians and other serious thinkers are now compelled to limit their walks to the station-master's garden, which, indeed, is holy ground, but confined in extent, and far from elegant in the eyes of the horticulturist.

The wise man, to be sure, may seek safety by walking round with the players. But, first, the players are absolutely averse from the exercise of dialectic, or even of mundane conversation, as I myself have shown in the dialogue of 'Socrates, or the Golfers.' When the sage naturally asked 'whether we must agree with Hesiod in regarding the Half as better than the Hole' (λéοv nμσv Tavтos), with a stream of similar inquiries, he was severely told not to speak to a man on his stroke,' and was finally ducked in the Swilcan burn. Bereft of society, the thinker is attended by the friend of man, the dog. But the dog, in his friendliness, will persist in recognising his acquaintances by sniffing at their heels when they are putting, and to a revenge taken for that habit, not sufficiently checked in early life, I, for one, attribute the assassination of an attached and faithful Dandie Dinmont terrier. Many a hole had that dog lost to Mr. with whom I have forborne to discuss the mysterious circumstances attending his regretted demise. The man who (as is credibly reported) offered half a sovereign for the head of any school-boy (merely because boys will play in squads or batches all over the green) is one to whom suspicion is naturally directed. A certain resource, the layman, the non-golfer, has: he may walk on the links if he walks with a party, under difficulties already indicated. There is another. So slowly do some play the game, thereby 'keeping back the green,' that the looker-on may be frost-bitten, and is sure to catch cold.

Now, here, even for the players, is the great drawback of golf. Professionals, like Andrew Kirkcaldy and W. Auchterlony, play fast. But many amateurs play with melancholy slowness. They squat, surveying their putts, and presenting to the players behind a

series of spherical bodies which the natural man longs to kick into animated life. They waggle,' as they address their balls, for thirty seconds (timed), or they stand motionless, merely gazing at the ball, till they fall into the hypnotic trance. Players all the way behind cannot get on till these fossils awake and 'foozle.' It is not the fault of ladies. They do not keep back the green nearly so much as these stolid male amateurs. Ladies may even be seen to run after their balls, like the daughters of Celeus, with a becoming impetuosity. Everybody knows that after waiting, waiting, and shivering while Dr. Heavysterne contemplates his putt, or executes his rhythmic and interminable waggle, it is nearly impossible to make a good stroke. The nerves are irritated, the sinews grow stiff, and St. Andrews (as in the days of the Covenanters) becomes profane in its language. This leaden-footed tardiness is the curse of golf; nor can I, as in the case of cricket, suggest legislative remedies. We cannot have umpires with every party, to time them and disqualify the laggards.

Probably the Americans, being an eager and rapid race, do not suffer from this inconvenience. The English are the worst offenders. The greater the duffer, the more he cherishes a note-book in which he records his score. As he takes a dozen to the short hole, he has to wrestle with arithmetical problems, and with an over-burdened memory. So there he stands beside the hole, he and his note-book, compiling his record of 130 or so for the round.

The game, in itself, has no other drawbacks for those who can play. For persons like myself it appears one long and infinitely varied series of crosses and trials. We slice, we hook, we foozle, we top, we sclaff, we miss the globe, we lose the ball in whins, we putt execrably; but for all these things we, not the game, are responsible. But somebody is responsible for permitting four-ball games, which retard the progress of the whole green. Why these games are so endeared to certain players cannot be accounted for, except on the hypothesis of Original Sin. The players are of the kind addressed by Burns in an unpublished stanza of 'Scots wha hae.'

Scots wha tread in Freedom's track,
Scots wha whustle as ye whack,

Wull ye pit your divots back?
Never you or me!

A divot (davoch?) is the portion of turf cut up by the enthusiastic wielder of the iron. This he is requested to restore to its original position; but, if a son of freedom, he does not comply with the base interfering suggestion. This also reminds me of another drawback. Not everybody can play iron or mashie approach shots; but everybody tries to do so, and, at least, cuts his divot,' as one has been heard to boast, whatever else he fails to do. Now, the old

approach with a short spoon, or with the baffy spoon, does not cut the turf, and is much less difficult of execution than the approach with an iron. But the multitudinous duffers use, or rather abuse, the mischievous iron, because it is fashionable. The same class invests in absurd new patent clubs, queer things such as you see among the weapons of the Maori and other savage races. We see heads of aluminium, heads of compressed sea-weed, heads like potatoes stuck on sticks, cleek heads like cork-screws, or like tomahawks. Nobody plays cricket with an eccentric bat (say with a crosspiece at the end to stop shooters), though I doubt if anything in the rules is against it. The bat may not exceed a certain width; but you might legally dispose a piece of wood of that width at right. angles, or, at least, the point might be argued. But the cricketer (having learned that to bowl a dozen wides on purpose does not pay) is not a quibbler. Many golfers are; their joy is in wrangling over the metaphysics of the rules. These, by strenuous exertions, have even been reduced to conformity with grammar, but are inevitably subject to quibbles by the school of argufiers'; the word may not be English, but is consecrated by the example of Professor Huxley.

The drawbacks to football of old were the breaking of limbs: hence the suppression of this pastime by the Scottish Legislature. I lately read, by the way, that golf in a town was forbidden by a colonial decree in America in 1659. Hence it was argued that golf is as old in America as in Scotland. But golf in Scotland was so popular as to demand legislative prohibition in 1457, many years before America was even discovered. American archæological periodicals will please copy.' This is a digression. At present professionalism in football appears to be a drawback; but I am unacquainted with the rights and wrongs of the subject. As long as professionals do not pretend to be amateurs, as long as clubs do not tempt them to shoot madly from their spheres, there seems no harm in it.

The Rugby game has, it seems, been made more scientific in this generation. This means that passing the ball is permitted, and the result is that you do not often see the long runs by an individual hero which used to be so exciting. Probably the course is narrowed, though I am not sure about that. In any case the game proceeds thus: somebody purposefully kicks into touch, the sides range up, the ball is thrown out, many minutes go by in a mere hustle of clumped-up young men; the ball goes into touch again, another hustle; and so on ad infinitum. Of old we did not aim at getting the ball into touch, and play was faster and more exhilarating; picking up was not allowed; there were beautiful long drop-kicks. Times are altered; science has crept in; and amusement, as far as a veteran sees, has American football seems to be much gone out.

more scientific, and to be played in plate armour; but I have not seen it, and may have received false impressions. The English habit of sacrificing the referee, at the end of the game, is interesting to Mr. J. G. Frazer, and other students of primitive man, but appears to be an excrescence on the pastime.

As to lawn tennis, I would deprecate the rule of always beginning the service by a fault. That fault might be "taken as read" service should pass after a fault. The present habit is a mere superstition. Why knock the ball into the net, except as a piece of ritual observance, really frivolous, and a superfluous waste of time and energy? As to croquet I cannot speak in a judicial temper. In the old days it was merely an excuse for flirtation, game which needs none, though the rules require codification. Modern croquet is excessively tedious and scientific; but as King James VI. objected to chess, because such toys' demand the full strain of the concentrated intellect, so he would have objected to croquet. On wet greens it reduces the population by chills, and is a dreary, dawdling, and irritating method of wasting time, eminently unathletic, and far from productive, as archery is, of graceful attitudes. To be sure, golf, as played by ladies, also is ungraceful, 'the tempestuous petticoat' flying forward after the drive in a manner that grieves the lover of the beautiful. With hockey and skittles I must profess myself unfamiliar. On the whole, for mere human institutions, games are less liable to objection than might be expected. I have played to the best of my power the part of advocatus diaboli: acknowledging that most games are good in themselves, however corrupted by mankind, which has sought out many inventions.'

BY SIR VINCENT CAILLARD

HE splendid treasures of the Imperial Museum at Constantinople are already well known to most lovers of art and archaeology. It is far from the writer of this article to imagine that he could throw fresh light on subjects so special and so well discussed. He has, moreover, no intention of attempting to give a scientific description of the wonderful artistic achievements of the human race in past ages which have been gathered together in that Museum. The entire space at the disposal of the Editor of the ANGLO-SAXON REVIEW would not suffice for such a task. His object is to give some idea of how this collection was formed; how order was raised from chaos; how the Museum was conceived, and has attained distinguished renown throughout the archæological world, by the enthusiasm, the untiring energy, the admirable perseverance of one man, working under the greatest difficulty and discouragement, and in spite of the most irksome of all kinds of opposition, contempt born of ignorance. The depth of that ignorance is well illustrated by the following fact. The eminent Director of the Museum, to whom I have just alluded, had, some years ago, induced one of the most distinguished Ministers of the Sublime Porte-and no little inducement was needed -to come and view that most beautiful and precious of all the precious and beautiful treasures of the collection, the Great Sarcophagus.' The Minister, to the dismay of his enthusiastic cicerone, began to finger, with his spotless white kid gloves, some of the exquisitely tinted figures on which such encomiums were being lavished. For God's sake,' cried the poor Director, 'forbear to touch!' And then, in response to the somewhat haughty raising of the Minister's eyebrows at so peremptory an interruption, he added, 'Your Excellency will observe that the figures are coloured.' 'Allah! Allah!' ejaculated His Excellency, starting back; and hastily rubbing his gloves, he examined them to see that they had not been stained by the ill-advised contact. His Excellency thought that the lovely polychromatic treatment before his eyes was paint recently laid on by the Director's orders to improve the monument. Instances of the kind might be multiplied; but that anecdote alone suffices to show in what kind of atmosphere the creator of the Museum had to struggle towards the accomplishment which, almost single-handed, he has attained.

Just fifty years ago, in the year 1266 of the Hegira, FethiAhmed Pasha, Grand Master of Artillery and a well-known personage of the time, who had married a daughter of Sultan Mahmoud, was the first to have the idea of collecting together in one of the courtyards of the Church of Saint Irene such objects