262 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
.%dim, or ?? Miscellaneous Papers relating tc
Scottish Affairs ?? (1535-1781)~ we find some
entries that prove the game was still a fashionable
one :-
1672. 15 S. a.
Jan. 13. Lost at golf with Pitaro and
,, Lost at golf with Lyon and
Comissar Munro ............ o 13 o
.................. Harry Hay 1 4 0
Feb. 14. Spent at Leithe at golf ........ 2 o o
,, 26. Spent at Leithe at golf ......... I g o
March3. For three golf balls ............... o 15 o
In the year I 724 the Hon. Alexander Elphinstone
(of whom more anon), elder brother of the unfortunate
Lord Balmerino, engaged on Leith Links
in what the prints of that time term ?a solemn
match at golf? with another personage, who is better
known in history-the famous Captain John
Porteous of the City Guard-for a twenty guineas?
stake.
On this occasion the reputation of the players
(or skill excited great interest, and the match was
attended by James, Duke of Hamilton, George
Earl of Morton, and a vast crowd of spectators.
Elphinstone proved the winner.
President Forbes was so enthusiastic a golfer that
he frequently played on the Links of Leith when
they were .covered with snow, Thus Thomas
Mathieson, minister of Brechin, in his quaint poem,
?The Goff,? first published in 1743, says :-
? - great Fork, patron of the just,
The dread of villains, and the good man?s trust,
When spent in toils in saving human kind,
His body recreates and unbends his mind.?
Elsewhere he refers thus to these Links :-
? North from Edina eight furlongs or more,
Lies the famed field on Fortha?s sounding shore.
Here Caledonian chiefs for health resort-
Confirm their sinews in the manly sport.?
When the silver club was given by the magistrates
and Town Council of Edinburgh, in 1744, to
be played for annually on the Links of Leith, in
the April of the following year, just before the
rising in the Highlands, the Lord President Forbes
was one of the competitors, together with Hew
Dalrymple, Lord Hailes, and other men then
eminent in the city.
Smollett, in his ?? Humphrey Clinker,? after detailing
the mode in which the game is played,
says :--?Of this diversion the Scots are so fond
that, when the weather will permit, you may see a
multitude of all ranks, from the senator of justice
to the lowest tradesmen, mingled together in their
shirts, and following the balls with the utmost
eagerness. Among others, I was shown one particular
set of golfers, the youngest of whom was
turned of four-score. They were all gentlemen of
independent fortunes, who had amused themselves
with this pastime for the best part of a century
without ever having felt the least alarm from sickness
or disgust, and they never went to bed without
having each the best part of a gallon of claret in
his belly ! Such uninterrupted exercise, co-operating
with the keen air f?om the sea, must, without doubt,
keep the appetite always on edge, and steel the
constitution against all the common attacks of
distemper.?
The Golf House was built towards the close of
the last century, near the foot of the Easter Road,
and prior to its erection the golfers frequented a
tavern on the west side of the Kirkgate, near the
foot of Leith Walk, where, says the Rev. Parker
Lawson, they usually closed the day with copious
libations of claret, in silver or pewter tankards.
The Links of Leith were often the scene of
meetings of a very different nature than the merry
pursuit of golf-duels and executions, etc.
On the 25th of July, 1559, when the Queen
Regent took possession of Edinburgh, on being
assured of the friendship of Lord Erskine, then
governor of the castle, the Lords of the Congregation
and their adherents drew up their terms of
accommodation at their muster-place on the Links,
where the mounds of the breaching batteries were
thrown up in the following year; and during the
Cromwellian usurpation, the people of Leith, excluded
from their churches, had to meet there in
the open air for Divine worship.
Among the muItitude of unminded petitions sent
to the representative of the Republiqn Govemment
in Leith, was one in 1655, craving that the
port, or gate, nearest the Links (supposed to have
been somewhere near the present Links Lane)
might be left open ? on Sabbath from seven o?clock
in the morning till two o?clock in the afternoon, for
outgoing of the people to sermon.?
The first years of the next century saw less
reputable assemblages on the same ground.
The spirit of cock-fighting had been recently
introduced into Scotland from the sister kingdom,
and the year 1702 saw a cock-pit in full operation
on Leith Links, when the charges of admission
were Iod. for the front row, 7d. for the second, and
4d. for the third (Amot) ; and the passion for cockfighting
became so general among all ranks of
the people, and was carried to such a cruel extent,
that the magistrates of Edinburgh forbade its practice
on the streets, in consequence of the tumults
it excited. This was on the 16th February, 1704,
according to the Csuncil Register.
Yet in the following year Mr. William Machrie,
