Edinburgh Bookshelf

Kay's Originals Vol. 2

Search

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 209 The following entries, from the note-book of Sir John Foulis, Bart. of Ravelston, prove the game to have been a fashionable one prior to the Duke of York‘s visit to Scotland :- 1672, Jan. 13. Lost at golfe with Pittarro and Commissar Munro, EO 13 0 Lost atgolfe with Lyon and Hary Hay, . . . 1 4 0 Feb. 14. Spent at Leithe at golfe, . . . . . . 2 0 0 Feb. 26. Spent at Leithe at golfe, . . . . . . 1 9 0 March 2. For three golfe balls, . . . . . . 0 15 0 Lost at golfe, at Musselburgh, with Gosford, Lyon, etc., 3 5 0 April 13. To the boy who carried my clubs, when my Lord Register andNewbyth wm at the Links, . . . . 0 4 0 Nov. 19. Lost at golfe with the Chancellour, Lyon, Master of Saltoun, etc., . . . . . . . 5 10 0 For golfe balls, . . . . . . . 0 12 0 Nov. 30. Lost at golfe with the Chancellour, Duke Hamilton, etc., .4 15 0 Dec. 7. For a golfe club to Archie (his son), . . . 0 6 0 ’ From these exhacts it is evident the game was in high repute with the first men in the kingdom. It is hardly, perhaps, necessary to mention that the payments are in Scots, not sterling money. At this time Bruntsfield Links-now a much frequented field-does not seem to have been used for golfing. It formed part of the Burrowmuir, and perhaps had not been cleared. The usual places of recreation were Leith and Musselburgh Links-the former more especially of the Edinburgh golfers, In a poem, entitled “ The Goff ” (by Thomas Mathison, at one period a writer in Edinburgh, but subsequently minister of Brechin) first published in 1743, and again, by Mr. Peter Hill, in 1793, the locality is thus alluded to :- ‘I North from Edina, eight furlongs and more, Lies that famed field on Fortha’s sounding shore ; Here Caledonian chiefs for health resort- Confirm their sinews by the manly sport. the top of the building, and consists of three pelicans vulned, on a chief three mullets-crest, a dexter hand grasping a golf club-motto, “Far and sure.” On the front wall of the second flat is a tablet, on which the following epigram, by Dr. Pitcairne, commemorative of the event, is engraved :- “Cum victor ludo, Scotis qui proprius, esset, Ter tres victor- post rediinitos avos, Patenonus, humo tunc educebat in altum Hanc, quae victores tot tulit una, domum.” Underneath this distich is placed the singular motto of-“I hate no penon,” which is found to be an anagrammatical transposition of the letters contained in the words “Iohn Patersone.” The Patersons of Dalkeith, of old, carried three pelicans feeding their young, or in nests, vert, with a chief, azure, charged with mullets argent. A commentator on the Latin poems of Dr. Pitcairne (said to be Lord Hailes), in the Edinburgh Magazine, remarks that the above epigram seems the least spirited one “in the whole collection. I t had the fortune to be recorded in gold letten on the how itself, near the foot of the Canongate, almost opposite Queensberry House.” Nugas Scotim ; Miscellaneous Papers relative to Scottish Maim, 1535-1781 :” Edinburgh, 1829, 8v0, privately printed. VOL 11. 2E
Volume 9 Page 280
  Shrink Shrink   Print Print