Pastime was not only being organized, systematized, commercialized. It was beginning to be the subject of serious literary and scientific study. The _Badminton Library_ series dates from 1885, when the first three volumes were published. _Punch_ made excellent fun of the Duke of Beaufort's preface, repeated in each volume, with its glowing account of the Prince of Wales's accomplishments as a sportsman, and of the literary lapses of the Duke and his editors. The volume on Golf, by Horace Hutchinson, with contributions by Mr. Balfour and Andrew Lang, certainly did not lay itself open to this rebuke. It was a delightful tribute to the charm of a pastime which had invaded England seriously in the 'eighties. Golf had been played sporadically in the south ever since the days of James I. But until the 'eighties, the golfer was looked upon as a species of lunatic. _Punch's_ first notable acknowledgment of the fascinations of the Royal and Ancient Game dates from 1885, when Du Maurier in "The Golf Stream" shows the stream of all ages and both sexes that "flows along the Eastern Coast of Scotland during the summer and autumn." [Illustration: THE GOLF STREAM Flows along the Eastern Coast of Scotland during the summer and autumn. (_Vide Report of British Association--Section V._)] The jealousy of the votaries of other pastimes is made vocal in Keene's lawn-tennis player, who sees no fun in a game which consists in "knockin' a ball into a bush and then 'untin' about for it." Even in 1890 Du Maurier represents the newcomer in an invidious light when he makes a weedy little man say to an Amazonian lady lawn-tennis player that "golf is the only game for _men_ nowadays. Lawn tennis is only for girls." _Punch_ prophesied more truly in the verses, "Golf Victor!" at the close of the same year. There it is the ladies who say, "Golf is the game for the girls":-- [Illustration: THE PILLION-BICYCLE] Henceforward, then, Golf is the game for the fair-- At home, and abroad, or in pastures Colonial, And the shouts of the ladies will quite fill the air For the Links that will turn into bonds Matrimonial, And for husbands our daughters in future will seek With the powerful aid of the putter and cleek! In 1892 the confessions of the "Duffer" at Golf after forty years' experience are interesting from the classified gradations of competence:-- 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. The born Duffer is incurable. No amount of odds will put him on the level of even Scotch Professors. To-day these categories need revising; the ladies have gone up two or three classes; amateurs have not for the first time held their own with the best professionals, and even the infants are becoming formidable.