1 84 SOME WRITERS ON THE GENTLE CRAFT 



more suitable. Mr. Scrope's hat must surely have 

 gone flying over his shoulder at each gust of wind 

 that swept down the river ; and a driving shower must 

 have soaked him to the skin, unless he were prepared 

 to envelop himself at the shortest notice in wrappings 

 carried by his attendant. Though the sportsman 

 should be made neither of sugar or salt, speedy 

 saturation on a nipping day in spring seems to us to 

 be a very gratuitous infliction ; nor do we see the 

 wisdom of laying in rheumatics and remorse by way of 

 distractions for our declining years. 



If Scrope confines his reminiscences to the Tweed, 

 Mr. Colquhoun, in his excursions to river and loch, 

 carries us over the length and breadth of Scotland. 

 " Excursion," indeed, is scarcely the word to use, for 

 he has probably rented more shootings and fishings 

 in a greater number of the Scotch counties, in the 

 course of a most active life, than any man living. 

 The publication of a fifth edition of " The Moor and 

 the Loch," by the way, is a proof the more of its 

 well-deserved popularity. And we are glad to think 

 that a suggestion of our own, in a former article on 

 that delightful book, may have had its share in 

 inducing the author to prefix to this new edition a 

 very interesting bit of autobiography. It abounds in 

 lively anecdotes of his school-days and early life, 

 especially after joining his regiment the gallant jjrd 

 then quartered in the wilds of Connaught. The 

 story is everywhere impressed with the author's vigorous 

 individuality ; and the Connaught of those unsettled 



