276 FIELD AND FERN. 



dancing was much more lively, and there was much 

 less stiffness in every way. The Southern meeting 

 amalgamated most joyously at the latter town, while 

 the Marquis of Queensberry, Sir William and Sir 

 John Heron Maxwell, General Sharpe, and Mr. 

 Alexander of Ballochmyle lived; and once eight- 

 and-thirty horses came, of which Muley Moloch and 

 other cracks walked on from Carlisle. Stirling had 

 a great meeting one year, when the ball was held in 

 the Corn Exchange; but Mr. Ramsay and Mr. Forbes 

 of Callender died soon after, and the thing was given 

 up. Although his Grace cares but little for the 

 sport, the Duke of Roxburghe has manfully supported 

 the meeting at Kelso, where the balls and the 

 sport have been equally good. At Edinburgh the or- 

 dinaries failed, and there has never been a year to com- 

 pare with 1828, when the Duke of Buccleuch was 

 preses, and the town was full to the garrets. Ayr has 

 always had a good county attendance, more especially 

 when the late Lord Eglinton, Sir David Blair, and 

 his brother, Col. Blair, kept horses ; and the list 

 was got up in great style, with three 100 Plates 

 in it. 



" The Caledonian Hunt" is first mentioned by that 

 title in a race-list, at Dumfries, in 1788, when His 

 Majesty's Plate was granted ; but it is enough for our 

 purpose to trace it back for five-and -forty years. In 

 1820 there were nine meetings in Scotland, and 

 among them the Fife Hunt at Cupar, one at Irvine 

 as well as Ayr, and one at Stranraer, which never 



