BIOGRAPHIES IN A NUTSHELL 179 



How truly do these lines apply to such men as 

 " The Druid " and Major Whyte-Melville ! We feel 

 that we are with them in the spirit, for do not 



" Souls attract souls, when they're of kindred vein " ? 



The name of Whyte-Melville is so familiar, not only 

 to hunting people, but to everybody who takes an 

 interest in English literature, that it would seem im- 

 possible to write anything concerning his life which 

 is not already known to the reading public. As 

 soldier, novelist, poet, and sportsman, his name 

 stands out in bold relief Yet, though many of his 

 old comrades in the chase are alive, his biography 

 has never been written in volume form. Perhaps a 

 long biography is not necessary, for Major Whyte- 

 Melville lived with us in his novels and in his poems. 

 He used to say that the two great objects of his life 

 were " the pigskin and the pen," and he devoted his 

 days to hunting and his evenings to literary work. 

 Although during his life he had a larger share of the 

 aliquid amari than falls to the lot of most men, he 

 only made one enemy, namely the manufacturer 

 of barbed wire. His lines — 



" And bitter the curses you launch in your ire 

 At the villain who fenced his enclosure with wire " 



are the only words which I have been able to dis- 

 cover that he ever penned in a vindictive spirit ; and 

 the only caustic speech which I have heard recorded 

 of him was to a landowner, who had erected wire. 

 "I'm a Christian man, and so bear no malice; but 



