174 REMINISCENCES OF THE LEWS. 



and slain the noble stag, and felt, as all with 

 hearts must feel, the deep reproach of that 

 mournful eye, and sorrowed as we laid the 

 fallen monarch of the glen in his lonely grave 

 by the cairn's side. But these are the grand 

 inspirations of youth — the beau ideal of the 

 Past. Once I remember dreaming a Peri wafted 

 me to Paradise — a strange one indeed ! — an 

 immense grass vale, with light, staken-bound 

 fences, watered by salmon streams innumer- 

 able, surrounded by blue hills, on which fed 

 endless royals. Visions avaunt ! let us be sub- 

 lunary and rational. 



I have shot grouse on the Moss of Monaltrie, 

 and hunted them in Kerry. I have shot par- 

 tridges in Norfolk and East Lothian, and 

 looked for them in Tipperary. T remember 

 the fens in England, when " of snipes," as old 

 Camden says, '' good Lord, what store ! " I 

 have revelled in the bogs of Ireland ; I have 

 been nearly smothered in the Briichen of the 

 Ehine ; I have wandered miles in the wild 

 heaths and beautiful copse-woods of West- 

 phalia, and right good sport have had ; I have 

 shot a good deal in France, when there was 

 game ; I have hunted the wolf, and meanly 

 slain the wild boar with the ball ; I have 

 assisted — jproh pudor ! — at that abomination of 



