NIMROUS NORTHERN TOUR. 175 



Lucifer, out of Lord Yarborough's Favourite, and the dam of 

 Limner and Lively, by Lord Kin tore's Rubicon ; and of Boxer, 

 by the Duke of Buccleuch's Boxer, a very elegant young hound. 

 Walker's wages are a hundred and forty guineas a year, which, 

 with cap money, draft hounds, and other little et ceteras, make 

 up a comfortable income but not a shilling more than a man is 

 deserving of, who does his duty in the situation in which he is 

 placed^ and risks his neck so many days in the year for the 

 amusement of his employers and their friends. 



I have, I believe, before acknowledged the difficulty of making 

 parallel of men who shine in the same sphere, neither could I, 

 if disposed to it, compare Walker as a huntsman with Crane, 

 because I never saw the latter in that capacity at all. But I 

 cannot pass over Walker, were it only from the very high cha- 

 racter that had been given to me of him by so many, and those 

 well able to appreciate it, previously to my seeing him in the 

 field. Indeed I consider it but justice to give praise where praise 

 is due, and so far from its being injurious to persons in his 

 (Walker's) situation in life, it must have a direct contrary effect 

 it must act as an incentive to good conduct, if it were only to 

 preserve the good name already acquired. I can, in fact, here 

 speak from my own personal feelings. The love of admiration 

 may be a weakness, but it is a weakness inseparable from our 

 nature, and anything but unfavourable to our future exertions to 

 attain it. In short, logically speaking, the desire of praise is 

 nothing less than a motive to do that which we think may deserve 

 praise. 



Now, if I may use such an expression, Walker's good name 

 appears to be " potted" in Fife. He is not only one of the most 

 civil, unassunling men in his station in life that I ever came 

 across, but taking into consideration the few years' experience 

 he has had in that station, he has shown himself to have been 

 almost miraculously gifted. In the "observations" Lord Kintore 

 sent to Crane for his perusal, he said, "a huntsman's talent (like 

 the poet's) must be born with him." The happy association, 

 then, is self-apparent in Walker, and when that talent becomes 

 to be still more improved by experience, and still more chastened 

 by judgment, I do not hesitate in giving it as my opinion that he 

 will make as perfect a huntsman as ever holloaed to a hound. 

 He has every qualification for his art. He has the eye of a 

 hawk ; the quickness of a Shaw, without his rashness ; the judg- 

 ment of an old man, although a young one, for he is in the prime 

 of his years ; and when I say he has the zeal and enthusiasm of 

 a Kintore. I think I have said enough. " Go to the ant, thou 

 sluggard/' sums up the moral of rather a long fable. 



