242 NIM ROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



"Then pledge me, ye heroes, whilst everything goes well, 

 In a full flowing bumper the Laird of St. Boswell !" 



From the gentlemen of the Linlithgow and Stirlingshire hunt, a 

 piece of plate, " as a mark of respect for his talent as a hunts- 

 man." 



Wednesday, I3th (January), the frost having disappeared, I 

 met the Duke of Buccleuch's hounds at the kennel, when, strange 

 to say, after trying all the surrounding covers belonging to his 

 Grace, those in his park, which consists of 800 Scotch acres in- 

 cluded, and those of his neighbour, the Marquis of Lothian, to 

 boot, not a tongue was thrown to a fox, during the whole day's 

 draw. I very much regretted this, as I was mounted on one of 

 the very cleverest hunters in Scotland ; a brown horse of Mr. 

 Burn Callander's whose name at this moment escapes me. But 

 although I have nothing in the way of sport to remind me of this 

 day, the recollection of it can never be effaced. 



I had this day an opportunity, and the only one during my stay 

 in the country, of speaking, from personal observation, of the 

 Duke of Buccleuch, as a landlord, although I have already given 

 my readers to understand, that those sympathies which unite 

 landlord and tenant in a bond of reciprocal kindness and good 

 offices, are in full force with his Grace, as indeed they are with 

 most other noblemen and gentlemen of large property masters 

 of fox-hounds especially who spend their incomes at home, and 

 thus add to the comforts and amusements of the people. 1 am 

 not, however, alluding to the extreme neatness and conveniences 

 of the several farm-houses or onsteads, as they are called in 

 Scotland, which I saw on the Dalkeith estate. There appeared 

 to have been nothing left undone to render the tenant comfort- 

 able, or to enable him to do justice to the land, which was in the 

 highest state of cultivation, and of excellent quality in itself. 



I have no chronological account of all my proceedings whilst 

 at Edinburgh, but I occasionally came in contact with nearly all 

 descriptions of persons, even the " eruditi togati homines" 

 (men of the gown), as will presently appear.. I also had a taste 

 of the military, in an excellent dinner and agreeable evening at 

 the barracks with the Greys. The pleasure of it, however, was 

 somewhat damped by the absence of that good sportsman and 

 old acquaintance, Major Wyndham, who is married, and there- 

 fore not often to be found at the mess ; but on this day a par- 

 ticular engagement occupied him. I met a party of my sporting 

 friends another day at Dirminston House, one of the seats of the 

 Marquis of Lothian, but rented by Mr. Adarn Hay, where we 

 dined in a fine old baronial-looking hall, reminding one of olden 



