294 NIMROUS NOR THERN TO UR. 



decline, I am unable to determine ; I can only say, / hope it is 

 notj but it is such men as Mr. Lambton who give it the best 

 supportmen who stick to it, on system, for many many years, 

 in the same country, and thus endear themselves to the people 

 over whose property they hunt, and not such as take to countries 

 one year and give them up the next, for the sake, perhaps, of 

 having it said, they were once masters of hounds. Then again, 

 I wish fox-hunting to flourish on another account on my 

 country's account; for, as was said of the Coliseum of Rome, 

 which neither time nor nature would have been able to destroy, 

 so long as fox-hunting stands, England will stand, preserved by 

 the manly spirit engendered by the pursuit. Let it flourish then, 

 until the moon shall be in its last wane, and the sun shall cease 

 to shine on the world ! 



I have now got to the end of my Northern Tour, having nothing 

 left but to acknowledge which I do with sincerity and in truth 

 the attention and kindness I received in the progress of it. That 

 an honourable distinction was shown me, it would have been 

 impossible for me not to have felt, and the recollection of it will 

 cheer me in the evening of my days. Still, as Swift observes, 

 w it is the wise choice of the subject that alone adorns and dis- 

 tinguishes the writer," and, like ^Esop's fly, that sat upon the 

 axle of the chariot, it is to the popularity of my subjects fox- 

 hunting especially that I am indebted for any " Olympic dust " 

 that I may have been honoured with. Of one thing', however, I 

 may be allowed to feel proud. Johnson observes in the con- 

 cluding passage of his fourteenth Rambler, on the subject of 

 writers or authors, that " a transition, from an author's book to 

 his conversation is too often like an entrance into a large 

 city after a distant prospect. Remotely we see nothing but spires 

 of temples, and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence 

 of splendour, grandeur, and magnificence ; but when we have 

 passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, 

 disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, 

 and clouded with smoke." The conduct of my Scotch friends, 

 however, placed me without the pale of this rather severe literary 

 jurisdiction, by their pressing invitations to me to return to their 

 hospitable and jovial hearths. Nevertheless, to insure the 

 sympathy of his readers is not the easiest of tasks, let the subject 

 be ever so inviting, or the writer ever so au fait at them. It is 

 said of Tibullus, for example, that he is the only poet who has 

 been able to arrive at fame, by singing of his own pleasures ; 

 what then must be the chance of him who can only relate his ? 

 All that I can say then, as regards myself in the progress of these 

 papers, is, that I have devoted my best energies to them in return 



