NIMRO&S NORTHERN TOUR. 295 



for the kindness of my brother sportsmen to which they owe then 

 birth. In one respect they have appeared to disadvantage. To 

 record sayings and doings after some distance of time, may be 

 compared to the pickling and preserving of fruits, which, in that 

 state, fall far short of their flavour when fresh gathered from the 

 tree. 



One word more, and I have done (and perhaps it is time to 

 have done ; for, in the somewhat technical words of my favourite 

 classic 



" Nos immensum spatiis confecimus sequor, 



Et jam tempus equum fumantia solvere colla"). 



Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth is said to speak, 

 which may also be said of the pen, and I have already given my 

 opinion, that a writer without spirit is a writer without interest. 

 Nevertheless, I hope, in my endeavours to amuse, I have not 

 driven the jest so far as to hurt the feelings of any one. Should 

 I have done so, I would kiss the rod that might inflict the 

 merited correction. There is a delicate and honourable reserve 

 that restrains us from the exposure of our own errors and in- 

 firmities, which should be more carefully observed when alluding 

 to those of others ; and my aim has been, when called upon to 

 condemn, to follow the example of Horace, who is said to have 

 tickled when he gently probed the wound. But what have I been 

 called upon to condemn ? Why, nothing but what has emanated 

 from those excesses of zeal and hospitality for which fox-hunters ever 

 have been, and I hope ever will be, so conspicuous. By the ancient 

 law of Scotland, a calumniator was punished with death, and I 

 should deserve a hundred deaths had I thus returned evil for 

 good. My object has been an honest desire of imparting pleasure 

 to my readers, and I cannot convict myself of having stated one 

 untruth, knowing it to have been an untruth. " Truth," however, 

 says the proverb, " is not to be spoken at all times," although^ as 

 Juvenal says, it is only grating to a tyrant's ear. On the other 

 hand, it is difficult in the reader, and now and then, in the writer, 

 accurately to distinguish flattery from praise, although in their 

 realities, there are few things more distinct. The one I disown ; 

 of the other I may have been lavish, as I shall ever be where I 

 think it is due, and where I am able to appreciate it. Scotland 

 and Scotchmen then, for the present adieu ! I am indebted to 

 you much, and I should like to visit you once again. 



