MR. JAMES MERRY, 



101 



fought his unswerving way through the bull-finches of Leices- 

 tershire ; Lord Eglinton, the idol of his countrymen, of whom it 

 was hard to say in which of the three kingdoms he was most 

 popular, for he was equally beloved by Irish, English and Scotch ; 

 Sir James Boswell, Mr. Meiklam, Lord Kelburne (afterwards 

 Lord Griasgow), Mr. Ramsay, owner of Lanercost and Inheritor 

 and ever famous Master of the Midlothian Hounds ; William Hope 

 Johnstone, Mr. Robertson, of Lady-Kirk ; Lord Drumlanrig, 

 " the doucest lad of them a'," and other good men and true, 

 who taught Englishmen to respect the meaning of Scotland's 

 national motto, " Nemo me impwne lacessit" on the race-com'se, 

 in the hunting-field and on the coursing-ground. Those were 

 the good old days when the Ayr Cup was regarded by Scotch- 

 men as the first race in the world, and its winners — such heroes 



MK. JAMES MERRY, 

 and heroines as Lanercost, Inheritor, the Doctor and Myrrha — 

 were deemed to have acquired a more lasting and glorious fame 

 than Epsom or Newmarket could confer. The obscure little town 

 of Gullane, best known to Englishmen as the spot where the 

 four Dawsons were born and bred, and William I'Anson, of Blink 



