ZTbomas ITo& Stofcfcart 507 



Another similar feat of mimicry is thus described by 

 his daughter : 



"In June 1857 occurred his visit to London as a 

 witness before the Parliamentary Committee on the 

 Tweed Acts, and in this visit he was accompanied by 

 his wife. Together they enjoyed some of the season's 

 gaieties, receiving many pleasant attentions from old 

 and new acquaintances. These included a box for some 

 Italian Opera, on which occasion my father fell fast 

 asleep. He had just enough appreciation of operatic 

 singing to found upon it one of his most amusing 

 displays, which was a very suggestive reminiscence of 

 the shrill woes and warbled joys of the then fashion- 

 able Italian Opera, for which he ingeniously used as sole 

 libretto the word ' Abercromby.' " 



With such accomplishments in the host, added to 

 his delightful talk of poetry and angling, one can well 

 understand that " a nicht wi' Tarn Stoddart " was an 

 event never to be forgotten by those who had been 

 allowed the privilege of enjoying it. 



To the last Stoddart was able to pursue the sport 

 to which he had devoted his life. He died at Kelso on 

 November 2ist, 1880, in his seventy-first year, within 

 sight and sound of the river he knew and loved so well. 

 And one may surely be permitted to fancy, as the poet- 

 angler himself would have loved to do, that the ripples of 

 Tweed sang his requiem. 



Call it not vain ; they do not err 

 Who say that when the Poet dies 

 Mute Nature mourns her worshipper 

 And celebrates his obsequies. 



