426 NTMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



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 for the kindness 

 of my brother sportsmen to which they owe their 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 aequor. 



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 ho- 

 nourable reserve that restrains us from the exposure of our own errors 

 and infirmities, 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 1 been called upon to con- 

 demn ? 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 calumni- 

 ator 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 



