38 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. ■ 



count that bird, for I fired at the same time," and the game- 

 keeper, perceiving the joke, backed them up. After some 

 hours they told me the joke, but it was no joke to me, for I 

 had shot a large number of birds, but did not know how 

 many, and could not add them to my list, which I used to do 

 by making a knot in a piece of strmg tied to a button-hole. 

 This my wicked friends had perceived. 



How I did enjoy shooting ! but I think that I must have 

 been half-consciously ashamed of my zeal, for I tried to per- 

 suade myself that shooting was almost an intellectual employ- 

 ment ; it required so much skill to judge where to find most 

 game and to hunt the dogs well. 



One of my autumnal visits to Maer in 1827 was memora- 

 ble from meeting there Sir J. Mackintosh, who was the best 

 converser I ever listened to. I heard afterwards w^ith a 

 glow of pride that he had said, " There is something in that 

 young man that interests me." This must have been chiefly 

 due to his perceiving that I listened with much interest to 

 everything which he said, for I was as ignorant as a pig about 

 his subjects of history, politics, and moral philosophy. To 

 hear of praise from an eminent person, though no doubt apt 

 or certain to excite vanity, is, I think, good for a young man, 

 as it helps to keep him in the right course. 



My visits to Maer during these two or three succeeding 

 years were quite delightful, independently of the autumnal 

 shooting. Life there was perfectly free ; the country was 

 very pleasant for w^alking or riding ; and in the evening there 

 was much very agreeable conversation, not so personal as it 

 generally is in large family parties, together with music. In 

 the summer the whole family used often to sit on the steps of 

 the old portico, with the flower-garden in front, and with the 

 steep wooded bank opposite the house reflected in the lake, 

 with here and there a fish rising or a water-bird paddling 

 about. Nothing has left a more vivid picture on my mind 

 than these evenings at Maer. I was also attached to and 

 greatly revered my Uncle Jos ; he was silent and reserved, so 

 as to be a rather awful man ; but he sometimes talked openly 



