AND ANGLING SONGS. 1 99 



It is not a hostelry never was. Its frequenters are presumed 

 to provide, in the matter of exciseable fluids, their own cheer, and 

 this in one respect is of advantage, as it retains in the hands 

 of the landlady a discretionary power of admitting or refusing 

 lodgers, whereas, where the premises are licensed, that privi- 

 lege becomes questionable, or at least greatly hampered in its 

 exercise. 



The cottage of Tibby Shiels, alias Mrs. Eichardson (it is the 

 custom among the heights of the Border land for widows in the 

 humbler condition of life to resume or consent to the resump- 

 tion of their maiden names, and the worthy old lady, although 

 the mother of a pretty numerous family, of course succumbs to 

 it), along with the surrounding park or cow-grass, belongs to 

 that most amiable of men, and able of diplomatists, Lord 

 Napier, our present representative at the Court of Berlin, whose 

 conversational powers and acuteness of intellect when a boy are 

 recalled to my recollection as the augurs of an after career of 

 high distinction and political eminence. His lordship is the 

 superior of St. Mary's Loch ; and although the lands of Corse- 

 cleuch and Bourhope, in their connexion with the Thirlstane 

 property, form its boundary on one side only, it has always been 

 understood, although now forming a subject of dispute, that the 

 right of fishing on the Lochs belongs exclusively to Lord Napier. 

 The strict exercise of this right, in the way of interdicting the 

 public from angling, he has never maintained, but on the con- 

 trary has shown every disposition, both on St. Mary's Loch and 

 the Ettrick, in the vicinity of Thirlstane Castle, to encourage a 

 fair use of the rod and line. Against the employment of the lath 

 or otter, which at one time was brought to bear to an incredible 

 extent as the engine of destruction against the trout of St. 

 Mary's, he has very properly set his face ; but all ceremony in 

 the shape of a written permission to angle fairly with the wand 

 is dispensed with. 



