THE VALE OF GALA. 41 



Church in a suit of their best Tweeds, no doubt 

 coarse enough looking, and of being taken to 

 task by one of the ruling members, who said I 

 was daft, and not very respectably put on for 

 coming to the house of prayer. ( Coming events 

 cast their shadows before;' and I have lived to 

 see, as I prophesied it would be, nearly all the 

 gentlemen who walk in Regent Street and the 

 Parks clothed in the same stuff, and of a sound 

 mind. Ye shades of shepherds, who once trode 

 her slopes and hill-sides, and who, no doubt, often 

 sang in the adjacent dells, the beautiful airs of 

 Galashiels, or Sour Plumbs, and Doun the Burn 

 Davie, cast your eyes now to her magistrates 

 and Peel's police ; her trades' dinners and inns, 

 her doctors, her banks, and her fancy balls. 



Minnow and partail fishing are so fully de- 

 scribed by Stoddart and others, that I will only 

 endeavour to give a few hints of my own, so as 

 at once to bring it before you. As for the first of 

 these, it is always a difficult matter to get them 

 for the day that will suit you to fish with them ; 

 but if you can get them, and the water be dark 

 coloured, there is no better bait ; also, when the 

 water is very low and clear (in fact, the two 

 extremes), have a swivel and two hooks, one 



