Major WJiyte Melville, 271 



neiglibourhood of Tetbury, in Gloucestershire. Here it 

 was that while riding' slowly along between cover and 

 cover, a rabbit-hole caused thousands of the inhabitants 

 of Great Britain, gentle and simple, to learn with sorrow 

 and dismay that the popular and accomplished author of 

 so many bewitching tales and poems had met his end in 

 the hunting-field. 



Not a hunting-man or woman in the United Kingdom 

 was there, who was not more or less affected by the sad 

 intelligence, and who did not look upon the death of 

 Whyte Melville as a personal misfortune. It was univer- 

 sally felt that Society had suffered a loss which it was 

 impossible to replace; such qualities as those which 

 marked the individuality of the author of the " Queen^s 

 Maries," '' The True Cross," and '' The Galloping Squire," 

 being rarely found in combination. 



That ^' Good-bye" should have been written only shortly 

 before the fatal event, almost apparently in anticipation 

 of it, is an incident equally affecting and remarkable, and 

 would seem to point to the fact that its author was in 

 unconscious possession, of his countrymen's uncanny 

 attribute of " second sight/' 



Few authors whose names are attached to so much in 

 Yerse as well as in Prose can have the satisfaction of 

 feeling that every book they have written has had 

 for its aim some high moral object — fewer still, that 

 not a line they have penned could offend the most 

 fastidious. 



Such, however, can be said of him of whom we are now 

 speaking — one in whom power of description — quick 

 appreciation of character — tenderness of feeling — the 

 instincts of a true gentleman — humour and high moral 



