A NOTE FROM NOKTH BRITAIN. 77 



medio tutissimus ; and for that very reason, viz. : 

 The coverts, he menses better, and is nearer to 

 his fox. 



'' Bnt always breed from a larger sort than that 

 which you mean to keep. If you won't think me 

 very conceited, and very intolerable. 111 send you, 

 old Codrington, and Will Long, a list of my ' cry- 

 o-doys,' as they say in Yorkshire. Bucleugh has 

 got a capital pack of hounds, ye first out of all 

 sight this side of Tweed, and well they now may 

 be, having been a pack for nearly forty years, 

 although not in his possession, I suppose, above 

 six. The Pifeshire, capital for their numbers, in 

 their work, but quite a different animal. Joe Grant, 

 no bad judge, who was twelve years under NichoUs, 

 will tell you that ye Duke of BucUe-my- Shoes are 

 now as sightly, and as good, as he ever saw a pack 

 of hounds. The other packs, with my own, this 

 side of Tweed, Lala^ jo^'l never get perfection as 

 long as you are obliged to breed from iMperfec- 

 tion. I don't allude to work, for there Jack 

 Pudding Ipse would be to blame ; but I allude 

 to imperfection, and want of symmetry, &c., in 

 shape, and you are well aware Nicolls were but, 

 at best, all Beaufort Drafts — so that you were 

 perfectly right (altho a good sum) to give old 

 Johny ye 2,000 for ye perfect ones, altho, confound 



