319 Life and Times of " The Druid." 



of his walking stick through a pier glass at 

 Doncaster, after the victory of some horse in 

 which he took great pride, without remember- 

 ing that few readers of a subsequent generation 

 would know that " Sir Wolly " was Sir David 

 Baird's nick-name. Although " The Druid " 

 cared nothing about betting, and never caught 

 its contagion, and although he was seldom in 

 the saddle, never went out hunting on horse- 

 back, and could no more have driven a four- 

 in-hand team than Mr. Bright or Mr. Joseph 

 Arch, I am far from believing that his readers 

 are sufferers in consequence. This, at any 

 rate, was his own opinion, as may be inferred 

 from his preface to " Scott and Sebright " : — 

 " Although the author does not scruple to 

 admit that his hunting experiences have been 

 very much confined to watching the cubs at 

 play near the earths on a summer's evening, 

 to taking notes of hunters at crack meets, 

 much as he was wont to do after the same 

 fashion in Turf pencillings, and to seeing, by 

 dint of short cuts on foot, a goodly number 

 of foxes pulled down in the woodlands, he is 

 not altogether sure that this is not an advan- 

 tage to his readers in more ways than one 



