SCOTT AND FOX-HUNTING.
[To MEE EDITOR as THE "SPROTAT011."] SIR,—lf there are hundreds who regard Scott's lines, quoted in your last issue, as "a- blemish on a great poet's reputation," then the said hundreds are on the wrong scent and ought to he whipped. off. And you, Sir, are guilty of "contributory negligence" in both the legal and journalistic sense. Where is the Master's horn Ware Scott t The words are put into the month of Roderick Dhu, a Highland chief of the early sixteenth .century. (James V. (FitzJames) died in 1542 broken-hearted after Solway Moss.) A hundred years later "St. John actually used this illustration when engaged in confusing the plea of law proposed for the unfortunate Earl of Strafford," says Scott in a note supporting the verses in question. I wonder your contributor forgot the following passage from the account -of the hunt at Charlie's Hope. It is much to his purpose, as showing the meeting-point of the two sorts of hunting : "The -object being the removal of a noxious and destructive
as well as the pleasures of the chase, poor Reynard was allowed much less fair play than when pursued in form through an
open country.",--I am, Sir, &c., W. K. GILL. Eversley,
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