ANOTHER RED HERRING Sta,—In my copy of Cobbett's Rural Rides,
an edition of 1893, a sketch of the author's life is included. This sketch contains the following extract, which is in Cobbett's own words.
" I placed myself ready with a red herring at the end of a string, in a dry field and near a hard path, along which I was pretty sure the hare would go. I waited a long time, the sun was getting high, the scent was bad, but by and by, I heard the view halloo, and full cry. I squatted down in the ferns, and my heart bounded at the prospect of inflict- ing justice, when I saw my lady come skipping by, going off towards the south. In a moment I clapped down my herring, went off at a right angle towards the west, climbed up a steep bank very soon where the horsemen could not follow." Cobbett was born in 1762, and the red herring episode occurred when he was about eight years old. The reference to inflicting justice means that he was trying to avenge himself on a certain huntsman who had struck him with a whip.
The Spectator was evidently justified in its metaphor; could the writer have had the above story in mind 7. It was clearly pub- lished first before 1892.—Yours faithfully, D. C. JOHNSON Rose Cottage, Burrough Green, Newmarket
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