Page:The Lady of the Lake - Scott (1810).djvu/410



St John actually used this illustration when engaged in confuting the plea of law proposed for the unfortunate Earl of Strafford: "It was true, we give laws to hares and deer, because they are beasts of chace; but it was never accounted either cruelty or foul play, to knock foxes or wolves on the head as they can be found, because they are beasts of prey.' In a word, the law and humanity were alike; the one being more fallacious, and the other more barbarous, than in any age had been vented in such an authority."—Author:Edward Hyde History of the Rebellion. Oxford, 1702. fol. vol. I. p. 183.

The Scottish Highlanders, in former times, had a concise