Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.")/James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd
JAMES HOGG, THE ETTRICK
SHEPHERD[1]
I
Our brief notice of Wilson and the "Noctes" may be fitly followed by some account of the original of the leading character in those exuberant dialogues. Christopher North himself intended and engaged to write a Memoir of his dear Shepherd, who owed much to him and to whom he also owed much; and this Memoir was even announced as accompanying a certain edition of Hogg's Poems, but it never got written. The Rev. Thomas Thomson tells us that his "Life of the Ettrick Shepherd" has been composed "partly from communications with his family, partly from oral intimations of the few friends who still survive, and partly from his own reminiscences which he appended to several of his publications, and JAMES HOGG 399 which are now given in their collected form at the end of this volume, as his Autobiography." They had better have come immediately after or before the Life, and the last partly should be mainly, Mr. Thomson having little to add save by way of dis- quisition and amplification. Fortunately the real Shepherd is pretty fully pictured to us in his own reminiscences and other writings, whose self-por- traiture agrees very well with the various casual sketches by his contemporaries, for he was genuine and simple to the core, and delightfully outspoken j and by help of these we can discern that there is a good deal of the actual man in the stage-presentation of the "Noctes." Thus he prefaces his fragmentary Autobiography: — "I like to write about myself; in fact there are few things which I like better ; it is so delightful to call up old reminiscences. Often have I been laughed at, for what an Edinburgh editor styles my good-natured egotism, which is sometimes anything but that ; and I am aware that I shall be laughed at again. But I care not. ... I shall re- late with the same frankness as formerly ; and in all, relating either to others or myself, speak fearlessly and unreservedly out." And he keeps his word. He tells us that he was the second of four sons by the same father and mother, Robert Hogg, and Margaret Laidlaw, and was born the 25 th January, 1772. The parish register, however, records his baptism on the 9th December, 1770, and his birth may have taken place some considerable time before. He himself was decided as to the day and month, it being the anniversary of the birth of Burns ; and not less decided as to the year, if we may trust a 400 CRITICAL STUDIES charmingly characteristic passage in his reminiscences of Scott, who, as we know, was born August 15, 1 7 7 1 : " There are not above five people in the world who, I think, know Sir Walter better, or under- stand his character better than I do : and if I outlive him, which is likely, as I am five months and ten days younger, I shall draw a mental portrait of him, the likeness of which to the original shall not be disputed." He did outlive Scott, just three years and two months (let us be as precise as himself), dying November 21, 1835 (in his ^xiy-fourth year, says Mr. Thomson, after correcting Hogg's birth- date!); and in 1834 he published the "Domestic Manners and Private Life of Sir Walter Scott," wherein he exclaims, with honest and reverent enthusiasm : "Is it not a proud boast for an old shepherd, that for thirty years he could call this man 'friend,' and associate with him every day and hour that he chose ? Yes, it is my proudest boast. Sir Walter sought me out in the wilderness and attached him- self to me before I had ever seen him, and although I took cross fits with him, his interest in me never subsided for one day or one moment." As we shall find when we get farther on. He was born in a lowly cottage at Ettrickhall, near the church and school, his father being a shepherd. No Southron swinish associations defiled the family name, which was rather exceedingly appropriate, hog, or hogg, in their venacular meaning, a year-old sheep ; and they were indeed of right good Border descent, claiming from Haug of Norway, a valiant viking and reiver, whose successors were the Hoggs of Fauldshope, a farm about five miles from Selkirk, JAMES HOGG 4OI who held in fee from Scott's ancestors, the Knights of Harden and Oakwood, until their own extravagance and the pacification of the Borders reduced them to the occupation of shepherds. In " The Fray of Elibank," Hogg celebrates his redoubted ancestor the Wild Boar of Fauldshope, chief champion of that Harden who was eldest son of Mary Scott, the famous Flower of Yarrow ; and records not without pride, that several of the wives of Fauldshope were accounted rank witches, the most notable being Lucky Hogg, who turned Michael Scott himself into a hare, and baited all his own dogs upon him, so that he escaped with difficulty; but he took therefor a terrible revenge, as told by Hogg in a Note to " The Queen's Wake," in accordance with the popular tradition and correction of Sir Walter Scott. In the " Pilgrims of the Sun " he bedevils viking Haug into Hugo of Norroway, a pious and peaceful minstrel, who marries Mary Lee of Carelha', and is an utterly impossible milksop : — " For he loved not the field of foray and scathe, Nor the bow, nor the shield, nor the sword of death ; But he tuned his harp in the wild unseen, And he reared his flocks on the mountain green." For which damnable namby-pamby defamation of old Norse and Border character, and that in an ancestor of his own, it has doubtless fared full hard with the poor shepherd's wraith if ever it forgathered with that of grim Haug or the Wild Boar of Faulds- hope. His mother was of the Laidlaws of Phaup and Craik, a woman of strong natural talents and humour, and remarkable for her knowledge of Border 2 C 402 CRITICAL STUDIES lore, in ballads, songs, and traditions, so that her cottage was a favourite resort of the shepherds of Ettrick and Yarrow. In the " Shepherd's Calendar," he celebrates one of her ancestors, Will o' Phaup, " one of the genuine Laidlaws of Craik," a famous runner, fighter, and good fellow, and the last man of that wild region who was on intimate terms with the fairies. The father, about the time of his marriage, having saved a considerable sum of money, took a lease of the farms of Ettrick House and Ettrick Hall, and commenced dealing in sheep. A sudden fall in the price of these, and the absconding of his principal debtor, ruined him when our Hogg was in his sixth year; everything was sold by auction, and the family was turned out of doors without a farthing in the world. A good man, Brydon of Crosslee, had compassion, took a short lease of the Ettrick House, made the father his shepherd there, and was kind to them all till the day of his death. Hogg had attended school a short time; had the honour of heading a class that read the shorter catechism and the Proverbs of Solomon. But he had now to help earn his living, and at Whitsuntide, when he was seven, was hired by a neighbouring farmer to herd a few cows ; his wages for the half-year being a ewe lamb and a pair of new shoes. He records : " Even at that early age my fancy seems to have been a hard neighbour for both judgment and memory. I was wont to strip off my clothes, and run races against time, or rather against myself; and, in the course of these exploits, which I accomplished much to my own admiration, I first lost my plaid, then my bonnet, then my coat, and finally my hosen ; JAMES HOGG 403 for, as for shoes, I had none. In that naked state did I herd for several days, till a shepherd and maid-servant were sent to the hills to look for them, and found them all." The winter quarter he was sent to school again, got into the class that read the Bible, and tried at writing copy lines of text in inch- long letters. This finished his schooUng, of which he had about half a year in all. His real education, apart from mechanical reading and writing, was due to his mother's Border lore and his pastoral life; and these served him well in the future, far better, indeed, than what is called a good commercial or even classical training in a town would probably have done. He went back in spring to herding cows, the lowest of rural occupations, and was en- gaged in it several years under sundry masters, till he attained the honour of keeping sheep. Here is one little bit of childish romance in his own words : '* It will scarcely be believed that at so early an age I should have been an admirer of the other sex. It is nevertheless strictly true. Indeed I have liked the women a great deal better than the men ever since I remember. But that summer, when only eight years of age, I was sent out to a height called Broad-heads with a rosy-cheeked maiden to herd a flock of new-weaned lambs, and I had my mis- chievous cows to herd besides. But, as she had no dog and I had an excellent one, I was ordered to keep close by her. Never was a master's orders better obeyed. Day after day I herded the cows and the lambs both, and Betty had nothing to do but sit and sew. Then we dined together every day at a well near to the Shielsike head, and after 404 CRITICAL STUDIES dinner I laid my head down on her lap, covered her bare feet with my plaid, and pretended to fall sound asleep. One day I heard her say to herself, 'Poor little laddie ! he's just tired to death,' and then I wept till I was afraid she would feel the warm tears trickling on her knee. I wished my master, who was a handsome young man, would fall in love with her and marry her, wondering how he could be so blind and stupid as not to do it. But I thought if I were he, I would know well what to do." He thinks that he changed masters so often be- cause he was yearly growing stronger, and thus fit for harder tasks and higher wage; he was always recommended from one to the other, especially for his inoflfensive behaviour. "This character, which I some way or other got at my very first outset, has in some degree attended me ever since, and has certainly been of utility to me ; yet, though Solomon avers, that ' a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches,' I declare that I have never been so much benefited by mine, but that I would have chosen the latter by many degrees." He had some- times very hard usage, and was nearly exhausted by hunger and fatigue. Every small pittance of wage he took to his parents, who in return clothed him as they could. His only book was the Bible : the metrical version of the Psalms at the end he nearly learned by heart, and always liked. When fourteen he managed to save five shillings and buy a fiddle, which occupied all his leisure hours, and was his favourite amusement ever after. Sleeping always in stables or cow-houses, his sawing at night usually disturbed nobody but himself and the quadrupeds, JAMES HOGG 405 "whom I believed to be greatly delighted with my strains. At all events, they never complained, which the biped part of my neighbours did frequently, to my pity and utter indignation." At length, having passed the stage of farm drudge of all work, he arrived at the dignity of shepherd to Laidlaw of Willenslee, and here, in his eighteenth year, got his first perusal of Allan Ramsay's " Gentle Shepherd " and Blind Harry's " Life and. Adventures of Sir William Wallace," as modernised by Hamilton of Gilbertfield; both, until recently, almost as common in the cottages of the Scottish peasantry as the Bible itself. He was immoderately fond of them, but re- gretted deeply that they were not in prose, so as to be more intelligible, or even in the metre of the Psalms. In fact, he had nearly lost what little power of reading he had acquired— the Scottish dialect quite confounded him ; so that before he got to the end of a line, he had generally lost the rhyme of the pre- ceding ; " and if I came to a triplet, a thing of which I had no conception, I commonly read to the foot of the page without perceiving that I had lost the rhyme altogether. I thought the author had been straitened for rhymes, and had just made a part of it do as well as he could without them. Thus, after I got through both works, I found myself much in the same pre- dicament with the man of Eskdalemuir, who had borrowed Bailey's Dictionary from his neighbour. On returning it, the lender asked him what he thought of it. ' I dinna ken, man,' replied he ; * I have read it all through, but canna say that I under- stand it; it is the most confused book that ever I saw in my life ! ' . . . Mrs. Laidlaw also gave me 406 CRITICAL STUDIES sometimes the newspapers, which I pored on with great earnestness — beginning at the date, and reading straight on, through advertisements of houses and lands, balm of Gilead, and everything; and, after all, was often no wiser than when I began. ... I was about this time [1789] obliged to write a letter to my elder brother, and, having never drawn a pen for such a number of years, I had actually forgotten how to make sundry letters of the alphabet ; these I had either to print, or to patch up the words in the best way I could without them." At Whitsuntide, 1790, he hired himself to Laidlaw of Black House, on the Douglas Burn in Yarrow, with whom he served as shepherd for ten years, and who treated him rather like a son than a servant, and whom he only left to go and keep home with his parents at Ettrick House, when the eldest brother, William, having married, went to live elsewhere. Here he had the use of a pretty good library, con- taining Milton, Pope, Thomson, Young, the Spectator, several volumes of history and travel, and, of course, a considerable store of theological works. Nor were opportunities wanting for reading, meditation, and writing. The shepherd has at all seasons consider- able snatches of leisure ; and from the middle of July to the middle of September, when " summering the lambs," has but to move them from pasture to pas- ture, the dog doing nearly all the work. His chief associates here were his elder brother, Alexander Laidlaw, then a shepherd, afterwards farmer of Bower- bank, on the border of St. Mary's Lake ; and young William Laidlaw, the son of his employer, the author of " Lucy's Flitting," afterwards the steward, amanuJAMES HOGG 407 ensis, and friend of Scott, and for many years the only believer in Hogg's literary abilities, and his warm friend to the last. He thus describes our poet, not yet a poet in verse, on their first acquaintance : " About nineteen years of age, Hogg was rather above the middle height, of faultless symmetry of form ; he was of almost unequalled agility and swiftness. His face was then round and full, and of a ruddy com- plexion, with light blue eyes that beamed with gaiety, glee, and good-humour, the effect of the most exu- berant animal spirits. His head was covered with a singular profusion of light-brown hair, which he was obliged to wear coiled up under his hat. On enter- ing church on a Sunday, where he was all his life a regular attender, he used, on lifting his hat, to raise his right hand to assist a graceful shake of his head in laying back his long hair, which rolled down his back and fell below his loins. And every female eye was upon him, as, with light step, he ascended the stair to the gallery where he sat." Among the fore- most in all active and athletic exercises, well stocked with songs and ballads, even before he set about com- posing himself, playing the violin with heart and soul, handsome and good humoured, he was always wel- come company among the lads and lassies. In his old age he sang, with humour not unpathetic, of himself when young, and that fire- streaming Norse mane of his, in " The Cutting o' My Hair " : — " Mysell for speed had not my marrow Thro' Teviot, Eltrick, Tweed, and Yarrow ; Strang, straight, and swift lii<e winged arrow At market, tryst, or fair. 408 CRITICAL STUDIES But now I'm turn'd a hirplin carle, My back it's ta'en the cobbler's swirl, And deil a bodle I need birl For cuttin' o' my hair. " On Boswell's green was nane like me ; My hough was firm, my foot was free ; The locks that clustered o'er my bree Cost many a hizzie sair. The days are come I'm no sae crouse — An ingle-cheek— a cogie douce. An' fash nae shears about the house Wi' cuttin' o' my hair. " It was an awfu' head, I trow, It waur'd baith young and old to cow. An' burnin' red as heather-Iowe, Gar'd neeboors start and stare. The mair ye cut the mair it grew. An' aye the fiercer flamed its hue — I in my time hae paid enew For cuttin' o' my hair." He first began to write verses in the spring of 1 796, and for several years composed only songs and ballads for the lassies to sing in chorus ; and proud he was to hear them sung, and himself saluted as " Jamie the poeter." " I had no more difficulty in composing songs then than I have at present, and I was equally well pleased with them. But then the writing of them — that was a job ! I had no method of learning to write, save by following the Italian alphabet ; and, though I always stripped myself of coat and vest when I began to pen a song, yet my wrist took a cramp, so that I could rarely make above five or six lines at a sitting. Having very little time to spare from my flock, which was unruly enough, I folded and stitched JAMES HOGG 4O9 a few sheets of paper, which I carried in my pocket, I had no inkhorn, but, in place of it, I borrowed a small phial, which I fixed in a hole in the breast of my waistcoat, and having a cork fastened by a piece of twine, it answered the purpose fully as well. Whenever a leisure minute or two offered, I sat down and wrote out my thoughts as I found them. This is my invariable practice in writing prose. I cannot make out one sentence by study, without the pen in my hand to catch the ideas as they arise, and I never write two copies of the same thing. My manner of composing poetry is very different. Let the piece be of what length it will, I compose and correct it wholly in my mind, or on a slate, or ever I put pen to paper ; and then I write it down as fast as the A B C." "The first time I ever heard of Burns was in 1797, the year after he died. One day during that summer a half-daft man, named John Scott, came to me on the hill, and, to amuse me, repeated 'Tam O'Shanter.' I was delighted ! I was far more than delighted — I was ravished ! Before Jock Scott left me I could recite the poem from beginning to end, and it has remained my favourite ever since. He told me it was made by one Robert Burns, the sweetest poet that ever was born ; but that he was now dead, and that his place would never be supplied. . . . This formed a new epoch in my life. Every day I pondered on the genius and fate of Burns. I wept, and always thought with myself — what is to hinder me from suc- ceeding Burns? I, too, was born on the 25th of January, and I have much more time to read and compose than any ploughman could have, and can sing more old songs than ever ploughman could 4IO CRITICAL STUDIES in the world. But then I wept again, because I could not write. However, I resolved to be a poet, and to follow in the steps of Burns." II A little more must be given, and as much of it as possible in his own characteristic language, concerning the youth of Hogg ; not only because it is biographi- cally the most interesting part of his hfe, but because it illustrates the general life and character of that noble peasantry of which he is but a type ; a brilliant type in literature, no doubt, especially when account is taken of his uncommon lack of early schooling ; but scarcely a brilliant type — perhaps, indeed, rather below than above the average — in sound sense, clear intellect, sterling strength and depth of nature. Few contrasts appear more startling than that between the South Scottish (not to speak of the Highlanders) and South English peasantry, until the recent re-awaken- ing of these, hailed with astonishment by their most sanguine friends, so profoundly hopeless seemed the long torpor, the stolid degradation. The former were perchance quite as poor as the latter ; but their poverty was free from intellectual and moral squalidness, nor was the farm-servant socially separated from the farmer, so as to be looked down upon as a serf while not looked after as a serf, whose strength and well-being arc of not less value to the master than those of his horse and his ox. The spirit of the former was nourished and sustained by lofty memories, patriotic and religious ; the heart and the imagination were fed JAMES HOGG 4I I with chivalrous and romantic traditions, with ballads and songs of rich geniality, beauty, and humour — the latter were yet more brutally starved in mind and spirit than in body, with a poaching exploit for their highest romance of daring. The contrast came out conspicuously in their merry-meetings : those of the former merry indeed, with sweet song and swift dance; those of the latter a heavy, beery muddlement, whose dance was an uncouth lurching shuffle, whose song was the dreariest of long-drawn tuneless doggerel. Poor " ill-used race of men that till the soil ! " well might one of them declare at their Conference recently, " Mr. Arch has taught us more in five years than the parsons did in five hundred." Hogg, with his brother, the two Laidlaws, and a few others, " formed themselves into a sort of literary society, which met periodically, at one or other of the houses of its members, where each read an essay on a subject previously given out ; and after that, every essay was minutely investigated and criticised." In his interesting paper on " Storms," full-charged with personal experience, he tells us that one of these meetings was fixed for Friday, the 23rd January, 1794, and to be held at Entertrony, a wild and remote shieling at the very source of the Ettrick. " I had the honour of being named as preses — so, leaving the charge of my flock with my master, off I set from Blackhouse, on Thursday, a very ill day, with a flaming bombastical essay in my pocket, and my tongue trained to many wise and profound remarks, to attend this extraordinary meeting ; though the place lay at the distance of twenty miles, over the wildest hills in the kingdom. I remained that night 4>2 CRITICAL STUDIES with my parents at Ettrick House, and the next day again set out on my journey." However, he had to turn back with a heavy heart ; the terrible snowstorm was brewing which burst between one and two the next morning, and whose effects he so vividly de- scribes — the snowstorm in which seventeen shepherds perished and upwards of thirty others were carried home insensible, while the number of sheep lost far outwent any possibility of calculation. On the Beds of Esk alone, and the adjacent shores of the Solway Firth, there were found, when the flood after the storm subsided, 1840 sheep, 9 black cattle, 3 horses, 2 men, i woman, 45 dogs, and 180 hares, besides a number of meaner animals ; and whole flocks were buried deep in the snow, which lay a week. " The storm was universally regarded as a judgment sent by God for some heinous sin : " but whose, and what ? Despite the weather, the meeting was held at Enter- trony, and this shieling was in the very vortex of the storm, the very centre of the devastation ; and soon the rumour spread through the country-side that these poor young fellows of the mutual improvement society had been engaged in unholy rites, " had raised the deil among them like a great rough dog at the very time the tempest began, and were glad to draw cuts, and gie him ana o' their number to get quit o' him again. How every hair of my head, and inch of my frame, crept at hearing this! for I had a dearly beloved brother who was of the number, several full cousins and intimate acquaintances ; indeed, I looked upon the whole fraternity as my brethren, and considered myself involved in all their transactions. I could say no more in defence of the society's proceedings ; for, JAMES HOGG 413 to tell the truth, though I am ashamed to acknowledge it, I suspected that the allegation might be too true." There was a real ferment in the district for a time, and it is said that legal proceedings were meditated and attempted against the unhallowed evocators, the cause of such stupendous disasters. It may be mentioned here that in 1793 he had a bit of travel which considerably influenced him, having gone with a flock of his master's sheep to Strathfillan, in Perthshire, and viewed the wild grandeur of the mountains and glens of the West Highlands. Here is another bit of peasant Ufe worth recording; as Mr. Thomson says, " It was the third Eclogue of Virgil starting into life among the braes of Ettrick — it was Menalcas, Damoetus, and Palaemon preparing to pipe over again, with the stake of a kid against a bicker of beech-wood!" It had better be given in Hogg's own words: "In the spring of 1798 [Mr. Thomson makes it 1796], as Alexander Laidlaw, my brother William, and myself were resting on the side of a hill above Ettrick Church, I happened to drop some hints of my superior talents in poetry. William said that as to putting words into rhyme it was a thing he never could do to any sense ; but that if I liked to enter the lists with him in blank verse, he would take me up for any bet I pleased. Laidlaw declared he would venture likewise. This being settled, and the judges named, I accepted the chal- lenge ; but a dispute arising respecting the subject, we were obliged to resort to the following mode of decision. Ten subjects having been named, the lots were cast, and that which fell to be elucidated by our matchless pens was the stars ! — things which we knew 414 CRITICAL STUDIES little more about than merely that they were burning and twinkling over us, and to be seen every night when the clouds were away. I began with high hopes and great warmth, and in a week declared my theme ready for the comparison ; Laidlaw announced his next week ; but my brother made us wait a full half- year, and then, on being urged, presented his un- finished. The arbiters were then dispersed, and the cause was never properly judged ; but those to whom they were shown rather gave the preference to my brother's. This is certain, that it was far superior to either of the other two in the sublimity of the ideas ; but, besides being in bad measure, it was often bom- bastical. The title of it was ' Urania's Tour ; ' that of Laidlaw's 'Astronomical Thoughts '; and that of mine ' Reflections on a View of the Nocturnal Heavens.' " The magniloquent titles of these peasant lads are delicious. "In 1 80 1 [when he was twenty-nine according to his own account, or thirty -one according to Mr. Thomson], believing I was then become a grand poet, I sapiently determined on publishing a pamphlet, and appealing to the world at once. This noble resolution was no sooner taken than executed, a proceeding much of a piece with many of my subsequent trans- actions. Having attended the Edinburgh market one Monday with a number of sheep for sale, and being unable to dispose of them all, I put the remainder into a park until the market on Wednesday. Not knowing how to pass the interim, it came into my head that I would write a poem or two from my memory and get them printed. The thought had no sooner struck me than it was put in practice ; and I JAMES HOGG 415 was obliged to select, not the best poems, but those that I remembered best. I wrote several of these during my short stay, and gave them all to a person to print at my expense ; and having sold off my sheep on Wednesday morning, I returned to the Forest. I saw no more of my poems until I received word that there were 1000 copies thrown off. I knew no more about publishing than the man of the moon ; and the only motive that influenced me was the gratification of my vanity by seeing my works in print. But no sooner did the first copy come to hand than my eyes were open to the folly of my conduct ; for, on com- paring it with the MS. which I had at home, I found many of the stanzas omitted, others misplaced, and typographical errors abounding in every page." Having thus launched him on the still-vext sea of literature, let me note as briefly as possible the prin- cipal events of the remainder of his after-life, inter- spersing and adding a few characteristic anecdotes and sketches of and by some of his well-known con- temporaries. In the autumn of 1802 [Hogg says summer of 1801], he first met Walter Scott ; who, as the "Shirrah" of Selkirkshire, was a little king in the Forest, and who was then making a " raid " in the wilds of Yarrow to collect old songs and ballads for the third volume of the " Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border." Hogg re- cords graphically his dare-devil riding and boating (leistering kippers in Tweed), and instances of his marvellous memory. Hogg's mother delighted him by chanting the ballad of " Old Maitlan'," and when he asked her whether she thought it had ever been printed, the outspoken dame replied : " Oo, na, na, 4l6 CRITICAL STUDIES sir, it was never printed i' the world. . . . But mair nor that, except * George Warton ' and 'James Steward,' there was never ane o' my sangs prentit till ye prentit them yoursell, an' ye hae spoilt them a'thegither. They war made for singing, an' no for reading ; an' they're nouther right spelled nor right setten down." " Heh-heh-heh ! Take ye that, Mr. Scott," said I -aid- law ; and Scott laughed heartily. After two or three journeys to the Highlands and Hebrides, Hogg with another took a sheep farm in the island of Harris ; but the tacksman's right to it was disputed, and our shepherd lost by the affair the j£2oo he had saved during his ten years' service at Blackhouse. Fortunately he was of a most buoyant nature. He went and sojourned among the lakes of Cumberland; then cheerfully hired himself, in 1804, as shepherd to Mr. Harkness, of Mitchel-Slack, in Nithsdale, herding on the great solitary hill of Queens- berry, again in a ragged coat and barefooted. Hither came Allan Cunningham, then apprentice to a stone- mason, with a much older brother, on a pilgrimage of hero-worship ; just as Allan once walked all the way to Edinburgh, merely to catch a glimpse of Scott in the street. Hogg saw the two approaching, and wondered who they could be ; and when the elder, James Cunningham, asked whether he was himself, " I answered cautiously in the affirmative, for I was afraid they were come to look after me with an ac- cusation regarding some of the lasses. The younger stood at a respectful distance, as if I had been the Duke of Queensberry, instead of a ragged servant lad [age about 34] herding sheep. The other seized my hand and said, ' Well, then, sir, I am glad to see you. JAMES HOGG 417 There is not a man in Scotland whose hand I am prouder to hold.' ... He continued : ' This is my brother Allan, the greatest admirer that you have on earth, and himself a young aspiring poet of some promise. You will be so kind as to excuse this intrusion of ours on your solitude, for, in truth, I could get no peace either night or day with Allan till I consented to come and see you.'" Whence we may see that the intense hero-worship of Carlyle is not a distinctive personal passion, but rather indi- genous to his native soil. Allan was then "a dark ungainly youth of about eighteen, with a boardly frame for his age, and strongly marked, manly features — the very model of Burns, and exactly such a man. Had they been of the same age, it would not have been easy to distinguish the one from the other." Here, without detracting Cun- ningham, I venture to differ from Hogg, opining that the living physiognomy of Burns was as unique in its fiery splendour as his genius. Hogg went down to Allan ; they had a firm hand-grip, and from that moment were friends, being both enthusiasts for the same things. Hogg goes on : "I had a small bothy upon the hill, in which I took my breakfast and dinner on wet days, and rested myself. It was so small that we had to walk in on all-fours; and when we were in we could not get up our heads any way but in a sitting posture. It was exactly my own length, and on the one side I had a bed of rushes, which served likewise as a seat ; on this we all three sat down, and there we spent the whole afternoon, and I am sure a happier group of three never met on the hill of Queensberry. Allan brightened up 2 U 4l8 CRITICAL STUDIES prodigiously after he got into the dark bothy, re- peating all his early pieces of poetry, and part of his brother's [Thomas Mouncey Cunningham] to me. The two partook heartily, and without reserve, of my scrip and bottle of sweet milk ; and the elder had a strong bottle with him — I have forgot whether it was brandy or rum, but I remember it was excessively good, and helped to keep up our spirits to a late hour." Hogg after this often visited them at Dal- swinton, and he and Allan were firm friends to the last. When, in 1810, Cromek brought out the "Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song," Hogg at once declared that Allan Cunningham was the author of all that was beautiful in the work, and found Scott decidedly of the same opinion; "and he wished to God we had that valuable and original young man [then about 25; born 1785] fairly out of Cromek's hands again." Meanwhile, excited by the " Minstrelsy," Hogg had been gathering old Border traditions and turning many of them into new-old ballads. These Scott warmly praised, and the next time Hogg went to Edinburgh with sheep he waited on Scott to ask his influence toward their publication. Scott invited him and Laidlaw to dinner in Castle Street. The good shepherd was quite aware that his manners were rustical and not urbane, but thought he could never do wrong to copy the lady of the house ; so, finding Mrs. Scott, then in deHcate health, reclining on a sofa in the drawing-room, he made his best bow and stretched himself at full length on another sofa oppo- site hers. Lockhart, who tells the story in his "Life of Scott," goes on : "As his dress at this period was JAMES HOGG 419 precisely that in which any ordinary herdsman attends cattle to the market, and as his hands, moreover, bore most legible marks of a recent sheep-smearing, the lady of the house did not observe with perfect equa- nimity the novel usage to which her chintz was ex- posed. The shepherd, however, remarked nothing of all this — dined heartily and drank freely, and by jest, anecdote, and song, afforded plentiful merriment to the more civilised part of the company. As the liquor operated, his familiarity increased and strength- ened ; from ' Mr. Scott ' he advanced to ' Sherra,' and thence to 'Scott,' 'Walter,' and ' VVattie '—until, at supper, he fairly convulsed the whole party by ad- dressing Mrs. Scott as 'Charlotte,'" Here be it noted once for all, though the remark scarcely apphes to the preceding quotation, save to the word "civi- lised," where "polished" would have been not only kindlier but more accurate, that Lockhart throughout speaks of Hogg in a carping, depreciatory style, which does far more discredit to the writer than to his sub- ject. Large-natured, genial men of genius, like Scott and Wilson, could easily condone the shepherd's rough oddities and all the petulances of his most frank vanity ; but Lockhart was neither a genius nor large-natured — he was merely very clever, narrow, and bitter, "the scorpion that stings the faces of men," as he is termed by himself or his associates in the " Chaldee Manuscript," for he not only wrote but drew keen caricatures.*
- Whether or not his own sponsor, he was rather proud of the
name. Thus in a letter from London to Wilson (March, '44), he writes, disgusted with the bishops: "I forget if [the sharp Quarterly editor should Itave written whether'] it is Swift or Scorpio who sang: — Moreover, he had a real love and reverence for at least one man, his father-in-law, Scott, and in his last mention of Hogg in the "Life," he affirms "he did not follow his best benefactor until he had insulted his dust." For myself, I have met with nothing to sustain this charge, which probably refers to Hogg's "Domestic Manners and Private Life of Sir Walter Scott," published in 1834; a subject which, as Mr. Thomson suggests, Lockhart, as Scott's literary executor, seems to have regarded as exclusively his own; however, it is not hard to conceive how Lockhart's natural acerbity must have been increased by the insult, real or imaginary, to the one idol of his mind not given to worship. Perhaps the two brothers Chambers will be accepted as pretty shrewd business- like judges of character; and thus they speak, after the death of Hogg ("Memoir of Robert Chambers, with Autobiographic Reminiscences of William")—William: "I saw him first at my brother's house in 1830 [Hogg then 60; William 30; Robert 28], and was much amused with his blunt simplicity of character and good nature. It did not seem as if he had the slightest veneration for any one more than another whom he addressed, no matter what was their rank and position." Which lack of reverence for rank and
[2] JAMES HOGG 42 1 position — not, mark, of real reverence for genius and worth — I find far more singular than deplorable. Robert : " While thus recalling, for the amusement of an idle hour, some of the whimsical scenes in which we have met James Hogg [of which something hereafter], let it not be supposed that we think of him only with a regard to the homely manners, the social good-nature, and the unimportant foibles by which he was characterised. The world amidst which he moved was but too apt, especially of late years, to regard him in these lights alone, forgetting that be- neath his rustic plaid there beat one of the kindest and most unperverted of hearts, while his bonnet covered the head from which had sprung ' Kilmeny ' and ' Donald Macdonald.' " At the close of 1803 Hogg writes to Scott, apolo- gising for getting half-seas over that night at Castle Street, " for I cannot, for my life, recollect what passed when it was late ; " expressing his gratitude for what he did recollect, "the filial [the shepherd doubtless rtieans paternal] injunction you gave at parting, cautioning me against being ensnared by the loose women in town," and " the utter abhorrence I inherit at those seminaries of lewdness ; " speaking of his proposed publication of the "Mountain Bard," which he dedicated to Scott ; asking whether his own graven image on the first leaf would be any recom- mendation ; and, a rich joke strangely worded, asking also "if we might front the songs with a letter to you, giving an impartial account of my manner of life and education, and which if you pleased to tran- scribe, putting He for I." Scott, of course, could not go quite so far as this, but did all he could with the 422 CRITICAL STUDIES publishers and to procure influential subscribers, of whom above 500 were secured; Constable (who brought out the work) giving Hogg a half-guinea copy for each, in addition to a small sum of money ; he likewise gave him ^86 for " that celebrated work, ' Hogg on Sheep,' and I was now richer than ever I was before." His mode of dealing with his sub- scribers was characteristic : "I had no regular plan of delivering those copies that were subscribed for, but sent them simply to the people, intending to take their money in return ; but, though some paid me double, triple, and even ten times tha price, about one third of my subscribers thought proper to take the copies for nothing, never paying for them to this day." HI " Master of nearly ^300, I went perfectly mad." He took a pasture farm for a great deal more than it was worth, and added to it another, the two needing about ten times his capital. Here he blundered and struggled on for three years, then let his creditors take all, without getting from them any settlement. " None of these matters had the least effect in depress- ing my spirits — I was generally rather most cheer- ful when most unfortunate." He would go back to herding; but all Ettrick looked upon him askance as a ne'er-do-weel, reckless, and unstable, and none even of his old employers would take him back. So in February, 1810, he went to Edinburgh, in utter desperation, determined to push his fortune as a literary man. Constable, reluctant but friendly, JAMES HOGG 423 published his " Forest Minstrel," which had small success ; and all that Hogg got by it was a hundred guineas from Harriet, Countess of Dalkeith, after- wards Duchess of Buccleuch, of whom and her hus- band, Charles, the fourth duke, we learn so much in the " Life of Scott." Our daunted rustic thereupon resolved to educate the benighted society of the capital in the belles leltres, morals, and criticism ! In September, 1810, he began, and actually continued for a year, the Spy, a weekly journal with this modest intent, with some casual assistance from others, but the greater part written by himself; and, stranger still, the paper paid its expenses, until certain indecorums set all the literary ladies against it and shocked off many subscribers. During this time he was supported by an old Ettrick friend, then a thriving hat manufac- turer — "a man of cultivated mind and generous dis- position," says Lockhart ; " a friend of my father's, a man of good judgment, and refined and elegant pur- suits," says Wilson's daughter in the " Memoir " — Mr. John Grieve, who had firm faith in the genius of Hogg as well as great delight in his company, who kept him in his own house the first six months, and whose partner, a Mr. Scott, became as firmly attached as himself to the simple poet. " They suffered me to want for nothing, either in money or clothes ; I did not even need to ask these. Mr. Grieve was always the first to notice my wants, and prevent them. In short, they would not suffer me to be obliged to any- one but themselves for the value of a farthing ; and without this support I could never have fought my way in Edinbro'. I was fairly starved into it, and if it had not been for Messrs. Grieve and Scott, would, . 424 CRITICAL STUDIES in a very short time, have been starved out of it again." And we may be sure that their practical business common-sense controlled and extinguished many a wild impracticable scheme of his. Early in 1813 he published the "Queen's Wake," which includes "Kilmeny" and others of his best and most popular pieces. No one had seen it in MS., and the day after it came out Hogg walked about the streets, read its title in the booksellers' windows, and was like a man between death and life, waiting for the verdict of the jury. In the High Street an Ettrick man, rough but sagacious, William Dunlop, crossed over to him, and thus cheered him up : " Ye useless poetical deevil that ye're ! what hae ye been doing a' this time?" — "What doing, Willie ! what do you mean ? " — " Ye hae been pestering us wi' four- penny papers and daft shilly-shally sangs, an' bletherin' an' speakin' i' the Forum [a debating society], an' yet had stuff in ye to produce a thing like this ! " — " Ay, Willie, have you seen my new beuk ! " — " Ay, faith, that I have, man ; and it has cheated me out o' a night's sleep. Ye hae hit the right nail on the head now. Yon's the very thing, sir." — "I'm very glad to hear you say sae, Willie ; but what do ye ken about poems ? " — " Never ye mind how I ken ; I gie ye my word for it, yon's the thing that will do. If ye hadna made a fool o' yoursel' afore, man, yon wad hae sold better than ever a book sold. 'Od ! wha wad hae thought there was as muckle in that sheep's-head o' yours?" And Willie went away, laughing and mis- calling Hogg over his shoulder. Two editions went off quickly, and a third was prepared, when his pub- lisher, a young man with little capital and less influJAMES HOGG 425 ence, went bankrupt ; and the poor shepherd lost all the profits on which he had relied for subsistence and the payment of some old farming debts. This failure introduced him to Blackwood, who was one of the trustees of the bankrupt's estate, and who helped to secure for Hogg about half of the third edition (the other half, he says, had been got rid of somehow in a week), and sold it for him on commission, and ultimately paid him more than double of what he was to have received from the first publisher. About this time he made the acquaintance of Wilson, whose " Isle of Palms " he had extolled in the Scottish Review, and whom he was exceedingly anxious to meet. "All I could learn of him was, that he was a man from the mountains in Wales, or the West of England, with hair like eagles' feathers and nails like birds' claws, a red beard, and an un- common degree of wildness in his looks." Hogg at length wrote inviting him to dine, Wilson came, and the two with Grieve had a jolly evening together. As Hogg modestly puts it : "I found him so much a man according to my own heart, that for many years we were seldom twenty-four hours asunder when in town." Hogg went and spent a month with him at EUeray, and on his way thither made the personal acquaintance of Southey. Hogg, putting up for the night at an inn in Keswick, sent a note to Greta Hall ; Southey came to him, and made him spend two days at the Hall. Let Hogg himself speak : " Before we had been ten minutes together my heart was knit to Southey, and every hour thereafter my esteem for him increased. . . . But I was a grieved as well as an astonished man, when I found that he refused all 426 CRITICAL STUDIES participation in my beverage of rum punch. For a poet to refuse his glass was to me a phenomenon ; and I confess I doubted in my own mind, and doubt to this day, if perfect sobriety and transcendent poetical genius can exist together. In Scotland I am sure they cannot. With regard to the English, I shall leave them to settle that among themselves, as they have little that is worth drinking." There's a noble Scottish note for us ! And the justice of Hoggs literary opinion is sustained by the fact that all Southey's great epics are dead as cofifin-nails. As to his bibulous judgment, it concerns "those wiio labour under the disadvantage of having been born on the south side of the Tweed " to controvert it if they can ; let them but send liberal samples of their best in every kind to the present writer, and he will give an impartial verdict. In these years Hogg generally had a summer tour in the Highlands, tours which well served him in his authorship. He went on thenceforth writing poems, tales, and sketches, which need not be here particu- larised, as they are easily accessible in the edition noted at the beginning of these articles. In the spring of 1814, having no home wherein to shelter his parents, each over eighty-four years of age, he wrote to his generous patroness, Harriet, Duchess of Buc- cleuch, indirectly asking for a farm; she kept his want in mind, but died in August ; the good Duke then said to Scott : *' My friend, I must now consider this poor man's case as her legacy," and presented him with the small farm of Altrive Lake, in the wilds of Yarrow, The Duke's letter said : " The rent shall be nominal;" in fact no rent was ever mentioned or paid. Hogg had now a "cosie bield," and, with a little more prudence and a little less simple good-nature, might have had a comfortable livelihood for the rest of his days. Having married an excellent wife in 1820, a young family grew around him, and he extended his farmiing operations by leasing Mount-Benger for nine years, losing more than £2000 on it before he got free. Then his literary engagements and undertakings, though they brought him very considerable sums of money (he reckons £750 in a certain two years, besides small sums in cash), probably cost him much, by distracting his attention from his farms and carrying him frequently to Edinburgh. Last, and worst of all, those profitless pests the idle notoriety-hunters, were devastators not only of his time but also of his substance; for, there being no inn in the neighbourhood, they made his poor cottage, which he had to enlarge, their inn—an inn without charges, abusing his hospitality most damnably, after the manner of their kind. A friend once going to dine with the family, no one else to be present, counted fourteen others feeding there before the day was done. The Shepherd, accompanying a friend one evening, looked back on his home, buzzing with company, and said: "My bit house is e'en now just like a bee-skep, fu' o' happy leevin' creatures—and nae doubt, like a bee-skep, it will hae to cast some day, when it can haud its inhabitants nae langer." To the question of Allan Cunningham, "What is your pen about now, Mr. Hogg?" he answered, "Pen! it might as well be in the goose's wing; I cannot get writing any for the visits of my friends: I'm never a day without some." And if he could not 428 CRITICAL STUDIES get writing any we may be sure he could not get farm- ing much, through these same admirable "friends," the devouring locusts borne on the winds of vanity. But I anticipate. While waiting to take over Altrive, he devised how to get capital for working it, and his devise was to obtain pieces from the most popular poets of the day, and publish them in a volume. He doubtless would have cheerfully given a piece to help any brother bard in similar case. Some gave, others promised but did not give ; and in the end he wrote all the "Poetic Mirror" himself, under the names of the various poets. Scott, who had an aversion to joint-stock authorship, and one of whose favourite proverbs was " Every herring should hang by its own head," firmly refused to take part in the first scheme ; Hogg, in a furious fit of childish rage, wrote to him, beginning " Damned Sir," and ending "Believe me, Sir, yours with disgust," &c. The great-hearted took no notice; but Hogg, with that candour which redeems all his faults, tells us how when he lay dangerously ill with an inflammatory fever (the result of five or six weeks of the Baccha- nalian " Right and Wrong Club "), Scott called every day on returning from the Parliament House to inquire after him, and enjoined Mr. Grieve to let no pecuniary consideration whatever prevent his having the best medical advice, "for I shall see it paid;" and further enjoined that Hogg should not be told of this. " I would fain have called, but I knew not how I would be received ; " " and this, too," says Hogg, "after I had renounced his friendship, and told him that I held both it and his literary talents in contempt ! " Hogg learnt all this some time after JAMES HOGG 429 by accident, and, vehement in penitence as in wrath, wrote to his outraged patron and friend : " I desire not a renewal of our former intimacy, for haply, after what I have written, your family would not suffer it ; but I wish it to be understood that, when we meet by chance, we might shake hands and speak to one another as old acquaintances, and likewise that we may exchange a letter occasionally, for I find there are many things which I yearn to communicate to you, and the tears rush to my eyes when I consider that I may not." Scott's answer was a brief note telling him to think no more of the affair, and to come to breakfast the next morning. Hogg went, and more than once tried to come to a full expla- nation, but Scott always parried and evaded and baffled him, and was his best friend to the last. Hogg tells us further : " Mr. Wilson once drove me also into an ungovernable rage by turning a long and elaborate poem of mine on ' Field of Waterloo ' into ridicule, on learning which I sent him a letter which I thought was a tickler. There was scarcely an abusive epithet in our language that I did not call him by. My letter, however, had not the desired effect ; the opprobrious names proved only a source of amusement to Wilson, and he sent me a letter of explanation and apology, which knit my heart closer to him than ever." Hogg claimed " the honour of being the beginner, and almost sole instigator of BlacMvood's Magazine" admitting that when he first mentioned the plan to Old Ebony, that enterprising publisher said that he had been for some time revolving a similar scheme. Hogg undoubtedly originated the "Chaldee Manu430 CRITICAL STUniES script," of which, as it appeared, Ferrier gives him about forty verses (though he sent many more), the rest being mainly due to Wilson and Lockhart. Hogg had many a tiff with Blackwood and his asso- ciates, who put the Shepherd's name to all sorts of things he never wrote, and who, Lockhart especially, were continually mystifying him ; and he had another quarrel with Wilson, i.e., a quarrel all on his own side, about the way in which he was exhibited in the "Noctes," though these, by the notoriety they gave him, must have immensely increased his literary earnings. The " Chaldee MS." Hogg always looked upon as an innocent joke, and could never under- stand why people got in a rage about it. In 1832 Hogg visited London to arrange for a complete edition of his works, and stayed there three months. He was of course lionised more than enough ; and among other things entertained at a public dinner, at which some two hundred noble and distinguished persons did him honour ; but was most pleased because the day was the anniversary of Burns' birth, and two sons of Burns sat on the left of the president (Sir John Malcolm), and after dinner he brewed punch in the punch-bowl of Burns, brought from Paisley for the occasion. The projected edition, to be illustrated by George Cruickshanks (so I find it spelt), came to grief with the first volume, through the failure of the publisher, who failed a second time with another series entrusted to him by the kind- hearted, indiscreet Shepherd. On his return he was welcomed with a public dinner at Peebles, his good friend John Wilson in the chair. His vigorous con- stitution was now breaking up; and at length, after JAMES HOGG 43 I a severe illness of four weeks, he died on the 21st of November, 1835. He was buried in the churchyard of Ettrick, near to which he was born ; a plain stone, with name and dates and harp, shows his grave. He left a widow with one son and four daughters, the children all young, and very little for their subsistence. What private beneficence may have done for the poor family, who by their husband and father had such strong claims on the national gratitude, I know not ; but eighteen* years elapsed before a royal pension was granted to Mrs. Hogg — giving her and her young ones ample time to perish of starvation ! In i860 a monument was erected to him midway between the loch of the Lowas and St. Mary's Loch. "There, upon a square pedestal, about ten feet in height, and adorned with characteristic emblems and inscriptions, sits the figure of the poet upon an oak-root, his head slightly depressed towards St. Mary's Loch, which he loved so well, and on the banks of which he was so often visited with his best inspiration, while his favourite dog Hector is couched lovingly at his feet." Even Lockhart, embittered beyond his usual bitter- ness, terms him " perhaps the most remarkable man that ever wore the maud of a shepherd ; " and says of him when Scott first met him in 1801 : "As yet his naturally kind and simple character had not been exposed to any of the dangerous flatteries of the world; his heart was pure — his enthusiasm buoyant as that of a happy child j and well as Scott knew that reflection, sagacity, wit, and wisdom were scattered abundantly among the humblest rangers of these pastoral solitudes, there was here a depth and a brightness that filled him with wonder, combined with 432 CRITICAL STUDIES a quaintness of humour, and a thousand Uttle touches of absurdity, which afforded him more entertainment, as I have heard him say, than the best comedy that ever set the pit in a roar." The national monument came somewhat earUer than Christopher North, in 1824, predicted : " My beloved shepherd, some half- century hence your effigy will be seen on some bonny green knowe in the forest, with its honest face look- ing across St. Mary's Loch, and up towards the Grey Mare's Tail, while by moonlight all your own fairies will weave a dance round its pedestal." In the " Memoir of Robert Chambers," already cited, an article is reprinted from Chambers's Journal (started in 1832), entitled "The Candlemaker Row Festival," written by him soon after the death of the Shepherd, and giving some pleasant particulars con- cerning him when about sixty years old. I select and condense from this the following : Hogg in his latter days visited Edinburgh for a week or two once or twice a year ; nominally staying at Watson's Selkirk and Peebles Inn, in Candlemaker Row, really dining, supping, and breakfasting with his many friends. These were of all stations, from Scott and the Black- wood men to humble shopkeepers, poor clerks, and poorer poets ; and amongst all the Shepherd was the same plain, good-humoured, unsophisticated man as he had been thirty years when tending his flocks among his native hills. (This agrees not with Lock- hart's implication ; and I would here rather take the word of the printer than of his offended high mighti- ness of the Quarterly.) Feeling uneasy that his residence at Watson's was thus reduced to a mere affair of lodging, he made up for it by gathering on JAMES HOGG 433 the last night of his stay a very multitude to sup with him, of all ranks and ages and coats, of course for the good of the house at the expense of himself. In the forenoon, making his farewell calls, he would mention incidentally that two or three were to meet him at night, at nine, and that the friend to whom he was speaking, with any of his friends, would be welcome. All the warning Watson got was a hint from Hogg as he went out that twae-three lads had been speaking of supping there that night. Watson knew of old what twae-three meant, and laid out his largest room with a double range of tables, enough for sixty or seventy guests. Hogg stood in the corner of one of the largest bedrooms to receive his company; each friend as he brought in his train trying to introduce each separately, parried by Hogg with a '* Ou ay, we'll be a' weel acquent by-and-by." Having filled chairs, bed, and standing space, another and yet another bed- room had to be thrown open for the reception. About ten, when nearly the whole house seemed " panged," supper was announced, and a grand rush ensued. The local officials took the places of honour; the Commissioner of Police for the ward — a very great man — in the chair, the Bailie and the Moderator of the Society of High Constables (what swelling titles the bodies have !) croupiers. The rest seat themselves as they can, and many are left seatless till a new table is rigged up along the side of the room. A mixed company ! Meal-dealers from the Grassmarket, gen- teel young men from the Parliament House, printers from the Cowgate, booksellers from the New Town ; advocates, grocers, bakers, shop-lads from the Lucken- booths; a young probationer, doubting whether he 2 £ 434 CRITICAL STUDIES ought to be there, and dreading a late sitting ; young swells with eyeglasses, and among them a rough type of a horse-dealer, shouting out full-bodied jokes to a crony about thirteen men off on the same side; Selkirkshire store-farmers, Mr. Watson himself, and nearly all the people staying in his house at the time. Supper over, the chairman gave, with all the honours, the approved toasts. King, Royal Family, Army, Navy ; then the toast of the evening, with a genuine bumper, and such eloquent eulogy as this : " Mr. Hogg is an old acquaintance of mine [let us hope only at such merry meetings], and I have read his works. He has had the merit of raising himself from a humble station to a high place amongst the literary men of his country. When I look around me, gentlemen, at the respectable company here assembled —when I see so many met to do honour [at his expense] to one who was once but a shepherd on a lonely hill — I cannot but feel, gentlemen, that much has been done by Mr. Hogg, and that it is something fine to be a poet. (Great applause.) " The toast drunk enthusiastically, the Shepherd made his usual acknowledgment : " Gentlemen, I was ever proud to be called a poet, but I never was so proud as I am this nicht," &c. There is now for two hours no more of Hogg; the municipal bodies have the ball among them, and no one else can get a kick at it. The Chairman gives the Magistrates of Edinburgh ; the Bailie answers for them, and gives the Commissioners of Police; the Chairman answers for them, and gives some other officials ; every public body in the city, from the University to the Potterow Friendly Society, is toasted and responded for by one and another. Then come JAMES HOGG 435 individuals : a croupier proposes the Chairman, the Chairman proposes the croupiers ; the other croupier proposes the ex-resident commissioner of pohce for the next ward. Amidst the storm of civic toasts a little thickish man, with a faded velvet waistcoat and strong-ale nose, rises solemnly and reminds the company of a remarkable omission: "Some, per- haps, are not aware of an incident of a very interest- ing nature which has taken place in the family of one of our worthy croupiers this morning [him of the swelling title, Moderator of the Society of High Constables]. It has not yet been announced in the papers : I need only say, ' Mrs. Gray, of a daughter.' (Cheering from all parts of the house.) On such an occasion, gentlemen, you will not think me un- reasonable if I ask you to get up, and drink, with all the honours, a bumper to Mrs. Gray and her sweet and interesting charge." (Drunk with wild joy by all present.) Hitherto the literary and professional friends of Hogg have been overwhelmed and stuffed by the roaring, ramping deluge of shopkeeping Bumbledom. About two, after the second reckoning has been called and paid by general contribution. Heaven be praised ! the Chairman retires, and a young advocate takes his place; then the croupiers and other citizenly men glide off; the mirth increases, the thinned company gathers in a serried cluster of intense fun and good- fellowism around the chair. Hogg now for the first time shines out in all his lustre ; tells stories, sings, and makes all life and glee. " Laird o' Lamington," the " Women Folk," and " Paddy O'Rafferty," he gives with irresistible force and fire. About this time, however, the reporters (i.e., R. C.) with it is not in our power to state any further of the Candlemaker Row Festival.
And so farewell to the sweet-voiced, warm-hearted Shepherd.
- ↑ "The Works of the Ettrick Shepherd. A new Edition; with a Memoir of the Author, by the Rev. Thomas Thomson [and Hogg's Autobiography and Reminiscences and Illustrative Engravings]." Two vols. Blackie and Son; Lndon, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. 1865-66
"The Jacobite Relics of Scotland; being the Songs, Airs, and Legends of the Adherents to the House of Stuart." Collected and illustrated by James Hogg. Reprinted from the Original Edition. First and Second Series. Two vols. Paisley: Alex. Gardner. - ↑
" 'Powers Episcopal, we know,
Must from some Apostle flow;
But I'll never be so rude as
Ask how many draw from Judas,' "Lockhart to Swift is indeed as a scorpion to a fiery dragon, but the epigram might have been thrown off by the great master ; although it may be objected that Judas, though a disciple, was not in the ordinary sense an apostle; but epigrams and Macaulay antitheses are chartered libertines as to fact and truth.