Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/437

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