Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/450

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