Volume Ii Part 2 (2/2)

As the committing of his thoughts to paper became a less irksome occupation, Hogg began, with commendable prudence, to attempt composition in prose; and in evidence of his success, he had the satisfaction to find short essays which he sent to the _Scots Magazine_ regularly inserted in that periodical. Poetry was cultivated at the same time with unabated ardour, though the bard did not yet venture to expose his verses beyond the friendly circle of his a.s.sociates in Ettrick Forest. Of these, the most judicious was young Laidlaw; who, predicting his success, urged him to greater carefulness in composition. There was another stimulus to his improvement. Along with several shepherds in the forest, who were of studious inclinations, he formed a literary society, which proposed subjects for compet.i.tion in verse, and adjudged encomiums of approbation to the successful compet.i.tors. Two spirited members of this literary conclave were Alexander Laidlaw, a shepherd, and afterwards tenant of Bowerhope, on the border of St Mary's Lake, and the poet's elder brother, William, a man of superior talent. Both these individuals subsequently acquired considerable distinction as intelligent contributors to the agricultural journals. For some years, William Hogg had rented the sheep-farm of Ettrick-house, and afforded shelter and support to his aged and indigent parents. In the year 1800, he resigned his lease to the poet, having taken another farm on the occasion of his marriage. James now established himself, along with his parents, at Ettrick-house, the place of his nativity, after a period of ten years' connexion with Mr Laidlaw of Blackhouse, whose conduct towards him, to use his own words, had proved ”much more like that of a father than a master.” It was during the course of a visit to Edinburgh in the same year, that an accidental circ.u.mstance gave a wider range to his poetical reputation. Spending an evening with a party of friends in the Crown Tavern, he was solicited for a song. He sung the last which he had composed; it was ”Donald Macdonald.” The reception was a roar of applause, and one of the party offered to get it set to music and published. The song was issued anonymously from the music establishment of Mr John Hamilton of Edinburgh. Within a few months it was sung in every district of the kingdom; and, at a period when the apprehended invasion of Napoleon filled the hearts of the nation with anxiety, it was hailed as an admirable stimulus to patriotism. In the preparation of the ”Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,” Scott had been largely indebted to the intelligent peasantry of the south. He was now engaged in making collections for his third volume, and had resolved to examine the pastoral inhabitants of Ettrick and Yarrow. Procuring a note of introduction from his friend Leyden to young Laidlaw, Scott arrived at Blackhouse during the summer of 1801, and in his native home formed the acquaintance of his future steward. To his visitor, Laidlaw commended Hogg as the best qualified in the forest to a.s.sist him in his researches; and Scott, who forthwith accompanied Laidlaw to Ettrick-house, was more than gratified by an interview with the shepherd-bard. ”He found,” writes his biographer, ”a brother poet, a true son of nature and genius, hardly conscious of his powers.... 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; 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 a quaintness of humour, and a thousand little touches of absurdity, which afforded him more entertainment, as I have often heard him say, than the best comedy that ever set the pit in a roar.” Scott remained several days in the forest, daily accompanied in his excursions by Hogg and Laidlaw, both of whom rapidly warmed in his regard. From the recitation of the Shepherd's mother, he obtained important and interesting accessions to his Minstrelsy.

With the exception of the song of ”Donald Macdonald,” Hogg had not yet published verses. His _debut_ as an author was sufficiently unpropitious. Shortly after Scott's visit, he had been attending the Monday sheep-market in Edinburgh, and being unable to dispose of his entire stock, was necessitated to remain in the city till the following Wednesday. Having no acquaintances, he resolved to employ the interval in writing from recollection several of his poems for the press. Before his departure, he gave the pieces to a printer; and shortly after, he received intimation that a thousand copies were ready for delivery. On comparing the printed sheets with his MSS. at Ettrick, he had the mortification of discovering ”many of the stanzas omitted, others misplaced, and typographical errors abounding in every page.” The little _brochure_, imperfect as it was, sold rapidly in the district; for the Shepherd had now a considerable circle of admirers, and those who had ridiculed his verse-making, kept silent since Scott's visit to him. A copy of the pamphlet is preserved in the Advocates' Library; it consists of sixty-two pages octavo, and is ent.i.tled, ”Scottish Pastorals, Poems, Songs, &c., mostly written in the Dialect of the South, by James Hogg.

Edinburgh: printed by John Taylor, Gra.s.smarket, 1801. Price One s.h.i.+lling.” The various pieces evince poetic power, unhappily combined with a certain coa.r.s.eness of sentiment. One of the longer ballads, ”Willie and Keatie,” supposed to be a narrative of one of his early amours, obtained a temporary popularity, and was copied into the periodicals. It is described by Allan Cunningham as a ”plain, rough-spun pastoral, with some fine touches in it, to mark that better was coming.”

The domestic circ.u.mstances of the Shepherd were meanwhile not prosperous; he was compelled to abandon the farm of Ettrick-house, which had been especially valuable to him, as affording a comfortable home to his venerated parents. In the hope of procuring a situation as an overseer of some extensive sheep-farm, he made several excursions into the northern Highlands, waiting upon many influential persons, to whom he had letters of recommendation. These journeys were eminently advantageous in acquainting him with many interesting and celebrated scenes, and in storing his mind with images drawn from the sublimities and wild scenery of nature, but were of no account as concerned the object for which they were undertaken. Without procuring employment, he returned, with very reduced finances, to Ettrick Forest. He published a rough narrative of his travels in the _Scots Magazine_; and wrote two essays on the rearing and management of sheep, for the Highland Society, which were acknowledged with premiums. Frustrated in an attempt to procure a farm from the Duke of Buccleuch, and declining an offer of Scott to appoint him to the charge of his small sheep-farm at Ashestiel, he was led to indulge in the scheme of settling in the island of Harris.

It was in the expectation of being speedily separated from the loved haunts of his youth, that he composed his ”Farewell to Ettrick,”

afterwards published in the ”Mountain Bard,” one of the most touching and pathetic ballads in the language. The Harris enterprise was not carried out; and the poet, ”to avoid a great many disagreeable questions and explanations,” went for several months to England. Fortune still frowned, and the ambitious but unsuccessful son of genius had to return to his former subordinate occupation as a shepherd. He entered the employment of Mr Harkness of Mitchel-Slack, in Nithsdale.

Dissatisfied with the imitations of ancient ballads in the third volume of ”The Border Minstrelsy,” Hogg proceeded to embody some curious traditions in this kind of composition. He transmitted specimens to Scott, who warmly commended them, and suggested their publication. The result appeared in the ”Mountain Bard,” a collection of poems and ballads, which he published in 1803, prefixed with an account of his life. From the profits of this volume, with the sum of eighty-six pounds paid him by Constable for the copyright of his two treatises on sheep, he became master of three hundred pounds. With this somewhat startling acquisition, visions of prosperity arose in his ardent and enthusiastic mind. He hastily took in lease the pastoral farm of Corfardin, in the parish of Tynron, Dumfriess.h.i.+re, to which he afterwards added the lease of another large farm in the same neighbourhood. Misfortune still pursued him; he rented one of the farms at a sum exceeding its value, and his capital was much too limited for stocking the other, while a disastrous murrain decimated his flock. Within the s.p.a.ce of three years he was again a penniless adventurer. Removing from the farm-homestead of Corfardin, he accepted the generous invitation of his hospitable neighbour, Mr James Macturk of Stenhouse, to reside in his house till some suitable employment might occur. At Stenhouse he remained three months; and he subsequently acknowledged the generosity of his friend, by honourably celebrating him in the ”Queen's Wake.” Writing to Mr Macturk, in 1814, he remarks, in reference to his farming at Corfardin, ”But it pleased G.o.d to take away by death all my ewes and my lambs, and my long-horned cow, and my spotted bull, for if they had lived, and if I had kept the farm of Corfardin, I had been a lost man to the world, and mankind should never have known the half that was in me. Indeed, I can never see the design of Providence in taking me to your district at all, if it was not to breed my acquaintance with you and yours, which I hope will be one source of happiness to me as long as I live. Perhaps the very circ.u.mstance of being initiated into the mysteries of your character,[29] is of itself a sufficient compensation for all that I suffered in your country.”

Disappointed in obtaining an ensigncy in a Militia Regiment, through the interest of Sir Walter Scott, and frustrated in every other attempt to retain the social position he had gained, he returned to Ettrick, once more to seek employment in his original occupation. But if friends.h.i.+p had somewhat failed him, on his proving unsuccessful at Ettrick-house, his _prestige_ was now completely gone; old friends received him coldly, and former employers declined his services. He found that, till he should redeem his reputation for business and good management, there was no home for him in Ettrick Forest. Hogg was not a man who would tamely surrender to the pressure of misfortune: amidst his losses he could claim the strictest honesty of intention, and he was not unconscious of his powers. With his plaid over his shoulders, he reached Edinburgh in the month of February 1810, to begin, in his fortieth year, the career of a man of letters. The scheme was singularly adventurous, but the die was cast; he was in the position of the man on the tread-wheel, and felt that he must write or perish.

It affords no matter of surprise that the Shepherd was received coldly by the booksellers, and that his offers of contributing to their periodicals were respectfully declined. His volume, ”The Mountain Bard,”

had been forgotten; and though his literary fitness had been undisputed, his lengthened want of success in life seemed to imply a doubt of his general steadiness. Mr Constable, his former publisher, proved the most friendly; he consented to publish a collection of songs and ballads, which he had prepared, two-thirds being his own composition, and the remainder that of his ingenious friends. This publication, known as ”The Forest Minstrel,” had a slow sale, and conferred no benefit on the unfortunate author. What the booksellers would not do for him, Hogg resolved to do for himself; he originated a periodical, which he designated ”The Spy,” acting as his own publisher. The first number of this publication--a quarto weekly sheet, price fourpence--was issued on the first of September 1810. With varied popularity, this paper existed during the s.p.a.ce of a year; and owing to the perseverance of the conductor might have subsisted a longer period, but for a certain ruggedness which occasionally disfigured it. As a whole, being chiefly the composition of a shepherd, who could only read at eighteen, and write at twenty-six, and who, to use his own words, ”knew no more of human life or manners than a child,” the work presented a remarkable record in the annals of literature. As a business concern, it did not much avail the projector, but it served indirectly towards improving his condition, by inducing the habit of composing readily, and with undeviating industry. A copy of ”The Spy” is now rare.

From his literary exertions, Hogg was long, subsequent to his arrival in the metropolis, in deriving substantial pecuniary emolument. In these circ.u.mstances, he was fortunate in the friends.h.i.+p of Mr John Grieve, and his partner Mr Henry Scott, hat manufacturers in the city, who, fully appreciating his genius, aided him with money so long as he required their a.s.sistance. These are his own words, ”They suffered me to want for nothing, either in money or clothes, and I did not even need to ask these.” To Mr Grieve, Hogg was especially indebted; six months he was an inmate of his house, and afterwards he occupied comfortable lodgings, secured him by his friend's beneficence. Besides these two invaluable benefactors, the Shepherd soon acquired the regard and friends.h.i.+p of several respectable men of letters, both in Edinburgh and elsewhere. As contributors to ”The Spy,” he could record the names of James Gray of the High School, and his accomplished wife; Thomas Gillespie, afterwards Professor of Humanity in the University of St Andrews; J. Black, subsequently of the _Morning Chronicle_; William Gillespie, the ingenious minister of Kells; and John Sym, the renowned Timothy Tickler of the ”_Noctes_.” Of these literary friends, Mr James Gray was the more conspicuous and devoted. This excellent individual, the friend of so many literary aspirants, was a native of Dunse, and had the merit of raising himself from humble circ.u.mstances to the office of a master in the High School of Edinburgh. Possessed of elegant and refined tastes, an enthusiastic admirer of genius, and a poet himself,[30] Mr Gray entertained at his table the more esteemed wits of the capital; he had extended the hand of hospitality to Burns, and he received with equal warmth the author of ”The Forest Minstrel.” In the exercise of disinterested beneficence, he was aided and encouraged by his second wife, formerly Miss Peac.o.c.k, who sympathised in the lettered tastes of her husband, and took delight in the society of men of letters. They together made annual pedestrian excursions into the Highlands, and the narrative of their adventures proved a source of delightful instruction to their friends. Mr Gray, after a lengthened period of residence in Edinburgh, accepted, in the year 1821, the Professors.h.i.+p of Latin in the Inst.i.tution at Belfast; he subsequently took orders in the Church of England, and proceeded to India as a chaplain. In addition to his chaplaincy, he held the office of preceptor to one of the native princes of Hindostan. He died at Bhoog, in the kingdom of Cutch, on the 25th of September 1830; and if we add that he was a man of remarkable learning, his elegy may be transcribed from the ”Queen's Wake:”--

”Alike to him the south and north, So high he held the minstrel worth; So high his ardent mind was wrought, Once of himself he never thought.”

As the circle of the poet's friends increased, a scheme was originated among them, which was especially entertained by the juniors, of establis.h.i.+ng a debating society for mutual improvement. This inst.i.tution became known as the Forum; meetings were held weekly in a public hall of the city, and strangers were admitted to the discussions on the payment of sixpence a-head. The meetings were uniformly crowded; and the Shepherd, who held the office of secretary, made a point of taking a prominent lead in the discussions. He spoke once, and sometimes more frequently, at every meeting, making speeches, both studied and extemporaneous, on every variety of theme; and especially contributed, by his rough-spun eloquence, to the popularity of the inst.i.tution. The society existed three years; and though yielding the secretary no pecuniary emolument, proved a new and effective mean of extending his acquaintance with general knowledge.

Hogg now took an interest in theatricals, and produced two dramas, one of which, a sort of musical farce, was intended as a burlesque on the prominent members of the Forum, himself included. This he was induced, on account of the marked personalities, to confine to his repositories; he submitted the other to Mr Siddons, who commended it, but it never was brought upon the stage. He was about to appear before the world in his most happy literary effort, ”The Queen's Wake,”--a composition suggested by Mr Grieve. This ingenious individual had conceived the opinion that a republication of several of the Shepherd's ballads in ”The Spy,” in connexion with an original narrative poem, would arrest public attention as to the author's merits; while a narrative having reference to the landing of the beautiful and unfortunate Queen Mary, seemed admirably calculated to induce a general interest in the poem.

The proposal, submitted to Allan Cunningham and Mr Gray, received their warm approbation; and in a few months the entire composition was ready for the press. Mr Constable at once consented to undertake the publication; but a more advantageous offer being made by Mr George Goldie, a young bookseller, ”The Queen's Wake” issued from his establishment in the spring of 1813. Its success was complete; two editions were speedily circulated, and the fame of the author was established. With the exception of the _Eclectic Review_, every periodical accorded its warmest approbation to the performance; and vacillating friends, who began to doubt the Shepherd's power of sustaining the character he had a.s.sumed as a poet and a man of letters, ceased to entertain their misgivings, and accorded the warmest tributes to his genius. A commendatory article in the _Edinburgh Review_, in November 1814, hailed the advent of a third edition.

By the unexpected insolvency of his publisher, while the third edition was in process of sale, Hogg had nearly sustained a recurrence of pecuniary loss. This was, however, fortunately prevented by the considerate beneficence of Mr Goldie's trustees, who, on receiving payment of the printing expenses, made over the remainder of the impression to the author. One of the trustees was Mr Blackwood, afterwards the celebrated publisher of _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_.

Hogg had now attained the unenviable reputation of a literary prodigy, and his studies were subject to constant interruption from admirers, and the curious who visited the capital. But he gave all a cordial reception, and was never less accessible amidst the most arduous literary occupation. There was one individual whose acquaintance he was especially desirous of forming; this was John Wilson, whose poem, ”The Isle of Palms,” published in 1812, had particularly arrested his admiration. Wilson had come to reside in Edinburgh during a portion of the year, but as yet had few acquaintances in the city. He was slightly known to Scott; but a peculiarity of his was a hesitation in granting letters of introduction. In despair of otherwise meeting him, Hogg, who had reviewed his poem in the _Scots Magazine_, sent him an invitation to dinner, which the Lake-poet was pleased cordially to accept. That dinner began one of the most interesting of the Shepherd's friends.h.i.+ps; both the poets were pleased with each other, and the closest intimacy ensued.

It was on his way to visit Wilson, at Elleray, his seat in c.u.mberland, during the autumn of 1814, that the Shepherd formed the acquaintance of the Poet-laureate. He had notified to Southey his arrival at one of the hotels in Keswick, and begged the privilege of a visit. Southey promptly acknowledged his summons, and insisted on his remaining a couple of days at Greta Hall to share his hospitality. Two years could not have more firmly rivetted their friends.h.i.+p. As a mark of his regard, on returning to Edinburgh Hogg sent the Laureate the third edition of ”The Queen's Wake,” then newly published, along with a copy of ”The Spy.” In acknowledging the receipt of these volumes, Southey addressed the following letter to the Shepherd, which is now for the first time published:--

”Keswick, _December 1, 1814._

”Dear Hogg,--Thank you for your books. I will not say that 'The Queen's Wake' has exceeded my expectations, because I have ever expected great things from you, since, in 1805, I heard Walter Scott, by his own fireside at Ashestiel, repeat 'Gilmanscleuch.'[31] When he came to that line--'I ga'e him a' my goud, father'--the look and the tone with which he gave it were not needed to make it go through me. But 'The Wake' has equalled all that I expected. The improvements in the new edition are very great, and they are in the two poems which were most deserving of improvement, as being the most impressive and the most original. Each is excellent in its way, but 'Kilmeny'

is of the highest character; 'The Witch of Fife' is a real work of fancy--'Kilmeny' a fine one of imagination, which is a higher and rarer gift. These poems have given general pleasure throughout the house; my eldest girl often comes out with a stanza or two of 'The Witch,' but she wishes sometimes that you always wrote in English. 'The Spy' I shall go through more at leisure.

”I like your praise both of myself and my poem, because it comes from a good quarter. You saw me where and how a man is best seen--at home, and in his every-day wear and tear, mind and manners: I have no holiday suit, and never seek to s.h.i.+ne: such as it is, my light is always burning. Somewhat of my character you may find in Chaucer's Clerk of Oxenford; and the concluding line of that description might be written, as the fittest motto, under my portrait--'Gladly would he learn, and gladly teach.' I have sinned enough to make me humble in myself, and indulgent toward others. I have suffered enough to find in religion not merely consolation, but hope and joy; and I have seen enough to be contented in, and thankful for, the state of life in which it has pleased G.o.d to place me.

”We hoped to have seen you on your way back from Ellery. I believe you did not get the ballad of the 'Devil and the Bishop,' which Hartley transcribed for you. I am reprinting my miscellaneous poems, collected into three volumes. Your projected publication[32] will have the start of it greatly, for the first volume is not nearly through the press, and there is a corrected copy of the ballad, with its introduction, in Ballantyne's hands, which you can make use of before it will be wanted in its place.

”You ask me why I am not intimate with Wilson. There is a sufficient reason in the distance between our respective abodes. I seldom go even to Wordworth's or Lloyd's; and Ellery is far enough from either of their houses, to make a visit the main business of a day. So it happens that except dining in his company once at Lloyd's many years ago, and breakfasting with him here not long afterwards, I have barely exchanged salutations once or twice when we met upon the road.

Perhaps, however, I might have sought him had it not been for his pa.s.sion for c.o.c.k-fighting. But this is a thing which I regard with abhorrence.

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