Chapter III: Part 3

"Late, late in a gloaming, when all was still,
When the fringe was red on the westlin hill,
The wood was sere, the moon i' the wane,
The reek of the cot hung over the plain,
Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane;
When the ingle glowed with an eiry leme,
Late, late in the gloaming Kilmeny came hame!
'Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?
Lang hae we sought baith holt and den;
By linn, by ford, and greenwood tree,
Yet ye are hailsome and fair to see.
Where gat ye that joup o' the lily scheen?
That bonny snood o' the birk sae green?
And these roses, the fairest that ever were seen?
Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?'
"Kilmeny looked up with a lovely grace,
But nae smile was seen on Kilmeny's face;
As still was her look, and as still was her ee,
As the stillness that lay on the emerant lea,
As the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea.
For Kilmeny had been she knew not where,
And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare;
Kilmeny had been where the cock ne'er crew,
Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew!"

But on earth the spell of heaven was upon her. All loved, both man and beast, the pure and spiritual Kilmeny; but earth could not detain her.

"When a month and a day had come and gone,
Kilmeny sought the greenwood wene;
There laid her down on the leaves so green,
And Kilmeny on earth was never mair seen.
But O the words that fell from her mouth
Were words of wonder, and words of truth!
But all the land were in fear and dread,
For they kennedna whether she was living or dead.
It was not her hame, and she couldna remain;
She left this world of sorrow and pain;
And returned to the land of thought again."

The Legend of Kilmeny is as beautiful as any thing in that department of poetry. It contains a fine moral; that purity of heart makes an earthly creature a welcome denizen of heaven; and the tone and imagery are all fraught with a tenderness and grace that are as unearthly as the subject of the legend.

There is a short poem introduced into the Brownie of Bodsbeck, worthy of the noblest bard that ever wrote.

DWELLER IN HEAVEN.

"Dweller in heaven high, Ruler below!
Fain would I know thee, yet tremble to know!
How can a mortal deem, how it may be,
That being can ne'er be but present with thee?
Is it true that thou sawest me ere I saw the morn?
Is it true that thou knewest me befere I was born?
That nature must live in the light of thine eye?
This knowledge for me is too great and too high!

"That, fly I to noonday or fly I to night,
To shroud me in darkness, or bathe me in light,
The light and the darkness to thee are the same,
And still in thy presence of wonder I am!
Should I with the dove to the desert repair,
Or dwell with the eagle in cleugh of the air;
In the desert afar--on the mountain's wild brink--
From the eye of Omnipotence still must I shrink!

"Or mount I, on wings of the morning, away,
To caves of the ocean, unseen by the day,
And hide in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there to be living and moving in thee!
Nay, scale I the clouds, in the heaven to dwell,
Or make I my bed in the shadows of hell,
Can science expound, or humanity frame,
That still thou art present, and all are the same?

"Yes, present forever! Almighty! Alone!
Great Spirit of Nature! unbounded! unknown!
What mind can embody thy presence divine?
I know not my own being, how can I thine?
Then humbly and low in the dust let me bend,
And adore what on earth I can ne'er comprehend:
The mountains may melt, and the elements flee,
Yet a universe still be rejoicing in thee!"

The last that we will select is one which was written for an anniversary celebration of our great dramatist; yet is distinguished by a felicity of thought and imagery that seem to have sprung spontaneously in the soul of the shepherd poet, as he mused on the airy brow of some Ettrick mountain.

TO THE GENIUS OF SHAKSPEARE.

"Spirit all-limitless,
Where is thy dwelling-place?
Spirit of him whose high name we revere!
Come on thy seraph wings,
Come from thy wanderings,
And smile on thy votaries who sigh for thee here!

"Come, O thou spark divine!
Rise from thy hallowed shrine!
Here in the windings of Forth thou shalt see
Hearts true to nature's call,
Spirits congenial,
Proud of their country, yet bowing to thee!

"Here with rapt heart and tongue,
While our fond minds were young,
Oft thy bold numbers we poured in our mirth;
Now in our hall for aye
This shall be holyday,
Bard of all nature! to honor thy birth.

"Whether thou tremblest o'er
Green grave of Elsinore,
Stayest o'er the hill of Dunsinnan to hover,
Bosworth, or Shrewsbury,
Egypt, or Philippi;
Come from thy roamings the universe over.

"Whether thou journeyest far,
On by the morning star,
Dreamest on the shadowy brows of the moon,
Or lingerest in Fairyland,
Mid lovely elves to stand,
Singing thy carols unearthly and boon:

"Here thou art called upon,
Come, thou, to Caledon!
Come to the land of the ardent and free!
The land of the lone recess,
Mountain and wilderness,
This is the land, thou wild meteor, for thee!

"O, never, since time had birth,
Rose from the pregnant earth
Gems, such as late have in Scotia sprung;--
Gems that in future day,
When ages pass away,
Like thee shall be honored, like thee shall be sung!

"Then here, by the sounding sea,
Forest, and greenwood tree,
Here to solicit thee, cease shall we never.
Yes, thou effulgence bright,
Here must thy flame relight,
Or vanish from nature forever and ever!"

Such strains as these serve to remind us that we go to visit the native scenes of no common man. To reach Ettrick, I took the mail from Dumfries to Moffat, where I breakfasted, after a fresh ride through the woods of Annandale. With my knapsack on my back, I then ascended the vale of Moffat. It was a fine morning, and the green pastoral hills rising around, the white flocks scattered over them, the waters glittering along the valley, and women spreading out their linen to dry on the meadow grass, made the walk as fresh as the morning itself. I passed through a long wood, which stretched along the sunny side of the steep valley. The waters ran sounding on deep below; the sun filled all the sloping wood with its yellow light. There was a wonderful resemblance to the mountain woodlands of Germany. I felt as though I was once more in a Suabian or an Austrian forest. There was no wall or hedge by the way: all was open. The wild raspberry stood in abundance, and the wild strawberries as abundantly clothed the ground under the hazel bushes. I came to a cottage and inquired,--it was _Craigieburn Wood_, where Burns met "The lassie wi' the lintwhite locks."

But the pleasure of the walk ceased with the sixth milestone. Here it was necessary to quit Moffat and cross over into Ettrick dale. And here the huge hills of Bodsbeck, more villainous than the Brownie in his most vindictive mood, interposed. I turned off the good road which would have led me to the Gray-Mare's-Tail, to the inn of Innerleithing (St. Ronan's Well), and St. Mary's Lake on Yarrow, and at Capel-gill forsook Moffat water and comfort at once.

And here, by the by, as all the places in these dales are called gills, and hopes, and cleughs, as Capel-gill, Chapel-hope, Gamel-cleugh, etc., I may as well explain that a hope is a sort of slight ravine aloft on the hillside, generally descending it pretty perpendicularly; a cleugh, a more deep and considerable one; and a gill, one down which a torrent pours, continuing longer after rains than in the others. At least, this was the definition given me, though the different terms are not, it seems, always very palpably discriminative.

Turning off at Capel-gill, I crossed the foot-bridge at the farm of Bodsbeck, where the Brownie used to haunt, and began to ascend the hill, assuredly in no favor with the Brownie. These hills are long ranges, inclosing deep valleys between them; and there are but few entrances into the dales, except by crossing the backs of these great ridges. I found the ascent of the Bodsbeck excessively steep, rugged, boggy, stony, and wet, and far higher than I had anticipated. A more fatiguing mountain ascent I never made. I was quite exhausted, and lay down two or three times, resolving to have a good long rest and sleep on the grass, with my knapsack for a pillow; but the Brownie came in the shape of rain, and woke me up again. I suppose I was two hours in getting to the summit; and then I did lie down, and slept for a quarter of an hour; but the Brownie was at me again with a bluster of wind and rain, and awoke me.

Preparing to set forward, what was my astonishment to see a cart and horse coming over the mountain with a load of people. It was a farmer with his wife and child; and they were about to descend the rugged, rocky, boggy, steep hillside, with scarcely a track! They descended from the cart; the man led the horse; the woman walked behind, carrying the child; and they went bumping and banging over the projecting crags, as if the cart was made of some unsmashable timber, the horse a Pegasus, and the people without necks to break. 'Tis to be hoped that they reached the bottom somehow.

I had supposed by my map that from Moffat to Ettrick kirk would be about six miles. Imagine, then, my consternation at the tidings these adventurous people gave me, that I had still eight miles to go! That, instead of six, it was sixteen from Moffat to Ettrick kirk! There was a new road made all down this side of the mountain; very fair to look at in the distance, but infamous for foot travelers, being all loose, sharp cubes of new broken whinstone. My feet were actually strained with coming up the mountain; and were now so knocked to pieces and blistered in going down it, that I suppose I crawled on at about two miles an hour. In fact, I was seven hours and a half, between Moffat and Ettrick kirk, on foot. Down, down, down I went for eight weary miles, one long descent, with nothing on either hand but those monotonous green mountains which extend all over the south of Scotland. Soft they can look as the very hills of heaven under the evening light, with their white flocks dotting them all over, and the shepherds shouting, and their dogs barking from afar. And dark, beautifully dark, they can look beneath the shadow of the storm, or the thunder-cloud. Wild, drearily wild, they can look when the winds come sweeping and roaring like some broken-loose ocean, fierce and strong as ocean waters, and with this mighty volume fill the scowling valleys, and rush, without the obstacle of house or tree, over the smooth, round heights; and men at ease, especially if in want of a stroll, and in good company, may, and no doubt do, find them very attractive. But to me they were an endless green monotony of swelling heaps; and Ettrick dale, with its stream growing continually larger in its bottom, an endless vale of bare greenness, with but here and there a solitary white house, and a cluster of fir-trees, with scarcely a cultured field even of oats or potatoes for eight miles. It was one eternal sheep-walk; and, for me, eight miles too much of it. Yet the truth is, that every one of these hills, and every portion of this vale, and every house with its hope, or its cleugh, or its plantation, and every part of the river where the torrent has boiled and raged for a thousand years, till it has worn the iron-like whinstone into the most hideous channels and fantastic shapes, has its history and its tradition. There is Phaup, and Upper Phaup, and Gamelshope, and Ettrick-house, and all have their interest; but to me they were then only white houses with black plantations, many of them on the other side of the water, without bridge, or any visible means of access; and with huge flocks of sheep collected and collecting in their yards and pens, with the most amazing and melancholy clamor. It was the time when they prepare for the great lamb fairs, and were separating those they meant to sell; and there was one loud lamentation all through these hills. It is amazing what a sentiment of attachment and distress can exist in mutton!

But no sentimental piece of mutton was ever more in distress than I was. I was quite famished and knocked up; and when at length I saw the few gray houses at Ettrick kirk, I actually gave a shout of exultation. I shouted, however, before I was out of the wood; for Ettrick kirk was not, as I had fancied, a Kirk Ettrick--that is, a village,--it was Ettrick kirk, and nothing more. I knew that Hogg was born and buried here, and that here I must stop; but unluckily I saw no village, no stopping-place. To my left hand stood the kirk, a little elevated on the side of the valley, and what was clearly the manse near it, in a garden. A little farther on was a farmhouse, and then a cottage or two, and that was all. I saw a large, queer sign over a door, and flattered myself that that at least must be a public-house; but a Gipsy with his stockings off in a little stream tickling trout, while his basket and his set of tea-trays stood on the road, soon told me my fortune. "Is that an inn?" "No, sir, the inn is three miles farther down!"

Three miles farther down! It was enough to have finished all Job's miseries! "What! is it not a public-house even?" "No, it is a shop."

And a shop it was; and when I hoped at least to find a shop that sold bread, it turned out to be a tailor's shop!

Just as I was driven to despair, I fancied that the next building looked like a school; in I went, and a school it was. I had hopes of a Scotch schoolmaster. He is generally a scholar and a gentleman. The master was just hearing his last class of boys: I advanced to him, and told him that I must take the liberty to rest, for that I was outrageously tired and hungry, and was told that it was three miles to the next inn. He said it was true, but that it was not three hundred yards to his house, and he would have much pleasure in my accompanying him to tea. Never, of all the invitations to tea which I have received in the course of this tea-drinking life, did I ever receive so welcome a one as that! I flung off my knapsack, laid up my legs quite at my ease on a bench, and heard out the class with great satisfaction. Anon, the urchins were dismissed, and Mr. Tait, the master, a tall and somewhat thin young man, with a very intelligent and thoughtful face, declared himself ready to accompany me. I told him I wanted to visit the birthplace and grave of Hogg, and presented my card. "Ha!" exclaimed he, on reading the name, "why, we are not strangers, I find--we are old friends. A hearty welcome, Mr. Howitt, to Ettrick!" Mr. Tait was an old friend of Hogg's, too--the very man of all others that I should have sought out for my purpose. We were soon at a very handsome new cottage, with a capital garden, the upper end full of flowers, and the lower of most flourishing kitchen-garden produce. Tired as I was, I could not avoid staying to admire this garden, which was the master's own work; and was then introduced to his mother and sister. The old lady was in a consternation that, by one of those accidents that sometimes in mountainous districts afflict a whole country, the baker had upset his cart, broken his leg, and by his absence deprived all the vales from Moffat to the very top of Ettrick, namely, Upper Phaup, of wheaten bread. It was a circumstance that did not in the least trouble me, except on account of the lady's housewifery anxiety. An old friend of mine once said that he never knew the want of bread but once in his life, and then he made a good shift with pie-crust, and I made an actual feast on barley cake and tea.

The schoolmaster and I were now soon abroad, and on our way up the valley to Hogg's birthplace. Ettrick-house, where Hogg saw the light, according to the people, though according to his tombstone it was Ettrick-hall, on the opposite side of the valley, is now a new-built farm-house, standing within a square embankment, which is well grown with a row of fine trees. This marks the site of an old house, and no doubt was the site of Ettrick old house. But the house in which Hogg was born, or, if not born, where he lived as a child, was only a sort of hind's house, belonging to the old house. That, too, is now pulled clean down. Hogg, during his lifetime, never liked to hear its demolition proposed. Here he had lived as a child, and here he lived when grown up, and rented the farm, before going to Altrive. He used always to inquire of people from Ettrick, if the house really were yet destroyed. I believe it stood till after his death, but it is now quite gone. The bricklayers? There is no such thing here; all is built of the iron-like, hard whinstone of the hills;--the builders, then, with a sentiment which does honor to them, were reluctant to pull down the birthplace and home of the shepherd-poet; and, when obliged to do so, to mark and commemorate the exact spot, when they built the wall along the front of the ground which they cleared by the highway, built a large blue sort of stone upright in it. The stone is very conspicuous, by its singular hue and position, and on it they have subscribed the poet's initials, J. H. Ettrick-hall, as already said, lying on the opposite side of the valley, was in Hogg's father's hands. Afterward, in Mr. Brydon's, of Crosslee, with whom Hogg was shepherd. This Mr. Brydon, who, Hogg says, was the best friend their family had in the world, died worth £15,000; and, indeed, these sheep-farmers generally do well. There was a Mr. Grieve here, who used to live up the valley, at a house where I saw a vast flock of sheep collected, who was also a most excellent friend of Hogg's. Hogg had lived as a herd-boy at most of the houses in this valley, and from that association he laid the scene of most of his poems and tales here.

Hogg's birthplace and his grave are but a few hundred yards asunder. The kirk-yard of Ettrick is old, but the kirk is recent; 1824 is inscribed over the door. Like most of the country churches of Scotland, it is a plain fabric, plainly fitted up within with seats, and a plain pulpit. Such a thing as "a kist full of o' whitles" the Scotch can not endure. It is a curious fact, that neither in Scotland nor Ireland do you find those richly finished old parish churches that you do in England. This is significant of the ancient state of these countries. Catholic though they all were, neither Scotland nor Ireland could at any age pretend to any thing like the wealth of England. Hence, in those countries, the fine abbeys and cathedrals are rare, the parish churches are very plain; while, in England, spite of all the ravages of Puritanism, the country abounds with the noblest specimens of cathedral and convent architecture, and the very parish churches in obscure villages are often perfect gems of architecture and carving, even of the old Saxon period.

Ettrick kirk lifts its head in this quiet vale with a friendly air. It is built of the native adamantine rock, the whinstone; has a square battlemented tower; and, what looks singular, has, instead of Gothic ones, square doorways, and square, very tall sash windows. Hogg's grave lies in the middle of the kirk-yard. At its head stands a rather handsome headstone, with a harp sculptured on a border at the top, and this inscription beneath it:--"James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, who was born at Ettrick Hall, 1770, and died at Altrive Lake, the 21st day of November, 1835."

After a wide space, left for other inscriptions, as of the widow and children, this is added:--"This stone is erected, as a tribute of affection, by his widow, Margaret Hogg."

As Hogg used to boast that he was born on the same day as Burns, and as this assertion was negatived by the parish register, we can not but admire the thoughtful delicacy which induced the widow to omit the day of his birth altogether, though carefully inserting the day of his death.

On the right hand of the poet's headstone stands another, erected by the shepherd himself, as follows: "Here lieth William Laidlaw, the far famed Will o' Phaup, who, for feats of frolic, agility, and strength, had no equal in that day. He was born at Ettrick, A.D. 1691, and died in the eighty-fourth year of his age. Also Margaret, his eldest daughter, spouse to Robert Hogg, and mother of the Ettrick Shepherd, born at Over Phaup in 1730, and died in the eighty-third year of her age. Also Robert Hogg, her husband, late tenant of Ettrick-hall, born at Bowhill, in 1729, and died in the ninety-third year of his age."

There are several curious particulars connected with these stones. Those which I have pointed out--Hogg's birthday being omitted; Ettrick-hall being given as his birthplace, yet the people asserting it to be Ettrick-house; and the much shorter life of the poet than those of his parents and ancestors. His father died at the age of ninety-three, his mother at eighty-three, his grandfather at eighty-four; he died at sixty-three. The poet had lived faster than his kindred. What he lost in duration of life he had more than made up in intensity. They held the quiet tenor of their way in their native vale; he had spread his life over the whole space occupied by the English language, and over generations to come. In his own pleasures, which were of a far higher character than theirs, he had made thousands and tens of thousands partakers. Many of Hogg's family and friends were not pleased at the memorial he thus gives to Will o' Phaup; but it is very characteristic of the Shepherd, who gloried as much himself in the sports, feats, and exploits of the borders, as in poetry.

Hogg, in his younger years, displayed much agility and strength in the border games, and in his matured years was often one of the umpires at them. In Lockhart's Life of Scott are related two especial occasions in which James Hogg figured in such games. One was of a famous football match, played on the classic mead of Carterhaugh, between the men of Selkirk and of Yarrow, when the Duke of Buccleugh, and numbers of other nobles and gentlemen, as well as ladies of rank, were present. When the different parties came to the ground with pipes playing, the Duke of Buccleugh raised his ancient banner, called the banner of Bellenden, which, being given by Lady Ann Scott to young Walter Scott, he rode round the field displaying it; and when Sir Walter led on the men of Selkirk, and the Earl of Home, with James Hogg as his aid-de-camp, led on the men of Yarrow. The other occasion was at the annual festival of St. Ronan's Well, when James Hogg used to preside as captain of the band of border bowmen, in Lincoln Green, with broad blue bonnets; and when, already verging on three score, he used often to join at the exploits of racing, wrestling, or hammer-throwing, and would carry off the prizes, to universal astonishment; afterward presiding, too, at the banquet in the evening, with great éclat, supported by Sir Walter Scott, Professor Wilson, Dr. Adam Fergusson, and Peter Robertson.

Another curious thing is, that he states himself, in his Life, to be one of four sons, and, on the headstone, that his father and _three_ sons lie there. Now he, himself, was living, of course, when he set up the stone, and his brother William still survives. There could, then, be but _two_, if he were one of _four_.

Hogg died at Altrive, but was buried here, as being his native parish; and, indeed, I question whether there be a nearer place where he could be buried, though Altrive is six miles off, and over the hills from one valley to another. His funeral must have been a striking thing in this solitary region--striking, not from the sensation it created, or the attendance of distinguished men, but from the absence of all this. The shepherd-poet went to his grave with little pomp or ceremony. Of all the great and the celebrated with whom he had associated in life, not an individual had troubled himself to go thus far to witness his obsequies, except that true-hearted man, Professor Wilson. An eye-witness says: "No particular solemnity seemed to attend the scene. The day was dull and dismal, windy and cloudy, and every thing looked bleak, the ground being covered with a sprinkling of snow. Almost the whole of the attendants were relatives and near neighbors, and most of them, with solid irreverence, were chatting about the affairs of the day. Professor Wilson remained for some time near the newly-covered grave, after all the rest had departed."

I walked over this road to Altrive, the day after my arrival in Ettrick. But before quitting Ettrick, I must remark, that every part of it presents objects made familiar by the Shepherd. At the lower end are Lord Napier's castle, Thirlstane, a quaint castellated house, with round towers, and standing in pleasant woodlands; and the remains of the old tower of Tushielaw, and its hanging-tree, the robber chief of which strong-hold James VI. surprised, and hanged on his own tree where he had hanged his victims, treating him with as little ceremony as he did Johnny Armstrong, and others of the like profession. All these the hearty and intelligent schoolmaster pointed out to me, walking on to the three-mile distant inn, and seeing me well housed there.

What is called Altrive Lake, the farm on the Yarrow, given for life by the Duke of Buccleugh to Hogg, and where he principally lived after leaving Ettrick, and where he died, stands in a considerable opening between the hills, at the confluence of several valleys, where the Douglas burn falls into the Yarrow. Thus, from some of the windows, you look up and down the vale of Yarrow, but where the vale has no very striking features. The hills are lower than on Ettrick, and at a greater distance, but of the same character, green and round. Shepherds are collecting their flocks; the water goes leaping along stony channels; you see, here and there, a small white farmhouse with its clump of trees, and a circular inclosure of stone wall for the sheep-fold. A solitary crow or gull flies past; there are black stacks of peat on the bogs, and on the hill-tops--for there are bogs there, too, and you perceive your approach to a house by the smell of peat. This is the character of the whole district.

Altrive Lake is, in truth, no lake at all. One had always a pleasant notion of Hogg's house standing on the borders of a cheerful little lake. I looked naturally for this lake in the wide opening between the streams and hills, but could see none. I inquired of the farmer who has succeeded Hogg, for this lake, and he said there never was one. Hogg, he said, had given it that dignified name, because a little stream, that runs close past the house, not Douglas burn, but one still less, is called the Trive Lake. The present farmer, who is an old, weather-beaten Scotchman, eighty-two years of age, but hardy, and pretty active, and well off in the world, expressed himself as quite annoyed with the name, and said it was not Altrive Lake; he would not have it so called. It should be Aldenhope, for it was now joined to his farm, which was the Alden farm. I believe the Altrive farm is but about a hundred acres, including sheep-walk on the hills, and lets for £45 a-year; but old Mr. Scott, the present tenant, has a larger and better farm adjoining; and in his old house, which is just above this, across the highway from Ettrick, but almost hidden in a hollow, he keeps his hinds. Hogg's house is apparently two white cottages, for the roof, in the middle, dips down like it, but it is really but one. It stands on a mound, in a very good and pleasant flower-garden. The garden is inclosed with palisades, and the steep bank down from the house, descending to the level of the garden, is gay with flowers. It has another flower-garden behind, for the tenant has his kitchen-garden at his other house; and around lie green meadows, and at a distance, slope away the green pastoral hills. As you look out at the front door, the Yarrow runs down the valley at the distance of, perhaps, a quarter of a mile on the left hand, with a steep scaur, or precipitous earthy bank, on its farther side, in full view, over the top of which runs the highway from Edinburgh to Galashiels. Down the valley, and on the other side of the water, lies, in full view also, the farm of Mount Benger, which Hogg took of the Duke of Buccleugh after he came to Altrive. It is much more inclosed and cultivated in tillage than Altrive. The house where Hogg lived, however, is now pulled down, all except one ruinous white wall, and a very capital farmhouse is built near it; with a quadrangle of trees, which must have been originally planted to shelter a house long ago gone.

An old farmer and his wife in the neighborhood, who seemed the last people in the world to admire poets or poetry, though very worthy people in their way, blamed Hogg extremely for taking Mount Benger. He was more fitted for books than for farming, said they. "Perhaps," I observed, "he did not find that little farm of Altrive enough to maintain him." "Why should he not?" asked they. "He had nothing to do there but look after his little flock--that was all he had to care for--and that was the proper business of a man that called himself the Ettrick Shepherd--as though there was never a shepherd in Ettrick beside himself. And if he wanted more income, had not he his pen, and was not he very popular with the periodicals? But he was always wanting to take great farms, without any money to stock them. He was hand and glove with great men in Edinburgh, Professor Wilson, and Scott, and the like; he was aye going to Abbotsford and Lord Napier's; and so he thought himself a very great man too, and Mrs. Hogg thought herself a great woman, and looked down on her neighbors. These poets think nothing's good enough for them. Hogg paid the duke no rent, but he caught his fish, and killed his game; he was a desperate fellow for fishing and shooting. If people did not do just what he wanted, he soon let them know his mind, and that without much ceremony. He wrote a very abusive letter to Sir Walter Scott, because he would not give him a poem to print when he asked him, and would not speak to him for months; and when he took Mount Benger he wrote to his generous friend, Mr. Grieve, of Ettrick, and desired him to send him £350 to stock the farm, which Mr. Grieve refused, because he knew that the scheme was a ruinous one; on which he wrote _him_ a very abusive letter, and would not speak to him for years. The upshot was, that he failed, and paid eighteenpence in the pound; and yet the duke, though he got no rent, allows the widow the rental of Altrive."

It is curious to hear the estimation that a man is held in by his neighbors. It is generally the case, that a man who raises himself above those with whom he set out on equal or inferior terms in life, is regarded with a very jealous feeling. I found Grace Darling denied all merit by those of her own class in her own neighborhood. Hogg, who is admired by the more intellectual of his countrymen, is still, in the eyes of the now matter-of-fact sheep farmers of Ettrick and Yarrow, regarded only as an aspiring man, and bad farmer. They can not comprehend why he should be so much more regarded than themselves, who are great at market, great on the hills, and pay every man, and lay up hard cash. Yet these men who pay eighteen pence in the pound, have farms for nothing, and their families after them, and associate with lords and dukes. That is very odd, certainly.

For worldly prudence, I am afraid, we can not boast of Hogg; and he confesses that he did rate Sir Walter soundly for not giving him a poem for his Poetic Mirror, and that he would not speak to him, till Scott heaped coals of fire on his head by sending the doctor to him when he was ill, and by Hogg finding out that Scott had come or sent daily to inquire how he was going on, and had told his friends not to let Hogg want for any thing. Hogg was a creature of the quickest impulse; he resented warmly, and he was as soon melted again by kindness. He had the spirit of a child, sensitive, quick to resent, but forgiving and generous. His imprudence in taking Mount Benger is much lessened, too, when we learn that he expected £1,000 from his wife's father, who, however, proved a bankrupt, and Hogg had already, through the intervention of Scott, obtained possession of the farm, and incurred the debt for the stocking of it before he became aware of the disastrous fact. In truth, he was probably too good a poet to be a good farmer; nor need we wonder at the opinion yet held of him by some of his neighbors, when we find him relating, in his Life, that when leaving Edinburgh once because his literary projects had failed, he found his character for a shepherd as low in Ettrick as it was for poetry in the capital, and that no one would give him any thing to do. Such are the singular fortunes of men of genius!

It is said in his own neighborhood, that his last visit to London hastened his death. That the entertainments given him there, and the excitement he went through, had quite exhausted him. That he never afterward seemed himself again. That he was listless and feeble, and tried to rally, but never did. Probably his breach with Blackwood might prey upon his spirits; for, on Blackwood declining to give a complete edition of his works, he had entered into arrangements with Cochrane and Johnstone of London, who commenced his edition, but failed on the issue of the first volume. By the act of quitting Blackwood, all the old associations of his life, its happiest and most glorious, seemed broken up. After that, his name vanished from the magazine, and was no more seen there, and the new staff on which he leaned proved a broken reed. Truly many are the verifications of the melancholy words of Wordsworth:

"We poets in our youth commence in gladness;
But thereof comes in the end, despondency and madness."

I have received the following account of his last days from one of his oldest and most intimate friends:

"Innerleithen, 21st Feb., 1846.

"Mr. Hogg, although apparently in good health, had been ailing for
some years previous to his death, with water in the chest. When
this was announced to him by his friend, Dr. W. Gray, from India,
a nephew of Mr. Hogg, he seemed to laugh at the idea, and
pronounced it impossible, as one drop of water he never drank.
Notwithstanding, he very shortly after had a consultation with
some of the Edinburgh medical folks, who corroborated Dr. Gray's
opinion. Mr. Hogg, on his return from town, called upon me in
passing, and seemed somewhat depressed in spirits about his
health. The Shepherd died of what the country folks call black
jaundice, on the 21st November, 1835, and was buried on the 27th,
in the church-yard of Ettrick, within a few hundred yards of
Ettrick-house, the place where he was born. It was a very imposing
scene, to see Professor Wilson standing at the grave of the
Shepherd, after every one else had left it, with his head
uncovered, and his long hair waving in the wind, and the tears
literally running in streams down his cheek. A monument has been
erected to the memory of Hogg by his poor wife. At this the good
people of the forest should feel ashamed. Mr. Hogg was confined
to the house for some weeks, and, if I recollect right, was
insensible some days previous to his death. He has left one son
and four daughters; the son, as is more than probable you are
aware, went out to a banking establishment, in Bombay, some two
years ago. Mr. Hogg left a considerable library, which is still in
the possession of Mrs. Hogg and family. With regard to the state
of his mind at the time of his death, I am unable to speak. I may
mention, a week or two previous to his last illness, he spent a
few days with me in angling in the Tweed; the last day he dined
with me, the moment the tumblers were produced, he begged that I
would not insist upon him taking more than one tumbler, as he felt
much inclined to have a tumbler or two with his friend Cameron, of
the inn, who had always been so kind to him, not unfrequently
having sent him home in a chaise, free of any charge whatever. The
moment the tumbler was discussed, we moved off to Cameron's; and
by way of putting off the time until the innkeeper returned from
Peebles, where he had gone to settle some little business matter,
we had a game at bagatelle; but no sooner had we commenced the
game, than poor Hogg was seized with a most violent trembling. A
glass of brandy was instantly got, and swallowed; still the
trembling continued, until a second was got, which produced the
desired effect. At this moment, the Yarrow carrier was passing the
inn on his way to Edinburgh, when Mr. Hogg called him in, and
desired him to sit down until he would draw an order on the
Commercial Bank for £20, as there was not a single penny in the
house at home. After various attempts, he found it impossible even
to sign his name, and was, therefore, obliged to tell the carrier,
that he must, of necessity, defer drawing the order until next
week. The carrier, however, took out his pocket-book, and handed
the Shepherd a five-pound note, which he said he could
conveniently want until the following week, when the order would
be cashed. A little before the gloaming, Mr. Hogg's caravan cart
landed for him, which he instantly took possession of; but, before
moving off, he shook hands with me, not at all in his usual way,
and at the same time stated to me, that a strong presentiment had
come over his mind, that we would never meet again. It was too
true. I never again saw my old friend, the Shepherd, with whom I
had been intimately acquainted since the year 1802.

"Yours truly,

"P. BOYD."

I went over his house at Altrive with much interest. His little study is in the center of the front of the house, and within that is the equally small bedroom where he died. The house has been much improved, as well as the garden about it, since his time, for all agree that Hogg was very slovenly about his place. However, as Lockhart has justly observed, there will never be such another shepherd.

He has a brother still living, William Hogg, who has always been considered a very clever man. He lives somewhere in Peebleshire, as a shepherd. His widow and family live in Edinburgh.

* * * * *

In many of my visits to the homes and haunts of the poets, I have fallen in with persons and things which I regret that I could not legitimately introduce, and which yet are so full of life, that they deserve to be preserved. Exactly such a person did I meet with at Altrive Lake, at Mr. Scott's, the successor of Hogg. It was a jolly wool-buyer. He was a stout, fine, jovial-looking man, one of that class who seem to go through the world, seeing only the genial side of it, and drawing all the good out of it, as naturally as the sun draws out of the earth flowers and fruit. The hearty fellow was sitting at luncheon with Mr. Scott as I went in, and I was requested to join them. His large, well fed person, and large, handsome face, seemed actually to glow and radiate with the fullness of this world's joyousness and prosperity. His head of rich, bushy, black hair, and his smooth, black suit, both cut in town fashion, marked him as belonging to a more thronged and bustling region than these tawny, treeless, solitary hills. The moment I mentioned Hogg, and my object in visiting Altrive and Ettrick, the stranger's countenance lit up with a thorough, high-flowing tide of rosy animation. "Eh, but ye should ha' had me in Ettrick wi' ye! I know every inch of all these hills, and the country round. Haven't I bought the wool all over this country these twenty years? Hogg! why, sir, I've bought his wool many a time, and had many a merry 'clash' and glass of toddy wi' him at this verra table." Nothing would do, but I must accept half his gig thence to Galashiels that evening, a distance of twenty miles. It was a very friendly offer, for it saved me much time. Our drive was a charming one, and my stout friend knowing all the country, and apparently, every body in it, he pointed out every thing, and had a nod, a smile, a passing word, for every one that we met, or passed in their cottages by the road-side. He pointed out the piece of a wall, the only remains of Hogg's old house, at Mount Benger, adding,--"Ay, I bought his wool!" We descended the vale of Yarrow, passing through the beautiful woods of _Hangingshaw_. "Ye'll remember," said he, "what was said by some English noblemen in the rising in '45, when they heard that the lairds of _Hangingshaw_ and _Gallowshiels_ were among the Scotch conspirators. These are ominous names, said they, we'll have nothing to do with 'em; and withdrew, and thereby saved their own necks." So we went on, every few hundred yards bringing new histories of my jolly friend's wool-buying, and of matters which seemed nearly as important in his eyes. There was Newark tower, a beautiful object, standing on a lofty green mound on the other side of the Yarrow, the banks of which are most beautifully wooded. The tower, indeed, is included in the pleasure-grounds of Bowhill, a seat of the Duke of Buccleugh's, within sight; and you see neat walks running all along the river side for miles amid the hanging woods, and looking most tempting. Opposite to Newark, my friend pointed out a farmhouse. "Do you know what that is?" "A farmhouse," I replied. "Ay, but what farmhouse, that's the thing? Why, sir, that's the house where Mungo Park lived, and where his brother now lives." He then related the fact recorded in Scott's Life, of Sir Walter finding Mungo Park standing one day in an abstracted mood, flinging stones into the Yarrow; and asking him why he did that, he told Scott that he was sounding the depth of the river, it being a plan he had discovered and used on his African tour; the length of time the bubbles took coming to the top indicating the comparative depth, and showing whether he might venture to ford the stream or not. Soon after, Park again set out for Africa, never to return. "There, too, I buy the wool," added my companion. "But do you see," again he went on, "the meadow there below us, lying between those two streams?"--"Yes."--"Well, there meet the Ettrick and Yarrow, and become the Tweed; and the meadow between is no other than that of _Carterhaugh_; you've heard of it in the old ballads. I buy all the wool off that farm." I have no doubt, if the jolly fellow had fallen in with the fairies on Carterhaugh, he would have tried to buy their wool.

Ever and anon, out of the gig he sprung, and bolted into a house. Here there was a sudden burst of exclamation, a violent shaking of hands. Out he came again, and a whole troop of people after him. "Well but Mr. ----, don't you take my wool this time!" "Oh! why not? What is it? what weight? what do you want?" "It is so and so, and I want so much for it." "Oh, fie, mon! I'll gie ye so much!" "That's too little." "Well, that's what I'll gie--ye can send it, if ye like the price;" and away we brushed, the man all life and jollity giving me a poke in the side with his elbow, and a knowing look, with--"He'll send it! It won't do to spend much time over these little lots;" and away we went. At one house, no sooner did he enter, than out came a bonny lass with a glass and the whisky-bottle, and most earnestly and respectfully pressing that I should take a glass! "What could the bonny girl mean by being so urgent that I should take some of her whisky?" "Oh," said he, laughing heartily, "it was because I told her that ye were a Free-church minister frae London, and they're mighty zealous Free-church folk here."

At Selkirk my jolly friend put himself and horse to a great deal of labor in ascending the steep hill into the town, which we might have avoided, that I might see the statue of Sir Walter Scott, by Richie, in the market-place. This, however, was but part of his object. Leaving the gig at the inn, he said we must just look in on a friend of his. It was at a little grocer's shop, and, in a little dusky parlor, he introduced me to a young lady, his wife's sister, and we must have some tea with her. The young lady was a comely, quiet, dark-complexioned person, who seemed to have a deal of quiet sense, and some sly humor; just such a person as Scott would have introduced into one of his stories as a Jenny Middlemass; or the like; and it was most amusing to sit and listen to all their talk, and jokes, and his mystifications, and her quick detection of them, and their united mirth over them. The good man finally landed me in Galashiels, and there I had no little difficulty in getting away to my inn; as he thought of nothing less than my staying to supper with him, and hearing a great deal more of all the country round, of Scott and Burns, Hogg and wool-buying, trading and tradition, the old glories of border reiving, and new glories of Galashiels, and its spinning and weaving, without end.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

Coleridge, whose simple, unworldly character is as well known as his genius, seems to have inherited his particular disposition from his father. His father was the Rev. John Coleridge, the vicar of Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire. He was a learned man, the head master of the free grammar-school at Ottery, as well as vicar. He had been previously head master of the school at South Molton, and was one of the persons who assisted Dr. Kennicott in his Hebrew Bible. "He was an exceedingly studious man," says Gillman, on the authority of Coleridge himself, "pious, of primitive manners, and the most simple habits: passing events were little heeded by him, and therefore he was usually characterized as 'the absent man.'" Coleridge was born October 21st, 1772, the youngest of thirteen children, of which nine were sons, one of whom died in infancy. Of all these sons Coleridge is said to have most resembled his father in mind and habit. His mother was, except for education, in which she was deficient, a most fitting wife for such a man. She was an active, careful housekeeper and manager, looked well after worldly affairs, and was ambitious to place her sons well in the world. She always told them to look after good, substantial, sensible women, and not after fine harpsichord ladies. Coleridge used to relate many instances of his father's absence of mind, one or two of which we may quote. On one occasion, having to breakfast with his bishop, he went, as was the practice of that day, into a barber's shop to have his head shaved, wigs being then in common use. Just as the operation was completed, the clock struck nine, the hour at which the bishop punctually breakfasted. Roused as from a revery, he instantly left the barber's shop, and in his haste forgetting his wig, appeared at the breakfast-table, where the bishop and his party had assembled. The bishop, well acquainted with his absent manners, courteously and playfully requested him to walk into an adjoining room, and give his opinion of a mirror which had arrived from London a few days previously, and which disclosed to his astonished guest the consequence of his haste and forgetfulness.

The old gentleman, Coleridge also related, had to take a journey on some professional business, which would detain him from home for three or four days: his good wife, in her care and watchfulness, had packed a few things in a small trunk, and gave them in charge to her husband, with strong injunctions that he was to put on a clean shirt every day. On his return home, his wife went to search for his linen, when, to her dismay, it was not in the trunk. A closer search, however, discovered that the vicar had strictly obeyed her injunctions, and had put on daily a clean shirt, but had forgotten to remove the one underneath. This might have been the pleasantest and most portable mode of carrying half-a-dozen shirts in winter, but not so in the dog-days.

The poor idolized him and paid him the greatest reverence; and among other causes, for the odd one of quoting the original Hebrew liberally in his sermons. They felt themselves particularly favored by his giving them "the very words the Spirit spoke in;" the agricultural population flocked in from the neighborhood with great eagerness to hear him on this account; and such an opinion did they acquire of his learning, that they regarded his successor with much contempt, because he addressed them in simple English. This worthy old man died when Coleridge was about seven years old only.