"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.
[Illustration: Coleridge Enlisting]