NOCTES AMBROSIANÆ BY THE LATE JOHN WILSON 66 CHRISTOPHER NORTH," OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, PROFESSOR OF MORAL WM. MAGINN. LL.D., J. G. LOCKHART, JAMES HOGG, AND OTHERS. REVISED EDITION WITH MEMOIRS AND NOTES BY R. SHELTON MACKENZIE, D. C. L. VOL. IV MAY, 1830-NOVEMBER, 1831 NEW YORK W. J. WIDDLETON, PUBLISHER 1863. HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY Society for Preservation 7 New England Antiquities Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, BY W. J. WIDDLETON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. LIFE OF THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD. BY DR. SHELTON MACKENZIE. JAMES HOGG, commonly called "The Ettrick Shepherd," was born on the 25th of January, 1772, in a cottage on the banks of the Ettrick, a tributary of the Tweed, in Selkirkshire, a mountainous and picturesque part of Scotland. He died on the 21st November, 1835, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. His family had long been settled in the district of Ettrick, as shepherds. Robert Hogg, his father, who lived to the age of ninety, had married Margaret Laidlaw, a woman of considerable common sense, familiar knowledge of the traditionary ballads of Scotland, and a clear judgment. Of this marriage four sons were born. James was the second, and greatly prided himself, in mature years, on having had the same birthday (all but the year) as Robert Burns. At the time when Robert Hogg married, he had saved what, in those days, was considered sufficient to authorize his taking a farm. He took two; commenced dealing in cattle, gave credit, suffered from a great fall in the price of sheep and the dishonesty of his principal debtor,-and became a ruined man, -homeless, almost hopeless, before his son James was six years old. Robert Hogg then became shepherd on one of the farms which he had recently occupied. James Hogg's mother, who literally had taught herself to read the Bible, which she then thoroughly understood, had a natural taste for poetry. The wandering minstrels, whose last " Lay" was sung by Scott, had not vanished in her youth. From their lips, she stored her quick memory with many thousand lines of the old Border ballads ;-one of these wanderers, over whose head the changes of ninety years had rolled, communicated a great deal to her, which he alone knew. With Mrs. Hogg perished this, and much more that "the world would not willingly let die." From such a mother, James Hogg unquestionably received his first impulses towards Song. It was her habit daily to read from the Bible such passages as she thought likely to interest and improve her sons; and, daily also, followed her recitations of the Border ballads, in a manner between chant and song. Sometimes she would tell them stories of romantic incidents in the world of action and passion, into which none of them yet had launched; and she often would win them to tears by the simple relation of tales of sorrow and tenderness, in days not far remote and within their own locality. When James Hogg was seven years old, he was compelled to go to service. His occupation was to herd a few cows for a neighboring farmer. His wages for the half year were a ewe lamb and a pair of new shoes. In the first winter he returned home, and had three months' schooling. He got into a class so far advanced that they could read the Bible. He tried writing, but each letter was nearly an inch in length. Nor, to his dying day, did he write well. His whole course of education was obtained in six months at this time. “After this,” he says, “I was never another day at any school whatever.” When the severity of the season abated, when gentle Spring felt the kiss of Summer on her roseate lips, James Hogg again became a cow-herd. So he continued for some years, under various masters, until he finally arrived at the dignity of shepherd's assistant. The care of large flocks of sheep requires probity, skill, and self-reliance. The character which Hogg obtained from his successive masters, (he had a dozen before he was fifteen,) placed him in this rank, where the wages and other pecuniary advantages are comparatively good, and the opportunities for those who wish to acquire knowledge are great. A man, who is in the open air by himself, for twelve hours a-day during many months, able to read, (as nearly every Scottish peasant is,) can scarcely help becoming contemplative, and more or less imaginative. But, during the whole of Hogg's novitiate as a herdsman, he had no book to read except the Bible, and the version of the Psalms of David which is used by the Scottish Church. He had purchased an old violin out of his small earnings, and determinedly taught himself to play some favorite Scotch tunes. Afterwards, as we shall see, he became a very passable player. Among the farmers who employed Hogg to attend their sheep-flocks, the kindest were the family of the Laidlaws, (probably some relations of his mother,) with whom he remained several years. It was while in the employ of one of these that, at the age of eighteen, he first got the perusal of a versified Life of Sir William Wallace, the great Scottish patriot, and of the pastoral comedy of "The Gentle Shepherd," by Allan Ramsay. Oddly enough, the future poet (as he has related)" deeply regretted that they were not in prose, that everybody might have understood them." He had got so much out of the habit of reading, that the Scottish dialect quite confounded him! After this, Mrs. Laidlaw lent him some theological books, which he subsequently was glad he did not understand. A newspaper fell into his hands now and |