Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/39

Rh meny," who bewitched the world, as well as the animating muse of his first rugged efforts in song. That episode, so important in a poet's life, we give in his own tender and truthful language:—"When only eight years of age, I was sent out to a height called Broad-heads, with a rosy-cheeked maiden, to herd a flock of new-weaned lambs, and I had my mischievous cows to herd besides. But as she had no dog, and I had an excellent one, I was ordered to keep close by her. Never was a master's order better obeyed. Day after day I herded the cows and the lambs both, and Betty had nothing to do but to sit and sew. Then we dined together every day at a well near to the Shiel-sike-head, and after dinner I laid my head down on her lap, covered her bare feet with my plaid, and pretended to fall sound asleep. One day I heard her say to herself, 'Puir little laddie! he's jist tired to death;' and then I wept till I was afraidshe would feel the warm tears trickling on her knee. I wished m y master, who was a handsome young man, would fall in love with her and marry her, wondering how he could be so blind and stupid as not to do it. But I thought if I were he I would know well what to do."

From love to music was but a step in one of such a temperament, and when Hogg had reached the age of fourteen he laid out five shillings, which he had saved from his wages, in the purchase of an old violin. This new charm of existence occupied him so wholly that all his leisure was devoted to it; and as his only spare hours were taken from sleep, while his only dormitory was a stable or a cow-house, his desperate attempts in music had commonly no better auditory than that which was wont to gather around the harping of Orpheus. He ever after retained his love of music, and by dint of perseverance became a tolerable violinist. However trivial, or even ridiculous, such a pursuit may be in common life, it is no frivolous matter in that of a poet. It indicates that the soul of harmony is within him, and that whether he learns to fiddle well or not, he will turn it to the best account in that music of: words which forms so necessary an adjunct in poetry. Who does not recognize this fact in the singular melody which characterizes the Ettrick Shepherd's versification? No sounds can be sweeter, and no notes more appropriate, than those which embody "Kilmeny" and the Abbot M'Kinnon, in the "Queen's Wake." The first of these poems, as illustrative of the mere music of language, independently of its poetical merits, has never been surpassed.

In the meantime the education of the future poet went on, and that, too, so oddly as to give most uncertain promise of his future destination. He had already committed the Psalms of David in metre to memory; but though he liked their rhymes, he seems to have understood nothing else than the short measure into which they are rendered. In his eighteenth year, "The Life and Adventures of Sir William Wallace," modernized by Hamilton of Gilbertfield, and forming the choice epic of our Scottish peasantry, fell into his hands, and also the equally popular pastoral of the "Gentle Shepherd." But partly from having almost forgotten the art of reading, which he had learned so imperfectly, and partly from his scanty reading having been hitherto limited to English, the Scottish dialect, in which "Wallace" and the "Gentle Shepherd" are written, was so new and so puzzling, that Hogg struggled on from line to line at a snail's pace. But what was more ominous still was his dislike at their versification, so that he felt as if he would have relished them better had they been written in prose. His love of reading having been noticed by his employers, books were lent him, chiefly of a theological character, and newspapers; through the