Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/41

Rh become as famed as the Ayrshire ploughman. In other individuals such soaring ambition is not only kept a secret from the world, but as much as possible from their own hearts also ; but with James Hogg there never was such concealment. He uttered what he felt, so that those who loved were often compelled to laugh at him, and reckon him not only the simplest of poets, but the most vain-glorious of poetical simpletons. For this, however, he cared very little, while he felt within himself that new-born ardent enthusiasm which, he judged, would carry him far, even though it should fall short of the mark. And in this he was right; for if he did not become wholly a Burns, he still distanced others as far as he was himself distanced by his prototype.

The first publication of Hogg was a song, and nothing more but it was such a song as the best of our poets would not have been ashamed of. Such was the general suffrage, by the high popularity which this patriotic lay, called "Donald M'Donald," attained., and continued to hold for years. It appeared in 1800, in consequence of Napoleon's threatened invasion; and, while it denounced all manner of calamity and disaster upon the intruder which, luckily, were not brought to the test it kindled, wherever it was sung, such an ardent spirit of patriotism as Alcseus himself would have longed to second.

In the following year he made a still more intrepid plunge into authorship. Having come to Edinburgh with a flock of sheep for sale, and being incumbered with several days of interval, he resolved to spend the time in writing out such of his compositions as he could most readily remember, and publishing them in the form of a poetical pamphlet. He transcribed them according^, placed them in the hands of a publisher, and then retired to the Forest; where his production afterwards followed him, unrevised and uncorrected, with not a few blunders gratuitously added by the printer. This was but a sorry commencement; and like many poets after their first work appears, his lucubrations seemed in his own eyes so inferior in the form of a published book, that he wished them cancelled and annihilated. But the press had clutched them, and their recal was too late.

Soon after this commencement, Hogg, impatient of the narrow circumstances within which he was hampered, and conscious that he was fitted for something better, resolved to amend his fortunes, by migrating either to the Highlands or the Hebrides, and finding occupation as the superintendent of an extensive sheep-farm. But, strongly recommended though he was, especially by Sir Walter, then Mr. Scott, who had thus early recognized a kindred genius in the Shepherd, the attempt was unsuccessful; and poor Hogg, on returning home, lost all the money he still possessed, and that, too, in the short space of a week. Something was needful to be done immediately; and in this strait he was advised, by his steadfast friend, Sir Walter Scott, to publish a volume of poetry. The materials were already at hand; for Hogg, dissatisfied with the imitations of the ancient ballads which Scott had published in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," had made several attempts of the same kind himself which were highly estimated. It is worthy of remark, by the way, that the three great poets of Scotland Scott, Hogg, and Allan Cunningham commenced their poetical career, not upon the refinements of the modern school, but the rough spirit-stirring songs of shepherds and moss-troopers. Hogg's collection was soon in readiness; and on reaching Edinburgh, Scott introduced him to Constable, by whom the volume was published, under the title of "The Mountain Bard." By this work, which, notwithstanding the roughness of a