Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/42

306 still uncultivated mind, possessed indications of great originality and poetical merit, and by a prose work which he produced about the same period, being an "Essay on Sheep," Hogg cleared the sum of three hundred pounds.

It was at this time, and, we believe, during this visit to Edinburgh in search of a publisher, that Scott, who admired the genius of Hogg, and was amused with his rough-spun simplicity, invited him to dinner in Castle Street, where a party, admirers of the "Mountain Bard," were assembled to meet with its most singular author. Hogg arrived, but in the dusty shepherd costume in which he had attended the cattle-market, and with hands embrowned with the processes of recent sheep-smearing. In this state he entered the drawing-room:

But Hogg does not appear to have disturbed himself with their astonishment: he had made up his mind to be a finished courtier by imitating the lady of the house. Mrs. Scott, who was in a delicate state of health, was reclining upon a sofa; upon which Hogg, faithful to his fair exemplar, threw himself in the same attitude upon a sofa opposite, to the great dismay of the lady, who saw her fine chintz crushed and soiled beneath its unwonted burden. During the dinner, he delighted the company by his pithy and orginal conversation, his Doric breadth of dialect, his stories and songs, which were all produced as from along-imprisoned fountain. But as the conversation warmed and the wine circulated, he became less and less mindful of the pattern of manners he had adopted, and more completely, at every step, the unsophisticated boon companion of Ettrick Forest; and after addressing his host successively as "Mr. Scott," "Sherra," "Scott," "Walter," and "Wattie," he wound up the climax at supper, by hailing Mrs. Scott with the familiar title of "Charlotte."

The Ettrick Shepherd, as we have already seen, had now made considerable advance in his resemblance to Robert Burns. When his hour was at the darkest, he had published a volume of poetry that raised him at once from poverty to comparative wealth. He had established for himself a poetical reputation, and obtained an entry into the literary society of the capital. But, unfortunately, the parallel was not to end here, for, like Burns, he was to lose the fortune which his genius had created almost as rapidly as it had been won. Master of the enormous sum of three hundred pounds, Hogg seems to have thought that it could accomplish everything; and, accordingly, he rushed headlong into agricultural speculations, to more than ten times the amount, and soon found him- self penniless and in debt. After struggling, or rather floundering on, impeded at every step by the new character he had acquired, of a man that could win but not keep & character most unfavourable in the eyes of his countrymen Hogg cast about for other occupation. But his choice was more poetical than prudent : he wished to obtain a commission in a militia regiment. This was about the year 1808, when our captains of militia were menaced with something more serious than the annoyances of pipe-clay and parades; for an invasion was imminent, and it was thought that Hogg, although a poet and admirable writer of war-songs, was more likely, in a charge of bayonets, to play the part of a Horace than a Tyrtseus. Such, at least, was the suspicion of Sir Walter Scott, a good judge in such matters, whose influence Hogg solicited in this affair, but who endeavoured to dissuade his friend, by representing the smallness of pay