Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/44

308 frequent speaker; and his strange medley of broad Scotch and homely quaint phraseology, combined with the rich original ideas that flashed from him at every movement, made him a wondrous favourite with his auditors, who laughed, wondered at, and admired this most singular orator all in one breath. He ever afterwards retained a grateful recollection of the benefits he derived from this kind of schooling, and declared that without these weekly lessons he never could have succeeded as he did. As this was only preliminary to something better, he now set himself in good earnest to produce a work that should surpass all he had yet written, and give him a place among the poets of the day an aim that was not a little strengthened by the success of Scott and Byron, whom he secretly hoped to rival. As on former occasions, he had lying beside him sundry ballads and tales, the composition of his former days, which he was unwilling to lose; and in the plan of his new production these were to be interwoven with new materials into the form of a consecutive story. A few months of application sufficed to complete the work, and the result was the "Queen's Wake." To find a publisher was now his task. He repaired to head-quarters at once, by applying to Mr. Constable; but "the Crafty," who, no doubt, was inundated with similar applications, and was too wise to buy a pig in a poke, refused to have anything to do in the affair until he had seen the manuscript. This reasonable request the poet refused, with "What skill have you about the merits of a book?" "It may be so, Hogg," replied the Jupiter Tonans of Scottish publishers, "but I know as well how to sell a book as any man, which should be some concern of yours, and I know how to buy one, too." Another publisher was ultimately found, and in the spring of 1813 the "Queen's Wake" appeared.

Of this beautiful poem, universally known and admired as it has been and still continues to be, nothing can now be said, whether in criticism or laudation, that has not already been said a hundred times over. It has appropriately taken its permanent place in British poetry, where it promises to be as highly valued, and to last as long, as anything that has been produced by Campbell, Scott, or Byron. On its appearance the whole reading public were struck with astonishment. That tales so striking, that pictures so full of ethereal beauty and grandeur, and a versification so graceful and musical, should have been the produce of an uneducated shepherd!—it was one of those literary phenomena which occur only at rare intervals, for the perplexity of criticism, and the subversion of its authority and rule. By what strange power or chance had such a man been able to describe the fairy queen and her glittering train riding along to the music of their own silver bells; or the unearthly voyages and revels of the witch of Fife; or that vast pillared temple of nature, Staffa, amidst the deep, eternal anthem of its waves; or the phantom-seer Columba, bewailing the iniquities of his once hallowed isle, and dooming its sinful abbot and monks to the ruin they had merited? But, above all these, the tale of Kilmeny bore the pre-eminence; for in it the poet's excellencies were concentrated, whether in the wild and wonderful of conception or beauty of execution; while the music of the language arrested the ear, as did the rich compositions of Weber, when his " Der Freischutz" and " Oberon " first broke upon the public.

By the publication of the "Queen's Wake," its author was recognized not only as a veritable poet, but one of the highest order; and as it went through five editions in a short time, it tended greatly to relieve his straitened circumstances. At this time also he was in the practice of contributing articles to the