Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/426

 4IO CRITICAL STUDIES in the world. But then I wept again, because I could not write. However, I resolved to be a poet, and to follow in the steps of Burns." II A little more must be given, and as much of it as possible in his own characteristic language, concerning the youth of Hogg ; not only because it is biographi- cally the most interesting part of his hfe, but because it illustrates the general life and character of that noble peasantry of which he is but a type ; a brilliant type in literature, no doubt, especially when account is taken of his uncommon lack of early schooling ; but scarcely a brilliant type — perhaps, indeed, rather below than above the average — in sound sense, clear intellect, sterling strength and depth of nature. Few contrasts appear more startling than that between the South Scottish (not to speak of the Highlanders) and South English peasantry, until the recent re-awaken- ing of these, hailed with astonishment by their most sanguine friends, so profoundly hopeless seemed the long torpor, the stolid degradation. The former were perchance quite as poor as the latter ; but their poverty was free from intellectual and moral squalidness, nor was the farm-servant socially separated from the farmer, so as to be looked down upon as a serf while not looked after as a serf, whose strength and well-being arc of not less value to the master than those of his horse and his ox. The spirit of the former was nourished and sustained by lofty memories, patriotic and religious ; the heart and the imagination were fed