Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/431

 JAMES HOGG 415 was obliged to select, not the best poems, but those that I remembered best. I wrote several of these during my short stay, and gave them all to a person to print at my expense ; and having sold off my sheep on Wednesday morning, I returned to the Forest. I saw no more of my poems until I received word that there were 1000 copies thrown off. I knew no more about publishing than the man of the moon ; and the only motive that influenced me was the gratification of my vanity by seeing my works in print. But no sooner did the first copy come to hand than my eyes were open to the folly of my conduct ; for, on com- paring it with the MS. which I had at home, I found many of the stanzas omitted, others misplaced, and typographical errors abounding in every page." Having thus launched him on the still-vext sea of literature, let me note as briefly as possible the prin- cipal events of the remainder of his after-life, inter- spersing and adding a few characteristic anecdotes and sketches of and by some of his well-known con- temporaries. In the autumn of 1802 [Hogg says summer of 1801], he first met Walter Scott ; who, as the "Shirrah" of Selkirkshire, was a little king in the Forest, and who was then making a " raid " in the wilds of Yarrow to collect old songs and ballads for the third volume of the " Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border." Hogg re- cords graphically his dare-devil riding and boating (leistering kippers in Tweed), and instances of his marvellous memory. Hogg's mother delighted him by chanting the ballad of " Old Maitlan'," and when he asked her whether she thought it had ever been printed, the outspoken dame replied : " Oo, na, na,