Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/435

 JAMES HOGG 419 precisely that in which any ordinary herdsman attends cattle to the market, and as his hands, moreover, bore most legible marks of a recent sheep-smearing, the lady of the house did not observe with perfect equa- nimity the novel usage to which her chintz was ex- posed. The shepherd, however, remarked nothing of all this — dined heartily and drank freely, and by jest, anecdote, and song, afforded plentiful merriment to the more civilised part of the company. As the liquor operated, his familiarity increased and strength- ened ; from ' Mr. Scott ' he advanced to ' Sherra,' and thence to 'Scott,' 'Walter,' and ' VVattie '—until, at supper, he fairly convulsed the whole party by ad- dressing Mrs. Scott as 'Charlotte,'" Here be it noted once for all, though the remark scarcely apphes to the preceding quotation, save to the word "civi- lised," where "polished" would have been not only kindlier but more accurate, that Lockhart throughout speaks of Hogg in a carping, depreciatory style, which does far more discredit to the writer than to his sub- ject. Large-natured, genial men of genius, like Scott and Wilson, could easily condone the shepherd's rough oddities and all the petulances of his most frank vanity ; but Lockhart was neither a genius nor large-natured — he was merely very clever, narrow, and bitter, "the scorpion that stings the faces of men," as he is termed by himself or his associates in the " Chaldee Manuscript," for he not only wrote but drew keen caricatures.* name. Thus in a letter from London to Wilson (March, '44), he writes, disgusted with the bishops: "I forget if [the sharp Quarterly editor should Itave written whether'] it is Swift or Scorpio who sang: —
 * Whether or not his own sponsor, he was rather proud of the