Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/446

 430 CRITICAL STUniES script," of which, as it appeared, Ferrier gives him about forty verses (though he sent many more), the rest being mainly due to Wilson and Lockhart. Hogg had many a tiff with Blackwood and his asso- ciates, who put the Shepherd's name to all sorts of things he never wrote, and who, Lockhart especially, were continually mystifying him ; and he had another quarrel with Wilson, i.e., a quarrel all on his own side, about the way in which he was exhibited in the "Noctes," though these, by the notoriety they gave him, must have immensely increased his literary earnings. The " Chaldee MS." Hogg always looked upon as an innocent joke, and could never under- stand why people got in a rage about it. In 1832 Hogg visited London to arrange for a complete edition of his works, and stayed there three months. He was of course lionised more than enough ; and among other things entertained at a public dinner, at which some two hundred noble and distinguished persons did him honour ; but was most pleased because the day was the anniversary of Burns' birth, and two sons of Burns sat on the left of the president (Sir John Malcolm), and after dinner he brewed punch in the punch-bowl of Burns, brought from Paisley for the occasion. The projected edition, to be illustrated by George Cruickshanks (so I find it spelt), came to grief with the first volume, through the failure of the publisher, who failed a second time with another series entrusted to him by the kind- hearted, indiscreet Shepherd. On his return he was welcomed with a public dinner at Peebles, his good friend John Wilson in the chair. His vigorous con- stitution was now breaking up; and at length, after