Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/106

 teristic letter endeavoured to enlist the sympathies of the Duchess of Buccleuch, who had patronised him as Countess of Dalkeith. After the duchess's death, five months later, the duke, explaining that he was simply administering her bequest, gave Hogg, at a nominal rent, the farm of Eltrive Lake in Yarrow.

To obtain the funds necessary for settling in Eltrive Lake, Hogg suggested a volume of poems by distinguished living poets. The proposal was unfavourably received by the coadjutors he selected, Scott sharply retorting that ‘every herring should hing by its ain head.’ Thereupon Hogg produced clever parodies of Wordsworth, Byron, Southey, Coleridge, Wilson, Scott, and himself (Thomas Pringle supplying an epistle in the manner of the ‘Marmion’ introductions), publishing them, with an ingenious preface, in 1816 as ‘The Poetic Mirror, or the Living Bards of Great Britain.’ This work is marked by real poetic power and ingenious imitative faculty, though there is an occasional tendency towards burlesque (specially noticeable in the Wordsworth parodies). Hogg followed this with two volumes of unsuccessful dramatic tales, and then Scott, Blackwood, and other friends helped him to produce a handsomely illustrated edition of ‘The Queen's Wake,’ dedicated to the Princess Charlotte (1818). To increase his reputation Scott sent Gifford in 1818 an article on his poems for the ‘Quarterly Review,’ but it never appeared (, Murray, ii. 5). Nevertheless Hogg prospered at Eltrive, hospitably receiving numerous visitors attracted by his character and fame, and keeping up his connection with literary circles in Edinburgh. In 1817 he assisted at the inauguration of ‘Blackwood's Magazine,’ contributing the kernel of the fateful Chaldee MS. He claimed his due credit in connection with this notorious document, though he cautiously admitted that the young lions in Edinburgh ‘interlarded it with a good deal of devilry of their own.’

In 1817 Hogg began his prose tales with ‘The Brownie of Bodsbeck and other Tales,’ in two volumes. This was followed in 1819 and 1820 by the two volumes of ‘Jacobite Relics of Scotland,’ containing not only poems belonging to the period of the Stuart fall, but many of Hogg's own best lyrics, which are to this day favourite Jacobite songs. Likewise in 1820 he published ‘Winter Evening Tales,’ drawn from his early experience, and charged with vivid reminiscences of border character and manners. In this year also he married Margaret Phillips, daughter of Mr. Phillips of Langbridgemoor, Annandale; and he presently leased, in addition to Eltrive Lake, the neighbouring farm of Mount Benger, which proved a disastrous venture. In 1822 he published ‘The Three Perils of Man: War, Women, and Witchcraft.’ This he followed in 1823 with a work in three volumes, entitled ‘The Three Perils of Women,’ which, though of inferior quality, brought him some money. He produced in 1824 ‘Confessions of a Fanatic,’ weighted at first with the repelling title, ‘Confessions of a Justified Sinner.’ Strong and original, the work never became popular. In 1826 appeared his somewhat ambitious epic ‘Queen Hynde,’ which, though not without ingenuity and poetic beauty, was coldly received, and discouraged Hogg from attempting another long poem. By this time he was the recognised ideal ‘Shepherd’ in ‘Blackwood's Magazine,’ alternately pleased and offended with Wilson's exuberant delineation.

Meanwhile, being quit of Mount Benger, Hogg settled quietly at Eltrive, manfully wrestling with hosts of visitors (with whom he helped to give fame to St. Mary's Lake and the romantic hostel on it kept by Tibbie Shiels), and rejoicing in his growing family and his literary work. He contributed much under his own hand to ‘Blackwood,’ and he made a collection of these articles in his ‘Shepherd's Calendar’ in 1829. Blackwood this year also published a collection of about 140 of his songs, which proved successful. In 1832 Hogg visited London to arrange for a cheap reissue of his works. He was enthusiastically received, and was entertained at a public dinner, with Sir John Malcolm in the chair. After three months he returned, having engaged James Cochrane, Pall Mall, as publisher. Carlyle, observing these doings, characteristically remarks (Letters of Thomas Carlyle, ii. 10, ed. Norton): ‘It is supposed to be a trick of his Bookseller (a hungry shark on the verge of bankruptcy), who wishes to attract the Cockney population.’ When the first volume of ‘Altrive Tales’ had appeared Cochrane failed, and the enterprise ended. In 1833 Hogg was entertained at Peebles to a public dinner, presided over by Wilson, when he asserted that having long sought fame he had found it at last. He still wrote for periodicals, and in 1834 published a series of ‘Lay Sermons’ and ‘The Domestic Manners and Private Life of Sir Walter Scott;’ the latter deeply offended Lockhart, who viewed it as an intrusion upon his special domain. This year also Hogg prepared a fresh series of his stories, to be called ‘Montrose Tales,’ and Cochrane, who was again in business, published them early in 1835. They were popular and likely to be profitable, when, at the end of the year, Cochrane again became bankrupt.