Hogg's poems under the title of the Mountain Bard; and also a treatise on sheep. By these publications he obtained the (to him) large sum of £300, and he rushed into farming on a scale ten times beyond his means, having leased two farms in Dumfriesshire, at rents far beyond their value. The consequence was, that in less than three years he was again penniless, and in debt.

In these circumstances he tried to obtain a captaincy in the militia, and a situation in the excise, but failed in both, and again fell back upon his pen. He published a collection of songs, containing a large proportion of his own early pieces, under the title of the Forest Minstrel, and dedicated it to the Countess of Dalkeith. The handsome gift of one hundred guineas from his patroness was the only profit that it brought him. His next venture was a weekly newspaper, The Spy, which lived about twelve months, leaving him in a state of financial exhaustion.

the reader's notice. The story of Kilmeny is invariably selected as the masterpiece of the work; but, while fully alive to its charm as a production of the imagination, and its musical sweetness of language, and allowing for a certain dimness of outline as appropriate to the morbid sentiment of which it is the embodiment, we cannot overlook the confusion and want of perspective that pervade it, nor can we grant that indistinctness of outline enhances the beauty of even SO purely ideal a clime of the imagination as that in which the scene of Kilmeny is laid. It also contains some descriptive incongruities, and the affectation of the ancient spelling is an absurdity that almost gives it a serio-comic air. The "Fate of Macgregor," similarly founded on superstitious sentiment, though inferior in imaginative breadth, has not, in our estimation, the blemishes which mar Kilmeny." It is in every way equal to Campbell's "Lochiel's WarnWhen his fortune was about its low-ing," which appeared about ten years est, in consequence of the failure of his various schemes, he, in 1813, astonished the world by his Queen's Wake, a production for which no one would have given him credit, but which places his right to the title of poet beyond dispute. It is in every way a remarkable poem, or rather a garland of varied poetic gems gracefully strung together, and was at once recognised as such. Although the plan of it is taken from Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel, yet the application and the execution are so original, that this in no way detracts from the merits of Hogg's genius, and the fact almost never intrudes itself on

66

earlier.

Hogg's next venture was The Poetic Mirror, intended as a collection of the poems of living bards. Scott refused to contribute, and this caused a temporary estrangement between the poets. He then issued Dramatic Tales, and The Brownie of Bodsbeck, &c. In 1820, he received a life-lease of the farm of Altrive from the Duke of Buccleuch, at a nominal rent, and on settling here he married. But his passion for farm ventures could not be overcome while he had the means of gratifying it, and with his wife's and his own means he took a lease of, and stocked the farm of Mount

Benger. The usual results followed.

Yet dear the symbols to his eye,

In 1821, he completed his Jacobite | Memorials of a time gone by.
Relics, and, in 1822, received two hun-
dred pounds for a select volume of his
best poems. Besides these publications,
he contributed to Blackwood's Magazine.
His last poem was "Queen Hynde,"
which appeared in 1826. He died in
1835, and was buried in the churchyard
of Ettrick. Twenty years after his
death, his widow received a govern-
ment pension of £100 a-year; and in
1860, a monument was erected to his
memory overlooking St Mary's Loch.

The bard on Ettrick's mountains green
In nature's bosom nursed had been,

Hogg has been compared with Ramsay; but except in the possession of a ludicrous Goldsmithian egotism whicl. amused without offending, they are contrasts rather than counterparts, Ramsay being a shrewd and economic, almost unimpassioned man of business, while Hogg was the very reverse. Perhaps the best portrait of him is his own Bard of Ettrick in the Queen's Wake.

THE BARD OF ETTRICK.

The next was named-the very sound
Excited merriment around :
But when the bard himself appear'd,
The ladies smiled, the courtiers sneer'd ;
For such a simple air and mien
Before a court had never been.

A clown he was, bred in the wild,
And late from native moors exiled,
In hopes his mellow mountain strain
High favour from the great would gain.
Poor wight! he never ween'd how hard
For poverty to earn regard!
Dejection o'er his visage ran,
His coat was bare, his colour wan,
His forest doublet darn'd and torn,
His shepherd plaid all rent and worn ;

And oft had mark'd, in forest lone,
Her beauties on her mountain throne;
Had seen her deck the wild wood-tree,
And star with snowy gems the lea;
In loveliest colours paint the plain,
And sow the moor with purple grain.
By golden mead and mountain sheer,
Had view'd the Ettrick waving clear,
Where shadowy flocks of purest snow
Seem'd grazing in a world below.

Instead of ocean's billowy pride,
Where monsters play and navies ride,
Oft had he view'd, as morning rose,
The bosom of the lonely Lowes,
Plough'd far by many a downy keel,
Of wild-duck and of vagrant teal.
Oft thrill'd his heart at close of even,
To see the dappled vales of heaven,

With many a mountain, moor, and tree,
Asleep upon the Saint Mary.
The pilot swan majestic wind,
With all his cygnet fleet behind.

So softly sail, and swiftly row,
With sable oar, and silken prow.
Instead of war's unhallow'd form,
His eye had seen the thunderstorm
Descend within the mountain's brim,
And shroud him in its chambers grim;
Then from its bowels burst amain
The sheeted flame and sounding rain,
And by the bolts in thunder borne,
The heaven's own breast and mountain
torn.

The wild-roe from the forest driven;
The oaks of ages peel'd and riven;
Impending oceans whirl and boil,
Convulsed by nature's grand turmoil.

Instead of arms or golden crest,
His harp with mimic flowers was drest ·

'Macgregor, Macgregor, remember our foemen ;

And do what it freezes my vitals to say.

Forgive me, dear brother, this horror of mind;

Thou knowest in the strife I was never be-
hind,

Nor ever receded a foot from the van,
Or blenched at the ire or the prowess of

man.

But I've sworn by the cross, by my God, and by all,

An oath which I cannot, and dare not recall,

Ere the shadows of midnight fall east from the pile,

The moon rises broad from the brow of To meet with a spirit this night in Glen

Ben-Lomond ;

The clans are impatient, and chide thy delay;

Arise! let us bound to Glen-Lyon away."

Stern scowled the Macgregor; then, silent and sullen,

Gyle.

"Last night, in my chamber, all thoughtful and lone,

I called to remembrance some deeds I had done,

When entered a lady, with visage so wan, He turned his red eye to the braes of And looks such as never were fastened Strathfillan ; "Go, Malcolm, to sleep, let the clans be I knew her, O brother! I knew her full dismissed; well!

on man.

The Campbells this night for Macgregor Of that once fair dame such a tale I could must rest."

tell

As would thrill thy bold heart: but how long she remained,

So racked was my spirit, my bosom so

pained,

I knew not-but ages seemed short to the while.

Though proffer'd the Highlands, nay, all the green isle,

With length of existence no man can enjoy,

"The Campbell may come, as his The same to endure, the dread proffer promises bind him,

I'd fly!

And haughty M'Nab, with his giants be- The thrice-threaten'd pangs of last night hind him:

to forego,

below.

This night I am bound to relinquish the Macgregor would dive to the mansions

fray,

When the lions of Dochart stood firm by A skiff salling light, where a lady did