The Collected Letters of James Hogg, Volume 1, 1800-1819 9781474433846

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The Collected Letters of James Hogg VOLUME 1 1800–1819

T H E S T I R L I N G / S O U T H C A R O L I NA R E S E A R C H E D I T I O N O F

TH E

C O LLE CTE D

WO R K S

OF

JA M E S

HOGG

G E N E RAL E DITORS — DOUG LAS S. MACK AN D G I LLIAN H UG H E S

ii

T H E S T I R L I N G / S O U T H C A R O L I NA R E S E A R C H E D I T I O N O F

TH E

C O LLE CTE D

WO R K S

OF

JA M E S

HOGG

G E N E RAL E DITORS — DOUG LAS S. MACK AN D G I LLIAN H UG H E S

Volumes are numbered in the order of their publication in the Stirling / South Carolina Research Edition 1.

The Shepherd’s Calendar, edited by Douglas S. Mack.

2.

The Three Perils of Woman, edited by David Groves, Antony Hasler, and Douglas S. Mack.

3.

A Queer Book, edited by P. D. Garside.

4.

Tales of the Wars of Montrose, edited by Gillian Hughes.

5.

A Series of Lay Sermons, edited by Gillian Hughes with Douglas S. Mack.

6.

Queen Hynde, edited by Suzanne Gilbert and Douglas S. Mack.

7.

Anecdotes of Scott, edited by Jill Rubenstein with Douglas S. Mack.

8.

The Spy, edited by Gillian Hughes.

9.

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, edited by P. D. Garside with an Afterword by Ian Campbell.

10.

The Jacobite Relics of Scotland [First Series], edited by Murray G. H. Pittock.

11.

Winter Evening Tales, edited by Ian Duncan.

12.

The Jacobite Relics of Scotland Second Series, edited by Murray G. H. Pittock.

13.

Altrive Tales, edited by Gillian Hughes.

14.

The Queen’s Wake, edited by Douglas S. Mack with Meiko O’Halloran and Janette Currie.

15.

The Collected Letters of James Hogg: Volume 1 1800–1819, edited by Gillian Hughes with Douglas S. Mack, Robin MacLachlan, and Elaine Petrie.

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The Collected Letters of James Hogg V OLU M E 1 1800–1819

Edited by Gillian Hughes Associate Editors Douglas S. Mack, Robin MacLachlan, and Elaine Petrie

E D I N B U RG H

U N IVE RS ITY

2004

PRESS

iv © Edinburgh University Press, 2004 Edinburgh University Press 22 George Square Edinburgh EH8 9LF Typeset at the University of Stirling Printed by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin ISBN 0 7486 1671 3 No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library Recipient of a University of Edinburgh Award for Distinguished Scottish Scholarship

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The Stirling / South Carolina Research Edition of

The Collected Works of James Hogg Advisory Board Chairman Prof. David Daiches Deputy Chairman Dr Robin MacLachlan (The James Hogg Society) General Editors Prof. Douglas S. Mack and Dr Gillian Hughes Associate General Editors Prof. Peter Garside and Dr Suzanne Gilbert Secretary Dr Gillian Hughes Co-ordinator, University of South Carolina Prof. Patrick Scott Ex Officio (University of Stirling) The Principal Head, Centre for Scottish Literature and Culture Head, Department of English Studies Dean, Faculty of Arts Research Officer, Department of English Studies Members Prof. Ian Campbell (University of Edinburgh) Ms Nicola Carr (Edinburgh University Press) Thomas Crawford (University of Aberdeen) Dr Adrian Hunter (University of Stirling) Dr Christopher MacLachlan (University of St Andrews) Dr Anthony Mandal (Cardiff University) Professor Susan Manning (University of Edinburgh) Professor Murray Pittock (University of Manchester) Prof. G. Ross Roy (University of South Carolina) Prof. Roderick Watson (University of Stirling)

The Aims of the Edition James Hogg lived from 1770 till 1835. He was regarded by his contemporaries as one of the leading writers of the day, but the nature of his fame was influenced by the fact that, as a young man, he had been a self-educated shepherd. The second edition (1813) of his poem The Queen’s Wake contains an ‘Advertisement’ which begins as follows. T H E Publisher having been favoured with letters from gentlemen in various parts of the United Kingdom respecting the Author of the Q U E E N ’ S

vi W AKE , and most of them expressing doubts of his being a Scotch Shepherd; he takes this opportunity of assuring the Public, that THE QUEEN’S WAKE is really and truly the production of J AM E S H O GG , a common shepherd, bred among the mountains of Ettrick Forest, who went to service when only seven years of age; and since that period has never received any education whatever. The view of Hogg taken by his contemporaries is also reflected in the various early reviews of The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, which appeared anonymously in 1824. As Gillian Hughes has shown in the Newsletter of the James Hogg Society no. 1, many of these reviews identify Hogg as the author, and see the novel as presenting ‘an incongruous mixture of the strongest powers with the strongest absurdities’. The Scotch Shepherd was regarded as a man of powerful and original talent, but it was felt that his lack of education caused his work to be marred by frequent failures in discretion, in expression, and in knowledge of the world. Worst of all was Hogg’s lack of what was called ‘delicacy’, a failing which caused him to deal in his writings with subjects (such as prostitution) which were felt to be unsuitable for mention in polite literature. Hogg was regarded as a man of undoubted genius, but his genius was felt to be seriously flawed. A posthumous collected edition of Hogg was published in the late 1830s. As was perhaps natural in the circumstances, the publishers (Blackie & Son of Glasgow) took pains to smooth away what they took to be the rough edges of Hogg’s writing, and to remove his numerous ‘indelicacies’. This process was taken even further in the 1860s, when the Rev. Thomas Thomson prepared a revised edition of Hogg’s Works for publication by Blackie. These Blackie editions present a bland and lifeless version of Hogg’s writings. It was in this version that Hogg was read by the Victorians. Unsurprisingly, he came to be regarded as a minor figure, of no great importance or interest. The second half of the twentieth century saw a substantial revival of Hogg’s reputation, and he is now generally considered to be one of Scotland’s major writers. This new reputation is based on a few works which have been republished in editions based on his original texts. Nevertheless, a number of Hogg’s major works remain out of print. Indeed, some have been out of print for more than a century and a half, while others, still less fortunate, have never been published at all in their original, unbowdlerised condition. Hogg is thus a major writer whose true stature was not recognised in his own lifetime because his social origins led to his being

vii smothered in genteel condescension; and whose true stature has not been recognised since, because of a lack of adequate editions. The poet Douglas Dunn wrote of Hogg in the Glasgow Herald in September 1988: ‘I can’t help but think that in almost any other country of Europe a complete, modern edition of a comparable author would have been available long ago’. The Stirling / South Carolina Edition of James Hogg seeks to fill the gap identified by Douglas Dunn. When completed the edition will run to thirty-four volumes; and it will cover Hogg’s prose, his poetry, his plays, and his letters. General Editors’ Acknowledgements This publication has its roots in a survey of Hogg’s surviving letters undertaken in the 1970s, and funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. We are grateful to the Trust for this support, and we also record with gratitude the fact that a major research grant awarded by the United Kingdom’s Arts and Humanities Research Board has made it possible for Dr Gillian Hughes to prepare and edit this volume of the Stirling/ South Carolina Edition. In addition, we are grateful for the continuing support of the University of Stirling and the University of South Carolina, and for assistance from the Association for Scottish Literary Studies and the James Hogg Society. Dr Anthony Mandal gave invaluable technical support in the production of this volume and of its predecessor The Queen’s Wake, edited by Douglas S. Mack. Volume Editor’s Acknowledgements Like so many other Hogg publications this one would never have appeared but for the encouragement and support of Douglas Mack. I am also grateful for the prompt and helpful advice of Robin MacLachlan, another of the originators of the Hogg Letters survey and associate editors of this edition. Peter Garside is well-known for his generosity to other scholars, and has always been most kind and supportive of my work on James Hogg, here and elsewhere. I am fortunate indeed to have had the benefit of Jane Millgate’s experience from her work on the letters of Sir Walter Scott: with her customary generosity she not only shared her mailing list of archives with me but a wealth of practical information and sound advice resulting from her long experience as a travelling scholar. Karl Miller’s careful reading of the text of the letters and my draft annotation saved me from some egregious errors and otherwise improved my work.

viii I would also like to thank Richard Jackson for his invaluable practical help and the generosity with which he has put his detailed knowledge of various Scottish archives at my disposal and indicated several promising avenues for further exploration. Susan Dryburgh cheerfully sent out thousands of letters on my behalf to libraries and other institutions all over the world in addition to her usual secretarial and administrative duties. I owe her and her colleagues in the Department of English Studies Office of the University of Stirling very particular thanks for all that they do to forward the work of the S/SC Edition. I must also thank Suzanne Gilbert and Janette Currie, both Hogg scholars of the Department of English Studies, for their help. I thank Helen Beardsley and Gordon Willis of Stirling University Library for meeting my requests for access to rare books and manuscript material, and for promptly and patiently answering varied pleas for advice and practical assistance, sometimes at very short notice. Any collection of letters must owe a tremendous debt to many librarians and archivists, and this one is no exception. I am grateful to the many librarians with whom I have had dealings in the course of my research for this volume, but would like to express my particular gratitude to Paul Barnaby, Janet Horncy, Mike Kelly, Donald Kerr, Sheila Mackenzie, and Virginia Murray. The staff of the Edinburgh Room, Edinburgh Central Library, the National Library of Scotland, and the National Archives of Scotland have smoothed my path on numerous occasions. I have been able to look at Hogg letters in North America and New Zealand because of generous grants made by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and the Bibliographical Society, and was privileged during October 2001 to be the Frederick A. & Marion S. Pottle visiting research fellow at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. An honorary research fellowship at the University of Manchester has allowed me to access the resources of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester. The support of Hogg’s descendants has been essential for this volume, and I am grateful to Chris Gilkison, Liz and Alan Milne, and David Parr in particular. The Hogg Edition team at Edinburgh University Press have been generous with their time and trouble, particularly Nicola Carr, Ian Davidson, and Douglas McNaughton. I would also like to thank the following friends, colleagues, and fellow-enthusiasts (by no means mutually exclusive categories): John Ballantyne, Jim Barcus, Val Bold, Ian Campbell, Margaret Connor,

ix Ian Duncan, Penny Fielding, Gillian Garside, Alan Grant, Hans de Groot, Camilla Hannan, Judy King, James Knowles, Kirsteen McCue, Wilma Mack, Liz MacLachlan, Jean Moffatt, Meiko O’Halloran, Murray Pittock, Sharon Ragaz, David Reid, Tom Richardson, Judy Steel, Rachel Sweet, Graham Tulloch, and Rory Watson. I wish to thank the following institutions and individuals for permission to cite manuscript materials in their care: Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand; The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Boston Public Library/ Rare Books Department; The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford; The British Library; The Brotherton Collection, Leeds University Library; The Duke of Buccleuch; The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and his Circle, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; The Directors of Coutts & Co.; Edinburgh University Library, Department of Special Collections; Fales Library & Special Collections, New York University; Hornel Library, The National Trust for Scotland; John Murray Archive; Liverpool Central Library: Hornby Autograph Letters; Liverpool Record Office; Longman Archives, Reading University Library; Massachusetts Historical Society; Sir Maxwell McLeod, Bart.; Elizabeth McOwat; National Archives of Scotland; The Trustees of the National Library of Scotland; The Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland; Mr. Laurence Blair Oliphant; Pearson Education Limited; The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; Scottish Borders Archive and Local History Centre, Scottish Borders Library Service, St Mary’s Mill, Selkirk; Stirling University Library; Torquay Museum; University of London Library; James Hogg Collection, Special Collections, University of Otago Library, Dunedin, New Zealand; and The Wordsworth Trust. Hogg’s letters to Byron of 17 August, 13 September, and 28 October 1814 are reproduced by permission of Pollinger Limited and the proprietor. Hogg’s letter to John Clarke Whitfeld of 11 November 1816 is reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Hogg’s letter to Thomas Pringle of 21 August 1818 is reproduced with permission of the Department of Special Collections, Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries. Hogg’s letter to William Blackwood of [November 1814—May 1815] is reproduced Courtesy of Scottish Borders Council Museum & Gallery Service. The ‘Extracts of the Proceedings of the Society from the 6th of February 1819 to the 15th of May 1824’ are cited by kind permission of the Highland Society of London. I am grateful to the Society of Anti-

x quaries of Scotland for permission to reproduce the text of Hogg’s letter to Janet Stuart of 10 October [1808?]. The illustrations to this volume have been reproduced courtesy of Edinburgh Central Library and Stirling University Library. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to make the necessary acknowledgement at the first opportunity. In addition to being available from the James Hogg Society the interim index for Volume 1 can be found on the Edinburgh University Press website (www.eup.ed.ac.uk). Please use the search facility on the website to find the book and follow the link to the index. Gillian Hughes University of Stirling

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Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

The Letters of James Hogg To 1802 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 To 1805. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 For 1806 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 To 1808 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 To 1810 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 To 1812 . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 For 1813 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 For 1814 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 For 1815 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 For 1816 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 For 1817 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 For 1818 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 For 1819 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397 Appendix: Notes on Correspondents . . 439 Note on the Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .485

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Illustrations Hogg’s letter to Margaret Phillips of 27 July 1811 . . . xxiii (Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 1)

Engraved portrait of Hogg by William Nicholson . . 238 (from Etched Portraits of Distinguished Scotsmen (1818), Fine Art Department, Edinburgh Central Library)

Title-page of The Ettricke Garland . . . . . . . . . . . 261 (from The Ettricke Garland (1815), Stirling University Library)

Engraving of the expedition to the Kirk of Shotts . . . 420 (from Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 5 (September 1819), between pp. 672 and 673, Stirling University Library)

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Introduction I. Letters and Autobiography In publishing a collection of Hogg’s surviving letters the present editor is aware that she is moving into other territory from that covered by previous volumes of the Stirling/South Carolina Edition. In general those consist of works Hogg prepared for general circulation and for publication, and while they are personal, as all good creative work must be, they are not private. What Hogg wished his readership to know about his life he fashioned into an autobiography at different times, the final version being published under the title ‘Memoir of the Author’s Life’ in what was intended to be the first of a multi-volume collection of his prose fiction, Altrive Tales.1 This was his own interpretation of his life and literary career, the way in which he chose towards the end of his life to present himself to his readers and to posterity. In writing a memoir of Robert Burns Hogg explicitly condemns further and unauthorised intrusions into the life of a writer, even in the act of perpetrating one: So I am pitched on to write a memoir of the Life of Robert Burns! I wish from my soul that as many lives of that singular man had been written during his lifetime as have been of myself and then we should have known all of the bard and the man that behoved us to know for really this everlasting raking up of the ashes of the illustrious dead in search of collateral evidences relating to things about which we have no concern and ought not to know never will do It has always been my opinion that mankind have as little right to dive into the private actions of a poet as those of any other individual in society. It is by a man’s general behaviour in society that he is to be judged. [...] For what he has produced under the sanctions of his name to the public his character is answerable both to the existing public and posterity but no farther. [...] Let any man consider how he would like to have all his private amours, follies, political and selfish intrigues raked together and exposed to public view. Let even the most cautious and specious of our sex consider of this and think of the catalogue.2

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An edition of Hogg’s letters undoubtedly exceeds the limits of what a writer has ‘produced under the sanctions of his name to the public’ and represents an intrusion of the kind Hogg condemns as diving ‘into the private actions of a poet’. It is possible that this edition of his letters would not have pleased Hogg himself, but a public figure inevitably loses something of his right to privacy and even more so when he has historic importance. It is almost a hundred and eighty years after Hogg’s death. The friends and relatives to whom his letters were addressed and who are mentioned in them are also long since dead (which was not entirely the case when Hogg was composing his memoir of Robert Burns), and at this distance of time it is difficult to see who would benefit if investigations into Hogg’s private life were to be curtailed. Some of Hogg’s letters do indeed bring ‘private amours’ and ‘follies’ into public view, and it could be argued that only those aspects of his career which influenced his public role should be matter for enquiry. But if so, how are these to be distinguished—what in these letters shall be deemed relevant and what irrelevant to the career of Hogg the novelist, poet, and autobiographer? Hogg’s reputation will certainly be enhanced rather than diminished by the appearance of his letters within the Stirling/South Carolina Edition, which is itself an accumulating tribute to and exploration of one of Scotland’s most important cultural figures. Hogg’s Edinburgh is recognisably the cultural capital dominated in the 1810s and beyond by Walter Scott and Francis Jeffrey, but lit from a different angle and one which reveals a new pattern of players and networks of influence and association. The contribution of the Grieves and the Izetts, the McDiarmids, the Aitkens, and the Pringles, almost invisible in elite literary history of the period, are newly revealed. The strong links between Edinburgh as a magnetic centre and the provincial pools of talent from which it drew so much of its cultural capital and dynamism also feature largely in these letters. A treasure trove of information may be gleaned from them about the relations existing at this period between Edinburgh publishers such as William Blackwood and Archibald Constable and their publishing partners in London. Anyone interested in the history of periodical publications and their development during these crucial years will find much to reflect upon in Hogg’s attempts to establish himself as a professional literary man. Within this broad, sympathetic, and sensitive context Hogg’s letters supplement and enhance our understanding of his public writings. Firstly they form a commentary on his own Memoir by providing another, fluctuating, and at

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times spasmodic, account of Hogg’s life and character in his own terms and in his own words. They also contain vital information about the genesis and production of his published and unpublished literary works. In some instances they even embed the raw materials on which some of the published work is based, since when Hogg sent a shorter poem or a song to an editor of a collection or a periodical he frequently wrote it out within a letter. They act as social commentary, and provide important insights into the author’s significant relationships. But above all Hogg’s letters are wonderfully entertaining and well-written in their own right, the impress of his vitality and literary gifts. This is the last and best justification for their publication in the Stirling/South Carolina Edition. At the time of writing more than seven hundred letters have been located and identified, written between 1800 and 1835. The work of tracing and transcribing them was begun by Douglas Mack and Robin MacLachlan in the late 1970s, and Elaine Petrie and Gillian Hughes were recruited shortly afterwards to assist their labours and to contextualise them. At that time Elaine Petrie, with her expertise on ballads and folk-song generally, made a major contribution to the annotation of the earliest letters. In recent years Gillian Hughes has been the active editor of the Hogg Letters project, with help from many other scholars and librarians around the world not least from Jane Millgate (see the Volume Editor’s Acknowledgements). Deposits in major research libraries were well-known and easily identified: Hogg’s letters in the National Library of Scotland and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library have long been used by Hogg scholars, for example. Alan Lang Strout’s pioneering work in his first (and unfortunately only) published volume of The Life and Letters of James Hogg, The Ettrick Shepherd has been an important resource for half a century, particularly with reference to holdings in libraries and other institutions in North America.3 Hogg’s descendants in New Zealand have carefully deposited many family letters in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, and more recently recognised the University of Stirling as an important centre for Hogg Studies by gifting letters and other papers to the library there. Published lists and library catalogues have revealed the existence of smaller holdings, and thousands of letters of enquiry have been sent to libraries and public institutions around the world, sometimes to the puzzlement of the recipients. Personal contacts and visits have also been the means of bringing extra letters to light. Occasionally letters in private collections become visible in sale or auction catalogues and there is the excitement of trying to contact the

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seller and purchaser in order to obtain a copy before the letter sinks once more from view. Surprisingly, the present edition is the first ever systematic collection of Hogg’s letters. Hogg’s youngest daughter, Mary Gray Garden, includes many family letters in her loving tribute to her father, Memorials of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, and others were published in memoirs and biographies of Hogg’s contemporaries.4 Various letters have been included in histories of the important publishing houses who numbered Hogg among their authors, published privately by proud collectors, or by the contributors to various periodicals.5 More recently, Norah Parr’s portrait of her great-grandfather’s domestic life draws on and prints a number of his letters from the 1820s and 1830s. Recent editions of individual Hogg works also cite his letters as evidence in support of accounts of the composition and reception of the work.6 In most cases, however, Hogg’s letters have been regarded as raw materials for the manufacture of other work or as isolated literary curiosities. Until comparatively recently Hogg has not been generally regarded as a major author, whose entire correspondence is worthy of serious attention. Even Alan Lang Strout, who was clearly captivated by Hogg’s letter-writing powers, felt it necessary to apologise for the number of letters he included in his book even though he printed many only in part. He treated the notion of a complete collection of Hogg’s letters as essentially comic: Perhaps in some dull and deadly future (one may conjecture, not too seriously), when the Scholarly vies with the Comic Section in interest, a definitive Missives of the Ettrick Shepherd may be found worth publishing.7 Why should the publication of the complete letters of Sir Walter Scott or of Lord Byron be worthwhile, but not those of James Hogg? The time has come to take Hogg seriously as a major Romanticist and as one of the greatest of Scotland’s writers. All his known and surviving letters are now being carefully transcribed and edited (see the Note on the Texts, pp. 476–84 for specific details), and presented with full and respectful annotation. Inevitably there will be oversights and omissions in the present collection. The letters have been divided chronologically into three volumes to be published at two-yearly intervals, so that any letters brought to the editor’s attention after the publication of the earlier volumes may be included in an Appendix to the third. As the Stirling/ South Carolina Edition progresses our knowledge of Hogg and

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his world is constantly being refined and extended, a process in which the letters project will continue to participate. This first volume begins with Hogg’s earliest letters and continues up to the end of 1819 when he was, as his fiftieth year approached, seriously courting a wife.

2. The Pattern and Survival of Hogg’s Early Correspondence James Hogg was the second son of a small tenant farmer in Ettrick parish in Selkirkshire, probably born towards the end of November 1770 into what was essentially a peasant community. Reading the Bible was a valued skill, and a mark of social and intellectual respectability, but writing was probably less often practised in a society where members of an extended family lived within easy visiting distance of one another and where neighbours were also familiar acquaintances. Where a meeting could not be arranged, messages must often have been transmitted verbally. Paper was expensive, letter-writing mostly unnecessary, and the reckoning of his annual expenditure or the addition of a signature to an occasional contract was probably as much writing as the average shepherd or tenant-farmer often performed from year to year. It seems probable that Hogg’s family, like those of Thomas Hardy subsequently, were not letter-writers in general.8 Of the hundreds of surviving letters written by James Hogg in the course of his life none are addressed to members of his own birth family except for those to William Hogg and his eldest son, Robert. William, like James Hogg himself, read widely and had literary ambitions, while his cherished hope for a number of years was to see his clever eldest son a placed minister of the Church of Scotland.9 The bankruptcy of Hogg’s father, Robert Hogg, in his son’s early childhood and the consequent financial destitution of the family meant that Hogg himself received very little formal education. His school attendance was probably limited to something like six months in total, after which he served as a farm-worker throughout his childhood and adolescence until he achieved the responsible position of a shepherd, the best-paid and most respected category of farmworker. Clever, shrewd, and observant as he was, Hogg had hardly received sufficient instruction to secure even basic literacy. He describes his school instruction in writing as taking him only to the point where he had ‘defiled several sheets of paper with copy-lines,

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every letter of which was nearly an inch in length’ (Memoir, p. 13), and how as a farm-worker in his late teens at Willenslee he had forgotten how to write at all: I was about this time obliged to write a letter to my elder brother, and, having never drawn a pen for such a number of years, I had actually forgotten how to make sundry letters of the alphabet; these I had either to print, or to patch up the words in the best way I could without them. (Memoir, p. 16) He seems to have copied some of these forgotten letters of the alphabet by imitating the letters in a copy of the Shorter Catechism, and several years later when making his first attempts as a poet facility of conception was not at all equalled by mechanical proficiency in writing.10 Hogg describes penmanship as unaccustomed hard manual labour: I had no method of learning to write, save by following the Italian alphabet; and though I always stripped myself of coat and vest when I began to pen a song, yet my wrist took a cramp, so that I could rarely make above four or six lines at a sitting. (Memoir, p. 17) It is hardly surprising that there are no surviving letters from Hogg’s youth and that the earliest of them was written when Hogg was almost thirty years old. In weighing up the probabilities for letters not having been written or not having survived, the chances are that during Hogg’s earliest years very few letters were actually written. Those that were would almost certainly be thrown away as soon as answered, since the recipients would mostly be in similar social circumstances to Hogg himself—shepherds moving from farm to farm on a series of renewable annual contracts or small tenant-farmers. The transformative period of Hogg’s youth was his ten years’ service as a shepherd to James Laidlaw of Blackhouse farm in Yarrow beginning when he was nineteen years of age. His employer owned a number of valuable books and was willing to share them with members of his household, and Hogg was on affectionate and easy terms with his employer’s sons, with the eldest of whom, William Laidlaw, he formed a lifelong friendship. Alexander Laidlaw of Bowerhope farm in Yarrow was another congenial youngster with literary interests, and by 1794 Hogg had joined a literary club whose members met by turns at each other’s places of residence to read and criticise one another’s essays.11 It was only during his early twenties, therefore, that writing became a regular and habitual thing

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for Hogg. His earliest extant letter is to William Laidlaw, written after Hogg had moved from Blackhouse in Yarrow back to the next valley of Ettrick at Whitsunday 1800 to care for his aged parents in their little farm of Ettrickhouse. It was clearly important for Hogg to keep in close touch with his literary confidante, the younger admirer who believed in his talent and to whom he could describe the work he had been undertaking and his future ambitions. These early letters are self-consciously literary for all their idiosyncrasies, and the correspondence was probably viewed as educational on both sides. Besides the cost of paper to the writer, postage was also expensive in the days before the penny-post and paid for by the recipient, who would therefore expect to receive something of value for his money. Hogg’s letter to Laidlaw from Blairgowrie of 6 June [1800], for instance, echoes the kind of observations made in the Statistical Account of Scotland (1791–99), with touches of the Highland journey made in a previous generation by Johnson and Boswell. Hogg’s selfconsciousness about the act of writing surely comes from reading Laurence Sterne. Addressing Laidlaw on 9 January 1801 he writes the customary address of ‘Dear Sir’ and then reflects upon the natural pause that ensues, with ‘my hand writes these involuntarily, but for another word of this succeeding epistle, I have not yet consulted the dictionary of my brain, nor is there a thought or sentiment of it formed in embryo’. A letter about the difficulties of letter-writing is not as naive as may at first appear. By 1800 Hogg’s handwriting too is surprisingly well-shaped, firm, and clear, with none of the nearillegibility and hesitations that might be expected from someone who has only recently regained functional literacy. Despite their literariness these earliest letters nevertheless vividly convey a feeling of immediacy, the sense of a powerful and living presence, and a definite, distinctive personality. It is not exaggerating to say that Hogg’s life was transformed by his meeting in the summer of 1802 with Walter Scott, respected locally as the Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire and a published writer with excellent connections in the Scottish literary and publishing capital of Edinburgh.12 Through Laidlaw and through Andrew Mercer Hogg had been contributing to Scott’s ballad collection, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, enthusiastically realising the literary capital of the ballads he had grown up taking for granted. He and Scott shared an abundant energy, a talent for mimicry, a value for the landscape and legends of the Scottish Borders, and a genius for friendship. After purveying traditional ballads and an insider commentary on

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them to Scott, Hogg quickly adopted him as literary advisor, patron, and friend. Approximately two-thirds of Hogg’s surviving letters between 1802 and his career-change from Borders shepherd and tenant-farmer to professional literary man in 1810 are addressed to Walter Scott. In the section of the present volume headed ‘To 1805’, indeed, Scott is Hogg’s only correspondent. To some extent this is clearly misleading, the result of Scott’s careful and unusual retention of all or most of his incoming correspondence. When he came to write his famous biography of Scott, Lockhart expressed his surprise that, despite the relative position of the two writers and Hogg’s emotional and literary dependance on his more famous friend, Hogg’s letters to Scott had mostly been preserved while Scott’s letters to Hogg had mostly disappeared or been destroyed.13 His assumption that Scott’s letters might have seemed more valuable to Hogg than Hogg’s letters did to Scott is not unreasonable. However, at this period Hogg was an impecunious and largely unsuccessful shepherd and farmer, who had written some poems for various magazines and who had published in 1807 a volume of ballad imitations entitled The Mountain Bard that had been only moderately successful. Few of his correspondents would have thought it worthwhile to keep his letters for their own sake, and it is noticeable that those that have survived were written to gentlemenly antiquarians with settled and sizeable houses like Robert Surtees or were concerned with matters of business. Hogg’s letters to Walter Cunningham of Catslackburn, for instance, were preserved by the recipient as evidence of a debt and as documents brought forward in a legal action.14 His letters to the Edinburgh publisher Archibald Constable were placed by the recipient among his business archive, and his letter to Adam Bryden of 4 December [1806] concerned the leasing of a Dumfriesshire farm. W. Smith’s endorsement of the letter Hogg sent to him between May and December 1807 serves as a useful reminder of what has been lost: ‘This was sent to me in 1807 at the time the Shepherd/ had the farm of Corfardin Dumfriesshire/—I have only one letter in my possession left out/ of many I had from him’. Nothing at all survives from Hogg’s correspondence, for instance, with the elder brother of Allan Cunningham, whose work Hogg admired in the pages of the Scots Magazine.15 Nor is there a single letter from the period covered by this volume to his closest Edinburgh friends, James Gray and John Grieve. Whereas in Hogg’s youth the absence of letters probably indicates that few were written, the paucity between 1802 and 1812 almost certainly means simply that few of his friends preserved what he sent them

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for their literary as opposed to their business significance. The account of these years given by Hogg’s letters is therefore misleading, in that Hogg’s relationship with Scott is exaggerated by the effective disappearance of many other friendships from the record. The publication of The Mountain Bard in 1807 clearly extended Hogg’s reputation and his correspondence only to a limited extent, by bringing him to the attention of antiquarians such as Robert Surtees, for example. The two years or so following this publication were ones of increasing recklessness as Hogg’s farming ventures at Corfardin and Locherben foundered and his debts increased. He probably had less leisure for writing and less inclination to steady pursuits of any kind than even during the two preceding years he spent as a shepherd at Mitchelslacks farm in Closeburn parish, Dumfriesshire. During the first period his problems were chiefly the physical constraints of securing time in the intervals of hard labour and the necessary peace and privacy among his fellow-servants. He could not write during the autumn sheep-smearing because, as he told Scott in his letter of 23 October 1806, the operation continued ‘every lawfull night until a late hour and in a very few days always makes my hand that I can in nowise handle a pen’. In a previous letter of 17 March that same year he had asked Scott rhetorically, ‘how would you like to write as I do now amongst a housefull of brutal noisy servants but I have no other alternative but the fields’. The hope of publishing The Mountain Bard and of securing the money to take a home and a farm of his own bore Hogg up at Mitchelslacks nevertheless, while the subsequent feeling of hopeless enmeshment in difficulties during the two succeeding years he passed as a farmer in Dumfriesshire seems to have badly affected his literary output, including his letters. Writing to Scott in a self-justifying spirit on 26 September 1808 Hogg describes his carelessness as the result of ‘being engaged wholly in a hopeless job’. He later wrote of this period, ‘I blundered and struggled on [...] giving up all thoughts of poetry or literature of any kind’.16 Nor does Hogg’s correspondence take off at all for the period immediately after his removal to Edinburgh in February 1810 and change of profession from that of shepherd and aspiring farmer to that of literary man, though for diametrically opposite reasons. Hogg was now living at the locus of his literary activities and ambitions. There would be little call for him to write to those whom he could see by taking a short stroll on any day that he chose, and despite the kindly tone of several of the notices of The Mountain Bard it seems that Hogg was little valued as a poet beyond Edinburgh and the

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Scottish Borders. Some letters must have been written during this period to family and friends in the country—but perhaps not many, since Hogg recorded of his return from Dumfriesshire to his native Ettrick, ‘I found the countenances of all my friends altered; and even those whom I had loved, and trusted most, disowned me, and told me so to my face’ (Memoir, p. 23). Postage costs, too, were high enough to limit the number of letters that would be welcome to people in modest financial circumstances. The most interesting group of letters from this period were preserved because the recipient was flattered and perhaps already a little in love with the writer. Shortly after his arrival in Edinburgh Hogg met Margaret Phillips while she was on a visit to the Buccleuch Place house of her brother-in-law, James Gray, and began a courtship, or at least a flirtation with her, continued on her departure from Edinburgh by means of letters. These attentions to the Nithsdale lassie with the dark eyes and simple unsuspecting heart provide details of Hogg’s day-to-day activities at this time—speaking in the Edinburgh Forum debating society, attending the theatre, and scribbling away at his poetry. Hogg declared in later life, ‘I have liked the women a great deal better than the men ever since I remember’ (Memoir, p. 13), and the other significant correspondent of his first years in Edinburgh was also female. He had become acquainted with Eliza Izett through his friend John Grieve, and clearly both admired her as a woman and confided in her friendship for him. Hogg’s letters to her began in 1808 when he was in Dumfriesshire and she in Edinburgh, and were continued after he came to live in the city because she and her husband had by that time made their country-house of Kinnaird in Perthshire their permanent residence.17 A very sharp increase in the number of surviving letters occurs after the publication at the end of January 1813 of Hogg’s best-known long narrative poem The Queen’s Wake. Quite suddenly, Hogg became a well-known poet, to be taken seriously by the admirers of literature. His friendships expanded, particularly in England, and his correspondents now included Bernard Barton, William Roscoe, and even Lord Byron. Publishers such as the fastidious John Murray were interested in his future work and corresponded with him on terms of familiarity. Many more of his correspondents than before considered his letters worth preserving, and there are almost twice as many surviving letters for 1813 than there are for the two years preceding, and almost three times as many for 1814. It is clear from the details of those letters that Hogg at this point was generally regarded as one of Scotland’s leading writers. At this time John Wilson,

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for example, might more justly be described as Hogg’s protegé than the condescending showman and patron he was to become in the 1820s. In September 1815, for example, he requested Hogg’s good word with John Murray for his own poetry: If you have occasion soon to write to Murray, pray introduce something about ‘The City of the Plague,’ as I shall probably offer him that poem in about a fortnight or sooner. Of course I do not wish you to say that the poem is utterly worthless. I think that a bold eulogy from you (if administered immediately) would be of service to me [...].18 Well-known poets like Thomas Campbell called on Hogg informally in his modest and unfashionable lodgings, his table was covered over with notes of invitation, and he seems to have been on familiar terms with Francis Jeffrey, editor of the city’s outstanding critical journal, the Edinburgh Review.19 Hogg was one of the organisers of the Edinburgh dinner to mark the anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns on 25 January 1815, and a leading light of clubs such as the Dilettanti Society of Edinburgh and the Shakespeare Club of Alloa.20 It also becomes clear through these letters and their annotation how up to the minute Hogg was with regard to contemporary literature at this time. He read Southey’s Roderick, The Last of the Goths two months before publication, for instance, while on a visit to the Lake District, and his letters to John Murray show that in 1815 he was reading and commenting on successive issues of the Quarterly Review within a day of their arrival in Edinburgh.21 During the following years the emphasis of Hogg’s surviving correspondence slowly shifts more firmly back towards rural Scotland. His reputation appears to have been damaged when he followed up The Queen’s Wake with the ambitious Romantic narrative poem of The Pilgrims of the Sun in December 1814. John Murray, who had earlier offered the astonishing price of £500 for the copyright, saw the printed copies dubiously received by his literary advisers in London, and decided not to acknowledge it as a publication of his own, his name appearing on the title-page of the London copies only as William Blackwood’s agent for the sale in England.22 Nearer to home, Francis Jeffrey reportedly gave it as his opinion that ‘it is too stretchy and desultory’ and that public opinion of Hogg’s judgement would be lowered by it.23 Hogg’s hopes of succeeding as a dramatist were dashed when his literary advisers, both English and Scottish, found major flaws in the prototype of his drama The Hunting of Badlewe. Another poem, Mador of the Moor, was seen as an

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imitation of, rather than a challenge to, Scott’s The Lady of the Lake, and improperly had as its heroine a country girl pregnant out of wedlock. Early in 1815 Hogg’s literary powers were recognised by the gift of a small farm in Yarrow, rent-free and for his lifetime, from the Duke of Buccleuch. Although he was clearly delighted to have a permanent home in his native district in which to settle his aged father, the old house at Altrive was barely habitable and Hogg still spent weeks or even months at a time in Edinburgh staying with his friend John Grieve.24 Local events and national events seem equally important in his correspondence at a time when his attention was divided between literature in Edinburgh and farming in Selkirkshire. He was in the country, for example, when the news of the battle of Waterloo arrived in Edinburgh, and found himself outmanoeuvered when he sent his commemorative poem ‘The Field of Waterloo’ in to William Blackwood for publication. Hogg’s former protegé John Wilson helped William Blackwood to stifle the work.25 The anger expressed in Hogg’s letter to Wilson of 2 January [1816] surely rises partly from a feeling of having been publicly slighted by a man who had formerly been eager to cultivate his society and admire his work. On the other hand his poem ‘To the Ancient Banner of the House of Buccleuch’, Hogg’s contribution to the pageantry of local patriotism surrounding the Yarrow-Selkirk football match at Carterhaugh on 4 December 1815, was highly successful. Hogg’s standing as a national poet is clear from letters that reveal that he was sitting to William Nicholson for his portrait, and receiving a number of requests for contributions to song-collections and assorted periodical works. Hogg’s letters also demonstrate that with his move to Yarrow he became part of a local Scott patriarchy fostered by Walter Scott and headed by his patron the Duke of Buccleuch. During these years before Hogg’s marriage in 1820 William Blackwood appears to dominate his correspondence almost as much as Scott does before 1810. Roughly one third of Hogg’s letters for both 1817 and 1818 are addressed to his Edinburgh publisher, and these are better known than many of the scattered letters to other correspondents. This is partly a question of survival and and partly one of accessibility. Blackwood, at least after his first few years as an Edinburgh publisher, carefully kept his incoming letters and copied many of the ones he sent out, and these were subsequently bound into the familiar volumes now available in the National Library of Scotland. Hogg first made Blackwood’s acquaintance in the autumn of 1814, when copies of the third edition of The Queen’s Wake were

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kept out of circulation by the bankruptcy of George Goldie and Blackwood was appointed a trustee in the case. While he was absent in Yarrow Hogg gradually came to rely on Blackwood in Edinburgh for information and practical assistance of various kinds. In a letter of [June 1816], for instance, Hogg asked Blackwood for an advance on his profits from Mador of the Moor to meet his farming expenses, but the most significant bond between the two men was created with the founding of the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine (subsequently retitled Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine) in the spring of 1817. Hogg was ridiculed in later years for unfounded egotism in claiming a principal part in the creation of this journal, but his account appears to be more accurate than is often supposed.26 In his letters to Blackwood of 1817 and 1818 he acts as one of the publisher’s principal advisers, advising him to ‘keep hold of’ John Wilson as a singularly promising periodical writer on 12 August 1817, and sending poetry to ‘show the world that the redoubted Ettrick Shepherd is on your side’.27 At the start of 1818 he was entrusted by Blackwood with the delicate task of negotiating matters at Abbotsford so that William Laidlaw might be induced to give up the chronicle section of the magazine without the publisher forfeiting the powerful support of Walter Scott. When Blackwood was set upon by the editor of the Glasgow Chronicle and sought a backer in his attempts at retaliation James Hogg was the man he chose to accompany him.28 Hogg’s letters undoubtedly chart his closeness to Blackwood in these years, but also provide evidence that he was not entirely happy to be categorised as an author from the Blackwood stable. Two important Hogg publications of these years were brought out by John Ballantyne. The first of these, Hogg’s brilliant parodies of Romantic poets under the title of The Poetic Mirror (1816), appears to have been refused by Blackwood previously—a warning to Hogg to keep his options open. This was a runaway success, well subscribed initially and with a second edition brought out within three months, but even at the point of first publication Ballantyne urged Hogg to use the work strategically to ensure better treatment from Blackwood and his London partner John Murray for the future: Do nothing with Murray or Blackwood till the fate of the present publication is known. James who is of the most fastidious, thinks it admirable; &, assuredly, it exhibits more elegant versatility of talent than any of your other productions [...] the success of this work will bring Murray & Blackwood to your feet, & your terms will then be acceeded

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to, as presented by your own judgement, without being qualified by their opinion, or views of individual profit.29 Hogg clearly felt some satisfaction in refusing to make a formal acknowledgement of his authorship of this anonymously-published volume while throwing in Blackwood’s teeth the patronising and overbearing way in which he had declined to publish the collection: What are you insinuating about your guerilla’s and Grey Cats to me? You know if I had had any hand in such a thing I would have mentioned it “By the by Mr. Blackwood I have been thinking of publishing a few imitations of the principal living poets of the age” “O I dont know sir: that will be a kind of rejected addresses thing—I would not degrade myself by any such attempt” (in a higher and slower tone) “take my word for it, that will never do” You do not remember of any such dialogue I am sure therefore it is ungenerous to impute such a work to me30 When Blackwood afterwards saw an advertisement for Hogg’s forthcoming Dramatic Tales in the Edinburgh Evening Courant as a Ballantyne and Longmans publication he was clearly chagrined again. Hogg, feeling himself undervalued, must have enjoyed telling him that the publication of this work had been agreed with Ballantyne at the time when The Poetic Mirror was published.31 A similar and by no means unjustifiable resentment of the way in which his support was taken for granted and his work undervalued is also palpable in the letter Hogg wrote to the editor of The Scotsman on 17 May [1818] to thank him for an enthusiastic and early notice of The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales that had just appeared in that newspaper. Hogg’s indirect reproach to his colleagues on Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (which never reviewed the work, despite it being a Blackwood publication) is plain when he says: I have had a hard and patient struggle for literary fame and have often wondered that no one of my friends ever thought of lending me a lift—It was apparent that I wanted it and I was sure my efforts took away all risk of disgrace from the attempt. At this time Hogg was often caught in the cross-fire between Whig and Tory publishers and literary men, having good friends in both camps and not wishing to quarrel seriously with either party. This was, however, an extremely difficult thing. When James Gray’s ac-

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count of Hogg’s life and writings was serialised in Constable’s Edinburgh Magazine at the start of 1818 it seems probable that both sides objected to a eulogy on a Tory writer in the principal Whig magazine. Two mocking letters addressed to Hogg on the subject appeared in Blackwood’s and the series was apparently discontinued on Constable’s instruction on the grounds that Hogg was a known adherent of the rival magazine.32 It was not in Hogg’s interest to fall entirely into the hands of either party if only it was possible for him to avoid it. His pleasure in the renewal of a friendly intercourse with the rival Whig publisher Archibald Constable, evident in his letter of 30 October 1818, was probably underpinned by a growing sense of being at once appropriated and undervalued by William Blackwood and by a wish to keep open the possibility of taking his work elsewhere in case of need. The Edinburgh polarisation of Whig and Tory, so deeply antipathetic to Hogg and so limiting to his wider ambitions and interests, is a reflection of wider cultural and political developments within Britain, and indeed Europe, during the period covered by this volume. Hogg’s periodical The Spy was produced within the context of a protracted war with France that had lasted for most of his adult life and generated various anxieties not only about invasion from without Britain but also about the hidden enemy, the spies and subversives, within. After the triumphant and heroic conclusion of Waterloo attention was redirected toward political and social conditions within Britain itself. Napoleon’s promotion and fostering of men of talent and enterprise from very varied social backgrounds encouraged those like them to question the old order of social deference in Britain and to demand a stake in the country for which they had fought and suffered during the recent conflict. Agricultural prices, stimulated by the conflict, dropped, and returning soldiers found that employment and homes were not necessarily there to reward their heroism. The years covered by the present volume are those not only of Waterloo but of Peterloo, when soldiers opened fire at St Peter’s Fields in Manchester on a crowd of men, women, and children, unarmed and dressed in their Sunday clothes, who had come together to hear the celebrated Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt. This political background receives little overt comment in Hogg’s letters, but it inevitably colours his world and influences his ambitions and his prospects. He was himself a fair example of the man of talent and energy from outside the social elite who nevertheless wanted to make a place for himself within the literary establishment. Hogg’s letters to a variety of correspondents indicate how much

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his attention was occupied during these years by song-writing and song-collecting, some of it overtly political and some not. Writing to George Thomson he is self-consciously treading in the footsteps of his role-model Robert Burns as well as engaging in Scottish triumphalism with songs like ‘Bonny Laddie, Highland Laddie’, published subsequently as ‘Where got ye that Siller Moon’. There are also important letters to John Wallace, Peter Buchan, George Thomson, and John Steuart of Dalguise about the preparation of Hogg’s two-volume Jacobite Relics of Scotland, several references to Hogg’s own collection of traditional Border tunes, and a revealing letter to the composer W. E. Heather of 1 April 1818 about music and his own song-collections A Border Garland and A Selection of German Hebrew Melodies. Hogg’s letters increasingly describe the country world of Yarrow as his home. They provide many details of leisure interests such as sailing and hare-coursing, visits to and from his friend John Grieve (now spending his summers in poor health at Cacrabank in Ettrick), and acts of neighbourly kindness, such as one to put a lame shepherd’s son named James Telfer in the way of earning a livelihood.33 During 1818 his new stone-built cottage was gradually being built at Altrive, making it a more attractive and important residence than it had been for Hogg previously. Hogg’s proposal of marriage to Margaret Phillips during the following year was perhaps not unconnected with the fact that he now had a permanent home and a modern house to which he could welcome a wife. Margaret Phillips is Hogg’s most significant correspondent during the second half of 1819. His serious and distinctly edgy and anxious courtship of her makes it more and more clear that Hogg sees Altrive as his future permanent residence and that he looks forward to the stability of marriage as an enabling background to his career as a writer. On 7 September 1819, for instance, he wrote: I think the sooner we are married the better we are both losing our time and doing no good to ourselves either in a spiritual or temporal point of view and I am certain if I had you home I would be enabled to do much more good in my literary pursuits I have much in hand but am doing very little because every one that comes in servant traveller or neighbour takes me off and I would leave all these to you and pursue my studies. I am pondering often about these things and you have always a share of my musings. By the end of 1819 Hogg’s life had shifted away from politically-

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riven literary Edinburgh and back to Selkirkshire again, and was about to become more settled and domestic, with his establishment at Altrive firmly at its centre.

3. Critic and Author Particularly during the years from 1810 onwards, when Hogg was either living permanently in Edinburgh or making extended visits to the city, his letters provide vivid pictures of the reception of various literary works, and pithy and emphatic expressions of his personal assessments of them. Edinburgh was a publishing centre of European importance and Hogg’s letters portray its energy and power at this period. Besides the obvious players (Archibald Constable and his Edinburgh Review, William Blackwood and his new magazine) Hogg’s letters trace the emergence and submergence of new and sometimes ephemeral publishers and periodicals such as George Goldie, Oliver & Boyd, the Lanark-based Clydesdale Magazine and the Literary and Statistical Magazine of Scotland, the constituency for which was intended to be very much the educated man and woman of modest social and financial background who had formerly contributed to Hogg’s essay-periodical The Spy. A fascinating depiction of the relations between Edinburgh and London in publishing terms emerges from the present volume. Edinburgh magazines are produced, for instance, in time to be shipped south and go on sale with their London competitors on the ‘magazine day’ there of the first of the month. The advent of London periodicals and publications was regularly advertised in the Edinburgh newspapers, and it was a point of honour among writers like Hogg to have the earliest copies of the poems of Lord Byron or the latest issue of the prestigious Quarterly Review. Hogg would note and often read the latest publications in the shops of the city’s rival booksellers. Here, for instance, is his account of the reception of Scott’s Marmion as given to the author on 2 May 1808, when Hogg was visiting Edinburgh some two months after first publication: I get a lesson on Marmion every day in Constables and until I get through it the news-papers will not suffer sore by my perusal. I heard two gentleman [sic] reading with great glee and much laughter several sheets of a parody upon part of it yesterday which they gave me to understand would be published. The verse seemed not at all contemptible but the

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matter bore every mark of malice and envy There were 240 copies of Marmion sold in constables shop yesterday forenoon. Hogg is both observer and participant, the unsuccessful Dumfriesshire farmer and little-known poet counting the copies of his famous friend’s famous poem sold, while reading in instalments the new and absorbing work he is too impoverished to purchase himself. His enthusiastic absorption in Scott’s poem to the neglect of the newspapers is contrasted with the malicious concentration of the parodists or their adherents. The attention of friend, enemies, shop-assistant (and Hogg as reflecting letter-writer) is all focused on Scott. Hogg’s remarks on Scott’s writings and his close observation of Scott as an author is a noticeable feature of the letters in this volume. He comments variously on Scott’s narrative poems and shows himself an attentive reader, objecting for example, to the imprecision of a particular passage in The Lay of the Last Minstrel in his letter to Scott himself of 18 April [1806], and remarking of Marmion, ‘You gave the truest picture of your manner of writing in the introduction to Mr. Erskine that ever was given’.34 Hogg seems to have valued Scott particularly as a Scottish poet. In the concluding section of The Queen’s Wake (1813) he reproaches Scott for being ‘of change enamoured’ and for taking the poetic harp ‘to other kingdoms’, asserting, ‘That harp he never more shall see, | Unless ’mong Scotland’s hills with me’.35 Occasionally Hogg clearly felt that Scott in appealing to an English book-buying public betrayed his Scottish roots. Commenting on The Lord of the Isles, for instance, in a postscript to his letter to John Ballantyne of [5–7 January 1815] Hogg’s evident enjoyment is damped not only by Scott’s introduction of seemingly irrelevant female characters but also by his attitude to the central event of the Battle of Bannockburn: I think it is the most spirited poem ever Scott wrote—He has availed himself of his peculiar forte, a kind of easy elastick rapidity which never once flags from beginning to end. It is a pity that the tale should be again butched the two females are a mere clog upon it, and no one natural occurrence connected with them takes place—I likewise expected some finer bursts of feeling with regard to Scottish independence— the coaxing apology to England is below any Scot to have uttered The charge is repeated in his letter to the London publisher John

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Murray of 18 January, in which he reports that ‘the Scots are chagrined at the fear he has shown of giving offence to the English in his description of the final battle and they maintain that he is himself the English bard who was taken captive there and compelled to celebrate the Scotish victory’. A less than favourable review of Guy Mannering in Murray’s prestigious Quarterly Review evokes national as well as personal defensiveness of Scott, backed by a charge of ingratitude from his correspondent (who was the review’s proprietor). The review is not only ‘ignorant and absurd’, Hogg declares, but also ‘contrary to the feelings of a whole nation’, adding ‘of all the men in Scotland, Scott has been the most strenous supporter of the character of your Miscellany as excellent’.36 Several of Hogg’s criticisms of Scott’s writing occur in his letters to Lord Byron, perhaps as part of Hogg’s mental realignment of Byron as a predominantly Scottish poet, perhaps as a reminder to England’s most famous writer of the best-known writer of his own land, and almost certainly as a demonstration to Byron of his own closeness to the centre of Edinburgh literary life. There is a hint of the imminent publication of Waverley in Edinburgh in Hogg’s remark of [30 June] 1814 that Scott seemed busy the previous day and that ‘in a short time he will produce something that will outdo any of his former works’, followed up a month later with his own remark that ‘with regard to the author [of Waverley] there is not and cannot be a doubt remaining [...] that the whole structure of mind should so exactly coincide in two distinct individuals is not in nature’. In endorsement of Byron’s praise Hogg adds ‘I like Waverly exceedingly and never was more diverted than by some pictures there of Scottish manners and I am much pleased to hear you commend it and more to find that you are half a Scotsman’. 37 Hogg wanted to write periodical reviews of both Guy Mannering and Rob Roy, and it is a matter of regret that his offers to Murray and to Blackwood were not accepted.38 The poetry of Byron was also remarked upon by Hogg in his letters. In a letter to the author of Lara himself Hogg quizzes the author about its careless plotting compared with its ‘harmony of numbers’: I have been extremely puzzled to find out who Sir Ezzelin is sometimes I have judged him to be some sea captain at others Medora’s uncle or parent from whom the Corsair had stole her but I have at last pleased myself by concluding that Lord Byron does not know himself 39 Having urged Byron in this letter to take ‘a review of your native

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mountains’ Hogg must have been delighted on reading The Siege of Corinth subsequently to detect something ‘which convinces me that you have loved my own stile of poetry better than you ever acknowledged to me’, while reattributing his own earlier opinion to others that ‘some of the people here complain of the inadequacy of the tales to the poetry’.40 Elsewhere Hogg regretted that Byron should not ‘delineate some of the benevolent and pleasing characters of human life’, commenting that the ladies ‘regard you as a kind of Jagernaut’. In view of the sensational amorousness of Byron’s poetry and, indeed, of his life Hogg was greatly amused by rumours in the month preceding Byron’s marriage to Miss Milbanke that ‘he was very busy writing godly Psalms to be sung in congregations and families’, and when he read Hebrew Melodies subsequently he affected at least to believe that some of the feebler ones ‘must be Lady B.s’.41 More to Hogg’s taste among the poems Byron produced in the period covered by this volume were the third and fourth cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. The third canto was ‘a powerful and energetic work and superior to every long poem of my noble friend’s’ and the fourth ‘a glorious morsel’ and ‘not equalled by any of his works save some stanzas of the Third Canto’.42 There are interesting and pithy comments in many of Hogg’s letters on the work of his contemporaries, from general praise of James Grahame’s The Sabbath (1804) that ‘the Cameronian hath had more in his head than hair’, to an assertion of his own superior abilities in describing Highlanders to those of Anne Grant.43 Hogg generally derides Wordsworth’s egotism and prolixity. The Excursion is ‘too much of a good thing’, and although Hogg describes Wordsworth as a great poet he considers him as one who has ‘no original invention’ but rather a capacity to ‘make the most of any scene or incident in nature’ that he observed. The self-defensive essays attached to the 1815 edition of Wordsworth’s poems ‘excel all that ever was written in this world in egotism vanity and absurdity’.44 Hogg’s comments on the poetry and criticism of his friend John Wilson reveal how well he understood the implications of his younger friend’s mental and emotional instability. Hogg’s jocular description of Wilson subsequently in The Three Perils of Woman as a lunatic, one of the moon’s ‘brain-stricken votaries’, is foreshadowed in his assertion to Byron of 26 February [1816], ‘Wilson is a man of great genius and fancy but he is intoxicated with Wordsworth and a perfect dreamer of moons ships seas and solitudes’. As a periodical writer he has been guilty of ‘some wanton infractions of friendship’ and though Hogg in his letter to Blackwood of 12 August 1817 considered that

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‘a little custom would make him the best periodical writer of the age’ he subsequently compared Wilson unfavourably with the Whig reviewer Francis Jeffrey: I have great dependance on Wilson’s powers do not you see with what spirit the fellow writes whether it be to laud to blame or to mock the worst fault about him is that he lets his imagination run away with him if he leans to one side at all he leans too much he either praises or blames in the extreme. Brougham is the same way I dont like him I would take Jeffery for a model of all that I ever read he gives a cut now and then with such severity and at the same time with such perfect good nature45 During the period between the publication of The Queen’s Wake and Hogg being labelled as a Blackwood’s writer, indeed, he seems to have been on familiar terms with Jeffrey, who visits him at his lodgings, invites him to supper, and debates confidentially the merits of the poems of Southey and of Wordsworth. In his letter to Eliza Izett of 11 February 1814 he proudly hints at his insider knowledge of Jeffrey’s circle saying that he has ‘got a secret key to all the proceedings of the comittee that manages the Edin. Review’.46 Imagination, national feeling, and good humour appear to be Hogg’s touchstones as a critic, and originality of ideas impresses him more than scholarship. This is sometimes humorously expressed, as when he tells Robert Surtees that his history of Durham is a work in which ‘the labour and research truly confounds me; and I wonder how a man of genius could go through with it’, but at other times more soberly. Gillies is a fine translator, for instance, because he is ‘a good scholar, a fine taste, and a polished mind but one who never gives himself the time or trouble to hunt for many original ideas—Here he does not need to do it’.47 If this seems somewhat severe, Hogg’s essential kindliness comes through strongly in his remarks to his younger friends on their work. He touches very gently on the obscurity of her Ode to Dr Thomas Percy to Miss Janet Stuart, has a word of praise for John Aitken’s trifling little pamphlet poem The Frogs: A Fable, and goes to the trouble of revising and correcting a song for Peter Buchan.48 Hogg’s letters include a number of his own literary manuscripts, in effect, since he was in the habit of embedding songs and short poems there for a variety of purposes in addition to the obvious need to be economical with paper. Some were intended as personal gifts. ‘Prince Owen and the Wizard’ is copied into a letter to Robert

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Surtees as a gesture of recognition of Surtees’s early and generous subscription to The Mountain Bard. A version of ‘Love Pastoral’ is included as an amorous and flirtatious tribute in a letter to Margaret Phillips.49 Others were fair copy manuscripts intended for publication. Hogg’s letters to George Thomson include copies of ‘Highland Laddie’, ‘Mischievous Woman’, and ‘The Highland Watch’, Hogg’s readiness and facility as a song-writer being emphasised as equivalent to those of Burns both by their inclusion and his accompanying remarks that they have been composed while the carrier is eating his dinner, or ‘in less than ten minutes’.50 Besides the multitudinous details of day-to-day dealings with his publishers and editors Hogg’s letters, particularly those addressed to John Murray and to William Blackwood as proprietors of the Quarterly Review and Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine respectively, also demonstrate his interest in and opinions about periodical writing. He advises Blackwood, for instance, on the conduct of the magazine in his letter of 24 September 1817, emphasising the substantial and regular payments to contributors and the creation of powerful and fictive identities for the magazine’s contributors through the use of pseudonyms and signatures that did indeed come to mark the periodical’s innovative departure from the likes of the Scots Magazine or Gentleman’s Magazine. His subsequent letter of 19 October praises the new-style ‘intermixing all things through other’, a mental meal compared to the mixed dish called an olio, and an indicator of ‘bold and manly freedom’. There are few general or theoretical remarks about authorship in Hogg’s letters at this time, although they do contain some memorably exasperated and pithy remarks about the vexations of his profession. He grumbles to William Blackwood, for example, that ‘a man’s bookseller is his tyrant’ and grudgingly admits that ‘a dull author I am aware always blames his publisher’.51 A great deal of important information is, however, scattered in Hogg’s letters in the present volume about the genesis and production of many of his works, from the abortive Scottish Pastorals of 1801 through to the first series of Jacobite Relics in December 1819. Hogg’s literary ambitions, his feelings about his different writings, and his sense of their relative importance at the time of composition are also recorded to the moment, and these often differ considerably both from the emphasis of modern critics and from his own retrospective assessment in his Memoir. Hogg’s anxiety to make an impact on the English literary scene after the publication of The Queen’s Wake is a particularly striking instance. As early as 14 May 1813 he notes that while this poem

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‘has certainly excited an interest in Scotland far exceeding all measure of previous calculation; in England I am sorry to find that a proportionate effect has not been produced’. A year later Hogg declared his poem ‘scarcely as yet known’ in England, for which poor distribution on the part of Longmans may have been responsible.52 As Douglas Mack has pointed out, Goldie’s London partner for the third edition was changed to Henry Colburn, and it also appears possible that some of the modernisation of Hogg’s antique Scots style in component ballads such as ‘Kilmeny’ was intended to increase the work’s saleability south of the Border.53 Hogg’s careful cultivation of English literati such as William Roscoe, Bernard Barton, and Capell Lofft suggests as much, while the publisher, George Goldie, and perhaps Hogg himself, seem to have been disappointed that no review of the work appeared in the influential London-based Quarterly Review.54 Hogg’s letters also show a preoccupation with the drama at this time that is much greater than might be supposed from a casual reading of his Memoir. Anxious to become a playwright for the London stage Hogg had six copies of a prototype of The Hunting of Badlewe printed and invited the advice and encouragement of his English as well as Scottish literary advisors. After being advised not to proceed he published his play as a closet drama, and drew the attention of Lord Byron to it besides writing a review intended for publication in John Scott’s The Champion, a newspaper in which theatrical criticism was a notable feature. His subsequent publication of two volumes of Dramatic Tales in 1817 represents a fresh effort in this direction, and Hogg’s disappointment is clear when he declares to the editor of The Scotsman that the complete failure of this publication ‘has more astonished me than all I have ever witnessed in my short literary experience’.55 Hogg frequently describes his literary productions in imagery that suggests vulnerability. The Mountain Bard is his ‘first born legitimate infant son’, produced after an abortive scheme to bring out his Highland Journeys has come to nothing and urged with the declaration, ‘I will not have it said that my children always come to the birth and there is not strength to bring forth’. In a series of puns using printing terms The Queen’s Wake, on the other hand, is described to Margaret Phillips as a female friend who is waking and dressing for the day: ‘The Queen is awake and has her kindest compts. to Maggy Phillips; she is in bed, that is, she is in sheets, but not got into stays as yet: perhaps she will get them on about the end of the year’. In his Memoir Hogg describes The Pilgrims of the Sun, with its heroine Mary Lee, in comparable fashion as ‘a beautiful country girl turned into an as-

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sembly in dishabille, “half-naked, for a warld’s wonder,” whose beauties might be gazed at, but were sure to be derided’. In The Spy too the Scottish poets had all been represented as desirable women, exposed by a showman to the public comment and the public gaze.56 This is partly conventional (the nine Muses are female and so therefore is the poet’s particular muse), but also perhaps a sign of Hogg’s fears of attack and of self-exposure. Historically as a self-educated poet he was undoubtedly patronised, underestimated, and attacked, but he also had a paranoid streak that surfaced at moments of stress and that is particularly evident in relation to his authorship. Hogg’s ebullience and the vanity he so often cheerfully admitted only partly concealed his anxieties about authorship in his letters, where he features as ‘a humble stranger—an intruder on the walks of literature doomed to struggle with every prejudice’, emphasising that his poetic character does not depend on correctness but on ‘scattered expressive tints and from some little interest which the heart feels in them’. Hogg’s frequent thoughts of anonymous publication were probably prompted by a wish that his work might evade such prejudices and be assessed on equal terms with that of writers from more conventional middle-class backgrounds. He wanted his authorship of The Hunting of Badlewe to be concealed he told Laidlaw so that ‘no casual or personal consideration shall affect it, but that by its own merit it shall stand or by its defects be ruined’.57 Hogg’s persona of the Spy is one that is liable to ‘public execution’, and his Memoir compares his anxiety on the day that The Queen’s Wake was published to that of ‘a man between death and life, waiting for the sentence of the jury’ (p. 30). When his next work was within weeks of being published he told Eliza Izett that fear as to its reception temporarily prevented him from writing anything more: ‘I am not doing much at present if you except gossiping for though I have no serious doubts about the success of the Pilgrims yet I feel a certain anxiety which prevents me from composing to any sense—my mind always reverting to that—’.58 Hogg’s opinion of his own work was very liable to be altered by its reception, and his self-worth as an author by his frequency of publication. He expressed to John Murray the view that ‘once the public loses sight of a poet he may almost be said no longer to exist’, and even more revealing is a subsequent remark to Blackwood which contrasts his faith in his own abilities with the confusion of judgement occasioned after his work had gone abroad: I’ll tell you a secret with regard to my mind—I have no idea of any thing or any height in poetry that is inaccessible.

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But as I give my fancy full swing I know no more than a child whe[MOUNT] I am writing ill when well and am often equally astonished a[MOUNT] the praise attached to some parts and the blame of others.59 Hogg’s general sensitivity to criticism as an author is exceptionally heightened in the case of his mentor, Walter Scott. There is real pain after his failure as a farmer in Dumfriesshire and the loss of the profits Scott had helped him to gather from The Mountain Bard, when he appeals ‘you must not forsake me else I’m perfectly useless I will do or be any thing you like only let me retain a place in your affections and regard’. As he remarked on another occasion of his fears of losing Scott’s countenance ‘when a man loses conciet of himself he thinks and not without foundation that every body does’. Hogg knew that he over-reacted to Scott’s apparent undervaluing of his writings, telling him ‘I know I grew I durst not for my life show you any thing for fear of the most humiliating mortification’. To Byron too he admitted that his reactions were excessive, the consequence of his emotional dependence on Scott and of his fear of rejection. Scott’s dismissal of the play which Hogg hoped would signal the commencement of his career as a dramatist is a case in point. On receiving Scott’s letter, Hogg told Byron, I was driven compleatly out of myself [...] and [...] I took the pen and wrote a letter of the most bitter and severe reproaches I have quite forgot what in my wrath I said but I believe I went so far as to say every thing which I knew to be the reverse of truth, and which you in part well know—yea to state that I had never been obliged to him (it was a great lie) and never would be obliged to him for any thing; and I fear I expressed the utmost contempt for both himself and his poetry!60 This alternation of self-assertion and feelings of intimidation is reflected in Hogg’s varying remarks in his letters about the correction and censorship of his own work as well as that of other writers. Hogg certainly did not hesitate to intervene as editor and advisor in the literary works of others during the period covered by this volume. The final verse of his friend William Laidlaw’s song ‘Lucy’s Flittin” in The Forest Minstrel, for example, was written by Hogg himself and arguably diminishes and sentimentalises its effect. His correction of a song by Peter Buchan was effectively a rewriting, with the apologetic explanation, ‘Every two men’s stiles are somuch [sic] unlike that they will not amalgamate without a thorough overhaul’.61

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Hogg’s free interventions in the work of other writers do not imply, however, that he consistently welcomed similar liberties taken with his own work. Scott was a major influence on the production of Hogg’s first substantial poetry collection The Mountain Bard, an influence that was welcome as being likely to ensure the successful publication of the work but also was felt simultaneously to threaten Hogg’s own judgment and authorial identity. On one occasion he felt obliged to point out, in effect, that the collection would have his name on the title-page, saying ‘as I must abide by the consequences I will expect a considerable sway in the publication’. A similar feeling of loss of control may be detected previously in his use of a conditional ‘if I have any sway’ and a few months later in his reference to ‘that cursed and foolish maxim [...] that a poet is no judge of his own productions’ which obliges Hogg to ‘lay my hand on my mouth and my mouth in the dust’. Even more direct are Hogg’s statements ‘I will not agree to have any of the poetry altered without likewise being consulted’ and ‘I must apprize you how much I hate alterations in any of my poetical pieces and that before I had the chain of my idea’s and story broken by them I would rather consent to the exclusion of the piece altogether’. However, Hogg also refers at this time to his aversion to alterations as a ‘failing’ and requests Scott that when he is ‘truly sensible’ of the defects of a piece of poetry he should ‘insist upon its expulsion or amendment’.62 His deference to Scott’s experience and gratitude for his detailed assistance war against an uncomfortable feeling of being taken over. Hogg revised his view of Scott’s exactions as a critic, at least temporarily, when so many of his subscribers to The Spy cancelled after the concluding part of his ‘Story of a Berwickshire Farmer’ was published, with its references to seduction and pregnancy out of wedlock. Impressed once more with the need to trim his work to the requirements of the contemporary literary marketplace, Hogg declared ‘I am perswaded now that you are an easy critic, though God knows if I thought you so once [...] in future delicacy shall be my chiefest aim’. He subsequently invited Scott to give a general opinion of some poetical tales (probably individual ballads later subsumed into The Queen’s Wake) without descending ‘to the trouble of criticising them particularly or combating my prejudices’.63 Hogg’s deference to Scott as an expert advisor is shown in his comments on the draft of his dedication to Scott of ‘The Field of Waterloo’, which he includes in his letter of 24 November [1815] only as the ‘ground work’ of the future published item and with an invitation to Scott to ‘be as free with as you wont to be of yore’. Of his verses for dissemi-

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nation at the Yarrow-Selkirk football match in the same letter, Hogg writes that ‘the Hurry of composition is too palpable here’ and he invites Scott to ‘lop and add what you will’, expressing his confidence that Scott can ‘enter into my ideas and simplify them somewhat’. Contrasting his present resignation to Scott’s revisions with his resistance to them in earlier years he adds, ‘I am not the same person I was that way’. In fact, Hogg’s attitude to the potential alteration and censorship of his work appears to vary with the weight and importance he attributed to the particular item under discussion. It should also be noted that during the period covered by this volume Hogg very frequently consulted his own literary friends and advisers before submitting his work to a publisher. His Edinburgh friends James and Mary Gray and John Grieve were invited to hear him read The Queen’s Wake aloud, his decision to publish The Pilgrims of the Sun separately from his collection of ‘Midsummer Night Dreams’ was influenced by the advice of James Park, while The Hunting of Badlewe was sent to William Roscoe, Bernard Barton, William Laidlaw, James Gray, and Walter Scott. His letter to Roscoe of 22 January 1814 implies, indeed, that Hogg gave up his plan to get it produced on the London stage in deference to Roscoe’s opinion.64 Hogg commented that he was inclined to mistrust publishers because ‘they never read works themselves, but give them to their minions, with whom there never fails to lurk a literary jealousy; and whose suggestions may uniformly be regarded as any thing but the truth’ (Memoir, p. 46). He does indeed seem much more inclined to resist the reshaping of his work once he had received the advice of his chosen friends and produced a fair-copy manuscript. In the case of his proposed ‘Cottage Winter Nights’, indeed, he told William Blackwood firmly, ‘to prevent you from plaging me with alterations you shall not see them till printed’. Likewise when offering Constable The Queen’s Wake in his letter of 24 September 1812 Hogg had offered, not to hand over his manuscript for perusal, but to ‘read the poem or a part of it to any literary gentleman on whose judgement you can depend’.65 These were the volume publications on which he considered his reputation as a poet and story-teller would largely depend. Periodical contributions and particularly songs Hogg seems to have viewed much more in the light of collaborative ventures. Assenting to John Scott’s request that he would become a contributor to the newspaper The Champion, Hogg in his letter of 28 February 1816 gives the London editor permission to tailor the work Hogg sent him to its periodical context:

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I am afraid my manner of writing will be a kind of anomaly in the Champion whatever alterations or additions you are pleased to make I will always view as an improvement. I am the most careless writer in the world. Though Hogg’s song-writing had to remain under his overall control, he was exceptionally willing to revise and rework details of songs to suit the editor in whose work they were to appear. R. A. Smith’s suggestion that his verses might be combined with those of another writer to make up a song was firmly rejected (‘My songs must be my own’), but with the conciliatory statement ‘I never refuse to alter [...] but I like to alter myself’.66 Hogg’s correspondence with George Thomson, in particular, reveals the way in which a published Hogg song was the outcome of a process of discussion betweeen author and editor. Thomson would send Hogg the music for which he wanted words to be written with an outline of the kind of thing required, and Hogg would respond with a first draft. Thomson would return a proof or hand-written copy implementing his own suggestions for improvement, and Hogg would make further authorial changes on this or send additional verses separately. Sending one set of verses to Thomson on [9 May 1818] Hogg reassured him, ‘After you have looked at it I will make what alterations or additions you please’. His pliability did not go so far as to anticipate Thomson’s possible objections, though. When John Grieve informed him that Thomson would certainly change the orthography conventionally used in ‘Bonnie Laddie Highland Laddie’ to indicate the English of a Highlander or Gaelic-speaker, Hogg sent Thomson that version nevertheless: ‘Grieve assured me you would alter the broken highland Scotch I thought so too but what I had written I had written’. Hogg’s facility as a song-writer clearly led him to regard his songs as easily replaced, light matters by contrast with his more sustained narrative poems or prose fiction volumes. Of one song, written off-hand, he told Thomson airily, ‘if it does not please I can easily make you another’, also giving him permission to ‘take any of the Chorus’s or all as you chuse or amalgamate them into one’.67 Where everything had to be written out in longhand there was a great difference between a short poem (or song) produced at a sitting and a long one that had been mulled over and planned in the course of weeks or months, and Hogg’s attachment to his poetry undoubtedly deepened with the time he had spent on it and the familiarity of its present form to his mind. ‘The numbers, by being frequently repeated, wear smoother to our minds; and the ideas having been expanded, by our reflection on each particular

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scene or incident therein described, the mind cannot, without reluctance, consent to the alteration of any part of it’ (Memoir, p. 17). Hogg’s letters illustrate by his practice the more considered summaries he gave about his literary habits. Hogg’s letters are undeniably an important resource for understanding his general habits of authorship and his opinions of the work of his contemporaries besides providing vital evidence of the processes of genesis, composition, and the subsequent reception of his work.

4. Hogg as a Letter-Writer Besides their usefulness as a resource to editors, literary scholars, and cultural historians Hogg’s letters have considerable literary value in their own right, even though they were not deliberately intended by their writer to form a literary work. Part of their charm is the feeling they convey of immediacy, of being written to the moment and sent without subsequent reflection. Hogg owns to Byron on 14 October 1814, ‘It is one of my greatest faults my lord that I always speak and write too precisely as I feel’. He wished his correspondents to feel that his letters were a more immediate and unmediated impression of his personality and powers than his literary works. He instructs Eliza Izett, for instance, to ‘do just as I do write whatever comes uppermost’ and requests her on another occasion to ‘pardon my dear Eliza my hurried confused way of writing I cannot take time or pains about a letter of all things’. This was an excuse for ill-temper as well as more amiable qualities. Writing an angry letter to John Murray on 18 January 1815 to complain about the publisher’s treatment of The Pilgrims of the Sun, Hogg added ‘I never look over a letter after I have written it I know there is something very ill natured in this’ while the reason given to Byron for never reading his own letters over was ‘for fear of being obliged to expunge’.68 Hogg’s claims to spontaneity in his letterwriting perhaps need some of the qualification, however, that they have received with respect to his poetry in recent times. The existence of a draft letter for the period covered by the present volume clearly shows that on occasion he not only did read over a letter but also made considerable revisions.69 Hogg’s frequent notes of the circumstances under which he writes certainly add to the casual effect as well as striking a Pepys-like note at times. ‘I have a dozen strangers in my house to night’ he tells

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William Blackwood, ‘and write to you in the midst of a confusion’, while a note to Thomas Pringle concludes abruptly with ‘the gig is just passing that is to carry this’. A hasty letter to Eliza Izett begins, ‘It is three o’clock and I am this moment informed that Mr. Izet [the bearer of his letter] leaves town to morrow’, and another to Murray concludes ‘as I am fairly interrupted by the arrival of two poets Campbell and Wilson for the present farewell’. Hogg’s letters not infrequently mention the place or circumstances under which they were written, an irritated aside in a letter to John McDiarmid, for instance, saying ‘Excuse haste dear Mack but not the two idle students that are standing interrupting me’.70 Details of the weather also provide snapshots of Hogg at the time of writing. His letter to Roscoe of 22 January 1814 was written immediately after his arrival in Edinburgh from the Borders in the depths of winter, for example: ‘I arrived here late last night weary and fatigued beyond measure having fought my way from Tweed thro’ a terrible depth of snow and drift the wheeled carriages being all stopped’. Equally vivid are his accounts to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe and John Wallace of a freakishly warm November in Yarrow in 1818, where a view of the surrounding countryside merges into an account of his sporting occupations: I have no news that can be interesting to you from this wilderness only our winter is such that if it were not for the callendar it might be mistaken for summer the flowers the birds and even the docile craws have all mistaken it in good earnest the latter are as busy building their nests as I ever saw them in April which I account as great a phenomenon as I ever witnessed—the primroses are also in full blow on our wild banks. It is the best weather for the chace I have ever [sic] beside all these and we are engaged with it every day till our dogs are absolutely going to fail us I have three as fine greyhounds as ever sprung to a hill; their names will amuse you Clavers, Burly, and Kettledrummle71 Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 21 July [1818] brilliantly sets out the scene of his writing in just a few words, reinforcing the necessity for an immediate payment of money due to him to secure the progression of his house-building at Altrive: As I am come to the last extremity Grieve who is sitting beside me advises me strongly to write to you before you set out to London and request you to send me the £50. because my time is gone by the workmen are craving me and if

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you go away I may be left in the lurch having no other certain resourse. Some of the most successful of Hogg’s prose fictions written in the first person similarly contain imagined scenes where the narrative is written hastily under the pressure of an external threat to the narrator. For instance, the final entry of Robert Wringhim’s journal in The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is written as Gil-Martin approaches to secure the implementation of the pretended suicide pact. A gentler elegaic note is sounded in Hogg’s letter to Eliza Izett of 15 October 1811 where Hogg imagines his own past experience of visiting her at her country home of Kinnaird near Dunkeld in Perthshire as a present absence, and evokes what Tennyson would later refer to as the touch of a vanished hand. ‘The woods of the Tay will be much faded by this time the hills sombre and scarcely a new print of a foot on the walks of Kinnaird’. In their immediacy Hogg’s letters not only remind the reader of Parson Woodforde or Samuel Pepys but also suggest an essentially Romantic spirit. In reading a letter himself Hogg was very conscious of its suitability or otherwise to the recipient. He commented, for instance, on Burns’s letter to Robert Ainslie of 26 April 1793, ‘What a strange hipperty-skipperty letter this is to AINSLIE! that is to say, to AINSLIE as we know him now,—the author of “The Father’s Gift,” and many beautiful little religious works, fitted for youth of both sexes’.72 His own letters are often brilliantly suited to the character and expectations of his correspondent, whether by unconscious adaptation or by deliberate design. The Suffolk poet Bernard Barton, for instance, had reacted to the publication of The Queen’s Wake by enquiring of the publisher, George Goldie, if Hogg was indeed an Ettrick Shepherd, and he was on terms of friendship with Capell Lofft, who envisaged himself as the patron and discoverer of Robert Bloomfield, the author of The Farmer’s Boy who had worked both as an agricultural labourer and as a shoemaker.73 Hogg’s letter to Barton of 14 May 1813 accordingly refers to Barton’s efforts to ‘raise a humble bard from oblivion’, adding ‘you can scarcely imagine the prejudices that poverty and want of education have to encounter in this important age’. By praising ‘the spirit of enthusiasm and kindness that breathes throughout [Barton’s letter] towards a friendless and un-noted Bard’ Hogg undoubtedly exaggerates his situation in Edinburgh (where in fact he had powerful friends like Walter Scott and financial backers like John Grieve) but flatters Barton as patron and secures his future services by presenting himself in the light most

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likely to be readily understood by and to appeal to his correspondent’s sympathies. A similar accommodation to the preoccupations and character of mind of his correspondent can often be glimpsed in Hogg’s letters to Walter Scott. The Edinburgh lawyer’s and writer’s pride in his relationship to the Scotts of Harden and the Duke of Buccleuch as head of the Border clan of Scott was famously remarked by Hogg in Anecdotes of Scott: Although of course he acknowledged Buccleuch as the head and chief of the whole Clan of Scott yet he always acknowledged Harden as his immediate chief or chieftain of that particular and most powerful sept of Scotts. And Sir Walter was wont often to relate how he and his father before him and his grandfather before that always kept their Christmass with Harden in acknowledgement of their vassallage. This he used to tell with a degree of exultation which I thought must has been astounding to every one who heard it [...]. It was no matter what people thought no body could eradicate those feelings from his mind.74 In this context Hogg’s letter to Scott of 22 February [1805] certainly represents a claim to belong to the same network of feudalised relations, and works to create a bond between himself and Scott on a legendary, mythic level. Hogg’s ancestor, William Hogg, was ‘Hardens chief champion’ and ‘greatly in favour’ as ‘from his great strength and ferocity [he] was nick-named the Wild boar’. In desperate need of a guarantee of his solvency in order to take up the lease of Locherben at the start of 1807 Hogg stretches the mythic bond of his feudal dependency on Scott even further, to an extent indeed which may well have been intended to appeal to Scott’s sense of humour as well as to flatter him: ‘I can do nothing without you, I am just like the old pagans who when they could do no better ran to their gods for redress’.75 On the occasion of their last meeting in September 1830 when Hogg feared that Scott was displeased with him he gave as the motive for his own blunt remarks ‘I wanted to make him laugh’ (Anecdotes, p. 74), and this was clearly an established technique for securing attention and appealing to the good-nature of his powerful friend. Writing in the farm-kitchen at Mitchelslacks on 17 March 1806 to congratulate Scott on his recent triumphs in London and on the birth of a second son, Hogg adds ruefully, ‘It is a d—d thing that no body has ever to congratulate me on any thing only that such a thing might have been waur’.

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Despite his various avowals of bluntness and egotism Hogg’s letters are often delicately sensitive towards their intended recipient as well as humorous, making him a brilliant epistolary flirt and his letters to women exceptionally lively. Hogg flatters without the smallest hint of intimidation, and generally seems to wish and expect his female correspondents to smile or laugh on reading his letters. His appeal for Altrive to the Duchess of Buccleuch of 7 March 1813 is a case in point. After outlining the reasons for his request Hogg concludes: A single line from a certain very great, and very beautifull lady, to a land steward [...] would insure that small pendicle to the bard at once—but she will grant no such thing!—I appeal to your Grace if she is not a very bad lady that? A young lady who certainly would have been justifiably slighted and offended at Hogg’s accepting two invitations to a family party and not turning up on either occasion must surely have been amused by the exaggerated and purposeful flattery of his address to her as ‘dear, sweet, honest, good natured, kind hearted Jane’, his frank declaration that ‘I have nothing in the world to say for myself’, and the subsequent promise that if she persuaded the family to forgive him he would ‘write six Epic poems on you and court you every day till you are married, and as long after as you will let me’. Hogg’s letters to Margaret Phillips at the start of their relationship are particularly interesting, since his obvious and sincere attraction to her exists in tension with his unwillingness to make any serious emotional commitment, and the effect is in some ways reminiscent of the deliberate instability of tone of some of his later narrative fiction. After telling her that he loved her in the first letter that he wrote her, Hogg adds an immediate qualifier and then at once reinstates his admiration: ‘I am not courting you—nay I do not believe I would take you in a present (though it might make me cry to refuse you)’.76 One can easily credit the wry comment of Lockhart’s Peter Morris on Hogg at an evening party in about 1819: ‘He appears to be in very great favour among the ladies—and I thought some of the younger and more courtly poets in the company exhibited some symptoms of envying him a little of his copious complement of smiles—and well they might’.77 Cumulatively these letters build into a memorable literary selfportrait. The outline is of a significantly Scottish writer with many traditional beliefs and with a darker side to his personality that is not always apparent in his formal writings. An occasional disingenu-

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ousness is clear to the reader who is experiencing almost twenty years of letters more or less simultaneously and comparing what was written at different times, in different moods, and to different people. This should be taken in the context of Hogg’s own remarks on the life of Burns cited above (p. xiii). Minor equivocation on Hogg’s part is hardly surprising where matters of great importance are at stake. His various statements about the progress of his projected ‘Poetical Repository’, for example, are certainly confused and self-contradictory, because in order to fulfil his plans for the work he had to convince various prestigious contributors and an equally prestigious publisher that success was already assured. He therefore states that the first number had already been advertised when he had not yet obtained a publisher for it, and informs Byron on 3 June 1814 that ‘Roscoe Southey Scott Wordsworth Wilson and many others of high respect’ had already agreed to become contributors when some of them at least had not even been invited to contribute by then.78 A good Calvinist himself, the author of The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner clearly found his belief in predestination and in the personal care of an over-ruling, all-seeing Providence a great comfort to him in the various vicissitudes of his chequered career. His failure as a farmer in Dumfriesshire between 1807 and 1809 was particularly hard for Hogg to surmount, and he clearly did so chiefly in terms of interpreting it as part of a pattern that was hidden from him. Writing, for example, to Eliza Izett on 23 July 1808 he declared, ‘I have been so peculiarly unfortunate in all my endeavours to succeed in that sphere, that it seems to me as if providence had some other thing to do with me, or that my directing angel were wishing to divert my thoughts into some other scene of action’. Another inward support was the faith of his chosen friends: William Laidlaw’s admiration of him as a youngster; Scott’s support from 1802 onwards; and John Grieve’s backing during his Edinburgh years. In his letter to Scott of 12 December 1806 Hogg explains how Scott’s encouragement is keeping him from a state of despair: And if it had not been for the constant encouragement I received from [sic] I had of late years sunk into an apathy which would soon have, and was very near engendered contempt But if my hope and vanity can be kept alive there are very few things that I will not attempt and do my utmost to accomplish.

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His personality also contained a noticeable streak of paranoia, implicit throughout this period right from the comment in his first letter to Laidlaw that ‘the people of Ettrick seem greatly to despise me consequently shun all intercourse with me’. Equally telling is his comment to Eliza Izett on the success of The Queen’s Wake that he expected the kind words of his true friends, but ‘it is more pleasant to hear the praises of strangers and the silence or rage of enemies’. When Wilson and Lockhart quiz him in the pages of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine Hogg describes them, albeit humorously, as demonic, arguing ‘as for the two devils the thing is implanted in their very natures and I must bear it’.79 Hogg’s famous ebullience alternated with darker moods that threatened his self-belief and his will to continue on the course he had chosen. An occasional nervous prostration seems to have been the price he paid for the life he had created for himself, between the peasant society into which he had been born and the literary world in which his talent placed him. At his most cheerful he was at home in either, but in periodic low phases felt alienated from both. Hogg’s Memoir is resolutely cheerful on the whole, but his letters certainly contain hints of the other pole of his emotional range. From Hogg’s letter to Eliza Izett of 11 December 1808, for instance, there is evidence of a ‘long and severe illness’ after the collapse of Hogg’s Dumfriesshire farming prospects. Hogg’s relationship with his successive dogs was unusually close: the animal was a servant, a faithful friend, a constant companion, and in poems such as ‘The Author’s address to his auld dog Hector’ almost a familiar or totemic animal.80 His account in that letter of the imminent death of Hector is full of a brooding melancholy for his own possible end as well as of pain at the loss of his much-loved dog: As to prospects, excepting those from our hills on a clear day, I have none that can be depended upon, or at least none very flattering. My poor old Hector who has twice seen me turned out of house and hold and who was grown quite gray and blind in my service, was the other day run down by a horse and got his thigh broke, and his body much crushed; although his death would be an act of mercy I cannot consent to it. God grant that the afternoon of his unfortunate masters day may [TEAR]t more serene than his, which has tr[TEAR] suffered under every depression [...] In general, though, Hogg is far more likely to mock his own feelings of exclusion than to indulge in melancholy. Visiting Scott at

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Abbotsford in company with the London publisher John Murray, Hogg had it brought home to him what an extensive and intricate network of literary and political influence and connection Scott was familiar with at the centre of the British empire in London, one of which he was almost totally ignorant himself. He expressed it, however, in a way that would amuse his correspondent William Blackwood, stating that Murray and Scott ‘had so many people to crack about whom no body knows aught about but themselves that they monopolized the whole conversation’. The same letter also expresses a ludicrous determination to quarrel with Lockhart and Wilson on account of their greater centrality to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and to the literature of the Scottish capital. Hogg is ‘fidging fain to see them’ but intends nevertheless ‘to tell them that I think it extremely hard to be set to the wall by men whom I consider and can prove to be inferior to myself’.81 Hogg’s high-spirited self-mockery is a great attraction of his letters, as for instance when he tells Anne Bald that he has drunk so much whisky on a Highland journey in 1816 that he had a dream in which ‘I was turned into a cask of that liquor that the gaugers took me into custody and fairly proved me to be a legal seizure about which I was greatly concerned’. Even more memorable is his request to the London publisher John Murray to find him a wife with a bit of capital, as ‘I daresay there is many a romantic girl about London who would think it a fine ploy to become a Yarrow Shepherdess’. His bluntness seldom descends to rudeness, and seems primarily designed to amuse his correspondent. The frequent identification of Lord Byron himself with his own gloomy Romantic heroes is comically and inoffensively glanced at, for instance, when Hogg writes to him, ‘I suspected that you were a dour ill-natured chiel but I am beginning to think I was quite mistaken’. Even in anger Hogg’s pithy expressiveness in telling Blackwood, say, that to mention publishing to him is ‘exactly like throwing cold water on one’s face in a frosty day’ removes the sting from his scolding. Hogg’s deprecatory excuse for not profiting by Eliza Izett’s good advice— that he always wishes to do so—is equally disarming.82 Hogg’s frankness is undoubtedly one of his most attractive qualities as a letterwriter. Despite various setbacks the plot of this first volume of Hogg’s letters is a success story, one of his transformation from Borders shepherd to famous literary man. At the end of 1819 Hogg was looking forward to marriage and a settled life as an established writer in his new house built by his own efforts on a farm gifted by one of

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the greatest landed magnates of Scotland in recognition of his talents and achievements. It is hoped that the publication of this volume of his letters will help to promote and explore still further the literary standing so hard-won. Notes 1.

2.

3.

4. 5.

6.

7. 8.

For a brief account of the publication history of Hogg’s memoir see Altrive Tales, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2003), pp. 194–204. The text of the version included under the titles ‘Memoir of the Author’s Life’ and ‘Reminiscences of Former Days’ in Altrive Tales itself is on pp. 11–78, with explanatory notes on pp. 216–60. This is hereafter referred to as Memoir, within parentheses. See the surviving opening of Hogg’s manuscript of his ‘Memoir of Burns’ in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: James Hogg Collection GEN MSS 61, Box 1, Folder 47. A slightly different version of this passage was published in ‘Memoir of Burns’, The Works of Robert Burns, ed. by James Hogg and William Motherwell, 5 vols (Glasgow, 1834– 36), V, 1–263 (pp. 1–2). Alan Lang Strout, The Life and Letters of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd: Volume I (1770–1825), Texas Technological College Research Publications, 15 (Lubbock: Texas Tech Press, 1946). An unpublished typescript for the second volume survives in NLS MS 10495. NLS stands for National Library of Scotland: a list of abbreviations employed in the present volume is given in the Note on the Texts, pp. 476–84, together with an explanation and account of the editorial policy adopted towards Hogg’s letters in the present volume. See Mrs Garden, Memorials of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd (Paisley, [n. d.]), and, most famously, J. G. Lockhart, The Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., 7 vols (Edinburgh, 1837–38). The most relevant histories of publishing houses are: Thomas Constable, Archibald Constable and his Literary Correspondents, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1873); Mrs Oliphant, Annals of a Publishing House: William Blackwood and his Sons, their Magazine and Friends, second edition, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1897); and Samuel Smiles, A Publisher and his Friends Memoir and Correspondence of the late John Murray, with an Account of the Origin and Progress of the House, 1768–1843, 2 vols (London, 1891). For a notable collector’s publication of Hogg letters owned by him see R. B. Adam’s privately-printed Works, Letters and Manuscripts of James Hogg, “The Ettrick Shepherd” (Buffalo, 1930). A letter to an unknown correspondent of 27 October 1833 was printed, for instance, in Notes and Queries, fifth series, 10 (16 November 1878), 386. See Norah Parr, James Hogg at Home: Being the Domestic Life and Letters of the Ettrick Shepherd (Dollar: Douglas S. Mack, 1980). The editors of successive volumes of the Stirling/ South Carolina Edition itself, of course, have printed a good many of Hogg’s letters in whole or in part in explaining the genesis and reception of the works edited. Strout, The Life and Letters of James Hogg, p. 5. See the Introduction to The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy, ed. by Richard Little Purdy and Michael Millgate, 7 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978– 88), I, vii–xvii (p. viii), where in discussing the paucity of Hardy’s family correspondence the editors remark, ‘Since, moreover, his parents were

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9.

10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16.

17.

18. 19.

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poorly educated country people of modest social and economic standing, it is by no means certain that they were accustomed to writing letters themselves’. There would be little point in writing to those who were unlikely to reply, and the example of letter-writing is also of course absent. William Hogg, like his second brother, James, submitted essays for the premiums offered by the Highland Society of Scotland, and contributed occasionally to Edinburgh periodicals—see Notes on Correspondents, pp. 455–57. In his late teens his eldest son Robert contributed a ballad, ‘The Tweeddale Raide’ to the third edition of his famous uncle’s The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1821), pp. 273–86. His high standard of literacy is further implied in his later employment as a corrector of the press for James Ballantyne—see Charles Rogers, The Modern Scottish Minstrel, 6 vols (Edinburgh, 1855–57), IV, 129. ‘Z.’ remarks of Hogg at Willenslee that ‘being obliged to write a letter to his elder brother William, he had so far forgot the way, that he actually was under the necessity of printing some of the letters as he saw them in the beginning of the Catechism’—see ‘Farther Particulars of the Life of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd’, Scots Magazine, 67 ( July and November 1805), 501–03, 820–23 (p. 502). See Hogg’s own account of this society in ‘Storms’, in The Shepherd’s Calendar, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 1995), pp. 1–21 (pp. 5, 18–19). The precise date of Hogg’s first meeting with Scott is a matter of dispute— see Notes on Correspondents, pp. 469–71. Lockhart, The Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., II, 375. For a detailed account of Cunningham’s lawsuit against Hogg written by a lawyer see John Chisholm, Sir Walter Scott as a Judge (Edinburgh, 1918), pp. 100, 204–14. It seems likely that a correspondence took place between Thomas Mounsey Cunningham and Hogg from about 1806 at least when Hogg met Cunningham’s brothers, James and Allan. Hogg had addressed Cunningham in ‘a lengthened poetical epistle, expressive of his admiration. A private intimacy ensued between the two rising poets; and when the Shepherd, in 1809, planned the “Forest Minstrel,” he made application to his ingenious friend for contributions. Cunningham sanctioned the republication of such of his lyrics as had appeared in the Scots Magazine [...]’— see Rogers, II, 225. Rev. David Hogg reports that ‘a dryness arose’ in later years and that when Hogg was staying in the West End of London in 1832 and Cunningham living at Southwark each invited the other to visit but as neither would cross the river they never met—see Life of Allan Cunningham (Dumfries, 1875), p. 11. See Memoir, p. 23. That Hogg’s recklessness was not merely financial is indicated by his fathering two illegitimate children during this time—see Gillian Hughes, ‘James Hogg and the “Bastard Brood”’, Studies in Hogg and his World (hereafter SHW), 11 (2000), 56–68. Chalmers Izett’s retirement from business as a hat-manufacturer in Edinburgh on 16 December was announced in the Edinburgh Weekly Journal of 27 December 1809, and he is no longer listed as living at 6 St John Street in the Edinburgh Postal Directory for 1810–11. The implication must be that he gave up his Edinburgh house and resided permanently at Kinnaird in Perthshire as a result of his retirement. Mrs Gordon, ‘Christopher North’ A Memoir of John Wilson, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1862), I, 198. For Campbell’s calls on Hogg see Hogg’s letters to John Murray of 17 April

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20.

21.

22.

23. 24.

25.

26.

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1815 and to Alexander Bald of 23 April 1815. Garden (pp. 56–57) states that after the publication of The Queen’s Wake the ‘little writing-table in his lodgings (we think in Stockbridge) was now usually covered with notes of invitation’. Hogg’s familiarity with Jeffrey is clear from several of his letters, for example, that to John Murray of 21 January 1815 which describes Jeffrey calling on Hogg in his lodgings when he was ill, and sending him an invitation to supper. Hogg’s role in planning the 1815 Edinburgh Burns Anniversary dinner is clear from his letter to John Aitken of 14 January 1815. His involvement in the Dilettanti Society is a noticeable feature of surviving papers of the Society in the National Library of Scotland (APS. 3. 83. 7. 1–5), and will be discused in detail in the forthcoming S/SC Edition volume devoted to Hogg’s Contributions to Annuals, edited by Janette Currie and Gillian Hughes. For Hogg’s participation in the festivals of the Shakespeare Club of Alloa see his letters to Alexander Bald of 14 November 1813, 23 April 1815, and 21 April 1817 and notes. For Hogg’s reading of Southey’s poem previous to its publication see his letter to Byron of 13 September 1814. Hogg’s letter to John Murray of 18 January 1815 shows that he had seen the previous evening the issue of the Quarterly Review dated October 1814, advertised as published this day in Edinburgh in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 19 January 1815. The subsequent issue dated January 1815 was advertised as ‘just arrived’ in Edinburgh in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 30 March 1815, and Hogg comments on several articles in it in his letter to Murray of 31 March 1815. Hogg reported Murray’s offer of £500 for the copyright of The Pilgrims of the Sun in his letter to Eliza Izett of 26 October 1814. The poem was advertised as ‘This day is published’ by Blackwood in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 15 December 1814, the title-page reading ‘London:/ Printed for John Murray, 50, Albemarle Street:/ and William Blackwood, South Bridge Street,/ Edinburgh’. Murray, however, only advertised the poem as published in London in the Morning Chronicle of 13 January 1815, the titlepage reading ‘Edinburgh:/ Printed for William Blackwood, South Bridge/ Street;/ and sold by J. Murray, London’. For further details see the forthcoming S/SC volume of Midsummer Night Dreams, edited by the late Jill Rubenstein. See Hogg’s letter to John Murray of 21 January 1815, which reports Jeffrey’s comments in a note to Hogg written the day after his poem’s Edinburgh publication. Roger Leitch gives a succinct description of the original house in his ‘Hogg at Altrive’, SHW, 13 (2002), 129–33 (pp. 129–30). R. P. Gillies attributes Hogg’s retreats from Altrive to Edinburgh to pressure of visitors, claiming that although he feared he would lose sight of Hogg at this time in fact he ‘was then more with us than ever’—see Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, 3 vols (London, 1851), II, 241–42. See Hogg’s angry letter to John Wilson of 2 January [1816] and notes. Writing to Murray about The Field of Waterloo on 22 December 1815 Blackwood reported, ‘I call’d on Mr Scott yesterday by appointment to see what could be done with poor Hogg’s lamentable production. He was rather averse to corresponding with the Shepherd himself, yet by means of Mr Wilson (Isle of Palms) and another friend of Hoggs I have got it knock’d on the head’ ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2). Mrs Oliphant, for instance, is dismissive of Hogg’s claim to have played a key part in the founding of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. Of his author-

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27. 28.

29. 30. 31.

32.

33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

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ship of ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’ she writes, ‘Hogg, then very much en evidence about Edinburgh, having actually a hand in most things that were going on, and supposing himself to have much more, was of opinion that the original conception was his own’—see William Blackwood and his Sons, I, 98. See Hogg’s letters to Blackwood of 12 August and 24 September 1817. Blackwood had written a letter to William Laidlaw of 2 January 1818 (NLS, Acc. 9084/9) concerning his wish that Laidlaw would give up the Chronicle section of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, and Hogg was the bearer of it to Abbotsford, where he was if possible to achieve Blackwood’s aim without forfeiting Scott’s powerful support—see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 5 January 1818 and notes. See also Hogg’s letter to the Editor of the Glasgow Chronicle of 13 May 1818. John Ballantyne to Hogg, 10 October 1816, in NLS, MS 2245, fols 23–24. See Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 8 December 1816, written when a second edition of The Poetic Mirror was in prospect. Blackwood’s annoyance at learning of the imminent publication of Hogg’s Dramatic Tales by means of one of Ballantyne’s newspaper announcements was expressed in his letter to John Murray of 19 February 1817 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 3): ‘Hogg is going to publish what he calls Dramatic Tales in 2 vols. He never said one word to me on the subject, nor did I know of it, till I saw it advertised in Monday’s Courant by Johnny Ballantyne. I don’t think they will be first rate, so that I am perhaps as well quit of them’. A subsequent letter of 19 May 1817 repeats, presumably on Hogg’s information, ‘The Dramatic Tales [...] are by our friend Hogg. He had made some engagement with John Ballantyne at the time the Poetic Mirror was published’ ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 3). The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales had been reviewed in The Scotsman of 16 May 1818, pp. 158–59. For details of the reception of James Gray’s ‘Life and Writings of James Hogg’, Edinburgh Magazine, 2 ( January, February, and March 1818), 35–40, 122–29, 215–23 see Hogg’s draft letter to Timothy Tickler of 3 August 1818 and notes. For Hogg’s country sporting activities of sailing, coursing, and fishing see his letters to John Wallace of 25 November 1818 and Sir Cuthbert Sharp of 15 August 1817. By 1817 John Grieve’s health was failing and he appears to have spent some part of the summer at Cacrabank in Ettrick in 1817, 1818, and 1819—see Hogg’s letters to Eliza Izett of 14 December 1817, to William Blackwood of 21 July, 12 October and 30 October 1818, and to Margaret Phillips of 20 August 1819. It is clear regular visits were exchanged. In a letter to George Boyd of 2 September 1818 Hogg asked for credit for a few books for a lame ‘shepherd’s son on the Border’ called Jamie Telfer so that he could become a pedlar. These criticisms of Scott’s poetry are given in Hogg’s letters to Scott of 18 April [1806] and 2 May 1808 respectively. See The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004), p. 172 (Conclusion, ll. 346–53). Guy Mannering had been reviewed in the Quarterly Review, 12 ( January 1815), 501–09, and is commented on by Hogg in his letter to Murray of 31 March 1815. For Hogg’s comments on Waverley see his letters to Byron of [30 June] and 30 July 1814. Hogg’s offer to review Guy Mannering for the Quarterly Review was made in his letter to John Murray of 13 March 1815, and his offer to review Rob Roy

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39. 40. 41.

42. 43. 44. 45.

46.

47. 48. 49. 50.

51. 52.

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for Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in his letter to William Blackwood of 19 October 1817. See Hogg’s letter to Byron of 14 August 1814. See Hogg’s letter to Byron of 26 February [1816]. Hogg’s comment on Byron’s ‘Jagernaut’ tendency is in his letter to Byron of 17 August 1814, and his comments on Hebrew Melodies in his letters to John Murray of 26 December 1814 and to William Blackwood of 12 August 1815. See Hogg’s letters to William Blackwood of 8 December 1816, to Mary Glassell of 27 April 1818, and to John Murray of 4 [July] 1818. See Hogg’s letters to Walter Scott of 18 January 1805 and to Alexander Bald of 14 November 1813. Significantly, Hogg’s antagonistic comments about Wordsworth occur in his letters to Byron, of 17 August and 13 September 1814, or to Byron’s publisher John Murray—see his letter to Murray of 7 May 1815. See James Hogg, The Three Perils of Woman, ed. by David Groves, Antony Hasler, and Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 1995), p. 25. Wilson’s defects as a friend are noted in Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 30 October 1818. Hogg had praised Jeffrey as a reviewer superior to Brougham and Wilson in his letter to Blackwood of 19 October 1817. Hogg’s letter to John Murray of 21 January 1815 describes Jeffrey calling on Hogg in his lodgings when he was ill and sending him an invitation to supper. He cites a note from Jeffrey about The Pilgrims of the Sun, written on the day of publication. In his letter to Southey of 15 December 1814 Hogg describes a conversation he had with Jeffrey at an evening party about the merits of Southey’s Roderick, The Last of the Goths and Wordsworth’s Excursion. In a deleted passage of his draft letter to Timothy Tickler of 3 August 1818 Hogg wrote, ‘I esteem Mr. Jeffery as a friend and acquaintance, and whenever I was with him the idea of critic and author was sunk between us so let it be for ever!’ See Hogg’s letters to Robert Surtees of 19 December 1819 and to William Blackwood of 30 November 1819. See Hogg’s letters to Janet Stuart of 10 October [1808?], to John Aitken of 4 March [1818], and to Peter Buchan of 24 June 1818. Hogg’s gift of the manuscript of ‘Prince Owen and the Wizard’ forms part of his letter to Robert Surtees of 18 March 1807, and his tribute to the charms of Margaret Phillips forms part of his letter to her of 1 February 1812. Hogg’s manuscripts of ‘Highland Laddie’, ‘Mischievous Woman’, and ‘The Highland Watch’ are in letters to Thomson of [16 March 1818], 25 October 1815, and 29 November [1817] respectively. It was the last of these of which Hogg stated ‘I have dashed a song down on the slate while he [the carrier] is engaged at his dinner’. Writing to Thomson on [9 May 1818] Hogg says that he wrote the song enclosed ‘in less than ten minutes’. Hogg’s grumbles to Blackwood are in his letters of 8 December 1816 and 16 November 1819. See Hogg to Bernard Barton, 14 May 1813 and to Byron, 3 June 1814. Hogg’s letter to Scott of 3 April 1813 describes the sale of The Queen’s Wake as almost confined to Edinburgh to date, while Alexander Dirom wrote to William Roscoe on 19 May 1813 (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 1239), ‘His late work, the Queen’s Wake, it seems has not yet found its way to Liverpool’. Hogg’s letter to Dirom of 14 May had stated ‘Longman & Co. was to have supplied the Liverpool trade I weened you would get what copies you wanted that way’.

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53. James Hogg, The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004), pp. liii, lx. 54. In his letter to Scott of 3 April 1813 Hogg says directly, ‘I wish you would review it in the Quarterly’. The publisher George Goldie remarked in his letter to Bernard Barton of 28 October 1813 (NLS, MS 1002, fols 85–86), ‘I am quite astonished that the Quarterly Review has not noticed the Wake, it appears to me that Mr. Walter Scott’s friendship has prevented that being done—it was understood when the poem was published that Scott was to review it—at least that he should use his endeavours to have it done, but from the moment it was sent into the world there has nothing passed upon the subject!’ 55. The Hunting of Badlewe is referred to, for instance, in Hogg’s letters to Bernard Barton of 14 May, 7 June, and 18 August 1813. Hogg’s letter to William Roscoe of 22 January 1814 expresses his resolution to abandon any attempt to have it staged and publish it as ‘a dramatic tale’. Hogg recommended his drama, published as the work of ‘J. H. Craig of Douglas’, to Lord Byron’s attention in his letter of 3 June 1814 and his subsequent letter of [30 June] 1814 reveals that he directed Goldie to send Byron a copy. Hogg’s letter to John Scott of 28 February 1816 also reveals his anxiety to publicise the work. Hogg’s disappointment in the poor reception given to Dramatic Tales of 1817 is expressed indirectly in his letter to Blackwood of 24 September 1817 as well as more explicitly in those to John Aitken of 20 December 1817 and to the editor of The Scotsman of 17 May [1818]. 56. See Hogg’s letters to Scott of 3 April and 17 March 1806 respectively, his letter to Margaret Phillips of 25 November 1812, Memoir, p. 36, and the Shuffleton papers in nos. 2, 5, and 10 of The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/ SC, 2000), pp. 12–19, 44–51, and 96–104. 57. See Hogg’s letters to Dirom of 3 September 1813, to Scott of 21 May [1806], and to William Laidlaw of 22 July 1813. 58. See Hogg to Constable, [12 or 19 November 1810], and Hogg to Eliza Izett, 26 October 1814. 59. See Hogg’s letters to Murray of 1 March 1816, and his letter to Blackwood of [November 1814–May 1815] respectively. 60. See Hogg’s letters to Scott of 26 September 1808, 8 September [1810], and 3 April 1813. Hogg’s account of their quarrel is from his letter to Byron of 14 October 1814. 61. For Laidlaw’s song of ‘Lucy’s Flittin” see The Forest Minstrel (Edinburgh, 1810), pp. 15–17. Writing to a Mr Johnstone on 1 January 1844 about a copy he had recently made (Edinburgh University Library, MS Laing. II. 281/1) Laidlaw noted, ‘I have omitted the last stanza which was added by Hogg when he put it in the Mountain Bard’. (I thank Richard Jackson for drawing this letter to my attention.) For Hogg’s rewriting of ‘My Peggy O’ see his letter to Peter Buchan of 24 June 1818. 62. Hogg’s comments on his control of The Mountain Bard and Scott’s supervision are made in his letters to Scott of 21 May [1806], 17 March 1806, 23 October 1806, 3 April 1806, 21 May [1806], and 23 October 1806 respectively. Suzanne Gilbert discusses Scott’s influence on The Mountain Bard in ‘Two Versions of “Gilmanscleuch”’, SHW, 9 (1998), 92–128. 63. See Hogg’s letters to Scott of 28 September [1810] and 14 [November 1811]. 64. See Memoir, pp. 28–29, 35. The list of Hogg’s literary advisors for The Hunting of Badlewe is compiled from his statements in letters to William Laidlaw of 22 July 1813, to Bernard Barton of 18 August 1813, to Eliza Izett of 20 August 1813 and 11 February 1814, and to William Roscoe of 22

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65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

79. 80.

81. 82.

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January 1814. The fact that Walter Scott was consulted is also shown by the printing of an undated letter of criticism in R. P. Gillies, ‘Some Recollections of James Hogg’, Fraser’s Magazine, 20 (October 1839), 414–30 (p. 424). Hogg to Blackwood, 4 January 1817. Hogg to R. A. Smith, [February 1818–January 1824]. See Hogg’s letters to Thomson of [9 May 1818], [16 March 1818], 25 March [1818], and 29 November [1817]. See Hogg’s letters to Eliza Izett of 23 July 1808 and 26 October 1814, and to Byron of 26 February [1816]. Peter Garside has analysed manuscripts of Hogg’s poems in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand as including a number of different kinds of draft, despite Hogg’s emphasis on his spontaneity as a poet and disavowal of revision—see ‘Vision and Revision: Hogg’s MS Poems in the Turnbull Library’, SHW, 5 (1994), 82–95. The present volume includes a draft letter of 3 August 1818 addressed to Timothy Tickler. See Hogg’s letters to Blackwood of 19 October 1817, to Thomas Pringle of 21 August 1818, to Eliza Izett of 11 February 1814, to John Murray of 17 April 1815, and to John McDiarmid of 8 March 1819. Hogg to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, 24 November 1818, and to John Wallace, 25 November 1818, the quotation being from the latter. The Works of Robert Burns, ed. by James Hogg and William Motherwell, 5 vols (Glasgow, 1834–36), IV, footnote to p. 291. See the note on Bernard Barton in Notes on Correspondents, pp. 444–45. James Hogg, Anecdotes of Scott, ed. by Jill Rubenstein (S/SC, 1999), pp. 3–4 (hereafter referred to as Anecdotes). Hogg to Scott, 10 January 1807. Hogg to Jane [?], 19 April [1819], and to Margaret Phillips of 27 July 1811. Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1819), III, 133. In his letter to Byron of [30 June] 1814 Hogg stated, ‘The Repository is now advertised for the first of Novr.’, but this seems unlikely as a subsequent letter of 17 August 1814 to John Murray makes it clear that he had even by that date still not obtained a publisher. Hogg’s letter to Byron of 3 June 1814 precedes his requests for contributions to the Poetical Repository of 4 June 1814 addressed to Southey and of 28 July 1814 addressed to William Roscoe. In his Memoir (p. 40) Hogg makes it clear that Scott refused to contribute at all. Hogg to William Laidlaw, [?1800], to Eliza Izett, 23 March 1813, and to William Blackwood, 21 July [1818]. ‘The Author’s Address to his Auld Dog Hector’, The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 183–89. In ‘Further Anecdotes of the Shepherd’s Dog’ Hogg wrote, ‘My dog was always my companion. I conversed with him the whole day—I shared every meal with him, and my plaid in the time of a shower [...]’—see Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (March 1818), 621–26 (p. 623). Hogg to Blackwood, 12 October 1818. See Hogg’s letters to Anne Bald of 1 June 1816, to John Murray of 7 May 1815, to Byron of [30 June] 1814, to Blackwood of 8 December 1816, and to Eliza Izett of 17 March [1816].

TO 1802

1

TO 1802 To William Laidlaw

[?1800]

Dear William Alexander Laidlaw says I must write, therefore I will write, altho’ I have nothing of consequence in the world to write to you about, I would have been exceedingly glad of an interview, and I cannot altogether excuse you for not coming to our house that Saturdas [sic] night or Sabbath day that you staid at Bourhope, you can only obliterate your crime by coming as soon as possible to see me, for altho’ I am better now I will be extreemly [sic] proud of the visit, I even insist upon it, the more so as the people of Ettrick seem greatly to despise me consequently shun all intercourse with me, they are deeply tainted with the good old maxim in taking notice of one in proportion to what he has not what he is. but if they are as well convinced as I am that you have more sense than the whole of them put together I’ll show them what company I keep. I do not wish you to imbibe any sentiments from these lines prejudicial to your ideas of my contentment, but anent my vanity let them take there stretch. Because of my scarcity of paper I held you with half a sheet this time, which I now begin to repent as I have ran my self out at the very first. I have sent you a book containing the two last acts of my comedy and a good part of the two first of my tragedy which I have run over loosely as I composed it. It is not atall pointed which will confuse you a little, you must help it with your imagination the best way you can. I wish you to make what observations you can anent their correction, and to tell me what you think of the tragedy untill I hear your opinion I will not proceed tho’ I flatter my self you will think I will succeed James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr William Laidlaw/ Blackhouse [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg/ 1800? [Watermark:] none [Location:] University of London Library, [S. L.] V. 14. There is a typed transcript in NLS, MS 860, fol. 3. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 22–23 [in part].

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William Laidlaw see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Alexander Laidlaw shepherd at the farm of Bowerhope on the shores of St Mary’s Loch. After Hogg’s death Laidlaw stated that ‘Mr. Hogg and I were in our youthful days almost inseparable companions’ (Garden, p. 328), and he helped to nurse Hogg on his death-bed. He is mentioned in Hogg’s Memoir (p. 19) as one of the entrants in a competition to make verses on the stars, and also as attempting a verse paraphrase of Psalm 117 with Hogg. Laidlaw is also mentioned very favourably as an enterprising shepherd and amateur naturalist in William John Napier, A Treatise on Practical Store-Farming (Edinburgh, 1822), pp. viii, 28–44, 274–75 and in the account of Yarrow parish in Statistical Account of Scotland, 15 vols (Edinburgh, 1845), II, 41. He died in 1842. Saturdas [sic] Hogg’s orthography is on occasion archaic or idiosyncratic, but nevertheless ‘[sic]’ has been used sparingly in order to avoid distracting the reader. For an explanation of its use and of editorial policy generally see the Note on the Texts. Bourhope or Bowerhope in Yarrow, the home of Alexander Laidlaw. to despise me in his Memoir (p. 18) Hogg states of William Laidlaw, ‘He was the only person who, for many years, ever pretended to discover the least merit in my essays, either in verse or prose [...]’. my comedy in the version of his ‘Memoir’ in The Mountain Bard of 1807 (p. xii) Hogg relates, ‘In 1795, I began The Scotch Gentleman, a comedy, in five long acts; after having been summoned to Selkirk, as a witness against some persons suspected of fishing in close-time’. See also Hogg’s letter to Laidlaw of 9 January 1801. my tragedy in the version of his ‘Memoir’ in The Mountain Bard of 1807 (p. xviii) Hogg relates, ‘In the year 1800, I began and finished the two first acts of a tragedy, denominated The Castle in the Wood; and, flattering myself that it was about to be a masterpiece, I showed it to Mr William Laidlaw, my literary confessor; who, on returning it, declared it faulty in the extreme [...]’. Hogg ‘cursed his stupidity, threw it away, and never added another line’. pointed i.e. punctuated. There are indications even in much later literary manuscripts that Hogg first wrote out his composition and subsequently added punctuation. NLS is an abbreviation for National Library of Scotland. For a full list of abbreviations used in the editorial material see the Note on the Texts.

To William Laidlaw

6 June [1800]

Blair-in-Gowrie June th 6th My dear friend You will see by the date that I am still proceeding northward I have left Perth and Cupar in Angus behind me and am lodged in the head inn of this town if I may call it so for it is even inferior to the royal burgh in which I expect you will read this. The first thing that drew my attention this day was a flock of very little pretty sheep which I took for hoggs I could not learn of what breed they were but

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they are a species of that usefull animal which I never saw before. I think excluding the head they were nearly square and from the crown to the tip of the tail they seemed about a foot and a half long I then crossed the valley of Strathearn whose praises you have often heard therefore I shall not repeat them but assure you it richly deserves them all the crops in this valley far surpasses any I have seen, both in closeness and strength there is really a visible difference but the whole of my journey since I passed Middleton hath been the same scene continued and a scene which I hate nor have I had half the pleasure of this journey that I had of the one to Breadalbine I must enter amongst the Bens and Glens of the Grampians to morrow when I expect to finish my journey. These Sovreigns of the north I have seen to day towring their antient tops specked with the snows of the last century and aspiring to bid good-morrow to the sun far to my left yea so far that they appeared to me like distant clouds, what a prodigous extent this county is. I was much surprised at the magnitude of the town of Perth I wearied much more going thro’ it twice as far in the country They are repairing a small street of it and at the very time that I passed the labourers had lighted upon two human sculls and some bones lying in the utmost irregularity they had been visibly slaughtered in a trench or ditch the taking of Perth by Wallace immediately occurred to me I saw a very great regimint of horsemen there I do not know what they are but they are not like any men that I ever saw they are to a man of a pallid hue unmixed with any red Mostly fair complectioned their horses are every ane jet black and burnt on the back some with one cypher some with two and the men are all clothed in white It is a most picture[eol]esque river this Tay the vessils on the river and the continuation of huge fields of plantings struck me particularly. ever since I crossed the forth I have seen an immensity of children and many of them with very young mothers, which makes me believe the people to have a comfortable way of living and that matrimony is very general. All the peasantry above middle age wear large bonnets, they seem frank and open in their dispositions, the bulk of the women are coarse but I see there are always some exceptions. There was much complaining at Perth of the dealers keeping up the meal, the mealhouse door was shut to day. And at Dundee I hear their has been much disturbance and the provost was in great danger of being hanged by the mob. I have seen no more of my comrades but am looking out for their arrival evry [sic] minute. I am not certain if I can get my letters off after this night if possible I will write to morrow or next day from the Spital of Glenshee it is there that the estate lyes and I have had

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the most flattering accounts of it that possibly can be it is in the parish of Kirkmichael and district of Strathmore You must pardon any inaccuracies as they proceed from haste and wearyness I am Dear William at whatever distance Yours sincerely James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr Willm Laidlaw/ Blackhouse/ By Selkirk [Postmarked:] [smudged] Blair/ Gowrie JU8 [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg/ July—1800 [Watermark:] [SHIELD]/ 1798 [Location:] University of London Library, [S. L.] V. 14. There is a typed transcript in NLS, MS 860, fols 1–2. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 21–22. Blair-in-Gowrie Hogg’s travels seem to have taken him northward from Selkirk, past Middleton in Midlothian, bearing westward to cross the firth of Forth, and then north-east through the valley of Strathearn to Perth, Couper Angus, and then Blairgowrie in Perthshire. His objective seems to have been to inspect a farm at Spittal of Glenshee still further north in Perthshire. the head inn of this town in his 1802 Highland tour Hogg mentioned ‘an excellent inn held by Mr Galway’ at Blair-Gowrie, identified by Hans de Groot as the eighteenth-century Queen’s Hotel—see ‘The Unpublished Conclusion of James Hogg’s 1802 Highland Journey’, ed. by H. B. de Groot, SHW, 6 (1995), 55–66 (pp. 59, 66). the royal burgh probably Selkirk, the post-town for Ettrick and the Yarrow valley. hoggs young sheep, from the time they are weaned until they are shorn of their first fleece; yearling sheep (see CSD). my journey since I passed Middleton Hogg seems to be voicing his usual complaint about travelling through flat countryside, looking forward to reaching mountainous land on the following day. the one to Breadalbine see the first instalment of Hogg’s 1802 Highland Journey: ‘About ten years ago, I had occasion to make a jaunt through the west of Stirlingshire, Montieth, Breadalbane, and Glenorchy’—Scots Magazine, 64 (October 1802), 813–18 (p. 813). the taking of Perth by Wallace in 1297. Hogg probably has in mind the account given in Book VII, Chapter 3 of the paraphrase of Blind Harry’s life of Wallace by William Hamilton of Gilbertfield—see Blind Harry’s Wallace (Edinburgh: Luath Press, 1998), pp. 101–04. Hogg had read this at Willenslee in his youth—see Memoir, p. 15. regimint of horsemen this regiment has not been identified. dealers keeping up the meal grain prices had risen dramatically, and meal mobs in several Scottish towns attempted to control the price and supply by direct action. On 30 April 1800 Volunteers broke up a crowd in the Pleasance of Edinburgh who were forcing a miller to sell at a fixed price, and prices only stabilised after the harvest of

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1801—see Kenneth J. Logue, Popular Disturbances in Scotland 1780–1815 (Edinburgh: John Macdonald Publishers, 1979), pp. 30–31, 39. There is obvious anxiety behind newspaper reports in the summer of 1800 anticipating an early and plentiful harvest—see, for instance, Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 August 1800: ‘From every quarter we have the most gratifying accounts of the harvest. [...] In Scotland, a number of fields of barley, oats, and pease, have been cut down, and the appearance of the crops of every kind is greatly improved within this fortnight.—The price of grain is falling rapidly.’ at Dundee no such disturbance in the summer of 1800 has been identified, but Hogg may fear a repetition of events in Dundee in November 1792, when an angry mob had threatened to unload forcibly a cargo of meal from a ship in the harbour which the customs men refused to release. After marching through the streets, led by a man with a tar barrel on his head, to the Town Hall they were persuaded to desist by the Provost, Andrew Riddoch, with the promise that he would seek authority to have the ship unloaded. Riddoch became Provost in 1787 and continued to hold or to control the office until 1819—see Christopher A. Whatley, David B. Swinfen, and Annette M. Smith, The Life and Times of Dundee (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, 1993), pp. 130–31. my comrades the identity of Hogg’s companions is unknown. the estate Hogg seems to have been looking for a farm to rent, using the savings of his ten years’ service at Blackhouse farm as capital to buy his stock.

To [Adam Bryden]

1 July [1800]

Dear Sir I could begin this letter with a great many fine compliments such as wishing you joy of your young son, enquiring after your health, with a thousand pretences to love and friendship; but as I really believe you to be a sworn enemy to all ceremony, and like myself delight most in what cometh uppermost, I shall begin by telling you in broad Scots the main design of this scrawl; it is merely to inform you that I intend to go willing, as Mr Paton says to try some little risk in the sheep dealing way this year; and as from some little traits in your character I would be happy if you and me could bargain either in less or more; and if you be not engaged to any other person about your lambs I will either buy the whole or what part you please, and give sufficient surety for the price until the markets be over, or else if you like any better I will drive and with the assistance of my friend Robert Borthwick market them all; and I will regularly on my return settle accounts with you and pay you down every penny that I get for them bating my expenses which shall be moderate; and as I do not want to make any thing of them but merely for a beginning, I will leave it entirely to yourself as to my

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recompence; and then I will take them away at what time or in what quantity you please; neither by this plan can any of us lose much, because if you be not pleased with the prices that I get you can stop when you please. Now dear sir, if you are free and relise [sic] any of these proposals be so good as send me word one way or another. A single line will do the business or if you have thing to do here-away yourself be sure to give me a call.—I am impatient to hear from my brother David I wonder he hath never sent us word of his recovery I am Sir, yours sincerely James Hogg Etterick House July 1 [Location:] Transcript in the Hogg Letters Project Papers, University of Stirling. [Adam Bryden] see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. your young son the Eskdalemuir OPR records the birth of a son to Adam Bryden and his wife in June 1800, although unfortunately a tear on the relevant page has obliterated the child’s Christian name and the date. Mr Paton Charles Paton had been minister of Ettrick since December 1791. He was unmarried, and died on 18 February 1818 aged 63—see Scott’s Fasti, II, 176. He was a native Gaelic speaker and obliged ‘to think in Gaelic and speak in English’—see James Russell, Reminiscences of Yarrow (Edinburgh, 1886), p. 60. the sheep dealing way Hogg ventured into business as a sheep-dealer after moving to Ettrickhouse in 1800, and seems to have abandoned it before his Scottish Pastorals were published early in 1801—see ‘Z.’, ‘Concluding Particulars of the Life of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd’, Scots Magazine, 67 (November 1805), 820–23 (p. 821). Robert Borthwick presumably the ‘neighbour shepherd named Borthwick’ serving with Hogg at Blackhouse mentioned in ‘Storms’ in The Shepherd’s Calendar, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 1995), pp. 1–21 (p. 7). my brother David the third of the four surviving sons of Robert Hogg and Margaret Laidlaw, baptised at Ettrick on 10 January 1773.

To William Laidlaw

9 January 1801

Dear Sir, I’m never at a loss for these two words, my hand writes these involuntarily, but for another word of this succeeding epistle, I have not yet consulted the dictionary of my brain, nor is there a thought or sentiment of it formed in embryo. I cannot begin in the old form thus: “I am in very good health at present, thanks be unto God for it, and all our mercys, and I hope this will find you in the same:” indeed I might have kept the last clause out of the quotation and

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joined it to the subject, for indeed I do hope it; but as for my health whether it be come to the Blackhouse where it staid so long without interruption, unless expelled an hour or two by some internal tumult, or if she is gone into Edinburgh to see what is become of my poems I know not; that’s certain she is left me. I saw your face as last as I did hers; and so ill I have taken the revolt of the gypsy, that I have shut myself up for the most part in the house and much in the bed ever since. Yet this short interval from business hath proved fatal. I know you will stare now with your great eyes, “fatal, you will say, “Lord preserve us.” Yes, William it has been fatal, a fatal pause! and I will tell it to you though I have not told it to another in the world. I have committed a murder for I have actually put an end to the Scotts gentleman. I have relieved you from your qualm now; and will proceed to speak of his end gravely as becomes a Christian. You were acquainted with his character and part of his progress, and though these afforded some hopes of a reformation and a happy hereafter, yet sorry am I to say it, to his last breath he continued the same stupid dull being, and I have great reason to fear his damnation for indeed he seemed to the very last deeply ingrafted in a stock of Nature with which it is impossible grace can interweave. But in short I would be extremely glad of a hand from you at his correction, but how I shall attain it I cannot see; if I do not amend you might come over and see me and it. You will expect some account of the catastrophe. There is nothing very surprising or affecting or even comical in it; but it is natural and probable: the only laughable scenes are that of the two old lawyers differing about a misfortune that befalls them, who fight it and are separated in a very ludicrous manner by Harry, who imagined his master was going to murder Snib and in giving his master a caution about. More he bids him take care and not fall on and murder him. Harry is extremely happy at the end, he tells them they have acted a very good comedy, and he is afraid the people will not believe him that it is a fact. We then supposeth them all birds happily mated and tells them that he hath one just ready; he then turns upon James calling him the cuckoo, and gets to him singing “the cuckoo is a bonny baird” etc and so the curtain drops. I see I could easily have it ready before the theatre close, but as he is a child of nature I cannot think to have him murdered by you unnatural people at Edinburgh and it is unco far up to London. I have written a long dry letter to Mr Clarkson, I run out of matter altogether and gave him the introduction to my tragedy which I cannot give you here. I expect to hear from you as soon as this

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reacheth you informing me what news from Edinburgh and of anything worthy of remark. If you can get my word to Robert Borthick tell him that if he has got a house for Thomas Hogg he will take it but if he has not got one he need not trouble himself further about it. I greatly wish you could prevail upon your father to lend me a small sum of money not exceeding £12 it would free me of some little debts and set my mind at ease. I can’t ask it anywhere else, my dependance upon your house being so well known they will know I have been refused there. James Hogg the 9th day of the year ane. [Addressed:] Mr William Laidlaw/ Blackhouse [Location:] Typed transcript in NLS, MS 860, fols 4–5. [Published:] Garden, pp. 36–37 [in part]; Strout, pp. 23–24 [in part]. the Blackhouse the farm tenanted by William Laidlaw’s father James, where Hogg had served as a shepherd from 1790 to 1800—see Memoir, p. 16. my poems Hogg’s Scottish Pastorals, published in February 1801 by John Taylor of the Grassmarket in Edinburgh. the Scotts gentleman a reference to one of Hogg’s early plays, referred to in the ‘Memoir’ in The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. xii–xiii. See also Hogg’s letter to William Laidlaw of [?1800] and notes. “the cuckoo is a bonny baird” a Jacobite song familiar to Hogg from childhood, and later printed as ‘Song LXVII. The Cuckoo’—see Jacobite Relics of Scotland. [First Series], ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2002), pp. 111–12. In his note on p. 283 Hogg says ‘It must have been a great favourite in the last age; for about the time when I first began to know one song from another, all the old people that could sing at all sung The Cuckoo’s a bonny Bird ’. you unnatural people at Edinburgh William Laidlaw must have visited Edinburgh recently, though the letter is addressed to him at Blackhouse. Subsequently he farmed at Liberton now a suburb of Edinburgh, but then an adjacent rural district. Mr Clarkson Ebenezer Clarkson (1759–1844) was a surgeon, and Bailie and Provost of Selkirk (Corson, pp. 410–11). Robert Borthick a shepherd who had served with Hogg at Blackhouse—see the note to Hogg’s letter to [Adam Bryden] of 1 July [1800]. Thomas Hogg probably the cousin referred to in Albyn’s Anthology, ed. by Alexander Campbell, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1816–18), II, 8. ‘Lady Linley’ is noted as recorded ‘from the singing of Thomas Hogg, tailor in Thirelstane, [...] in presence of his ingenious kinsman, author of “The Queen’s Wake,” &c. who kindly accompanied the present Editor in his excursion through Ettrick-forest, in autumn 1816’. He was the son of Robert Hogg’s brother James, and baptised in 1768 (see Kelso OPR). your father James Laidlaw, the father of William, was tenant farmer at Blackhouse in Yarrow and employed Hogg as a shepherd from 1790 to 1800. In his Memoir Hogg refers to the kindness of James Laidlaw as ‘much more like that of a father than a master’ (p. 16).

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To William Laidlaw

9 [February 1801]

Dear William, I have received a letter from Alexr Laidlaw Which I understand hath been mostly dictated by you, and am very much chagrined at the contents. I cannot conceive what hath induced the man to add tenant to the title page of the pamphlet for in the proof sheet which I got, and to which the title page was annexed, there was no such thing, nor had he any such order from me. He took the liberty once in our conversation, to ask what profession I followed in the country. I told him, that my father and me occupied a small sheep farm in the county of Selkirk: these were my very words: and afterwards when talking of corresponding by letters he said he would direct to Jas Hogg tenant at Ettrick house, which I forbade and he did it not. And as I imagine you have had your information from the papers, I think the body understanding that I was one of the minor sort of the profession, hath thought to please me by adding that cursed epithet in the papers but which I flatters myself cannot be in the book. As for the wrong insertion of Lord Napier’s name I now see my error, but what the devil in hell, as I should say so, ailed both you and Clarkson, who had both perused the manuscript, that you had not told me that sooner. It is madness to talk to me of losing the whole impression and reprinting it. It might indeed be an easy matter for you or Clarkson to do that, but you know it is entirely out of my power, I wish I had the one paid that is printed and other things which are more pressing at present; it is a great mortification for my gay heart which fondly imagined the whole world were my friends to find upon trial— D—n it, I’ll proceed no farther with this reflection, it will lead me into the most ruefull train of declamation that ever was seen. I had very near ere ever I was aware impressed my mind with the same sort of feelings which I have to work myself into when writing a speech of Sir John Annan. But to resume; I do not think all things considered that the couplet which you advert unto can be so very criminal as you would make me believe it is. For instance, how free does Burns make with persons of far higher stations, and who ever found fault with him? And I verily believe that when I wrote the Eclogue “On June the year nae less nae mae” “Than eighteen hunder a’ but twee”, that his Lordship’s name was on the cover of the paper which we read at the Blackhouse, so that if he considers the date in what other light can he take it than as a friendly hint that the paper was unworthy of his protection; if it were a libel that could not be proven as a truth I might have reason

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to fear, but as it is I don’t give a farthing for him nor any nobleman in Scotland; for if he should ever see the book, which in all probability he never will, and should be induced to view it in the right light, the most dangerous consequence that can ensue will be a duel betwixt me and his lordship, and of the issue of this I have no doubt at all, for as the challenge must necessarily proceed from him, I am entitled to the choice of my distance and weapons. My ground should be on some of his lordship’s hill-sides in our parish, and by taking the advantage of the ground, I should make him a fugi’ farance. I cannot help laughing at the pickle his lordship will be in when he sees fragments of rocks pouring down on him in every direction, I think he will run with the most unguarded precipitance, his feet in consequence will go from beneath him, and then he’l fall; then he will rise again in the utmost horror and run as before. Now I have considered and I think that what hath been published in the papers cannot [...] [Addressed:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg—at the/ first publication of his/ poems in the grass market [?1801] [Location:] Typed transcript in NLS, MS 860, fols 6–7. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 26–27. date the letter appears to have been written between Hogg’s seeing the proofs and getting the printed copies of his Scottish Pastorals, which was advertised as ‘this day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 5 February 1801. Although a poem from it appeared in the Scots Magazine, 63 (January 1801), 52–54, this particular issue of the magazine was not published until the beginning of March—see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 2 March 1801. Alexr Laidlaw of Bowerhope—see the note to Hogg’s letter to William Laidlaw of [1800?]. the man John Taylor, the printer of Hogg’s Scottish Pastorals of 1801. Elaine Petrie points out that the Edinburgh and Leith Directory to July 1801 describes him as ‘printer and stationer opposite Buchts’, that is the sheep pens in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh—see Scottish Pastorals: Poems, Songs, &c. Mostly Written in the Dialect of the South, ed. by Elaine Petrie (Stirling: Stirling University Press, 1988), p. xii. tenant the title-page of Scottish Pastorals (1801) simply reads ‘By James Hogg’. Newspaper advertisements for the work do, however, describe Hogg as ‘Tenant in Ettrick’— one such advertisement is to be found in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 5 February 1801. The notice of Hogg’s publication in the Scots Magazine, 63 ( January 1801), 52– 54, alludes to Hogg as ‘Farmer at Ettrick’, presumably following the newspaper advertisement. Hogg took over the work of assisting his father at Ettrickhouse from his elder brother William around Whitsunday 1800 at the end of his ten years’ service as a shepherd with the Laidlaws of Blackhouse, until Whitsunday 1803,

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when the lease expired and the farm was taken by a wealthier neighbour—see Memoir, p. 16. Lord Napier’s name Francis Napier, 7th Baron Napier (1758–1823) succeeded to the title in 1775. He was Lord Lieutenant of Selkirkshire, and an important local landowner—see Corson, pp. 573–74. Elaine Petrie points out in her edition of Scottish Pastorals (p. xi) that Laidlaw had clearly been troubled by the mention there of Lord Napier in ‘Dusty, or, Watie an’ Geordie’s Review of Politics; An Eclogue’: ‘I ken that, frankit by Lord Napier, | Ilk week you read the Kelso paper’ (p. 8). The paper referred to here is probably the radical Kelso Mail, and Lord Napier might not wish to have it stated that he was responsible for the local circulation of a Radical newspaper during the French Revolutionary War. Clarkson Craig-Brown believes this letter disproves Hogg’s account in the Memoir of how he published Scottish Pastorals from memory. Douglas Mack summarises the evidence and holds that ‘the fact that Laidlaw and Clarkson had seen the manuscript before publication does not necessarily prove that Hogg had the manuscript with him in Edinburgh when he went to the printer’—see Memoir of the Author’s Life and Familiar Anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1972), note to p. 16. One of the first letters from Scott to William Laidlaw, of 12 May 1802 (NLS, MS 860, fol. 8) is addressed to him ‘Care of Mr Clarkson Surgeon Selkirk’. Sir John Annan presumably a character in one of Hogg’s early plays, possibly The Castle in the Wood which, according to the ‘Memoir’ in The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807) he wrote in 1800 (p. xviii). None of these early dramatic works have apparently survived. Burns the Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759–96). “On June [...] a’ but twee” the opening lines of ‘Dusty, or, Watie an’ Geordie’s Review of Politics; An Eclogue’ in Scottish Pastorals. a fugi’ farance a fugie is a runaway or coward in Scots: ‘farance’ may possibly have been ‘for ance’ (‘once’) in the original of this transcription, as it is notoriously difficult to distinguish the letter o from the letter a in Hogg’s hand.

To William Laidlaw

20 July 1801

Dear Sir I recieved yours with the transcript of Messers on the day before I went for St Boswals fare, and am sorry to inform you that it will not be in my power to procure you manuscripts of the two old ballads, especially as they which Mr Scott hath already collected are so near being published. I was talking to my uncle concerning them, and he tells me that they are mostly escaped his memory; and they really are so; insomuch, that of the whole long transactions betwixt the Scottish king and Murray, he cannot make above half a dozen of stanzas to metre, and these are wretched. He attributes it to James

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the fifth, but as he can mention no part of the song or tale from whence this is proven, I apprehend, from some expressions, that it is much antienter: but upon the whole I think the thing worthy of investigation; the more so as he was the progenitor of a very respectable family, and seems to have been a man of the utmost boldness and magnanimity: what way he became possessed of Etterick forest, or from whom he conquered it remains to me a mystery: when taken prisoner by the king at Permins score above Hanginshaw, where the traces of the encampments are still so visible, and pleading the justice of his claim to Ettrick forest, he hath this remarkable expression. “I took it frae the Souden turk.—When you and your men durstna come see.”—Who the devil was this Souden turk? I would be very happy in contributing any assistance in my power to the elucidating the annals of that illustrous and beloved, though now decayed house; but I have no means of accession to any information. I imagine the whole manuscript might be procured from some of the connections of the family. is it not the library of Philliphaugh? As to the death of the Baron of Okwood and his brother in law on Yarrow; if Dr. Messer or Mr Scott either of them wisheth to see it poetically described, they must wait until my tragedy is performed at the theatre royal, and if that shall never take place they must sit in darkness and the shadow of death for what light can the poets of Bruces day afford them. I believe I could collect as much of these traditions as to make good songs out of them myself, but without Mr. Scotts permission this would be an imposition, neither would I undert[TEAR] without an order from him in his own hand writing, as I could not bring my language to bear with my date. As a supplement to his songs if you please you may send him the one I sent last to you: it will satisfy him yea or nay as to my abilities. If you send it: for the indelicate expression of From thy loins you may insert In lifes mire. Haste comunicate this to him, and ask him if in his researches he hath lighted on that of John Armstrong of Guilnochyhall, as I can procure him a copy of that. My uncle says that it happened in the same reign with that of Murrays and if so I am certain it has been written by the same bard. I could procure Messer some stories: Such as the tragical though well authenticated one of the unnatural murder of the son and heir of Sir Robert Scott of thirlstane. The downfall of the family of Tushilaw: and of the horrid spirit that still haunts the Alders. and we might give him that of John Thomsons Ambrie, and the bogle of Bells lakes. I recieved a long letter from Greenock the other day, but I have no room for particulars. My muse still lies dormant, and with me must sleep in oblivion, since a

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liberal publick hath not given me what my sins and mine in [SEAL] deserved. I am yours for ever James Hogg Etterickhouse July th 20th 1801 [Addressed:] Mr/ Willm Laidlaw/ Blackhouse [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg/ July 1801/ this was a year be-/ fore he was introdu-/ced to Mr W Scott [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] [ CROWN E D S H I E LD ] [Location:] University of London Library, [S. L.] V. 14. There is a transcript in Edinburgh University Library, MS La. III. 584 (13). [Printed:] Robert Carruthers, ‘Abbotsford Notanda’ in Robert Chambers, Life of Sir Walter Scott (Edinburgh, 1871), pp. 115–17; Batho, pp. 18–19, 20–21. transcript of Messers an indication that Hogg was already involved in ballad-collecting for Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Andrew Mercer (1775–1842) was described by Laidlaw in his manuscript recollections of Scott (Edinburgh University Library, MS Laing II. 281/2, pp. 2–3) as ‘a native of Selkirk educated for the church who had a decided turn for literature [...]. He attempted with Hugh Murray to set on foot a Magazine which existed for a year or two. It was likely he had been introduced to Scott by Leyden as the only yound [sic] man in Selkirkshire [...] who had any byas for literary pursuits’. Mercer had been in Selkirk in May 1801, collecting material for Scott. Writing to Robert Anderson on 22 May 1801 (NLS, Adv. MS 22. 4. 11, fols 52– 53) he reported, ‘I was desired in particular to obtain some account of the death of the Outlaw Murray and after enquiring at many old persons I got a few notices relative to this event and but a very few indeed—from these and from probabilities in the nature of the case I have made the ballad which accompanys this and which I request you will be so good as get conveyed to Mr. Scott for his inspection’. St Boswals fare William John Napier noted in his A Treatise on Practical Store-Farming (Edinburgh, 1822) that St Boswell’s Fair is ‘the greatest market in the south of Scotland, for prime lambs of the Cheviot breed’ (p. 93). St Boswell’s Green is near the small village of Lesudden, ten miles west from Kelso and four miles east of Melrose. The fair was held on 18 July. so near being published Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border was published in two volumes on 24 February 1802—see Todd & Bowden, p. 19. my uncle probably William Laidlaw (1735–1829), who is referred to in ‘Wat Pringle o’ the Yair’ as Hogg’s source for ‘The Battle of Philliphaugh’—see Tales of the Wars of Montrose, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 1996), pp. 197, 298–99. Murray a reference to the ballad ‘The Sang of the Outlaw Murray’, printed in Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 2 vols (Kelso, 1802), I, 1–24. See also Child no. 305 (‘The Outlaw Murray’). James the fifth James V of Scotland (1512–42), the elder and only surviving son of James IV and Margaret Tudor. He succeeded as King when he was only seventeen months old, and was the father of Mary, Queen of Scots, and grandfather of James VI and I.

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Hanginshaw a mansion and wooded grounds on the left bank of the Yarrow, 6 miles west by north of Selkirk, formerly belonging to the Murrays of Philliphaugh and an ancient Murray stronghold (Groome). “I took it frae the Souden turk [...] Scott changed these lines to ‘Frae Soudron I this Foreste wan, | Whan the King nor his knightis were not to see’—see Sir Walter Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, ed. by T. F. Henderson, 4 vols (Edinburgh, 1902), I, 314. the library of Philliphaugh Hogg’s surmise was well founded. William Edmonstoune Aytoun, in The Ballads of Scotland, second edition, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1859), II, 129, gives ‘The Song of the Outlaw Murray’ as ‘From the Philiphaugh MSS’, explaining that ‘The copy now given is from an old manuscript in the Philiphaugh charter-chest, which I have been courteously permitted to transcribe’. the death of the Baron of Okwood Hogg’s manuscript of the ballad, ‘The dowy houms o’ Yarrow’ is in NLS, MS 877, fol. 250. ‘The Dowie Dens of Yarrow. Now first published’ was included by Scott in the third volume of his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (Edinburgh, 1803), pp. 72–78. the theatre royal the Theatre Royal of Edinburgh had been opened in December 1769 in Shakespeare Square, at the east end of Princes Street, roughly at the junction of the Old Town and New Town districts—see James C. Dibdin, The Annals of the Edinburgh Stage (Edinburgh, 1888), p. 152. Bruces day Robert I of Scotland (1274–1329), known as ‘The Bruce’. the one I sent last to you Hogg’s song ‘By a Bush’, later published in the Edinburgh Magazine, 21 ( January 1803), 52–53. For a history of its transmission see Peter Garside, ‘Editing The Forest Minstrel: The Case of “By a Bush”’, SHW, 13 (2002), 72–94. John Armstrong of Guilnochy-hall Scott published ‘Johnie Armstrang’ in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 2 vols (Kelso, 1802), I, 35–58. some stories Hogg went on to publish his own version of some of these traditions. The murder of the heir of Scott of Thirlestane was given in ‘Thirlestane. A Fragment’ with an accompanying prose note in The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 117–27. downfall of the family of Tushilaw perhaps a reference to the hanging of Adam Scott of Tushielaw, the King of Thieves or King of the Border, on an old ash-tree in front of his own tower by James V in 1528—see William Anderson, The Scottish Nation, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1865), III, 410–11. the horrid spirit that still haunts the Alders has not been identified. John Thomsons Ambrie an aumbrie is a cupboard or pantry, though the legend has not been identified. the bogle of Bells lakes an account of the bogle of Bell’s lakes is given in Hogg’s notes to ‘The Pedlar’ in The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 31–32. Hogg’s subsequent tale ‘The Bogle o’ the Brae’ explains the appearance of a bogle at a house inhabited by the Bell family as a magic lantern trick—see The Club Book, ed. by Andrew Picken, 3 vols (London, 1831), III, 231–64. letter from Greenock perhaps from Hogg’s Ettrick friend John Grieve (1781–1836), who ‘early in 1801, obtained a situation in a bank at Greenock’—see Rogers, III, 43. a liberal publick an allusion to the failure of Hogg’s 1801 publication of Scottish Pastorals.

TO 1802

To Walter Scott

15 30 June [1802]

Ettrickhouse June 30 Dear Sir I have been perusing your minstrelsy very diligently for a while past, and it being the first book I ever perused which was written by a person I had seen and conversed with, the consequence hath been to me a most sensible pleasure: for in fact it is the remarks and modern pieces that I have delighted most in, being as it were personally acquainted with many of the antient pieces formerly. My mother is actually a living miscellany of old songs I never believed that she had half so many until I came to a trial: there are none in your collection of which she hath not a part, and I should by this time have had a great number written for your amusement, thinking them all of great antiquity and lost to posterity, had I not luckily lighted upon a collection of songs in two volumes, published by I know not who, in which I recognized about half-a-score of my mothers best songs, almost word for word. No doubt I was piqued but it saved me much trouble paper and ink: for I am carefully avoiding every thing which I have seen or heard of being in print, altho’ I have no doubt that I shall err, being acquainted with almost no collections of that sort but I am not afraid that you too will mistake. I am still at a loss with respect to some: such as The Battle of Flodden, beginning “From Spey to the border.” a long poetical piece on the Battle of Bannockburn, I fear modern. the Battle of the Boyne. Young Bateman’s Ghost, all of which, and others which I cannot mind I could mostly recover for a few miles travel were I certain they could be of any use; concerning the above: and I might have mentioned May Colin and a duel between two friends, Graham an Bewick undoubtedly very old. You must give me information in your answer. I have already scraped together a considerable quantity.—Suspend your curiosity, Mr Scott, you will see them when I see you, of which I am as impatient as you can be to see the songs for your life. But as I suppose you have no personal acquaintance in this parish, it would be presumption in me to expect that you will visit my cottage, but I will attend you in any part of the Forest if you will send me word. I am far from supposing that a person of your discernment. d—n it I’ll blot out that word ’tis so like flattery. I say I don’t think you would despise a shepherds “humble cot an’ hamely fare” as Burns hath it yet though I would be extremely proud of the visit hang me if I would know what to do w’ye. I am surprized to find that the songs in your collection differ so widely from my mothers. Is Mr Herds M. S. genuine? I suspect it. Jamie Telfer differs in many particulars.

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Johny Armstrong of Guilnockie is another song altogether. I have seen a verse of my mothers way called Johny Armstrang’s last goodnight cited in the Spectator, and another in Boswels Journal it begins “Is there ne’er a man in fair Scotland?” do you know if this is in print Mr Scott? In the Tale of Tomlin, the whole of the interlude about the horse and the hawk is a distinct song altogether. Clerk Saunders is nearly the same with my mothers, until that stanza which ends, “Was in the bowr last night wi me”, then with another verse or two which are not in yours she ends Clerk Saunders. All the rest of the song in your edition, is another song altogether, which my mother hath mostly likewise and I am perswaded from the change in the stile that she is right, for it is scarce consistant with the forepart of the ballad. I have made several aditions and variations out, to the printed Songs for your inspection, but only when they could be inserted without disjointing the songs as they are at present; to have written all the variations would scarcely be possible and I thought would embarass you exceedingly. I have recovered another half verse of Old Maitlan, and have rhymed it thus. Remember Piercy oft the Scot hath cour’d aneath thy hand For ilka drop o’ Maitlans blood I’ll gie thee riggs o’ land The two last lines only are original: you will easily percieve that they occur in the very place where we suspected a want. I am surprized to hear that this song is suspected by some to be a modern forgery; this will be best proven by most of the old people hereabouts having a great part of it by heart: many indeed are not aware of the manners of this place; it is but lately emerged from barbarity, and till this present age the poor illiterate people in these Glens knew of no other entertainment on the long winter nights than in repeating and listening to those feats of their ancestors, which I believe to be handed down inviolate, from father to son for many generations although no doubt, had a copy been taken of them at the end of every fifty years, there must have been some difference, which the repeaters would have insensibly fallen into merely by the change of terms in that period I believe it is thus that many very antient songs have been modernized which yet to a connoissieur will bear visible marks of antiquity. The Maitlen for instance, exclusive of its mode of description, is all composed of words, which would mostly every one both spell and pronounce in the very same dialect that was spoken some centuries ago.

TO 1802

17

I formed a project of collecting all the tenors of the tunes to which these old songs were sung, and having them set to music: thinking this requisite as the book had the title of the Minstrelsy: but I find it impossible; I might compose kind of tunes to some of them and adapt others, but can in no wise learn the original ones; I find it was only the subject matter which the old people concerned themselves about; and any kind of tunes that they had they alwas [sic] make one to serve a great many songs My uncle hath never had any tune whatsoever, saving that which he saith his prayer to: and my mothers is quite gone by reason of age and frailty, and as they have had a strong struggle with the world ever since I was born, in all which time having seldom or never repeated many of the songs, her memory of them is much impaired. My uncle said I! He is, Mr. Scott, the most incorrigible man alive. I cannot help telling you this: he came one night professedly to see me and crack with me as he said: thinking this a fair opportunity, I treated him with the best the house could afford, gave him [TEAR] hearty glass, and to humour him talked a little of religion. thus I [TEAR] him onn. but Good L—d! had you heard him. it was impossible t[TEAR] him off again: in the course of his remarks he had occation to cite Ralp Ersk[TEAR]dry times, hes run to the dale where the books lay, got the Sermons, and [TEAR] every one of them from which he had a citation, what a deluge was poured on me of errors. Sins. lusts. covenants broken burnt and buried. legal teachers. patronage, and what not? In short, my dram was lost to my purpose; the mentioning a song put him in a passion. Give my kindest services to Mr Messer if you see him, and tell him I am very proud of the high encomiums he bestows on my Sandy Tod. and much more so of his offers of friendship and assistance, in revising my insignificant pieces. I will write to him as soon as I get his direction which I will get as soon as I see Mr. Laidlaw. Pardon my dear Sir the freedom I have taken in addressing you, it is my nature; and I could not resist the impulse of writing to you any longer, let me hear from you as soon as this comes to your hand and tell me when you will be in Ettrick Forest, and suffer me to subscribe myself Sir Your most humble and affectionate Servt. James Hogg [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq. Advt/ North Castle Street/ Edinr [Postmarked:] JY 1802 7 [and] HAWICK

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[Endorsed—not JH:] Mr James Hogg/ June 30 1802 [Watermark:] [SHIELD DEVICE] [Location:] NLS, MS 3874, fols 114–15. [Printed:] Batho, pp. 24–27; Strout, p. 29 [in part]. Walter Scott see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. your minstrelsy Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border had been published in two volumes in February 1802, and Scott was busy adding to the collection for a revised edition to include a new third volume. Hogg had been recruited as a possible ballad informant by William Laidlaw of Blackhouse during the previous year. a person I had seen and conversed with the date of Hogg’s first meeting with Scott is uncertain. Hogg subsequently described his first meeting with Scott as taking place in Ettrick in the summer of 1801, but must be in error as he had by then read the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (not published until February 1802)—see Anecdotes of Scott, ed. by Jill Rubenstein (S/SC, 1999), p. 37. It is clear from Laidlaw’s reminiscences that when Scott and Leyden visited Selkirkshire in April 1802 they met Laidlaw himself but not Hogg—see Edinburgh University Library, MS Laing II. 281/82, pp. 5–15. Scott does not appear to have visited the area again until after the courts broke up on 12 July, yet Hogg called on Scott in Edinburgh at the outset of his Highland journey towards the end of July 1802 and received at least one letter of introduction from him—see the entry for Scott in the Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. My mother Margaret Laidlaw, described on her gravestone in Ettrick kirkyard as William Laidlaw’s oldest daughter, ‘Born at Old Over Phaup 1730 and died in the 83rd year of her age’. The Ettrick OPR records her baptism: ‘1730 July 12th: Margaret daughter of William Laidlaw and Bessie Scott herd in Upper Fawhope was Baptized’. She probably died in June 1813—see Hogg’s letter to Bernard Barton of 5 July [1813]. For Hogg’s vivid portrait of her chanting the ballad of ‘Auld Maitland’ to Scott see Anecdotes of Scott, ed. by Jill Rubenstein (S/SC, 1999), pp. 37–38. a collection of songs in two volumes this has not been identified. It may perhaps be David Herd, Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1776). George Caw, The Poetical Museum (Hawick, 1784) was also an important source of ballads for Scott’s Minstrelsy, but had been published in a single volume. The Battle of Flodden does not appear in Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Child includes a ballad entitled ‘Flodden Field’ (no. 168), but this does not contain ‘From Spey to the Border’. a long poetical piece on the Battle of Bannockburn has not been identified, and does not appear either in Scott’s or Child’s collections. the Battle of the Boyne has not been identified, and does not appear either in Scott’s or Child’s collections. Young Bateman’s Ghost does not appear in Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, but see Child no. 53 (‘Young Beichan’). May Colin does not appear in Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, but see Child no. 22 (‘May Colin’). Graham an Bewick ‘Graeme and Bewick’ was included in the third volume of Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (Edinburgh, 1803), pp. 93–104, given ‘from the recitation of a gentleman, who professes to have forgotten some verses’ (p. 93). See also Child no. 211.

TO 1802

19

“humble cot an’ hamely fare” see line 37 of ‘When wild War’s deadly Blast was blawn’, in The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, ed. by James Kinsley, 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), II, 685–87 (p. 686). Mr Herd’s M. S. David Herd had published The Ancient and Modern Scots Songs, Heroic Ballads, etc. (1776). Scott had been given access to ‘the use of his MSS., containing songs and ballads, published and unpublished, to the number of ninety and upwards’—see Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, second edition, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1803), I, cxxvi. Jamie Telfer see ‘Jamie Telfer o’ the Fair Dodhead’ in Minstrelsy, 2 vols (Kelso, 1802), I, 80–93. See also Child no. 190. Johny Armstrong of Guilnockie see ‘Johnie Armstrang’ in Minstrelsy, 2 vols (Kelso, 1802), I, 35–58. See also Child no. 169. the Spectator no reference to ‘Johnie Armstrong’s Last Goodnight’ has been found in The Spectator. Hogg may perhaps be recalling a defence of ballads in general in no. 85, or nos. 70 and 74, which discuss ‘Chevy Chase’. Boswels Journal Boswell describes overhearing Johnson on visiting Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh repeating ‘in a kind of muttering tone, a line of the old ballad, Johnny Armstrong’s Last Good-Night: “And ran him through the fair body!”’. A note supplies the remainder of the stanza—see Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D., ed. by R. W. Chapman, Oxford Standard Authors (London: Oxford University Press, 1930, repr. 1965), p. 186. Tale of Tomlin [...] the interlude see ‘The Young Tamlane’ in Minstrelsy, 2 vols (Kelso, 1802), II, 228–43, Child no. 39 (‘Tam Lin’), and The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, ed. by James Kinsley, 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), II, 836–41. Hogg refers to eleven stanzas (from ‘And she’s away to Carterhaugh,’ to ‘As fast as she could win’) in Minstrelsy, II, 229–31, which Scott omitted from the ballad in the second edition. In that edition he printed ‘The Broomfield-Hill’, explaining that the concluding verses of it ‘were inserted in the copy of Tamlane, given to the public in the first edition of this work. They are now restored to their proper place’—see Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1803), III, 269–74 (p. 269). Clerk Saunders see ‘Clerk Saunders’, in Minstrelsy, 2 vols (Kelso, 1802), II, 33–41, and Child no. 69. another song altogether in the second edition of his Minstrelsy, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1803), II, 34, Scott notes, ‘The three concluding verses have been recovered since the first edition of this work; and I am informed by the reciter, that it was usual to separate from the rest, that part of the ballad which follows the death of the lovers, as belonging to another story. For this, however, there seems no necessity, as other authorities give the whole as a complete tale’. half verse of Old Maitlan this was the ballad famously sung to Scott by Hogg’s mother at Ettrickhouse in 1802—his manuscript, previously sent to Laidlaw for Scott, is in NLS, MS 877, fols 144–45. The equivalent verse in the third volume of Minstrelsy (Edinburgh, 1803) reads ‘Remember, Piercy, aft the Scot/ Has cow’rd beneath thy hand:/ For every drap of Maitland blood,/ I’ll gie a rigg of land’, with a footnote to say that ‘The two first lines are modern, to supply an imperfect stanza’ (III, 20). I am surprized [...] marks of antiquity Scott quoted this passage from Hogg’s letter in his note to ‘Auld Maitland’ in the third volume of Minstrelsy (Edinburgh, 1803), pp.

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9–10 remarking of Hogg’s observations that ‘in this, and a thousand other instances, they accurately coincide with my personal knowledge’. tenors of the tunes Hogg’s subsequent parallel collection of Jacobite Relics (Edinburgh, 1819 and 1821) included music as well as words. one to serve a great many songs Hogg’s approach to song-writing followed his observation of traditional practice, the tunes being frequently suggestive rather than prescriptive with the implication that the singer should choose a tune that fitted the words. My uncle for further information about Hogg’s maternal uncle, William Laidlaw, see the note to his letter to William Laidlaw of 20 July 1801. Ralph Ersk[TEAR] Ralph Erskine (1685–1752), the Scottish seceding divine and author of Gospel Sonnets, and of numerous poems and sermons. Mr Messer Andrew Mercer—see the note to Hogg’s letter to Laidlaw of 20 July 1801. high encomiums [...] on my Sandy Tod Hogg’s ‘Sandy Tod’ was first published in the Edinburgh Magazine, 19 (May 1802), 368–70. Mercer edited the magazine and wrote to William Laidlaw on [5 June 1802] ‘Sandy Tod is much liked, and excepting two or three lines, is a most excellent, I had almost said unparalleled performance, and well worthy of a Forest Minstrel [...] give my best respects to Hogg & my direction, and request him from me to favour me with a letter containing an account of the pieces he has written since he published his collection last year—If he would not think it too much trouble to send me copies of some of them, I should be happy along with Dr Anderson, to suggest what corrections they might appear to us to need’ (NLS, Acc. 9084/9). ‘Sandy Tod’ was subsequently republished in The Mountain Bard of 1807, where Hogg explains: ‘In 1801, I went to Edinburgh on foot, and being benighted at Straiton, lodged there, where the landlord had a son deranged in his mind, [...]. Thinking that a person in such a state, with a proper cause assigned, was a fit subject for a poem,—before I reached home, I had all the incidents arranged, and a good many verses composed [...].’ (p. xxi). Mr. Laidlaw Hogg’s early friend William Laidlaw, son of James Laidlaw of Blackhouse—see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents.

To Walter Scott

10 September [1802] Ettrickhouse Septr 10

Dear Sir Though I have used all diligence in my power to recover the old song about which you seemed anxious I am afraid it will arrive too late to be of any use I cannot at this time have Grame and Bewick the only person who hath it being absent at a harvest and as for the scraps of Otterburn which I have got they seem to have been some confused jumble made by some person who had learned both the songs which you have and in time had been straitened to make one out of them both But you shall have it as I had it saving that as usual I have sometimes helped the measure without altering one original word

TO 1802

The Battle of Otterburn It fell about the Lammas time When the muir-men won their hay That the doughty earl Douglas went Into England to catch a prey He chose the Gordons and the Graemes With the Lindsays light and gay But the Jardines wadna wi’ him ride And they rued it to this day And he has burnt the dales o’ Tine And part of Almon shire And three good towers on Roxburgh fells He left them all on fire Then he march’d up to Newcastle And rode it round about O whaes the lord of this castle or whae’s the lady o’t But up spake proud lord Piercy then And O but he spak hie I am the lord of this castle And my wife’s the lady gaye If you are lord of this castle Sae weel it pleases me For ere I cross the border again The ane of us shall die He took a lang speir in his hand Was made of the metal free And for to meet the Douglas then He rode most furiously But O how pale his lady look’d Frae off the castle wa’ When down before the Scottish spear She saw brave Piercy fa’ How pale and wan his lady look’d Frae off the castle height When she beheld her Piercy yield To doughty Douglas might

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Had we twa been upon the green And never an eye to see I should have had ye flesh and fell But your sword shall gae wi’ me But gae you up to Otterburn And there wait dayes three And if I come not ere three days end A fause lord ca’ ye me The Otterburn’s a bonny burn ’Tis pleasant there to be But there is naught at Otterburn To feed my men and me The deer rins wild owr hill and dale The birds fly wild frae tree to tree And there is neither bread nor kale To feed my men and me But I will stay at Otterburn Where you shall welcome be And if ye come not ere three days end A coward I’ll ca’ thee Then gae your ways to Otterburn And there wait dayes three And if I come not ere three days end A coward ye’s ca me They lighted high on Otterburn Upon the bent so brown They lighted high on Otterburn And threw their pallions down And he that had a bonny boy Sent his horses to grass And he that had not a bonny boy His ain servant he was But up then spak a little page Before the peep of the dawn O waken ye waken ye my good lord For Piercy’s hard at hand Ye lie ye lie ye loud liar Sae loud I hear ye lie

TO 1802

23

The Piercy hadna men yestreen To dight my men and me But I have seen a dreary dream Beyond the isle o’ Sky I saw a dead man won the fight And I think that man was I He belted on his good broad sword And to the field he ran Where he met wi’ the proud Piercy And a’ his goodly train When Piercy wi’ the douglas met I wat he was right keen They swakked their swords till sair they swat And the blood ran them between But Piercy wi’ his good broad sword Was made o’ the metal free Has wounded Douglas on the brow Till backward he did flee Then he call’d on his little page And said run speedily And bring my ain dear sisters son Sir Hugh Montgomery This ballad which I have collected from two different people a crazy old man and a woman deranged in her mind seems hitherto considerably entire but now when it becomes most interesting they have both failed me and I have been obliged to take much of it in plain prose however as none of them seemed to know any thing of the history save what they had learned from the song I took it the more kindly any few verses which follow are to me unintelligible He told Sir Hugh that he was dying and ordered him to conceal his body and neither let his own men nor Piercy’s know which he did and the battle went on headed by Sir Hugh Montgomery and at length When stout Sir Hugh wi Piercy met I wat he was right fain They swakked their swords till sair they swat And the blood ran down like rain O yield thee Piercy said Sir Hugh O yield or ye shall die

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Fain wad I yield proud Piercy said But ne’er to loun like thee Thou shalt not yield to knave nor loun Nor shalt thou yield to me But yield thee to the breaken bush That grows on yonder lee I will not yield to bush or brier Nor will I yield to thee But I will yield to Lord Douglas Or Sir Hugh Montgomery Piercy seems to have been fighting devilishly in the dark indeed! my relaters added no more but told me that Sir Hugh died on the field but that He left not an Englishman on the field * * * That he hadna either kill’d or ta’en Ere his hearts blood was cauld —————————— Almon shire may probably be a corruption of Banburgh shire but as both my relaters called it so I thought proper to preserve it The towers on Roxburgh fells may not bee so improper as we were thinking there may have been some strengths on the very borders. I will now give you the song which you desired of me. You may give it what title you chuse: if you introduce it to the public as a song which indeed I intended it it sings to the tune of the Maid that tends the goats I have altered the verse which you quarrelled with rather I confess against my inclination for I know not how it is but I have a mortal antipathy at alterations. I will however give you the original verse in the margin in case you should think it a better than its substitute. By a bush on yonder brae Where the airy Benger rises Sandy tun’d his artless lay Thus he sang the lee lang day Thou shalt ever be my theme Yarrow windin’ down the hollow With thy bonny sister stream

TO 1802

Sweepin’ through the broom sae yellow On these banks thy waters lave Oft the warrior found a grave In the iron days of yore When the birk thy braes did cover There they chac’d the tushy boar There the savage wolf did roar There the matchless chief began His carreer o’ fame an’ glory Three to one his faes he dang Far an’ near the palm he bore ay He who far in Judah’s lan’ Countless savage hosts oer-ran When by friendship forc’d to arm Royal Jamie rais’d the lion From each rural sister stream Troops of blood-stain’d lances gleam In the front who bravely chase Death upon the field o Flodden There the dauntless Murray rose Stout an’ bauld the laws he trod on There the hardy fell Montrose Vanquish’d fled before his faes Now the days o’ discord gane Henry’s sway doth bless our borders While his heart dis warm remain Dule shall beg a hauld in vain Bloodless now in many hues Flowrets bloom her hills adorning There my Jenny milks her ewes Fresh an’ ruddy as the morning Mary Scott could ne’er outvie Jenny’s hue an’ glancin eye Wind my Yarrow down the howe Formin bows o’ dazzlin’ siller Meet thy titty yont the knowe Wi’ my love I’ll join like you Flow my Ettrick it was thee Into life who first did drap me There I’ll live an’ whan I dee

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Thou wilt len’ a sod to hap me There I’ll doze till it be day While thy banks shall smile for ay Notes on the preceding Song “Where the airy benger rises” Mount Benger is a large high hill on the north side of the Yarrow “There they chac’d the tushy boar” That the boar was an inhabitant of Ettrick forest antiently is past a doubt but the tradition that the last of the island was slain above the loch of the lowes may admit of some The Muchrach however which is there situated Mr. Paton tells me signifies in Gaelic exactly the place of the boar Mr Salmon hath the following remark “The Sylva Caledonia or Caledonian forest the remains of which are thought to be Ettrick forest in the south of Scotland famous in antiquity for being the harbour of the Caledonian wild boar” &c I repeat this only by heart you may see the original in Salmons Geography I think “There the matchless chief began” The lord James Douglas the friend of Robert Bruce who about the time that the king began to appear in the west entered Ettrick forest at the head of a handfull of men which in a short time he cleared this was his first expedition on which he himself commanded “Royal Jamie rais’d the lion” Or king James the fourth rais’d the Scottish standard propably [sic] it might make the verse more intelligible to say Royal Jamie raisd his banner “Henry’s sway doth bless our borders” by Henry is meant his grace the duke of Buccleuch You cannot explain this verse better than insert a note which you know is in the first letter you will recieve from me giving an account of my northern jaunt this you will shortly recieve with every thing else which is either very new or very old I will be very happy to hear from you occassionally and be sure to direct to James Hogg Ettrickhouse care of Mr Oliver in Hawick when I will soon recieve it Any other notes necesary on the foregoing you are better fitted to make than me and I give you liberty to make what alterations you please in it and all other things that you recieve from me I remain Dear Sir your most faithfull And affectionate Servt. James Hogg

TO 1802

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[Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq. Advt/ Edinr [Postmarked:] [blurred] SE 17 [Watermark:] B 1801/ [SHIELD DEVICE] [Location:] NLS, MS 877, fols 243–44. There is a transcript in Broughton House Library, Kirkcudbright, MS 5/5, no. 132. [Printed:] Child, IV, 499–502; Batho, pp. 180–82 [in part]. the old song unidentified, though Batho (p. 180) seems to read this as a reference to ‘The Battle of Otterburn’ itself. Grame and Bewick ‘Graeme and Bewick’ is given in the third volume of Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (Edinburgh, 1803), pp. 93–104, as ‘from the recitation of a gentleman, who professes to have forgotten some verses’ (p. 93). Otterburn in the second edition of Minstrelsy, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1803), I, 27–47 Scott gave a revised and extended version of the ballad, which in his first edition had been taken from Herd, with the explanation that ‘two recited copies have fortunately been obtained, from the recitation of old persons residing at the head of Ettrick Forest, by which the story is brought out, and completed, in a manner much more correspondent to the true history’ (p. 32). both the songs Scott’s Minstrelsy flagged ‘The Battle of Otterbourne’ as the ‘Scottish Edition’ of the ballad, the English version of which is ‘The Hunting of the Cheviot’. The Battle of Otterburn see Child no. 161. The partial postmark on Hogg’s letter suggests that, although dated 10 September it was probably not posted until 17 September, and was then accompanied by another, providing Scott with eleven more verses of the ballad—see Hogg’s letter to Scott of [10–17 September 1802] and notes. a crazy old man Andrew Lang suggested that this may be the same half-daft John Scott who recited ‘Tam o’ Shanter’ to Hogg—see Batho, p. 181. Hogg describes one of his informants in his letter of [10—17 September 1802] as an old friend, perhaps in the Scots sense of a blood relation. a woman deranged in her mind has not been identified. the song which you desired of me see notes to Hogg’s letter to Laidlaw of 20 July 1801. ‘By a Bush’ was first printed in the Edinburgh Magazine, 21 ( January 1803), 52— 53, and subsequently reprinted in The Forest Minstrel. For a detailed history of its transmission see Peter Garside, ‘Editing The Forest Minstrel: The Case of “By a Bush”’, SHW, 13 (2002), 72–94. Maid that tends the goats also given as the tune for this song in The Forest Minstrel (Edinburgh, 1810), p. 194. the original verse in the margin Hogg’s intention was not fulfilled, and there is no verse in the margin. Peter Garside (p. 78) argues that it may have been an alternative to the penultimate stanza, concerning Scott’s patron, the Duke of Buccleuch. Mr Paton Charles Paton, minister of Ettrick—see the note to Hogg’s letter to [Adam Bryden] of 1 July [1800]. Salmons Geography this has not been traced in any work by Thomas Salmon (1679–1767). Hogg refers to Ettrick Forest as ‘the Sylva Caledonia of the ancients’ in the first instalment of ‘A Journey through the Highlands of Scotland, in the Months of July and August 1802’, Scots Magazine, 64 (October 1802), pp. 813–18 (p. 815). The phrase, attributed to Polydore Virgil, is quoted both in the Latin original and in

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English translation by William Gilpin in his Observations [...] on [...] the Highlands, 2 vols (London, 1789), II, 89. This was probably Hogg’s source according to Hans de Groot, to whom I am grateful for his assistance with this note. lord James Douglas James Douglas (c. 1286–1330) was known as ‘the Good Sir James’ for his guerilla warfare in support of Robert I in south-west Scotland. He was knighted at Bannockburn, and later carried the Bruce’s heart on crusade. Hogg perhaps has in mind the account of Douglas’s exploits in Ettrick Forest in Barbour’s Bruce—see Barbour’s Bruce: Volume II, ed. by Matthew P. McDiarmid and James A. C. Stevenson (Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 1980), pp. 204–08 and 235–38 (Book VIII, ll. 417–520 and Book IX, ll. 677–762). the Lion the red lion rampant had been adopted as the standard of the Scottish monarchy by William the Lion (1165–1214)—see SND, under lion. the duke of Buccleuch Henry Scott, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch (1746–1812) succeeded to his title in 1751, and also became 5th Duke of Queensberry in December 1810—see Corson, p. 390. the first letter the initial instalment of Hogg’s account of his 1802 Highland journey, submitted at Scott’s suggestion, for publication in the Scots Magazine. Hogg calls the Duke ‘the father and benefactor of his country. His name is never mentioned but with respect: His health is the first toast at all convivial meetings [...]’—see ‘A Journey Through the Highlands of Scotland, in the Months of July and August 1802’, Scots Magazine, 64 (October 1802), 813–18 (p. 815). Mr Oliver in Hawick the banker William Oliver—see Hogg’s letter to Scott of 10 January 1807.

To Walter Scott

[10—17 September 1802]

Dear Sir Not being able to get the letter away to the post I have taken the opportunity of again pumping my old friends’s memory and have recovered some more lines and half lines of Otterburn of which I am become somewhat enamour’d these I have been obliged to arrange somewhat myself as you will see below but so mixed are they with original lines and sentences that I think if you pleased they might pass without any acknowledgment Sure no man will like an old song the worse of being somewhat harmonious After.— “And bring my ain dear sisters son Sir Hugh Montgomery You may read Who when he saw the Douglas bleed His heart was wonder wae Now by my sword that haughty lord Shall rue before he gae

TO 1802

My nephew bauld the Douglas said What boots the death of ane Last night I dream’d a dreary dream And I ken the day’s thy ain I dream’d I saw a battle fought Beyond the isle o’ Sky Then lo a dead man won the field And I thought that man was I My wound is deep I fain wad sleep Nae mair I’ll fighting see Gae lay me in the breaken bush That grows on yonder lee But tell-na ane of my brave men That I lye bleeding wan But let the name of Douglas still Be shouted in the van And bury me here on this lee Beneath the blooming brier And never let a mortal ken A kindly Scot lyes here He liftit up that noble lord Wi’ the saut tear in his e’e And hid him in the breaken bush On yonder lily lee The moon was clear the day drew near The spears in flinters flew But mony gallant english-man Ere day the Scots-men slew Sir Hugh Montgomery he rode Thro’ all the field in sight And loud the name of Douglas still He urg’d wi’ a’ his might The Gordons good in English blood They steep’d their hose and shoon The Lindsays flew like fire about Till a’ the fray was doon When stout Sir Hugh &c

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then after.—Or Sir Hugh Montgomery read.— When Piercy knew it was Sir Hugh He fell low on his knee But soon he rais’d him up again Wi’ mickle courtesy [Addressed:] [see preceding letter] [Postmark:] [see preceding letter] [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 877, fol. 23. [Printed:] Child, IV, 502 [in part]; Batho, p. 182 [in part]. date this letter was written subsequent to and posted with, Hogg’s letter to Scott of 10 September [1802], which bears a postmark of 17 September. my old friends’s memory Hogg’s sources for the lines in his letter of 10 September [1802] were ‘a crazy old man and a woman deranged in her mind’. His reference here to a friend may imply that one was a relation of his own. Otterburn the verses Hogg supplies are designed for insertion in the version of ‘The Battle of Otterburn’ given in his letter of 10 September [1802]. He gives the words from this that should precede and follow the first passage of ten stanzas here, and also gives the line that should precede the final stanza.

TO 1805

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TO 1805 To Walter Scott

1 January [1803]

Dear Sir I recieved yours of the 24 Decr and cannot express my gratitude for the deep interest you take in all the concerns of your poor Shepherd You talk of sins against prudence but I am afraid you sin against the dictates of your own concience in thus patronizing me for notwithstanding my large stock of vanity I cannot discover my deserts to be nearly equal to the repute you are endeavouring to raise me to I recieved a very flattering letter from Constable but am too sensible that it was wholly on account of the kindness you showed for me I will think sometimes of the project you hint at of the edition of the letters I fear it will not do I have no intention of waiting for such a distant prospect as that of becoming manager of your farm although I have no doubt of our joint endeavours proving successfull nor yet of your willingness to employ me in that capacity I am still on the look out for a residence, being somewhat anxious on my parents’s account, for my own part I can do almost any thing that is to do in the country, being brought up in very hard service. His Grace the duke of Buccleugh hath a farm vacant in Eskdale at present, I have been much importuned by sundry friends to come and get a letter from you and apply for it, but could never be perswaded to it for fear of suffering the mortification of recieving a denial to the petition of such a worthy friend, if you thought it could have any good effect you might write a letter to him or any of the family with which you are best acquainted, stating that such and such a charactar was going to leave his native country for want of a residence in the farming line, I hope I shall not much disgrace the charactar you give me, be what it will, nor yet prove ungratefull for any benefit that shall accrue to me or mine in and through you. I have nothing to bestow save my hearty thanks and as Hamlet says sure my thanks are too dear at a halfpenny. I have been blamed by some of my friends for petitioning you in favour of Mr. Scott and for representing the fair side of his charactar, as they wished to have him bound in a penalty to keep the peace. You can hardly concieve what an importance your protection hath given me, not only in my own eyes

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but even in the eyes of others, I see few will be rash in wronging me at least I would fain make another tour through the west Highlands but I will not go unless I can procure a good number of letters to the inhabitants I now feel the loss of not having a great many more to intelligent men in my last inform me in your next if you think a number can be procured to people in Argyleshire and lochaber I inclose another No. of my Journey in this and though I have them always soon enough ready in the winter season it very difficult [sic] to get them to a post possibly not above once a month this can be obtained I would really write oftener were it not that I cannot help considering your postage for things that no way can ser[TEAR] you [TEAR]ich I get from you are all franked you may surely put me on a plan of doing the same certainly you do not pay for all the letters that come from the Forest else it will take a good part of your salary The first paragraph of my letter for the Scots Magazine I meant as an evidence that you had no hand in the aspersions thrown out on any of the players altho’ I think that people who perform publicly their performance may be canv[TEAR] publicly I am [TEAR] Sir your most obliged Servt James Hogg Etterickhouse Janr 1st [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esqr./ Advocate. Castle Street [Postmarked:] JA 1803 20 [Endorsed—not JH:] James Hogg/ [?] 1804 [Watermark:] B/ 1801 [Location:] NLS, MS 3875, fol. 1. [Printed:] Lockhart, II, 9 [in part]; Wilfred Partington, Sir Walter’s Post-bag (London, 1932), pp. 18–19 [ in part]. yours of the 24 Decr Scott’s letter has not apparently survived. flattering letter from Constable Archibald Constable (1774–1827), Scott’s Edinburgh publisher and the publisher of the Edinburgh Review. His letter has not apparently survived. the edition of the letters Hogg’s account of his 1802 Highland Journey had been written in the form of a series of letters to Walter Scott, which were in the course of serial publication in the Scots Magazine. The envisaged volume publication of them did not occur in Hogg’s lifetime. manager of your farm Hogg’s father’s lease of the farm of Ettrickhouse was due to expire at Whitsunday 1803—see Memoir, p. 16. Hogg was anxious to provide a home for his aged parents after that date and Scott, as Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire, was looking for a summer residence in the county. According to Lockhart (II, 8–9), when Scott first looked at Ashiestiel with the idea of renting it he had thought of helping

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Hogg by employing him to superintend the sheep-farm and look after the house during the winter when he would be in Edinburgh. It seems more likely, however, that the farm in question here was Broadmeadows: this was advertised in the Caledonian Mercury of 3 March 1803 for sale by public roup on 1 June, and Scott is likely to have heard rumours about the sale well before the advertisement was published. a farm vacant in Eskdale the whereabouts of this farm is unknown, and Lockhart (II, 8–9) expresses doubts as to whether Hogg would have had the capital to stock it. However, Hogg does seem to have had a sum of money saved from his earnings over the ten years he was employed as a shepherd at Blackhouse, which he later proposed to invest in sub-letting a sheep-farm on Harris (see Memoir, p. 22). as Hamlet says see Hamlet, II. 2. 275–76. in favour of Mr Scott Mr Scott has not been identified. another tour through the west Highlands Hogg’s 1802 Highland Journey had taken him north into Ross-shire. He left Ettrick on 27 May 1803 to explore the western Highlands on his way to Harris, where he signed a tack to sub-let a farm from William Macleod of Luskintyre on 13 July (NLS, Ch. 413) before returning to Ettrick Forest in August. another No. of my Journey probably the third instalment of Hogg’s ‘A Journey through the Highlands of Scotland, in the Months of July and August 1802’, Scots Magazine, 65 (February 1803), 89–95, though this has an end-date of 14 January 1803. your salary Scott’s salary as Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire was £300—see Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), I, 170. my letter for the Scots Magazine the first paragraph of Hogg’s letter in the Scots Magazine of February 1803 is an admission of personal vanity, preceding an account of a performance of Hamlet at the Edinburgh Theatre Royal on 24 July in which Hogg expresses disappointment with the performance of Mr Johnson in the principal role. The first night of this production had been reviewed in the Caledonian Mercury on 17 July 1802.

To Walter Scott

7 January 1803 Tushilaw’s Lines

Dame Nature strain’d her utmost skill To paint my love the fairest creature The way to know her if you will Is by her matchless comely feature When first I did behold her face I stood amazed and did wonder How she behav’d with such a grace I blest myself that I had found her My heart was ravish’d with delight To see her virtue and her beauty

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My muse bade me sitt down and write My mind first bade me pay my duty Unto her rosy lips so fine I bow’d myself and did adore her If Croesus gold had all been mine I’d ne’er have stopt to give it for her He may count himself a happy wight That can enjoy her love and favour He may take comfort day and night Her breath it hath a sweeter flavour Than violet or cinnamon How can I stop but dearly love her But now I may sit down and moan For nothing I can do will move her Than condescend to my demand She seem’d to aim a little higher To one that had more rents and land And would not suffer me to come nigh her I courted her with compliments Which I had chose of the best fashion Two or three day after, I went For to express my love-sick passion But modestly she answer’d me My compliments could not allure her Surely some braver youth than I Hath been before me to secure her My mind’s a ship, by contrair winds Blown sometimes hither and sometimes thither Twixt hope and fear it cannot find A way to guide or steer the rudder But yet the world shall never know That ever I had such affection Unto the maid that slights me so I’ll rather make a new election Of one whose looks are not so high I’m sure I’m not one whit below her I may be sick but I’ll scorn to die For all the love I bear unto her ——————————

TO 1805

The Answer Of this young man I will begin And speak unto his commendation He is the flower of all his kin But and the glory of our nation He’s of a proper middle size Of courage bold and carriage comely With a forehead high and a chrystal eye He’s of complection black but lovely He has a mark above his brow A token which dame Nature gave him From which blind Cupid throws his darts For all that ever see him love him And even until I die I’m bound by cupid to adore him For all points of gentility Where is the man will go before him He hates all baseness in his sight All filthy actions are below him He’s a gentleman in ev’ry light As all can testify that know him He sets himself below his worth In him there is no pride presiding His praises cannot be set forth Such as his virtue and his breeding There’s many a lady in the land for love to him their heart doth kindle But yet for aught I understand He is determin’d to live single ’Tween Esk and Line he doth remain A place unworthy of his presence All for his own humility And for the pleasing of his parents This young man I may reccommend It is not long that I will meet him Some city dame will for him send Some lady of renown will get him But should he leave this west country And to some other place betake him

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Then fare-well all good company His match he will not leave behind him —————————— This hath been a popular song in Ettrick Forest since the memory of the oldest person living living [sic] there and hath been sung sometimes with and sometimes without the second part which indeed in its manner differs much and is not equal to the first part I was told by an acquaintance that once on singing it to some people residing low on Eskdale they informed him that the second part was sung in that country and known by the appellation of Lady Breakenhill’s lines ere ever I heard that I always thought it was added to the first part by some other inferior poet for indeed “’Tween Esk and Line” and “the west country” is nowise descriptive of Tushilaw Although the poetry of this song appears not to be very antient yet it is always reckoned an old song and I am certainly informed it was composed by one of the Scotts of Tushilaw and that the fair object of his admiration was daughter to the Earl of March some say Morton It hath never been printed at least as far as I can learn and as it posesseth considerable merit and hath a most sweet air the resolution that you have taken of preserving it is surely laudable the second part appears to me to have been written in imitation of the first and as it sung to the same tune and was somewhat illustrative of the state of their loves afterwards, some person finding the popularity of the song had added it to make it more full I am the more inclined to believe this finding that many have the first part who never heard tell of the answer As Mr Wm Laidlaw informed me that he had sent you the history of their amours and as he seems better versed in it than me I shall not enlarge on it I have always heard the song accompanyed by the following short tradition That Tushilaw becoming enamourd of the lady sent her a letter accompanied by some rich presents craving liberty to pay his adresses to her which was granted by the lady but the Earl taking umbrage at his inferior station upbraided his daughter and plainly told her that he never would suffer her to marry a petty forest laird the consequence of which was that Tushilaw was again and again recieved with the utmost reserve In order to get the better of this ill-placed affection of which he seemed only to get grief he set out on his travels but not without sending her farewell letter which together with the remembrance of his gracefull figure and noble qualities made such an impression on

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her mind & made shipwreck of her health I cannot delineate her condition better than in the words of Shakespere ————She never told her love But let concealment like a worm i’ th’ bud Feed on her damask cheek—— And sat like patience on a monument Smiling at grief even so much was this her case that before the return of Tushilaw she was in the last stage of a consumption She was then residing in her fathers house at Peebles and one day after listening a moment said “If Scott of Tushilaw were in this country I would say that were his horses tread” On looking over the window she beheld him riding bye he turned up his eyes and looked at her but she being so much emaciated he did not know her and rode on this had such a severe effect on her tender frame that her stays burst and she swooned away from this she only recovered to fall into another and from that into more till she breathed her last In the mean while Tushilaw unconcious of all this rode on for Etterick where just on alighting he recieved intelligence that she lay a dying at Peebles and was desirous [TEAR] seeing him he again mounted without ever going into his house [TEAR]d rode with all his might back to Peebles where he arrived just [TEAR]me enough to take a last and affecting embrace More than this [TEAR] do not recollect I never minded to inform you that after recieving your letter desiring me to try something on the death of young Thirlstane I immediately proceeded and composed about a dozen stanzas but for want of some necessary intelligence I was obliged to stop and have since fallen through it altogether having been much from home for a while past I have got none written I believe I will be behind with my Journal but it will come sometime if I live pray my dear Sir answer my last remember you are in debt three or four [TEAR] Sir Your own Shepherd James Hogg Ettrickhouse Janr 7 1803 [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq. Advocate/ Edinr [Postmark:] FEB 1803 9 [Endorsed—not JH:] 7 January 1803/ Hogg with/ Tushilaws lines [Watermark:] W RIDER[?]/ 1801 [Location:] NLS, MS 3874, fols 194–95.

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Tushilaw’s Lines William Laidlaw had written to Scott on 11 September 1802 that on that day ‘a woman in the town here was singing Tushilaw’s lines which I have some times heard but always judged it to relate to some of the Andersons, & of modern date’ (NLS, MS 3874, fols 182–83). In a subsequent letter of 28 September (NLS, MS 3874, fols 184–85) Laidlaw stated, ‘Tho’ Tushilaw’s lines are beautifull some of them yet I dare say you would not think them worth inserting in your work without some more tradition proving them antient. I will procure a Copy, and [eop] and all I can collect about them & when I see Hogg I will tell him to do the same. I have not seen him since I saw you.’ ‘Tushilaw’s Lines’ were not, however, published in Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Croesus gold Croesus (560–546 B. C.) was the last king of Lydia, and proverbially wealthy until his defeat by the Persian king, Cyrus. He made rich offerings to Greek sanctuaries, especially that of Delphi. ’Tween Esk and Line between the river Esk in Dumfriesshire and the river Lyne in Cumberland. Tushielaw in Ettrick lies to the north-east of this area. Scotts of Tushilaw part of the Border Scott clan who owned the ruined tower of Tushielaw in Ettrick. Adam Scott of Tushielaw, known as the King of Thieves or King of the Border, was hanged on a tree before his tower by James V in 1528. March some say Morton Earl of March had been a title in the family of the descendants of the Earl of Northumberland who had come into Scotland in the reign of Malcolm Canmore, but was forfeited in 1434. In Hogg’s day it was a title of the Duke of Queensberry, Lord William Douglas, the second son of the first Duke of Queensberry, having been granted the title in 1697. The title Earl of Morton had been conferred on James Douglas of Dalkeith by James II of Scotland in 1458—see William Anderson, The Scottish Nation, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1865), III, 103, 208–10. Laidlaw [...] sent you the history of their amours for Laidlaw’s summary of the story, given on the authority of ‘an Ettrick man whose memory Jamie Hogg has not turned entirely over’, see his letter to Scott of 3 January 1803, in NLS MS 3874, fols 192–93. He adds ‘I told Hogg to send you Tushilaw’s lines as soon as he could’. mind Hogg has written ‘mind’ above the line but without deleting his previous thought of ‘heart’ here. words of Shakespere see Twelfth Night, II. 4. 110–15. death of young Thirlstane see Hogg’s ‘Thirlestane. A Fragment’, The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 117–27. Journal probably further instalments of Hogg’s journal of his 1802 Highland Journey, passed to Scott for publication in the Scots Magazine—see note to Hogg’s letter to Scott of 10 September [1802]. Alternatively, Hogg may refer to an early version of his ‘Memoir of the Author’s Life’, since his letter to Scott of 18 January 1805 refers to an ‘original sketch’ of this as ‘written more than a twelvemonth ago at Ettrickhouse’.

To Walter Scott

24 December [1803] Ettrickhouse Decr 24th

Dear Mr Scott I have been very impatient to hear from you since I last saw you there is a certain affair of which you and I talk a little in private and

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which must now be concluded that naturally increaseth this. I am afraid that I was at least half-seas over the last night I was with you for I cannot for my life remember what passed when it was late, and their being certainly a small vacuum in my brain, which when empty is quite empty, but is sometimes supplied with a small distillation of intellectual matter. This must have been empty that night, or it could never have been taken posession of by the fumes of the licquors so easily. If I was in the state in which I suspect that I was, I must have spoke a very great deal of nonsense for which I beg ten thousand pardons. I have the consolation however of remembering that Mrs Scott kept us company all or most of the time which she certainly would not have done had I been very rude. I remember too of the filial injunction you gave at parting cautioning me against being insnared by the loose women in town I am sure I had not reason enough left at that time to express either the half of my gratitude for the kind hint or the utter abhorrence I inherit at those seminaries of lewdness As Mrs Scott desired me I have wrote to your friend Colin Mackenzie thanking him for the many kind receptions that he procured me You once promised me your best advice in the first law suit in which I had the particular happiness of being engaged I am now going to ask it seriously in an affair in which I am sure we will both take as much pleasure it is this: I have lately taken it into my head to publish a copy of all my own songs which I can collect, but some of which I have lost entirely, and perhaps a few detached pieces of poetry to make some-what of a volume. I have as many of my own songs beside me, which are certainly not the worst of my productions, as will make above an hundred pages closs [sic] printed, and about two hundred printed as the minstrelsy is. Now although I will not proceed without your consent and advice, yet I would have you to understand that I expect it, as I have the scheme much at heart at present. The first thing that suggested it was their extraordinary repute in Ettrick and its neighbourhood and being everlastingly plagued with writing copies and promising scores which I never meant to perform. As the last pamphlet that I printed was never known unless to a few friends, I wish your advice what pieces of it are worthy of preserving, the pastoral I am resolved to insert as I am Sandy Tod. As to my manuscripts they are endless, and as I doubt you will dissaprove of publishing them wholesale and letting the good help off the bad, I think you must trust to my discretion in the selecting of

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a few. I wish likewise to know if you think a graven image on the first leaf is any reccommendation, or if we might front the songs with a letter to you giving an impartial account of my manner of life and education, and which if you pleased to transcribe putting He for I. Again there is no publishing a book without a patron, and I have one of two in my eye, and of which I will with my wonted assurance to you give you the most free choice. The first is Walter Scott esq. Adv. Sherrif depute of Ettrick forest. Which if permitted I will address you in a dedication singular enough. The next is Lady Dalkieth which if approved of you must become the editor yourself and I shall give you my word for it that neither word nor sentiment in it shall offend the most delicate ear I am resolved nevertheless of [sic] to prosecute my scheme of publishing a volume of letters to you on my journey thro’ the Highlands: but to this I must have some time. Now pray my dear sir bestow some leisure minutes consideration on these important subjects, and let me hear from you as soon as it is convenient. Mr William Laidlaw and me intended to have kept our New Year at Edinr. but I am afraid that the weather will not permit. but we will not be in Edinr. without seeing you if you are in it. If I have not a great deal of M. S. S in your hand I have lost them altogether, they would be particularly acceptable at this time, and if they are with you, as you seem to have a particular knack in getting such things easily and quickly conveyed, if you would get them to Hawick to the care of Mr Oliver or Mr Armstrong would confer another obligation on me amongst so many. I could have a copy of all which I intend for publication at this time ready in a month or two at the furthest. You will not be in the least Jealous if alongst with my services to you I present my kindest compts to the sweet little lady whom you call Charlotte as for Camp an Walter [sic] (I beg pardon for this preeminence) they will not mind them if I should exhaust my eloquence in compliments Believe me dear Walter Your most devoted servt James Hogg [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq. Advt./ Edinr [Postmark:] DE 1803 31 [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg/ December/ 1803 [Watermark:] MAGNAY & PICKERING/ 1800 [Location:] NLS, MS 3874, fols 248–49. [Printed:] Lockhart, I, 409–11; Batho, pp. 51–53; Strout, pp. 32–33 [in part].

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last night I was with you Lockhart (I, 408–09) gives a comically exaggerated account of Hogg’s visit to Scott in Edinburgh, but without mentioning the date. His portrait of Hogg lounging with muddy boots and tar-encrusted hands on Mrs Scott’s sofa, which perhaps rests on the basis of this letter, became the defining image of Hogg for the Victorians. A late October date may be surmised from Lockhart’s remark that Hogg’s hands ‘bore most legible marks of a recent sheep-smearing’ (p. 408). your friend Colin Mackenzie Colin Mackenzie of Portmore (1770–1830) was a close friend of Scott’s from childhood onwards. He became Principal Clerk of Session in 1804 and Deputy Keeper of the Signet in 1820—see Corson, p. 545. He was a member of the Highland Society of Scotland, and had clearly provided introductions for Hogg for use during his recent Highland Journey. some-what of a volume the proposed volume contains elements of two of Hogg’s subsequent publications. Like The Forest Minstrel of 1810 it was to be a song-collection dedicated to the Countess of Dalkeith, and like The Mountain Bard (1807) it was to include a prefatory account of Hogg’s life. the minstrelsy Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, published first in two volumes in 1802. A second edition was published in Edinburgh the following year in three volumes. the last pamphlet Hogg refers to Scottish Pastorals, Poems, Songs &c Mostly Written in the Dialect of the South (Edinburgh, 1801). the pastoral see ‘Willie an’ Keatie, A Pastoral’, Scottish Pastorals, ed. by Elaine Petrie (Stirling: Stirling University Press, 1988), pp. 13–20. It had subsequently been printed in the Scots Magazine, 63 ( January 1801), 52–54 as a favourable specimen of Hogg’s work. Sandy Tod ‘Sandy Tod. A Scottish Pastoral’ had appeared in the Edinburgh Magazine, 19 (May 1802), 368–70, and was received enthusiastically by one of its editors, Andrew Mercer—see note to Hogg’s letter to Scott of 30 June [1802]. a letter to you Hogg’s ‘Memoir’ in The Mountain Bard of 1807 was written as a letter from him to Scott, but with a prefatory letter by Scott. a patron the Dedication to The Mountain Bard of 1807 reads, ‘To Walter Scott, Esq. Sheriff of Ettrick Forest, and Minstrel of the Scottish Border, the following Tales are respectfully inscribed by his friend and humble servant, the Author’. Lady Dalkieth Hogg dedicated The Forest Minstrel of 1810 to ‘The Stay of Genius and the Shield of Merit, the Right Honourable Harriet, Countess of Dalkeith’. Harriet Katherine Townshend (1773–1814) married Charles Scott, Earl of Dalkeith in 1795. a volume of letters to you on my journey thro’ the Highlands these had partly been published in serial form as ‘A Journey through the Highlands of Scotland, in the Months of July and August 1802’, Scots Magazine, 64 (October and December 1802), 813–18, 956–63; 65 (February, April, May, and June 1803), 89–95, 251–54, 312–14, 382–86. Mr Oliver see notes to Hogg’s letter to Scott of 10 September [1802]. Mr Armstrong has not been identified. Charlotte Hogg is paying his respects to Scott’s wife, formerly Margaret Charlotte Charpentier (1770–1826). Camp a bull-terrier, which Scott had as a pet between roughly 1800 and 1809. Walter Scott’s infant son, and the future 2nd Baronet (1801–47).

42 To Walter Scott

TH E LETTE RS OF JAM E S HOGG

[1 December] 1804 Blackhouse Novr 31st 1804

Dear Sir As an unexpected opportunity awaits of getting this to Peebles I have no time to be particular. I send you the supplement to the letters of which I have transcribed several sheets as you will see by the size of the paper. if none of the members of the Highland Society have yet looked at the letters it will be as good to show them it as a specimen; not because I think it any better but only it is not so gay nor diffuse. I would be glad that the publication should be gone about with all expedition as it must be finished this winter. I have been thinking of your project of a few select pieces of poetry being published alongst with the letters and the more I think of it the more I approve of it. I have been looking over the copy of my letters to you concerning my life and extensive education as I am pleased to call it and think there is nothing in it that may not with propriety meet the publick eye. In it I pretend to inform you of the local occurrences on which my principal pieces of poetry are founded now it is an easy matter to give a few select pieces as those which you have not seen therefore as you are often in Constable’s shop if the prospectus’s are not yet made public would you be so kind as cause to be added “And a few select pieces of his poetry.” I am well advanced in Gilmanscleuch and have finished Sir David Graham. The latter is certainly my best ballad without exception and I am impatient to see you to get it repeated to you. I have forgot the particulars of Meg of Elibank else I would have set about it ere now. I will send you the letters of my life as soon as I have taken a transcript. As I expect you in Ettrick Forest soon I can then communicate things to you with more perspicuity. give Constable orders to publish the proposals in the papers. I remain sir with the utmost gratitude Your faithfull Shepherd J Hogg If you think of writing direct to Douglas-Craig by Selkirk care of John Grieve Yarrow carrier [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq. Advt./ No. 2 North Castle Street/ Edinr. [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg/ Novr 31. 1805 [Watermark:] 179[TEAR] [Location:] NLS, MS 3875, fols 128–29.

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Blackhouse Hogg was presumably visiting the family of his friend William Laidlaw. Novr 31st there are thirty days in November so the letter must be dated wrongly: perhaps it was written on 1 December, Hogg having temporarily forgotten this fact. the supplement to the letters ‘Mr Hogg (the Ettrick Shepherd) [...] is about to publish, by subscription, a Collection of Letters, written during his journies through the Northern and Western Highlands and Islands of Scotland, in the summers of 1802, 1803, and 1804. Describing the scenery, manners, and rural economy of each district; the local advantages and disadvantages attached to each; with suggestions on the best probable means of their improvement, adventures, anecdotes, &c. To which will be added a Supplement, addressed to the Highland Society, on the utility of encouraging the system of Sheep-farming in some districts, and Population in others’—see ‘Scottish Literary Intelligence’, Scots Magazine, 67 (August 1805), 616–17. The supplement was published eventually in The Shepherd’s Guide (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 252–323. my letters to you concerning my life and extensive education a version of Hogg’s ‘Memoir’ appears to have been written while he was still living at Ettrickhouse, but the first published version was prefixed to The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. i–xxiii. This is dated ‘Nov. 1806’ but takes the form of a letter to Scott and begins ‘According to your request [...] I am now going to give you some account of my manner of life and expensive education’ (pp. i–ii). Gilmanscleuch was published in The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 35–49. There is also a surviving presentation copy to the Countess of Dalkeith dated 26 August 1805—see Suzanne Gilbert, ‘Two Versions of “Gilmanscleuch”’, SHW, 9 (1998), 92–128. Sir David Graham ‘Sir David Graham. A Border Ballad’ was published in the Scots Magazine, 67 (September 1805), 701–03, and afterwards as ‘Sir David Graeme’ in The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 3–14. Meg of Elibank the bride in the legend used by Hogg for ‘The Fray of Elibank’, published in The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 50–67. the proposals Hogg intended to publish his Highland Letters by subscription, preferably with the backing of the Highland Society of Scotland—see note above. Douglas-Craig by Selkirk after leaving Ettrickhouse Hogg’s parents apparently moved into a cottage on the farm of Craig-Douglas in Yarrow, between the river and the heights of Blackhouse. Hogg’s letter to Scott of 16 January 1805 is dated from ‘Craig-Douglas’, and Scott in the third edition of Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1806) refers to Hogg’s mother as ‘still alive, and at present resides at Craig of Douglas, in Selkirkshire’ (I, 15). John Grieve the carrier has not been identified.

To Walter Scott

16 January 1805

Craig-Douglas Janr 16 1805 Dear Sir I must again trouble you with my trifling affairs, as I am suspicious that those whom I employed to desire for me the patronage of the Highland Society have neglected it. I am living in utter igno-

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rance what is going on, but it is a great loss for me that the subscriptions have not been set on foot long ago as I must of necessity have the book published betwixt this and Whitsunday, whilst I am otherwise unemployed. I have as yet seen no advertisements in the papers concerning it, and the season is now far advanced. Shortly after my arrival in this place I sent you a copy of the supplementary essay, intended to succeed the letters; but as I have heard no word from you I am afraid it may not have come to hand. I sent it with the peebles carrier. I would willingly come to Edinr, but it is so expensive and I see so little that I can do, until such time as the press can proceed with the sheets, when it will be necessary to correct both before and after it. As it is not feasible that you can go about the town to see about these trifles, I have a particular friend in Edinr. a Mr. John Grieve from Ettrick whom I will desire to wait on you, and to act in the affair by your directions. However I would be very happy at being favoured by a letter from yourself informing me if you or Gillon have recieved any answer from Luskintyre or if you have got any other explanation from Lord Somerville anent Lord Porchesters service I am almost regretting that I had not accepted of it poor as it was for I can by no means lye idle thus and if I cannot be employed in my own proffession I will be forced to enlist into the army. It is plain that I must always have something to complain of, I have often complained of having too much employment now I am vexed at having so little. I believe I told you that I had finished Sir David Graham and Gilmanscleuch as also corrected the Pedlar by your suggestions, and made large additions. these with two or three other pieces I intend to publish in the latter end of the volume. As you have missed holding your Christmass at Ashiesteel I do not expect the pleasure of seeing you at your rural habitation in the Forest this season. I think you must dedicate a spare minute or two to let me hear from you I remain Dear Sir Your faithfull Shepherd J Hogg [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esqr. Advt./ Edinr [Postmark:] JA 1805 20 [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg/ 16 January/1805 [Watermark:] MAGNAY & PICKERING/ 1800 [Location:] NLS, MS 3875, fols 35–36. the Highland Society see the note to Hogg’s letter to Scott of [1 December] 1804 about the projected publication of his account of his Highland Tours.

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Whitsunday one of the Scottish Quarter Days (15 May), when farm-servants were hired for the year. Hogg after his winter of unemployment in Ettrick would expect to work as a shepherd again after this date. my arrival in this place after the failure of his scheme to settle in Harris in July 1804 Hogg ‘went to England during the remainder of the summer’—see Memoir, p. 22. He then spent the winter of 1804–05 living with his parents at their cottage in Yarrow and writing—see the notes to his letter to Scott of [1 December] 1804. Mr. John Grieve John Grieve (1781–1836) was the son of the Cameronian minister Walter Grieve, who retired to Cacrabank in Ettrick, and an early friend of Hogg’s. In 1804 he had entered into partnership with Chalmers Izett, a hat-manufacturer on the North Bridge of Edinburgh, after previously working in Alloa and Greenock. Grieve subsequently supported Hogg in his early struggles as a writer in Edinburgh. He was a contributor to The Forest Minstrel of 1810 and Hogg dedicated Mador of the Moor to him—see Rogers, III, 43–45. Gillon Joseph Gillon, an Edinburgh Writer to the Signet, a partner in the firm of Riddell & Gillon of 37 George Square. He seems to have suffered a financial collapse in 1810, and to have left Edinburgh for London—see Corson, p. 474. any answer from Luskintyre William Macleod (1749/50—1811), the tacksman of Luskintyre on Harris, with whom Hogg had signed an agreement to lease a farm on 13 July 1803 (NLS, Ch. 413). Under the terms of this Hogg had agreed to deposit his first year’s rent with the Edinburgh banking firm of Sir William Forbes and Co. at Martinmass (11 November) 1803, a year before payment to Macleod was due. Since Hogg did not occupy the farm he was presumably trying to reclaim his money, with Scott’s help and that of Gillon. Lord Somerville John, 15th Baron Somerville (1765–1819) was President of the Board of Agriculture from 1798 to 1806, and lived periodically at the Pavilion near Melrose. He was a close friend of Scott’s—see Corson, p. 655. Lord Porchesters service see Hogg’s Anecdotes of Scott, ed. by Jill Rubenstein (S/SC, 1999), p. 8: ‘[...] he [ i. e. Scott] actually engaged me to Lord Porchester as his chief shepherd to have a riding horse, house and small farm free of rent, and £20 over and above, but with this strick proviso that “I was to put my poetical talent under lock and key for ever” I copy the very words’. Lockhart (II, 9) mentions that Scott negotiated with Lord Porchester ‘through that nobleman’s aunt, Mrs Scott of Harden, with the view of obtaining for Hogg the situation of bailiff on one of his Lordship’s estates in the west of England [...]’. Lord Porchester is Henry Herbert, Lord Porchester of Highclere and Earl of Carnarvon (1741–1811). I told you see the notes on ‘Gilmanscleuch’ and ‘Sir David Graham’ to Hogg’s letter to Scott of [1 December] 1804. the Pedlar ‘The Pedlar. A Scottish Ballad in Imitation of the Ancients’ appeared in the Scots Magazine, 66 (November 1804), 855–56 and subsequently in The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 15–34. It is not mentioned in Hogg’s letter of [1 December] 1804. your Christmass at Ashiesteel Scott moved to Ashestiel, near Selkirk, in 1804 to fulfil the residential qualifications of the Sheriffdom of Selkirkshire. He left it for Abbotsford in May 1812.

46 To Walter Scott

TH E LETTE RS OF JAM E S HOGG

18 January 1805 Craig-Douglas Janr. 18 1805

Dear Sir I recieved yours yesternight with the poem of the Sabbath, a good part of which I have already perused and have concluded that the Cameronian hath had more in his head than hair. I had likewise sent of a letter for you yesterday, which if yours had arrived need not have departed Shortly after the first parcel I sent you a corrected and abridged copy of the letters giving an account of my life, but I have the greatest reason in the world to conclude that they have been miscarried and will never be more seen. It is however of no importance as I have another of the same, written in a large folio amongst others which I mean to publish. It is an abridged copy of this I inclose you, with some additions relating to the pieces of poetry which I mean to publish. Having no other ready I inclose you the original sketch written more than a twelvemonth ago at Ettrickhouse, but you must take care to read it by the pages, as I turned the first sheet wrong in writing it.—Your letter hath put me into very good humour as they seldom miss doing. I am much flattered by the account you give me of the approbation bestowed on my letters. The few to whom I have showed some of them in this country have all, likewise, been pleased to pronounce them posessed of novelty and considerable originality but then these are all either your friends or my own, which with regard to the candour of their remarks is much the same thing and I shall never be sensible of their prevailing faults until they are ushered under the scrutinizing eye of the public. I am as well convinced of the goodness of Mr. Colin M‘Kenzie [sic] heart as I am of his good discernment and the proper balance of the powers of his mind therefore I have no anxiety on [eop] on that score. I am sorry for the lady on more accounts than one.—As for the size of the book it is no such great things, price half-a-guinea and 500 pages! especially when it is considered that such a number of subjects are treated of, on each of which there are books published thrice as large However I have no objections to the expunging of certain names and family anecdotes, for though I do not regard giving offence by a well-grounded reflection, yet I by no means wish it, consequently I judge that such a physicking may be necesary. I am not wedded to my prose pieces like those of my poetry. But sure my great patterns, in some respects, Johnson and Boswell far exceed me in that respect; and I am certain that few or none of my highland friends would take it amiss to see their names respectfully mentioned: at least it is necessary to

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retain those from whom I had information respecting the state of the country else the asseverations might appear imaginary; as well as them who have introduced any new mode or improvement: this is one of the rules of the Highland society that in all essays communicated to them they may be authenticated by proper references.—I have had a number of offers for subscribing here already, but I am by no means so sanguinary as to expect any great number in this country for a work of its size. I have sent an order to Hawick for the printing two or three prospectus’s, the same of those I gave to Constable, in order that the people may be taken while they are moved by the spirit. I wish you had transmitted me the outlines of the story of Harden and Meg of Elibank with all the names concerned in it that you know. were the Murrays and Scotts rival chiefs? or were the Murrays of Elibank and Philliphaugh of the same stock? I am very scarce of paper I will scarcely have room to subscribe myself Sir your obliged servt James Hogg [Addressed:] [no address panel] [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] MAGNAY & PICKERING [Location:] NLS, MS 3875, fol. 39. I recieved yours Scott’s letter has not apparently survived. the Sabbath Scott had presented Hogg with a copy of James Grahame’s poem The Sabbath, published in 1804. Hogg quotes from this poem in the notes to The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), p. 91. the Cameronian although James Grahame (1765–1811) became an Anglican clergyman shortly after moving to London in 1809, his upbringing and reputation earlier was that of a whig from western Scotland. the letters giving an account of my life an early version of Hogg’s ‘Memoir’ intended to preface the projected volume publication of his Highland Journeys. my letters Hogg’s account of his Highland Journeys takes the form of a series of letters addressed to Scott. Mr. Colin M‘Kenzie see notes to Hogg’s letter to Scott of 24 December [1803]. From Hogg’s letter to Scott of 22 July [1805] it seems that Mackenzie had agreed to report on the Highland Journeys volume to the Highland Society of Scotland, of which he was a member. the lady perhaps a reference to M‘Kenzie’s sister, who is mentioned in Hogg’s letter to Scott of 22 February [1805] as dangerously ill. Johnson and Boswell the most celebrated Highland Tours of the eighteenth century. Samuel Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775) and James Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785), record a journey made by the two men in 1773.

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prospectus’s none have apparently survived, though an outline of the volume is given in ‘Scottish Literary Intelligence’, Scots Magazine, 67 (August 1805), 616–17. the story of Harden and Meg of Elibank Hogg used this tradition as the basis of ‘The Fray of Elibank’ published in The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 50–67.

To Walter Scott

22 February [1805]

Bourhope Feb 22 Dear Sir You were too slack in sending me the story of Wattie and Meg, for my impatient Muse hath broken on and finished it I never heard the story in any thing of a perfect state until I heard it from you, so that as the saying is, if I be lying I’m gar’d lie. I send you the first copy of it written offhand and intend to have your opinion before I correct it. I may likewise inform you of a circumstance which I never was acquainted with until this winter namely, that my ancestors farmed the lands of Fauldshope &c under the Scotts of Harden or Oakwood even so early as the time of their residence at Kirkhope, and for several ages, even until the family lost these lands. They were noted for strength, hardiness, and a turbulent disposition; and one of them named William was Hardens chief champion, and from his great strength and ferocity was nick-named the Wild boar. My father adds, that the said William was greatly in favour with Harden until at last by his temerity he led him into a jeopardy that had nearly cost him his life. I readily concluded what the jeopardy was. I am sorry to learn that Colin M,Kenzie’s child is dead and likewise of his sisters danger. It hath been unfortunate for me but I wish that were the worst of it I hear no word of the Society having as yet given their sanction to the work, consequently I am losing hopes of its publication at this time and dissappointed as usual. As my Ballads in imitation of the Antients, create a more than ordinary interest amongst the vulgar, whose feelings I have great confidence in I am resolved to publish them in a small elegant volume by themselves with a number of diverting notes; I have enough of other poetry for a specimen, such as it is, if we still think of printing some of it with the letters. I will be very happy at hearing from you. I have not been able as yet to do any thing anent establishing myself in the world. I am perswaded something has said against it. whether for my good or ill is hard to say. In my last I have written some songs. One Bauldy Frazers description of the battle of Cullodden I intend sending to the Magn. I have nothing else

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to inform you of. I hear some people of opinion that you should not have given some person the priveledge of hunting with your dogs. I wonder you can stay in town during such fine hunting seasons with every conveniency at your country seat for that healthfull excercise. Who can regret your billous complaint when you slight such an antidote. I remain Dear Sir your most Obliged James Hogg [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq. Advt./ No 2d. North-Castle-Street/ Edinr [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—JH]: Care of Mr Constable [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg/ 22 Feby 1805 [Watermark:] [SHIELD DEVICE] [Location:] NLS, MS 3875, fols 55–56. [Printed:] Wilfred Partington, Sir Walter’s Post-bag (London, 1932), p. 19 [in part]. Bourhope the house of Hogg’s friend Alexander Laidlaw, Bowerhope in Yarrow. the story of Wattie and Meg for Hogg’s poem see ‘The Fray of Elibank’, The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 50–67. My father adds Robert Hogg had clearly been informing his son of his paternal ancestry. Hogg expands on this account in his notes to ‘The Fray of Elibank’—see The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 66–67. Colin M,Kenzie’s child is dead this death was announced, ‘Jan. 23. At Edinburgh, the infant son of Colin M‘Kenzie, Esq. clerk of Session’, in the Scots Magazine, 67 (February 1805), 159. the Society the Highland Society of Scotland, which Hogg hoped would support a volume publication of his account of his Highland Journeys. a small elegant volume by themselves Hogg’s The Mountain Bard (1807) is divided into ‘Ballads, in Imitation of the Antients’ and ‘Songs Adapted to the Times’. In addition to the poems referred to in the notes to earlier letters Hogg had now published ‘The Death of Douglas, Lord of Liddisdale; a Scottish Ballad, in Imitation of the Ancients’ in the Scots Magazine, 66 (May 1804), 378–79, which also appeared in this collection. some songs Hogg’s enthusiasm for song-writing had perhaps been renewed by the reception given to his ‘Donald M‘Donald’ in November 1804 in Edinburgh—see Memoir, pp. 20, 222–23. Bauldy Frazers [...] Cullodden this appeared in Scots Magazine, 67 (April 1805), 295, and was reprinted in Hogg’s The Forest Minstrel (Edinburgh, 1810), pp. 166–69. your billous complaint Scott described himself in a letter to his brother Tom postmarked 17 January 1811 as ‘affected with constant bile which even abstinence cannot keep under’ (Scott, Letters, VII, 456).

50 To Walter Scott

TH E LETTE RS OF JAM E S HOGG

22 July [1805]

Mitchel-Slacks July 22 Dear Sir Had I the least thing of importance to communicate I would have written long ere now but even now I have nothing to say but only tell you that it is the case namely that I have nothing. I am settled with a master who though void of any taste as to literary things is nevertheless a good worthy man and a man posessed of every amiable qualification but my flocks take up the whole of my attention so that I have not a moment to think of my favourite studies neither have I any convenience farther than writing on my knee upon the hill so that my poetical effusions as well as every thing else of that nature are at an end for some time. I am not unhappy far from it but I am somwhat vexed—not for being obliged to [eol] to toil hard a whole year for such a small pittance but for the sake of that same small pittance to be obliged to forego all my favourite studies, the more so as I have been long convinced that if ever I rise above or even to a mediocrity it is to be by my writings. I hope soon to have the pleasure of hearing from you when I am expecting news of an hundred things. I have written twice to Mr. Constable but he takes no heed of my letters neither will he send me the Magazine though I have wrote repeatedly and ordered it to be called for pray dear Sir would you be so good as to thresh his skin I would be a jill in your debt. I wished to hear from him concerning the ballads &c which I termed The Mountain Bard but he sent me no answer. I would have sent copies of the first three or four to you but as I had no assurance of their being immediately set about they may grow better lying by me as I may at least add some notes.— Indeed you must write and inform me of this for I understand Constable is like the fool at herding cows he is below it. Tell me also if you have heard any more from Luskintyre and if Colin Mackenzie hath made his report to the Society concerning my letters. I am afraid they will stick where they are until I loose them myself. I have a thought of taking a small farm from the earl of Hoptoun that I may get a resting place for the sole of my foot but you must be my surety else I may lose it. I will be very happy at hearing from you immediately. Direct to me at Mitchel-Slacks By Thornhill—care of R Mundel Esq. I am dear Scott Your most Obedt and obliged James Hogg

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[Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq. Advt./ Edin [forwarded to Ashiestiel] [Postmark:] JUL 1805 28 [Endorsed—not JH:] Hog/ 2 July 1805 [Watermark:] BLTTw/ 18[TEAR]1 [Location:] NLS, MS 3875, fols 93–94. [Printed:] The Private Letter-Books of Sir Walter Scott, ed. by Wilfred Partington (London, 1930), pp. 85–86. settled with a master at Whitsunday 1805 Hogg had moved to Closeburn parish in Dumfriesshire to work as a shepherd for James Harkness of Mitchelslacks farm. The Harknesses were celebrated in the area for their support of the Covenanters—see R. M. F. Watson, Closeburn Reminiscent Historic and Traditional (Glasgow, 1901), pp. 168–71. written twice to Mr. Constable an agreement with Archibald Constable for the publication of The Mountain Bard was not reached until March 1806 (see Hogg’s letter to him of 11 March 1806). He was the publisher of the Scots Magazine. like the fool at herding cows Hogg is perhaps recalling an anecdote of Daft Jock Grey of Gilmanscleuch. As Robert Chambers recalled, ‘The minister of Selkirk on one occasion addressed him somewhat pompously: “John, you are an idle fellow; why don’t you work? You could at least herd a few cows.” “Me herd!” replied Jock; “I dinna ken corn frae gerss.” That answer settled the minister’—see Memoir of Robert Chambers with Autobiographic Reminiscences of William Chambers (London, 1872), p. 21. Luskintyre see the note to Hogg’s letter to Scott of 16 January 1805. Colin Mackenzie see Hogg’s letters to Scott of 24 December [1803] and 18 January 1805 and notes. earl of Hoptoun James Hope Johnston, 3rd Earl of Hopetoun (1741–1817), had extensive estates in Annandale. R Mundel Esq. has not been identified.

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FOR 1806 To Archibald Constable

[early 1806?]

34 N. Bridge Dear Constable I have a brother come in to see me from the country with whom I am engaged & cannot accept of your kind invitation on Saturday. If I can get Jameson or Grieve to accompany me I will come out & see you on Sunday. As my brother is an occasional correspondent to The Farmers’ Mag. if you would make him a small present of any rural work which is of little or no consequence to you Sir G. Thyne[?] on sheep or any thing, he would take it extremely kind I know & might be of service to you. Yours sincerely James Hogg. [Endorsed:] James Hogg / Edinr [Location:] Copy, NLS, MS 7200, fol. 197. Archibald Constable see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. date this letter precedes the one of [before 11 March 1806] in the Constable LetterBook (NLS, MS 7200). 34 N. Bridge probably a public reading-room. When Hogg later became Secretary to the Edinburgh Forum all communications to the Society were ‘requested to be directed to the Secretary at the Reading Room, No. 34, North Bridge’—see Edinburgh Star of 13 November 1812. a brother Hogg’s elder brother William, born in 1767, who shared his literary tastes— see Memoir, p. 19 and Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Jameson perhaps John Jamieson (1759–1838), the minster of the Anti-burgher congregation in Nicolson Street in Edinburgh, and a friend of Scott. He was a poet and a scholar, his most famous work being the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language of 1808. Grieve Hogg’s early friend John Grieve—see the note to Hogg’s letter to Scott of 16 January 1805. The Farmers’ Mag. Archibald Constable was the publisher of the Farmer’s Magazine, a quarterly publication started by him in 1800. William Hogg’s contributions have not been identified. Sir G. Thyne[?] on sheep this book, a Constable publication presumably, has not been identified.

FOR 1806

To Archibald Constable

53 [before 11 March 1806]

Dear Sir You are always so busy that I can never get a quiet word of you but my time is so limited that if I do not get to the press instantly I will be obliged to abandon it at this time, or try my fortune somewhere else, any of which will dis appoint me very much. Perhaps you suspect I may be too sanguine. By no means my dear Sir—print either 750 or 1000 copies as you think meet and I will not have any profit till you are first paid—I mean that it shall not be above 3/ price but of that you can best judge when finished. It is not merely for this that I am so very anxious that you should remain my publisher but for another which is nearly ready and which I will answer for it will sell—it is not poetry. Say nothing of this and believe me your ever gratefull James Hogg [Addressed:] Arch. Constable Esq. [Endorsed:] Copy of a/ letter from/ James Hogg [Location:] Copy, NLS, MS 7200, fol. 198. [Printed:] Constable, II, 353 [in part]. date Hogg’s letter to Constable of 11 March 1806 marks a firm agreement of terms for the publication of The Mountain Bard, and therefore postdates this letter. my time is so limited the letter was probably written during a visit to Edinburgh. Hogg would need James Harkness’s permission for his absence from his flock at Mitchelslacks in Dumfriesshire, and might also have to provide another shepherd as a temporary replacement. 750 or 1000 copies altogether a thousand copies of The Mountain Bard were printed, 750 sale copies in the smaller size and 250 copies on larger paper for subscribers—see Hogg’s letter to Constable of 11 March 1806. not be above 3/ price The Mountain Bard of 1807 in the event sold at 5s. another either the projected volume publication of Hogg’s Highland Journeys (see the note to his letter to Scott of [1 December] 1804), or The Shepherd’s Guide of 1807.

To Archibald Constable

11 March 1806

Edin. March 11 1806 Mr Constable Sir I have recieved yours wherein you make offer to me of “ninety pounds sterling for two hundred and fifty copies fine, and seven hundred and fifty copies common paper of the mountain Bard payable in twelve months, the book to be advertised at your expence

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and the copy-right to remain with me but no more to be published till the present edition be sold off, and that you will grant a bill to Mr Ballantine and Co. for the amount of paper printing &c. and pay me the ballance.—For this offer Sir, I thank you. It proves itself to be that of a gentleman and a freind; or at least one who does not wish any great advantage over a Mountain Bard; and I heartily accept of it; the copies are yours—Only I expect that, as my proportion of the copies will not supply all my subscribers, you will furnish me with such as I want at the lowest selling price I remain Sir Your Obliged Servt James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr Arch Constable / Edinr [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] James Hogg / 11 March / 1806 [Watermark:] J BS [Watermark on fold of bound volume]/ 1804 [Location:] NLS, MS 7200, fols 199–200. [Printed:] Constable, II, 353 [in part]. yours wherein you make offer Hogg’s letter is a written acceptance of the terms upon which Constable proposes to publish The Mountain Bard of 1807. It appears to be a reply to one from Constable which has not apparently survived. two hundred and fifty copies fine the slightly larger subscription copies, costing half a guinea (ten shillings and sixpence) each. seven hundred and fifty copies common paper sale copies, costing five shillings each. Ballantine and Co. James Ballantyne & Co. of Edinburgh were the printers of The Mountain Bard.

To Walter Scott

17 March 1806 Mitchelslacks March 17th 1806

Dear Sir As I understand you are now arrived I must congratulate you on the success of your prospects at London and on the large accession to your annual income which must necessarily accrue to you from thence. It is peculiarly pleasing to me to observe that advancement in fortune does not make you forget your poor friends but that even in the very height of your glory when in the midst of these great men who make the speeches which we have in the papers and that when even in the company of the first blood of the nation you took that opportunity to advance the poetical charactar of your friend. I fear my thoughts would have been otherwise employed. I must like-

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wise congratulate you on the acquisition of another little wee Gilnockie since I wrote last I wish he may live and turn out a good clever callan to you It is a d—d thing that no body has ever to congratulate me on any thing only that such a thing might have been waur. I thank you for your hints about my letter writing but for my blessing dear Mr Scott do not shew my letters to any body for when I write to a friend I just take what comes uppermost without any rule whatever By the bye Mr Scott (I have enow of Mrs. in this letter) I have met with a prodigy since I saw you, a gentleman who will be no small acquisition I hope to your correspondence, and who is desirous above all things to attain that. You are his favourite bard; he has your works for distinction sake bound in gold and can repeat by heart every verse that ever you composed. Nay he would wager his whole estate that he would repeat every word of yours that ever you published in poetry save one in the Lay which he never can mind. he repeats with uncommon energy I have heard him repeat all the Lay as well as the other pieces published in the minstrelsy. The introduction and two first parts of the Lay he said to a large and very genteel company and till that time I never thought they could have been productive of as good effect. He has the battle of pentland hills which would form a compleat history of the Cammeronians and several antient songs He is Andw. Livingston Esq of Airds by Castle-douglas. I was trying to take a farm from him but we did not agree he will possibly give you a call but if he do not I think you should write to him. He has nearly 2.000£ of yearly rent. Ever since I got your letter from London at which I was not a little surprised I have been writing notes to the ballads which are mostly traditional. I can get nothing to say to gilmanscleuch you must write a short preface to it at least who know the aera and circumstances. It is least my favourite of all the ballads and if I have any sway no part of it shall be printed as a specimen I will send you copies with the first carrier and by all means let this publication go on the most favourable season for the Highland letters is lost but this must proceed cost what it will. I will not have it said that my children always come to the birth and there is not strength to bring forth. For my sake my dear Scott if you think there is any chance for a farm of the duke push your request you cannot thin[TEAR] ardently I long to be my own man again [TEAR] which time I can never make any progress as an author how would you like to write as I do now amongst a housefull of brutal noisy servants but I have no other alternative but the fields. What would you think of my writing a line to one of

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the family myself I have no time to lose else I would wait for your advise in this. and I now I think I [sic] will write to lady Dalkieth if it do no good it can do no ill. if I lose this opportunity no body knows when he will have farms again to let and I have means enow for stocking an ordinary farm near my friends. There now my sheet is done and I am not well begun and what I have written is a mere hotch-potch Lord help your poor Shepherd James Hogg [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq. Advt/ Edinr [Postmark:] MR 1806 22 [Endorsed—not JH:] Mr. Hogg 17th/ March 1806 [Watermark:] [SHIELD]/ 1804 [Location:] NLS, MS 3875, fols 150–51. [Printed:] The Private Letter-Books of Sir Walter Scott, ed. by Wilfred Partington (London, 1930), pp. 86–87. now arrived Scott had recently returned to Edinburgh from London. He had just concluded an arrangement with George Home, one of the Principal Clerks of Session, to succeed him in that post when the death of William Pitt in January 1806 dissolved the Tory ministry that had agreed to ratify the deal and in addition Scott’s patron Lord Melville had been forced to retire from office with corruption charges hanging over him. Scott’s visit to London was made to ensure that the incoming administration ratified his arrangement, and the Gazette of 8 March 1806 duly announced his nomination as Clerk of Session. The annual salary was £800, but Scott had agreed to allow Home the salary for his lifetime—see Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), I, 249–51. the first blood of the nation Lockhart (II, 101) explains how Scott promoted Hogg’s work with Princess Caroline, the wife of the future George IV: ‘I find [...] that on being asked, at Montague House, to recite some verses of his own, he replied that he had none unpublished which he thought worthy of Her Royal Highness’s attention, but introduced a short account of the Ettrick Shepherd, and repeated one of the ballads of the Mountain Bard, for which he was then endeavouring to procure subscribers. The Princess appears to have been interested by the story, and she affected, at all events, to be pleased with the lines; she desired that her name might be placed on the Shepherd’s list, and thus he had at least one gleam of royal patronage.’ another little wee Gilnockie Scott’s second son, Charles, was born on 24 December 1805. Lockhart (II, 269) relates that Scott’s eldest son, Walter, born in 1801, ‘was called Gilnockie, the Laird of Gilnockie, or simply the Laird, in consequence of his childish admiration for Johnnie Armstrong, whose ruined tower is still extant at Gilnockie on the Esk, nearly opposite Netherby’. For the traditonal ballad of ‘Johnie Armstrong’ see Child no. 169. Scott also had two daughters: Sophia, born in October 1799, who later married Lockhart, and Anne, born in 1803. the Lay Scott’s The Lay of the Last Minstrel, published on 12 January 1805—see Todd & Bowden, p. 43. Andw. Livingston Esq of Airds by Castle-douglas Andrew Livingston wrote to Scott on 28 April 1806 (NLS, MS 3875, fols 164–65) saying ‘On my return from

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Glasgow on Saturday I received a letter from John Hogg [sic] the Etterick shepherd in which he mentioned that you wished for a copy of the old ballad of the battle of the Pentland hills agreeable to the request I annex a copy taken from the recitation of an old woman at present living in my house’. Livingston’s old woman is named as Scott’s authority for ‘The Battle of Pentland Hills’ in subsequent editions of Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. your letter from London this does not appear to have survived. gilmanscleuch see The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 35—49, and note to Hogg’s letter to Scott of [1 December] 1804. This ballad about the Scott clan appears to have been a favourite with Scott, who had it by heart—see Memoir, pp. 63–64. the Highland letters the projected publication of Hogg’s account of his Highland Journeys—see note to his letter to Scott of [1 December] 1804. my children [...] bring forth echoes 2 Kings 19. 3 and Isaiah 37. 3. the duke Henry Scott, third Duke of Buccleuch (1746–1813). Scott was on terms of friendship with the heir to the dukedom, Charles, Earl of Dalkeith (1772–1819), and his wife Harriet, Lady Dalkeith (1773–1814). I will write to lady Dalkieth clearly Hogg did this since his letter to Scott of 3 April 1806 summarises his letter, and that of 18 April [1806] refers to her reply, transmitted to him through Scott. In an undated letter to Lady Dalkeith (Scott, Letters, I, 300–01), Scott says, ‘I was rather surprized to learn by a letter received yesterday from my friend the Shepherd that he had taken the liberty of applying personally to your Ladyship about his affairs which I certainly should not have recommended to him to do’.

To Walter Scott

3 April 1806 Mitchelslacks April 3d 1806

My dear Scott Alongst with this you will recieve my first born legitimate infant son The Mountain Bard whom I commit to your tuition with as sanguine hopes and joyfull expectations as ever parent committed his heir to a preceptor and sent him abroad in quest of adventures. I greatly fear it will be too troublous a task for you to overlook the publication and subscriptions who have so very much ado with one thing and another already but I have one particular friend in town Mr. John Grieve to whom I can trust any thing perhaps he might be of use to carry on any thing when you are busy or in the country and give you timeous information what is going on it is Mr. John Greive, Mr. Izets and Co. from Ettrick if you favour him with any orders anent any thing that can be advantageous for me he will engage in it with pride and avidity I cannot think of having Gilmanscleuch printed for a specimen the public have had many specimens of my powers yet I would scarce offer them it in my ordinary way. In the Scots Magazines for

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1804–5 there are sundry observations on my writings out of which I think a few notes should be taken for the proposals and likewise to accompany them in the papers I have not access to these Magazines else I would select a few of them but your eye will soon discover the places I mean they are as favourable as any thing can be if these are adopted the Mag. should be cited. I think likewise as the ballads are in various different stanzas that a double stanza or two might be selected out of each to give some small idea of the authors manner. Suppose these were the first double stanza of the Pedlar which I think a very good night scene. That in Elibank beginning “Soon weapons were clashing and fire was flashing” That in Mess John beginning “When nigh Saint Marys isle they drew” That in Lord Liddisdale beginning “Gae stem the bitter norlan’ gale” and such of the others as you most approve Suppose also that in Thirlestane— Black hung the banner on the wall. But you know better than me what should be done but no more of Gilmanscleuch if you think the inclosed copy improper I will write out another as near the English as rhyme will permit but not until I hear from you. I will not agree to have any of the poetry altered without likewise being consulted. You will observe I have got nothing to say to Gilmanscleuch by way of notes but I trust to you for some little thing. Only I warn you that it was a fact that gilmanscleuch held the farm of that name for some inconsiderable feu duty until Sir Williams profligacy caused that family of Harden to lose their influence in the Forest when six lairds of the name of Scott broke all in one year of whom Gilmanscleuch was one Francis Scott of Gilmanscleuch afterwards used oft to stay long at my Grandfathers house. The representative of the family now is a poor miller at Ettrick bridge a man of austere manners and great strength as well as his sons. You will also observe that if it is instantly put to the press the life must be first in the same type with the ballads then all the leaves stitched together must be missed and the ballads with their respective notes to succeed the account of the author. I have nothing new to inform you of but since you have so kindly taken in hand to oversee the publication of this book it is probable that we shall be obliged to correspond oftener and the oftener the better for nothing gives me more pleasure than hearing from you. Is there no more word of the Cannobie farms? I fear that by this time they are all let. I wrote to lady Dalkieth on the same day I wrote you last simply thanking her for her kind intentions and assuring her that it would be very agreeable for me to be under her illustrous father in law. I again adjure you not to let this publication stick like-

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wise but go through with it be the consequence what it will. I am grown dissatisfied with the editors of the Scots M. and am going to discontinue my correspondence which has been constant for so many years I remain dear Sir Your affectionate James Hogg [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq. Advt./ Edinr. [Endorsed—JH:] With a parcel/ Care of A. Milligan [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg/ April 3d.—1806 [Watermark:] SMITH & INGLIS [Location:] NLS, MS 3875, fols 161–62. The Mountain Bard Hogg’s manuscript for The Mountain Bard of 1807, which Scott was to read and revise before its publication by Constable. The extent of Scott’s revisions will be discussed in the forthcoming S/SC volume of The Mountain Bard edited by Suzanne Gilbert. Mr. John Grieve Hogg’s early friend, now in business as a hatter on the North Bridge in Edinburgh—see note to Hogg’s letter to Scott of 16 January 1805. Gilmanscleuch see note to Hogg’s letter to Scott of 17 March 1806. a specimen publication of one, or part of one, of the poems of The Mountain Bard, as part of the proposal to publish the work by subscription. the Scots Magazines for 1804–5 see in particular, ‘Z.’, ‘Farther Particulars of the Life of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd’, Scots Magazine, 67 ( July and November 1805), 501–03 and 820–23. As Batho remarks (p. 224), ‘These articles follow the phrasing of the 1807 Memoir so closely that it is safe to conclude that they were written either by Hogg or by one of his intimate friends under his supervision’. Suppose these were the verses Hogg refers to appear on the following pages of The Mountain Bard of 1807: pp. 15–16 (‘The Pedlar’); 55 (‘The Fray of Elibank’); 83 (‘Mess John’); 101 (‘The Death of Douglas, Lord of Liddisdale’); and 124 (‘Thirlestane. A Fragment’). by way of notes there are no notes to ‘Gilmanscleuch’ in The Mountain Bard of 1807. my Grandfathers house Hogg’s paternal grandfather, William Hogg, was probably born about 1700. His marriage to Euphame Brown is recorded in the Selkirk OPR on 7 June 1723: the births of the couple’s children show that they were living at Broadmeadows from 1724 until 1726, in Newark (‘New-Work’) in 1729, and in Bowhill in 1734. Hogg’s informant was presumably his father, Robert Hogg, who may have remembered the visits of Francis Scott to his father’s house. a poor miller at Ettrick bridge has not been identified. the life must be first Hogg’s ‘Memoir of the Life of James Hogg’ occupies pp. i–xxiii of The Mountain Bard, and is preceded by an anonymous introductory letter, attributed by Hogg to Scott in 1832—see Memoir, pp. 11, 216. the Cannobie farms perhaps Canonbie in Dumfriesshire, near the border with Northumberland.

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wrote to lady Dalkieth this letter, of 17 March 1806, to the Duke of Buccleuch’s daughter-in-law, has not apparently survived. the Scots M. Hogg’s first contribution to the Scots Magazine was ‘The Mistakes of a Night’, Scots Magazine, 56 (October 1794), 624 so that by this date he had been a contributor for over ten years. A. Milligan has not been identified.

To Walter Scott

18 April [1806] Mitchelslacks by Thornhill Apr. 18th

Dear Sir I recieved yours inclosing one from lady Dalkieth about a week ago but before that time I had sent off to you copies of such of the ballads as I had got ready but these I fear will not reach your hand early as you would be off to the Forest before they arrived in town However I hope you will order them out that you may be enabled to proceed as you see proper. Alongst with them you will find a letter the contents of which it is needless here to repeat. I have met with no dissapointment from his Grace’s refusal never be concerned about that and though I am conscious of the necessity there was of my being un-engaged this year yet knowing it would hurt my parents and friends in the country were I again branded as an idler and unsettled being I have hired another year with my present master. My relations have no idea that writing can ever serve me any thing and have always discouraged it as much as possible though I am certain that if ever I rise above mediocrity or even to that among mankind it must be by my writings. I have written to Mr. Livingston desiring the ballad for you but have not yet recieved any answer no doubt you will have it sent. If you are again to republish the minstrelsy you are the best judge which of my ballads are best suited to take with the english people any of them are at your disposal but surely the song which you proposed publishing before and neglected would form no bad supplement to the Minstrelsy. I wish I had had a thorrough perusal of it previous to publication as I know there are some small mistakes in the notes which should be rectified but which have all escaped my memory—In the Lament of the border widow the Lady’s seat is in the dow linn not glen. In Philliphaugh Lesly’s detatchment did not cross the Ettrick and go up the south side when they must have gone through or bye Selkirk but up the Lingly burn and round the north side of the hill over-looking the camp and came in behind the Harehead wood where they darned until their brethren began the sham skirmish and flight.—I am delighted with the

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additional verse relating to Harden’s appearance at court and though I hate particularity in a ballad after the parties are fairly introduced yet as Hardens may well be looked on now-a-days as somewhat particular I think we may be allowed a little particularity in describing it. I have therefore thought of adding the two following verses to compleat the idea of a great and terrible chief—After “with all the hair aboon” say His doublet was of glittering goud And it became him well Where’er he turn’d his buirdly breast Respect and honour fell His hose were brac’d with chains of ern And round with tassels hung At ilka tramp of Hardens heel The royal arches rung His twa hand sword & Soon all our nobles of the north The chief with wonder ey’d But Harden’s form and Harden’s look Were hard to be deny’d. I am obliged to you for your offer of so much subscription money but have no need of any such thing. Your lady may subscribe as much as she pleaseth but I rather wish that your name should not appear at all. The tales are simply inscribed to you and I wish it to be thought, as it really is, from no pecuniary motive whatever but out of pure respect and freindship, and as due to the congeniality of your taste I had a present of a very elegant copy of the Lay lately from a gentleman in Edin. to whom I was ashamed to confess that I had it not. This is g[TEAR] you a hint that the present should have [TEAR] from some other hand. I am delighted above measure with many of the descriptions and with none more than that of William of Deloraine but I have picked some faults which I have not now time to explain but in Stanza 3d l. 1st were the knights squires and yeomen all knights? Should it not be rather The knights were all of mettle true?—I have not yet discovered what the terrible parade of fetching Michael Scott’s black book from the tomb served or what was done with it of consequence before returned and fear it will be construed as resorted to for sake of furnishing the sublime and awefull description I am your ever gratefull Shepherd James Hogg

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[Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq./ Ashesteel/ Selkirk [Postmark:] APR 1806 23 [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg/ April 18th 1806 [Watermark:] SMITH & INGLIS [Location:] NLS, MS 3875, fols 163–63a. There is a copy in Broughton House Library, Kirkcudbright, MS 5/4, no. 182. I recieved yours inclosing one from lady Dalkieth neither of these letters appear to have survived. a letter this is Hogg’s letter of 3 April 1806, which accompanied his copy for The Mountain Bard. hired another year presumably from the next Scottish Quarter Day, Whitsunday (15 May) 1806. Mr. Livingston see Hogg’s letter to Scott of 17 March 1806 and notes. Hogg’s letter to Andrew Livingston does not appear to have survived. republish the minstrelsy a third edition of Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border was published in three volumes in Edinburgh in November 1806—see Todd & Bowden, p. 27. This does not include a song or poem by Hogg himself. the song which you proposed publishing before perhaps ‘By a Bush’—see Hogg’s letter to Scott of 10 September [1802], and also Peter Garside, ‘Editing The Forest Minstrel: The Case of “By a Bush”’, SHW, 13 (2002), 72–94. Lament of the border widow a ballad related to Child no. 106 (‘The Famous Flower of Serving Men’). Hogg’s manuscript, ‘A Fragment on Cockburns death’, survives in NLS, MS 877, fol. 245v, which Scott had used for ‘The Lament of the Border Widow’ in the third volume of Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (Edinburgh, 1803), III, 80–84. Scott’s note there on the execution of Cockburn of Henderland by James V in 1529 explains that Henderland Burn passes through a rocky chasm, ‘named the Dowglen’, and that ‘a place, called the Lady’s Seat, is still shewn’, where his wife sat so that the tumult of the rushing water would conceal the noise of his death (p. 81). Hogg’s correction was not adopted by Scott, who retained ‘Dow-glen’—see Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, third edition, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1806), II, 308. Philliphaugh ‘The Battle of Philiphaugh’ relates the surprise and rout of the Marquis of Montrose and his royalist forces by Sir David Lesly at Philiphaugh, near Selkirk on 13 September 1645—see Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, second edition, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1803), III, 153–68. Scott’s note states, ‘But Lesly had detached two thousand men, who, crossing the Ettrick still higher up than his main body, assaulted the rear of Montrose’s right wing’ (pp. 159–60). Although he had obtained this ballad from Hogg, Scott did not adopt Hogg’s correction—see Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, third edition, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1806), II, 15–32 (pp. 21–22). Hogg’s later tale ‘Wat Pringle o’ the Yair’ was based on traditional accounts of the battle given to him by his uncle William Laidlaw who he says was ‘personally acquainted with several persons about Selkirk who were eye-witnesses of the battle’ adding that he sung the ballad ‘generally every night during winter’—Tales of the Wars of Montrose, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 1996), pp. 197, 199. the additional verse Hogg’s poem ‘Gilmanscleuch’ describes a feud between the Scotts of Harden and the Scotts of Gilmanscleuch. When his son is killed, Harden takes his grievance to the king at Holyrood and his appearance at court is described.

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Hogg seems to be referring to additional lines sent by Scott in his missing letter for inclusion in the poem. Suzanne Gilbert discusses this possibility in ‘Two Versions of “Gilmanscleuch”’, SHW, 9 (1998), 92–128 (pp. 98–99). your name Hogg is trying to avoid the imputation of a mercenary motive in his dedication of The Mountain Bard to Scott. The original intention was to print a list of subscribers’ names in the volume. the Lay Scott’s The Lay of the Last Minstrel, published in Edinburgh in January 1805. The donor of Hogg’s copy is unknown. Stanza 3d l. 1st Hogg is criticising the third stanza of Canto First of The Lay of the Last Minstrel (Edinburgh, 1805), p. 10: Nine-and-twenty knights of fame Hung their shields in Branksome Hall; Nine-and-twenty squires of name, Brought them their steeds from bower to stall; Nine-and-twenty yeomen tall, Waited, duteous, on them all: They were all knights of mettle true, Kinsmen to the bold Buccleuch. Andrew Livingston makes the same objection in his letter to Scott of 28 April 1806 (NLS, MS 3875, fols 164–65). Michael Scott’s black book the lady of Branksome Hall (the seat of the Buccleuchs) sends William Deloraine to Melrose Abbey, to the tomb of Michael Scott, the wizard, in order to remove Scott’s magic book. She plans to use it to exact vengeance on those who have killed her husband. Hogg’s own later treatment of Michael Scott in The Three Perils of Man, or, War Women and Witchcraft, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1822) is even more sensational.

To Walter Scott

21 May [1806] Mitchelslacks May 21st 1804 [sic]

Dear Sir I recieved yours brimfull of Criticisms, articles which I mortally abhor and have been taking them under consideration I must apprize you how much I hate alterations in any of my poetical pieces and that before I had the chain of my idea’s and story broken by them I would rather consent to the exclusion of the piece altogether. You are by this time sensible that it never will be from correctness and equality that I am to depend on for my poetic character but only from scattered expressive tints and from some little interest which the heart feels in them and it is only from a conviction that if one man in Britain have a proper discernment in that species of poetry it is you that I am induced to listen at all to them. I think Sir David Graham may pass as it is it is [sic] on the plan which you recommended on hearing the beginning of it and the very way I intended. The verse you quarrel with in the Pedlar is easily altered thus

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“I wish he had staid he so earnestly pray’d And he hecht a braw pearling in present to gie.” In Gideon Murray I put the verse into the lady’s mouth which you hinted at, and as you say nomore of it I suppose it is to pass. These with the preface will serve the press until we think about the others as after all I would rather have it to proceed at leisure than that they should appear unhousseld unanointed unaneal’d with all their imperfections on their heads I think now that you were right in blotting out my early poetry from the preface which however I only meant to appear as an instance of the progress of genious. You are at liberty to make what alterations in the prose you please. Give Ballantyne orders to stick by the M. S. I positively will not have them printed without apostrophe’s as yours and Leydens are. I think there should be only four stanza’s in the page though I do not like a very large type. If you have not published the proposals note that the book must be of a large size as there are yet a number of ballads I mean to insert. These are Douglas Lord of Liddisdale. The Laird of Lairiston a border tale of the same length If Thirlestane appear it must be as a fragment for sake of the story. Willie Wilkin as long as any of them save two. Willie Wilkin’s Death and burial. This is a popular ancient story hereabouts He has been a second edition of Michael Scott on a smaller type and coarser paper. Of the pieces that are not imitations of the antients I will not insist on the insertion of any save Sandy Tod which has gained me moe [sic] encomiums as a poet and more correspondents than any thing I ever published even though some of my best ballads have appeared. If you wish to have a copy of Gilmanscleuch of your own writing I will send you a very few alterations and additions concerning Harden with whom you have made me somwhat enamoured or if you please I will rewrite it myself. The verse you have scratched out of Mess John let it go to him whom it concerns: I hate indelicacy. Your observation about the Grey-mares-tail is d—d nonsense and enough to make a sow laugh at it. The cataract has no other name: and why will you make a quibble of antient names? The saving of the lass of Craigy burn would improve the story in one respect and hurt it in other two. In the former case it would exemplify the pleasing idea of an over-ruling providence protecting beauty and innocence and on the other it would spoil the story as it is at present told and the death of the priest would be too severe a recompence for a [TEAR] intended crime—however though it is far too long an alteration for me I shall think of it throw as little cold water on it at first as possible. I am rather of a particular temper and as I must abide by the consequences

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I will expect a considerable sway in the publication. A constant correspondence between us will be necessary I am half mad because I cannot have a single conversation with you about things. What ballads are they which you have in the press? How is Nicol and Graham going to succeed I expected considerable things from both will they run as fast through editions as the Lay Your much obliged James Hogg [Addressed:] Walter Scott/ Esq. Advocate/ Edin. [Postmark:] MY 1806 30 [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg/ May 21. 1806 [Watermark:] [SHIELD]/ 1804 [Location:] NLS, MS 3875, fols 172–73. [Printed:] The Private Letter-Books of Sir Walter Scott, ed. by Wilfred Partington (London, 1930), pp. 88–89; Strout, pp. 33–34 [in part]. date although Hogg dates this letter 1804 he did not move to Mitchelslacks until Whitsunday 1805, and it was clearly written after Scott had received his manuscript of The Mountain Bard, sent with his letter of 3 April 1806. The letter also bears an 1806 postmark. recieved yours Scott had clearly read Hogg’s copy for The Mountain Bard sent to him with Hogg’s letter of 3 April 1806, and made a number of detailed criticisms of individual poems, but his letter does not appear to have survived. Sir David Graham see ‘Sir David Graeme’, The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 3–14. verse [...] in the Pedlar see ‘The Pedlar’, The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 15–34. The poem retells a traditional story about the murder of a pedlar at Thirlestane Mill, the lines Hogg gives here occuring in stanza five (p. 16) as part of a speech by the Lady of Thirlestane. Gideon Murray appears in ‘The Fray of Elibank’, The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 50–67. The Lady of Elibank says to her husband (p. 59): “Wad ye hang sic a brisk and a gallant young heir, And has three hamely daughters ay suffering neglect? Though laird o’ the best o’ the Forest sae fair, He’ll marry the warst for the sake of his neck. “Despise not the lad for a perilous feat; He’s a friend will bestead you, and stand by you still; The laird maun ha’e men, and the men maun ha’e meat, And the meat maun be had, be the danger what will.” unhousseld [...] on their heads see Hamlet, I. 5. 77–79. blotting out my early poetry quotations from Hogg’s ‘Reflections on a View of the Nocturnal Heavens’ and his poetic version of Psalm 117 are given in ‘Farther Particulars of the Life of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd’, Scots Magazine, 67 ( July and November 1805), 501–03, 820–23 (pp. 820, 821). Since this is possibly an earlier

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version of Hogg’s ‘Memoir’ he may have intended to include similar passages in The Mountain Bard—for a summary of the textual history of the ‘Memoir’ see Altrive Tales, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2003), pp. 194–99. as yours and Leydens are a substantial section of ‘Imitations of the Ancient Ballad’ was included in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, second edition (Edinburgh, 1803), III, 297–420. Apostrophes are used quite normally both for possessives and contractions in ballads there by Scott and Leyden, and it seems likely that Hogg is in fact referring to the use of speech marks. Opening speech marks are generally used at the start of each stanza of direct speech as well as at the start of a speech, and Hogg is perhaps expressing a preference for speech marks to be repeated at the beginning of each new line of direct speech in verse also, which is the practice of the third edition of Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. The Mountain Bard of 1807, however, uses the convention of the second edition of the Minstrelsy. four stanza’s in the page there are five stanzas printed on the page in The Mountain Bard of 1807. Douglas Lord of Liddisdale ‘The Death of Douglas, Lord of Liddisdale’, The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 96–102. The Laird of Lairiston ‘The Laird of Lairistan, or, The Three Champions of Liddesdale’, The Mountain Bard, pp. 137–50. Thirlestane ‘Thirlstane. A Fragment’, The Mountain Bard, pp. 117–27. The verse fragment is preceded by a six-page note giving the story in prose. Willie Wilkin ‘Willie Wilkin’, in The Mountain Bard, pp. 103–16. This is a tale about a warlock, and Hogg compares him with Michael Scott in his introductory note to the poem as well as in this letter, thus challenging comparison with Scott’s The Lay of the Last Minstrel. The poem is set in Closeburn parish itself. Sandy Tod after giving a section of ‘Ballads, in Imitation of the Antients’ The Mountain Bard follows it by one of ‘Songs Adapted to the Times’. ‘Sandy Tod. A Scottish Pastoral. To a Lady’ (pp. 153–63) is the first poem in this section. It had previously been published in the Edinburgh Magazine, 19 (May 1802), 368–70. The editor Andrew Mercer had written to William Laidlaw on 5 June 1802 expressing his enthusiasm for the poem, asking to see more of Hogg’s work, and wishing to see him (NLS, Acc. 9084/9). Gilmanscleuch Scott seems to have been particularly fond of this poem, and probably contributed some lines to it himself—see the note to Hogg’s letter to him of 18 April [1806]. Mess John see The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 68–95: Hogg’s note on the Grey Mare’s Tail, a spectacular waterfall on the road from Yarrow valley into Moffat, is on p. 90. In the printed version of the poem the priest of St Mary’s Chapel only attempts to rape the lass of Craigyburn by means of necromancy. Sharon Ragaz discusses the episode in ‘“Gelding” the Priest in The Brownie of Bodsbeck: A New Letter’, SHW, 13 (2002), 95–103 (pp. 98–100). ballads [...] you have in the press Scott’s Ballads and Lyrical Pieces (Edinburgh, 1806), reprinting his miscellaneous poetry published to date. It was published on 20 September 1806—see Todd & Bowden, p. 77. Nicol James Nicol (1769–1819) published his Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect at Edinburgh in 1805. He was minister of Traquair, and later became a friend of Hogg’s.

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For further information see Simon Curtis, ‘James Nicol, Minister of Traquair and Poet’, SHW, 7 (1996), 80–86. Graham James Grahame (1765–1811) published his poem The Sabbath in 1804. Hogg’s letter to Scott of 18 January 1805 shows that his copy had been a present from Scott. Hogg gives a portrait of Grahame as a poet in no. 5 of The Spy—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 44–46. run as fast through editions Scott’s The Lay of the Last Minstrel was first published in January 1805, and a fourth edition would be published in August 1806—see Todd & Bodwen, pp. 43–47.

To Walter Scott

1 October 1806

Mitchelslacks Octr. 1st 1806 Dear Scott I recieved yours only yesterday and lose no time in answering it. I am ever in a fike a good while after getting a letter from you and indeed I am so negligent that I have great need of being stirred up. I will sit up every night until I have the final packet ready for publication as I am resolute that it shall not stick on my part. I have altered Wilkin as you desired but will send the verses in the packet with the carrier alongst with the notes of both which are likewise ready. But I had quite forgot that you desired me to alter Mess John so as to save the lady but that you may be enabled to put it and Lord Douglas to the press until the rest arrive I will here send you the alteration which is trivial and which you may either adopt or not as you think proper. After—“And still on that returning day, Yeild to a monster’s hellish might” insert—“No, though harass’d and sore distress’d; Both shame and danger she endured; For Heaven kindly interposed; And still her virtue was secured” “But o’er the scene we’l draw a veil, Wet with the tear of pleasing woe” &c.—And a good way farther back to correspond with this it must be read “O let me run to Mary’s kirk, Where if I’m forc’d to sin and shame” &c There is nothing farther that I can think of to hinder Mess John and Liddiesdale to be printed immediately as Ballantine seems impatient to go on and in the mean time I will lose no time in transmitting what more is necessary. I beg that on your return to town you will consult with my dear freind Mr. John Grieve as to what of my modern pieces are most fit to meet the public eye. He is besides being a good judge better acquainted with them all than you are and probably has some of them in manuscript which you want: his desires to further every thing that can be of service to me are

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boundless and in this respect differs from several of the Forest gentry. They have it seems opened their hearts wonderfully for the present having mostly subscribed for the Mountain Bard. I am somewhat dissappointed in hearing that you have come slowly on who wert my only hope but it is as impossible you can know what number there are until you call in your papers again. From the accounts which I hear we may depend upon about 400 in Scotland south of the Tweed I have already got accounts of upwards of 300. Is it not proper that they should be advertized in the news papers before the subscriptions are closed? I am very well pleased with the type and the printing I see only a very few mistakes which I shall point out when I return the sheets though I do not know the proper way of correcting. I have showed them to Mr Cunningham a very ingenous gentleman who writes thus to me concerning them. “I suspect they will never be able to stand the test of severe Criticism or at least the criticism of those who read only to find fault for they are negligently composed and many verses have nothing else to reccomend them than that they make up the thread of the story; and besides sundry of them are rather broken English than broad Scots: but on the other hand, they abound with poetical beauties which have never been surpassed which I sincerely hope may be a counterbalance for the other. But exclusive of [eol] of all these the uncommon degree of interest which they create is of itself sufficient to secure them everlasting approbation” I think that in the printing they would do as well without inverted commas to mark the speakers and what is the reason that they are regularly paged yet neither title page nor dedication? You must likewise inform me in your next whether you intend printing the subscribers names. My letters to you giving an account of myself must not be forgot.—I am indeed very glad to hear that your family are well and I hope will ever be glad to hear of every thing which concerns your happiness and prosperity. Give my kindest respects to Mrs. Scott whom I ever found chearfull and happy and seemingly the humble poets freind. Is there no news of Mr. Skene. I wish you all success in your edition of the original Dryden. I would [TEAR] been more sure of it had the poetry been your own. I have a great anxiety to be in Edin. in the beginning of winter whether I will be able to accomplish it I cannot say, propably [sic] I may by hiring a man in my place. If my gracious presence can be at any time more necessary than at another you must let me know I am your ever affectionate James Hogg

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[Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq. Advt./ Edinburgh [forwarded to Ashestiel] [Postmark:] OC 1806 6 [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg 11 Octr/ 1806 [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1801 [Location:] NLS, MS 3875, fols 230–31. recieved yours Scott’s letter has not apparently survived. the final packet of corrected poems for The Mountain Bard of 1807. Hogg’s enthusiasm may have been partly motivated by his need for cash to stock the farm of Corfardin, which he leased from Whitsunday 1807. A meeting to let the farm had been held at Penpunt on 19 September—see Dumfries Weekly Journal of 9 September 1806. altered Wilkin ‘Willie Wilkin’, The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 103–16. The passage in which Scott required an alteration is not known. alter Mess John see Hogg’s letter to Scott of 21 May [1806]. The changes Hogg details here were adopted with some slight alterations in punctuation in the printed volume: they occur in stanzas 45 and 59—see The Mountain Bard, pp. 80, 83. Liddiesdale ‘The Death of Douglas, Lord of Liddisdale’, The Mountain Bard, pp. 96– 102. This poem follows ‘Mess John’ in the printed volume. Ballantine James Ballantyne (1772–1833), the Edinburgh printer of The Mountain Bard. Mr. John Grieve Hogg’s early friend—see the note to Hogg’s letter to Scott of 16 January 1805. what number there are Hogg failed to make an accurate list of the subscribers to The Mountain Bard. An ‘Advertisement’ following the title-page states, ‘A liberal and highly respectable list of Subscribers honoured this Work with their countenance; but the circumstances of the Author, detained by the duties of his situation in a remote part of the country, has prevented the possibility of collecting their names, and prefixing them to the Book’. a very few mistakes Hogg was clearly correcting The Mountain Bard proofs himself, as well as taking Scott’s advice. Mr Cunningham this may be James Cunningham or his younger brother Allan Cunningham (1784–1842), who visited Hogg at Mitchelslacks in the autumn of 1806—see Memoir, pp. 69–71, 254–56. But it is perhaps more likely to be their brother Thomas Mouncey Cunningham (1776–1834), to whom Hogg had previously addressed a poetic epistle, ‘To Mr T. M. C. London’—see Scots Magazine, 67 (August 1805), 621–22. Cunningham’s reply, ‘Answer to the Ettrick Shepherd’, Scots Magazine, 68 (March 1806), 206–08 seems to have opened a correspondence. Cunningham later allowed Hogg to include his poetry from the Scots Magazine in The Forest Minstrel of 1810. neither title page nor dedication Hogg had presumably been sent proofs of the main text of The Mountain Bard but neither of the preliminary matter (generally the last parts of a book to be printed) nor of the ‘Memoir of the Life of James Hogg’, which has a separate pagination sequence in Roman numbers. Mr. Skene James Skene of Rubislaw (1775–1864), was a friend of Scott’s and often spent part of the summer at Ashiestiel when the two would make trips around the Borders, especially Ettrick and Yarrow. Skene relates that ‘Sir Adam Fergusson and

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the Ettrick Shepherd were of the party that explored Loch Skene’ on one such excursion (Lockhart, II, 69). the original Dryden Scott began work on an edition of the life and works of John Dryden in 1805, and it was published in eighteen volumes on 30 April 1808—see Todd & Bowden, p. 115.

To Walter Scott

23 October 1806 Mitchelslacks Octr. 23d 1806

Dear Sir I received yours yesterday with one from Mr. Grieve and since that cursed and foolish maxim has been so long established that a poet is no judge of his own productions I must just lay my hand on my mouth and my mouth in the dust. How many notable Editors have been mistaken Perhaps you were not aware that it was at least published in five different newspapers. This made me value it rather higher than usual though I confess that at first I thought Jock and Samuel was nearly destitute of poetical merit. I wish you by all means to have as much of your own will as possible, and as I am sensible that I have a failing in being so averse to all alterations and condemnations I charge you that when you are truly sensible of a peice or verse being defective that you will maintain your integrity and insist upon its expulsion or amendment.—I am now engaged in the eident and naseous business of smearing which continues every lawfull night until a late hour and in a very few days always makes my hand that I can in nowise handle a pen consequently you will not hear from me again on a sudden As to the alteration in the arrangement which you mention it is proper by all means that Lairistan be immediately before Thirlestane from the connection that is betwixt them. The alteration of the names in that ballad was a mere circumstance which I forgot to mention in my last but which you might have taken the liberty to have altered who knew all the antient border clans and their connections much better than me. I think I could with less scruple deprive the Elliots of their antient patrimonial estate than of the brave and loyal Jock Elliot. However propability [sic] being a great favourite of mine, I think the printer must have this direction, to substitute Elliot for Jardine, and vice versa: and for Jock Elliot to substitute Will Jardine There being still a border knight and some good Esquires of that latter name. If there are any peices in your hand or Mr Greives hand that you like better than Nelson you may substitute them Mr Greive mentions Ettrick John in particular with much partiallity as he bears so much resemblance to the Balladial

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form or is indeed a ballad altogether in an original form he might perhaps be as acceptable. However if you have not enough of poetry I have abundance of songs many of which I beleive are not despicable. I have often mentioned to you without receiving any answer and I still insist that it would contribute much to my behoof if the subscription proposal were published in the papers previous to the closing of the subscriptions but I will engage in nothing without your approbation or permission.—I have agreed for a 12 years lease of a beautifull farm and residence in Nithsdale. It is indeed very dear but if a better should cast up I am offered a good sum on the head of it, and if no better cast up I must try myself with it, and have no doubts of doing well providing I once get a sufficient stock upon it. Your droll verse about Camp and Hector will do best after “But ne’er beyond my mothers son To aught that bears the shape of man” In the course of the ensuing session you must really speak to Gillon and see what can be done about the recovery of the £150.– – from Sir William Forbes I will need it much shortly. The man who has any claim to it is certainly dead, nor could [TEAR] have the least claim to it as I am certainly informed that he stocked the farm himself that same year for which my money was lodged as rent. Certainly sir there is no reason that I should lose that money. though I believe that had I gone I might have got my sheep upon the ground for one year but no more neither could I have kept his beasts from abusing it wholly that same year: but he broached so many new laws as inherent in the island on my second visit that it was visible he was resolved I should never go there and I now see that the retention of the £150 was his sole aim. I will send Mr. Bryden to see about it at Hallow fair, and will depend on your good offices without which I never could do any thing. Mr Greive mentions only £10–10 while your letter mentions £12–12 I am your ever Gratefull James Hogg [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq. Advt/ Edin [forwarded to Ashiestiel] [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg/ 23 October [Postmark:] OC 180[6 29?] [blurred] [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1801 [Location:] NLS, MS 865, fols 74–75. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 34–36.

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yours Scott’s letter has not apparently survived. with one from Mr. Grieve Hogg’s letter to Scott of 1 October 1806 had asked him to ‘consult with my dear freind Mr. John Grieve as to what of my modern pieces are most fit to meet the public eye [...]’. Grieve’s letter has not apparently survived. my mouth in the dust echoing Lamentations 3. 29. Jock and Samuel ‘Jock an’ Samuel. A Scots Pastoral’ appeared in the Scots Magazine, 68 ( January 1806), 53–55 and was never reprinted. Grieve and Scott had clearly tried to dissuade him from including it in The Mountain Bard of 1807. smearing the process of smearing consisted of daubing sheep with a mixture of tar and butter to keep off ticks. every lawfull night that is, not on Sundays. Lairistan be immediately before Thirlestane in The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807) the one poem does not follow the other: ‘Thirlstane. A Fragment’ is followed by ‘Lord Derwent. A Fragment’ and then by ‘The Laird of Lairistan, or, the Three Champions of Liddisdale’ (see pp. 117–50). The latter poem deals with the killing of Elliot of Lairistan by Jocky Armstrong of Milburn and Halbert of Sundup. Nelson possibly a song on Horatio Nelson (1758–1805), the naval hero of Trafalgar, that has not apparently survived. There is no such song in The Mountain Bard of 1807. Ettrick John ‘Auld Ettrick John. A Scottish Ballad’ had appeared in the Scots Magazine, 66 (March 1804), 217. It was included in The Mountain Bard, pp. 192–96. Hogg describes it as one of a group of songs ‘of my early youth’, ‘made for the sphere around the cottage hearth and the farmer’s kitchen-ingle’ in his Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd (Edinburgh, 1831), p. 174. a 12 years lease for Corfardin on the Water of Scaur in Tynron parish—see also Hogg’s letter to [Adam Bryden] of 4 December [1806]. An advertisement for the lease appeared in the Dumfries Weekly Journal of 9 September 1806: [...] the Farm of CORFARDINE, in the parish of Tynron, is to be LET, in the house of Mr M‘Math, in Penpont, upon Friday the 19th Sept. instant, and entered to at Whitsunday 1807, for 18 years, with the property of a renewal tack during the life of the Duke of Queensberry. The farm consists of about 300 acres or thereby, of which there are 100 acres arable, a considerable number of which is in the best state of cultivation; and the pasture ground is reckoned amongst the best in the country, with an exceeding good ring dike, and a number of subdivisions, and an excellent steading of new houses built upon the farm, with many other conveniencies. The above is an eligible place for a family, and well worth the consideration of any person that wishes to be provided. The meeting to be at two o’clock afternoon; and for other particulars apply to Thomas Hunter, tenant in Corfardine. Your droll verse Camp was a bull-terrier Scott had between about 1800 and 1809. Hector was Hogg’s sheepdog, later commemorated by him in ‘Dogs’—see The Shepherd’s Calendar, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 1995), pp. 57–67. Scott’s lines must have been intended for ‘The Author’s Address to his Auld Dog Hector’, The Mountain Bard, pp. 183–89, since the lines of his own Hogg quotes are from p. 187. Hogg’s letter to Scott of 28 July 1809 quotes ‘And like my sangs hard luck has found When by the Shirra’s kempy tuzzled Diel that the critic an’ his hound Like snarling tikes were clogg’d an’ muzzled’, which may perhaps be the lines in question.

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Gillon Joseph Gillon, an Edinburgh lawyer employed to sort out the legal complications following Hogg’s attempt to sub-let a farm on Harris in 1804—see Hogg’s letter to Scott of 16 January 1805 and notes. from Sir William Forbes head of the Edinburgh bank of Forbes & Co., and the husband of Scott’s early love Williamina Belsches. Hogg’s lease for the farm he had tried to rent in Harris in 1804 (NLS, Ch. 413) specified that his first year’s rent of £150 would be placed in advance with the Edinburgh banking firm at Martinmass 1803. The man who has any claim to it William Macleod, the tacksman of Luskintyre, who did not die until 1811—see note to Hogg’s letter to Scott of 16 January 1805. Mr. Bryden probably Hogg’s friend Adam Bryden of Aberlosk—see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Hallow fair All Saints Day (All Hallows Day) is 1 November, and Hallow fair was an annual stock market held over several days in November in Edinburgh, which Hogg himself attended regularly in later years. mentions only £10–10 presumably subscription money for twenty copies of The Mountain Bard, as the subscription price was half a guinea (ten shillings and sixpence)—see Memoir, p. 22.

To [Adam Bryden]

4 December [1806] Dumfries Decr. th 4

My dear freind I have this day taken the valuable farm of Locherben for 7 years intentionally for you at the rent of £430. which is a full hundred lower than I expected it. It is a far better bargain than Corfardine therefore as I am loth to give you the best and keep the worst I have a thought of keeping a share of each but you and me will differ about nothing. I am more than half engaged to Blackhouse but as they are not free at present with Jura for your life say never a word about that but write instantly to Mr. William Laidlaw writer in Dumfreis [sic] that you will see a sufficient stock and crop put upon the ground. Make the letter in few words and upon good paper and as it will look as well you must make Bauldy subscribe it in which case you must never say I but We—it keeps 75 scores of good sheep. Be sure to send a sufficient surety for as I have no body here they are somewhat anxious and by all means lose no time in writing. it is as much as we are all worth you may mention that it was by your request that I took it and if required you will likewise subscribe the lease. perhaps I may give Walter Coltard Corfardine but I will do nothing till I consult you Yours James Hogg

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[Addressed:] [none—no address panel] [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] WHATMAN/ 1804 [Location:] NLS, Acc. 10190. Adam Bryden see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Locherben Locherben farm, north-east of Thornhill, is the neighbouring farm to Mitchelslacks in Closeburn parish, where Hogg was serving as a shepherd at this time. It was advertised in the Dumfries Weekly Journal of 21 October 1806 as being to let with others ‘within the King’s Arms Inn, Dumfries, upon Thursday the 4th day of December 1806, between the hours of eleven and twelve forenoon’. It is described as follows: ‘The SHEEP FARM OF LOCHERBEN, with the Houses and Pennants, lying in the parish of Closeburn, and sheriffdom of Dumfries, as presently possessed by Mr William Harkness, for the number of years to be specified in the articles of roup, and entered to at Whitsunday next, as to the houses, grass, and pasture lands, and the separation of the crop 1807 from the ground, as to the arable land. The farm is very extensive: It is one of the best sheep farms in the country [...]’. Offers could be made to ‘Mr Laidlaw, writer in Dumfries, for a private bargain betwixt and the day of roup’. Corfardine the farm on the Water of Scaur in Tynron parish. Hogg mentions taking it on a 12-year lease in his letter to Scott of 23 October 1806, but does not name the rent he had agreed to pay. Blackhouse presumably the farm rented by James Laidlaw, the father of Hogg’s friend William Laidlaw. The nature of Hogg’s engagement is unknown. Jura Jura is an island in the Inner Hebrides. Its connection with the Laidlaws is unknown. Mr. William Laidlaw writer in Dumfreis Laidlaw, a solicitor or Writer to the Signet, must have been agent for the owner of Locherben. Hogg’s letter to Scott of 10 January 1807 reveals that this William Laidlaw was the brother of Robert Laidlaw of Peel, a farm adjacent to Ashiestiel. Bauldy has not been identified: Hogg uses Bauldy as a shortened form of the name Archibald in his later ‘Some Remarkable Passages in the Life of an Edinburgh Baillie’— see Tales of the Wars of Montrose, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 1996), p. 13. give Walter Coltard Corfardine perhaps Coltard was the person who had offered Hogg ‘a small sum on the head of it’, alluded to in Hogg’s letter to Scott of 12 December 1806.

To Walter Scott

12 December 1806 Mitchelslacks Decr 12 1806

Dear Sir Although it is certainly no great mark of gratitude in me yet I have for a long time past been much longer in answering your letters than you have been in answering mine which have been done

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with a punctuality which no man could have expected who was sensible of the multiplicity of your literary engagements. And if it had not been for the constant encouragement I received from [sic] I had of late years sunk into an apathy which would soon have, and was very near engendered contempt But if my hope and vanity can be kept alive there are very few things that I will not attempt and do my utmost to accomplish. I have taken two farms. The first, which I mentioned, is a pretty convenient thing with an elegant set of houses but for want of a residence I took it dear but being offered a small sum on the head of it and another large farm offering I took this last and got an excellent bargain of it. No such bargain of a farm having been got in this country for many years, but for want of capital I am afraid I must share it with a neighbour, [TEAR] I could realise as much money as to stock it, [TEAR] ordinary times I could make nearly £200 a year [TEAR] Never did I really feel the want of money until now. I cannot however be beat with them as my freind Mr. Bryden is willing to take what share I please but then he has enough already That money which is so unjustly detained on Luskintyre’s account would come in good stead now. I must have it at all events. You ask if you understand me right when I say he is dead. I cannot tell but a good while ago I saw a death in the papers which if one letter had been altered would have been him without dispute If as you said my presence is not necessary in town I beleive I will stay at home. I grudge my expences, neither can I procure a fit hand to trust my masters flocks with. I am very impatient to hear of the final publication of the mountain bard being apprehensive that the most favourable season is going to elapse before it make its appearance. It has been a weary time at the press. I cannot think but you have enough of M. S. but if wanted I will send you copies of all my songs and let you select what is necessary You mention some few alterations one of which is “send your soul to Hell” There is not such an expression in all the ballads. If it is that “He swears he’ll send them a’ to hell” I would not have it a[TEAR] for a guinea scarce as I am of money I have not composed a line since I wrote you last and I think I shall read my doom on that mighty arbitrator of the present day The Edinr. Review before I venture farther. I beseech you to use your influence to get it published my subscribers are grown perfectly clamourous. I will be happy to hear of yours and your familys wellfare with your first convenience every thing of moment will then accompany it Be sure to accompany them with the wild deer for as I have to be obliged to a gentleman for forwarding my letters

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Those that order him to Watch Weel are always sent [TEAR] more speed and care than the homely wafer I remain your ever gratefull James Hogg [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq Advt/ Edinburgh [Postmark:] DE 1806 12 [Endorsed—not JH:] James Hogg/ 12 Decr 1806 [Watermark:] [SHIELD]/ 1804 [Location:] NLS, MS 3875, fols 250–51. [Printed:] Wilfred Partington, Sir Walter’s Postbag (London, 1932), pp. 19–20 [in part]. two farms those of Corfardin and Locherben—see Hogg’s letters to Scott of 23 October 1806 and to [Adam Bryden] of 4 December [1806]. Mr. Bryden Adam Bryden of Aberlosk—see Hogg’s letter to him of 4 December [1806] and the Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. detained on Luskintyre’s account Hogg had paid £150 at Martinmass 1803 to the Edinburgh bank of Forbes and Co. as security for the first year’s rent of the farm he had leased in Harris. The money would have been paid to William Macleod, the tacksman of Luskintyre at Martinmass 1804, and since Hogg had not occupied the farm its ownership was now in dispute—see the notes to his letter to Scott of 23 October 1806. You ask if you understand me right when I say he is dead Hogg’s letter to Scott of 23 October 1806 said that the man ‘who has any claim to it is certainly dead’. He had presumably received a reply to this letter from Scott, which has not survived. the most favourable season by tradition books published in the autumn months sell better than those published after the turn of the year. my songs for copy for the last section, ‘Songs Adapted to the Times’, of The Mountain Bard of 1807. “He swears he’ll send them a’ to hell” not apparently a line in The Mountain Bard as published. The Edinr Review The Mountain Bard was not reviewed in the Edinburgh Review. the wild deer a reference to Scott’s use of the arms of the Haliburton family, from whom he was descended, on his seal. He describes this in his Memorials of the Haliburtons (Edinburgh, 1820), p. 3: ‘IV.—John Haliburton of Newmains, representer of the family of Myretoun. [...] For his crest, a stag gazing proper. Motto—Watch Weell’.

To Walter Scott

15 December 1806 Mitchelslacks Decr. 15 1806

Dear Sir I wrote to you a few days ago but have since received yours which I think it my duty immediately to answer. There is nothing in this

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world I am more thorroughly convinced of than that you transact every thing for the best for me. Therefore you need never have asked my consent in the matter for whatever you upon due consideration agree to in these things I subscribe to it with all my heart. I did not indeed imagine that Luskintyre could have gained his plea if Mr. Humes agent represented it to me in a right point of view when I was in such perplexity how to proceed. But nothing is more certain than that the circumstance of my not going forward with my stock has been the very thing that has saved him as the sub-set which he had always some scruples to guarantee would have ruined his hold and turned him out directly. for he had only a right to subset one third of the whole land that he possessed whereas he had more than one third set long before I saw him and he oftimes proposed it to me that if Mr. Hume summoned him on my account that I should pretend to hold it of him in steelbow to save his head; and as it is certain, that in such cases a laird can keep a sub-tenants stock from touching his ground, it must be allowed that my case was desperate, and that I was betwixt the deil and the deep sea. I am perfectly willing to abide by the decision of Mr. Cranstoun of whose equity and discernment you seem so highly sensible: you may however remind that gentleman that I was informed by Angus Campbell Esq. of Ensay factor for the estate that Luskintyre pastured the ground as usual, reaping the same benefits from it and it is surely hardly consistent that he should both posess the farm and receive a full years rent for it For that he had no power to subset the farm to me a single perusal of his own tack will sufficiently evince As to the calling in of the subscribers names that is a hard task if the book cannot appear until they are all called in and arranged it will not appear this half-year. My papers are scattered all the way to the border and gone from one hand to another that I cannot tell when I shall be able to recall them al[TEAR] Would it not answer as well to give them an additional song or two in place of the names. Though I have many respectable ones which I should be very proud to see printed and I doubt not but you have many more. I have nothing more to tell you at this time but my fortune and charactar as a poet is so wholly in your hands at present that I will be impatient until I see your hand and seal again I am sir your most obedt James Hogg [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq. Advt./ Edinr [Postmark:] DE 1806 19 [and] THORN H I LL

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[Endorsed—not JH:] 15 Decr 1806/ James Hogg [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 3875, fols 252–53. received yours Scott had presumably written to say that the question of the £150 Hogg had paid out to lease the farm on Harris in 1804 had been settled and that Hogg could not reclaim it, though his letter does not appear to have survived. my consent this expression suggests that the matter had perhaps been settled by private arbitration, since Hogg’s consent would not have been necessary for an official legal decision to be binding. Luskintyre William Macleod, the tacksman of Luskintyre, with whom Hogg signed the Harris lease of 13 July 1803 (NLS, Ch. 413). Mr. Humes agent Alexander Hume Macleod was the owner of Harris. Hogg’s letter suggests that a legal dispute between him and Macleod over land use had recently been settled. This may be the one referred to by ‘Z.’ as occuring in July 1804 when Hogg ‘received notice that the tacksman’s right to the subject was called in question, and a plea entered at the Court of Session accordingly’—see ‘Concluding Particulars of the Life of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd’, Scots Magazine, 67 (November 1805), 820–23 (p. 822). steelbow steelbow refers to stock and goods received from a landlord with an obligation to return goods of similar quantity and worth on the expiry of the lease. Mr. Cranstoun possibly Scott’s friend George Cranstoun (1771–1850), an advocate who was raised to the bench as Lord Corehouse in 1826. Angus Campbell Esq. of Ensay Ensay is a small island two miles south-west of Harris. Angus Campbell, the tacksman of Ensay, was factor to Alexander Hume Macleod—see Hans de Groot, ‘Hogg in the Hebrides in 1803’, SHW, 13 (2002), 143– 80 (p. 172). subscribers an ‘Advertisement’ after the title-page to The Mountain Bard apologises for the absence of the customary list of subscribers to the book—see the note to Hogg’s letter to Scott of 1 October 1806. an additional song or two in place of the names an extra section appears to have been added to The Mountain Bard of 1807 as an afterthought, perhaps in accordance with Hogg’s suggestion here. A copy in Stirling University Library finishes on p. 189 instead of p. 202, the words ‘THE END’ showing that it was not simply an imperfect copy. you have many more Scott had induced many of his friends (such as Robert Southey) to subscribe to The Mountain Bard, and had presented copies to others (such as Anna Seward) whom he thought could be useful in publicising the work—see Scott, Letters, I, 328, 386, and 397.

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TO 1808 To Walter Scott

10 January 1807 Mitchelslacks Jan. 10th 1807

Dear Sir I was born to plague you and likewise to be abused by those who count themselves my superiors. I thought I was never surer of being settled in the world when instead of that my prospects are in danger of being ruined in a few days if you do not something to save my head I must explain this matter. I told you that I had taken the excellent farm of Locherben and my freind Mr. Bryden became bound for me who is well known to be a man whose substance is adequate for thrice as much. The person whom I have to deal with is Mr. William Laidlaw Peele’s Brother who at first made no objections to Mr. Bryden but took his bond but afterwards the former tenant who had given it up wishing to retain it persecuted me every day to have it again but finding I was too far engaged to yeild he applyed to Mr. Laidlaw and the other curators who as warmly seconded his suit; but finding that I still would not yeild they then to force it from me objected to mr. Bryden on pretence that he was a stranger, and insists instantly on having a person who is known to them, or else they will both deprive me of the farm and subject me to a heavy penalty. Although Mr. Bryden has posessed the same extensive farm under the duke of Buccleuch all his life, and his parents before him in the very same county where this is going on. Though I am certain that there is neither law no justice in this proceeding of theirs yet as I have no man to befreind me in this country they are just going to use me as they please and certainly rather than yeild so promising a bargain I had better refer my cause to the court of Session. There is only one thing that you can do for me at present that I can think of and it must be done speedily, that is to desire Mr. Laidlaw of Peele your neighbour to write instantly to his brother William assuring him that Mr. Bryden of Aber-[eop] Aberlosk who is bound for me, is fully adequate for what he has undertaken. This you may venture to assure Peele of, in the language you think best for exclusive of his large farms and that which he bought he has £1000 in

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Will. Oliver’s hand and very nearly the same sum with Sir Wm. Forbes and Co. This assurance from a brother will certainly suffice and if it does not it can do no ill, but on the contrary if they will presume to take it from me will render their conduct inexcusable. Mr. Bryden is so highly offended that he will not ask nor allow of another cautioner but I am afraid of the worst, for burnt bairns dread the fire. Now my dear Sir I can do nothing without you, I am just like the old pagans who when they could do no better ran to their gods for redress I leave this to your experience and judgement and am satisfied that you will do all for the best. I only ask of you the old request What thou dost do quickly else it will be too late I am your ever gratefull Shepherd James Hogg [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq. Advt./ Edinr [Postmark:] JA 1807 20 [Endorsed—not JH:] 10 January/ 1807/ Hogg— [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1803 [Location:] NLS, MS 3876, fols 6–7. Locherben see the notes to Hogg’s letters to Scott of 23 October and 12 December 1806, and to [Adam Bryden] of 4 December [1806]. Mr. Bryden Adam Bryden of Aberlosk farm in Eskdalemuir—see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Mr. William Laidlaw a W. S. in Dumfries, agent for the owner of Locherben—see the advertisement cited in the note to Hogg’s letter to [Adam Bryden] of 4 December [1806]. Peele’s Brother Robert Laidlaw was the Duke of Buccleuch’s tenant at Peel, the farm adjacent to Ashiestiel. Lockhart says (II, 186) ‘The farmer at whose annual kirn Scott and all his household were, in those days, regular guests, was Mr Laidlaw, the Duke of Buccleuch’s tenant on the lands of Peel, which are only separated from the eastern terrace of Ashestiel by the ravine and its brook. Mr Laidlaw was himself possessed of some landed property in the same neighbourhood, and being considered as wealthy, and fond of his wealth, he was usually called among the country people Laird Nippy.’ the former tenant this was William Harkness, presumably a relation of Hogg’s master at Mitchelslacks—see notes to Hogg’s letter to [Adam Bryden] of 4 December [1806]. Will. Oliver’s hand in his letter to Scott of 10 September [1802] Hogg mentions a Mr. Oliver of Hawick, who is probably the banker referred to here. Sir Wm. Forbes and Co. the Edinburgh banking firm of Forbes & Co. Its head was now Sir William Forbes, 7th Bart. of Pitsligo (1773–1828). What thou dost do quickly see the words of Jesus to Judas in John 13. 27.

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To Robert Surtees

18 March 1807

Edin March 18 1807 Dear Sir I am not a little proud of the approbation you have been pleased to bestow upon a Mountain Bard. But you have sent me that which is still more beneficial to the generallity of poets, especially one of my rank in life and for which I thank you. At Mr. Scott’s desire I send you five copies more and since your taste is so much turned that way I know of nothing I can send you else save a song I have composed this morning to a beautifull old Welsh air. I hope in future to be honoured with your correspondence: you can always hear of me in the course of your correspondence with Walter Scott who is now at London. I am Sir your most obliged servt James Hogg Prince Owen and the wizard O say mighty Owen why beams thy bright eye? And why shakes thy plume, when the winds are so still? What means the loud blast of the bugle so nigh? And the wild warlike music I hear on the hill? We are free! thou old wizard! the Britons are free! Our foes have all fallen, or shrunk from our veiw; And free as the bird of the mountain are we, The roe of the forest, or fish of the sea. My country!—my brethren!—my joy is for you. Brave Owen! my old heart is fired by thine, My dim eyes they glisten like tears of the morn; Thy valour us guarded, thy wisdom has warded The danger that threatened to lay us forlorn. And when you and I have sunk into our graves, And ages o’er ages Time’s standard shall rear, When the bards have forgot o’er our ashes to weep, When they scarcely can point out the place where we sleep That freedom shall flourish we’ve purchas’d so dear. The arm that created our shores and our glens Design’d they unconquer’d should ever remain: The power who inspired the hearts of our clans Design’d them; inviolate, their rights to maintain: Our castle the mountain, our bulwark the wave,

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True Courage and Jealousy buckler and sheild; We’ll laugh at the force of the world combin’d, And Oppression shall fly like the cloud in the wind; But the isles and the ocean to Britons must yeild. JH [Addressed:] R. Curtees [sic] Esq./ Mainsforth/ Near Rushyford/ Bishoprick of Durham [Endorsed:] With a parcel [Endorsed—not JH:] 5 Hoggs poems 8vo [Watermark:] R[?] [1804?] [caught in binding] [Location:] NLS, MS 9309, fols 29–30. There is a transcript at NLS, MS 811, fols 29–30. [Printed:] George Taylor, A Memoir of Robert Surtees, Esq., ed. by James Raine, Surtees Society, 24 (Durham, 1852), pp. 215–16. Robert Surtees see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. approbation [...] Mountain Bard Scott’s letter to Surtees of 21 February 1807 (Scott, Letters, I, 356) had mentioned a gift of a copy of The Mountain Bard, asking him to give it what popularity he could among his acquaintances. In his reply of 28 February 1807 Surtees had expressed his enjoyment and enclosed a five-pound note for its author— see George Taylor, A Memoir of Robert Surtees, Esq., ed. by James Raine, Surtees Society, 24 (Durham, 1852), pp. 45–46. five copies more Surtees had asked Scott for these, saying that he could put them into the hands of friends who might benefit Hogg and his work. old Welsh air Hogg’s song was later published as ‘The Delight of Prince Owen Kyveiliog’ in Scots Magazine, 69 (September 1807), 688, and reprinted as ‘Prince Owen and the Seer’, The Forest Minstrel (Edinburgh, 1810), pp. 200–01, but the name of the tune is not specified. Owain Cyveiliog, Prince of Powys (d. 1197) helped to defeat an invasion of Wales by Henry II in 1165, in which Hogg saw a parallel to the contemporary British resistance to Napoleon. now at London the Whig government was proposing to make changes in the Scottish legal system, which Scott believed to be a violation of the 1707 Treaty of Union and which might abolish the Clerks of Session of whom he was himself one. Scott was chosen to represent the interests of the Clerks of Session in London, where he arrived on 20 March 1807—see Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), I, 265–66.

To W. Smith

[May–December 1807]

A Shepherds most respectfull compts to his freind W Smith sends him The Lay, hopes he will take particular care of it as the first leaf will tell him it is a present from a very dear freind. Mary is well and wishes much to hear soon from Sarah James Hogg

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[Addressed:] [none—no address panel] [Endorsed—not JH:] This was sent to me in 1807 at the time the Shepherd/ had the farm of Corfardin Dumfriesshire/—I have only one letter in my possession left out/ of many I had from him W. S. [Watermark:] 1802 [Location:] From the collections at Torquay Museum, Devon: AR877. W Smith Hogg’s correspondent has not been identified. Hogg leased the farm of Corfardin from Whitsunday 1807, which, added to Smith’s endorsement, gives the probable date. a present Hogg’s copy of The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) is referred to in his letter to Scott of 18 April [1806] as a present from ‘a gentleman in Edin. to whom I was ashamed to confess that I had it not’. Mary [...] Sarah although the identity of these girls is unknown it is likely that Mary was a servant at Corfardin, while Sarah was a member of Smith’s household.

To Walter Cunningham

18 July 1807

St Boswells July 18 1807 Sir I have received from you 139 lambs which I oblige myself to graze until Whitsunday at the rate of six shillings and sixpence per. sheep and to pay you seven shillings and sixpence for every one amissing and to smear them at my own expence James Hogg To Mr Walter Cunninghame [Addressed:] none [Endorsed:] Agreement/ Mr James Hogg/ for Grazing Lambs/ 1807 [Watermark:] GR/ 1805 [Location:] National Archives of Scotland, SC63\10\29. [Printed:] John Chisholm, Sir Walter Scott as a Judge (Edinburgh, 1918), p. 212. Walter Cunningham Walter Cunningham was the tenant of Catslackburn farm in Yarrow—see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. St Boswells Hogg’s note was written at St Boswell’s Fair, held annually on 18 July— see note to Hogg’s letter to William Laidlaw of 20 July 1801. It would serve as a receipt to Cunningham for the lambs Hogg took away with him for grazing in Dumfriesshire. The agreement implies that Hogg was unable to stock both Corfardin and Locherben adequately himself.

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To Walter Cunningham

17 November [1807] Corfardin Novr. 17

Dear Sir Your hogs were all smeared but two and I believe other two are dead of the sickness since. I have taken grass for 100 of the leanest of yours and Mr. Laidlaws and if I can get it I will be obliged to take grass for some more for I cannot get quit of my ewes at any price. The hogs are dark smeared and look very well but are not nor never have been in high condition.—It is costumary [sic] for those who graze sheep by the year to get full maele at Martinmass for all that are smeared but as I have to account to you for the dead I will not ask above one half of it which as it can make no difference to you, you must not fail to oblige me with. No man knows of our transaction, nor do I wish any man to know, but as there is some people near you to whom I owe some money, I will send them with an order upon you, for a loan of so much and you may take their receipt for it. Now my dear sir you must not neglect to answer them for it will not be a little for my credit that you appear thus to lend me money on demand in attending to the above you will oblige your affectionate freind, James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr Walter Cunningham/ Catslackburn/ Selkirk [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ Mr James Hogg/ to/ Walter Cunninghame/ about Grass Mail/ November 1807 [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1803 [Location:] National Archives of Scotland, SC63/10/29. [Printed:] John Chisholm, Sir Walter Scott as a Judge (Edinburgh, 1918), pp. 212–13. Your hogs see the notes to Hogg’s letter to Cunningham of 18 July 1807. A hog is a sheep which has not yet been shorn. Mr. Laidlaws possibly James Laidlaw, the tenant of Blackhouse farm in Yarrow and father of Hogg’s friend William Laidlaw, for whom Hogg may also have grazed sheep in Dumfriesshire. Martinmass 11 November, one of the Scottish Quarter Days. Hogg is indicating that according to custom Cunningham now owes him the price fixed by their agreement of 18 July 1807. the dead Hogg was to pay seven shillings and sixpence for ‘every one amissing’ of Cunningham’s lambs. some people near you Cunningham’s subsequent statement of Hogg’s debt to him includes a payment made to Andrew Laidlaw of £7 and one to Thomas Hogg of Ettrickhall of £14, the latter a ‘sum due by Mr. James Hogg to him for articles at

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Ettrickhall roup’—see John Chisholm, Sir Walter Scott as a Judge (Edinburgh, 1918) p. 205. Thomas Hogg may have been Hogg’s cousin, the son of his paternal uncle James Hogg, christened at Kelso in 1768 (Kelso OPR). For the payment to Andrew Laidlaw see Hogg’s letter to Cunningham of 18 November 1807. an order upon you, for a loan Hogg is asking for a payment of money due to him in the guise of a loan to third parties, in order to make himself appear more creditworthy.

To Walter Cunningham

18 November 1807 Corfardin Novr. 18 1807

Dear Sir Please be so good as pay to Mr. Andrew Laidlaw Seven pounds sterling according as you promised for me and I will answer you in due time I am Sir Your Most Obedt. James Hogg [Addressed:] none [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Received the within/ Andrew Laidlaw [Endorsed—not JH:] Order/ Mr James Hogg/ in favour of/ Andrew Laidlaw/ £7/ Novemr 1807 [Watermark:] none [Location:] National Archives of Scotland, SC63/10/29. [Printed:] John Chisholm, Sir Walter Scott as a Judge (Edinburgh, 1918), p. 213. Mr. Andrew Laidlaw in his letter to Cunningham of the previous day Hogg had requested him to settle a debt due to Laidlaw from money due to him for grazing Cunningham’s sheep in Dumfriesshire. For further details see Hogg’s letters to Cunningham of 18 July and 17 November 1807 and notes.

To Walter Scott

2 May 1808 Edin. May 2d 1808

Dear Sir Now when I have got to this town I find that both you mr. Grieve and Mr. Constable are out of it and consequently that I might have saved myself the trouble of coming so far. I recieved your letter in course where as I expected I found that you were still interesting yourself in my wayward fortune as deeply as ever and as long as that is the case I am never afraid of being sore beat something I must do for I have given up my farm which I was obliged to do my stock being dead out I really do not know any thing about the excise be-

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sides I am far too old for going into it according to the rules prescribed by the board and to tell the truth I would rather be an ensign in the earl of Dalkeith’s regiment of militia than a common exciseman perhaps I am wrong and I am perfectly passive to your opinion but I believe you will not find it an easy matter to procure me a place in the excise There is one situation which would suit me extremely well but it is not yet vacant though the holder is grown qu[TEAR] doited that is surveyor of the taxes for Ettrick forest &c. I have asked several freinds what course they thought it proper I should follow now but their answer’s are invariably “You must see what Walter Scott says” So that my dear sir I will not nor can I form any engagement until I hear what you say I have not got my affairs settled in the country yet which if I do will leave me a good many pounds worse than nothing. I want by bargain a considerable sum from Constable but he is from home and as the mountain Bard is not sold off I understand I will not get any at this time it is my debtor’s rule never to pay me I have not recieved payment for one in six of my subscribers and I believe many of the lists are lost. I get a lesson on Marmion every day in Constables and until I get through it the news-papers will not suffer sore by my perusal. I heard two gentleman [sic] reading with great glee and much laughter several sheets of a parody upon part of it yesterday which they gave me to understand would be published. The verse seemed not at all contemptible but the matter bore every mark of malice and envy There were 240 copies of Marmion sold in constables shop yesterday forenoon. Jeffery’s review of it I am told is in some instances bitter to the last degree It is no matter either I am grossly mistaken or there are more natural beauties in Marmion than all your others and as long as that is admired (which it ever will be by a part) so will Marmion. You gave the truest picture of your manner of writing in the introduction to Mr. Erskine that ever was given [SEAL] ever will and I am particularly partial to that epistle I think it extremely beautifull. I should like extremely well to see another poem of yours in the same stanza with Glenfinlas my first and I believe still greatest favourite. I will stay in town till Monday morning and before that time I will expect a letter from you in return and I daresay you will be under the necessity (that is a strange expression) of inclosing £3— or an order for that sum else as neither Mr. Grieve nor Constable are at home I may be unable to pay my expences here and home again I am your poor unfortunate James Hogg

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[Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq./ Ashiesteel/ Selkirk [Postmark:] MAY W3A 1808 [Endorsed—not JH:] Mr James Hogg/ —May 1808 [Watermark:] C WILMOTT/ 1805 [Location:] NLS, MS 3877, fols 41–42. [Printed:] The Private Letter-Books of Sir Walter Scott, ed. by Wilfred Partington (London, 1930), pp. 90–91; Strout, p. 44 [in part]. you Mr. Grieve and Mr. Constable Hogg was seeking assistance from John Grieve as an old friend, from Scott as his literary patron, and from Archibald Constable as his publisher. your letter Scott’s letter has not apparently survived. my wayward fortune see Scott’s letter to Anna Seward of 27 May 1808 (NLS, MS 3653, fols 147–48): ‘His whole stock of sheep has been utterly destroyed by the late hard season & being unable to renew it, he must quit his farm. What will become of him I know not but I think Lord Dalkeith will do something for him’. Morrison in his ‘Random Reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott, of the Ettrick Shepherd, Sir Henry Raeburn &c. &c.—No I’, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, 10 (September 1843), 569–78 (p. 574) implies that Hogg’s conviviality led to his neglect of his duties as a sheep-farmer: ‘The ground was covered with snow; and on entering the farm, I found all the sheep on the wrong side of the hill. Hogg was absent, and had been so for some days, feasting, drinking, dancing, and fiddling, &c., with a neighbouring farmer’. There had been heavy snowfalls in late April, following an unusually hard winter. The writer of ‘Monthly Memoranda in Natural History’, Scots Magazine, 70 (April 1808) noted a heavy fall of snow during the afternoon of 18 April and another on the night of 21/22 April, adding, ‘It is not a little remarkable that snow-storms have thus occasionally recurred, during the past season, for the long period of six months, the first fall having happened early in November last’ (p. 247). In the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 23 April 1808 it was noted, ‘Since Saturday last we have had a succession of snow storms; and the weather has been exceedingly boisterous and cold for such an advanced season of the year. In this neighbourhood the snow disappears in a few hours, except on the hills; in some parts of the country we understand it lies so deep as to interrupt the communication’. I have given up my farm Hogg had relinquished his 12-year lease of Corfardin, but clearly kept his interest in Locherben since his letter to Scott of 28 July 1809 is dated from there. the excise Scott had suggested the excise as another occupation for Hogg, clearly with Robert Burns in mind. In a letter to his brother Thomas of 20 June 1808 Scott said: ‘James Hogg has driven his pigs to a bad market. I am endeavouring, as a pis aller, to have him made an Excise officer, that station being, with respect to Scottish geniuses, the grave of all the Capulets. Witness Adam Smith, Burns, &c.’ (Lockhart, II, 179). the earl of Dalkeith’s regiment of militia the Earl of Dalkeith was Colonel of the 70th (Dumfriesshire) Regiment of Militia—see Edinburgh Almanack and Scots Register for 1808 (Edinburgh, 1807), p. 211. Regiments were customarily named after their colonel before the numbering system was introduced. surveyor of the taxes for Ettrick forest &c. the Surveyor of Taxes for Peebles and

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Selkirk was John Little—see Edinburgh Almanack and Scots Register for 1808, p. 64. I have not got my affairs settled Hogg seems to have failed to come to a composition with his creditors, thus leaving the way open for them to pursue him at law for their debts at any future period when he was more prosperous—this seems to have happened after the success of The Queen’s Wake in 1813, as Hogg relates in his letter to Scott of 3 April 1813. from Constable Hogg may have been thinking of publishing a second edition of The Mountain Bard, as well as of collecting any outstanding subscriptions that had come to Edinburgh for the 1807 edition. Marmion Scott’s poem was first published on 22 February 1808, a second edition brought out in April, with a third to come in July—see Todd & Bowden, pp. 87–92. a parody this has not been identified. Jeffery’s review see Edinburgh Review, 12 (April 1808), 1–35. the introduction to Mr. Erskine each of the six cantos of Scott’s Marmion is prefaced by a poetical epistle to one of his friends. Hogg refers to the introduction to the third canto, which is addressed ‘To William Erskine, Esq.’ Scott had read part of Marmion to Hogg before publication—see Anecdotes of Scott, ed. by Jill Rubenstein (S/SC, 1999), pp. 24–25, 54–55. Glenfinlas ‘Glenfinlas, or Lord Ronald’s Coronach’, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 2 vols (Kelso, 1802), II, 373–92.

To Alexander Dirom

16 May [1808] Edin. May 16th

Dear General May it please your honour I have been in Edin. these two weeks and am very sorry that you were not at home for I wanted particularly to consult you on a selfish concern. The truth is I have given up my farm and as I am a single man and look upon the farming system as in a precarious state and besides I have never a competency of stock to enable me to carry my plans into execution. So I have determined to give up all further attempts to succeed in that way. And as I am well assured that contrary to the most of other great men, you are more apt to do a good thing than to promise a great deal I was going to intercede with you to procure me an appointment as principal shepherd to some gentleman of your acquaintance for which I recon myself qualified, or else an Ensigncy in some regiment of foot which ever you thought most proper: if you know of any such situation as the former or approve of the latter your sentiments on the subject or on any subject will always be highly acceptable to your honours most Obedt James Hogg The Ettrick Shepherd

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[Addressed:] Bigadeer [sic] General Dirom/ Edin [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] C WILMOTT/ 1805 [Location:] Coutts & Co, London: Dirom Papers, no. 122, Box 602. [Printed:] Frank Miller, ‘Unpublished Letters of the Ettrick Shepherd to a Dumfriesshire Laird’, Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, third series, 17 (1930–31), 11–18 (p. 14) [in part]; Strout, pp. 64–65 [in part]. Alexander Dirom see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. given up my farm see the note to Hogg’s letter to Scott of 2 May 1808. principal shepherd to some gentleman of your acquaintance Dirom was an improving landlord and a member of the Highland Society of Scotland. Hogg’s letter to Scott of 26 September 1808 indicates that General Dirom tried to use his contacts with the Society on Hogg’s behalf. Ensigncy in some regiment of foot as a senior officer Dirom would be able to exercise patronage in the matter of army appointments.

To Eliza Izett

23 July 1808

Locherben by Thornhill July 23 1808 Dear madam I daresay this will turn out to be neither less nor more than a love letter, for it is just the second that ever I wrote to a lady, or to a woman of any kind in all the days of my life, and there was some few sentences about love in it. I will however try if a man cannot write to, and converse with a lady about his own age with all the freedom, with all the esteem, with all the respect due to her rank and condition; and yet with the same purity of sentiment becoming a man to his own sister. but here comes in mr. Suspicion and looks over my shoulder. “Dear madam Oho James who is this you are writing to?” To a lady sir. “Who is it pray?” A lady I very much respect sir. “You respect her do you?” yes sir. “and esteem her?” yes sir. “and love her?” no. yes. no.—“Confess that you are in love with her?” No by G— nor ever intends to be. “What! is she handsome?” Aye very “Is she pretty” Aye very pretty. “Witty?” aye. “and sensible?” Aye. “And you have selected her from all the rest of the world for your only female correspondent?” Yes sir. “And are determined not to be in love?” Yes sir. “Well well James it is written with God all things are possible but you must allow that with poets some things only are possible” I’ll try sir I’ll try. but my pen has run away with me in the prelude and I must now turn the leaf and begin my letter on the other side

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Well how are you my dear Eliza? and how is the laird? and what way is the amiable lady C. Forest since you breathed the healthy and callar breeze from the Grampian hills? tell me Is your health and spirits excellent? Or tell me if ever the prospects of Athol were more delightfull? her vallies richer? or the breeze from her woods more fragrant? if you confess that they never were more so I will conclude that you never were better, for health and contentment give a relish to a sensible heart for the pleasures of a country life to which others are dead. I fear the weather has been too warm for your having taken many long rambles through your estate, but you have plenty of both airy and shaded walks near your own mansion, and I am sure the banks of the Tay must be so inviting this season, that I expect when I come up to get some goose-berries, that I will not know you but take you for some ruddy sun-burnt daughter of the mountains. I have always been very highly flattered Eliza by the attention paid to me by you but yet I must confess that I was much more so by that paid to me by Mr. Izet. Yours my vanity helped me to account for. You are, like me, of a literary turn of mind, and even a considerable degree of similarity appears to prevail in our tastes and opinions. but Mr. Izet who has been singular for his attention to and consequently success in business, was as likely a man to despise the flighty and flimsy charactar of a poet (even though convinced that he had some merit, and that his heart was not amiss) as any one I could have thought of, and I certainly will never forget his generous offer for of all the promises which the gentry and nobility have made to me never any of them really made me an offer equal to that which Mr. Izet did by John Grieve We must however think no more of it, for a man who has not stock sufficient to make the most of a farm, and to enable him to carry his views into execution is only an encumbrance on his Landlord which I would certainly be on Mr. Izet. Besides I have a fault in farming which I have but lately discovered: Servants do not stand in sufficient awe of me. Not that they ever refuse my orders which they always do with the greatest alacrity but often neglect their duty with impunity not being in the least afraid of my censure. Though it is rather too far for a visit when I have no other end in view yet I never had any thing more at heart than making one to you at Kinnaird this summer, as I can never have more leisure. I was particularly pleased with the wild beauty of the Braes of Athol have mentioned them in many verses and letters, and have something of a longing desire to see them again however until I get a line

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from some one of the family or Mr. Grieve I will not venture, as I am uncertain how long you mean to stay. In the mean time you must not my dear [TEAR] insist on my becoming one of your farmers for I know I c[TEAR] withstant [sic] your solicitations and I have been so peculiarly unfortunate in all my endeavours to succeed in that sphere, that it seems to me as if providence had some other thing to do with me, or that my directing angel were wishing to divert my thoughts into some other scene of action. The priviledge that I have from farming at present is worse than none, and I am just waiting until an open door suiting my bulk shall offer, having plenty of great promises of introduction Farewell Eliza God bless you and your generous better half be sure to take plenty of excercise and live mostly upon milk which is of more benefit to a delicate constitution than even the change from the town to the country air for though you are not at all sensible of it at the time its beneficial effects will be visible on your spirits for a long time on your return farewell. when you have nothing better to amuse you sit down and write a letter to the Ettrick Shepherd and do just as I do write whatever comes uppermost and believe me madam your most gratefull Shepherd James Hogg [Addressed:] Mrs. C. Izet/ Kinnaird/ Dunkeld [Postmark:] JUL W27M 1808 [and] LANGHOLM [Watermark:] KENT/1805 [Location:] NLS, MS 3278, fols 62–63. Eliza Izett see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. the second that ever I wrote to a lady the implication is that this is the first letter Hogg wrote to Eliza Izett. with God all things are possible see Matthew 19. 26, where Jesus in the course of talking about the camel going through the eye of a needle and the rich man entering the kingdom of God says, ‘With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible’. the laird presumably Chalmers Izett, the laird of the Kinnaird estate. amiable lady C. Forest Chalmers Forrest, the niece of Chalmers Izett. She was an accomplished amateur musician who not only sang Hogg’s songs but also set some of them to music—see Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd (Edinburgh, 1831), pp. 26, 242, 253. his generous offer Chalmers Izett had offered to give Hogg the tenancy of one of the farms on his estate, although Hogg could not accept because he had no capital with which to stock it—see his letter to Scott of 26 September 1808. a longing desire to see them again Hogg’s previous visit to Kinnaird had probably been made to inspect the farm Chalmers Izett offered him—see his letter to Scott of 23 July 1808. how long you mean to stay at this time the Izetts seem to have spent their winters in Edinburgh and their summers at Kinnaird.

92 To Walter Scott

TH E LETTE RS OF JAM E S HOGG

26 September 1808 Edinr Septr. 26 1808

Dear Sir Your last gave me a very great deal of pain however upon a mature deliberation I saw it contained only such advices and reflections as a father would send to his son or any one dear friend to another when convinced as you have been of the impropriety of his conduct. The truth is that your information respecting my carelessness during the time I was in Corfardan though visibly augmented and delivered in malice is not without foundation entirely but it proceeded wholly from being engaged wholly in a hopeless job for in any other thing that ever I took in hand you know well enough that I was diligent and faithfull to my trust and I have no hesitation in declaring [eol] declaring that if I had any thing in hand where diligence would do it I would even be more so than ever I was having had so many lessons to depend only on myself and my own exertions As you desired me I went and saw Mr. Izets farm but as he does not wish to stock it himself I could do nothing in it though he and his lady both seem anxious to the last degree to accomodate me. But I really do not know what way to turn myself Gen. Dirom and Sir John Sinclair say they have no doubt of procuring me a situation as a principal shepherd to some gentleman or farmer and perhaps a favourable one if you will assist their endeavours and General Dirom was so good as to say before Sir John and several other members of the Society that he would answer for my good behaviour and I sincerely hope that worthy gentleman shall never be ashamed of his assertion but as the procuring of this is quite uncertain and I really am destitute do not you think my dear Sir that your former plan of getting me into the excise is as good a thing as I can do I have been enquiring about it and find that I could do it very well a very sensible excise-man informs me that there is no way of my getting in than for some nobleman to write a letter to the lords commissions stating that James Hogg at Locherben by Thornhill has every qualification requisite to make a good officer of excise and intreating of them as a favour to order the board to put me into immediate employment which would instantly be complied with and thus insure to me a regular and sure competence. I know you could easily prevail on some of your noble friends to do this. If any of them wanted a shepherd I would indeed prefer my original mode of life under such illustrous masters but otherwise I think the excise the thing. I am much obliged to you for the favourable mention you have again made of me in your illustrations you have always shown

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yourself resolved to do good and you do not know how much I am hur[TEAR] at your seeming to think me unworthy of your care I know very well that I have never in the least merited any attention from you and that has made always presume [sic] so much on it as it seemed a natural and rooted affection and in fact I would rather be obliged to you than any man alive. and though I can hardly say I fear it yet I must tell that you must not forsake me else I’m perfectly useless I will do or be any thing you like only let me retain a place in your affections and regard. I had a strong desire and intended to have seen you but was informed by Mr Ballantine that you were overpowered with company. I have read several English reviews of my books at great length which are favourable in the extreme yet a good many copies yet remain on the bookseller’s hand. farewell believe me ever your own James Hogg P S. Whenever you please to write to me direct as formerly to J. H. Locherben by Thornhill J. H. [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq./ Ashiestiel/ Selkirk [Postmark:] SEP R26E 1808 [Endorsed:] Mr James Hogg/ 26 Septr 1808 [Watermark:] none [Location:] National Archives of Scotland, GD224/33/1/ 3/2. Your last this letter does not appear to have survived, though Scott refers to it in forwarding this reply of Hogg’s to the Earl of Dalkeith. In his letter of 25 October 1808 he writes: ‘I heard he neglected his sheep & forgot his sheephook a little too literally in his last situation upon which subject I deemed it meet to give him a word of advice to which he alludes in the beginning of his letter’—see Scott, Letters, II, 100. your information Scott’s informant is likely to have been John Morrison, notorious for his malicious tongue. For an indication of what he is likely to have reported to Scott see his published account of Hogg as a farmer in Dumfriesshire, ‘Random Reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott, of the Ettrick Shepherd, Sir Henry Raeburn, &c. &c.—No. I’, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, 10 (September 1843), 569–78 (pp. 573–75). Mr. Izets farm see also Hogg’s letter to Eliza Izett of 23 July 1808. Gen. Dirom see Hogg’s letter to General Alexander Dirom of 16 May [1808] and notes. Sir John Sinclair Sir John Sinclair, 1st Bart. of Ulbster (1754–1835), President of the Highland Society of Scotland, and creator of the Statistical Account of Scotland (1791– 99). the Society the Highland Society of Scotland, of which Dirom was a member and Sinclair President. some nobleman to write a letter in his letter to the Earl of Dalkeith of 25 October 1808 enclosing this one (Scott, Letters, II, 100) Scott asks for his help: ‘He has I

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presume no very accurate information on the mode of application necessary to get this appointment but I suppose it ought to be made directly to the Board or through some friendly commissioner. They are I believe put upon trial for some time. If I can relieve your Lordship of any of the trouble you will command me’. the favourable mention [...] in your illustrations Scott had mentioned Hogg’s The Mountain Bard twice in his notes to Marmion; A Tale of Flodden Field (Edinburgh, 1808)— see pp. xl, lvi. by Mr Ballantine probably Scott’s printer James Ballantyne (1772–1833), though it is just possible that Hogg is referring here to his younger brother John (1774–1821). English reviews of my books in Edinburgh Hogg had access to current periodicals in the booksellers’ shops, such as that of Archibald Constable, the publisher of The Mountain Bard (published in February 1807) and The Shepherd’s Guide (published in June 1807). a good many copies yet remain on the bookseller’s hand nevertheless sales of The Mountain Bard appear to have been good. Constable reported to Hogg in his letter of 1 June 1807 (NLS, MS 23231, fols 147v–148r) ‘We are happy to tell you that the 8o Copies of the Mountain Bard are all gone & Mr Murray has been very active in the cause [...]’. The octavo copies are the larger, subscription, copies.

To Archibald Constable

26 September 1808

If you will be so kind as impute my behaviour at this time to the effects of your own hospitality, and not to any natural bias, I promise—nay, I swear—never to offend you again in thought, word, or deed. [Location:] Printed, Constable, II, 354. my behaviour this is presumably Hogg’s apology for getting drunk at Constable’s house during his brief visit to Edinburgh in September 1808. Hogg’s letter to Scott of the same date is also dated from Edinburgh. Constable was the publisher of Hogg’s The Shepherd’s Guide (1807) and The Mountain Bard (1807).

To Janet Stuart

10 October [1808?] Locherben by Thornhill October 10th

Dear Madam I am now got home to my own native mountains and glens, a very good contrast to the noise and bustle about Edinburgh, but, however strange it may appear to you, since ever I had the pleasure of seeing you, I have never had leisure or inclination to think five minutes at a time on any body but yourself so without other apology I must just tell you that it is so; and believe me when I waited on

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the company next day at Miss Peacocks and instead of my dear Adeline found only her apology, I felt a disappointment which your teeming mind can easily paint, but which I know you will not believe. I have for many years desired to see you, being greatly taken with the harmony of even your most trifling pieces, and oft have I been promised the pleasure, but never till that night could bring it to bear. You will not be displeased at the picture I had formed of you in my own mind? I expected to see in Adeline a very important woman indeed, with pretentions to taste and judgement as far above her ideas as other literary ladies have: of a tall thin form, with hollow eyes, and a considerable beard: positive, proud and overbearing. Judge then of my astonishment when I saw that great Soul whose flights of fancy had so often dazzled me, inclosed in a mould so beautiful so sweet and withal so unassuming that even the least pretensions to discrimination in others made her blush. In truth my dear Stuart I do and ever will look upon you as a miracle in nature. In the morning after we parted without taking time either to shave or dress I run through all the booksellers in Edinr and not knowing the poem to be anonymous like a blockhead asked every one for Miss Stuarts Ode to Dr. Piercy. No. none of them had ever heard of such a thing some only shook their heads at me. At length after four hours hunting I started it in a Mr Mundels started did I say no it was burrowed: the fellow that let me in digged a full half hour for it and at length brought out an only copy. What’s the price? said I “7/6 Sir” Are you wise enough? said I. “Yes Sir” I’ll not take your word for it said I, counting the leaves, does the rest of the people of the house think you are? “I’ll ask Sir” The man thought I meant to ask if he was correct. what he said I know not but other three came and one of them seemingly a gentleman said “pray Sir do you know Miss Stuart” “Know Miss Stuart!!” “I beg your pardon Sir I meant if you were acquainted.” I know nothing about her said I who is she? A very excellent young lady Sir, but how then did you know of her poem?” By hearing some verses recited said I, but you must suppose me a great fool if you think I will give 7/6 for a pamphlet like that “We don’t sell books by the weight here Sir; believe me ’tis a great bargain, a very extraordinary production.” I was fairly silenced so I had no shift but to pay down my money and trudge off with my broad book which some of my friends took for a ledger. I did not only read it I devoured it: the man was right; it is an extraordinary production. I do not think a man is flattering when he tells what he thinks I think there is not a more beautifull poem in the English language of its kind. Some of my friends, though they acknowledge

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it contains great beauties, blame it for what they are pleased to call a mysterous [sic] obscurity, while to me whom am luckily versant in ancient ballads, it is as plain as the A B C. Yet I acknowledge I should be happy to see in my Adeline’s next piece a little more of the unaffected simplicity so visible in her whole character and deportment. If I had not known who you were I would have taken you for a country girl who knew but little and made no pretentions even to that little. A thousand times have I sung that song on my way home If on a shepherd she would smile And tend the ewes and lambs with me This world would then be worth my while Its charms I never yet could see Then all her joys should cheer my heart And all her griefs make me repine And never from my soul should part My dear my lovely Adeline Think you could you find in your heart to turn a Shepherdess Adeline? or tell me what I shall turn to gain you? I’ll be a tinker or a ballad singer to attain your company. Nay don’t laugh ’tis really worth our while for the curiosity of the breed. I have not half done, but I must either conclude or begin a new sheet pray when you have nothing better to do, be so kind as write a few lines to the Ettrick Shepherd, who will really value your friendship as one of the highest blessings Heaven can bestow. So with the warmest wishes of my heart for your welfare and happiness I remain Madam your sincere friend and passionate admirer, James Hogg [Addressed:] Miss J. Stuart/ Water of Leith/ Edinr [Location:] Copy, NLS, MS 2207, fols 108–09. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 49–51. Janet Stuart was the ‘Adeline’ who had contributed thirteen pieces of poetry to the Edinburgh Magazine between December 1801 and December 1803. She was a friend of the youngest daughter of Dr Robert Anderson (1750–1830), who was at one time the editor of this magazine, and well-known as a friend to young poets. In 1804 she published Ode to Dr. Thomas Percy, Lord Bishop of Dromore, Occasioned by reading the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry in Edinburgh. Anderson communicated with Percy about this publication, who subsequently subscribed ten guineas. Janet Stuart contributed ‘The Druid’ to no. 13 of Hogg’s essay-periodical The Spy—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 138–41, 569, 593. Hogg’s letter to Eliza Izett of 26 October 1814 refers to her leaving Edinburgh to take up a situation in the south, but she was in Edinburgh again in 1821 when her novel St Aubin; or, The Infidel was published by Oliver and Boyd.

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date Hogg took possession of the farm of Locherben at Whitsunday 1807, and abandoned it in the autumn of 1809. As the letter is headed ‘October 10th’ and refers to Miss Peacock the year must be either 1807 or 1808—see the following note. Hogg seems to have lived at Corfardin rather than Locherben, however, until the spring of 1808 when he gave up his lease of this farm, making 10 October 1808 the most likely date of this letter. It was also clearly written after Hogg’s return from a recent visit to Edinburgh, and his letters to Scott and Constable of 26 September 1808 show that he was in Edinburgh then. Miss Peacocks Mary Peacock (1767–1829) was the daughter of the Edinburgh mason and architect Alexander Peacock, and a friend of Mrs Agnes M‘Lehose, Burns’s Clarinda, who had presumably introduced her to Burns. Burns read her manuscript poem ‘Henry’ and praised her as ‘a charming girl, and highly worthy of the noblest love’, while R. P. Gillies described her as ‘a poetess and voluminous letter-writer’. She married Hogg’s Edinburgh friend James Gray on 25 October 1808, and as Mrs Gray was one of Hogg’s most important contributors to The Spy of 1810–1811—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), p. 564. Mr Mundels presumably the firm of Mundell, Doig & Stevenson of Parliament Square in Edinburgh, although Robert Mundell had been dead for many years and the Mundell of the firm was probably his widow, Catherine Mundell—see the Scottish Book Trade Index, at http://www.nls.uk/catalogues/resources/sbti/index.html. my broad book although a comparatively short poem, Ode to Dr. Thomas Percy was printed on large paper and formed a thin book with large dimensions. If on a shepherd [...] my lovely Adeline if this is a quotation rather than an original poem by Hogg it has not been identified.

To Eliza Izett

11 December 1808 Locherben By Thornhill Decr. 11. 1808

My dear Eliza I am resolved I will not be like Miss Dicks correspondent in London, for though I have erred in one particular, I shall refrain from the other Do you remember the charactar of hers? Observe Eliza, you are to read the speech marked with inverted comma’s in as fine English as you can pronounce with somewhat of a theatrical air, and you may go as often over it as you please. “She is the most shocking correspondent that ever I see’d in my whole life; she is a full halfyear in writing to me at all; and then her letter is filled wholly up with apologies for not writing sooner” But to neglect writing to a friend is ungratefull and admits of no apologies, pardon me Eliza. I left you and Kinnaird too soon, which I have often repented: But it was against your will and rather against my own. it was all Mr. Haggart. What is become of Tom? does the flower of Tullymet bloom as fresh in his bosom as ever? He is a kind deserving creature, but I fear will have to struggle with rivals, jealousies, and settlements “Ah Tam ah Tam thou’lt get thy faring In Hell they’l roast thee like

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a herring” Now I know as so much about this lady occurs in my first page, that you will pretend to attribute it to something with which it has no business. No no don’t be jealous my dear Eliza for if her person fea-[eop] features and deportment were all superior to yours, which heaven knows they never will compare with, yet she wants the mind the ease the kind benevolence of my Eliza: but I am unfortunate in my correspondence with you as well as all other things for there are some persons in the world that we cannot tell the truth of without it being suspected as flattery. What a sovereign power you have over the feeling part of our sex! I always found myself at a loss to speak sense or even to speak at all in your company but I did not know any were so but myself. You happened to say once to me “I never saw any body so much at a loss to express himself as Mr. Grieve” As I had never observed this of my friend I thought of it and mentioned it to him the first time he rallied my coarse dialect “Gud I don’t know how it is” said Grieve “but I never feel at a loss in any body’s company but hers” very well thought I there are more poets in the world than one. This brings to my memory the London correspondence which he mentioned you wished to initiate me into I wrote something about it to him again consequently can say no more about it till I hear from you or him. You two can set a more proper estimate on my talents than I can and whatever you engage me to do if in my power I will You desired me on parting with much warmth to write you always of my circumstances and prospects. The former with respect to me are but so and so, I had a long and severe illness but am now very well, very poor, and very happy: As to prospects, excepting those from our hills on a clear day, I have none that can be depended upon, or at least none very flattering. My poor old Hector who has twice seen me turned out of house and hold and who was grown quite gray and blind in my service, was the other day run down by a horse and got his thigh broke, and his body much crushed; although his death would be an act of mercy I cannot consent to it. God grant that the afternoon of his unfortunate masters day may [TEAR]t more serene than his, which has tr[SEAL] suffered under every depression, and in nothing more than being so often obliged to part from me, and seeing himself supplanted in my favour by another, whom he always attacked with a resolution either to kill or be killed. My kindest respects to Mr. Izet and the amiable Miss Forest; the next time I come to Edin I will bring verses with me to the tunes of Lord Eglingtons auld man and the other gaelic air but I have finished no small piece nor indeed any piece at all since I saw you. The dialogue betwixt the poet and the Tay I

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sticked, possibly I may finish it some other time. Farewell send me all the news and believe me Dear Madam Your ever faithfull shepherd James Hogg [Addressed:] Mrs E. Izet/ Edinr [Postmark:] [illegible] 1808 [and] THO[smudged] L3-5.D. [Watermark:] [BRITANNIA ENCIRCLED WITH A CROWN ON TOP] [Location:] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: James Hogg Collection GEN MSS 61, Box 1, Folder 13. [Printed:] Adam, pp. 1–2. Locherben Hogg retained a financial interest in the farm of Locherben despite his sheep-farming disaster earlier in the year, and was grazing sheep for other farmers. Miss Dicks correspondent Miss Dick is probably Eliza Serena Anne Dick—see the note on the flower of Tullymet below. you and Kinnaird Hogg had visited the Izetts at their country home of Kinnaird near Dunkeld earlier in the year, to see a farm which Mr Izett had offered to him—see Hogg’s letter to Scott of 26 September 1808 and notes. Mr. Haggart has not been identified, but he was presumably a relation of Eliza Izett, whose baptismal record of 13 June 1774 reveals that her mother’s name before marriage had been ‘Jannet Hagart’ (Dowally OPR). Tom has not been identified. the flower of Tullymet perhaps Eliza Serena Anne Dick, the daughter of William Dick of Tullymet in Perthshire. She married Lieutenant-Colonel William George Harris on 17 October 1809, and died in 1817—see Corson, p. 488. Her bereaved father wote of her to Scott, ‘We considered her very near perfection in Mind & person & few of those who knew her blamed us for so doing [...]’—Scott, Letters, VI, note on p. 91. “Ah Tam [...] herring” see lines 201–02 of ‘Tam o’ Shanter’, in The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, ed. by James Kinsley, 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), II, 557– 64 (p. 563). Mr. Grieve Hogg’s early friend John Grieve (1781–1836), a partner in the Edinburgh hatters business associated with Chalmers Izett. the London correspondence nothing is known of this. a long and severe illness this appears to be the only record of Hogg’s illness in 1808. poor old Hector Hogg’s sheepdog, celebrated in ‘The Author’s Address to his Auld Dog Hector’, The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 183–89 and subsequently in his ‘Dogs’—see The Shepherd’s Calendar, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 1995), pp. 57–67. the amiable Miss Forest see note to Hogg’s letter to Eliza Izett of 23 July 1808. tunes of Lord Eglingtons auld man ‘Lord Eglinton’s auld Man’ was published in The Forest Minstrel (Edinburgh, 1810), pp. 33–34. the other gaelic air has not been identified.

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dialogue betwixt the poet and the Tay presumably a piece Hogg had begun to write to celebrate the scenery of Kinnaird House, Eliza Izett’s country home. Mador of the Moor (1816) seems to have been begun under a similar impulse in 1813—see Memoir, pp. 34–35, 234.

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TO 1810 To Walter Scott

[April 1809?]

Dear Sir,—Our friend Morrison called at Locherben, and left with my housekeeper six pounds, which is far too much. I was from home; but he found things, I suppose, pretty comfortable; for he drank tea and toddy, and passed the evening, if not the night, very agreeably; and has left a dashing character behind him. I have little doubt that he was presented with the deoch-an-doruis on his departure. I have also observed that my housekeeper wears a brooch in her breast, which used not to figure there. [Location:] Printed, John Morrison, ‘Random Reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott, of the Ettrick Shepherd, Sir Henry Raeburn, &c., &c.—No. I’, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, 10 (September 1843), 569–78 (p. 574). date Morrison says that Scott showed him this letter in Edinburgh shortly after this visit to Locherben, and that ‘by some mistake I had put it in my pocket’—see ‘Random Reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott, of the Ettrick Shepherd, Sir Henry Raeburn, &c., &c.—No. I’, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, 10 (September 1843), 569–78 (p. 574). In his letter to Scott of 28 July 1809 Hogg recalls that ‘Mr. Morrison called at Locherben on April last when I was absent in Ettrick leaving [...] five guineas in the hands of our maid servant for me’. Morrison John Morrison (1782–1853) had been born at Terregles in Nithsdale and brought up in Kirkcudbright. As a boy he had become a protegé of the Earl of Selkirk, who taught him geometry, lent him books, and paid for his training as a land surveyor and for extra lessons in drawing. Morrison had studied painting in Edinburgh with Alexander Nasmyth, and had been employed by the engineer Thomas Telford. He had made Scott’s acquaintance in 1803 over a correction to Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border and Hogg’s acquaintance when in 1806 he found himself surveying the line of a road to Edinburgh in Closeburn parish, passing close to Mitchelslacks—see Alexander Trotter, East Galloway Sketches; or Biographical, Historical, and Descriptive Notices of Kirkcudbrightshire, Chiefly in the Nineteenth Century (Castle Douglas, 1901), pp. 54–61. six pounds perhaps part of this sum represented subscription money for Hogg’s The Mountain Bard of 1807, since the subscription price of the work was half a guinea and Hogg subsequently remembered the sum as five guineas—see note above. my housekeeper has not been identified. She may have been the Margaret Beattie who gave birth to Hogg’s illegitimate daughter, Elizabeth Hogg, on 13 March 1810— see Gillian Hughes, ‘James Hogg and the “Bastard Brood”’, SHW, 11 (2000), 56–68.

102 To Walter Scott

TH E LETTE RS OF JAM E S HOGG

28 July 1809

Locherben by Thornhill July 28—1809 Dear Scott It is true, I believe it, that all earthly comforts must come to an end, but why our correspondence languishes and threatenens [sic] to fall into a total desuetude I cannot comprehend, we have never differed in thought word nor action, and the supposition is untenable that you have declined it because I have been unfortunate in my worldly affairs. I have experienced your good wishes and your good offices times and ways without number, and I never expected being able to make you any returns save contributing a little to the [eol] the same kind of pleasure which you would experience on cultivating and cherishing some beautifull wild flower planted by the hand of nature in some inhospitable muir I know perfectly well that you are much more dissapointed than I am that I have never been able to attain to any thing better than labouring for my daily bread; it has been my own blame, and I am so much of a predestinarian as to live quite easy on that account. I only beg you will imbibe any body’s sentiments concerning me in the whole world but Peele’s and let us write no more of places and appointments and chances but about friends, books, ballads, songs, and such things. And first as to friends Mr. Grieve the hatter has been a true and a liberal one to me. He is some way or another convinced of my superior merit as a poet and nothing else influences him in the least: he has supplied me constantly with newspapers clothes, shoes, hats, and pocket money whenever he knew I wanted it. Constable I suspect has more sail than ballast and is become too important a man to do so much good as he might. I have much more hope of the messrs Ballantynes whose great success seems to be balanced by generosity, good sense and a refined taste, I doubt you will not acquiesce in my opinion, but I look upon little John Ballantyne as the best judge of composition in general that I have ever met with even beyond a comparison. This brings to my mind a proposal I was making to Mr. Grieve and you must tell me whether or not it is practicable. My books having been twice rouped off I am miserable for books, and I was proposing that the Ballantynes should be petitioned to keep a copy of every congenial book that they print as a tax upon the publishers for the benefit of a poor author, I do not see how it can cost any body almost any thing. My occupation is so laborious here that I have no time at all to finish any large work; several smaller pieces I am frequently pro-

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ducing. I projected and went a good length with a large poem entitled The Sutors of Selkirk but from being perswaded by friends of the incongruity of the title with the matter I sticked it. The principal one on the carpet at present is one on love which is already advanced considerably above an hundred single stanzas it is in English and much more refined and fewer fallings off in it than any of my former ones and must propably [sic] make the first in my next collection but hard work precludes the probability of its speedy conclusion and arrangement Another thing you must solve me in Mr. Morrison called at Locherben on April last when I was absent in Ettrick leaving sundry gentlemens compts. and yours among the rest with five guineas in the hands of our maid servant for me. He went off L—d kens whether to measure his roads and fields and though I made many enquiries I have never been able to learn to whom I am indebted for that money if it came from you the best thanks you can ricieve [sic] is to be assured that it found me without a shilling or a certainty where I could get one Now dear Scott how are you and what are you doing and how is Gilnockie whom of all the family I rather long most to see What does his features, propensities, and dimeanour amongst his fellows prognosticate? a warior? or a Lord of the bench? How is the lady and all the rest? Is old Camp living? comfortable now he can hardly be? Hector is gone. “And like my sangs hard luck has found When by the Shirra’s kempy tuzzled Diel that the critic an’ his hound Like snarling tikes were clogg’d an’ muzzled.” I may also inform that other two young gentlemen and myself were conjoined about an anonymous publication of two small volumes entitled Beauties of the Scottish Poets of the present day. [SEAL] on account of my absence from town who am the main drudge in it it is postponed for some time though the materials are considerably arranged I hope to have your opinion of all these and many things forbye in a short time and in the faith of it will subscribe myself Your ever gratefull Shepherd James Hogg [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq Advt./ Edinburgh [forwarded to Ashestiel] [Postmark:] AUG R26 1809 [Endorsed—not JH:] Mr. Hogg/ 28 August [Watermark:] SALMON/ 1807 [Location:] NLS, MS 3878, fols 97–98. [Printed:] The Private Letter-Books of Sir Walter Scott, ed. by Wilfred Partington (London, 1930), pp. 91–93.

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unfortunate in my worldly affairs Scott seems to have attributed Hogg’s loss of his sheep-stock in the spring of 1808 partly to his own neglect—see Hogg’s letter to Scott of 26 September 1808 and notes. labouring for my daily bread Hogg was living at Locherben and grazing sheep for other farmers at this time. Peele’s Robert Laidlaw, tenant of the farm of Peel adjacent to Scott’s country residence of Ashiestiel. He was the brother of William Laidlaw, the Dumfries lawyer with whom Hogg had negotiated his lease for the farm of Locherben—see Hogg’s letter to Scott of 10 January 1807 and notes. Mr. Grieve the hatter Hogg’s early friend John Grieve. He subsequently supported Hogg during his early attempts to turn professional author in Edinburgh from 1810—see note to Hogg’s letter to Scott of 16 January 1805, and Memoir, p. 27. Constable Archibald Constable (1774–1827) was Scott’s publisher in Edinburgh, and had also published Hogg’s The Mountain Bard and The Shepherd’s Guide of 1807. Scott had recently quarrelled with Constable, partly over the inauguration of the Tory Quarterly Review. Scott had objected to the views expressed concerning the Peninsular War in Constable’s Edinburgh Review. the messrs Ballantynes James Ballantyne (1772–1833) was Scott’s printer. Scott had just set up his younger brother John (1774–1821) as an Edinburgh publisher to rival Constable. The Sutors of Selkirk this poem has not apparently survived. Hogg subsequently wrote a prose tale, however, with a similar title—see ‘George Dobson’s Expedition to Hell, and The Souters of Selkirk’, in The Shepherd’s Calendar, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/ SC, 1995), pp. 118–41. one on love this has not been identified. Mr. Morrison the surveyor and engineer John Morrison (1782–1853). For his visit to Locherben see Hogg’s letter to Scott of [April 1809?] and notes. Possibly Hogg had forgotten that he had already mentioned Morrison’s April visit in that letter to Scott. Gilnockie Scott’s elder son Walter, born in October 1801. the lady and all the rest Scott’s wife Charlotte (1770–1826), and his other children Sophia (born 1799), Anne (born 1803), and Charles (born 1805). old Camp Scott’s favourite bull-terrier, Camp, had died in Edinburgh on 3 March 1809—see Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), I, 312. Hector is gone in his letter to Eliza Izett of 11 December 1808 Hogg reported that his old dog Hector had been run down by a horse and that his thigh was broken. “And like [...] an’ muzzled.” quoting some lines Scott may have written as an addition to Hogg’s poem ‘The Author’s Address to his Auld Dog Hector’, referred to in his letter to Scott of 23 October 1806. The poem was printed without these lines in The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 183–89. The incident with the two dogs took place at Crosslee farm in 1802: ‘When Hogg left us to go home, Mr Scott’s Camp, a very powerfull Bull terrier that always accompanied him & had been all along casting an eye of fiery indignation on Hoggs Hector, flew upon poor Hector when he was leaving the room with his master and would have worried him on the carpet in spite of Mr Scott if I had not in the midst of the fray got him by the collar, but finding it impracticable to make him quit his hold I introduced my left hand & so drawing the collar tight on his windpipe choked him for the time, an interference that his master

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heartily thanked me for, but which Camp never quite forgave’—see William Laidlaw’s reminiscences in Edinburgh University Library, MS Laing II. 281/2, p. 25. Beauties of the Scottish Poets of the present day Hogg seems to have kept this collection, and to have thought of publishing it towards the end of his life for the benefit of his nephew Robert Hogg’s widow and child. In his letter to James Cochrane of [November/December 1834], for example, he describes it as ‘The Beauties of the British Poets of the 19th century, contrasted and compared in copious notes to each extract. By Messrs. Hay, Howard, and Hogg’—see William Jerdan, Autobiography, 4 vols (London, 1852–53), IV, 299–300. Nothing is known about Hogg’s co-authors.

To Walter Scott

8 September [1810] Edin. Saturday 8th Sept

Dear Scott The first and second numbers of the Spy are now published. The first paper has been in general accused although productive of considerable curiosity the second has rather astonished them and is selling very fast this forenoon. I had not one Subscriber in Edin. save yourself when the first No. was published and I see I have this day upwards of 100 esq’s exclusive of others and as I am this incoming week to make out a regular list of them I want your directions if there is any noblemen of your acquaintance whose names I may venture to insert near the beginning for I have not yet an honourable save two and they are both ladies. I rolled up the first number with a letter to you but Mr. Ballantyne has not yet sent it off so I thought it proper to inform you by post how I was coming on, as you call it, and if you have no immediate conveyance otherwise I wish you would take the same method of letting me hear from you.—By the by as it is grown quite fashionable for every critical writer to aim a blow at you though they have never yet been able to hit you so as to hurt so my correspondent who introduces Mr Shuffleton has some of these in a paper that must appear in two or three weeks. if you care one farthing about it I will send you the page in my own M. S. that you may erase out of it whatever you please and I will take the blame of it for I never found more necessity for evasion than I have done these eight days yet I must acknowledge that were they not levelled against my best friend and patron I would (from the independant charactar the Spy has assumed to himself) rather that they remained. The want of your presence Erskine’s and General Dirom’s merely to make mention of such a thing in circles you frequent is some pounds out of my pocket weekly at present but such things may come round I cannot tell whether Peel has any legal charge against me for debt

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or not though I have some suspic[BINDING] of it and I very much fear if he have that I have little to hope in his forbearance if ever he have a chance of being the better for his trouble. I need not give you directions in such a case as that but I daresay you could procure me a discharge from that quarter which may be of use though at present I do not regard it Farewell my dear Scott good sport to you and good health to you and yours that you may enjoy it I have sometimes been eiry for losing your countenance but I hope the symptoms originated entirely in my own brain for on a diligent retrospect I can trace no other when a man loses conciet of himself he thinks and not without foundation that every body does the [sic] at least these sentiments have sometimes been in the possession of James Hogg [Addressed:] [none—no address panel] [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] [SHIELD] [Location:] NLS, MS 3879, fol. 184. [Printed:] The Private Letter-Books of Sir Walter Scott, ed. by Wilfred Partington (London, 1930), pp. 93–94; Strout, pp. 55–56 [in part]. Edin. by this date Hogg was settled in Edinburgh. In his Memoir (p. 23) he wrote ‘[...] in February 1810, in utter desperation, I took my plaid about my shoulders, and marched away to Edinburgh, determined, since no better could be, to push my fortune as a literary man’. the Spy finding that magazine and newspaper editors would not pay him for his work Hogg started a weekly essay-periodical, The Spy, the first number of which was published by James Robertson on Saturday, 1 September 1810. It ran for an entire year, or fifty-two weekly numbers—for further information see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000). any noblemen of your acquaintance Scott’s friends Lord Somerville and Mrs Maclean Clephane of Torloisk appear to have become subscribers—see Hogg’s letter to Scott of 28 September [1810]. Mr. Ballantyne Scott’s printer James Ballantyne, who was in constant communication with Scott. Mr Shuffleton ‘Mr. Shuffleton’s Allegorical Survey of the Scottish Poets of the Present Day’ appeared in nos. 2, 5, and 10 of The Spy (8 September, 29 September, and 3 November 1810). They were in fact written by Hogg himself—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 12–19, 44–51, 96–104 and notes. necessity for evasion [...] these eight days the first issue introduced the editorial persona of Mr Spy, who emphasised his anonymity. He stated, ‘[...] though there is scarcely a single individual in Edinburgh who has not seen me, as have great numbers in the country besides, yet not one of a thousand amongst them know who I am, or what I am about’—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), p. 1. Hogg himself had presumably been challenged as to the authorship of the paper.

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Erskine’s Scott’s early friend William Erskine (1768–1822), who was later raised to the bench as Lord Kinedder. General Dirom’s Alexander Dirom of Mount Annan in Dumfriesshire—see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Peel Hogg had taken a 7-year lease of Locherben farm from Whitsunday 1807. The agent with whom he dealt was William Laidlaw, a Dumfries lawyer and brother of Robert Laidlaw, tenant of Peel, the neighbouring farm to Scott’s country home of Ashiestiel—see Hogg’s letter to Scott of 10 January 1807 and notes. Hogg had given up the farm in debt before the end of his lease, and Scott must have warned him that if he failed to come to a composition with his creditors they would be able to pursue him for debt at any future period when his affairs looked more prosperous. This seems to have happened after the publication of The Queen’s Wake—see Hogg’s letter to Scott of 3 April 1813.

To Walter Scott

28 September [1810]

Edin. Sept 28 Dear Scott I have got a dreadfull letter from Mr Ballantyne every word of it I fear too too just; it seems that by one or two unlucky expressions in Number 4 I have given my work that looked so well, a wound which it will be difficult to heal. I am perswaded now that you are an easy critic, though God knows if I thought you so once: however I cannot rest until I hear your opinion of the papers you have seen. I have plenty of respectable correspondents but I imagined my light humourous papers would take best in a work intended for amusement. My few friends wish me to carry it on until it reaches to one volume, which I intend to do if my credit can reach it: but not if you positively advise the contrary. The 6 and 7 numbers are written by a most worthy and highly respectable gentleman of very extensive learning who is very anxious to have your opinion of their merits. He is a warm friend to the work, to me, and indeed I think to all mankind, and consequently I must show him what you write to me about his papers; this is enough to let you know in what manner to point out his faults and demerits My dear Sir do you think this slip really irretrievable for in future delicacy shall be my chiefest aim. I was writing in the cause of virtue and had not the smallest apprehension of having made such a blunder. but I am determined never to edite any work which is unworthy of your countenance. I have sent the numbers to L. Somerville but cannot find Mrs. M. Clephane I suppose ’tis no great matter as the case stands. if I should not write to you again before

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you read the 6 No. I will expect your observations on it at some length I am dear Scott yours And without you nothing but James Hogg [Addressed:] [none—no address panel] [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 3879, fol. 204. letter from Mr Ballantyne probably the one published in no. 7 of The Spy for 13 October 1810—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 72–73. John Ballantyne often acted as Scott’s agent in Edinburgh, and Hogg clearly feared that the disapproval he expressed was transmitted from Scott. Number 4 Ballantyne’s letter alludes to the concluding part of Hogg’s ‘Story of the Berwickshire Farmer’, The Spy, no. 4 (22 September 1810) in which the protagonist persuaded his housekeeper ‘to take a share of my bed until it was day, much against her inclination’. Eventually she ‘grew nearly double her natural thickness about the waist’, and he resolves to leave the country. On his return from abroad he finds her married to ‘a richer and more respectable’ man than himself who has also adopted the woman’s son as his own. Hogg’s moral aim was to show that his anti-hero ‘has scarcely ever performed one action of which he has not had cause to repent’—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 32–43. The 6 and 7 numbers the first part of James Gray’s ‘Life of a Profligate Student’ appeared in no. 6 of The Spy for 6 October 1810, but the second part was in fact postponed to no. 8—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 54–62, 75–84 and notes. L. Somerville probably John Southey Somerville, 15th Baron (1765–1819) who had a country house called the Pavilion, situated on the Tweed about eight or nine miles from Ashiestiel—Corson, p. 655. Scott had perhaps enrolled Lord Somerville as a subscriber following Hogg’s appeal for noble subscribers in his letter of 8 September [1810]. Mrs. M. Clephane Scott’s friend Mrs. Maclean Clephane, the daughter of Lachlan Maclean of Torloisk in Mull.

To Archibald Constable

[12 or 19 November 1810]

Monday morning Dear Constable I was so warmly solicited by my friends last night, to procure your name as publisher of The Spy and there being nothing I have such a desire for I haste to make our wishes known to you, for cross as you sometimes are, experience is beginning to whisper to me that there is as little selfishness and as much of the gentleman in

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your charactar as any man of my acquaintance in Edin. Now as you have no risk (profit from us I know you don’t want) and as your name alone is very likely to save The poor Spy from public execution for a year or two, I beg you will not refuse it. A change next week when the quarter is out, is absolutely necessary some way I want your advice at any rate The Spy P. S. The above not to be inserted among the literary anecdotes in the chapter for 1810 JH [Addressed:] Arch. Constable esq. [Endorsed—not JH:] James Hogg/ the Spy/ 1810 [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 7200, fol. 201. [Printed:] Constable, II, 354. date the thirteenth weekly number of The Spy was published on Saturday, 24 November 1810, but Hogg’s reference to a change ‘next week when the quarter is out’ is ambiguous. Next week could refer either to the calendar week (beginning on Sunday) following the one during which this letter was written or to the next weekly issue of The Spy. The letter could thus have been written either on Monday, 12 or Monday, 19 November. publisher of The Spy nos. 1–13 of The Spy had been printed by James Robertson, but Hogg then wished to change his printer. In his Memoir (pp. 25–26) he attributed this to a desire to break free of the drinking he was led into by Robertson and his workmen, but it seems likely that improving the production quality of his paper was also an important motive—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. xxiii– xxv. Constable clearly declined this proposition, as nos. 14 to 52 of The Spy were published by Andrew and James Aikman. Constable’s name, however, does appear on the title-page of the work, printed when the weekly numbers were collected into a volume. the chapter for 1810 clearly a reference to some Constable publication concerning Edinburgh events for the year, though it is not clear which. The Edinburgh Annual Register at this date belonged to the Ballantyne firm, and possibly Hogg is simply thinking of the chronicle section of the Scots Magazine.

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TO 1812 To Walter Scott

18 February [1811] N. Bridge 18th Feb

Dear Scott I forgot to mention to you that on my return from letting the lands of Cottonshop on the East Border last week, I was informed by some of the Teviotdale farmers at Hawick, that Mr. Riddel was very anxious to learn the real yearly value of the farms on the Buccleuch estate, the leases of which are all nearly expired. I do not wonder at this, for though they were all moderate enough before, yet it was notorious that they were very far from being equally valued. Now as I am the only person who values land for hire in Scotland that knows any thing about the value of pasture land do you think there would be any impropriety in my letting his Grace or the Chamberlain know of it, and how proud I would be to serve him You know I have been occassionally employed that way for many years, through all the highlands of Scotland, Galloway, Nithsdale, Cumberland, and Northumberland; and I can bring enough of proof, if such a thing were required, of my accuracy. In the large Northumberland estate which I valued last autumn though being a stranger no one would give me the smallest information yet the valuation which I gave has turned out to [eol] to be within forty shillings of every hundred pound when let to the highest offerer. This is a recent fact which is well known on the border, and some of the farmers have declared publicly, that if they had been sworn to give their average number of sheep they would have given the same that I did But as every thing connected with sheep and farming have been my chief study from my infancy, and being used to take memorandums of every thing, it so happens that in three out of four farms on the whole Buccleuch and Dumlanrig estates, I already know to a certainty both what stock they keep, and of what quality; so that if I were sure of acting honestly, and I know of no temptations to the contrary, it is impossible I could be mistaken in the value. I think such a statement could not fail of being particularly acceptable both to his Grace and the factors, as they keep the management of them so entirely in their own hands. I could give them an equal valuation in whatever mode they chose; or I could give them the rack rent of

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the whole, and then they could lay on the rents heavier, or lighter as they thought the tenants merited. Since I let the lands in Reeds-dale I have nothing to do in that way, save the letting of a few farms on the estate of M,Nab for which I do not need to leave my room.— Inform me then in your next whether you know if his grace wishes such a valuation for if he does I think there is a probability that I will be preferred.—I am the most moderate man in the world in my charges only a guinea each day or five per. cent. on the rents I give; all expenses included.—Remember me to Mr. Cromek and believe me ever Your affectionate freind James Hogg [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq./ No. 2/ North Castle Street [Postmark:] FEB W18M 1811 [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg/ about his valu/ing sheep Land/ 18 feby 1811 [Watermark:] V’FIELD/ 1809 [Location:] NLS, MS 3880, fols 45–46. N. Bridge opened in 1772 and linking the Old Town and New Town of Edinburgh— see Harris, p. 467. The hatter’s business of Hogg’s friend John Grieve was on the North Bridge (see Hogg’s letter to Scott of 16 January 1805 and notes), but so too was a reading-room frequented by Hogg at this time—see Gillian Hughes, ‘James Hogg and the Forum’, SHW, 1 (1990), 57–70 (p. 65). Cottonshop has not been identified. Mr. Riddel Charles Riddell of Muselee (1755–1849) was Major in the militia, and the Duke of Buccleuch’s Chamberlain. He lived at Branxholm—see Corson, p. 609. his Grace Scott wrote to Lady Dalkeith to inform her that ‘Our Ettrick Shepherd has laid by his pastoral reed for the more profitable employment of valuing Sheep Land [...]. His present object is to have the Dukes patronage in case his Grace wishes the service of such a person as is reported. If there is the least chance of such an application being successful I will take care to procure & send to the Duke or Mr Riddell the necessary attestations of his skill & character. His charge seems moderate and I will answer for his honesty: and he might be tried on a small scale at first’—see Scott, Letters, I, 299–300. Scott’s letter is generally dated to the spring of 1806, though Corson (p. 22) dates it to the following year because it refers to the Earl of Dalkeith’s interest in a Roxburghshire election. However, he was also active in a Roxburghshire contest in February 1811—see Scott, Letters, VII, 460. The date of Hogg’s letter is established by the postmark. Dumlanrig the Dumfriesshire estates of the Duke of Queensberry had recently passed to the Buccleuch family, when the 4th Duke died in 1810. rack rent a rent stretched to the utmost annual value of the thing rented. estate of M,Nab possibly the chieftain of the clan, Francis M‘Nab, whom Hogg had seen during his 1803 Highland Journey, and who is described in ‘Malise’s Journey to the Trossacks’—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), p. 616. The M‘Nab estate was in the Breadalbane district of Perthshire.

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Cromek Robert Hartley Cromek (1770–1812), a London engraver, who had visited Dumfries in 1809 to collect materials for a work on Burns. There he met Allan Cunningham, who gave him material for his Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song (London, 1810). Many of the songs were later revealed to be Cunningham’s own compositions.

To Margaret Phillips

27 July 1811

Edin. July 27 1811 Dear Margaret You see I still address you as familiarly as I used to do, as if you were my sister—but but you do not deserve it—indeed Margaret you do not—you promised me a great many love letters, and instead of that you have never sent me one, I have looked for them, and looked for them, by every body that came from your neighbourhood, and even sometimes asked for them, but all invain. So I am obliged contrary to our agreement to begin myself and “pon my word” it is so long since I wrote a love letter that I scarcely know how to begin. You will no doubt be expecting from a bard a great number of fine flowing extravagant sentiments—indeed my dear Margaret you must not—I wish not to be considered by you as a being of a different species with other people, but merely as a fellow creature whose heart and feelings are in unison with your own, who wishes you all the happiness consistent with the lot of humanity, and who does not scruple in the least to say that he loves you—do not be angry with me my dear Margaret—I am not courting you—nay I do not believe I would take you in a present (though it might make me cry to refuse you) yet it is a truth that there is not a face in Scotland which I would this day like better to see; nor did I ever miss any person so sore as I have done you, since you left us. Will you not visit Edin. this year in the vacation, when Mrs. G. is alone? I beg you will, if you do not come I fear I will never see you again and that is a thought not quite agreeable to me for I would not give an evening of your tittle-tattle and quaint harmless conciets for all the learned disquisitions of the blue-stocking club. I am going to Buccleuch-place to night Ah if I knew you were sitting at the window reading a book as I have often found you how delightfull would my visit be—I would fly and clasp you in my arms—No—no I would not do that—I would not kiss you neither—you know I would not—no matter, I would think about all these things there is no offence in thinking—“and I would watch thy witching smile and glossy een sae dark and wiley” In that face there is no shade of malice or dark design—it is open and free as the heart

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that directs its lineaments. I was as well acquainted with your character on the first night I saw you as ever I was or ever will be. Will you have a sketch of it? You have a kind and benevolent heart. a considerable share of vanity. some little reverence for religion and a high sense of virtue and moral propriety. You will be a warm tender lover if you ever be in love, consequently somewhat jealous. You will be a delightfull, teazing, affectionate, troublesome wife if ever you be one. and if you turn an old maid you will be one whom I would like very well to be near if it were only in order to plague you. If you will not keep your promise of writing to me I will just conclude that you are like other women though I had fondly hoped that you were better than the general run at any rate this will assure you that you are not forgot nor ever will be forgot by your affectionate James Hogg P. S. If you see Susy remember me to her. [Addressed:] Miss Margaret Phillips/ Longbridge-moor [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Mr Hogg/ care of Mr Gray No 4 Buccleugh Place [Watermark:] [CROWNED SHIELD] / 1810 [Location:] Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 1. Margaret Phillips see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. “pon my word” one of Margaret’s tricks of speech, a phrase which Hogg also uses in depicting her at the Edinburgh Theatre on 17 November 1810—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), p. 130. since you left us evidently Margaret had recently returned to her Dumfriesshire home from a visit to Edinburgh. At this period she lived with her brother Walter at Longbridgemoor in Nithsdale, acting as his housekeeper. Mrs. G. James Gray’s second wife, formerly Mary Peacock, whom he had married in November 1808. Hogg’s letter to Eliza Izett of 15 October 1811 implies that Gray was in the habit of taking walking holidays during the High School’s summer vacation. The endorsement of this letter as ‘care of Mr Gray’ together with the absence of a postmark may imply that Gray was about to visit his first wife’s Dumfriesshire connections during the vacation of 1811. Buccleuch-place to the house of his friend James Gray, at 4 Buccleuch Place. He had met Margaret Phillips there when she was visiting her brother-in-law and his wife. “and I would watch [...] dark and wiley” a quotation from Hogg’s ‘Scotch Song’— see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), p. 163. In Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd (Edinburgh, 1831), p. 193 Hogg states that this song was written in 1811 and formed part of a humorous letter ‘to the young lady who afterwards became my wife’. Susy probably Margaret’s cousin, Susan Phillips. ‘G.’ (clearly one of the Gray sons) relates that when Hogg met Margaret at the Gray home in Edinburgh ‘she was

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accompanied by a cousin, who, to much beauty, had the prospect, which was eventually realised, of inheriting a considerable fortune. After dinner, when the young ladies retired to the drawing-room, the Shepherd was asked what he thought of Miss Susan P—? He answered, “Margaret’s the lass for me.”’—see ‘Some Particulars Relative to the Ettrick Shepherd’, New Monthly Magazine, 46 (February 1836), 194–203 (p. 202).

To James Cunningham

[summer 1811]

I had the pleasure of waiting on your two sisters for a few days, and I am sure there never was a brother took the charge of sisters more pleasantly than I did. But one of them, at least, needs nobody to take care of her—I mean the beauteous mermaid of Galloway, who is certainly a most extraordinary young woman. I introduced her to some gentlemen and ladies of my acquaintance, who were not only delighted, but astonished at her. [Location:] Printed, Rev. David Hogg, Life of Allan Cunningham, with Selections from his Works and Correspondence (Dumfries, 1875), pp. 141–42. James Cunningham was the eldest brother (born in 1765) of Allan Cunningham. It was James to whom Allan was apprenticed as a stone-mason and who went with him to meet Hogg at Mitchelslacks in the autumn of 1806—see Memoir, pp. 69–71. your two sisters Jean Cunningham and Jean Walker, who was engaged to be married to Allan Cunningham and passing through Edinburgh on her way to London to be married. She and Allan were married at St Saviour’s church, Southwark on 1 July 1811. Allan wrote, ‘In James Hogg [...] and his comrade, Grieve, she met with attentive friends, who showed her the beauties of Edinburgh, conveyed her to the pier of Leith, and saw her safely embarked on the waves’—see Rev. David Hogg, Life of Allan Cunningham (Dumfries, 1875), p. 141. mermaid of Galloway Jean Walker, who had transmitted to R. H. Cromek the ballad ‘The Mermaid of Galloway’ and other songs—see Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song (London, 1810), pp. 229–48. Two of her letters cited in the work (pp. 68–69, 246–47) reveal her intelligence, wit, and fondness for the Scots language, all attractive qualities to Hogg.

To Robert Southey

17 September [1811] Edin Septr 17

Dear Sir I have just a moment to take this opportunity of introducing to you Edward Wakefield Esq of London the gentleman who is engaged in the great statistical work of Ireland who [sic] intelligence and amiable qualities will I am sure charm you. He has seen the

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Cumberland lakes before but intends taking them again in his way for the purpose of seeing Southey and for want of a better has accepted of this simple introduction from a simple man.—I will next week be enabled to send you complete sets of the Spy just on the eve of being finished when I will write to you more fully acknowledging your kindness in sending me Mary and the warmest and most friendly letter I ever recieved in my life. Kehama has not got justice take a bards word who never flatters he will live for ever let me hear from you at least once a year and believe me Your ever affectionate James Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd To R Southey Esq. [Addressed:] none [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] [SHIELD] [Location:] NLS, MS 1809, fol. 90. Robert Southey see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Edward Wakefield was an agricultural authority and an educational philanthropist (1774–1854). His Ireland, Statistical and Political (1812) was the result of four years previous work. the Spy Southey’s poem ‘To Mary’ had been published in no. 21 of Hogg’s 1810–11 periodical—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 220–21. The letter which accompanied it has not apparently survived. Kehama has not got justice Southey’s The Curse of Kehama (1810) was noticed in the Edinburgh Review, 17 (February 1811), 429–65. Southey’s high poetic gifts were seen as compromised by his belonging to the Lake School of Wordsworth. For example, ‘But a childish taste, and an affected manner, though they cannot destroy genius, will infallibly deprive it of its glory’ (p. 465).

To William Hogg

8 October 1811 “Edinburgh, October 8th, 1811.

“Dear Brother, As you once said to me, ‘before I forget I will answer your kind letter,’ and, indeed, I should have written to you long, long ago; but, indeed, any kind of regularity in my correspondence or, indeed, in anything that concerns me, need not be expected. I am very glad to hear that you and your family are all well; and as to the circumstance of your having been busy herding, that does not at all surprise me. That occurs, of course, whether the sheep had any great

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need of it or not. I am not peculiarly partial to my nephew, Robert’s company. . . . I really do not know how I will bear to have a boy in my room constantly, and yet I think it very hard that you should be obliged to board him anywhere else. I must surely endeavour to put him up somehow all the winter, and let him attend the High School. Pray, what do you intend him for? Believe me, my dear brother, proficiency in writing and arithmetic is of ten times more importance for a young man, who has his way to make in the world, than a knowledge of the classics. Perhaps we might bind him to some mercantile or bookseller line, where he might be improving in business, and attend his class besides. There is not as much time misspent on anything in this age as the learning of Latin by thousands of thousands of boys to whom it is of no avail. I think, if you intend bestowing a liberal education on any of them, you should reserve that for James, the junior Ettrick Shepherd, from the ardour of whose feelings and imagination, I should be led to expect something superlative. But, upon the whole, if you are intent on making Robert a great scholar, I must certainly endeavour to take him in, but I would much rather you had taken it into your head to make Margaret one, for she would be of great value to me, indeed, in keeping my house. I have the ugliest old woman at present whom perhaps you ever saw. I rather fear she is a witch. I have taken a large flat in the High Street, at £36 per annum, but I have reserved only a part for myself. If Robert comes here I must have a room for him too. My good old English lady is dead, which will I fear be none the better for me. I rather suspect I shall not be continued in office as factor by the Trustees, to whom I have applied, but have received no instructions, neither do I know as yet upon whom to draw for money. I have, however, her stamped power of factorage, rendering all my deeds and bargains binding, and I have about a dozen men employed in ditching and dyking, etc., whom I am obliged to visit, and whom I have to pay regularly. “I was at Langholm the week before last, valuing and re-letting some fine farms belonging to General Dirom. I saw our parents on my return. Our mother was poorly, being seized with some pains in her back, that prevent her rising or walking upright. I sent her off some things to-day by the carrier. “I have got an order to go to Balquither, to part a farm between two proprietors. . . . “I never call on Dr. C——. He told a friend he wished to employ me extensively in valuing and arranging waste lands. He has never

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done it. “I am, your affectionate Brother, “James Hogg.” [Location:] Printed, Garden, pp. 49–51. William Hogg see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. you and your family Hogg’s elder brother William (born in 1767) had married Mary Beattie, the Ettrick schoolmaster’s daughter, at the end of 1798, and at this date had several children (Ettrick OPR and Tweedsmuir OPR). my nephew, Robert’s company William’s eldest son Robert (1802–1834) was now nine years old. Although his parents clearly thought of sending him to the High School of Edinburgh he seems in the event to have attended the Grammar School at Peebles, where Robert Chambers was a school-fellow—see Rogers, IV, 129–30. James since William’s third son, James, was baptized in June 1807 (Tweedsmuir OPR) he was only about four years old when this letter was written. Hogg’s preference of him to his elder brothers Robert and William (baptized April 1804) must have been due to his being his own namesake. Margaret William Hogg’s eldest child, baptized May 1800 (Ettrick OPR), was at only eleven years old rather young to have the charge of anybody’s household. flat in the High Street in his letter to Scott of 14 [November 1811] Hogg locates this ‘at the cross the 2d flat above Hill’s shop’. The bookseller Peter Hill’s shop was at ‘Cross South Side’ up to 1815—see the Scottish Book Trade Index at http://www.nls.uk/ catalogues/resources/sbti/index.html. Hill had been a correspondent of Robert Burns. good old English lady has not been identified. There is another reference to Hogg’s occasional employment as a valuer of pasture-land in his letter to Scott of 18 February [1811]. General Dirom Lieutenant-General Alexander Dirom had married the heiress to the Mount Annan estate in Dumfriesshire in 1793, and published his Account of the Improvements on the Estate of Mount-Annan at Edinburgh in 1811. Hogg had dedicated The Shepherd’s Guide of 1807 to him ‘as a small testimony of esteem for a gentleman who has the welfare and improvement of his country so much at heart’—for further information see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. our parents Robert Hogg and Margaret Laidlaw were probably living in a cottage at Craig-Douglas in Yarrow. Hogg’s mother, born in 1730, died in June or early July 1813—see Hogg’s letter to Bernard Barton of 5 July [1813]. Balquither Hogg intended to leave Edinburgh for Balquhidder in Perthshire on Saturday, 19 October—see his letter to Eliza Izett of 15 October 1811. Dr. C—— possibly Dr Ebenezer Clarkson of Selkirk (1759–1844), Bailie and Provost of Selkirk and an old friend of Hogg’s. He is referred to in Hogg’s letter to William Laidlaw of [February 1801] as someone who had seen Hogg’s manuscript poems before the publication of Scottish Pastorals.

To Eliza Izett

15 October 1811 Edin Octr 15 1811

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My dear Eliza I am ashamed and confounded as the man says in his prayer, not to write this because no body sees me but to think of your reading it I think I see you frowning and saying to yourself “I will never bring that spark to act like other people or even in consistency with himself. It is invain to mind what he says or what he promises and when that is the case what is he use for?” The truth is I fear I will not see you this year yet Eliza, but believe me I am sorry most heartily sorry for it for I longed to spend a few days with you above all things. It was Mr. Gray of the high school who was to have accompanied me—I was called twice to the south at the very times that we had set for going to Athol and the vacants being at last run he could not come. I set out for Balquhidder on Saturday but that takes me rather farther from than nearer to you and as the roads are now so bad and the days so short I do not think I can come therefore never look for me more till I come. I scribbling away every day—Do you know that I have engaged to edit a weekly magazine which will be an ardous [sic] undertaking. I hope I have pleased you in many of my papers both in prose and verse if I thought otherwise I should be very unhappy I have finished a highland tale lately and some smaller pieces which I would travel a good many miles to hear you read and learn your opinion of them. It is very long since I heard from you pray let it not be long hence. tell me all how you are and give me a little history how you spend your time it will delight me and I will please myself by thinking of being with you The woods of the Tay will be much faded by this time the hills sombre and scarcely a new print of a foot on the walks of Kinnaird. Are your prospects of a long dreary winter in that retreat nothing dreary? Will you not come one winter for a change to this scene of rout and riot? Do not you remember what a great man said people vegetate any where but it is only in the capital th[SEAL] live—What signifies all my Eliza’s perf[ SEAL] if they wither and die in a desert— What do I say—Alas if it would please providence to place me too in that desart how happy would I be lent to the will of providence as does at present My Eliza’s most affectionate friend and Humble servt James Hogg [Addressed:] Mrs. Izet/ Kinnaird-House/ Dunkeld [Endorsed:] Mr Hogg/ Edinr 18 Octr 1811 [Postmark:] OC E16A 1811 [Watermark:] S HIND/ 1807 [Location:] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: James

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Hogg Collection GEN MSS 61, Box 1, Folder 13. [Printed:] Adam, pp. 2–3. I fear I will not see you this year Hogg included a visit to Kinnaird House, near Dunkeld in Perthshire, the country estate of Eliza and Chalmers Izett, in several of his summer excursions to the Highlands but in the past he would have expected to see these friends in Edinburgh during the winter months. It seems likely that Chalmers Izett gave up his Edinburgh house at 6 St John’s Street during 1811—see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Mr. Gray of the high school James Gray (1770–1830), Hogg’s Edinburgh friend and future brother-in-law. He had been an important contributor to The Spy—for further information see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 562–63. vacants as one of the masters of the Edinburgh High School Gray would have to take his holiday during the school’s summer vacation. This began after the annual examination of pupils, held on 8 August in 1811, and lasted approximately six weeks. In 1811 the school resumed on 23 September—see Caledonian Mercury for 1 August and 12 September 1811. Balquhidder in the Trossachs area of Perthshire. The reason for the trip, to part a farm between two proprietors, is given in Hogg’s letter to his brother William of 8 October 1811. edit a weekly magazine The Spy had been concluded with issue no. 52, dated 24 August 1811, so Hogg is almost certainly writing about a different venture here, and one which has not so far been identified. a highland tale this has not been identified. Hogg had possibly written one of the verse tales or ballads with a Highland setting subsequently included in The Queen’s Wake of 1813. One of these, ‘Macgregor.—A Highland Tale’ had already been published—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 402–05. In his Memoir (p. 28) Hogg says that ‘having some ballads or metrical tales by me, which I did not like to lose, I planned the “Queen’s Wake,” in order that I might take these all in, and had it ready in a few months after it was first proposed’. See also Hogg’s letter to Scott of 14 [November 1811]. a great man said Hogg’s admiration for Samuel Johnson suggests that he may be loosely paraphrasing Johnson’s well-known remark of 20 September 1777: ‘No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford’—James Boswell, Life of Johnson, ed. by R. W. Chapman, third edition (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 859.

To Walter Scott

14 [November 1811] Thursday 14th

Dear sir I am obliged to leave Edin. for some time on Monday next if you could inform of a spare hour any time between this and that time I would wait upon you with some poetical tales which I trust will draw your consent to my publishing of them especially as I am likely to

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be compleatly unemployed during the winter months I have been in a very ill tune since ever you dissaproved of this plan I do not at all wish to put you to the trouble of criticising them particularly or combating my prejudices but merely beg your patience and resignation to be excercised in reading them over and giving me your opinion freely of the general structure of the tales. Are you not sorry at leaving auld Ashiesteel for gude an’ a’ after having been at so much trouble and expense in making it a compleat thing? upon my word I was on seeing it in the papers. If you feel yourself in the least hurried or engaged for these three days sir give yourself no concern for I would like that we were by ourselves and I can wait on you at my return. My lodging is at the cross the 2d flat above Hill’s shop could not you step up for a few minutes if you get early out on Saturday I am sir notwithstanding all my blunders Your ever affectionate and grateful James Hogg Grieve & Scott’s N. Bridge [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq./ 2 North Castle Street [Postmark:] NO B14E 1811 [Endorsed—not JH:] Mr James Hogg/ 13 Novr 1811 [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 3881, fols 107–08. poetical tales presumably some of the component ballads of Hogg’s 1813 publication The Queen’s Wake, which Hogg describes as completed in his letter to Constable of 24 September 1812. auld Ashiesteel Scott had lived at Ashiestiel from August 1804 onwards, and moved to Abbotsford in May 1812—see Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), I, 223–24, 388. in the papers Hogg had seen an advertisement of Ashiestiel as to let, such as the one in the Caledonian Mercury of 9 November 1811. The house and garden were available from Whitsunday 1812, either with or without seventy acres of land, from ‘Mr Henderson, writer in Selkirk’ and were described as ‘presently possessed by Walter Scott, Esq’. above Hill’s shop see Hogg’s letter to William Hogg of 8 October 1811 and notes.

To Margaret Phillips

1 February 1812 Edin. Feb. 1st 1812

Dear Margaret

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A good new year to my lovely friend and to all that are near and dear to her in life. I am rather behind with my wish but a man had better “late thrive than never do weel” you know I have been in the South these four months and returned only last week when among my other correspondents as was most natural I thought first of acknowledging my dear Margaret’s kind and amusing letter. You seemed to think that I would take it amiss because you were so long in answering mine but to show you that I never entertained such an idea I have even been longer in answering yours. I set no bounds nor times with ladies, therefore I was not begun to think that you were like most other women for I knew you free of affectation with regard to me you confided in me as a brother when you were here and I hope you shall never find occassion to alter your confidence I was not altogether satisfied with your flaming description of the pleasures of Gilliesland I wish you may not get a way of turning unwell every summer I do not approve of trusting my Margarets glossy dark eyes and simple unsuspecting heart among majors and captains and such like fellows who range about all the summer like roaring lions seeking whom they [eop] they may devour. The next time you are siezed with any stomach complaint rheumatism or headache we have excellent doctors sea-bathing and air hearabouts therefore I would rather that you would avail yourself of these than— never never in this world had my dear friend Mrs. Gray as much need of you! what with the incorrigible Walter Phillips, Miss Gillespie, Mr Gray, what with house-building and literature—what with so many confounded devils of boys and impudent girls servants friends &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. the woman’s mind is constantly upon the rack but her temper is still growing better which I could prove by fair logical reasoning if this were not a love-letter but logic and love do very ill to be mixed. I am again a free-man at the theatre and the amusements are good Helga the maid of Iceland a tragedy was lately brought on with great fuss but she died of a quincey the first night Walter and I helped the poor girl away. She was the [eol] the production of Sir Geo. M,Kenzie bart. Bannister is here at present and every body that is for any use except you the weather is good the markets good the women beautifull and the men polite and kind and ever [sic] thing is in extremity Your friends are all well I asked Walter if he had any word to you “Compts.” said he that was all and now after such a long preface I think it is time I were beginning my love letter [TEAR] tho [TEAR]

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I had [TEAR] Gae,[TEAR] An’[TEAR] Fling’t ro[TEAR] An’ th[TEAR] There’s ae w[TEAR] That twin[TEAR] Gae watch yo[TEAR] An’ steal [TEAR] Gae steep it in [TEAR] siller spri[TEAR] That bells [TEAR] the Saint Mary[TEAR] An’ when the sun keeks o’er the hill Trow Ye hae seen my lassies ee Her lip’s the cherry on the bush Just droopin’ o’er the garden wa’ Her cheek the dawnin’s rosy blush Deep shadow’d on a wreath o’ snaw ———————————— I wish I had more room what an excellent romance I would have made of it farewell my dear friend—a love letter if you please with your first convenience I am Yours for ever James Hogg [Addressed:] Miss Margaret [TEAR]/ Long-brid[TEAR] [Watermark:] C WIL[TEAR] / 18[TEAR] [Location:] Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 2. near and dear to her probably Margaret’s parents, Peter Phillips and Janet Carruthers, and her only surviving sister Janet, who lived together at Mouswald Place in Dumfriesshire. Margaret appears to have been living at this time at Longbridge-moor farm, where she acted as housekeeper to her brother Walter. “late thrive [...] do weel” proverbial—see ‘A Collection of Scots Proverbs’, in The Works of Allan Ramsay: Vol. V, ed. by Alexander M. Kinghorn and Alexander Law (Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 1972), pp. 63–129 (p. 72). Hogg had used this in his ‘Life of a Berwick-shire Farmer’—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 21–29 (p. 28). in the South probably visiting relations in Selkirkshire. Hogg’s letter to his brother William of 8 October 1811 suggests their mother’s health was failing. my dear Margaret’s kind and amusing letter this has not apparently survived. Gilliesland Gilsland was a fashionable watering-place, with sulphur and Chalybeate springs, about eighteen miles north-east of Carlisle. Scott had met his future wife there in 1797—see Lockhart, I, 266. like roaring lions a jocular allusion to 1 Peter 5. 8, ‘your adversary the devil, as a

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roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour’. sea-bathing Portobello near Edinburgh was a health resort at this time. Scott’s daughter Sophia took her sickly little son John Hugh Lockhart to Portobello for remedial sea-bathing in 1827—see Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), II, 1015–16. my dear friend Mrs. Gray Mary Peacock, the second wife of James Gray. Hogg had been acquainted with her before her marriage in 1808, and she had been an important contributor to The Spy of 1810–11. Walter Phillips Margaret’s youngest brother Walter Phillips. He had been set up as farmer in Longbridge-moor by his father and Margaret was his housekeeper until his marriage (Parr, p. 17). This letter is addressed to her at Walter’s house, although he was apparently in Edinburgh. Miss Gillespie possibly Anna Lockhart Gillespie (1784–1849), sister to William Gillespie, the minister of Kells in Galloway. On her brother’s marriage ‘in his fiftieth year’ (around 1825) she began a boarding school in Duke Street, Edinburgh, and subsequently contributed verses to the Dumfries and Galloway Courier and published tracts—see Alexander Trotter, East Galloway Sketches; or Biographical, Historical, and Descriptive Notices of Kirkcudbrightshire, Chiefly in the Nineteenth Century (Castle Douglas, 1901), pp. 287–89. She is probably the Miss Lockhart Gillespie who contributed poems to The Spy—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 194, 317–18, 464–65. house-building probably alterations to the Gray home at 4 Buccleuch Place rather than the construction of a new house. Edinburgh postal directories list James Gray at this address up to and including the one for 1813–14, though the subsequent volume for 1814–15 gives his address as ‘Craigside’. devils of boys the Grays boarded some of the students of the High School. free-man at the theatre Hogg relates in his Memoir, p. 28 that Henry Siddons, the manager of the Edinburgh Theatre Royal, ‘was always kind and friendly to me, and made me free to the theatre from year to year’. Helga the maid of Iceland the following advertisement appeared in the Caledonian Mercury of 18 January 1812: ‘And, on WEDNESDAY, (never yet Acted or Published,) a new TRAG E DY, in Five Acts, called, H E LGA; or, TH E RIVAL M I N STRE LS— The New Scenery, with Icelandic Views, &c. painted for the occasion, by Mr J. F. WILLIAMS’. An account of the performance in the same paper of 23 January states that ‘The first three acts were listened to with great attention, and went off successfully. In the remaining part, considerable clamour was excited by some exceptionable passages [...]’. The Caledonian Mercury of 25 January 1812 opens up the intriguing possibility that Hogg formed part of a theatre claque. After discussing an unfortunately egotistical speech from the hero towards the end of the third act of Helga the reviewer says that ‘from that moment every thing, however grave in itself, was transmuted into the ludicrous, and this temper of mind was improved to the prejudice of the performance, by several persons conveniently dispersed in different parts. There was, in particular, one determined enemy, with a catcall, who shewed, by the skillful management of this instrument of his spleen, that he was well versed in theatrical warfare’. Sir Geo. M,Kenzie bart. probably Sir George Stuart Mackenzie (1780–1848), the mineralogist, who had travelled in Iceland in 1810 with Dr. Henry Holland and Dr. Richard Bright. The three published their Travels in Iceland in 1811. He had succeeded to the baronetcy of Coul in 1796 on the death of his father.

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Bannister has not been identified. I had [...] wreath o’ snaw the second leaf of the letter is badly damaged, almost half being missing, with the text of this poem therefore badly affected. The lines form part of Hogg’s ‘Love Pastoral’, which may be read where it was first published in the Scots Magazine, 74 (March 1812), 216.

To Margaret Phillips

3 May 1812 Edin May 3d 1812

Dear Maggy I take the opportunity of Walter’s return home whose absence I will very much regret to send you a few lines merely to remind you that there is such a person still living and sometimes thinking on you as the Ettrick Shepherd. I was much pleased with your frank and ingenous letter which is the reason that I answer it so soon, you blame me for jealousy and for not writing seriously to you what would you have me to say Margaret? I am sure if this letter be any kinder than the last you will not believe it, and yet you tell me I never have written a love letter to you, it is most ungenerous in you, when a poor honest lover has wasted all his rhetoric in hopes of influencing your heart, to tell him to write you a love letter that is a love letter before you change your stile of writing to him however to please you I will try to write two lines of truth for once a thing rather uncommon with poets you know, now you must remark that it is all truth that is marked with inverted comma’s all of which I will answer for upon oath and for the rest of this letter you may just take it as you would do that of any ordinary lover either believe it or not as best suits you “Margaret Phillips I do love you there is not the smallest doubt of it, which I know from this circumstance, that when you were here there was no other person whom I liked better to see and now when you are gone there is no other person whom I would as fain see again” I dare not say any more truth at present for fear that you take the pet and misbelieve me and perhaps play Miss Stewart with me. As I know you will be in Galloway at present and in all likelihood gallanting away with my rival and most inveterate enemy Morison I have no great heart to say much more to you but give my kindest respects to Susan and tell her not to go to the West Indies if she can help it for she will die and never see fair Nithsdale again. As your brother will inform you I am extremely well never was better or merrier in my life sometimes rhyming sometimes prosing and sometimes traversing the country. Let me sometimes hear from you the oftener the better and believe me ever your affec-

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tionate and sincere James Hogg [Addressed:] Miss M. Phillips/ Longbridge-moor [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] C WILMOTT/ 1810 [Location:] Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 3. [Published:] Garden, p. 117 [in part]. Walter’s return home Margaret’s brother, who had been staying in Edinburgh with the Grays, was about to return to his farm of Longbridge-moor, where Margaret acted as his housekeeper. your frank and ingenous letter this has not apparently survived. play Miss Stewart perhaps Janet Stuart, to whom Hogg had written a letter of halfjocular admiration on 10 October [1808?]. For further information about her see the notes to that letter. in Galloway although Hogg’s letter is addressed to Longbridge-muir Margaret Phillips was perhaps visiting her other brother, Peter Phillips. He farmed at the Carse, Kirkcudbright. Morison the surveyor John Morrison (1782–1853). For further information see the note to Hogg’s letter to Scott of [April 1809?]. Hogg gives a hostile portrait of Morrison as the fifth bard of ‘Night the First’ in The Queen’s Wake, composed at about this time— see The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004), p. 411. Hogg’s letter to Scott of [April 1809?] also suggests an earlier sexual rivalry with Morrison over Hogg’s housekeeper at Locherben, who may possibly be identified with the Margaret Beattie who bore Hogg’s daughter Elizabeth—see Gillian Hughes, ‘James Hogg and the “Bastard Brood”’, SHW, 11 (2000), 56–68. Susan presumably Margaret’s cousin Susan Phillips, also mentioned in Hogg’s letter to Margaret of 27 July 1811. One of Margaret Phillips’s uncles was a prosperous Jamaica planter (Parr, p. 17), and it is possible that her cousin Susan Phillips intended to visit him there.

To Archibald Constable

24 September 1812

Deanhaugh Septr. 24 1812 Mr Constable Dear sir Having now compleated the Queen’s Wake I must settle about the publication for I am desirous that it should appear on Janr. or Febr next Of course as your right I give you the first offer of it. My terms are decisively as follows. The book shall be your property; only, on the publication of the first and all future editions I shall recieve a bill at six, nine, or twelve months for a certain proportion, which is all that we have now to settle about. In the mean time I

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engage to give you as many private subscribers as shall compleatly cover my quota of the first edition. You need not offer me below ten nor above twenty pounds per hundred copies for I will neither accept of the one nor the other but if you desire it I will read the poem or a part of it to any literary gentleman on whose judgement you can depend. In one word say that for every 1000 copies as soon as printed I recieve a bill of £150 the copy right of the book and subscriptions to that amount to be yours. Geo. Goldie requests a share of it that shall be as you please I will expect an answer with your conveniency I am your obliged James Hogg [Addressed:] none [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] James Hogg/ 24 Septr 1812 [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 7200, fol. 202. [Printed:] Constable, II, 356. Deanhaugh after living with John Grieve for six months after his arrival in Edinburgh in February 1810, Hogg then took lodgings in the Edinburgh suburb of Deanhaugh—see Memoir, pp. 27, 28. R. P. Gillies in his Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, 3 vols (London, 1851), II, 121 describes the house as ‘a weather-beaten, rather ghostly, solitary looking domicile, like an old farm-house in the country’. Having now compleated the Queen’s Wake according to his Memoir (p. 28) Hogg planned The Queen’s Wake: a Legendary Poem (1813) to use some ballads or metrical tales he had composed, ‘and had it ready in a few months after it was first proposed’. The poem relates a poetic contest between various Scottish minstrels at the court of Mary, Queen of Scots. as your right Hogg presumably conceived that Constable, as the publisher of The Mountain Bard (1807), The Shepherd’s Guide (1807), and The Forest Minstrel (1810) was entitled to the first offer of any of his subsequent works. the first offer Hogg’s account of his dealings with Constable over the book is given in his Memoir, pp. 29–30. He had offered the book to Constable, who at first refused to commit himself without reading the manuscript: ‘Finally, he told me, that if I would procure him two hundred subscribers, to insure him from loss, he would give me £100 for liberty to print one thousand copies’. Hogg raised some subscribers but in the meantime, ‘one George Goldie, a young bookseller in Princes Street, a lad of some taste, had become acquainted with me at the Forum, and earnestly requested to see my MS’. Hogg relates that after Goldie had read it ‘when I next saw him, he was intent on being the publisher of the work, offering me as much as Mr. Constable, and all the subscribers to myself over and above’. Hogg approached Constable once more ‘but he had differed with Mr. Scott, and I found him in such bad humour, that he would do nothing farther than curse all the poets, and declare that he had met with more ingratitude from literary men than all the rest of the human race’.

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Geo. Goldie The Queen’s Wake: A Legendary Poem, was published in 1813, by George Goldie, 34 Princes Street, Edinburgh and Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, London. Goldie attacked Hogg’s account of their transactions in his Letter to a Friend (Edinburgh, 1821), but as Douglas Mack has indicated Hogg’s letter does indeed show that Goldie had expressed an interest in The Queen’s Wake before it was refused by Constable—see Memoir of the Author’s Life and Familiar Anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1972), pp. 86–90. Hogg had probably made the acquaintance of Goldie through the Forum debating society, as tickets for the debates were sold by Goldie in his new circulating-library at 34 Princes Street—see Gillian Hughes, ‘James Hogg and the Forum’, SHW, 1 (1990), 57– 70 (p. 63).

To Margaret Phillips

25 November 1812 Edin Nov. 25th 1812

My dear Maggy I do not remember when any thing gave me as much pleasure as the perusal of your kind letter: short as it was it testified to me that you had not quite forgot me. I had just begun to lose all hope and was just beginning to look out for another I had already begun to make some advances to Miss Crichton because you reccommended her so highly, but the luckless girl gave me the letter and all was over. The Queen is awake and has her kindest compts. to Maggy Phillips; she is in bed, that is, she is in sheets, but not got into stays as yet: perhaps she will get them on about the end of the year. Give her respects to Walter and tell him she has some little dependance upon him I have had some remarkably fine tours this year both in the Highlands and in England and fell acquainted with some very fine ladies, but as soon as I got from them, the black-eyed Nithsdale lassie was always uppermost in my mind I am going on in the old round; writing verses; speaking in the Forum; of which I am secretary this year with a salary of £21:: attending the theatre arguing with the blue stocking club and drinking whisky and often think in the morning when I rise that I should like to see you chopping about plaguing me with your Nithsdale tongue and your little female nick-nacks and have always some distant hopes that I may some day see this phenomena. I have made a very good bargain about the Queen’s Wake and will likewise have a little more money this year than I am wont to have but it will soon go for want of one to take care of it I fear it will be long before I see Long-bridge-moor if ever. I will only come there on one condition and that condition will bring me

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instantly, it is this, that my dear little Maggy come alongst with me— this is not such a hard condition as at first sight you may imagine I will explain it by and by but not at present. I write this in the reading-room surrounded with speaking members and therefore you must forgive its inaccuracy. I think all your friends here are in good health and I do not know what more I can write about them. Let me hear from you often—the oftener the more welcome and write me long letters else I will write you short ones too. I do not know what I would give to see you again but if that time should be yet at a distance there is nothing will give me more pleasure than to hear of my dear Margaret’s welfare and happiness I remain Yours for ever James Hogg [Addressed:] Miss Margaret Phillips/ Longbridgemoor/ Dumfries [Postmark:] NOV B26M 1812 [Watermark:] RUSE & TURNERS/ 1812 [Location:] Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 4. [Published:] Garden, p. 118 [in part]. your kind letter this has not apparently survived. Miss Crichton a Phillips family connection. Margaret’s eldest brother John had married Euphemia Crighton, the daughter of Dr. Crighton of Stockbridge, Edinburgh—see Parr, pp. 16–17. The Queen is awake Margaret Phillips may possibly have been the young lady whom Hogg describes in his Memoir (p. 29) as having had a preview of The Queen’s Wake (1813): ‘I took my manuscript to Buccleugh Place. Mr. Gray had not got through the third page when he was told that an itinerant bard had entered the lobby, and was repeating his poetry to the boarders. Mr. Gray went out and joined them, leaving me alone with a young lady, to read, or not, as we liked’. in sheets Hogg’s puns imply that the sheets of his poem had then been printed, but not yet folded, stitched and bound into volumes. about the end of the year The Queen’s Wake was published on 30 January 1813—see Hogg’s letter to Robert M‘Turk of [28 January 1813] and notes. Walter Margaret Phillips’s brother, for whom she acted as housekeeper. fine tours the details of Hogg’s Highland and English excursions are not known. the Forum an Edinburgh debating society, described by Hogg in his Memoir, pp. 27– 28. For further information see Gillian Hughes, ‘James Hogg and the Forum’, SHW, 1 (1990), 57–70. secretary this year the original Forum had divided into two rival societies in the summer of 1812. Hogg was Secretary to the one entitled the Edinburgh Forum, and his duties were presumably to advertise the forthcoming debates, and to deal with any correspondence which was to be addressed to him at the reading-room at 34 North Bridge. The other office-bearers (unpaid, according to Goldie) were a Treasurer (John Christison) and four Presidents (John Smith, John Geddes, George Bell

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Brand, and John McDiarmid). There was also a Board of Charity to disburse the proceeds of the debate to various worthy causes—see Gillian Hughes, ‘James Hogg and the Forum’, SHW, 1 (1990), 57–70. the theatre through the kindness of the manager, Henry Siddons, Hogg had free admission to Edinburgh’s Theatre Royal—see Memoir, p. 28. the blue stocking club James Gray’s wife, the former Mary Peacock, may have been one member of this coterie of literary ladies—see the note on her in The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), p. 564. Other literary ladies Hogg knew in this period included Mary Brunton and Eliza Izett. a very good bargain the precise details of Hogg’s bargain with George Goldie for the publication of The Queen’s Wake (1813) are unknown. Hogg’s initial proposal to Constable is embodied in his letter to him of 24 September 1812, but this may well have been modified in subsequent discussion. In his Memoir (p. 29) Hogg relates that Goldie offered him ‘as much as Mr. Constable, and all the subscribers to myself over and above’. the reading-room perhaps the one at 34 North Bridge, where Hogg’s correspondence as Secretary to the Edinburgh Forum was sent—see Edinburgh Star for 13 November 1812. Another possibility is his publisher George Goldie’s circulating library and reading room at 34 Princes Street, where tickets to the debates were sold. The ‘speaking members’ are presumably members of the Edinburgh Forum.

To Gilbert Innes

26 November 1812

Dear Sir From the earnest perswasions of some literary friends I have taken the liberty of inclosing you a few copies of a prospectus which I do on motives peculiarly selfish the copies so disposed of being a perquisite belonging exclusively and of great moment to the bard. Whatever little exertion you are pleased to make in his favour shall not be suddenly forgot by Yours sincerely James Hogg Edin Novr 26 1812 [Address:] none [Postmark:] none [Endorsed:] Mr Jas. Hogg the Ettrick Shepd./ Edinr. 26 Nov. 1812 [Watermark:] V’FIELD/ 1811 [Location:] National Archives of Scotland, GD113/5/463/60. Gilbert Innes Gilbert Innes of Stow (1751–1832) was an extremely rich man. Although known by the name of his paternal estate at Stow, about six miles north-west of Galashiels near the border between Selkirkshire and Midlothian, his wealth came primarily from his being a leading financier. He was Deputy-Governor of the Royal Bank of Scotland, and his father, George Innes, had been the bank’s Cashier. Gilbert

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Innes lived at 47 George Square, and later at 24 St Andrews Square to be close to the premises of the bank. In his younger days Innes had been a noted singer at the amateur musical concerts held in St Cecilia’s Hall, Niddry’s Wynd in Edinburgh. He is buried in Greyfriars kirkyard in Edinburgh—see ‘George Square, Annals of an Edinburgh Locality’, The Book of the Old Edinburgh Club, 26 (1948), 1–164 (pp. 109–10). The inventory of his property drawn up on 23 November 1832, following his death on 26 February that year, valued his estate at the then enormous sum of £770,772– 11–3—see NAS, SC70/1/47/798–804. a prospectus clearly for The Queen’s Wake, published on 30 January 1813—see Hogg’s letter to Robert M‘Turk of [28 January 1813] and notes. There is no list of subscribers in the first edition of the poem, but in his Memoir (p. 29) Hogg mentions that he had originally secured two hundred subscribers to ensure Constable against any loss and that George Goldie, who eventually became the poem’s publisher instead, offered him the £100 promised by Constable ‘and all the subscribers to myself over and above’.

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FOR 1813 To Robert M‘Turk Robt

[28 January 1813] Thursday 8 o’clock

Dear As the Queen’s Wake is to be published on Saturday Mr. Grieve No 12 High terrace gives my particular friends a dinner that day in honour of the occassion which he calls the christening of the young Queen. As I count you or your father at least one of my best friends and as his name stands highest of all the subscribers in Britain I will take it amiss if you be not there. You will find Grieve a most noble gentleman and one who will sacrifice his life for his friend meet me at the reading-room at 4 on Saturday and it will be well worth your while to be at the Assembly-rooms to morrow night Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr Robt M,Turk [Endorsed—not JH:] Mr Hogg [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 3218, fol. 37. Robert M‘Turk see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. published on Saturday Hogg’s poem was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 30 January 1813. Mr. Grieve Hogg’s friend and patron John Grieve (1781–1836). High Terrace was a high-level terrace above the north side of Leith Street in Edinburgh’s east end district. subscribers no subscription list was given in the first edition of The Queen’s Wake, but Hogg’s account of the terms of publication offered by Goldie mentions subscribers— see Memoir, p. 29, and also Hogg’s letter to Gilbert Innes of 26 November 1812. the reading-room Hogg frequented the reading-room of George Goldie, the publisher of The Queen’s Wake, at 34 Princes Street during this period. Alternatively Hogg could mean the reading-room at 34 North Bridge to which his correspondence as Secretary of the Edinburgh Forum was addressed—see his letter to Margaret Phillips of 25 November 1812 and notes. Assembly-rooms the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms are in George Street. They were the setting of a debate held by the Edinburgh Forum on Friday, 29 January 1813 ‘for RE LI E F of the RU SS IAN S SU F FE RE RS in the war with France’ on the question, ‘Are late or early Marriages more productive of Happiness?’—see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 23 January 1813. This effectively dates Hogg’s letter, as the Edinburgh Forum generally met in the Freemasons’ Hall in Niddry Street at this time: the advertisement explains that ‘the Directors of the Assembly Rooms have granted the

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Society the use of the large room (rent free)’ for the occasion in view of the proposed charity. Napoleon had invaded Russia in 1812, the Russians burned Moscow, and his army was destroyed in the retreat, as much by the severity of the Russian winter as the Russian army.

To Harriet, Duchess of Buccleuch

7 March 1813 Ettrick Banks March 7th 1813 Fav. Grieve & Scott Edin.

May it please your Grace I have often grieved you by my applications for this and that—I am sensible of this for I have had many instances of your wishes to be of service to me could you have known what to do for that purpose. But there are some eccentrick characters in the world of whom no person can judge or know what will prove beneficial or what may prove their bane. I have again and again recieved of your Grace’s private bounty and though it made me love and respect you the more I was nevertheless grieved at it. It was never your Grace’s money that I wanted but the honour of your countenance indeed my heart could never yield to the hope of being patronized by any house save that of Buccleuch whom I deemed bound to cherish every plant that indicated any thing out of the common way on the braes of Ettrick and Yarrow. I know well you will be thinking that this long prelude is to end with a request—No madam I have taken the resolution of never making you another request. I will however tell you a story which I believe is founded on a fact There is a small farm on the head of a water called Yarrow posessed by a mean fellow named Wilson The yearly rent of it is only I believe £5. and now about a third of it is taken off and laid into another farm The remainder is as yet unapropriated. Now there is a certain poor bard who has two old parents each of them upwards of 84 years of age; and that bard has no house nor home to shelter those poor parents in, or cherish the evening of their lives. A single line from a certain very great, and very beautifull lady, to a land steward named Elliot, or a Mr. Riddel would insure that small pendicle to the bard at once—but she will grant no such thing!—I appeal to your Grace if she is not a very bad lady that? I am your Grace’s ever obliged and gratefull James Hogg The Ettrick Shepherd To the Duchess of Buccleuch

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[Addressed:] Her Grace The Duchess of Buccleuch/ Dalkieth House [Postmark:] MAR B6E 1813 [Endorsed—not JH:] Mr. Hog to/ Duchess of/ Buccleuch [and] 7 March [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 3884, fols 96–97. [Printed:] The Private Letter-Books of Sir Walter Scott, ed. by Wilfred Partington (London, 1930), p. 283 [in part]; Lockhart, III, 293–95; Batho, pp. 77–78; Robert Chambers, A Biographical Dictionary of Emiment Scotsmen, 5 vols (Glasgow, 1855), V, 309–10. Duchess of Buccleuch Harriet Katherine Townshend (1773–1814), daughter of Viscount Sydney, had married Charles Scott, Earl of Dalkeith in 1795, and became Duchess in January 1812 on the death of his father. Hogg had dedicated The Forest Minstrel (1810) to her as ‘the Stay of Genius and the Shield of Merit’ receiving a hundred guineas from her as an acknowledgement. Hogg mourned her early death in the conclusion of The Pilgrims of the Sun (1814) and another poem, and subsequently named his third daughter Harriet Sidney Hogg in her memory—see Gillian Hughes, ‘Hogg’s Poetic Responses to the Death of his Patron’, SHW, 12 (2001), 80–89. my applications for this and that Hogg had applied to the Duchess in 1806 for the lease of a farm (see his letters to Scott of 3 and 18 April 1806) and in 1811 for work as a valuer of the Buccleuch estate pasture farms (see his letter to Scott of 18 February [1811]). a small farm that of Eltrive Moss, which was in fact granted to Hogg after the Duchess’s death by her husband in a letter of 26 January 1815 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 13–14). a mean fellow named Wilson the tenant, Thomas Wilson, probably died in the summer of 1814, though his death is not recorded in the Yarrow OPR—see Hogg’s letter to William Laidlaw of 11 July [1814]. It is possible that he was the unpleasant protagonist of Hogg’s poem, ‘Tam Wilson’ in the Scots Magazine, 76 (April 1814), 296. two old parents Robert Hogg (born at Newark in 1729), and Margaret Laidlaw (born at Old Over Phaup in 1730). They were presently living in a cottage at Craig-Douglas in Yarrow—see Memoir, p. 219. a land steward named Elliot James Elliot (1769–1848), was born in Hawick and had been a teacher in Wilton school before being appointed factor to the Duke of Buccleuch in 1810—see Corson, p. 453. Mr. Riddel Charles Riddell of Muselee (1755–1849), a militia Major who lived at Branxholm, and was Chamberlain to the Duke of Buccleuch—see Corson, p. 609. grant no such thing! in response the Duchess wrote, not to Hogg, but to Scott, on 18 March 1813—see The Private Letter-Books of Sir Walter Scott, ed. by Wilfred Partington (London, 1930), p. 284: I must confess that it is my fear of appearing some day in print which makes me beg of you to transmit my answers to him [...] feeling much inclined to do him any kindness in my power, I begged the Duke to make enquiry of Major Riddell about this bit of Land, which seems in much request, for Mr. Hogg is not the first who has applied to me for it. This ‘mean fellow named Wilson,’ who does not seem to be a very popular character from the epithets bestowed upon him, has been in possession of this Farm for many years, and it certainly would be rather an act of injustice to turn him out, merely because others want his land. The Duke does not seem to

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know much about this Mr. Wilson, but he has not expressed any wish or intention of quitting the Farm. I am really sorry to appear ‘a very bad lady’ to the Ettrick Shepherd, for the House of Buccleuch is much disposed to cherish any plant that grows on the Braes of Ettrick and Yarrow. But he very justly observes that he is a difficult person to know how to serve. Will you, in your kindness, soften this disappointment as much as you can to the poor Bard, whose care for his aged Parents certainly made me feel particularly desirous to help him.

To Eliza Izett

23 March 1813 Edin. March 23d 1813

Dear Madam I am very glad that you have been so little pressing upon me to write indeed I do not recollect of ever having such a request from you for these several years until Miss Forest delivered one to that purpose yesterday. I need not congratulate you on your recovery for I know that your heart is very gratefull for it I even believe it to be more so for most blessings than I can rightly comprehend who though an enthusiast in some respects am but a kind of cold phlegmatic being in the main. I am glad that you are pleased with the young Queen but not much flattered because I knew before that your friendship for the runagate author would insure that to a certain degree. It is more pleasant to hear the praises of strangers and the silence or rage of enemies. But indeed from what I know of the kindness of your heart I believe you have experienced more innate pleasure from the success of the work than I have done for I had satisfied a few select friends with regard to its little merit previous to its publication and they are more than all the world to me. I have been mostly among my friends in Ettrick since the day that the Queen first appeared but I have had a grievous cold of which I am not like to get soon rid. I have nothing in the world to tell you which posesses any interest either in a moral or literary point of view. The Bridal of Triermain is published. It is quite a romance of a lady that lay enchanted 500 years &c a servile imitation of Scott and possesses some poetical merit. It will not however be regarded. We expect to have a glorious night of sport with Pinkerton’s new tragedy to morrow evening a strange expectation that you will say yet such an expectation we really have. As I take delight in nothing but literature I intend publishing two volumes of Scottish rural tales sometime this year I would be happy in having your advice which of those in the Spy I should select. If I do this at all it will be in London and under a feigned name.

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I have likewise begun to block out a tragedy but remember both these are profound secrets and no other person must know of them save my own Eliza and our mutual friend Grieve. Have no fears about the latter for if it is not judged by my few friends even better than good it shall never appear. The woods of Athol will be beginning to bud were I to say that I envied you the privilege you would cast up my impatience to leave them and you the last time I was there. Had I been returning home I could have staid until now but having my mind set upon the tour and the weather so fine I felt even more impatience than I was willing to own Besides I was terribly hurt at Mr I[TEAR] being suffered always to spend the day by himself an[TEAR] yet I never had the resolution to abandon female gaiety and beauty for his dull business. Are you still continuing to persist in only taking his word for all his plans pray how is he going on. I am to have all the three gypsies down with me on Thursday and you may soon expect to hear of them being all dressed in bluestockings. I have no copy of the Comet but I have been thinking of it all this day and shall endeavour to make it out I am ever yours James Hogg [Addressed:] Mrs. Izet/ Kinnaird/ Dunkeld [Endorsed—not JH]:] Ettrick Shepherd/ 1813 [Postmark:] MAR B24 [smudged] 1813 [Watermark:] RUSE & TURNERS/ 1812 [Location:] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: James Hogg Collection GEN MSS 61, Box 1, Folder 13. [Published:] Adam, pp. 3–4. Miss Forest Chalmers Forrest, the niece and namesake of Chalmers Izett—see note to Hogg’s letter to Eliza Izett of 23 July 1808. the young Queen Hogg’s poem The Queen’s Wake had been published on 30 January 1813. a few select friends these included John Grieve and James and Mary Gray—see Memoir, pp. 28–29. among my friends in Ettrick see also Hogg’s letter to Scott of 3 April 1813. In his Memoir (p. 30) Hogg relates his experiences in Edinburgh the day after the work was published. The Bridal of Triermain Scott’s poem was published anonymously in February 1813 and passed off, with his connivance, as the work of William Erskine—see Lockhart, III, 9–10. The publication of Scott’s Rokeby only weeks beforehand would made his authorship of this poem appear improbable. Pinkerton’s new tragedy R. P. Gillies records the performance of a tragedy at the Edinburgh Theatre at this time by the Scottish antiquary and historian John Pinkerton (1758–1826)—see ‘Some Recollections of James Hogg’, Fraser’s Magazine, 20 (October

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1839), 414–30 (p. 420). A report on the performance in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 25 March 1813 states: ‘Last night Mr Pinkerton’s new tragedy, the Heiress of Strathern; or, the Rash Marriage, was produced at our theatre. It was heard with great patience during the first acts, but towards the close the opposition became so violent, that when Mr Siddons came forward to announce its repetition he could not obtain a hearing. We understand that it has been since withdrawn’. two volumes of Scottish rural tales see Hogg’s letter to Constable of 20 May 1813. They appear to have formed an intermediate stage between Hogg’s prose tales in The Spy of 1810–11 and his later fiction collections of The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1818) and Winter Evening Tales, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1820). For further details see Winter Evening Tales, ed. by Ian Duncan (S/SC, 2002), pp. xiv–xix. a tragedy published by Goldie for Hogg as The Hunting of Badlewe in 1814, under the pseudonym of J. H. Craig, of Douglas. the last time I was there Hogg mentions ‘some remarkably fine tours this year [...] in the Highlands’ in his letter to Margaret Phillips of 25 November 1812, during one of which he presumably visited the Izetts at Kinnaird House near Dunkeld in Perthshire. the three gypsies have not been identified. the Comet probably Hogg’s poem about the comet of 1811. It was first published in 1814 as ‘A Night Piece’ in the Poetical Register, 8 (1810–11), 90–91, but entitled ‘Verses to the Comet of 1811’ in The Poetical Works of James Hogg, 4 vols (Edinburgh, 1822), II, 239–44.

To Walter Scott

3 April 1813 Deanhaugh April 3d 1813

Dear Scott I recieved your critique on the Wake in Ettrick Forest whither I retired the very day that it was published. I am happy in the share of approbation which you manifest and more happy at hearing that it has been much more decided when you were speaking of it to others It has sold beyond all calculation in Edin. yet what is curious the sale has almost been confined to that place as yet. I wish you would review it in the Quarterly. I much need your advice again and am like to eat myself with vexation for neglecting it so long for often you urged it. The little old debts and claims which one would have judged quite forgot are pouring in upon me without any limit or mitigation I must have some settlement made before I publish a second edition for which I have got a very fair offer. I would fain publish 2 vols 8vo. close print of Scottish Rural tales anonymous in prose I have one will make about 200 pages alone some of the others you have seen in the Spy &c. Some people say they are original and interesting. I mention all these for your advice when I come for I would likely never remember one of them With regard to her Grace of Buccleuch I understand my suit is

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lost. it is no matter if she had deigned to inform me of it herself I should have been as proud as if I had obtained it. I was urged to ask it by my parents who are old and destitute and the neighbouring farmers assured me that Wilson was so obnoxious to all the neighbourhood and the dukes managers that he would by no means be suffered to remain. I must thank you kindly for your fourpence-halfpenny groat which came very a propos for a brother of my own to whom I was indebted and whose wife was in distress it enabled me to double the sum I meant to pay I wonder how ever the world take it on to [eol] to call you a selfish man for if you had all the faults in the world you are the most distant from that of all men I ever met with; ane perhaps excepted How you may have deserved approbation and riches as a poet let the critics tell; as a man I think it could scarcely have been better bestowed I can never however get quit of the idea that you wished to discourage me from ever touching the harp more You were rather explicit on that head sometimes I know I grew I durst not for my life show you any thing for fear of the most humiliating mortification I know it was that it might not stand in the way of a settlement if that settlement had ever been obtained it would have been for fear of my losing it The truth is I feel a little hurt at having mentioned that and some other private affairs in a public manner and intend to justify myself the best way that I can. A gentleman who deems himself libelled at in the Wake has sent a long poem to Edin. to be printed in quarto which he denominates The Hoggiad or A Supplement to the Queen’s Wake It is the most abusive thing I ever saw but has otherwise some merit. Pardon my long absence sir I am very diffident in this matter. I only visit at two houses in Edin. besides your own without a particular invitation. If we shoul [sic] come to the [TEAR] of Drummond and Montgomery my estimation [TEAR] ever remain the same I am Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq./ N. Castle Street [Postmark:] none [Endorsed:] James Hogg/ 3d. May [sic] 1813— [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 3884, fols 122–23. your critique on the Wake this letter has not apparently survived. the very day that it was published compare Hogg’s letter to Eliza Izett of 23 March 1813.

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the Quarterly Scott was an important supporter of the Quarterly Review, founded in February 1809 by John Murray as a Tory rival to the Edinburgh Review. George Goldie in a letter to Bernard Barton of 28 October 1813 (NLS, MS 1002, fols 85–86) reported, ‘I am quite astonished that the Quarterly Review has not noticed the Wake, it appears to me that Mr Walter Scott’s friendship has prevented that being done—it was understood when the poem was published that Mr. Scott was to review it—at least that he should use his endeavours to have it done, but from the moment it was sent into the world there has nothing passed upon the subject!’ little old debts and claims after the financial disaster of his farming ventures in Dumfriesshire Hogg had neglected to get a settlement with his creditors: ‘Finding myself, at length, fairly run aground, I gave my creditors all that I had, or rather suffered them to take it, and came off and left them. I never asked any settlement, which would not have been refused me; and severely have I smarted for that neglect since’ (Memoir, p. 23). Hogg’s creditors were therefore able to claim their debts after the success of The Queen’s Wake. a second edition the second edition was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 June 1813, though the terms on which it was published are unknown. Goldie’s letter to Bernard Barton of 28 October 1813 (NLS, MS 1002, fols 85–86) reported that ‘The 2d Edition are all sold excepting a very few copies’. Scottish Rural tales see the notes to Hogg’s letter to Eliza Izett of 23 March 1813. Scott seems to have replied in favour of the publication: although his letter has not survived Hogg summarises his opinion and gives a quotation from it in his letter to Bernard Barton of 5 July [1813]. one will make about 200 pages probably, as Ian Duncan argues, an earlier version of ‘The Bridal of Polmood’, which although not published until 1820 had a topical interest at about this time—see Winter Evening Tales, ed. by Ian Duncan (S/SC, 2002), pp. xiv, 259–357, 571. her Grace of Buccleuch see Hogg’s letter to Harriet, Duchess of Buccleuch, of 7 March 1813 and notes. fourpence-halfpenny groat this may refer to Scott’s efforts to raise subscriptions for The Queen’s Wake for Hogg. His letter to the Duchess of Buccleuch of 22 March 1813 was interpreted in this light by Grierson—see Scott, Letters, III, 239. a brother it is not known to which of his three brothers, William, David, and Robert, Hogg owed money—all three were married by this date. touching the harp more an allusion to the concluding section of The Queen’s Wake (Edinburgh, 1813) where Hogg laments of ‘Walter the Abbot’ that ‘When by myself I ’gan to play | He tried to wile my harp away’. Hogg later explained that the passage referred to Scott having ‘engaged me to Lord Porchester as his chief Shepherd where I was to have a handsome house a good horse a small pendicle rent free and twenty pounds a year. I approved of the conditions as more than I expected or was entitled to only they were given with this proviso that “I was to put my poetical talent under lock and key for ever!”’—see Anecdotes of Scott, ed. by Jill Rubenstein (S/SC, 1999), p. 59. There is an interesting commentary on this passage in The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004), pp. lvii–lix. The Hoggiad the Fifth Bard in The Queen’s Wake is one of whom ‘No one could read the character, | If knave or genius was writ there’, and whose song is received by the court with ‘smothered hiss’—see The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC,

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2004), pp. 38–39. Hogg stated that the bard was a portrait of John Morrison (1782– 1853), who, as Mack suggests (pp. 411, 448–49), is probably the person referred to here. The Hoggiad was apparently never published. Drummond and Montgomery Hogg may be attempting a mutual compliment by comparing himself and Scott to the older Scots poets William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649) and Alexander Montgomerie (1556?–1610?). Possibly too he was thinking of the ‘Flyting betwixt Montgomery and Polwart’, published in 1621.

To Robert Anderson

3 May [1813] Dean haugh May 3d

Dear Sir As I cannot see you to day I enclose you two small pieces for the work you talked of if you think them worth the trouble you may send them if not it is of no consequence I am with the highest respect dear Dr. Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] Dr. Robt Anderson/ Wind-mill Street [Postmarked:] MAY B3E 1813 [Endorsed—not JH:] To Dr R. Anderson/ from James Hogg/ the Ettrick Shep-/herd concerning some/ of his poetical pieces/ for Davenport’s/ Poetical Register [Watermark:] V’FIELD/ 1811 [Location:] NLS, MS 22. 4. 11, fol. 23. Robert Anderson see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. the work you talked of according to the endorsement this was the Poetical Register, edited by R. A. Davenport. Hogg’s ‘A Night Piece’ and ‘Morning’ both appeared in the Poetical Register, 8 (1810–11), 90–91 and 142–43 respectively. This volume, though dated 1810–11, was actually published in 1814.

To Bernard Barton

14 May 1813 Grieve & Scott’s Edin. May 14th 1813

Dear Sir I recieved yours accompanying the beautifull complimentary verses, which are judged by the small circle of my friends to be the best that ever have appeared in our language addressed to any poet while alive. Goldie published them in the Courant the principal paper of this country as addressed to the Ettrick Shepherd by a gentleman of Suffolk. I admired the verses very much indeed for their poetical

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merit but much more for the spirit of enthusiasm and kindness that breathes throughout towards a friendless and un-noted Bard. Friendship like your’s and Mr Loft’s which every man must percieve to be void of all self or interest, as it must be much more valued by an author is likewise of much more value to him. I should like to know More of Mr. Loft that redoubted champion of humble merit and if his taste in poetry is as superlative as the goodness and benevolence of his heart. This desire is abundantly selfish for I am going to entrust a secret to you and him, with which only two persons alive are yet acquainted. Since the publication of the Queen’s Wake I have been busily employed in writing a tragedy and have lately finished it. If I may place any reliance on my own feelings and judgement it will astonish the world ten times more than the Wake has done and that has certainly excited an interest in Scotland far exceeding all measure of previous calculation; in England I am sorry to find that a proportionate effect has not been produced. No person here knows of the play save the friend whom I formerly mentioned Mr. John Grieve who is my literary confessor a severe and unbiassed critic yet he gives it as his candid opinion that there never was any thing like it produced by man. I could get it brought forward here at once but it is his opinion that it would be much more honourable and profitable too to have it brought forward first in London. Now I am as ignorant of all these things as the man of the moon is either whom to apply to or if any interest is necessary what are the bards rights and priviliges on these occassions or if publishing a play renders it free to every company. however all pecuniary concerns I would consider as secondary matters compared with the maintaining of my poetical credit and though some one or two of the Edin. company might suit my characters the rest would be lost The scene is laid in Scotland but there is not one national bravado in it therefore I think I must endeavour to bring it forward in London and at any rate I would like to retain the power of withdrawing it if the rehearsal did not please me. I would be extremely happy in having yours and Mr. Loft’s advice in this matter and must beg that the matter be kept secret from the world for were it ever so favourably recieved (and indeed my vanity prompts me not in the least to doubt it) still I would not acknowledge it publicly: you can scarcely imagine the prejudices that poverty and want of education have to encounter in this important age I am not very good at making professions sir and altogether incapable of returning kind[TEAR] manifest[TEAR] wards me by the ingenous C. Loft a[TEAR] yourself: [TEAR]ing of satisfaction which a bene[TEAR]

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heart enjoys in the reflection of having performed a kind action, is the best guerdon that heart can recieve. That boon I am certain you have both already experienced, and your efforts to raise a humble bard from oblivion have at least produced the effect of kindling an ardent desire and a hope in a certain breast that your countenance shall never hence be disgraced by Your ever gratefull James Hogg Direct as dated) [Addressed:] Bernard Barton Esq./ Woodbridge/ Suffolk [Postmark:] MAY B15E 1813 [Endorsed—not JH:] Recieved on the twentieth of May 1813—B Barton— [Watermark:] V’FIELD/1811 [Location:] NLS, MS 3278, fols 64–65. Bernard Barton see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. This does not seem to be the first letter Hogg wrote to Barton, which included ‘a curious account of his early life, education, and literary progress; his first learning to read and still more to write, & the first stirrings of a spirit of literary ambition & enterprize’—see Barton’s letter to William S. Fitch of 28 April 1830, in The Literary Correspondence of Bernard Barton, ed. by James C. Barcus (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1966), p. 76. Grieve & Scott’s the letter was written from Grieve’s business premises on the North Bridge, rather than from Hogg’s lodgings at Deanhaugh. complimentary verses Barton’s lines ‘To James Hogg, The Ettrick Shepherd, Author of The Queen’s Wake. By A Gentleman of Suffolk’ appeared in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 29 April 1813, and were subsequently included in the second edition of The Queen’s Wake (Edinburgh, 1813), pp. vii–x. Goldie explains in the prefatory ‘Advertisement’ to that edition that Barton was one of a number of gentlemen who had written expressing doubts of the author of the poem ‘being a Scotch Shepherd’, and that when he had answered Barton’s letter ‘he received another, with the following verses inclosed’. Mr Loft’s the miscellaneous writer Capell Lofft (1751–1824) of Troston near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. In 1798 he had secured the publication of Robert Bloomfield’s The Farmer’s Boy, and it was at his instigation that Barton had written to George Goldie asking for details of the author of The Queen’s Wake—see Barton’s letter to William Roscoe of 22 April 1813 (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 208). A letter by Lofft promoting Hogg’s work was published in the Monthly Magazine, 35 (May 1813), 501. a tragedy The Hunting of Badlewe, published by Goldie in 1814. Hogg originally intended it for stage performance and ‘got six copies printed as proof-sheets and showed it to a very few select literary friends’ for comment—see his letter to William Roscoe of 22 January 1814. the bards rights and priviliges in the early nineteenth century the dramatist had the same right to prevent unauthorised copying of his published work as other writers, but until the Dramatic Copyright Act of 1833 there was no legal protection

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for stage productions. The author might sometimes be rewarded for a stage production by the grant of a benefit night, but it was also common for plays to be bought outright by a theatrical company—see The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, ed. by Phyllis Hartnoll, fourth edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 74, 179, 716. the Edin. company Hogg frequently attended the Edinburgh Theatre Royal, being admitted free as a kindness on the part of the manager Henry Siddons—see Memoir, p. 28. He comments on the Edinburgh actors in detail in no. 13 of The Spy—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 130–35 and notes. Hogg expresses his unfulfilled desire to become a dramatist in his Memoir, p. 42.

To Alexander Dirom

14 May 1813 Grieve & Scott’s Edin May 14th 1813

Dear General I recieved your kind letter in due time and I am sure, as you know I never make any professions that you will believe me when I say that there never was any award of providence happened in my remembrance which impressed my heart so deeply as the breaches made in your family; the more so as I could not concieve any parent’s heart on earth that would have been so deeply wounded. I was even afraid the loss might unfit you for all public business for a long season.—Oft has the tear stood in my eye on thinking what might be their feelings when they left Scotland—when they took the last look of their native land, that they might have some painfull foreboding feelings that they were never to see it again. Though I well know that the great disposer of events does every thing for the best, yet I ever must view yours as no ordinary or common loss. If ever I witnessed parental and filial affections that were perfectly pure and disinterested it was in your family—If ever I saw beauty and innocence pourtrayed on earth in human form it was in the mould and features of these two young women I wished to keep them in my own remembrance at least by a few elegiac verses and as my feelings on the subject were and still are very acute I have no doubts of my success but I had forgot the name of the second who was peculiarly my favourite and I could never learn either of what she died or where they were buried I am perfectly aware my dear General of your most kind intentions towards me and the interest which you would take in the success of your poor friend’s publication. With regard to the subscriptions I know how little it is possible to do in that way they produced nothing But I have now the satisfaction of informing you that the Wake seems established in the world not again to be shaken One large edition is already gone a second in the press which will be out

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in a few days and I have got proposals for a third and all this without ever being reviewed save in one or two monthly publications. Longman & Co. was to have supplied the Liverpool trade I weened you would get what copies you wanted that way By the by I was informed that Roscoe of Liverpool had testified a resolution of supporting it and of bring- [eol] it into notice in that quarter. The patronage of such a man would be of great importance to me if he is an acquaintance of yours you might be of much service to me there I have no news in the world from Scotland to you general but every thing in Scotland is promising for the farmer and considerably so for the manufacturer The storm of snow in the end of April has slain some thousands of lambs they will however hold out more than an average crop and the sheep never were in such condition Morison is well and in Galloway I heard from him yesterday. Poor Irvine with his family is very miserable indeed I have sometimes been obliged to assist them a little out of my very circumscribed means.—Walter Scott has suffered a terrible downfall in the eyes of a new-fangled public although [TEAR]th regard to poetical merit he has in [TEAR]y opinion rather improved I never take the freedom to mention your lady’s na[TEAR] because I always concieve that when I write to her I write to you and when I write to you I write to her the oftener I hear from either the better You are well acquainted with my indolence but I hope you will always believe me Your affectionate and gratefull James Hogg The Ettrick Shepherd [Addressed:] General Dirom/ Liverpool [Postmark:] MAY B15E 1813 [Watermark:] V’ FIELD/ 1811 [Location:] Coutts & Co, London: Dirom Papers, no. 123 Box 602. [Printed:] Frank Miller, ‘Unpublished Letters of the Ettrick Shepherd to a Dumfriesshire Laird’, Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, third series, 17 (1930–31), 11–18 (pp. 12–13) [in part]; Strout, p. 64 [in part]. Alexander Dirom for information see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. the breaches made in your family while Dirom was stationed on military duty in Liverpool his eldest daughter, Magadaline, died aged 17 on 19 December 1812, and her sister Sophia, aged 16, followed a few weeks later—see Richard Jackson’s edited text of ‘The Harp of the Hill’, SHW, 13 (2002), 134–42 (p. 136). a few elegiac verses ‘The Harp of the Hill’, sent with Hogg’s letter to Dirom of 3 September 1813. One large edition [...] a second the second edition of The Queen’s Wake consists of the sheets of the first edition, with some extra notes and Barton’s poem added. Although

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George Goldie in his subsequent Letter to a Friend (Edinburgh, 1821), stated that ‘even a second edition was not called for’ (p. 7), it was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 June 1813. proposals for a third the third edition of The Queen’s Wake was advertised as ‘This day is published [...]’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 July 1814. It seems unusual for a third edition to be under discussion before the publication of the second, but Goldie’s letter to Bernard Barton of 28 October 1813 (NLS, MS 1002, fols 85–86) does indicate that he then planned to issue a third edition immediately before the appearance of a favourable review in the Edinburgh Review, publication of which was then supposed to be imminent. reviewed by May 1813 The Queen’s Wake had been reviewed in the Scots Magazine, New Universal Magazine, and Theatrical Inquisitor—see William S. Ward, Literary Reviews in British Periodicals 1798–1820: A Bibliography, 2 vols (New York: Garland, 1972), II, 317. There was also a review in the Edinburgh Star newspaper of 5 February 1813. Longman [...] the Liverpool trade the Longman firm was Goldie’s London partner in the publication of The Queen’s Wake, and therefore responsible for the English distribution of it. Roscoe of Liverpool the historian William Roscoe (1753–1831) of Allerton House, about six miles from Liverpool—for further information see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Dirom wrote to Roscoe on 19 May 1813 (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 1239), enclosing Hogg’s letter, and adding ‘His late work, the Queen’s Wake, it seems has not yet found its way to Liverpool, but if Mr Roscoe should be disposed to countenance the Ettrick Shepherd in this Quarter, the M. General would also be happy to give any assistance in his power to promote the sale of his Book’. A subsequent letter of 8 June (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 1240) thanks Roscoe for ‘the kindness with which you received my application in behalf of my deserving friend the Ettrick Shepherd’. Morison the surveyor John Morrison (1782–1853), who had originally introduced Hogg to Dirom in 1807—see Morrison’s ‘Random Reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott, of the Ettrick Shepherd, Sir Henry Raeburn, &c. &c.—No. I’, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, 10 (September 1843), 569–78 (p. 573). Irvine with his family William Scott Irving is described by R. P. Gillies in his Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, 3 vols (London, 1851), III, 55–56 as a dependant of James Gray, and the author of a poem entitled ‘Fair Helen of Kirkconnel’. He was obsessed with the idea of being an author, even though his works were mere imitations of Byron and of Scott. ‘Over and over I tried, as Gray and others did, to get him regular employment as a teacher of writing, arithmetic, book-keeping, and geometry, for which he was not unqualified; but though we succeeded in getting him pupils, his poetical propensity was a monomania that came betwixt him and every rational pursuit’. He committed suicide in 1818: Hogg’s account of his discussion of this with Scott is given in his Anecdotes of Scott, ed. by Jill Rubenstein (S/SC, 1999), pp. 13, 69 and notes. Walter Scott Scott’s poem Rokeby had been published on 11 January 1813 (Todd & Bowden, p. 257), but though it sold well its success was inferior to that of The Lady of the Lake (1810). Between the publication of Scott’s two poems Byron had shot to fame with the publication of the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage in 1812. your lady’s Dirom had married Magdalene Pasley of Cleuchhead (later named Mount Annan) on 7 August 1793.

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To Archibald Constable

145 20 May 1813 Deanhaugh May 20th 1813

Dear Sir Exclusive of all other consideration than those connected with my own honour and final emolument, I have resolved to give you the first offer of every literary work which I venture to the public. I have for many years been collecting the rural and traditionary tales of Scotland and I have of late been writing them over again and new-modelling them, and have the vanity to suppose they will form a most interesting work They will fill two large vols 8vo price £1 or 4 vols 12mo price the same But as I think the Ettrick Shepherd is rather become a hackneyed name, and imagine that having gained a character as a bard is perhaps no commendation to a writer of prose tales I am determined to publish them under a fictitious title The title page will consequently be to this purpose. The Rural and Traditionary Tales of Scotland by J. H. Craig of Douglas Esq. With regard to pecuniary concerns I am not at all greedy that way and have not the least doubt of our agreement only I should like to bargain so that the work or at least the edition should belong exclusively to the publisher that so he may have an interest in furthering it to the utmost of his power. As I really do intend to conceal the real author that the critics may not suppose it is the work of a bookmaker and as no one in Edin. knows of it save Mr. J. Grieve you will easily see the propriety my dear sir of concealing this from all living Send me your opinion in writing to his care and believe me ever Yours James Hogg To A. Constable Esq. [Addressed:] Arch. Constable Esq./ High Street [Postmark:] MAY B20E 1813 [Endorsed—not JH:] Deanhaugh/ 20 May 1813/ James Hogg [and] (for note see back of p. 7 of M. S. copy) [Watermark:] [SHIELD] [Location:] NLS, MS 7200, fols 203–04. [Printed:] Constable, II, 356–57. rural and traditionary tales in fact Hogg had mentioned the work in his letter to Scott of 3 April 1813, directed to ‘N. Castle Street’. J. H. Craig of Douglas Esq. Hogg used this pseudonym for The Hunting of Badlewe: A Dramatic Tale (Edinburgh, 1814). It consists of his own initials and a version of CraigDouglas, the home of his parents in Yarrow.

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no one in Edin. see, however, Hogg’s letter to Scott of 3 April 1813 directed to ‘N. Castle Street’. Mr. J. Grieve Hogg’s early friend John Grieve, with business premises on the North Bridge in Edinburgh. Hogg had read The Queen’s Wake to him before publication (see Memoir, p. 28), and also his other works as they were written.

To Robert Anderson

[after 20 May 1813]

Thursday 6 o’clock My dear sir There are about a dozen of Scotish bards to take a social glass together to night at 9 at Brown’s tavern head of Lieth Street among whom are Wilson, Tennant, Gray &c &c if you could come and head us for a little while it would gratify us not a little Yours very truly James Hogg [Addressed:] Dr. Robt. Anderson/ 2 Windmill Street [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 22. 4. 17, fols 193–94. Robert Anderson see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. date the letter mentions John Wilson as an acquaintance, whom Hogg first met at his own lodgings in Gabriel’s Road—see Memoir, p. 33. His letter to Archibald Constable of 20 May 1813 shows that he then lodged at Deanhaugh. Brown’s tavern head of Lieth Street Leith Street was the road linking the North Bridge to Leith Walk. The tavern has not been identified. Wilson John Wilson (1785–1854), subsequently the ‘Christopher North’ of the ‘Noctes Ambrosianae’ of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. His poem The Isle of Palms had been published in 1812. In his Memoir (p. 33) Hogg describes how he made Wilson’s acquaintance by inviting him to dinner at his lodgings in Gabriel’s Road, adding ‘I found him so much a man according to my own heart, that for many years we were seldom twenty-four hours asunder, when in town’. He had previously reviewed Wilson’s Isle of Palms and Other Poems in ‘a Scottish Review then going on in Edinburgh’, which may possibly have been the Scotish Review printed by D. Schaw and Son of the Lawnmarket in Edinburgh—see Memoir, pp. 32, 231. Tennant William Tennant (1784–1848) published the first edition of his mock-heroic poem Anster Fair anonymously at Anstruther in 1812. Its favourable reception led to his appointment as schoolmaster at Dunino in Fife, about 1816 he was transferred to Lasswade near Edinburgh, and in 1819 he became teacher of classical and oriental languages at Dollar Academy. In 1834 he was appointed Professor of Oriental Languages at St Andrews University—for further information see Matthew Forster Conolly, Memoir of the Life and Writings of William Tennant, LL.D. (London, 1861), pp. 33–39. Conolly mentions a visit by Tennant to Edinburgh in 1814.

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Gray although Hogg’s friend James Gray (1770–1830) did not publish his volume Cona; or, the Vale of Clwyd. And other Poems until 1814, he contributed verses to The Spy and presumably to other periodical publications previously—for further information see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 562–63.

To Bernard Barton

7 June 1813 Edin June 7th 1813

Dear Barton I recieved your packet in due course and I need not tell you how much I have been pleased with every thing that has ever yet come from you but most of all with this. I think the stanzas greatly improved and they are in the press as an introduction to the second edition of the wake. There was one term which I was thinking should have been altered as it rather struck me to be bordering on the extravagant I think it was heaven-born which I thought should only have been gifted or something to that effect but you may trust that to me I will think of it when the proof comes to my hand. You need not be the least impatient for the second edition there is little alteration indeed the most of it I have never looked at in printing. A few explanations of local terms and your verses are all the additions. Goldie was talking of introducing them by a small advertisement in his own name, but that I have not seen. I recieved a large packet of letters yesterday from Liverpool among which was one from Roscoe to M. General Dirom a sincere freind and correspondent of mine Roscoe mentions the circumstance of my poem having been warmly reccommended to him. I think I can [eop] to what kind freind I am indebted for this. He testifies his anxious wish to add his testimony of my merits of which he says my former works have long ago convinced him but regrets deeply his never having been able to procure a copy of the Queen’s Wake neither from London nor Edin. I fear it has not been well published for the General makes the same complaint and orders 50 copies to be instantly sent to Liverpool it is much against a work that it should ever be out of the market Notwithstanding all the plausible reasons that you and Mr Loft have advanced I am still very anxious that my play should make its first appearance in London, from a fixed opinion that it is only there where justice can be done to it in the performance for there are a number of characters in it of equal importance as you shall soon see: for I am getting it copied into a stile in which there will be no embarrassment in the perusal and assoon as it is ready I will send it to you by the post; and indeed I have a great desire to entrust you

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with it altogether, and though you may be induced to exclaim with Solomon “Vanity of vanities” &c. I must plainly tell you I have no fears of its being refused. I must likewise tell you that there is so much frankness, warmth, and generosity in your manner of acting toward me, that I was never so much interested in any person in the whole course of my life; and am weary with conjecturing who or what the devil you are. therefore I beg as a particular favour a short sketch of your life and pursuits, such a one as I sent you of mine. Your freind Grieve appears even more anxious to know more about you than I am. You say you honour him. So you will if ever you become acquainted with his good heart and excellent qualities. You will find [TEAR] character in the bard who sung Mary Sco[TEAR] and threw out with the highlanders; and indeed if you were here you would by degrees find out several of the bards or at least their prototypes. The bard of Ettrick I am sure you have long ago discovered. Mr Goldie tells me that you once published a few poems. I am very anxious to see them; but as I have learned deeply to regret early publications if there is one poem, nay one verse, that might tend to lessen you in my esteem, I wish, I desire that I may never see them—all future productions I can ask with confidence— Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] Bernard Barton Esq./ Woodbridge/ Suffolk./ S. B. [Postmark:] JUNE B7E 1813 [and] ½ [Watermark:] [CROWNED SHIELD AND ORNATE INITIALS] [Location:] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: James Hogg Collection GEN MSS 61, Box 1, Folder 2. [Printed:] Adam, pp. 4–5. your packet this clearly contained a revised version of Barton’s ‘To James Hogg, The Ettrick Shepherd, Author of The Queen’s Wake. By a Gentleman of Suffolk’ which had appeared in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 29 April 1813. A substantially-revised version was included in the second edition of The Queen’s Wake (Edinburgh, 1813), pp. vii–x. one term Barton’s poem addresses Hogg as ‘O heaven-taught Shepherd!’ in the version included in the second edition of The Queen’s Wake (p. ix), instead of the ‘O gentle shepherd!’ of the original version. little alteration indeed the second edition of The Queen’s Wake consisted largely of the remaining printed sheets from the first edition, with new preliminaries and a new final gathering. explanations of local terms in the new final gathering printed for the second edition of The Queen’s Wake the old notes XXIV to XXVII were omitted (perhaps acciden-

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tally) and new notes XXIV to XXXII substituted. These provided definitions of Scots words for landscape features. a small advertisement in his prefatory ‘Advertisement’ in the second edition of The Queen’s Wake Goldie explains that on the publication of the first edition he received several queries as to its author being a genuine Ettrick Shepherd, and that having answered such a letter from Barton he received the verses now included in the present edition. Roscoe to M. General Dirom for information about William Roscoe and Alexander Dirom see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Hogg had asked Dirom to direct Roscoe’s attention to The Queen’s Wake—see his letter to General Dirom of 14 May 1813 and notes. Barton, who had made Roscoe’s acquaintance at a time when he was working as tutor in a Liverpool family, had written to him on 22 April 1813 (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 208) soliciting his patronage for The Queen’s Wake. from London nor Edin. Goldie’s arrangements with his London partner Longman appear to have been deficient as regards the distribution of copies of Hogg’s poem. The third edition title-page gives Henry Colburn as Goldie’s London partner, perhaps for this reason. Mr Loft Capell Lofft (1751–1824)—see the note to Hogg’s letter to Barton of 14 May 1813. According to Lucy Barton her father, being unfamiliar with theatrical matters as a Quaker, had consulted Lofft about Hogg’s drama. ‘Lofft took the matter into consideration, and promised all assistance, but on the whole dissuaded Hogg from trying London managers; he himself having sent them three tragedies of his own; and others by friends of “transcendent merit, equal to Miss Baillie’s,” all of which had fallen on barren ground’—see [Lucy Barton], Selections from the Poems and Letters of Bernard Barton (London, 1849), p. xiv–xv. my play The Hunting of Badlewe published by Goldie in 1814. getting it copied Hogg persuaded Goldie to print six copies for perusal by his literary advisers—see his subsequent letter to Barton of 5 July [1813]. with Solomon see Ecclesiastes 1. 1–2. The Book of Ecclesiastes was traditionally attributed to Solomon. a short sketch Hogg’s letter giving Barton an account of his life has not apparently survived, though it is referred to in Barton’s letter to William S. Fitch of 28 April 1830: ‘I have found thee a real autobiographical treasure, & one I would not have parted with to any but thee—Tis the first letter I ever had from Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd, giving a curious account of his early life, education, and literary progress; his first learning to read and still more to write, & the first stirrings of a spirit of literary ambition & enterprize [...]’—see The Literary Correspondence of Bernard Barton, ed. by James E. Barcus (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1966), p. 76. the bard who sung Mary Sco[TEAR] the first minstrel of ‘Night the Third’ in Hogg’s The Queen’s Wake is one ‘That, when this dream of youth was past, | Deep in the shade his harp he cast; | In busy life his cares beguiled, | His heart was true, and fortune smiled’—see The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004), p. 107. Although he refuses to give his name and disappears at the conclusion of ‘Mary Scott’ he is selected as one of three bards from whom the ultimate winner of the prize harp is to be chosen, but withdraws from the final contest, despising the Highlanders and saying that the Southerners have in effect won the contest as two out of three finalists are from the South of Scotland.

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The bard of Ettrick a romantic portrait of Hogg himself, who is the singer of ‘Old David’ and winner of the Caledonian Harp. The Queen’s Wake also includes portraits of Allan Cunningham, William Gillespie, James Gray, and John Morrison. published a few poems Barton’s Metrical Effusions had been published in 1812.

To Bernard Barton

5 July [1813] Edin July 5th

My dear and valued friend I received your three last all on the same day owing to my having been absent for some weeks in Ettrick forest where I was called on rather a melancholly occassion. I have lost the warmest the sincerest and in a word the best friend that ever I had in this world or am ever likely to have My old mother to whom my attachment was such as cannot be described is no more and I am just returned from paying the last sad duties to her to whom I owed every thing that a son could pay and from comforting an aged father who is now left right solitary. I have however this solace that her existence was lengthened while it could be comfortable to herself valuable to her friends it always was She died at the age of 84. This I know will be as [sic] sufficient excuse for my delay in answering you. My indolence in this is however notable even to a proverb among my friends therefore I beg that in kindness you will at no time once think of it assured that my heart and affections are incapable of ingratitude and not to be swayed from my literary friends I have so many things to answer that I do not know where to begin. I expected not have written [sic] before I sent you a copy of my tragedy, but the truth is, that to save myself trouble and give my few secret friends an opportunity of judging fairly I am getting four or five copies printed on writing paper in a very small neat type and owing to my absence from town that has likewise been stopped short. It will now soon be ready. Of genius which you describe the Rev. Mr. Morby to possess there certainly cannot be a more fit hand for an assistant judge. I have never had the pleasure of seeing his review of the Mountain Bard (that uncultivated work) but I have often heard of it. When I entrust the play to you and your friends I do it without conditions you shall be the judge who these friends are to be. It would be highly improper in me to object to one individual in so friendly a circle but I would humbly propose Roscoe as an associate who seems from some letters I have had lately to be remarkably friendly and it is certainly proper that the communication should come from you as a

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body or from some of you that no cross purposes may exist but that my few friends may be enabled to work to one another’s hands and understand one another.—I spoke to Mr Goldie yesterday (Sunday) about the two copies of the Wake. He said as they were now in Longman’s hand the cheapest way and the readiest way for you would be to cause your bookseller order them straight from London. I shall see him again to day. As I have some excellent old Scottish tales in MS. by me I am thinking of publishing them in two volumes and of preserving the best of those in the Spy among them which is quite out of print and being weekly Nos. there is not perhaps 4 or 5 copies of it extant. The tales of the Spy are perhaps best worthy of being preserved the poetry may claim a part in some future collection and the moral and critical essays I know not what to say about them as it is at present I fear it would be an outré miscellany at all events pruning would be requisite. Pieces dashed off on the spur of the moment must be errattic. Grieve will likely write to day and tell you what he thinks of the matter. Many of my friends are of the same opinion with you at least with regard to the tales of the Spy. Mr Walr. Scott says in a letter “If I may judge from my own feelings and the interest I took in them the tales are superior at least in the management to any I have read: the stile of them is likewise quite new” He mentions the one about Mr. Bell Duncan Campbell and the country Laird in particular and says there are some more which he does not reccollect the following is a list of the writers Nos. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 7. 10. 12. 13. 16. 18. 19. 20. 22. 24. 25. 26. 29. 31. 35. 36. 39. 40. 44. pt. of 48. 49. 51. 52. are all written by me one or two borrowed sentences occur from Johnson I have quite forgot where. The prose parts of Nos. 6. 8. 9. 15. 2[TEAR] 33. 37. 47. and the poetry beginning p. 48. 134. 214. are by my worthy f[TEAR] James Gray Esq. Master of the High school Edin. who will hearti[TEAR] join with you or any person in extoling the Ettrick Shephe[TEAR] above all other men. His lady is the author of the prose parts of Nos. 30. 32. 34 and 41. with two small pieces of poetry. Rev. Ts Gillespie of Nos. 38. 42. 46. Rev. Wm. Gillespie of Nos. 14 and another I forget which There are parts of other Nos. by sundry people. The poetry beginning in the following pages is all mine p. 15. 24. 40. 56. 80. 95. 96. 111. 112. 120. 152. 157. 175. 155. 231. 238. 247. 287. 295. 303. 311. 318. 343. 344. 360. 383. 392. 409. I certainly have a great deal more to say but as a sheet is as much as ever my unconquerable indolence can surmount in correspondence you must my dear Barton be content with this for the present in lieu of all other debts and mortgages I hope richly to repay them

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all to your kind indulgent heart in a few days by the Hunting of Badlewe believe me ever yours James Hogg [Addressed:] Barnard [sic] Barton/ Woodbridge/ Suffolk/ S. B. [Postmark:] JUL W5A 1813 [and] Addl. ½ [Watermark:] [photocopy] [Location:] Photocopy, owned by Karl Miller. your three last Barton’s letters have not apparently survived. Hogg’s letter is dated by the postmark. a melancholly occassion the precise date of the death of Hogg’s mother, Margaret Laidlaw, was not recorded. Her baptism appears in the Ettrick OPR: ‘1730 July 12th: Margaret daughter of William Laidlaw and Bessie Scott herd in Upper Fawhope was Baptized’. my tragedy The Hunting of Badlewe, subsequently published by Goldie in 1814. Rev. Mr. Morby has not been identified, and neither has his review of Hogg’s The Mountain Bard (1807). Roscoe Capell Lofft wrote to William Roscoe on 19 July 1813 (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 2450) ‘You will receive a Dramatic Composition of which I understand only six copies have been printed: And for which Mr Hogg & Mr Barton in his behalf wish the benefit of your opinion & advice & of whatever recommendation you may on perusal judge it to merit’. Lofft states that at the time of writing he had not seen Hogg’s play himself. old Scottish tales in MS. see Hogg’s letter to Eliza Izett of 23 March 1813 and notes. From his letter to Scott of 3 April 1813 it is possible that Hogg’s manuscript collection included an early version of The Brownie of Bodsbeck. Mr Walr. Scott says in a letter Hogg’s letter to Scott of 3 April 1813 mentions a visit he proposed to pay to Scott to discuss Hogg’s Scottish tales, and Scott’s letter, which has not apparently survived, may have followed this visit. Hogg subsequently implied that Scott had seen The Brownie of Bodsbeck in manuscript—see his Anecdotes of Scott, ed. by Jill Rubenstein (S/SC, 1999), p. 51. Mr. Bell Duncan Campbell and the country Laird see ‘Dangerous Consequences of the Love of Fame, when ill directed’ (no. 35), ‘History of the Life of Duncan Campbell’ (nos. 49 and 51), and ‘The Country Laird’ (nos. 24, 25, and 26), in The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 349–54; 485–92 and 504–13; and 246–53, 255–63, and 264–70, respectively. a list of the writers the detail Hogg gives here, including page numbers, and his previous reference to Barton’s opinion of his tales in The Spy, imply that Barton had access to a copy of the work. Possibly Hogg had sent him one previously. written by me Hogg’s list of his own prose articles here agrees substantially with the attributions he made subsequently in three marked copies of The Spy—for further details of all attributions made in these copies see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/ SC, 2000). Hogg additionally claims ‘On the Folly of Playing at Cards’ in no. 20 of The Spy, for which no authorship has previously been determined.

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borrowed [...] from Johnson the relevant passages occur in nos. 19, 35, 36, 39, 48, and 52—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 598–99, 610, 611, 615, 625, and 628. James Gray Esq. Hogg’s list of Gray’s prose articles here agrees with the attributions in marked copies of The Spy, as does the poetry with page numbers referring to issues 6, 17, and 27. The final part of ‘Life of a Profligate Student’, in no. 11 of The Spy, is also by Gray. His lady Hogg’s list of Mary Gray’s prose contributions here differs from attributions in marked copies of The Spy, where ‘Caution Necessary in Chusing a Wife’ in no. 30 is attributed to William Gillespie, and she is credited with the ‘History of Two Young Ladies’ in no. 45. Her two small pieces of poetry are both in no. 32. Rev. Ts Gillespie Hogg’s list of Thomas Gilliespie’s contributions here agrees with attributions in marked copies of The Spy. Rev. Wm. Gillespie on the evidence of marked copies of The Spy William Gillespie is also credited with ‘Caution Necessary in Chusing a Wife’ in no. 30, attributed here to Mary Gray. The poem, ‘Address to the Setting Moon’ in no. 28 is also his. The poetry the page numbers referring to Hogg’s own poetry identify poems in nos. 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 15, 19, 20, 22, 24, 29, 30, 31, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 43, 44, 48, 49, 50, and 52 of The Spy. These agree with attributions in marked copies of the work. Hogg has given erroneous page numbers on two occasions: there is no poetry on pages 360 and 409, which should be pages 350 and 415 respectively.

To Archibald Constable

12 July [1813] Monday July 12th

Mr. Constable Dear Sir I have never recieved any definitive answer from you respecting the publication of my Scottish romances for which I am still waiting before I mention them to any other. If you think the publication of the whole rather too high a venture at once you may publish one tale in the first place as an experiment to sound the public in a 6/ or 7/ volume for the truth is that I would rather give you a first edition almost on any conditions than entrust it with any other in Scotland. But I charge you unless you think it a concern worth your while not to let any regard for the author engage you in it.—Do not send word for me to come and speak with you for a quiet word with you is impossible and I will not come nor attempt it but write me your mind in a line or two frankly as I do to you I am Your Obliged James Hogg [Addressed:] Arch. Constable Esq. [Endorsed—not JH:] Edinr. 12 July 1813/ James Hogg

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[Postmark:] none [Watermark:] [SHIELD] [Location:] NLS, MS 7200, fols 205–06. [Printed:] Constable, II, 357. my Scottish romances Hogg had previously offered this collection to Constable in his letter of 20 May 1813. a quiet word with you is impossible Hogg mentions in his Memoir (p. 36) that it was a rare thing to find Constable ‘sitting at his confined desk up stairs, and alone’.

To William Laidlaw

22 July 1813

Edin. July 22 1813 My dear friend The inclosed will somewhat surprise you. it is a profound secret and only known to two men in Scotland beside yourself—therefore I must charge you neither to show it nor speak of it to any living soul. for I am determined that whatever be its success no casual or personal consideration shall affect it, but that by its own merit it shall stand or by its defects be ruined. I have not as yet ventured to trust Mr. Gray with it though it has been with a struggle of conscience that I have with-held it, but I thought I owed this to your good taste and long-standing friendship—Only half a dozen copies are printed merely to prevent holographs being known, and to prevent embarassme [eol] in the perusal by friends—managers &c. To friends such as you they are intended as proof-sheets; for the hunting of Badlewe shall not be given to the world without some certainty of poetical superiority. Let me hear from you soon and mention the first thing you do if the wheat holds its upright position—is there any fish?—I would fain be in your quarter again for a little while. I am yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr. Wm. Laidlaw/ Traquair/ Care of Mr. J. Kedie/ Peebles [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—JH:] With parcel [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg July 1813/ Hunting of Badlewe [Watermark:] FELLOWS 1812 [Location:] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: James Hogg Collection GEN MSS 61, Box 1, Folder 39. The inclosed one of the six copies of Hogg’s play The Hunting of Badlewe printed before publication and sent to Hogg’s literary advisers for their comments and corrections.

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Two copies were sent to Bernard Barton (see Hogg’s letter to Barton of 18 August 1813). Hogg also sent a copy to Scott, since Scott’s criticisms of it are embodied in an undated letter to him, printed in R. P. Gillies, ‘Some Recollections of James Hogg’, Fraser’s Magazine, 20 (October 1839), 414–30 (p. 424). two men in Scotland beside yourself perhaps John Grieve and Walter Scott. Mr. Gray Hogg’s friend James Gray of the High School. He had been an important contributor to The Spy. In his letter to [Eliza Izett] of 20 August 1813 Hogg stated that he had recently given a copy to James Gray. managers &c. Hogg wrote his play primarily for production on the stage rather than in print, and seems to have envisaged a career as a dramatist. George Goldie’s letter to Bernard Barton of 28 October 1813 (NLS, MS 1002, fols 85–86) reports, ‘He seems determined to try another tragedy this winter, and perhaps a poetical comedy’.

To Bernard Barton

18 August 1813 Edin August 18th 1813

My dear Sir I am much distressed at never hearing from you as I dispatched my parcel about a month ago. On enquiring at the coach-office I found it would cost at least 10/ which I thought too much and gave it to Constable who was just dispatching a parcel for London I think to Longman and Company. It is about the size of a Magazine, and sealed and directed simply as this letter is. I sent you only two copies having for fear of a wider circulation printed only six, therefore you must husband them as well as you can, as I will do or say nothing respecting it but in combination with you and your friends and you may be sure I am a little anxious about it. Do not write before you have procured it or ascertained that it is lost for that will only distract our operations the more. But I should think it cannot be lost.—Both the Edin. Review and the Scottish Review are to be published to morrow. Jeffery has left the country some time ago for the New world and the Wake is not in this No. of the review, neither is Rokeby. The latter is never to be in, but it is still reported the Wake is to be reviewed, what has prevented it I know not I understand it is reviewed at great length in the 10th No. of the Scottish just coming out. It is said to be written by the editor to be an article of uncommon merit, and to set my poetry in a point of view in which none has yet ventured to place it. The second edition is I understand selling slowly but constantly. I have no more news that I think can interest you—I am going a month’s tour into the highlands in the course of a forthnight or less I am Yours ever James Hogg

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[Addressed:] Barnard Barton Esq./ Woodbridge/ Suffolk/ S. B. [Postmark:] AUG W18A 1813 [and] Addl. ½ [Watermark:] FEL[TEAR]OWS/ 1812 [Location:] The Brotherton Collection, Leeds University Library: BC 19c MSS Barton. my parcel containing two copies of the printed pre-publication copies of The Hunting of Badlewe—see also Hogg’s letter to Barton of 5 July [1813]. This may have been accompanied by a letter explaining that ‘justice cannot be done it in Edinburgh’, a phrase quoted by Lucy Barton but which does not appear in surviving letters to her father—see [Lucy Barton], Selections from the Poems and Letters of Bernard Barton (London, 1849), p. xiv. to Constable in order to avoid heavy postage Hogg occasionally sent letters and manuscripts to London by getting one of the Edinburgh publishers to include them in a parcel of books or magazines sent by sea. Edin. Review a favourable notice in Edinburgh’s predominant Whig periodical would be expected to boost sales of The Queen’s Wake, particularly in England. George Goldie’s letter to Barton of 28 October 1813 (NLS, MS 1002, fols 85–86) reported that the poem ‘is to be reviewed in the next number of the Edinr. Review which will appear in the course of about 10 days’. In fact the review did not appear until the issue for November 1814. Scottish Review a quarterly publication printed by D. Schaw and Son of the Lawnmarket for Peter Hill. No. IX of the Scotish Review, including a notice of The Queen’s Wake among its contents, was advertised as ‘this day was published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 19 August 1813. A new series was launched in the spring of 1814, when the old series was described as consisting of twenty numbers—see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 23 April 1814. The printer, Daniel Schaw, became bankrupt at much the same time as George Goldie, in the autumn of 1814, and his business sequestrated—see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 20 October 1814. Although no copy of no. IX appears to have survived the review was reprinted in the Philadelphian Analectic Magazine, 3 (February 1814), 104–25. The Scotish Review may well have been the periodical for which Hogg reviewed John Wilson’s Isle of Palms and Other Poems— see Memoir, pp. 32, 231. Jeffery Francis Jeffrey (1773–1850) was one of the founders of the Edinburgh Review and its editor until 1829. He had met Charlotte Wilkes in Edinburgh in 1810 and in 1813 he decided to follow her to her native America. He sailed from Liverpool on 29 August 1813, married Miss Wilkes in New York during October, and landed at Liverpool with his bride on 10 February 1814. Rokeby Scott’s poem, published on 11 January 1813, was not reviewed in the Edinburgh Review. the Wake is to be reviewed Francis Jeffrey’s review of The Queen’s Wake appeared in the Edinburgh Review, 24 (November 1814), 157–74. second edition [...] selling slowly it was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 June 1813, and when he wrote to Barton on 28 October 1813 (NLS, MS 1002, fols 85–86) Goldie reported it was ‘all sold excepting a very few copies’. a month’s tour Hogg’s letter to [Eliza Izett] of 20 August 1813 expresses an intention to explore the Ochil hills. From his letter to Alexander Bald of 14 November 1813 he passed through Alloa.

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To [Eliza Izett]

157 20 August 1813 Edin August 20th 1813

My dearest friend I am resolved to visit you as soon as I understand you are to have any leisure time to spare me. I have got the proffer of two companions but which of them I shall accept of I do not yet know. Mr. Russel the writer is coming north on some business and means to stop at Kinnaird a night or two and I promised to accompany him thorough the Ochels by the Devon Amalric &c—he is no companion for you and me but then he would fish the whole day and never heed us. But Mr Gray has of late offered me his company now I am anxious above all things that Mr. Gray should see you. He is a boundess [sic] enthusiast and admires some of the blue stockingers here as the most perfect of all human creatures I think with a peculiar grateful triumph on his conceptions when he sees and converses with my Eliza I have only one thing to fear which is that the witchery of the Scene with your oeconomy conversation and altogether will derange his intellects. He likewise now knows of The Hunting. I had resolved not to trust him but my conscience checked me and I gave him a copy of late. The time of his vacation is however limited he must come soon or not at all. I will anxiously wait your answer to this, before I set out on that or any other journey I have been with Miss Forbes two or three times But I cannot as yet give you a fair estimate of her character Her disposition I think I shall greatly like— as yet I esteem her chiefly as a dear friend’s friend a friend whom I have not yet discovered in the wrong. But upon the whole I do not feel exactly easy under this introduction—I do not rightly understand it—it looks as if you were wishing to get quietly quit of an old faithful lover and therefore I do not like it.—Once when I requested to be off you absolutely refused it and now when I was hinting at no such desire but bearing my yoke all things considered with great quietness and decorum you are endeavouring to slide me off your hands in a very sly and ingenous manner—But it will not do I am not to be flung so easily and that you shall find—I am meditating some little pilgrimages farther into the highlands if the weather is fine. The Edin. and the Scottish Reviews were both published yesterday. Neither Rokeby nor the Wake is in the former. Rokeby it is certain is never to be in, but it is still reported that the Wake is. It is reviewed at great length in this No of the Scottish. It is an excellent article and said to be written by the editor. He has placed my character as a poet in a much higher point of view than any has yet ventured to place it perhaps you may think that impossible after read-

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ing the following extract out a London Monthly publication. After giving the analasys he says, the English writer I mean “This subject, so fertile of poetic beauty the most diversified and contrasted, yields an harvest fully adequate to all that could be expected from the advantages of the field. Greater ease and spirit, a sweeter, richer, more animated and easy flow of versification, more clearness of language, more beauty of imagery, more grandeur, fervor, pathos, and occassionally more vivid and aweful sublimity, can hardly be found” “The bard that could write such songs as a farewell to Ettrick and Love Abused and the address to his auld dog Hector will not easily be excelled in pathetic simplicity; but Kilmeny has a more than earthly charm, and Mary Scott every beauty of story, incident sentiment, and description, the most interesting suspense and the most affecting development; while Sir David Graham, and the Abbot of M,Kinnon are rare instances of power in the terrible and sublime” Were I to copy all that the Scots writer says of this nature it would fill many sheets but as I know of no kind of information that will prove so gratefull to my dear friend I shall copy one or two of them as they come “In the whole range of literature we do not know that there is another example of such great and rapid progress to excellence. No person, we will venture to say, who has formed his opinion of the Ettrick Shepherd from The Mountain Bard can have the faintest anticipation of the treasure he is to meet with in the Queen’s Wake. Instead of that vulgarity which once so justly gave offence he will meet with a delicacy of sentiment, and expression which would do honour to the most skilfull master in the art of numbers. That imagination which seemed shackled down by local habits he will behold soaring into the furthest regions of thought; and throughout the whole he will percieve the most indubitabl [sic] marks of a great original and truly poetic mind” “He presents the curious spectacle of a person who began to write almost as soon as he could read—who risked and sullied his fame by publishing long before his productions were fit for appearing before the public—but who has had confidence enough in his own powers to uphold him against much discouragement until he has at length reached to a degree of excellence which shows the folly of all calculations with regard to the progress of genius and cannot fail to secure him a high and lasting place in the esteem of the world” “To the penetration of Mr. Laidlaw Hogg is perhaps entirely indebted for the progress he has made and the public for the greatest poetical genius of the present day”

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“The following description of evening is not perhaps exceeded by any similar description in the English language for strength and vividness of colouring” “A quotation from Old David follows beginning “That evening fell so sweetly still &c” “The author evinces here as well as in a great many of his other descriptions, the mind and eye of a poet of the first order. At the same time that the drawing is true to nature, the selections and grouping of the objects are executed with the nicest discernment, and breathe all the animation of the most glowing fancy” “The author has only to follow the natural bent of his own genius and he will always write well. In simple pathos, we know of no writer who appears to posess so compleatly all the elements of that touching species of writing. Equalled he may be, but there is none of whom we have reason to hope so much” For all this the writer finds a great number of faults most of them venial but some rather sweeping ones and some I fear too just after a long examination of these he again says “It gives us real pleasure upon the whole to reflect, that of all we have stated as exeptionable in the author’s poetry there is nothing which may not be expected to give way to more enlarged views of human nature and to a more cultivated taste in letters; and if the strictures which we have made shall be of any service in pointing out to the author the straight onward path to excellence, criticism will then have effected its most pleasing, perhaps its most usefull purpose. The author evidently posesses all the materials of a great poet and a susceptibility of improvement adequate to the very highest efforts. Free from that extreme conciet which too often obstructs the way of self-taught geniuses, it is gratifying to see that no censure has ever had the effect of making him adhere with pertinacity to his errors, nor any praise induced him to relax in his exertions to do better. This is truly a noble quality, and one which leads us to anticipate every thing we could wish from his future labours &c. &c.” He concludes the article thus “Unnoticed he shall not be as long as there is an honest chronicler left to record the exertions of humble and unassisted genius to raise itself from obscurity to a place in the volume of fame; and unknown he never can be while a taste remains for genuine and unaffected sentiment—for bold and original thought, dressed in all the most witching charms of poetry” Farewell believe me ever Your affectionate James Hogg

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[Addressed:] [no address panel] [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] V. FIELD/ 1813 [Location:] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: James Hogg Collection GEN MSS 61, Box 1, Folder 37. to visit you Hogg relates in his Memoir (p. 34), ‘I generally went on a tour into the Highlands every summer, and always made a point of tarrying some time at Kinnaird House in Athol, the seat of Chalmers Izett, Esq., whose lady had taken an early interest in my fortunes, which no circumstance has ever abated’. Mr. Russel the writer perhaps John Russell (1780–1862) who was later Secretary to the Edinburgh Academy, and a Principal Clerk of Session. He became a Writer to the Signet in 1803—see Corson, p. 618. thorough the Ochels the Ochil hills run eastward from Sherrifmuir, near Dunblane in Perthshire. The Devon runs through Glendevon before it leaves the Ochils. Amulree is half-way between Crieff and Aberfeldy. Mr Gray Hogg’s friend and future brother-in-law James Gray. The Hunting six copies of Hogg’s drama The Hunting of Badlewe had been printed in the early summer of 1813, for distribution among Hogg’s literary advisers—see his letter to Bernard Barton of 14 May 1813. It was subsequently published under the pseudonym of J. H. Craig of Douglas by George Goldie in the summer of 1814. his vacation James Gray was classics master at the Edinburgh High School, which in 1813 had broken up after the annual examination of the pupils on 6 August. New classes were due to begin on 20 September—see Caledonian Mercury for 31 July and 9 September 1813. Miss Forbes has not been identified, though clearly Hogg suspected Eliza Izett of planning a match between herself and him. The Edin. and the Scottish Reviews see Hogg’s letter to Bernard Barton of 18 August 1813 and notes. Rokeby Scott’s poem was published on 11 January 1813—see Todd & Bowden, p. 257. extract out a London Monthly publication from a letter by Capell Lofft, published in the Monthly Magazine, 35 (May 1813), 501. The passage Hogg quotes here was reproduced in advertisements for the third edition of The Queen’s Wake—see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 4 July 1814. the Scots writer although the relevant issue of the Scotish Review has not apparently survived, the review of The Queen’s Wake was reprinted in the Philadelphian Analectic Magazine, 3 (February 1814), 104–125. Hogg’s seven extracts may be found on pp. 109, 105, 106, 115, 120, 124, and 125 respectively.

To Alexander Dirom

3 September 1813 Edin Septr 3d 1813

Dear General I recieved your kind note the other day which reminded me of a sore neglect I had been guilty of in not answering your last packet.

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But about that time I likewise had a severe loss in the death of my mother; she was indeed an old woman, yet she had always been healthy and my attachment to her was no common one. You will reasonably conclude that this was a seperation that must long have been expected. It is true—we knew we had to part—we talked of it—It came familiar and we were resigned and loved each other better; but yet a last adiew is painfull—it was very painfull to me and remembrance has a thousand little kind and tender offices treasured up in my heart which long will continue to melt it. The truth is that I feel a want of some one to be kind to a vacuity in my mind which is not soon likely to be made up—but a truce to these reflections.—I think your criticism with regard to the deficiency of the notes of the Wake just.—I intended such an inquiry once, but I found that such an history instead of giving any tint of reallity to the poem, which I love, would almost entirely have divested it of the small share it posesses. I am particularly pleased with Mr. Roscoe’s good opinion and good wishes, for the English look upon him as a kind of oracle in literature, and he will soon be troubled, by some of his freinds, with a secret of mine which I know will somewhat astonish him. The gentlemen of the sister kingdom have shown much more liberallity towards me than those of my own. Jeffery you know I irritated terribly by two papers in the Spy. I judged him too independant to have remembered that, at all events one spark of national pride he certainly does not posess. It is still reported that the wake is to be in the Review and that Rokeby never is; on what grounds either is built I do not know as I shun all enquiries or appearance of care about it whatever. I sent an uncommonly splendid copy to the bishop of Salisbury to be delivered to his Royal ward with a letter requesting him to do so but he has never acknowledged the receipt, nor taken any notice of either the one or the other. I do not know how to discover if ever the poem reached its destination. In the last No of the Scottish Review there is a very long and exquisite review of the Wake. It is a good article, said to be written by the editor of that work, who has placed my poetry in a point of view where none has hitherto ventured to place it. As you testified a wish to have your freinds note returned I inclose it along with The Harp of the Hill, the design of which I once mentioned. The little affectionate family piece I will keep as a memorial of friendship. I wish to be remembered to Roscoe I hope he shall never have cause to blush for the lift he has lent to a humble stranger—an intruder on the walks of literature doomed to struggle with every prejudice—Your return to Scotland happen when it will will be a welcome return to me and

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I am sure to every one who knows you as well as I do I am always most affectionately Yours James Hogg [Addressed:] General Dirom/ Liverpool/ S. B. [Postmark:] SEP B1A 1813 [and] ½ [and in ink] 2/9 [Watermark:] V’ FIELD/ 1811 [Location:] Coutts & Co, London: Dirom Papers, no. 124 Box 602. [Printed:] Frank Miller, ‘Unpublished Letters of the Ettrick Shepherd to a Dumfriesshire Laird’, Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, third series, 17 (1930–31), 11–18 (pp. 15–16); Strout, pp. 65–66. the death of my mother this occurred towards the end of June or beginning of July 1813—see Hogg’s letter to Bernard Barton of 5 July [1813] and notes. notes of the Wake Dirom had presumably pleaded for a more extensive annotation of the historical background to Hogg’s poem, giving details about the life and times of Mary, Queen of Scots. Mr. Roscoe’s good opinion and good wishes Dirom had requested Roscoe’s support for The Queen’s Wake in a letter of 19 May 1813 (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 1239). On 6 June Hogg had received a packet of letters from Liverpool including one from Roscoe to Dirom praising his poem—see Hogg’s letter to Bernard Barton of 7 June 1813 and notes. This may be the ‘freinds note’ Dirom had asked to be returned to him and which Hogg mentions enclosing in this letter. a secret of mine Hogg expected Bernard Barton and Capell Lofft to transmit one of the six printed copies of The Hunting of Badlewe to Roscoe. Lofft notified Roscoe of this in a letter to him of 19 July 1813 (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 2450). Jeffery [...] two papers in the Spy Hogg criticised Jeffrey for inconsistency in reviewing the poems of James Grahame in no. 1 of The Spy, and for harsh treatment of Montgomery in no. 10—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 6–11 and 50–51. in the Review Jeffrey’s review of The Queen’s Wake was published in the Edinburgh Review, 24 (November 1814), 157–74. Rokeby Scott’s poem was not reviewed in the Edinburgh Review. bishop of Salisbury John Fisher (1748–1825) became bishop of Exeter in 1803. George III made him the superintendent of Princess Charlotte’s education in 1805, and he was translated from the bishopric of Exeter to that of Salisbury in 1807. his Royal ward Princess Charlotte Augusta (1796–1817), the only child of the then Prince Regent and therefore heir presumptive to the throne. In December 1813 she became engaged to William, Prince of Orange, but the match was broken off and in May 1816 she married Leopold, Prince of Saxe-Coburg. She died in childbirth in November 1817. Hogg dedicated The Queen’s Wake to her. In his Memoir (p. 34) Hogg says: ‘As it related to the amusements of a young queen, I thought I could dedicate it to no one so appropriately as to her royal and beautiful descendant, the Princess Charlotte; which I did. By the advice of some friends, I got a large paper copy bound up in an elegant antique style, which cost three guineas, and sent it as a present to her

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Royal Highness, directing it to the care of Dr. Fisher, bishop of Salisbury, and requesting him to present it to his royal pupil. His lordship was neither at the pains to acknowledge the receipt of the work or of my letter, nor, I dare say, to deliver it as directed.’ Scottish review the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 August 1813 advertises the forthcoming no. IX of The Scotish Review as to include a review of The Queen’s Wake. Although no surviving copy of this issue has been located the review may be read in the Philadelphian Analectic Magazine, 3 (February 1814), 104–25. Hogg quotes from this review at length in his letter to [Eliza Izett] of 20 August 1813. The Harp of the Hill a poem written by Hogg on the death of two of Dirom’s daughters during the winter of 1812–13, and edited by Richard D. Jackson in SHW, 13 (2002), 134–42. family piece unidentified, but presumably a sketch or picture of the Dirom family. return to Scotland Dirom was on military duty in Liverpool, but his home was the Mount Annan estate in Dumfriesshire.

To Alexander Dirom

10 November 1813 Edin. Nov. 10th 1813

Dear General I recieved your kind note on my return lately from a long highland tour and must regret the circumstances which required your presence here as well as those which prevented your attendance I feel deeply gratefull for your renewed offer of drawing upon you for any small sums I may be in need of, but as I am sure your friendship for me has always been independant of all self or interest so has ever been my respect and affection for you. There is no friend to whom I would sooner apply, if any pressing necessity occurred, but your fears on my account are groundless. Innured to want and hard labour as I have been all my life I have no artificial wants my constitution is excellent and I take particular care never to injure it by any act of intemperance or any of its concomitant vices—my frugal meal is a feast to me—my imployment a most delightfull amusement—my sleep sweet and refreshing and though my purse has seldom any manner of contents I really cannot say that I want any thing I would be the better of—A third edition on a very extensive scale of the Queen’s Wake is gone to press but will not be out in less than two months. Mr. Jeffery reviewed it before he left this country for certain, whether the article is to appear in next number or not I have not been able to ascertain but it is forthcoming and favourable in the highest degree— I was drawn into a literary correspondence with two gentlemen in Suffolk a Mr. Loft and a Mr. Barton neither of whom I know

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much about. To these two gentlemen I confided a production which I wished to keep a profound secret from the world, I however begged that your friend and neighbour Wm. Roscoe might be admitted of the privy counsel. If any of those gentlemen have transmitted such a trifle to him, I must beg your influence to procure me his opinion, and advice, which I would rather have than that of any other man There is another thing on which my heart is very much set: there was a Mr. John Scott son to Wm Scott of Singlee left Ettrick last year, being engaged as a hospital-mate on the Ceylon establishment. He is by much the most ingenous and best informed young man I ever saw and possessed of a dignity of manner, and spirit of enquiry which I think must raise him to the esteem and respect of all who know him. If you could perswade your intimate and beloved friend Moira to employ such a gentleman near his person, or in some situation where his abilities may be discerned, I am certain he would never shame your reccomendation, and it would give me the most heart-felt pleasure could I be instrumental in serving so valuable a young man—please take memorandums of these two petitions—let me hear from you occassionally and believe me ever Dear General Yours sincerely James Hogg [Addressed:] General Alex. Dirom/ Liverpool [Postmark:] NOV A10[?] 1813 [and] Addl ½ [Watermark:] none [Location:] Coutts & Co, London: Dirom Papers, no. 125 Box 602. [Location:] Frank Miller, ‘Unpublished Letters of the Ettrick Shepherd to a Dumfriesshire Laird’, Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, third series, 17 (1930–31), 11–18 (pp. 16–18) [in part]; Strout, pp. 66–67 [in part]. a long highland tour see Hogg’s letter to Alexander Bald of 14 November 1813 and notes. circumstances the circumstances that brought Dirom to Edinburgh are unknown. third edition the third edition of The Queen’s Wake was not published by Goldie until the following summer, being advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 July 1814. The printer was Ballantyne, the first two editions having been printed by Balfour. This change perhaps reflects Hogg’s original intention that Archibald Constable should publish it. According to his Memoir (p. 31) Hogg changed his publisher because he feared that Goldie ‘was going to break, and never pay me’, and after the edition was partly printed Goldie insisted successfully that he should produce it. Goldie’s account is given in his Letter to a Friend (Edinburgh, 1821). He denied that a third edition was required (p. 7), but his letter to

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Bernard Barton of 28 October 1813 (NLS, MS 1002, fols 85–86) expresses an intention of publishing a third edition before the publication of Jeffrey’s favourable notice in the Edinburgh Review. The late appearance of this review may also have delayed the publication of the third edition. According to Hogg’s letter to Byron of 3 June 1814 the edition consisted of 1500 copies. Jeffery reviewed it Jeffrey was then pursuing a bride in America, but returned in February 1814—see the notes to Hogg’s letter to Bernard Barton of 18 August 1813. His review of The Queen’s Wake appeared in the Edinburgh Review, 24 (November 1814), 157–74. Mr. Loft for further information about Capell Lofft see the notes to Hogg’s letter to Bernard Barton of 14 May 1813. No letters from Hogg to Lofft himself appear to have survived. Mr. Barton see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. a production Hogg’s play, The Hunting of Badlewe, of which he had got six copies printed for his literary advisers previous to its publication in 1814. Wm. Roscoe for Roscoe see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Mr. John Scott John Scott was the brother of Henry Scott, John Grieve’s business partner, and the youngest of the fifteen children of Hogg’s old master, William Scott of Singlee. He was born in 1795, and eventually became a distinguished Edinburgh physician, celebrated for his diagnostic skills. ‘Having a fine literary faculty, and an insatiable appetite for reading, he wrote verses of considerable power and taste. In manner he was modest and retiring to an extreme; and so absent-minded that he once lit a candle with a bank-note’—see T. Craig-Brown, The History of Selkirkshire or Chronicles of Ettrick Forest, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1886), I, 368. Moira the British general Francis Rawdon Hastings (1754–1826), succeeded as 2nd Earl of Moira in 1793, and in 1803 was appointed Commander-in-Chief for Scotland. In November 1812 he was made Commander-in-Chief for India, and embarked from Portsmouth in April 1813. He was created Marquess of Hastings in 1816. Dirom’s fifth son, born on 25 November 1812, was named Francis Moira after the Earl—see Frank Miller, ‘Unpublished Letters of the Ettrick Shepherd to a Dumfriesshire Laird’, in Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, third series, 17 (1930–31), 11–18 (p. 18).

To Alexander Bald

14 November 1813 Edin. Nov. 14th 1813

Dear Sir There has not a day passed over my head since my return from the Highlands that I have not resolved to write to you, and you see how strickly I have adhered to my resolutions. I grieve to say it is only a slight specimen of my general character, for as far as I may judge, my resolutions are generally good, but then they are not put in practice, and all the good effects that might have resulted from them are lost. But the truth is I never was so much engaged in my life as since my return to Edin. and I hope to convince you bye and

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bye that my journey has not been altogether invain. But among all the incidents, and all the traits that I saw or met with among my own species, there was nothing pleased me so much as the notice taken of me by the young gentlemen of your town, for which I was indebted to your introduction. I was particularly taken with Wilson, and the more I think of him the more disposed I feel to admire him; not for the brilliancy of his parts, or the sublimity of his morals; but for the originallity of character which peculiarises him a strange mixture of stubborn generosity and lightsome eccentricity, posessing dispositions and a taste naturally good without seeming to know it or care a d—mn about the matter. I could not help feeling a little hurt when I found that no means were left me of making any return in kind to my shakesperian brethren for all their hospitality, I may perhaps have my turn by and by; at all events I desire that, whoever of the number come to Edin. that they will call on me as an acquaintance at No. 10 St. Ann street which I will take extremely kind—I have not forgot Mrs Bald’s unaffected kindness which I admire more and which every sensible man will admire more than all the parade and ceremony in the world. I have not forgot the promise I made to send her some verses of mine in my own manuscript to add to her little store of original scraps and I think I mentioned the elegy which I had written on the death of my mother and which I have copied but which I hesitate about sending, something more appropriate to friendship may haply be found. remember me to her, and if you are so good as let me hear from you soon tell me how she is as well as the little fairy I forget its name. Our mutual friend Mr. Grieve is very well and very busy he made the tour of the lakes of Cumberland and westmoreland while I was absent on foot and quite alone he was not able to procure a travelling companion such as he wishd and was forced to take a solitary rout. I told him that you wished to go with him and that you said after that he had extorted a promise from you to go, with so much earnestness you were certain he never would slip away without sending you notice—He had quite forgot sir, and is so much vexed that he cannot endure to hear it spoke of I desire you wont let it pass. Indeed I know of no one in Scotland (myself excepted) whom he would have liked as well to have had along with him. The wake is going into a third edition which is to be more than twice as large as both the other two—Since my return from the Highlands I have been very busy with a new poem which already extends to 1100 lines and no appearance of any close. It is in the stanza of Spencer and much of it descriptive of Highland scenery and man-

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ners you will perhaps live to see the Highlanders described differently from Mrs. Grant. The approbation it has recieved has rather astonished me at myself, and I am at a loss how to proceed, or whether to proceed at all or not. I have nothing more to tell you at least that my sheet will contain—Believe me ever your obliged and affectionate James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr. Alexr. Bald/ Junior/ Alloa [Endorsed:] Jas. Hogg/ Nov/ 1813 [Postmark:] NOV B13M 1813 [and] Addl. ½ [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, Acc. 9953. [Published:] Garden, pp. 65–67. Alexander Bald for information see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. my return from the Highlands James Gray reported in his letter to William Hogg of 21 October 1813 ‘Your brother is well and has just returned from the Highlands, where he has been for a few weeks’ (Garden, p. 63). never was so much engaged Hogg subsequently dated his entry into genteel society to 1813, after his success with The Queen’s Wake—see A Series of Lay Sermons on Good Principles and Good Breeding, ed. by Gillian Hughes with Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 1997), p. 48. Wilson has not been identified. my shakesperian brethren Garden (pp. 67–68) explains that Hogg had been made an honorary member of the Shakespearian Club of Alloa and wrote his ode ‘To the Genius of Shakespeare’ for the club. This was published in a report on the anniversary dinner of the Club in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 4 May 1815, and afterwards in The Poetical Works of James Hogg, 4 vols (Edinburgh, 1822), IV, 252–54. No. 10 St. Ann street R. P. Gillies explained that after his success with The Queen’s Wake led to an increase in Hogg’s social engagements he left his suburban lodgings at Deanhaugh ‘and came to reside in an odd-looking place called St. Ann Street, under the North Bridge, which (the street, I mean) was afterwards pulled down’—see ‘Some Recollections of James Hogg’, Fraser’s Magazine, 20 (October 1839), 414–30 (p. 419). Harris (p. 541) says that the street ‘was formed in about 1770 by a developer John Home. Descending steeply from Princes Street immediately west of the North Bridge [...]. It was purchased and suppressed in 1816 by the town council, who built a new terrace of houses set back twelve feet from the Bridge and intended to improve the view of the Register House from it, the twelve-foot gap being arched over to form a wide pavement’. Hogg must have moved to St Ann Street after 20 May 1813, since his letter to Constable of that date was written from Deanhaugh. Mrs Bald’s unaffected kindness Bald had married Ann Geddes of Alloa on 15 September 1809 (Alloa OPR). Hogg’s promise of a contribution to her album was finally fulfilled by his letter to her of 1 June 1816. the elegy ‘A Last Adieu’, first published in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 1 (May 1817), 169.

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the little fairy presumably Bald’s baby daughter, Margaret, born on 24 August 1812 (Alloa OPR). Our mutual friend Mr. Grieve until moving to Edinburgh in 1804 John Grieve had been in business in Alloa for several years. He had introduced Bald to Hogg in 1803— see Rogers, III, 43 and II, 36–37. a third edition for information about the publication of a third edition of The Queen’s Wake see Hogg’s letter to Dirom of 10 November 1813 and notes. Hogg implies in his Memoir (p. 29) that the first edition consisted of a thousand copies. The size of the second edition is unknown. a new poem an early version of Mador of the Moor (1816). In his Memoir (p. 34) Hogg explained that this poem was begun during a summer holiday stay at Kinnaird House, the home of his friend Eliza Izett, though misdating the visit to 1814. In his letter to Bernard Barton of 28 October 1813 (NLS, MS 1002, fols 85–86) Goldie reports that Hogg ‘is engaged in a descriptive poem in the spenserian stanza [...]. He began this poem among the different scenes which it professes to describe and is now extended to above fifty stanzas—Mr. Grieve and I read it along with him a few nights ago, and we intend to do the same tonight with what he has written since, from which I anticipate another treat of no ordinary relish’. Hogg’s Memoir states that it was completed within a short time of its commencement and that in the published version one book ‘of the descriptive part’ was omitted (p. 35). This may represent as much as a sixth of the original poem, since there are five cantos in the poem as published. Mrs. Grant Anne Grant of Laggan (1755–1838) published her Letters from the Mountains in 1803, and Superstitions of the Highlands in 1811. Hogg had mentioned her poetry briefly in no. 10 of The Spy—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), p. 98.

To William Hogg

28 November 1813 Edin Novr 28 1813

Dear brother I have been very much to blame in not answering your letters but the truth is that I never write any letters. The one of yours which I recieved in Athol I cannot lay my hands upon but I know I objected particularly to the terms perfect breed and perfection of a breed I recieved all my things in the box safe and I find them of excellent quality. I am sorry I have not got a copy of the Wake to you tho’ I sent for one I send you the review and Magn You shall have a copy of the poem soon. I will see my nephew Robert to day as I am bound to the south. Mr. Gray has a good letter from you which I understand he has been reading in all the literary circles of Edin. to show them as he says that the genius of the family is not all concentred in one head for Gods sake take some thought of your was’s and were’s has and have is and are &c excuse me my dear William for believe me the writing of a letter is now the greatest penance I suffer I am your affectionate brother James Hogg

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[Addressed:] [none: paper trimmed for mounting] [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] J WHATMAN/ 1810 [Location:] NLS, MS 20437, fol. 25. [Printed:] The British Letter Writers, ed. by Robert Cochrane (Edinburgh, 1882), p. 231; F. A. Mumby, Letters of Literary Men: The Nineteenth Century (London, 1911), pp. 98–99; Strout, pp. 67–68. William Hogg see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. The letters Hogg mentions have not apparently survived. in Athol William Hogg’s letter may have been addressed to his brother at Kinnaird House, where Hogg ‘always made a point of tarrying some time’—see Memoir, p. 34. perfect breed and perfection of a breed William Hogg occasionally wrote articles for Constable’s Farmer’s Magazine—see Hogg’s letter to Constable of [?early 1806]. the review and Magn presumably periodicals containing reviews of The Queen’s Wake. Hogg cited a favourable notice in the Scotish Review in his letter to [Eliza Izett] of 20 August 1813. The other notice may be the one in the Scots Magazine, 75 (February 1813), 126–31. my nephew Robert William Hogg’s eldest son, Robert, who had been baptised on 14 June 1802, was now eleven years old. a good letter from you James Gray had written to William Hogg on 21 October 1813, to request information about James Hogg’s early years for an account he was preparing of Hogg’s life and literary career—see Garden, pp. 62–63. William Hogg’s reply of 20 November 1813 survives in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: James Hogg Collection GEN MSS 61, Box 1, Folder 19. This was presumably incorporated subsequently into the paper Gray read to the Literary Association on 23 January 1818, ‘Biographical Account of Mr James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd; with notices of his various publications, and critical remarks on the genius and manner of writing of Mr. Hogg’—see Sketch of the Life of the Rev. James Gray, M.A. (Edinburgh, 1859), p. 6. A version was published subsequently as ‘Life and Writings of James Hogg’, Edinburgh Magazine, 2 ( January, February, and March 1818), 35–40, 122–29, 215–23.

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FOR 1814 To James M‘Turk

[1814]

But it pleased God to take away by death all my ewes and my lambs, and my long-horned cow, and my spotted bull, for if they had lived, and if I had kept the farm of Corfardin, I had been a lost man to the world, and mankind should never have known the half that was in me. Indeed, I can never see the design of Providence in taking me to your district at all, if it was not to breed my acquaintance with you and yours, which I hope will be one source of happiness to me as long as I live. Perhaps the very circumstance of being initiated into the mysteries of your character, is of itself a sufficient compensation for all that I suffered in your country. [Location:] Printed, Rogers, II, 12. date Rogers, II, 12 gives the date 1814. James M‘Turk see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Hogg had briefly leased the farm of Corfardin in Tynron parish, Dumfriesshire in 1807–08. to take away by death Hogg’s sheep at Corfardin seem to have been entirely destroyed during the frosts of April 1808—see notes to his letter to Scott of 2 May 1808, which announces his intention to relinquish the farm.

To William Roscoe

22 January 1814 Edin. Janr 22d 1814

Dear Sir I recieved yours inclosed by Gen. Dirom only about a week ago among the mountains of Ettrick where I have been for these three months enjoying the winter sports with an avidity and relish which I have scarcely before experienced—I arrived here late last night weary and fatigued beyond measure having fought my way from Tweed thro’ a terrible depth of snow and drift the wheeled carriages being all stopped and I now take the earliest opportunity of answering your friendly and unbiassed letter—I do confess that during the time I was engaged in composing The Hunting and even subsequently I intended to offer it for representation on the London boards, and

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with the ardour and enthusiasm of self approbation natural to every candidate for poetical fame, hoped that it would add both to my fame and fortune. I got six copies printed as proof-sheets and showed it to a very few select literary friends—Their opinions have differed materially on the principal point, but so strongly have I been urged by some of them to bring it forward, who ventured to stake their judgements on its success, that as I was so long in hearing from you I had actually concerted a scheme with a gentleman of high literary connections who had undertaken to endeavour getting it brought forward anonymously in London—But the truth is that I was all the while sensible that these friends were better judges of poetical merit than of dramatic effect and I only acquiesced in their scheme with hesitation and trembling—Your Critique has just arrived in time and has fixed my determination beyond the danger of a relapse and I can never enough thank you for your sincere and ingenous remarks— they are quite unanswerable—there is so much plain and simple reason so much manly and honest candour (the first of all requisites in a literary monitor) that I have not the smallest doubt remaining of their accuracy—I ought however previously to have informed you that ever since I began to pay the smallest attention to the drama, I have always been decidedly of opinion that by a little innovation on the modern recieved and established rules the sphere of the drama might be greatly enlarged. I concieve that a representation of connected incidents dependant upon one another and leading to one or several catastrophes affords much more room for traits of human nature and human character than the common way of relating them upon the stage; and in short that with proper management a tale might be represented with better effect and more unremitting interest than any play conformed to the modern shackles of time place and such confounded stuff, that by the impracticable jumbles of incident and space, divests the piece of every shade of pleasing delusion, and instead of nature presents us only with a mass of deformity. This is my avowed and fixed opinion and merely as an experiment in that kind of composition I wrote the Hunting of Badlewe so that I have not so much failed in my plot as in my previous judgement how a plot ought to be conducted—I have argued this point strenously with my friends these several years and have brought over several converts; from my own feelings I am so thoroughly convinced that I have reason and common sense on my side that I have resolved with myself never to write any play save an historic or legendary one, and if I had apprised you of this our reasoning would have been on another basis—The imperfection of the characters and the

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inequality of the polishing I frankly admit; the one is the consequence of carelesness and facility in writing, and is easily remedied, but in the other I felt a sensible and pressing defect, I mean in diversity and originality of character, my muse being quite a novice in that department—In future attempts you shall see that defect not so palpable—As I think the [TEAR] good to lose I will publish it as a dramatic tale, with a short [TEAR] preface. O how much in that case would I be the better of your particular objections to it as a closet amusement! I really wish you would send me the copy you have by our esteemed and mutual friend Gen. D. inclosing those you judge gross blunders in brackets with your pencil, the more trivial ones you may trust to myself as I already guess right surely at some of the very words you allude to. Now my dear sir I again thank you for your kind and candid hints, and assure you that it never shall be offered nor even suffered to be represented. I will not burden you with a request of constant correspondence which I know your various avocations cannot admit of but if I may still be honoured with your countenance and friendship and an occassional exchange of sentiments on paper I will account it one of the chiefest blessings of an indulgent heaven and continue your ever indebted and humble Shepherd James Hogg [Addressed:] Willm Roscoe Esq/ of Allerton/ Liverpool [Postmark:] JAN B22A 1814 [and] Addl. ½ [Endorsed—not JH:] Mr. Jas. Hogg/ 22d Jan. 1814 [Watermark:] J WHATMAN/ 18[TEAR] [Location:] NLS, MS 9819, fols 162–63. William Roscoe see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Gen. Dirom see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. He was currently on military duty in Liverpool. depth of snow delays to the postal service from London due to the snow were reported in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 20 January 1814, which added that owing to the intense frost ‘it is with the greatest difficulty that vessels can either enter or depart from Leith harbour’. The Hunting one of six printed copies of Hogg’s tragedy The Hunting of Badlewe had been sent to Roscoe by Bernard Barton—see Hogg’s letter to Barton of 5 July [1813] and notes. The letter Roscoe sent Hogg with a detailed criticism of the play does not appear to have survived (it was sent by Hogg to Eliza Izett with his letter of 11 February 1814), but in an undated rough draft (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 2047) Roscoe gives his opinion that the play was unsuitable for representation on the stage.

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concerted a scheme Hogg’s friend of ‘high literary connections’, who planned to introduce The Hunting of Badlewe on the London stage, has not been identified. modern shackles of time place Roscoe’s draft states that Hogg’s play, though containing some fine scenes, does not ‘form a perfect whole’. Although a tragedy may admit of episodes ‘yet they shod. all contribute to the illustration of the principal object’ (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 2047). The imperfection of the characters Roscoe’s draft objects to the want of sympathetic characters in Hogg’s play: ‘Matilda excites only aversion & perhaps is too gross for the stage & Annabel the heroine forfeits all claim to our favour by her weakness & her elopement [...]’. the inequality of the polishing Roscoe’s draft also mentions detailed objections to Hogg’s style, ‘many expressions—some too gross—others too low—others too trivial’. a dramatic tale, with a short [TEAR] preface Hogg’s The Hunting of Badlewe was advertised, ‘This day was published’ by Goldie in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 31 March 1814: it was dedicated to John Wilson and contained a preface defending the play’s breach of the dramatic unities.

To Archibald Constable

1 February 1814 Grieve & Scotts Feb. 1st 1814

Sir Excepting a few notes &c. I have finished a poem of 2200 lines or thereabout. I intend it to be such a volume as the Queen’s Wake, at least the same price but not so thick; the number of pages however shall be at the publisher’s option. Though I suppose it is invain, yet to save all reflections from my friends and stings of my own conscience, I hereby make you the first offer of it. There is always one good thing attends our transactions when we don’t agree about a book we never cast out about it As in reason this ought to be my best poem so you may believe me if I did not deem it so I would not publish it at this time, yet as calculation on such a thing is impossible, I think the fairest way is to agree on a certain sum for each 100 copies that are published, the number of the edition to be always what the publisher pleases.—Say that £13.. is allowed me for every 100 copies that are published, and on the day preceding the publication, a bill granted for the total at 6 or 9 months. These are my ideas of the matter, and on these conditions I offer you the work, the copy-right not removable without your consent as long as the conditions agreed on are faithfully fulfilled. Let me have your sentiments in answer to this which I like as the most concise way. By the by as [eop] as the only way left me of accomplishing a desired event, I should be very glad to bargain

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with you for a copy-right of all my works hitherto published, but this must be done instantly or never. I am ever your obliged And most Obedt Servt. James Hogg To Arch. Constable Esq.) [Addressed:] Archd. Constable Esq. [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Edinr 1 Feby 1814/ James Hogg [and] 2(For note see back of p. 7 of MS copy) [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 7200, fols 207–08. [Printed:] Constable, II, 357–58. a poem of 2200 lines probably Mador of the Moor, eventually published by Blackwood and Murray in 1816. Hogg seems to have started writing it during a visit to Kinnaird House in the autumn of 1813—see his letter to Alexander Bald of 14 November 1813 and notes. A paragraph in the ‘Literary Intelligence’ of the Scots Magazine, 76 (April 1814), 296 announces: Mr Hogg will likewise shortly publish a new poem entitled Morice [sic] of the Moor. It is a highland tale, and descriptive of the manners, superstitions, and scenery, of that romantic country. From all that we have learned of this poem, we are led to expect that the public will derive from it the same gratification which they have so amply received from the Queen’s Wake. The offer of this poem to Constable seems to indicate some dissatisfaction with George Goldie, the publisher of The Queen’s Wake, particularly as Hogg had read part of the poem to Goldie in instalments during its composition. your sentiments in answer Constable’s response is unknown, but Hogg reports Constable as saying in connection with The Pilgrims of the Sun, ‘[...] I never knew such a genius in my life. I am told that, since the publication of the “Queen’s Wake” last year, you have three new poems, all as long, and greatly superior to that, ready for publication. By G—, sir, you will write Scott, and Byron, and every one of them, off the field’ (Memoir, pp. 36–37).

To Walter Cunningham

5 February 1814 Edin Febr. 5th 1814

Dear Sir After consulting with my friends I have resolved to comply with your demand, namely that on giving me a free discharge at present, I shall consider myself bound afterwards to make up to you the £21= compleat, over and above your share of the loss in sheep and

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this I bind myself to do, trusting to your honour not to mention it publicly, nor harass me for the money until I can conveniently pay it. In the mean time be so kind as send orders to some one here to sign your acceptance of the terms, and security offered; on which you will get a bill or line for the moiety—if you could do this without a day’s delay it would particularly oblige Sir your very Obedt Servt James Hogg To Mr. Walter Cunninghame [Addressed:] Mr. Walter Cunningham/ Catslack-burn [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ Mr James Hogg/ to/ Walter Cunningham/ 5 Feby 1814 [Watermark:] none [Location:] National Archives of Scotland, SC63/10/29. [Printed:] John Chisholm, Sir Walter Scott as a Judge (Edinburgh, 1918), p. 213. Walter Cunningham see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. your demand for repayment of a debt dating back to 1807–08, when Hogg had grazed lambs for Cunningham at Locherben in Dumfriesshire. On leaving the farm Hogg failed to make a composition with his creditors (Memoir, p. 23), leaving it open to them to pursue him for outstanding debts after the success of The Queen’s Wake in 1813—see Hogg’s letter to Scott of 3 April 1813 and notes. Cunningham himself calculated Hogg’s debt to him as £35-17-6, including the cost of his lambs and an advance payment of £21 to Hogg himself—see John Chisholm, Sir Walter Scott as a Judge (Edinburgh, 1918), p. 205. In a statement made in 1821 (Chisholm, pp. 206–08) Hogg claimed that Cunningham had urged a claim on him at the end of 1813 or beginning of 1814 of ‘about £7, 13s.’ for his losses on the grazing transaction but without giving any detailed explanation of it. Hogg had called on Cunningham and an agreement had been reached, embodied in this letter, that if Hogg paid the £21 Cunningham would make no further claim on him over the grazing of the lambs. Cunningham, however, subsequently argued that the letter expressed an agreement to pay the £21 in addition to the grazing debt (Chisholm, p. 211).

To Eliza Izett

11 February 1814 Edin. Febr. 11 1814

My dear Eliza It is three o’clock and I am this moment informed that Mr. Izet leaves town to morrow therefore I have still an excuse for not writing a long letter but I have a better excuse still I really have nothing of consequence to inform you of—I inclose you Roscoe’s and Mr. Scott’s letters of criticism but besides this Scott has written the margin from beginning to end and his hints are most rational—these

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letters will well make up to you what is unfilled up in my sheet. I send you likewise a volume of poems written by a young friend of mine of very great poetical powers. I have been greatly instrumental in bringing them forward, and subscribed for 10 copies and I beg you will accept of this as a small present to the neat collection up stairs which has erst been free to me—I have not yet finished my poem it has so interested me I cannot get quit of it—it now amounts to 2300 lines and is divided into six cantos I am positively within a few lines of the end now Some ladies of high distinguishment in letters have objected strongly to the title Mador of the Moor but Grieve who delights in such a dark mysterious title will by no means yeild to the giving it up I have been thinking of calling it The Maiden of Tay pray think upon it—I may likewise inform you which is not so pleasant that having got a secret key to all the proceedings of the comittee that manages the Edin. Review I find that the review of the Wake is again returned, and cannot be admitted until Mr. Jeffery comes home— Miss Forbes is very angry with me for inattention, I am vexed at my want of confidence but cannot help it I am ever yours James Hogg [Addressed:] Mrs. Izet/ Kinnaird [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] [CROWNED SHIELD ENCLOSING LION]/ PHIPPS & SON/ 1812 [Location:] Scottish Borders Archive and Local History Centre, in a copy of The Queen’s Wake (Edinburgh, 1819), Craig-Brown Book Collection. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 98–99. Mr. Izet leaves town presumably returning to his wife at their country home of Kinnaird House, near Dunkeld in Perthshire. Roscoe’s and Mr. Scott’s letters of criticism of Hogg’s drama The Hunting of Badlewe, of which six copies were printed for perusal by Hogg’s literary advisers before publication in the summer of 1814. Hogg’s letter to Roscoe of 22 January 1814 is a response to his letter, which has only survived in draft form (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 2047). Scott’s marked copy of The Hunting of Badlewe has not apparently survived, though the accompanying letter was printed in R. P. Gillies, ‘Some Recollections of James Hogg’, Fraser’s Magazine, 20 (October 1839), 414–30 (p. 424). Mador of the Moor see Hogg’s letter to Constable of 1 February 1814 and notes. a volume of poems possibly Walter Paterson’s The Legend of Iona: A Metrical Romance which was advertised by Constable in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 15 January 1814 as ‘In a few days will be published’, and as actually published in the same paper for 19 February. A note in Paterson’s volume (p. 305) make his debt to Scott clear, though Hogg himself is not mentioned. the review of the Wake this finally appeared in Edinburgh Review, 24 (November 1814), 157–74.

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Mr. Jeffery comes home Jeffrey had sailed for America in August 1813 in pursuit of a bride, Charlotte Wilkes, and did not return until February 1814—see Hogg’s letter to Bernard Barton of 18 August 1813 and notes. Miss Forbes see Hogg’s letter to Eliza Izett of 20 August 1813. She has not been identified.

To Walter Cunningham

18 February [1814] Edin Febr. 18th

Dear Sir I lifted £10 yesterday and intended sending you the half of it with the carrier but when I received yours talking about sending you £20 and giving me time for the rest, I am determined to send you no more till I learn the extent of your supposed claim; as I did not concieve I owed you £20 by at least 5. If you are going to make such claims as that on me remember I am not owing you a sixpence and I care not for any diligence you can use I remain Sir Yours most respectfully James Hogg [Addressed:] none [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ Mr James Hogg/ to/ Walter Cunningham/ 18th Feby [DELETED: 1814] [Watermark:] [none visible, as the letter is torn and fixed to a backing sheet] [Location:] National Archives of Scotland, SC63/10/29. [Printed:] John Chisholm, Sir Walter Scott as a Judge (Edinburgh, 1918), p. 213. received yours presumably a reply to Hogg’s letter of 5 February 1814 about a farming debt contracted in 1807 and 1808—see the notes to that letter. Cunningham’s letter must have made it obvious that he did not agree with Hogg’s account of his debt. not owing you a sixpence in 1821, however, Hogg claimed of the £21 promised to Cunningham in his letter of 5 February 1814 that he did ‘remit that sum by instalments, and something more as a gratuity for interest’ because of the length of time Cunningham had had to wait for his money—see John Chisholm, Sir Walter Scott as a Judge (Edinburgh, 1918), p. 207. Cunningham’s 1821 statement of accounts between them (pp. 204–06) acknowledges a total of £23-4 paid by Hogg subsequently, in the following instalments: £5 on 6 July 1816; £5 on 24 May 1817; £10-4 on 10 April 1818; £1 on 15 June 1818; and £2 on 10 December 1818. any diligence a law term for the application of legal means against a person for the recovery of a debt.

178 To Lord Byron

TH E LETTE RS OF JAM E S HOGG

3 June 1814 June 3d 1814

My Lord You will wonder at seeing a letter from the banks of Yarrow with the name of a stranger at the bottom of it, and you will wonder more I believe at the request that stranger makes of you.—I suppose it is not uncommon for minor bards to ask and expect favours from those who are their superiors in reputation and fortune, but in general they will ask many things of them before they ask poetry yet of all others that is the very thing I request of your lordship.—To be explicit there has been a little plan suggested by a few literary and benevolent gentlemen for the behoof of an humble son of song. It is to establish a poetical repository in Edin. to be continued half-yearly part of it to consist of original poetry and the remainder to be filled up with short reviews or characters of every poetical work published in the interim and in order to give it currency at first and secure subscribers to a certain requisite amount we are desirous of procuring something original from every great poet in Britain for the early numbers at least Roscoe Southey Scott Wordsworth Wilson and many others of high respect have already assented. I have been long wriggling with this and that friend to procure me a promise of something from you till the other day happening to mention it to Scott he told me in what warm and impressive terms you had mentioned me in some letters to him, and said that he was sure you would attend to myself sooner than to any that could apply for me which induced me to use this liberty with your lordship You now percieve the purport of this letter and if you have no odd things lying about you which I daresay you do not lack there are many pieces among those you published in your youth which are I deem not much known and which I think extremely beautifull if you would deign to favour us with something of either the one class or the other you can hardly concieve how much it would oblige me in particular and turn as it were every letter of our little repository into gold I may likewise apprise you that the work is to be conducted by R. P. Gillies Esq. Advt. J. Wilson Esq. author of the Isle of Palms &c. and your humble servt. The Ettrick Shepherd and that it is proposed to say in the advertisement Original poetry by &c. &c. but no names will be put to the various pieces so that every reader will be at liberty to father them as pleaseth himself.—Now my lord as I well know that every one has his own particular feelings with regard to these matters believe me I will not take your refusal of assistance or

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countenance in the slightest degree amiss but you must by all means let me hear from you for if you decline answering me altogether as the bishop of Salisbury did I do not know but I may take it amiss.— By the by have you read my friend Mr Crag’s [sic] Hunting of Badlewe published by Colburne? If you have not I wish you would and tell me punctually what you think of him, and the utmost that may be anticipated of him as a poet and dramatist. The Queen’s Wake of which you were pleased to approve has wrought its own way most wonderfully in Scotland but in England it is scarcely as yet known. there has been a third edition of 1500 copies in Ballantyne’s press for these two months and will be published next week and though the preceding ones are long ago sold off there has not in all been 100 copies sold south of the border. This is certainly an anomaly in the annals of literature and I confess to me wholly unaccountable I have finished another poem in the Spenserian stanza six months ago but I am terrified for publishing too much and in spite both of vanity and necessity I have prevailed upon myself to let it lie over for some time—I get but shabby conditions from my booksellers here and these not very punctually fulfilled, what prodigous advantages your lordship has over me in publishing.—Pray have you seen a poem that was published last year entitled Anster Fair I am vexed that it has never been noticed for there is a strength of mind and a[TEAR] originality of conception manifested in it which I n[TEAR] before witnessed—it is anonymous but I understand it is written by a poor schoolmaster in Fife you must by all means see it—If I knew of any thing farther among our mountains that would be amusing to your lordship I would write of it but as I do not I must conclude. Whenever I write to a friend (such as I concieve your lordship to be) I always write just what comes uppermost as you will easily percieve I have done in this instance—Believe me ever Your lordship’s most Obedt. James Hogg Yarrow Care of Grieve & Scot Edin. [Addressed:] Rt. Hon. Lord Byron/ London [Postmark:] JUN W3A 1814 [and] Addl. ½ [and] FREE [ILLEGIBLE] 1814 [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg [Watermark:] C ANSELL/ 18[TEAR]1 [Location:] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: James

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Hogg Collection GEN MSS 61, Box 1, Folder 5. [Printed:] Adam, pp. 5–6; Strout, pp. 72–74 [in part]. Lord Byron George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824)—see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. a poetical repository in his Memoir (p. 39) Hogg related: ‘I took it into my head that I would collect a poem from every living author in Britain, and publish them in a neat and elegant volume, by which I calculated I might make my fortune. I either applied personally, or by letter, to Southey, Wilson, Wordsworth, Lloyd, Morehead, Pringle, Paterson, and several others; all of whom sent me very ingenious and beautiful poems’. Hogg’s model was probably R. A. Davenport’s Poetical Register, to which he had contributed the previous year—see his letter to Robert Anderson of 3 May [1813] and notes. Roscoe William Roscoe (1753–1831) of Liverpool—see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Hogg requested Roscoe to contribute to the poetical repository in his letter of 28 July 1814. Southey Robert Southey (1774–1843)—see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Hogg requested Southey to contribute to the poetical repository in his letter of 4 June 1814, and seems to have been promised ‘A True Ballad of St Antidius, the Pope, and the Devil’—see Memoir, p. 252. Scott Hogg assumed that Scott would willingly contribute to the poetical repository, and was correspondingly disappointed at his subsequent refusal—see Memoir, p. 40. Wordsworth Hogg was not acquainted with William Wordsworth (1770–1850) until the English poet’s visit to Scotland in August 1814—see Memoir, pp. 66–67. According to Hogg’s letter to Southey of 4 June 1814 John Wilson was to obtain Wordsworth’s contribution. Hogg seems to have obtained a copy of ‘Yarrow Visited’ for his proposed work during a subsequent visit to the Lake District in September— see R. P. Gillies, Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1851), II, 148–49. Wilson John Wilson (1785–1854), the author of The Isle of Palms (1812), and later to become the ‘Christopher North’ of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. Hogg had made his acquaintance after the publication of The Queen’s Wake, and ‘found him so much a man according to my own heart, that for many years we were seldom twenty-four hours asunder, when in town’—see Memoir, p. 33. in some letters to him Byron had read The Queen’s Wake and written admiringly about it to Walter Scott in a letter of 27 September 1813, which has not survived. Replying on 6 November Scott said, ‘The author of the Queen’s Wake will be delighted with your approbation’—see Lockhart, III, 99. R. P. Gillies Esq. Advt. Robert Pearse Gillies (1788–1858) was one of the Edinburgh friends Hogg made after the success of The Queen’s Wake, a literary man who was particularly interested in German Romantic literature. He later became a contributor to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and the translator of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s The Devil’s Elixir (1824). Gillies’s account of the friendship was given after Hogg’s death in ‘Some Recollections of James Hogg’, Fraser’s Magazine, 20 (October 1839), 414–30. He describes Hogg during this period as ‘my almost daily associate’—see Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, 3 vols (London, 1851), II, 144. as the bishop of Salisbury did see Hogg’s letter to Alexander Dirom of 3 September 1813 and notes.

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Mr. Crag’s Hunting of Badlewe Hogg’s The Hunting of Badlewe was published in London by Henry Colburn, 50 Conduit Street. The title-page gave the author’s name as ‘J. H. Craig of Douglas, Esq.’. It was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 31 March 1814. published next week the third edition of The Queen’s Wake was advertised as ‘This day is published [...]’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 July 1814. poem in the Spenserian stanza Mador of the Moor, which Hogg had offered to Constable in his letter of 1 February 1814. Anster Fair by William Tennant (1784–1848). The publication of the first edition in 1812 led to Tenant’s appointment as schoolmaster at Dunino, a village between Anstruther and St Andrews. A second edition was published in Edinburgh by George Goldie in 1814.

To Robert Southey

4 June 1814 Edin. June 4th 1814

Dear Southey Although I know that I am going to pester you yet I am glad of an occassion of any kind to renew our lagging correspondence for unless people have something to write about it is not easy for those who are personally strangers to write very often nor will they unless they have nothing else to do Before I make my request I must explain the meaning of it and I am sorry that it is purely selfish but now that the rage for politics is somewhat subsided and as people who have been used to read must still read something I propose in conjunction with some literary friends to establish a poetical repository in Edin. to be continued halfyearly price 5/ One part of it is to consist of original poetry and the remainder to be filled up with short reviews or characters of every poetical work published in the interim. It was not suggested by me but by some other benevolent gentlemen for my behoof and in order to give it currency at first and if possible render it of some emolument it is earnestly desired to have something either less or more from every great poet in Britain. Scott, Byron, and Wilson have already assented and the latter who is a principal supporter and one of the editors thinks that he will procure Wordsworth and my request to you my dear bard is that you will send us one or two little things for our first number at least if you have any thing by you, and if you have not an hour any afternoon will do the business and when an hour of your time once in a half year can be of such sterling value to a poor son of song I expect that you will not refuse it I dare not take it upon me to write to your brother Colridge but if you would be so kind as use your influence with him it would exactly

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double the obligation. Now my dear sir you see the purport of this letter and I need not say any more about it if you refuse I will be dissapointed but not in the smallest degree displeased for I know not what your feelings may be with regard to such matters as far as benevolence is concerned I think I can answer for them. I shall only inform you farther that it is proposed to say in the advertisement Original Poetry by &c &c. but no names whatever will be put to the various pieces so that every reader will have the pleasure of finding out the authors himself which I am perswaded will very seldom be done aright Ballantyne refuses to let me see any of the sheets of Roderick but as he has been printing an edition of the Queen’s Wake of late which will be published next week I have had frequent opportunities of seeing him and knowing that he is a shrewd fellow I have been questioning anxiously about it and he says that there are more instances of strength of mind and bold fancy in it than perhaps any former one of yours but that the narrative is so much the leading feature of the poem that all depends upon it and that it gets rather slowly on and the beauties are sometimes half lost. He would not haply say so much to you and these were very likely not the words he used but they are the ideas his conversation left on my mind. He seems to have some anonymous things of great merit in his press at present I have noted a novel and a poem in particular. There are likewise some very singular anonymous things come out of late There are two poems that I desire you at all events to read the one entitled Anster Fair the most original production that ever this country gave birth to and another thing published lately by Colbourn London called The Hunting of Badlewe There is hard struggling here with some kind of very sublime and metaphysical productions called Reviews some of them will I fear prove Ephemeral or very short lived. Mrs Grant’s 1813 has excited little or no interest here and if some exertion is not made to save it in London it is lost, yet the second book in particular certainly contains something very good. I am humbly of opinion (the present com[TEAR]y always excepted) that passing events however momentous [TEAR] bad subjects for the muse farther than one rhapsody [TEAR]. The attact upon you in the last Edin. Review was too palpably malevolent to produce any bad effect on the public feeling with regard to you, and it was (besides being evidently the words of a hurt person) a very shabby article. Next number will contain a review of the Wake. I intend to visit Cumberland this summer I hope you will indulge me with your company in a short walk through some of your loved scenes about Derwent or Skiddaw. The

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next Edin. Rev. will begin with a long, laboured prophetic, but very interesting article relating to the present state and prospects of Europe I have no farther news that I can think of at present but I will wait with anxiety for your answer and am ever Dear sir Your ever obliged and most affectionate James Hogg Grieve & Scotts Edin. [Addressed:] Robt. Southey Esq/ Keswick/ S. B. [Postmark:] JUN B4E 1814 [Watermark:] C ANSELL/ 1811 [Location:] NLS, MS 2245, fols 4–5. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 76–78. our lagging correspondence Hogg and Southey had corresponded earlier about The Spy—see Hogg’s letter to Southey of 17 September [1811] and notes. poetical repository see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 3 June 1814 and notes. Scott, Byron, and Wilson have already assented Scott refused to contribute, to Hogg’s surprise and mortification: ‘I accounted myself certain of his support from the beginning, and had never asked any thing of him in all my life that he refused’ (Memoir, p. 40). Hogg’s application to Byron had only been written on the previous day—see his letter to Byron of 3 June 1814. he will procure Wordsworth Hogg probably obtained Wordsworth’s proposed contribution, ‘Yarrow Visited’, during his visit to the Lake District in September 1814— see R. P. Gillies, Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, 3 vols (London, 1851) II, 148–49. your brother Colridge the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) had married Sara Fricker in 1795, and Southey was married to her sister Edith. Roderick Southey’s poem, Roderick, The Last of the Goths. There is a ‘This day is published’ advertisement in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 8 December 1814. an edition of the Queen’s Wake the third edition of 1500 copies: it was announced as ‘This day is published [...]’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 July 1814. a novel the anonymous novel being printed by Ballantyne may well have been Waverley, published on 7 July 1814—see Todd & Bowden, p. 309. Anster Fair by William Tennant—see notes to Hogg’s letter to Byron of 3 June 1814 for further information. The Hunting of Badlewe Hogg’s own drama, published under the name of ‘J. H. Craig of Douglas, Esq.’ Reviews [...] Ephemeral perhaps a sly reference to Goldie’s new publication, the North British Review; or, Constitutional Journal, the second number of which had recently been published on 12 May. Hogg’s The Hunting of Badlewe was discussed in its section of shorter reviews headed ‘Ephemeral Poetry’—see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 2 and 12 May 1814.

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Mrs Grant’s 1813 Anne Grant of Laggan (1755–1838), published her Eighteen Hundred and Thirteen: A Poem in 1814. Hogg had given a brief character of her as a poet in no. 10 of The Spy—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), p. 98. present com[TEAR]y always excepted a reference to Southey’s appointment as Poet Laureate in 1813, since the laureate’s duties included the provision of official poetry on public events. Writing to Southey on 17 June 1814 about his Carmen Triumphale Scott described it as ‘a happy omen of what you can do to immortalize our public story [...]’—see Lockhart, III, 118. attact upon you Southey’s Carmen Triumphale for the Commencement of the Year 1814 was reviewed in the Edinburgh Review, 22 (January 1814), 447–54. This issue was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 24 March 1814. review of the Wake this was finally published in the Edinburgh Review, 24 (November 1814), 157–74. This issue was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 22 December 1814. with your company Hogg’s recollections of his meeting with Southey in the Lake District in the summer of 1814 are given in his Memoir, pp. 65–66. article relating to the present state and prospects of Europe issue no. XLV begins with a review of three works relating to the recent defeat of Bonaparte and his expulsion from France, the running heads for which read ‘State and Prospects of Europe’—see Edinburgh Review, 23 (April 1814), 1–40. Wellesley Index, I, 452 attributes this to Francis Jeffrey. The issue was advertised as ‘This day was published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 21 July 1814.

To R. P. Gillies

[early June 1814]

Dear Gillies I am sorry that I am particularly engaged to day pray look up as you pass some day soon I have written to Byron and Southey to join us in yon business I have not the smallest doubt that they will I never had such sport and laughing in my life as I had yesterday I had Wilson and Rev. T. Gillespie with me Yours ever James Hogg [Address:] [letter pasted to another sheet] [Postmark:] not visible [Endorsed—not JH:] 1x yon a Scotticism/ 2x A new poetical Register proposed by Mr H./ 3x Author of the “Isle of Palms” RPG [Location:] Photocopy, British Library, RP 5758, Sheet 40. From an album with an inscription ‘Richard Harrison/ Ambleside January 8th 1857’. Gillies R. P. Gillies (1788–1858). For further information see notes to Hogg’s letter to Lord Byron of 3 June 1814.

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yon business the projected half-yearly poetical repository with himself, Gillies, and John Wilson as editors. Hogg had written to Byron on 3 June and to Southey on 4 June 1814, to request contributions. Wilson for information on John Wilson (1785–1854) see Hogg’s letter to Wilson of 2 January [1816] and notes. Rev. T. Gillespie Thomas Gillespie (1778–1844) was at this time Minister of Cults in Fife. He had contributed the three-part tale of ‘The Scots Tutor’ to The Spy in 1811— for further information, see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), p. 561.

To Lord Byron

[30 June] 1814 Edin June 1st 1814

My Lord You can scarcely concieve how much gratified I was by the receipt of your kind letter yesterday I concieve that you have conferred a great favour on me without injuring yourself by honouring my little repository with the first public favours of your maiden tale; but pray my dear Lord if that particular tale is like to be long of being set at the printing office let me have a copy of it in M. S. for you to sit down to copy it is out of the question it would be sacriledge even to think of such a thing But I can easily concieve you to have some right saucy runagate clerks or amanuensis’ fellows of whom one could scarce help saying with the old wife “It is weel dune to haud their nebs to the grunstane” any of them will copy it for a word of your mouth The Repository is now advertised for the first of Novr. and consider my lord what effect the very first article of the very first number of the very first work of the kind that ever Scotland saw will produce! “It may be sport to you but it is death to me” The truth is that you were the only Bard of whom I was afraid I would get no assistance for from your poems I suspected that you were a dour ill-natured chiel but I am beginning to think I was quite mistaken and your letter has put me in extraordinary spirits As you have not mentioned either The Hunting of Badlewe nor Anster Fair I conclude you have not been able to get them in London therefore I have ordered my bookseller to send you copies it is worth your while to read them. I saw Scott yesterday and I am perswaded he is busy I am likewise perswaded that in a short time he will produce something that will outdo any of his former works a great deal but he is extremely close and therefore you must view this only as guesswork. I return to the braes of Yarrow the day after to morrow but do not be long in sending me the tale for I will yearn

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and pine till I get it and never sleep sound in the night time. If still grasping at something onward constitutes a fool I am one and likewise Your Lordships most obliged and gratefull James Hogg Grieve & Scott’s Edin To the Rt. Hon. Lord Byron [Addressed:] Rt Hon Lord Byron/ London [Postmark:] JUN B30E 1814 [and] Addl. ½ [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg/ The Ettrick Shepherd/ Sharon Turner/ M.G. Lewis/ Campbell/ Sir W. Scott/ W. Godwin/ Sir John Malcolm/ Bland & Merivale [Watermark:] none [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box A 31 5. date Hogg’s date must be an error, as the letter is a response to Byron’s reply to Hogg’s previous letter, itself dated and postmarked 3 June. The postmark on this letter is 30 June and Hogg may have hesitated between 30 June and 1 July and written an amalgam of the two. your kind letter this does not appear to have survived, but it may be the one alluded to by Hogg in his Memoir: ‘In one of Lord Byron’s letters he told me he was busy inditing a poem for me, and assured me that “he would appear in my work in his best breeks.” That poem was “Lara,” and who it was that influenced him to detain it from me, I do not know’ (p. 39). Lara was published in the same volume as Rogers’s Jacqueline in August 1814. first public favours of your maiden tale Byron was not giving Hogg the copyright of his work but simply allowing him to publish it before his own arrangement for publication could be implemented. saying with the old wife a proverbial expression—see The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, third edition, rev. by F. P. Wilson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970, repr. 1982), p. 578. advertised for the first of Novr. it seems probable that the work had not yet been advertised, since Hogg’s letter to John Murray of 17 August 1814 includes an advertisement drawn up by Hogg himself, giving 1 November as the commencement date for the publication, but makes it plain that Hogg had not yet secured a publisher for it. “It may be sport [...] death to me” an allusion to Aesop’s fable of frogs stoned by boys for their own amusement. The Hunting of Badlewe nor Anster Fair recommended to Byron by Hogg in his previous letter of 3 June 1814. Scott [...] is busy Scott’s first novel Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since, was published anonymously on 7 July 1814—see Todd & Bowden, p. 309.

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To William Laidlaw

11 July [1814]

Edin. July 11th Dear laidlaw, I recieved yours yesterday and tho’ I should like extremely well to have the spot you mention I can by no means submit to solicit the family of Buccleuch again I believe if any kind friend were to speak for me I might get it but neither by myself nor by proxy can I request it. They know well enough that I want such a place for it was but very lately I had a civil refusal of it. I could ask it from Tam but from the widow I could scarcely think to do it. Grieve is of the same opinion namely that I ought not to do it. I intended to have been at Tinnis ere now but have not had courage to leave Edin. indeed I am at this very time so confounded with agreeable invitations to spend the summer that I do not know what to do. I have many extraordinary [TEAR] to read to you now when you next come in. I rode thro’ the whole of Edin. yesterday in a barouche by myself having four horses and two postillions never was there a poet went thro’ it in in such stile since the world began. Yours ever James Hogg [Location:] Transcript, Hogg Letters Project Papers, University of Stirling. [Printed:] Garden, p. 73 [in part]. the spot you mention Eltrieve Moss, for which Hogg had applied to the Duchess of Buccleuch—see his letter of 7 March 1813 and notes. It was subsequently granted to him by the Duke of Buccleuch in a letter of 26 January 1815 (in NLS, MS 2245, fols 13–14). ask it from Tam [...] from the widow Eltrieve Moss had been in the possession of Thomas Wilson since at least 1794 or 1795—see Peter Garside, ‘Hogg, Eltrive, and Confessions’, SHW, 11 (2000), 5–24 (pp. 9–10). Hogg termed him ‘a mean fellow named Wilson’ in his letter to the Duchess of Buccleuch of 7 March 1813, and he may be the subject of Hogg’s poem ‘Tam Wilson’ in Scots Magazine, 76 (April 1814), 296. Wilson’s death is not recorded in the Yarrow OPR. Grieve the country home of John Grieve was at Cacrabank in Ettrick. Tinnis a farm in Ettrick, tenanted by Laidlaw’s brother-in-law, Robert Ballantyne. barouche a fashionable double-seated horse-drawn carriage with a collapsible top.

To Archibald Constable

25 July [1814] Edin July 25th

Mr Constable Dear Sir I spoke to you some months ago about publishing a poem price

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12/ about which I believe we were mostly agreed but on mature calculation I am resolved first to publish one not half so long price 7/6 this will be a less venture, and more will buy it; and if it sell very rapidly I can the sooner add another the same length and price which will come to 15/ whereas were they both in one they would be thought dear at 12/— The title of this will be The Pilgrims of the Sun A poem in four parts by James Hogg &c.—It will not exceed ten sheets fine. I will give you an edition of One thousand copies for Seventy pounds, at three months. As I want it put to press in a few days before I leave town I request your acceptance or non-acceptance of this by letter with your first convenience I am sir Yours ever most truly James Hogg [Addressed:] Arch. Constable Esq./ Cross Edinr [Endorsed—not JH:] Edinr 23 July 1814/ James Hogg [and] 1 (See back of p. 7 of MS. copy)/ T. C. [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] J DICKSON & CO/ 1811 [Location:] NLS, MS 7200, fols 209–10. [Printed:] Constable, II, 359. some months ago see Hogg’s letter to Constable of 1 February 1814. The poem was probably Mador of the Moor. on mature calculation according to his Memoir (p. 35) Hogg’s decision had been influenced by a recent visit from James Park of Greenock who had looked over his manuscript poems and given a decided preference to The Pilgrims of the Sun. put to press in a few days before I leave town Hogg gives an account of an interview he had with Constable about publishing Pilgrims of the Sun in his Memoir (pp. 36–38).

To William Roscoe

28 July 1814 Edin. July 28th 1814

Mr. Roscoe Dear Sir Since our last communication I have been busied framing a plan of a Periodical work and have now brought it to such a state of forwardness that it is likely to commense with every prospect of success. It is a kind of Repository not only for original and valuable poetry, but for every thing connected with the poetry of the era to which it belongs. It is to be continued half-yearly price 5/- Ld Byron. Wilson. Cunningham. Southey. Wordsworth. Scott. Gillies and many other poets of high respectability have contributed and promised

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their support and their names with a frankness and a warmth that has much delighted me, from the generous principle without doubt of rendering the work of some utility to a humble brother Bard. Indeed with the exception of Miss Bailley, Moore and Roscoe I have every name that I greatly covet. The former of these I have every chance to obtain and with respect to the latter I know of none so likely to determine me as yourself. I cannot help believing that a gentleman who writes poetry so well and has published so little as that gentleman has done must have a great many elegant and valuable pieces by him of which he makes little or no account. If that same gentleman would take into consideration the great advantage that a humble son of the muses might gain from these disregarded fragments I do not think he would hesitate at sending him them [sic] to him. I therefore do most earnestly intreat you to pick me up either something of that gentleman’s or his son’s who I am told is likewise a man of great genius that I may have the honour of the name on my title page For it may be proper to mention that no names will be affixed to any of the pieces nor will any person know to whom they belong save myself every one will be left to father them as to him beseems most fit and trust me they will be generally fathered wrong. At the beginning will appear Original poetry by Byron. Colridge. Hogg &c. &c. without more hints at the authors—Now believe me my dear sir I am extremely anxious to gain this correspondence not so much for the hopes of gain by it as for the honour of the friendship and countenance of the gentleman alluded to Badliewe [sic] has not yet made great noise but has excited a deep interest in a limited sphere. It is reviewed in both our minor reviews in the one with a good deal of asperity but they allow the author to be posessed of some kind of unaccountable fund of poetical genius. In the Scottish published yesterday there is a long and able review of it—the writer is quite misled likewise with regard to the author too—He blames the plot but extols the poetry some of it even above all others—says that the author is no common man and though he has great faults which it becomes him to mention the author if he continue writing his own way cannot go far wrong Be so kind as write to me soon Yours most truly James Hogg Grieve & Scott’s Edin [Addressed:] William Roscoe Esq./ Allarton/ Liverpool [Postmark:] JUL B28E 1814 [and] Addl. ½ [Endorsed:] James Hogg/ July 28 1814

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[Watermark:] J DICKINSON & CO/ 1811 [Location:] Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 2049. our last communication see Hogg’s letter to Roscoe of 22 January 1814 and notes. Repository see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 3 June 1814 and notes. Cunningham probably Allan Cunningham (1784–1842) rather than his elder brother Thomas Mounsey Cunningham (1776–1834) who had been one of the contributors to Hogg’s 1810 song-collection The Forest Minstrel. Cunningham is not mentioned as a supporter in Hogg’s letters to Byron of 3 June or to Southey of 4 June. Miss Bailley the dramatist Joanna Baillie (1762–1851), whose play The Family Legend had been successfully produced at the Theatre Royal in Edinburgh in 1810 with the help of Scott. Moore the poet Thomas Moore (1779–1852) was a friend of Byron’s, and Hogg may have hoped for Byron’s influence in obtaining a poem from him. He subsequently asked John Murray to obtain Moore’s promise—see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 28 October 1814. Roscoe although Roscoe’s reply to this appeal has not survived, a draft dated 12 October 1814 (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 2050) indicates his willingness to occupy ‘a place in the back ground [...] & shall have a very great pleasure if it should be in my power to contribute in any degree to the success of your undertaking’. his son’s perhaps Roscoe’s fifth son, Thomas (1791–1871), though his literary career really began after 1816. Hogg subsequently contributed to the Annual he edited, The Remembrance (1831). no names will be affixed Roscoe disapproved of this, arguing in his draft reply of 12 October 1814 (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 2050) ‘there is in such case no external evidence before the public that all the pieces are not by one or two hands—I hope you will reconsider this’. Colridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834). Hogg’s letter of application to his brother-in-law Robert Southey of 4 June 1814 had stated ‘I dare not take it upon me to write to your brother Colridge but if you would be so kind as use your influence with him it would exactly double the obligation’. Badliewe Hogg had taken Roscoe’s advice not to have his drama, The Hunting of Badlewe, staged, and resolved instead to publish it as ‘a closet amusement’—see his letter to Roscoe of 22 January 1814. It was advertised as ‘This day was published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 31 March 1814. both our minor reviews as opposed to the city’s major review, the Edinburgh Review. One of the minor reviews is the Scotish Review and the other may be Goldie’s North British Review, the second issue of which included a notice of Hogg’s play and was advertised as ‘This day was published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 12 May 1814. the Scottish unfortunately few issues of this periodical have survived, but an advertisement for the forthcoming no. II of The Scotish Review in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 9 July 1814 mentions a notice of The Hunting of Badlewe. The review itself was subsequently reprinted in the Philadelphian Analectic Magazine, 5 (May 1815), 353–67.

FOR 1814

To Lord Byron

191 30 July [1814]

Grieve and Scott’s Edin July 30th My lord I have this moment recieved your letter and as far as it regards Lara I am considerably vexed but it is what I feared from a hint that was in your first letter as well as an intimation that appeared in the papers the other day—I deemed that you supposed my publication to be earlier than it was and that the tale was likely to appear in some shape before the time I proposed—However I will still depend on your generosity for less or more—So much indeed that till I get it or am assured of it I will not venture the work to the press for I have excused Mr. Scott for the first half year from a conviction that we both had that your name in particular fairly ensured the sale of the first No. and that there would be more occassion for some exertion afterward to sustain the original character of the work. He sailed from Lieth yesterday on a tour thro’ the Orkney Shetland and western Islands in company with his friend Wm. Erskine and a Mr. Duff. It blows a terrible gale for the season to day and I am sure he is not quite at his ease to say the best of it. He denys Waverly which it behoves him to do for a while at least; indeed I do not think he will ever acknowledge it; but with regard to the author there is not and cannot be a doubt remaining—the internal evidence is of itself sufficient—it may be practical enough to imitate either your lordship or him for a few verses but that the same turn of thought characters and expression in a word that the whole structure of mind should so exactly coincide in two distinct individuals is not in nature.—By the by this seems to have brought a curious fact to light. I heard Ballantyne with my own ears attest when Waverly went first to the press which is now a long while ago that it was by the author of The Bridal of Triermain who in all the surmises had never yet been named What are we to think here my Lord? However I like Waverly exceedingly and never was more diverted than by some pictures there of Scottish manners and I am much pleased to hear you commend it and more to find that you are half a Scotsman I weened as much from the nerve and freedom of your verse I beg pardon of the saxon blood that is in you my Lord But as I hope to be obliged to you I would avoid by all means the smallest appearance of flattery it is for that reason that I have never mentioned your poems. All that may appear in future I will give you my private opinion about them but only in a comparative point of veiw. You are now I understand to appear in the firm of Rogers & Co. the discounts in his favour will be prodigous—He is a fine writer

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but no great poet—he is classical and elegant but wants originality almost in toto. I have a poem of 2000 lines The Pilgrims Of The Sun which I want to publish instantly in one volume price 7/6. I have an abominable shabby Book seller here who never keeps his word with me nor even lifts his bills when they become due they come back on me and distress me more than I had never seen them. G—d d—m him and them both I wish you could procure me some feasible conditions with yours I would give him the publication of the Repository too and likewise the fourth edition of the Wake which will be required as soon as the next Edin. Review appears. I am so perfectly assured of the sale of this little poem that I would run any risk on that score. Now my good Lord pray do not forget me; an hour of your time once a half year is a small boon and that hour might be of high value to me I have blotted the if out of your letter with my own pen it has nothing to do there and as to your poetical days being at an end God forbid I hope you allude to business more serious—At all events to hear from you occassionally in the same free manly unaffected stile I will always account one of the chiefest blessings under heaven Yours most truly James Hogg [Addressed:] [no address panel] [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] J DICKINSON & CO/ 1811 [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box A 31 5. your letter this has not apparently survived, but Byron presumably told Hogg of the imminent publication of Lara in August 1814, previously promised to him for his poetical repository. an intimation that appeared in the papers ‘The lovers of poetry may expect a high treat in a few days, as we understand Mr MURRAY of Albemarle Street is about to publish two tales, the one by Lord BYRON, the other by S. ROGERS, Esq. author of “The Pleasures of Memory”’—see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 25 July 1814. I have excused Mr. Scott according to Hogg’s Memoir (p. 40) Scott had unexpectedly refused to contribute to the poetical repository, but Hogg would naturally be anxious to conceal this from Byron in case it deterred him from contributing in turn. sailed from Lieth yesterday Scott wrote to J. B. S. Morrit on 24 July 1814 of ‘having accepted an invitation from a committee of the Commissioners for the Northern Lights (I don’t mean the Edinburgh Reviewers, but the bona fide commissioners for the beacons), to accompany them upon a nautical tour round Scotland, visiting all that is curious on continent and isle’—see Lockhart, III, 129. Scott sailed from Leith on 29 July and landed at Greenock on 8 September (Lockhart, III, 136, 276). Wm. Erskine and a Mr. Duff Scott kept a diary of the voyage, ‘Vacation 1814. Voyage in the Lighthouse Yacht to Nova Zembla, and the Lord knows where’, in which the

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first entry, for 29 July 1814, lists the company, including among the Commissioners ‘William Erskine, Sheriff of Orkney and Zetland; Adam Duff, Sheriff of Forfarshire’. Lockhart (III, 136–277) prints the whole diary. Scott’s old friend William Erskine (1768–1822), subsequently Lord Kinedder, was Sheriff-Depute of Orkney from 1809 to 1822. Adam Duff of Findon was Sheriff of Forfar from 1807 to 1819, and then of Midlothian from 1819 to his death in 1840—see Corson, pp. 456, 441. He denys Waverly Scott had published his first novel, Waverley, anonymously on 7 July 1814—see Todd & Bowden, p. 309. to imitate either your lordship or him perhaps a sign that Hogg’s thoughts were already beginning to turn from the difficulties of collecting genuine contributions from his contemporaries to his poetical repository to the idea of the imitations and parodies of their work he composed and then published in 1816 as The Poetic Mirror. the author of The Bridal of Triermain Scott had published this poem anonymously in 1813 within a few weeks of the publication of Rokeby, and most critics failed at the time to recognise it as Scott’s work. Being convinced that Waverley was by Scott and remembering James Ballantyne’s remark, Hogg now saw that the poem was also Scott’s. you are half a Scotsman Byron’s mother was Catherine Gordon of Gight in Aberdeenshire before her marriage, and Byron spent part of his childhood in Aberdeen, where he attended the Grammar School. the firm of Rogers & Co. Byron’s poem, Lara, which he had offered to send Hogg for his poetical repository was published in a volume with Rogers’s Jacqueline in August 1814. Samuel Rogers (1763–1855) was a banker as well as a poet and noted London literary host. an abominable shabby Book seller here George Goldie, the publisher of The Queen’s Wake and The Hunting of Badlewe. He became bankrupt in the autumn (see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 13 September 1814), and was clearly already in difficulties in July. Hogg had offered The Pilgrims of the Sun to Archibald Constable in his letter of 25 July [1814]. procure me some feasible conditions with yours Byron seems to have obliged, writing to Murray on 3 August ‘I have a most amusing epistle from the Ettrick Bard Hogg—in which speaking of his bookseller—whom he denominates the “shabbiest” of the trade—for not “lifting his bills” he adds in so many words “God d—n him and them both” this is a pretty prelude to asking you to adopt him (the said Hogg) but this he wishes—and if you please you & I will talk it over [...]’ adding in a postscript ‘[...] surely he is a man of great powers and deserving of encouragement—I must knock out a tale for him’—see Byron’s Letters and Journals, ed. by Leslie A. Marchand, 12 vols (London: John Murray, 1973–82), IV, 150–51. Murray appears to have consulted William Blackwood, who advised in his letter of [5 August 1814] ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2) ‘I think you should request of Lord Byron to get a sight of the MS. and if it is good give the poor fellow a sum for it at once’. fourth edition of the Wake the third edition was only advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 July 1814. next Edin. Review from his letter to Byron of 14 October 1814 Hogg had already heard Francis Jeffrey’s favourable review of The Queen’s Wake read aloud by this time. It was eventually published in the Edinburgh Review, 24 (November 1814), 157–74.

194 To Lord Byron

TH E LETTE RS OF JAM E S HOGG

14 August 1814 August 14th 1814

My Lord I have had such a pleasant morning perusing Lara to day that I cannot risist the impulse of writing to you and telling you so. The last Canto of it is much the best thing you ever wrote—there are many pictures in it which the heart of man can scarcely brook. It is besides more satisfactorily and better wind up [sic] than any of your former tales and the images rather more perceptible. You are constantly improving in this Your figures from the very first were strong without parallel but in every new touch of your pencil they are better and better relieved. In the first Canto there is haply too much painting of the same and too close on that so much dwelt on in the Corsair; Yet still as it excels the rest in harmony of numbers I am disposed to give it the preference to any of them By the by the Spenserian or blank verse are those which the model and cast of your poetry suits above all others and the next that you write in any of these has a great chance to be the best that you ever wrote in your life. If I were you I would not try a drama as the Reviewers advise for in the first place it would be unmeet that you should be expose to [sic] a public rabble all of whom that could discern your beauties posessed of a little hidden envy while every bungling player has it in his power to draw down damnation Besides I can predict with infallibility that the first drama you write will not be fit for representation for the exuberance of your genius will lead you into such d—d long speeches that it will only turn out a dramatic poem not properly a drama I have been extremely puzzled to find out who Sir Ezzelin is sometimes I have judged him to be some sea captain at others Medora’s uncle or parent from whom the Corsair had stole her but I have at last pleased myself by concluding that Lord Byron does not know himself—What a wretched poet Mr Rogers is You are truly very hardly set for great original poets in England at present when such as he must be extolled. I could not help smiling at his Jacqueline. For God’s sake come and leave those beaf eaters for a season or two—they have ruined the genius of Campbell and if you do not take care they will do the same with you. A review of your native mountains, of their heights of gray sublimity, and their dark woody glens would now inspire you with more noble enthusiasm than all the fertile and classic shores of Greece. I have been thinking my lord that Norway would be a fine scene for romance, nay I am sure of it if the names of the country are as appropriate as the shores,

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seas mountains and primitive inhabitants are. I wish you would make the tour of it and take me with you. Constable and Manners and Miller have bought the first edition of the poem I was mentioning to you. But they demurred on the periodical work I could not help smiling at the simplicity of the men especially when I thought of my mottoe from old Ogilvie —— —— “Each single name’s an host “Fit to command the fortunes of the time “Should they combine then God defend our right—” But the truth is that as London is the great mart for such things a London bookseller must have it either in whole or in part. If you liked I would fain inscribe my poem now in the press to you but it is of no consequence if you do not affect it. I sent a splendid copy of The Queen’s Wake to the Bishop of Salisbury to present to his Royal Ward but his Lordship never thought proper so much as to acknowledge the receipt of it Mr Jeffery Scott and all my friends here were surprised at for they represented him as a man of genius but I never could be induced to repeat the enquiry. Pray did you ever correspond with a Mr. Bernard Barton or do you know aught of him or where he is I remain Your Lordship’s most humble and Obedt Servt James Hogg To Lord Byron [Addressed:] [no address panel] [Postmarked:] none [Watermark:] J DICKINSON & CO/ 1811 [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box A 31 5. perusing Lara Byron’s poem Lara had just been published in a volume with Rogers’s Jacqueline—the poems were advertised as ‘Shipped on the 4th instant,/ And may be expected here in a few days’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 8 August 1814. The poem is in some respects a sequel to The Corsair, Byron’s Greek pirate poem of 1812. the Spenserian Hogg had recently written his Mador of the Moor and ‘Ode to Superstition’ in the Spenserian stanza, and Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage also used it. a drama as the Reviewers advise at the conclusion of the notice of The Corsair and The Bride of Abydos in the Edinburgh Review, 23 (April 1814), 198–229 (p. 229): ‘We hope he is not in earnest in meditating even a temporary divorce from his Muse—and would humbly suggest to him to do away the reproach of the age, by producing a tragic drama of the old English school of poetry and pathos’. The issue was advertised as ‘This day was published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 21 July 1814. Sir Ezzelin in Byron’s poem Lara is called to account for some mysterious evil deed performed during his many years’ absence from his ancestral halls by Sir Ezzelin, a fellow-guest at an evening party. Since Sir Ezzelin recognises Lara as the Corsair

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Hogg supposes he may be a victim of piracy or a relation of Medora, the Corsair’s dead mistress. such as he Hogg’s dislike of Samuel Rogers was perhaps prompted by the suspicion that Rogers had persuaded Byron to publish Lara with his own poem Jacqueline rather than in Hogg’s poetical repository as he had originally intended. ruined the genius of Campbell Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) was born and educated in Glasgow, but settled in London after his marriage in 1803. He became famous overnight with his poem The Pleasures of Hope (1799), and in The Spy Hogg argues that his subsequent poetry was inferior to it—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 14–15, 100. your native mountains Hogg is setting up a national poetic agenda in opposition to the exoticism of Byron’s eastern tales. Byron did compose verse on Lochnagar, a mountain in his home county of Aberdeenshire. Norway [...] a fine scene for romance the bard who acts as the spiritual guide of Mary Lee in Hogg’s The Pilgrims of the Sun is called ‘Hugo of Norroway’. Constable and Manners and Miller Hogg gives an account of his abortive dealings with these booksellers over The Pilgrims of the Sun in his Memoir, pp. 36–38. It was agreed that the poem should be published by the firm of Manners and Miller, Hogg being paid £86 for an edition of a thousand copies, and his manuscript was left in the hands of Robert Miller for publication. the periodical work Hogg’s poetical repository, which he intended to bring out twice-a-year. my mottoe from old Ogilvie the motto was presumably intended for the title-page of the poetical repository. John Ogilvie (1733–1813), was the author of a number of long poems, including Britannia: A National Epic Poem in Twenty Books, published in 1801 in Aberdeen, and referred to by Hogg in no. 5 of The Spy—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), p. 46. Hogg’s quotation has not been identified. inscribe my poem [...] to you The Pilgrims of the Sun has a nine-line dedication ‘To the Right Hon. Lord Byron’. Hogg’s draft is in his letter to Byron of 28 October 1814. a splendid copy of The Queen’s Wake see Hogg’s letter to Alexander Dirom of 3 September 1813 and notes. Mr. Bernard Barton see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents.

To Lord Byron

17 August 1814

Grieve & Scott’s Edin. August 17th 1814 May it please your lordship Look over the inclosed and after you have drawn your pen thorough every word of it that you dissaprove either send it to Mr. Murray or not as you please. I have nothing in the world to say having written so lately. I have only seen Wordsworth’s poem on the counter but I am informed that it is only the second book of six consequently only the sixth part of the poem. this is certainly too much of

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a good thing. He has given the Edin. Reviewers the lie with a vengeance. I have always looked on Wordsworth as a great poet. as a man who had no original invention but who could make the most of any scene or incident in nature that came beneath is [sic] observation of any I ever knew. If a great many parts of this poem does not please me highly I will be highly dissapointed. I wonder my lord you do not delineate some of the benevolent and pleasing characters of human life. It is plain from Medora that you are quite master of it—you see how much Mr. Scott has hurt himself by always working upon the same characters. It would please the ladies much who regard you as a kind of Jagernaut. I was very sorry I could not mention your name positively as a supporter to Mr. Murray for which cause I mentioned none I am your lordships much obliged And ever grateful James Hogg [Addressed:] Rt. Hon. Lord Byron—P. M./ Albany/ London [Postmark:] AUG B17E 1814 [and] Addl. ½ [and] FREE 22AU22 1814 [Watermark:] J DICKINSON & CO/ 1811 [Location:] On deposit in Bodleian Library, Oxford: Byron Lovelace Papers, Box 155, fols 49–50. Reproduced by permission of Pollinger Limited and the proprietor. the inclosed Hogg’s letter of the same date to John Murray was presumably enclosed with this one. Wordsworth’s poem William Wordsworth (1770–1850) published The Excursion, being a Portion of the Recluse, a Poem in July 1814: it was intended as the middle portion of a longer poem ‘on man, on nature and on human life’, and, as a two-guinea quarto, was an expensive purchase. given the Edin. Reviewers the lie no comment relating specifically to Wordsworth that fits this context has been found in the Edinburgh Review. One possibility is that a reviewer had commented elsewhere in the periodical that it was impossible to have too much of a good thing. Medora the lover of Conrad the pirate chief in Byron’s The Corsair (1814): she dies of her grief on hearing a report that Conrad has been killed. Jagernaut in Hindu mythology Juggernaut or Jagannath is a title of Krishna or Vishnu. An idol of this god was dragged along on a chariot, and worshippers threw themselves under it. Hogg uses the expression to signify a blind and crushing force demanding sacrifice on the part of its worshippers. as a supporter Hogg is trying to extract a definite promise of a contribution to the proposed poetical repository from Byron, after the publication of Lara elsewhere— compare his letter to Byron of 30 July [1814].

198 To John Murray

TH E LETTE RS OF JAM E S HOGG

17 August 1814 Grieve & Scott’s Edin. August 17th 1814

Dear sir Finding that I would be necessitated to change my bookseller I expressed my wish to Lord Byron of getting in with you not that I knew any thing about you but I had observed that the best English poetry issued from Albemarle Street and I weened it creditable that mine should issue from thence too. But on the very day previous to that on which I recieved Lord Byron’s last I got an offer from Constable and Manners & Millar which in my circumstances I did not think fit to refuse for the first edition of the small poem which I mentioned to his lordship as ready for the press and which is of course now in it. The next Edin. Rev. will ensure the sale of it but if the men behave with any degree of candour with me I cannot take the works from them which they have begun otherwise than by selling the copy-right, which as yet is impossible as none would purchase them. but of this by and by you shall hear from me ere I publish again.—By the advice of some literary friends I have been arranging materials for a Periodical work to which I intend turning my whole atention. I will give you my own original plan “On the 1st of Novr. next will be published price 5/ to be continued half-yearly The Edin. Poetical Repository To consist of Original Poetry by most of the eminent British Poets of the present day—and likewise a character or Analysis of every new poetical work of distinction so as to form not only a Repository for original poetry of merit, but for every thing connected with the poetry of the era to which it belongs. The names of those noblemen and gentlemen who have so liberally tendered their support to the work and under whose patronage it is commenced will be afterward published” This is my projected plan and for this I am now at full liberty to treat; but I must likewise inform you that on laying the plan before Conl. and Miller they disaproved of the latter part of the plan thinking it should consist of good classical poetry alone and to be a small elegant post 8vo. for the drawing room table—But when I consented to this they proposed that it should be only once a year which I would in nowise consent to the adventure being so trifling I thought the spirit of keeping up the thing would lag and finally die away About this sir I shall be very happy to treat with you and particularly to be advised about the plan name size &c. I know that an author’s or editor’s share of any such thing must be ruled by the sale therefore of that there is little to be said but I like above all things punctuality and fairness I am the reverse of greedy but the

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first time [TEAR] discovered aught of over-reaching or imposition in a publish[TEAR] I would change him next day. If you enter into it you are free if you chuse at the end of every year.—I am sir with all respect Your Obdt and hum. servt James Hogg [Addressed:] John Murray Esq./ Bookseller Albemarle Street/ London [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] 1814 Augt/ Hogg James [and] “The Ettrick Shepherd—a letter relating to the publication of his poems, upon which he consulted Lord Byron” [Watermark:] J DICKINSON & CO/ 1811 [Location:] NLS, MS 20437, fols 40–41. John Murray John Murray (1778–1843)—see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. change my bookseller George Goldie, the publisher of The Queen’s Wake became bankrupt in September 1814—see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 13 September 1814. He was clearly in serious difficulties in July when one of Hogg’s bills (presumably part of his payment for The Queen’s Wake) was not taken up by him—see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 30 July [1814], which also expresses a wish to have John Murray as his publisher. on the very day see notes to Hogg’s letter to Byron of 14 August 1814. next Edin. Rev. Hogg was awaiting the publication of Francis Jeffrey’s review of The Queen’s Wake—see Edinburgh Review, 24 (November 1814), 157–74. a Periodical work the proposed poetical repository. Murray appears to have asked Byron’s advice, for he replied on 7 September 1814, ‘I should think Mr. Hogg for his own sake as well as yours would be “critical” as Iago himself—in his editorial capacity—and that such a publication would answer his purpose & yours too with tolerable management—you should however have a good number to start with—I mean good in quality—in these days there be little fear of not coming up to the mark in quantity’— see Byron’s Letters and Journals, ed. by Leslie A. Marchand, 12 vols (London: John Murray, 1973–82), IV, 167. drawing room table Constable and Manners and Miller are thinking of a gift book, rather like the Annuals of the 1820s and 1830s, as opposed to Hogg’s more journallike plan.

To George Goldie

[mid-August 1814]

Dear Goldie I want some explanation why the Queen’s Wake is not published in England nor even in the list in your own Review If you are suppressing it for any purpose I beg you will inform me what it is before I leave town as I must do something in it Yours James Hogg

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[Addressed:] Mr [address panel mostly cut away] [Postmark:] none [Endorsed–not JH:] J. Hogg/ No date [Watermark:] none [Location:] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: Osborn MSS File 7417. George Goldie the publisher of the first, second, and third editions of The Queen’s Wake. Goldie ran a circulating library and reading room at 34 Princes Street, where he also sold tickets of admission to the Forum debating society. At this time he was twenty-three years old—see Memoir, pp. 228–29. Goldie disputed Hogg’s account in his Memoir of their relations in his Letter to a Friend (Edinburgh, 1821). date Hogg’s reference to a recent edition of The Queen’s Wake and a periodical published by its publisher Goldie together give the date. The third edition of The Queen’s Wake was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 July 1814, while the last of the three issues of Goldie’s North British Review was similarly advertised in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 11 August 1814. your own Review Goldie was the publisher of the North British Review; or Constitutional Journal, of which three issues only were published—they were advertised in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 7 March, 12 May, and 9 July 1814 respectively. before I leave town Hogg was planning to spend part of the summer in the Lake District—see his letter to Robert Southey of 4 June 1814. By 1 September he had got as far as Yarrow—see Memoir, pp. 253–54.

To Lord Byron

13 September 1814 Ellerey. Westmoreland Septr. 13th 1814

My Lord You are in the first place the most hard at comprehending a subject and in the second the most unlucky most mischievous lord that ever was born. Here has your letter found me in the house of one of the lake poets or as you are please [sic] to denominate these romantic waters the ponds and though I am here by particular invitation from every one of them and accompanied Wordsworth all the way from Edin. by Yarrow &c. where we visited my old father in his cottage at St. Mary’s loch and other friends and though [TEAR] have met with every attention that the most sanguine heart could wish yet your letter was so perfectly true and accorded so exactly with what I had always been saying to them d—n me if I could resist the fun of showing them it—they were in a terrible rage Wilson who is one of the nost noble fellows in existence swore terribly about the fishing and challenges you fairly to a trial but after a serious perusal of Wordsworth’s Excursion together and no little laughter and some paro-

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dying he has with your assistance fairly confessed to me yesterday that he now holds the school in utter contempt Wordsworth is really a fine intelligent man and one that must ever be respected but I fear the Kraken has peppered him for this world—with its proportion of beauties (by the by they are but thin sown) it is the most heavy and the most absurd work that I ever perused without all exception— Southey’s new work will be published in Novr. I have had the peculiar privilege of perusing it from end to end. It is much the best thing that was ever produced by the pond school I assure you my lord it is and will raise Southey much in character as a poet The story moves a little heavily for some time but it is wild tragical and the circumstances in which the parties are placed extremely interesting—He is in his character simple and unaffected has a beautiful and numerous family Colridge’s family likewise reside with him as well as another widow lady who was left without a shilling and the kind and affectionate manner in which he regards the whole has something in it superior to any thing I ever saw of human nature before such a man who tho’ not posessed of the highest genius has certainly great industry as well as ingenuity I think should be encouraged. With regard to what you say of Mr. Scott’s poetry I think the same way with you—the present company always excepted—Our united curse has truly fallen upon Goldie my poor unhappy Bookseller—he broke last week in my debt £200. a little fortune to me but I fear it is mostly gone—I have got sundry such rubs but I will overcome it Mr. Scott’s new poem will not be published before Febr. I think it will be called The Lord of The Isle some use will be made of his late jaunt. The number of literary men that are here just now is really extraordinary and we have had many pleasant poetical jaunts to the various lakes Skiddaw and Helvellyn I see this sheet has not been begun at the right place but it makes little difference which page you read first With regard to the first charge I laid against you namely that you were dull in the uptake I suppose an old Scottish proverb will answer it “There’s nane sae deaf as him wha winna hear” I never thought of asking you to reccomend me to Murray though I wish as you do that I were in his hands I adverted to my uncertainty whether you were going to lend me any support in my proposed work for as I told you once before unless I am ascertained of this I will not begin it. I will be content and gratefull for whatever you are pleased to send be it ever so little neither does its appearance in my work prevent you from appropriating it in any following edition but your name will so compleatly ensure me all the respectable correspond-

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ence in Britain that without this favour from you I must abandon the idea for unless I can begin it with the certain prospect of success I had better not begin it at all—I care not a snuff about politics that shall never make a breach between your lordship and me—What you say with regard to the poets here commending and flattering one another is true to an extent that a fellow like me could never have believed who was used, for want of dignity, to be attacted by every one both friend and foe I have no more news farewell God bless your lordship and his most sincerely James Hogg Grieve & Scott’s Edin. P. S. I have only showed the letter to Wilson who is honour itself To Lord Byron [Addressed:] [concealed by pasted-down card] [Postmark:] SE [?]16[?] 1814 [Watermark:] H SALMON/ 1810 [Location:] On deposit in the Bodleian Library, Oxford: Byron Lovelace Papers, Box 155, fols 51–52. Reproduced by permission of Pollinger Limited and the proprietor. Ellerey the property on Lake Windermere which had been bought by John Wilson in 1805, while he was still at Oxford. He occupied the original cottage, but from 1808 started to build a large house, not finally ready until 1825—see Elsie Swann, Christopher North (Edinburgh, 1934), pp. 31–32. your letter this has not apparently survived. accompanied Wordsworth Wordsworth’s excursion to Yarrow, and his visit to Hogg’s father at Craig-Douglas with Hogg took place on 1 September 1814—see Memoir, pp. 67, 253–54. Wordsworth’s Excursion published in July 1814. some parodying Hogg had been hurt by Wordsworth’s denial that he was a poet in the ‘triumphal arch’ episode at Rydal Mount on 11 September—see Memoir, pp. 68, 254. Hogg subsequently published parodies of Wordsworth in The Poetic Mirror (1816). the Kraken a kraken is a gigantic sea serpent, said to be seen off the coast of Norway. By analogy Wordsworth’s Excursion was a huge monster from the Lake District. Southey’s new work Roderick, The Last of the Goths was advertised as ‘published this day’ in London in the Morning Chronicle of 21 November 1814 and in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 8 December 1814. numerous family Southey had married Edith Fricker in 1795. Her sister Sara had married Coleridge, and her sister Mary Robert Lovell. Lovell died of a fever, and his widow and child lived with the Southeys after his death—see Richard Holmes, Coleridge: Early Visions (London: Flamingo, 1999), pp. 367, 369. By 1809 Coleridge had virtually abandoned his family, who were also dependent on Southey. Hogg expresses similar views about Southey in his Memoir, pp. 65–66.

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broke last week there was a general failure among the less important Edinburgh booksellers at this time: ‘Clarke of St. Andrew Street, Walker of Hunter Square, and numbers of smaller houses had all gone under, leaving masses of dishonored bills’— see Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), I, 412. Hogg’s account of the transactions between him and George Goldie is given in his Memoir, p. 31, while Goldie’s version is in his Letter to a Friend (Edinburgh, 1821), pp. 7–8. Mr. Scott’s new poem The Lord of the Isles was published on 5 January 1815 (Todd & Bowden, p. 346), and, as Hogg says, utilises Scott’s experiences on his nautical tour of the Hebrides from 29 July to 8 September 1814. an old Scottish proverb see The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, third edition, rev. by F. P. Wilson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970, repr. 1982) p. 172. reccomend me to Murray see Hogg’s letters to Byron of 30 July [1814] and to Murray of 17 August 1814 and notes. support in my proposed work Byron was widely reputed to be a supporter of Hogg’s poetical repository. On 7 February 1815 he wrote to the editor of the Poetical Register, R. A. Davenport, who had heard such a report, ‘Mr. Hogg certainly requested me to contribute to his miscellany and to this I intended to accede—but many circumstances have since concurred to interrupt the composition of any piece which would have suited his purpose’—see Byron’s Letters and Journals, ed. by Leslie A. Marchand, 12 vols (London: John Murray, 1973–82), IV, 268. as I told you once before see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 30 July [1814]. politics Byron’s liberal political views might be supposed to be at odds with Hogg’s Toryism, although at this time Hogg was mixing in liberal, or even radical, circles in Edinburgh.

To Robert Southey

[8 October—end November 1814]

Dear Southey So compleatly is the 3d edition of the Wake locked up at present for the behoof of creditors that ever since I came back here I have never been able to procure a single copy to send you I have however at the printer’s procured those sheets that are most materially altered which I inclose Roderick is safe depend upon it I venture my judgement on it very publickly that it is the first epic poem of the age—Its great merit consists in the extent and boldness of the plan its perfect consistency and the ease with which it is managed—In these respects you are so far above all your cotemporaries as not to admit of a comparison—I should like above all things to review it in some respectable work You will perhaps think it a little strange considering how little effort you made to shine that I should be more taken with your character than any man I ever met with in all my life. Why are you not so intimate with Wilson as the rest of the Bards depend upon it

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there is not a better heart among them nor one who appreciates your merits more truly Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr. Southey [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] [SHIELD] [Location:] The Wordsworth Trust, Dove Cottage, Grasmere: WLMS Stanger/ 2/ 14. 1. date the letter was written after Hogg’s return to Edinburgh from the Lake District on 8 October 1814—see his letter to Byron of 14 October 1814 and notes. Southey’s letter to Hogg of 1 December 1814 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 7–8) is clearly a reply to it. the 3d edition [...] behoof of creditors the third edition of The Queen’s Wake was advertised as published that day in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 July 1814. Its publisher, George Goldie, became bankrupt in early September—see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 13 September 1814. at the printer’s the third edition of The Queen’s Wake was printed by James Ballantyne. most materially altered in the earlier editions of Hogg’s poem the old man in ‘The Witch of Fife’ had been burnt at the stake, but Scott persuaded Hogg to change it so that from the third edition onwards he escapes—see Anecdotes of Scott, ed. by Jill Rubenstein (S/SC, 1999), p. 65. The third edition also changed the language of ‘Kilmeny’ from synthetic medieval into modern Scots. Roderick Southey’s Roderick, The Last of the Goths was advertised among ‘Books published this day’ in the Morning Chronicle of 21 November 1814, and as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 8 December 1814. Hogg had read it in the Lake District—see his letter to Byron of 13 September 1814. intimate with Wilson Southey’s reply of 1 December 1814 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 7– 8) says ‘There is a sufficient reason in the distance between our respective abodes [...]. Perhaps, however I might have sought him had it not been for his passion for cock fighting. But this is a thing which I regard with abhorrence’.

To Lord Byron

14 October 1814 Edin Octr 14th 1814

My good Lord I never was diverted by any correspondence so much as yours (leaving the honour out of the question) which I think is chiefly owing to the frankness and unaffectedness so apparent throughout the whole there is so much heart in the praise which you bestow, and so little ill nature in your censure though fraught with the severity of truth, that even those blamed could hardly be offended although they might feel it—I am really ashamed and blame myself much for

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having drawn so much of your attention and occupied so much of your precious time of late, therefore I lay my commands upon you not to answer this letter which I only send in acknowledgement of your last so kind and benevolent one which I found on my arrival here on the 8th—I will not harass nor teaze about poetry any more but will wait the movements of the spirit within you with a patience and a resignation of which you shall be forced to aprove and to put your heart perfectly at ease with regard to the time, I set none, only it shall be welcome when it comes be that when it will Concerning myself and prospects I have no good account to give your lordship at present—In truth it seems with me one of fortune’s most capricious moments—Every penny of the little foundation that I had laid on which to rear a tiny independance is by the failure of the d— bookseller you know vanished—the third edition of the work on which I chiefly depended is locked up till such time as the bankrupt’s affairs permit it to be brought to the hammer—The review of it part of which was read to me in Mr. Jeffery’s M. S. 5 months ago and which is a compleat saviour has again been deferred for what reason I have yet to learn I told you I had sold an edition of a new poem to Constable and Miller—on my return to town after an absence of 9 weeks, by which time it was to have been published, I found it in the same state in which I left it, and the m. s. taken out of the press and passing thro’ all the notable blues. I went to the shop in a tremendous rage, threatened Miller with a prosecution, and took the M. S. out of his hands—So that if Murray and I do not agree I am in a fine scrape—But I have the far worst thing of all to relate, and which in my own eyes crowns my misfortunes, and upon the whole renders my situation so whimsical that I cannot help laughing at it, for nothing of that nature makes me cry. I have differed with Scott actually and seriously I fear, for I hear he has informed some of his friends of it—I have often heard poets in general blamed for want of common sense, yet I know that Scott has a great deal of it but I fear he has had to do with one who had little or none at all I have never mentioned this to any living soul nor would I if I had not heard last night that Scott had mentioned it in a company and that it was like to become publicly known therefore I must tell you all how it fell out though I cannot explain it. At our last meeting it was most cordially agreed that he was not to appear in the first No. of the Repository but to exert himself for the second. “The first said he is secured if Lord Byron sends a piece of any length with those which you already have I shall take in hand to get you £500. for the number the difficulty will be in keeping it up therefore depend on it

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I shall do my best to support the Second No.—” All this was very well till of late we had a correspondence about a drama that I was attempting—he sent a sheet of criticisms in his own shrewd sensible manner and most friendly But in the last page he broke off and attacked me about some jealousies and comparisons between him and me so cavalierly that I was driven compleatly out of myself [eop] myself and without asking any explanation (for I knew no more than the man in the moon what he adverted to) I took the pen and wrote a letter of the most bitter and severe reproaches I have quite forgot what in my wrath I said but I believe I went so far as to say every thing which I knew to be the reverse of truth, and which you in part well know—yea to state that I had never been obliged to him (it was a great lie) and never would be obliged to him for any thing; and I fear I expressed the utmost contempt for both himself and his poetry! This is all true, and yet I cannot believe that I am a madman either—The truth is that I must have erred in something so as to have deserved the reflections he cast upon me but I was so conscious of never having in all my life said one word or thought one thought prejudicial to Scott that I was hurt extremely. I suppose some unfortunate lines near the end of the Queen’s wake which haply he did not know I had altered in the latter editions gave rise to it—or perhaps some odious comparisons which my abominable bookseller had picked up out of some shabby reviews and published in the papers and in which I had no more hand than you had.—Thus one of the best props of the Repository is irrevocably lost if the other should likewise prove a bruised reed why every herring must hang by its own head.—When you said to me once that your poetical days were drawing to a close I had not the slightest idea that there was a fair Millbank in the question—I need not dun you for poetry now; faith you’ll be milled well enough for a time—but I hope by the time you have tried the avocation of miller for a month or two that you will then begin jilting with the muse again—believe the time of vigour health and anticipation is a precious time for the [eop] for the children of fancy and of song and ought not to be neglected and here I cannot help adverting to an old Scotish proverb, though I scarcely know how to apply it “There’s muckle water rins while the miller sleeps”—By the by I hope yours brings a good multure with her, rich and certain, then she will in truth be a Mill and a Bank both.—I would not be ill to perswade to try the grinding too as a last and desperate resource in these hard and evil times I wish you would advise me of your day of entry if it is not already past and by heaven

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if my fair West Indian have as good a grist as she promises I’ll play you for the first poet for the profits of our next new productions the one against the other I have not a word of literary news from this, having seen very few people since my return Wordsworth’s new poem is very little talked of here as yet and Southey’s not at all I believe I told you my sentiments of them at considerable [sic] With regard to Mr. Scott’s expected one the public I percieve are hanging in a curious suspence—good reason has he to be anxious about its fate—By it he is established or falls—I know it will be excellent and the scenes and even names of the highlands he can make so much of—There is but one thing against it and that is his being so much of a mannerist in stile language and character that whether in verse or prose a partial reader thinks he is always reading the same thing—My fixed belief is that the public will recievit it [sic] with great caution and a slowish sale but that it will finally prevail—It is one of my greatest faults my lord that I always speak and write too precisely as I feel but your own frankness to me encourages me to throw of all reserve when writing to you which I hope you will excuse—Murray is probably by this time in Edin. if so you shall hear from me in a few days till then I remain your lordship’s most affectionate and faithful Shepherd James Hogg [Addressed:] [no address panel] [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] J DICKINSON & CO/ 1811 [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box A 31 5. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 85–87 [in part]. my arrival here from the Lake District, where Hogg had been staying with John Wilson at Elleray near Windermere. teaze about poetry Hogg was waiting for Byron’s promised contribution before publishing the first number of his poetical repository. failure of the d— bookseller George Goldie, the publisher of Hogg’s The Queen’s Wake and The Hunting of Badlewe. Hogg’s letter to Byron of 13 September 1814 estimates that Goldie owed him £200. the third edition [...] locked up see Hogg’s letter to Robert Southey of [8 October— end November 1814] and notes. The review of it Francis Jeffrey’s review of The Queen’s Wake was finally published in the Edinburgh Review, 24 (November 1814), 157–74. The issue was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 22 December 1814. a new poem The Pilgrims of the Sun—Hogg’s retrospective account of his dealings with Constable and Manners and Miller over the publication is in his Memoir, pp. 36–38. In

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this account Hogg makes no mention of his rage at Miller’s shop, but reports that hearing from a friend that Miller was reluctant to publish Hogg wrote to him, and his manuscript was returned ‘as if no bargain had existed’ (p. 38). I have differed with Scott in his Memoir (p. 40) Hogg ascribes the quarrel to his anger at Scott’s refusal to contribute to his projected poetical repository. Douglas Mack suggests that Hogg wished to conceal from Byron the fact that Scott had refused outright to help, in case Byron then withdrew himself, causing the project to founder entirely—see Memoir of the Author’s Life and Familiar Anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1972), pp. 90–91. correspondence about a drama Hogg is not apparently referring here to The Hunting of Badlewe, since Scott’s letter about that play was sent to Eliza Izett with Hogg’s letter to her of 11 February 1814 some months previously. He seems at this time to have ‘adopted a resolution of writing a drama every year as long as I lived, hoping to make myself perfect by degrees, as a man does in his calling, by serving an apprenticeship’— see Memoir, p. 42. The title of the drama referred to here is unknown. a letter of the most bitter and severe reproaches this does not appear to have survived, though it may have been the foundation of Lockhart’s assertion (III, 392) that Hogg wrote a letter to Scott opening with the words ‘Damned Sir’ and concluding ‘Believe me, sir, yours with disgust, &c.’. unfortunate lines [...] the Queen’s wake the lines relating to ‘Walter the Abbot’ in the first edition of The Queen’s Wake (Edinburgh, 1813) included ‘But when, to native feelings true, | I struck upon a chord was new; | When by myself I ’gan to play, | He tried to wile my harp away’ (p. 323), which in the third edition (Edinburgh, 1814) were modified to ‘O could the bard I loved so long, | Reprove my fond aspiring song! | Or could his tongue of candour say, | That I should throw my harp away!’ (p. 329). some odious comparisons a notice that the third edition of The Queen’s Wake would be published in ‘a few days’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 4 July 1814 cited the following passage from the Theatrical Inquisitor: ‘He (Mr. Walter Scott) must share with the Ettrick Shepherd the honours of natural and unaffected sentiment; of simple, lively, and impressive narration; of graceful and natural expression, and of flowing and harmonious verse. In one respect, Mr Hogg is decidedly superior. His humour is natural and original; he never offends by abortive attempts at badinage or merriment, and, in the only example of his comic powers which the volume contains, he is decidedly successful’. a bruised reed a proverbial expression, deriving probably from Isaiah 36. 6: ‘this broken reed [...] whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it [...]’. every herring must hang by its own head Hogg mentions this as one of Scott’s own proverbial expressions in his Memoir (p. 49), and it is also used in Chapter 26 of Rob Roy. a fair Millbank Byron married Anne Isabella (Annabella) Milbanke on 2 January 1815. Hogg refers to Byron’s saying that his poetical days were drawing to a close in his letter to Byron of 30 July [1814]. an old Scotish proverb see The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, third edition, rev. by F. P. Wilson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970, repr. 1982), p. 870. Kelly’s explanation of this is ‘That is, People who have much among their Hands, will have Things broken, lost, and purloyned, of which they will not be sensible’, and this letter of Hogg’s is cited as an example of usage.

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a good multure multure is the miller’s fee for grinding grain. a Mill a slang expression for the female pudend. grinding a colloquial expression for the sexual act. Hogg’s uncharacteristic tone in this passage may have been a response to that of the letter from Byron to which he is replying. day of entry the day of taking possession of a property held by a lease, in this case a mill. Hogg is also referring to the sexual act to take place on Byron’s wedding-day. His sexually-explicit puns with their suggestion of a mercenary aspect to the marriage were not appreciated by Byron. This letter brought ‘rather a satirical, bitter’ reply that led Hogg to conclude that ‘I think he felt that I was using too much freedom with him’ (Memoir, pp. 39–40). my fair West Indian no specific West Indian heiress whom Hogg was courting has been identified. Occasionally Hogg and others joked that he would do well to marry an heiress. He wrote to John Murray on 7 May 1815, ‘I wish you or Mrs. Murray would speer me out a good wife with a few thousands’, and Scott, writing to the Duke of Buccleuch on 7 December [1818], sent Lady Isabella Scott a humorous message: ‘it is thought Mr. Hogg intends to propose (having faild in the affair of Miss Kitty Hert Reading) for one of the rich Miss Scotts—first however he is to try one of the rich Miss Brodies of Inverleithen’—see Scott, Letters, V, 257. It is possible that Byron’s missing letter had similarly suggested that the best way for Hogg to redeem his fortunes was to marry a West Indian heiress. grist corn to be ground. the first poet a jocular bet as to which of the two, Byron or Hogg, would first produce a son if married at about the same time. Wordsworth’s new poem [...] Southey’s Wordsworth’s Excursion and Southey’s Roderick, The Last of the Goths were both published in 1814. Mr. Scott’s expected one The Lord of the Isles, which was published on 5 January 1815– see Todd & Bowden, p. 346. It was less successful than Scott’s earlier narrative poems, perhaps because of the current celebrity of Lord Byron and the unknown author of Waverley. Murray [...] in Edin. John Murray was in Edinburgh to bring home his wife and three children who had been on an extended visit to their Edinburgh connections that summer—he had left London at the beginning of October travelling by land and visiting Newstead Abbey and Matlock en route. During his trip he also visited Scott at Abbotsford, and seems to have been in London again by 8 November when Blackwood wrote to congratulate him on his safe arrival—see Smiles, I, 246, 252–57. According to Hogg’s Memoir (p. 38) Blackwood introduced Hogg to Murray in Edinburgh, and Hogg supped with him one night in Albany Street, when Murray agreed to publish The Pilgrims of the Sun.

To Lord Byron

18 October 1814 Grieve & Scott’s Edin. Octr 18th 1814

My lord I have had a very pleasant crack with Mr. Murray and we have sorted very well I hope we shall long do so; he made me a present

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of a proof copy of your picture and seems indeed very much attached to you—I am very sorry for having joked you so freely about a certain fair I did not know it was true but weened that it had been put into the papers by some officious person, but now I promise not to cast up the miller trade any more to your lordship. Indeed the picture which Murray has drawn to me of the charms both of her person and mind has quite enamoured me of her and I look upon you already as raised a step higher in the scale of being and just beginning to experience a new existence You once said of my dedication that if I thought of transferring it to another I needed not to scruple on your account—I take you at your word and if before my title page is required there is then a Lady Byron living I will transfer it to her in a single stanza or sonnet which you shall previously see—if there is none the lord is still to the fore If it be true that you will pass a part of the Winter in the county of Durham I would not say but that I might pop in on you some day as I have a small stewartship in Northumberland where I have to appear once or twice a year I have not a word of news to day therefore adieu for the present and may all the kind and benevolent powers that watch over the destinies of men linger nigh your lordship and shed on your mind those energies and feelings of delight the breathings of which are so likely to charm the souls of the unborn is the earnest wish of your lordship’s most Obedt. James Hogg [Addressed:] Right Hone. Lord Byron/ Albany/ London [Postmark:] B 22OC22 1814 [and] FREE 22OC22 1814 [and] OCT B18E 1814 [and] Addl. ½ [Watermark:] [SHIELD] [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box A 31 5. [Printed:] Strout, p. 87 [in part]. crack with Mr. Murray Murray was then visiting Edinburgh and Hogg had made an arrangement with him for the publication of The Pilgrims of the Sun—see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 14 October 1814 and notes, and his letter to Eliza Izett of 26 October 1814. Blackwood’s letter to Murray of 11 December 1814 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2) implies that Hogg had read part of his poem to Blackwood and Murray during the latter’s Edinburgh visit: ‘The portion which he read us appears to me only part that is interesting. His Miltonic soaring into the empyreal heavens will not do’. a proof copy of your picture an engraving from the ‘cloak’ portrait by Thomas Phillips (1770–1845), like the one that appears as a frontispiece in the first volume of Murray’s 1821 edition of The Works of Lord Byron. sorry for having joked [...] about a certain fair see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 14

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October 1814. Murray had presumably informed Hogg that the rumours about Byron’s marriage to Miss Milbanke were true. the papers Byron’s forthcoming marriage aroused great public interest. The Edinburgh Evening Courant of 29 December 1814 reprinted an item of London news of 26 December, stating that ‘Lord BYRON sets off on Saturday morning for Durham, to lead to the hymeneal altar the accomplished and beautiful Miss MILBANKE.—His Lordship intends to pass the honey-moon at Seaham-house’. my dedication Hogg had proposed in his letter of 14 August 1814 to dedicate The Pilgrims of the Sun to Byron. See also his letter to Byron of 28 October 1814. in the county of Durham Byron’s marriage to Miss Milbanke took place on 2 January 1815 at the bride’s country home at Seaham in Durham. a small stewartship the details of this are unknown. Hogg’s letter to William Hogg of 8 October 1811 mentions his acting as factor to a ‘good old English lady’, then recently deceased.

To Eliza Izett

26 October 1814 Edin. Octr. 26th 1814

Dear madam In your last you desired me to write to you shortly and inform you of the extent of my loss with Mr. Goldie &c.—as I never keep any books never having any accounts that can require them I cannot ascertain the exact sum for he has never settled one account from the beginning of our transactions I was once thinking it was above but I now find it is somewhat short of £200. You must not expect me at Kinnaird this season I dare not turn my thoughts that way for I find that circumstances do not admit of it and you know how little I regard interest when any idea of pleasure takes posession of my brain.—The Pilgrims of the Sun is getting on as well as can be expected from dilatory printers. I have the first sheet of the third canto lying in proof before me at this moment—It will be out by the middle of next month I think at farthest I have transferred the right of the work from the Edin booksellers to John Murray London who happened to be in Edin. last week and somewhat to my astonishment offered me £500. for my poem which is only 1800 lines and which I wrote in about three weeks I however declined accepting of it from the consideration that the copy-right of all my other works being in my own hand the selling so small a thing out of the middle of them was a blank which would prevent me selling them altogether—Some of my friends blame me and others approve but I did it for the best in future chusing rather as the safest way for us both to take 80£ for the present edition and a right to as many copies at prime cost as I could dispose of—I have likewise agreed

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with Murray about the publication of a Miscellaneous work on which he calculates being able to pay me a good yearly sum but this must depend upon the sale of the work—I am not doing much at present if you except gossiping for though I have no serious doubts about the success of the Pilgrims yet I feel a certain anxiety which prevents me from composing to any sense—my mind always reverting to that— Mr Grieve is come home and very well as are also our friends in Adam Square Miss Janet Stuart left town I believe to day for her situation in the South other word or news have I none but you may tell your honest ruddy farmer with his thick shoes that sheep cattle and wool have all got such a start in the south that the store-farmers are positively going mad and will again ruin themselves or at best one another. Wordsworth and Southey have each published a new poem price of each £2: 2. Southey’s is a noble work the other is a very absurd one but has many most beautiful and affecting passages— Scott is in the press—the beginning is beautiful—pardon my dear Eliza my hurried confused way of writing I cannot take time or pains about a letter of all things Yours truly James Hogg [Addressed:] Mrs. Izet/ Kinnaird/ By Dunkeld [Postmark:] OCT W28A 1814 [and] 8½ [Watermark:] FELLOWS/ 1812 [Location:] Scottish Borders Archive and Local History Centre, in a copy of The Queen’s Wake (Edinburgh, 1819), Craig-Brown Book Collection. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 89–90. your last none of Eliza Izett’s letters to Hogg appear to have survived. my loss with Mr. Goldie George Goldie, the publisher of The Queen’s Wake and The Hunting of Badlewe, had become bankrupt in early September—see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 13 September 1814. at Kinnaird Hogg often visited the Izetts’ home near Dunkeld on his holiday excursions into the Highlands, and had begun to compose Mador of the Moor there in 1813— see Memoir, pp. 34–35, 234. dilatory printers the printer’s colophon of The Pilgrims of the Sun (1815) records that it was ‘PRINTED AT THE CALEDONIAN MERCURY PRESS’, presumably the printers of the newspaper of the same name. In a letter to John Murray of 25 November 1814 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2) Blackwood says ‘Hogg’s Poem is finished and will be shipt for you next week’. the middle of next month Blackwood’s letter to Murray of 11 December 1814 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2) states that he had shipped 200 copies of The Pilgrims of the Sun to Murray on 6 December and 400 copies two days later, adding ‘I intend to publish The Pilgrims to morrow’. It was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 15 December 1814.

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Murray [...] in Edin. last week see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 18 October 1814 and notes. £500. for my poem comparable to the five hundred guineas Murray had paid Byron for Lara—see Smiles, I, 231. a Miscellaneous work presumably the long-projected poetical repository. our friends in Adam Square these people have not been identified. Adam Square was demolished in 1872, when it made way for the present Chambers Street—see Harris, pp. 51–52. Miss Janet Stuart the author of poems contributed to the old Edinburgh Magazine under the pen-name Adeline and of an anonymous Ode to Dr. Thomas Percy published in 1805. Hogg met her at Mary Peacock’s house, before that lady married his old friend James Gray, and she contributed to his 1810–11 periodical The Spy—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), p. 569, and Hogg’s letter to her of 10 October [1808?]. your honest ruddy farmer Eliza’s husband Chalmers Izett, who had retired from his Edinburgh business as a hatter to the country estate of Kinnaird. Wordsworth and Southey Wordsworth’s The Excursion and Southey’s Roderick, The Last of the Goths, both published in 1814. Scott is in the press with The Lord of the Isles, published on 5 January 1815—see Todd & Bowden, p. 346.

To Margaret Phillips

26 October 1814 No. 2 Gabriel’s Road Edin. Octr. 26th 1814

My ever esteemed And if I durst I would have said my ever beloved Margaret, I have committed an unpardonable crime against a kind and unaffected heart by neglecting you so long—it was a return which your friendly and even sisterly behaviour to me never deserved I have no excuse to make therefore must just tell you the plain truth which tells always best—The last letter I got from you was forgot at Mr. Gray’s house and a quarter of a year elapsed before I got it at which I was a little chagrined and did not answer it at the time and after that I forgot it for I never correspond with any person now unless in cases of necessity—This is a fine excuse to tell a friend and that friend a bonny black e’ed lassie that I forgot her—It is nevertheless true it being very seldom now that ever your image rises in my mind— when it does it is always with a glow of kindness which I never feel for any other body But I got such a scolding letter about flattering you that I dare not go any farther on that subject therefore I tell you that you are in my opinion a cold insensate girl incapable of feeling any of the softest and most congenial passions of the soul—Upon my conscience I believe that providing every thing be done with proper neatness and decorum that you will in the end be courted married

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and bedded with as little tremor passion or palpitation as you would go to a supper party or the theatre Royal of Edinburgh—You are a queer lassie Margaret but with all your faults and failings I would like to see you again—I do assure you I never loved you, but since ever you left me I have never had the same kind of feeling for any other and I think I could endure to see you going about near me if it were even only to plague me with your whimsies and glib Nithsdale tongue Tell me are you never coming to this city again? If so as soon as you promise me that very improper request the only thing about which we ever differed I will come and see you directly but not till then—You are not obliged to give up your opinion of decorum to any man but you are to a poet else it may be the worse for you—You see I can say any thing to you for the truth is that I have such a perfect belief of the purity of your heart and nature as to be certain that offence can never find a place in either where none is intended and that it is impossible for me ever to be in a situation with you in which I could not answer for the propriety of my behaviour and I really flatter myself that you feel so too. Virtuous innocen[TEAR] a restraining and commanding power with it which even depravity would tremble to wound—Let me hear from you, and show yourself above all offence upon account of neglects &c. and if you do so soon I will stile you my dear Margaret again in my next—Let the post henceforth be our sole means of conveyance—I have no room for news but only that my new poem will be published in three weeks I have acted rather ungenerously toward you Margaret but believe me it was an error of judgement not of the heart for I am as much as ever Yours James Hogg [Addressed:] Miss Margaret Phillips/ Longbridge-moor/ Dumfries [Postmark:] OCT W25A 1814 [and] Addl. ½ [Watermark:] FELLOWS/ 1812 [Location:] Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 5. No. 2 Gabriel’s Road Gabriel’s Road was not far from Hogg’s previous lodgings at 10 St Ann Street, and ‘sections of it still exist as the footpath of Gabriel’s Road at West Register Street, the right of way through the grounds of the Royal Bank of Scotland in St Andrew Square’—see Harris, p. 282. Lockhart in his Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1819), II, 197–200 gives the story of the tutor Gabriel’s murder there of his two young pupils, implying that this was the origin of the name. R. P. Gillies describes Hogg’s lodging as ‘a sky-parlour in another odd place called Gabriel’s Road’ behind the Register Office, where his landlady was a Mrs Tunny—see ‘Some Recollections of James Hogg’, Fraser’s Magazine, 20 (October 1839), 414–30 (pp. 419, 425).

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last letter I got the earliest surviving letter from Margaret Phillips to Hogg dates from July 1819 (see Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 19). James Gray was Margaret Phillips’s brother-in-law as well as a close friend to Hogg. I forgot her see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 14 October 1814 and notes for the possibility that Hogg was pursuing an heiress at this time. the theatre Royal of Edinburgh Margaret Phillips had been to the Theatre Royal in Hogg’s company on at least one occasion, on 17 November 1810 to see The Clandestine Marriage—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 130, 589. you left me a reference to Margaret’s last visit to Edinburgh: she stayed with her brother-in-law James Gray, to whose house Hogg was a frequent visitor. Garden (pp. 113–14) suggests that at this time Margaret’s affection for the impoverished, middleaged poet was ‘misplaced’, because of her more settled middle-class background. that very improper request the nature of the request is unknown. commanding power a belief in the restraining power of virginity is expressed in many of Hogg’s poems—for example, in ‘Ane Rychte Gude and Preytious Ballande’, A Queer Book, ed. by P. D. Garside (S/SC, 1995), pp. 125–35. in three weeks The Pilgrims of the Sun was announced as ‘This day is published [...]’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 15 December 1814, while in his letter to John Murray of 11 December 1814 Blackwood expresses his intention of publishing it on the following day ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2). See also Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of [12 December 1814].

To Lord Byron

28 October 1814 Grieve & Scott’s Edinr Octr. 28 1814

My Lord As The Pilgrims of the Sun is now all through my hands save three sheets the title page is likely to be called for by the time I can have an answer from you by return of post and as I would not for the world hurt the feelings of any one I submit the two following Dedicatory stanzas to your inspection hoping that you will direct me exactly as you feel Dedication O thou sweet syren whose melodious breath Whose soul of purity and magic eye Have charmed a pilgrim from the walks of death To new existence in a genial sky Whose image hath supplied a vacancy Ill brooked, ill construed, in a kindred breast Another pilgrim seeks for sanctuary Within thy bower—a rude but timorous guest, In thy least cheering smile that pilgrim will be blest

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To the Right Hon. Lord Byron —————————— Not for thy crabbed state-creed wayward wight Thy noble lineage nor thy virtues high (God bless the mark!) do I this homage plight No, ’tis thy bold and native energy. Thy soul that dares each bound to overfly Ranging thro’ nature on erratic wing These I do honour, and would fondly try In thy inspiring influence to sing Then Oh round shepherd’s head thy charmed mantle fling. —————————— I need scarcely inform your lordship that the former is rather my own favourite but if you think there is the smallest degree of indelicacy in inserting it or even that the person meant will be discovered until such time as I can insert the name at full length you know you have only to tell me so—Which ever of the two you deem it most prudent in me to prefer pray be free in your observations upon as I should certainly have done had I been lord Byron and you the Shepherd have you ever seen the epitaph on John Hildebrod? Here lies auld John Hildebrod Have mercy on him good lord God As he would had had he been God And you’d been auld John Hildebrod If Murray reaches London in any thing like his right senses which I am rather inclined to suspect for he seemed half crazed about the poets before he left this and I fear Abbotsford would wind up his enthusiasm to the sticking place from whence it will not again descend to the grovelling modes of common life But if he is not quite mad give my kindest respects to him next time your lordship sees him and remind him of his promise to gain me the correspondence of Moor and say that he may announce my poem for publication any day that he chuses beyond the middle of Novr. as the printing will be finished next week Let me hear from you with your lordship’s very first convenience and believe me Yours ever James Hogg P. S. Why the devil do you always blot out your name after you set it down?

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[Addressed:] Right Hon. Lord Byron/ Albany/ London [Postmark:] OCT B29A 1814 [and] FREE 1NO1 1814 [and] Addl. ½ [Watermark:] FELLOWS/ 1812 [Location:] On deposit in the Bodleian Library, Oxford: Byron Lovelace Papers, Box 155, fols 53–54. Reproduced by permission of Pollinger Limited and the proprietor. the title page in the era of hand-press printing the preliminaries were usually the last part of the first edition of a book to be printed. Hogg had proposed to dedicate The Pilgrims of the Sun to Byron in his letter of 14 August 1814. two following Dedicatory stanzas in his letter to Byron of 18 October 1814 Hogg proposed to dedicate his poem to Byron’s wife if he were married by the time the poem appeared. The first of the proposed dedications is accordingly addressed to Byron’s prospective bride. The second dedication, to Byron himself, is substantially that of the published work. to your inspection in the published dedication the eighth line reads ‘With thee a wild aërial strain to sing:’ rather than ‘In thy inspiring influence to sing’. The alteration and choice of dedication were probably made by Hogg, since it seems likely that The Pilgrims of the Sun was published without Hogg having received a reply from Byron. Hogg’s letter to John Murray of 26 December 1814 enquires after Byron and says that he has not heard from him ‘these two months and more’. charmed mantle probably an allusion to the ‘cloak’ portrait of Byron by Thomas Phillips, of which John Murray had recently given Hogg an engraving—see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 18 October 1814. epitaph on John Hildebrod cited by Burns in his letter to Mrs Dunlop of 6 October 1790—see The Letters of Robert Burns, ed. by J. De Lancey Ferguson, rev. by G. Ross Roy, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), II, 57. Abbotsford for details of John Murray’s Scottish visit see the notes to Hogg’s letter to Byron of 14 October 1814. the sticking place an allusion to Macbeth, I. 7. 60. the correspondence of Moor Murray was the publisher of the Irish poet and songwriter Thomas Moore (1779–1852), who was also Byron’s friend and later his biographer. Hogg wanted to ask Moore for a contribution to his projected poetical repository—see his letter to John Murray of 26 December 1814. blot out your name this may have been a precaution against autograph-hunters.

To William Blackwood

28 October 1814 Gabriel’s Road Octr. 28th 1814

Sir As it must be evident to Mr Goldie’s trustees of whom I understand you are one that I am suffering a double injury by having my principal work thus locked up from the public it never having yet been regularly published—And as the work was a joint concern I request that one half of the copies be instantly given up to me for

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circulation in which case I will give up all claims upon the estate for that edition and grant security to the trustees to the full amount of one half of the paper and printing. The edition consisted of 1030 copies 515 of which bel[TEAR] me—The bargain was verbal but a bill was granted for a part of the moiety—Should the trustees judge it more expedient I am willing to take the whole remaining copies at a fair valuation—In either case I empower you to act for me and beg that at all events it may be settled at your next meeting. Yours most truly James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr William Blackwood/ Colledge Street [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] 1814/ Letter/ James Hogg/ October 28 [Watermark:] FELLOWS/ 1812 [Location:] NLS, MS 4001, fols 207–08. [Printed:] Oliphant, I, 35–36. William Blackwood see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Mr Goldie’s trustees in his Memoir (pp. 31–32) Hogg states, ‘It was on the occasion of Mr. Blackwood being appointed one of the trustees upon the bankrupt estate that I was first introduced to him’. In his Letter to a Friend (Edinburgh, 1821) Goldie names his trustees as ‘Mr Francis Bridges, Mr Blackwood, and Mr Samuel Aitken’ (p. 15). The bankruptcy of George Goldie, the publisher of The Queen’s Wake, had occured early in September 1814 (see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 13 September 1814), and by the time Murray visited Edinburgh in October Blackwood was able to introduce him to Hogg (see Memoir, p. 38). From Blackwood’s letter to Murray of 11 December 1814 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2) Hogg then read part of The Pilgrims of the Sun aloud to the two publishers. my principal work The Queen’s Wake, a third edition of which had been published by Goldie in July 1814, and sales of which had been halted by his bankruptcy. Samuel Aitken agreed that Hogg should have ‘the whole of the remaining copies, 490 in number, charging me only with the expenses of printing, &c. These, to my agreeable astonishment, amounted only to two shillings and tenpence halfpenny per volume.[...] Mr. Blackwood sold the copies for me on commission, and ultimately paid me more than double of what I was to have received from Goldie. For this I was indebted to the consideration and kindness of the trustees’ (Memoir, p. 32). a joint concern perhaps indicating that Hogg was to receive half-profits from Goldie for the third edition of The Queen’s Wake. 1030 copies Blackwood’s letter to Murray of 25 November 1814 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2) states, ‘He is to get upwards of 500 copies from Goldie’s Trustees and print a new title page calling it the fourth edition with your name and mine, so as it may be advertised along with the Pilgrims of the Sun’, but a subsequent letter of 11 December 1814 indicates that in the event ‘there were only 400 in Goldie’s stock’ ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2). a bill was granted a bill was effectively a promise of payment at a future date, rendered ineffective by Goldie’s bankruptcy.

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To George Thomson

219 [28 November 1814]

2 Gabriel’s Road Monday Dear sir I have long had it in contemplation to establish an anniversary dinner to the memory of Burns in Edin. and this year have mentioned it to a great number who embrace the proposal with avidity and we had resolved to set it a going and that Mr J. Wilson the poet and myself should be the managers presidents &c. On second thoughts however I think this distinction more properly devolves on you for the first year and perhaps Ainslie will consent to be your associate You two are his most intimate friends remaining in this city Our proposals were that the tickets should be from 15/ to £1: 1 as it could be settled with M,Curan and that it should be advertised in the papers so as the friends to the memory of our immortal bard might have the opportunity of joining us and that we should have Gow, Templeton &c—I long much to communicate with you on this subject I think it should be done—and I hope for the honour of the club and the honour of the poet that you will take the principal lead in it for the first year—You may chuse Wilson and myself as stewards for depend on it the company will be very large and respectable and there should be a steward for every 8 or 10 to manage the bowls toasts &c. Pray consider of this and let me hear from you soon Yours most truly James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr Geo. Thomson/ 3 Exchange [Postmark:] NOV B29M 1814 [Endorsed—not JH:] 28 Nov 1814/ Mr. Jas Hogg/ proposing an anniver/ sary meeting in ho-/ nour of Burns—/ ansd that it will give/ me the greatest pleas-/ ure— [Watermark:] J DICKINSON & CO/ 1811 [Location:] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: James Hogg Collection GEN MSS 61, Box 1, Folder 16. [Printed:] Adam, p. 7. George Thomson see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. an anniversary dinner to be held on 25 January 1815, the birthday of Robert Burns. Mr J. Wilson the poet Hogg gives an account of his first meeting with John Wilson in his Memoir (pp. 32–33), saying ‘I found him so much a man according to my own heart, that for many years we were seldom twenty-four hours asunder, when in town’. During September 1814 Hogg had paid a visit to Wilson at Elleray in the Lake District—see his letter to Byron of 13 September 1814 and notes. Ainslie Robert Ainslie (1766–1838), the friend and correspondent of Robert Burns,

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was an Edinburgh Writer to the Signet. Hogg describes him in later life in the edition of The Works of Robert Burns that he edited with William Motherwell, 5 vols (Glasgow, 1834–36), IV, 291 as ‘a downright honest, sleepy-headed, kind-hearted gentleman, and his good humour never failing him, not even in his sleep, with which he generally favours the company once or twice in an evening’. Ainslie was President at the dinner. tickets tickets were obtainable at one guinea from Oman’s Hotel until Tuesday, 24 January—see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 23 January 1815. M,Curan was presumably a member of the hotel staff. advertised in the papers the Burns dinner was advertised in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 January 1815, for Wednesday, 25 January at five o’clock at Oman’s Hotel. Gow the Scottish violinist and composer Nathaniel Gow (1766–1831) was the son of the famous fiddler, Neil Gow, and lived as a music teacher, concert promoter, and music-seller in Edinburgh. Hogg’s A Border Garland was published by the firm of Nathaniel Gow and Son. A news item on the forthcoming Burns dinner in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 23 January 1815 notes that ‘several of the eminent professional singers in town have promised to join their aid [...] Mr Gow’s excellent band of music has been bespoken [...]’. Templeton Templeton was an Edinburgh concert-singer and music teacher in Edinburgh, the eldest brother of the famous tenor John Templeton (1802–1886). A report of the Burns dinner in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 28 January 1815 mentions that after dinner ‘“Non Nobis Domine” was sung in good style by Mess. LEES, TEMPLETON, and GALE’ who presumably also performed some at least of the ‘glees’ and songs that followed after the toasts of the evening. the club perhaps a reference to the Right and Wrong Club (see Memoir, pp. 47–48). R. P. Gillies says that ‘in the beginning of 1815, Hogg resumed his usual course of life, acting as steward at the first Burns’s anniversary dinner, the notion of which had been started by the right and wrong clique’—see ‘Some Recollections of James Hogg’, Fraser’s Magazine, 20 (October 1839), 414–30 (p. 425). Wilson and myself as stewards the stewards’ names are given in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 January 1815 as Robert Ainslie, John Wilson, R. P. Gillies, and James Gray. Hogg deputed a friend to take his place, fearing that he would be too ill to attend—see his letter to John Aitken of 14 January 1815. let me hear from you Hogg’s letter is endorsed with a note saying ‘ansd that it will give me the greatest pleasure’. Thomson was clearly present at the Burns dinner, since the report in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 28 January mentions that he was elected one of the office-bearers for the next meeting.

To William Blackwood

[12 December 1814]

Dr Blackwood Send me over with the bearer 20 more copies of the Pilgrims or what number you can spare N. B. You must charge them at the subscription price

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[Addressed:] Mr. Blackwood [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] 12 Dec/ J Hogg [Watermark:] FELLOWS/ 1812 [Location:] NLS, MS 4719, fols 185–86. the Pilgrims Hogg was presumably distributing copies of The Pilgrims of the Sun to friends in Edinburgh on the day of publication. Blackwood in his letter to John Murray of 11 December 1814 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2) said ‘I intend to publish The Pilgrims to morrow’. subscription price Hogg’s poem was sold at 7s. 6d. Hogg presumably got any copies he could dispose of himself at a trade discount, since there is no indication otherwise that this was a work published by subscription.

To Robert Southey

15 December 1814 Grieve & Scott’s Edin Decr 15th 1814

My dear Sir I was very happy at seeing the post mark of Keswick and quite proud of the pleasure you make me believe my Wake has given to the beauteous and happy group at Greta-Hall. Indeed few things could give me more pleasure for I left my heart a sojourner among them—I have had a higher opinion of matrimony since that period than ever I had before and I desire that you will positively give my kindest respects to each of them individually The Pilgrims of the Sun is published as you will see by the papers and if I may believe some communications that I have got the publick opinion of it is high but these communications to an author are not to be depended on—I have read Roderick over and over again and am the more and more convinced that it is the noblest Epic poem of the age I have had some correspondence and a good deal of conversation with Mr Jeffery about it who though he does not agree with me in every particular. He says it is too long and wants elasticity and will not he fears be generally read though much may be said in its favours—I had even teazed him to let me review it for him on account as I said that he could not appreciate its merits I copy one sentence out of the letter he sent in answer to mine “For Southey I have as well as you great respect, and when he will let me great admiration, but he is a most provoking fellow, and at least as concieted as his neighbour Wordsworth—I cannot just trust you with his Roderick but I shall be extremely happy to talk over that and other kindred subjects with you—for I am every way disposed to give

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Southey a lavish allowance of praise and few things would give me greater pleasure than to find he had afforded me a fair opportunity— But I must do my duty according to my own apprehensions of it” This is in confidence but it is safe enough with you I supped with him last night but there was so many people there I got but little conversation with [sic] but what we had was solely about you and Wordsworth. I suppose you have heard what a crushing review he has given the latter. I still found him persisting in his first asseveration that it was heavy but what was my pleasure to find he had only got to the 17 division I assured him he had the marrow of the thing to come at as yet and in that I was joined [TEAR] Mr. Alison—there was at the same time a Lady Mo[TEAR] joined us at the instant short as her remark was it [TEAR] to make more impression on Jeffery than all our arguments “O I do love Southey” that was all—I have no room to tell you more but I beg that you will not do any thing nor publish any thing that will nettle Jeffery for the present knowing as you do how omnipotent he is with the fashionable world and seemingly so well disposed toward you I am ever yours most truly James Hogg I wish the notes may be safe enough I never looked at them—I wish these large quartos were all in hell burning [Addressed:] Robert Southey Esq./ Keswick [Postmark:] DEC B17A 1814 [Watermark:] FELLOWS/ 1815 [Location:] British Library, MS Add. 47891, fols 114–15. [Printed:] The Poetical Works of Robert Southey (London, 1853), pp. xviii–xix. the post mark of Keswick Southey had written to Hogg on 1 December 1814 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 7–8) to thank him for sending copies of The Queen’s Wake and The Spy. Southey also gave Hogg permission to make use of ‘the Ballad of the Devil and the Bishop’ in his projected poetical repository. group at Greta-Hall Southey’s home circle also included two of his sisters-in-law and their children—see Memoir, pp. 65–66 and Hogg’s letter to Byron of 13 September 1814 and notes. Southey’s letter of 1 December 1814 reports that ‘Kilmeny’ and ‘The Witch of Fife’ in The Queen’s Wake ‘have given general pleasure throughout the house; my eldest girl often comes out with a stanza or two of the Witch,—but she wishes sometimes that you always wrote in English’. The Pilgrims of the Sun is published Hogg’s poem was advertised as ‘This day is published [...]’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 15 December 1814. Blackwood in his

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letter to John Murray of 11 December 1814 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2) says ‘I intend to publish The Pilgrims to morrow’. Roderick Southey’s Roderick, The Last of the Goths was also published in 1814. Mr Jeffery Francis Jeffrey (1773–1850), editor of the Edinburgh Review and notorious for his unsparing criticism of the Lake poets. Hogg, however, was at this time pleased with Jeffrey, whose favourable review of The Queen’s Wake was about to appear in the Edinburgh Review, 24 (November 1814), 157–74. There is an advertisement for that issue as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 22 December 1814. in answer to mine Hogg’s letter to Jeffrey has not apparently survived. supped with him in 1815 Jeffrey lived at 92 George Street in Edinburgh’s New Town. a crushing review Jeffrey’s notorious review of Wordsworth’s The Excursion beginning with the words ‘This will never do’ was published in Edinburgh Review, 24 (November 1814), 1–30. Mr. Alison Rev. Archibald Alison (1757–1839), minister of the Episcopal Chapel in the Cowgate, Edinburgh and the author of various admired sermons and essays on Taste—there is a portrait of him as a preacher (with accompanying engraving) in Lockhart’s Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1819), III, 92–97. do any thing nor publish any thing Hogg feared that if Southey made any public demonstration in defence of Wordsworth his own poem would suffer for it in the pages of the Edinburgh Review. the notes Southey’s Roderick, The Last of the Goths (London, 1814) was first published as a quarto volume costing two guineas, and including a long separately-paginated appendix of notes (pp. iii–cxxxvii). Southey in his reply of 24 December 1814 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 9–10) says ‘You wish all quartos in hell. Provided the Devil would buy up the edition of Roderick I should have no objection to consign it there. It has however made good speed in the world, & ere long I shall send you the poem in a more commodious shape, for Ballantyne is at this time reprinting it’.

To John Murray

26 December 1814 Grieve & Scott’s Edin Decr. 26th 1814

Dear Murray What the deuce have you made of my excellent poem that you are never publishing it while I am starving for want of money and cannot even afford a Christmas goose to my friends? I think I may say of you as the countryman said to his friend who asked him when his wife had her accouchement “Troth man said he she’s aye gaun about yet I think she be gaun to keep this ane till hersel athegither” However I daresay that like the said wife you have your reasons for it but of all things a bookseller’s reasons suit worst with a poet’s board— I should be glad to know if you got safely across the Tweed and what number of the little family group you lost by the way betwixt Edin. and London and how every thing in the literary world is go-

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ing on with you since that time—Why do you never write to me?— Have you ever seen Moore or talked to him about our projected repository—What in the world is become of that unlucky perverse callan Lord Byron? I have not heard from him these two months and more. I have really been afraid for sometime past that he was dead or perhaps even married and was truly very concerned about the lad—But I was informed the other day by a gentleman of the utmost respectability that he was very busy writing godly Psalms to be sung in congregations and families and when I heard that I said “If that be the case there’s no man sure of his life”—I do not know where to find him else I would write him a scolding letter—I have nothing in the world to say to you only be sure to let me hear from you and tell me how you are like to come on with the copies of the Queen’s Wake which I sent you. It has been a losing business and you must get me as much for it as you can I hope you will soon find occassion for sending me an offer for a fifth edition. I am interupted so farewell for the present God bless you James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr John Murray/ Bookseller/ Albemarl Street/ London [Postmarked:] 2 o’Clock JA. 12 1815 [Endorsed—not JH:] 1814 26th Decr Hogg James [Watermark:] FELLOWS/ 1812 [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box 37. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 91–92; Smiles, I, 344–45 [in part]. my excellent poem Blackwood’s letter to Murray of 11 December 1814 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2) states that he sent Murray 200 copies of The Pilgrims of the Sun on 6 December and 400 copies on 8 December 1814, and that he intended to publish the poem in Edinburgh on 12 December. It was advertised as ‘This day is published [...]’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 15 December 1814. Murray, however, delayed publication in London as he regretted having agreed to be the principal publisher of the poem. Hogg says in his Memoir (p. 38) ‘The running copy was sent up to Mr. Murray in London; and that gentleman, finding his critical friends of the same opinion with Mr. Miller’s blue-stockings, would not allow his name to go to the work.’ Murray printed another title page for the copies he received, which named Blackwood as the publisher and Murray himself as only the London agent for the work. Blackwood’s subsequent letter to Murray of [21 January 1815] reports that Hogg ‘appeared rather vexed at your altering the imprint’ ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2). Murray’s advertisement of the publication of Hogg’s poem appeared in The Morning Chronicle of 13 January 1815. the little family group Murray had been in Edinburgh during October and had visited at Abbotsford before returning to London (see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 28 October 1814). His visit was partly to convey his wife and family home to London at the end of an extended visit to their Edinburgh connections.

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Moore [...] projected repository Murray had promised to secure the correspondence of the poet Thomas Moore for Hogg—see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 28 October 1814 and notes. Lord Byron Byron may have been offended by Hogg’s letter of 14 October 1814 with its sexual innuendo and hints at a mercenary motive for Byron’s forthcoming marriage. In his Memoir (pp. 39–40) Hogg mentions a reply to this as ‘rather a satirical, bitter letter’ in contrast to the ‘extremely kind’ ones he received from Byron otherwise. godly Psalms Byron published his Hebrew Melodies in 1815. A ‘This day is published’ advertisement for the work appeared in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 6 May 1815. the copies [...] which I sent you the remaining copies of the third edition of The Queen’s Wake were obtained for Hogg by William Blackwood, who was one of the trustees in Goldie’s bankruptcy—see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 28 October 1814 and notes. From his letter to Murray of 11 December 1814 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2) Blackwood had shipped 300 of the 400 copies to Murray in London, with a fresh title-page signifying that this was the fourth edition of the work, explaining ‘It was by the Author’s desire I put upon the title of the Wake 4th edition. Indeed it appears to me that this will rather prevent than cause confusion, as both the publishers and the years are different’. The fourth edition of The Queen’s Wake was advertised as ‘just published’ by Murray and Blackwood in an advertisement for The Pilgrims of the Sun in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 15 December 1814.

To William Blackwood

[November 1814—May 1815]

Gabriel’s Row Saturday Dear Sir You can hardly concieve with what interest I read yours of this morning. I have been assur[MOUNT] by some of the first literary characters both of this country and England that Mr. M,Kenzie is the best if not the only judge of dramatic composition in Scotland and to learn that he is interesting himself in me quite delights me. The coinciden[MOUNT] of his opinion with my own regarding my capability for a pastoral drama is extremely curious, for the truth is that some time ago I commenced a work of that nature and had very nearly brought it to a conclusion, but finding that I was struggling with an imperfect plot I was obliged to give it up—I am still however perswaded that it contains not the bone but the muscles of something good, I will therefore send it to you and if you will be so kind as put it into his hand without saying a word about it farther than that it is mine and that I sticked it it may be ameans [sic] of procuring me an acquaintance than whic[MOUNT] I know not of one that can be of more value to me. I’ll tell you a secret with regard to my mind—I have no idea of any thing or any height in poetry that is inaccessible. But as I give my

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fancy full swing I know no more than a child whe[MOUNT] I am writing ill when well and am often equally astonished a[MOUNT] the praise attached to some parts and the blame of others—with su[MOUNT] a literary confessor as M,Kenzie my heart bounds at the idea of what I might accomplish—It is a great loss to literature that he should be so much and so constantly involved in business—However if you think there is no impropriety in it send him the M. S. as it is but as it was writ[MOUNT] off hand and I have no other copy I intreat that it may be taken care [MOUNT] Yours very truly James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr. William Blackwood/ with parcel [Postmark:] none [Endorsed:] Hogg the Ettrick/ Shepherd/ to Mr Blackwood/ Saturday [and] My Suggestion for his/ Writing a pastoral/ Drama [Watermark:] [CROWNED SHIELD]/ 1812 [Location:] The Library, Chambers Institution, Peebles [the extreme right-hand margin of the text partly concealed by the mount]. Gabriel’s Row Hogg lodged at 2 Gabriel’s Road in Edinburgh—for further details see Hogg’s letter to Margaret Phillips of 26 October 1814 and notes. date Hogg’s acquaintance with Blackwood dated from the bankruptcy of his former publisher George Goldie—see his first surviving letter to Blackwood of 28 October 1814 and notes. Hogg appears to have relinquished his Edinburgh lodgings at Gabriel’s Road on taking possession of Altrive in Yarrow at Whitsunday 1815. Mr. M,Kenzie Henry Mackenzie (1745–1831), author of The Man of Feeling and of The Lounger and The Mirror, and a venerated and influential Edinburgh literary figure. Mackenzie’s essay on Burns in his essay-periodical The Lounger had been an important factor in the development of Burns’s fame and reputation. His own play, The Prince of Tunis, appeared in 1773. a pastoral drama this has not been identified. Hogg had read Allan Ramsay’s The Gentle Shepherd during his service on the farm of Willenslee in his youth, and he had written two musical dramas in the same year [i. e. 1813] that he composed his tragedy, The Hunting of Badlewe—see Memoir, pp. 28, 33. It is possible that this pastoral drama may have been an early version of ‘The Bush Aboon Traquair’, published posthumously by Blackie and Son in Tales and Sketches by the Ettrick Shepherd, 6 vols (Glasgow, 1837), II, 275–338. Blackwood in his endorsement indicates that he had suggested the idea of a pastoral drama to Hogg.

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FOR 1815 To Jane Wilson

[4 January 1815]

Dear Miss Wilson I never got so sweet a drug all the days of my life and certes I never got one from as sweet a physician as that you have sent me, and though I cannot discover in the world what qualities it posesses which render it an infallible and potent stomachiach [sic] I am nevertheless adhering closely to the directions having the watch hung up and taking my spoonful neat without a drop less or more every hour—I think I am a good deal better to day which I attribute entirely to your medicine but I am still confined to my room and denied to all company, if my physician however call she must have admission of cour[TEAR] By the by I think always I can observe my landlady smiling when I call her to give me this medicine—if it should turn out that you have been quizzing me Jane, by Jupiter I’ll have such ample revenge I’ll not be content with making half a dozen poems on you, I’ll court you and then slight you, how will you like that? But I must not say any thing till I see for if you cure me be sure I shall be Yours for ever James Hogg I have no body to send and must trust the postman J. H. [Addressed:] Miss Wilson/ 53 Queen street [Postmark:] JAN B4E 1815 [Endorsed—not JH:] James Hogg the Ettric [sic] Shepherd [Watermark:] 1813 [Location:] The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations: Misc. 1489. Jane Wilson the elder sister of John Wilson (1785–1854). Wilson’s sisters shared his literary friendships at this period—see J. G. Lockhart’s letter to Hogg of 25 February 1832 (The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York: PML 52349, fol. 158) where he refers Hogg to Elizabeth Wilson’s memories of their ‘jolly doings’ on first becoming acquainted. Jane Wilson died in Ireland on 7 February 1835—see The Scotsman for 14 February 1835. Hogg’s letter to Alexander Blackwood of [late February] 1835 (NLS,

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MS 4719, fol. 187), written on learning of her death, states ‘a more simple and affectionate heart than her’s never beat in a human bosom’. so sweet a drug Hogg was ill with ‘an inflammatory fever’, caused by nightly carousings with the Right and Wrong Club, which confined him to his bed for three weeks—see Memoir, pp. 47–48. Hogg appears to hint that the medicine sent by Jane Wilson itself contained a good proportion of alcohol. my landlady Hogg was lodging at this time with a Mrs Tunny, the widow of a hackney coachman, in Gabriel’s Road, according to R. P. Gillies—see ‘Some Recollections of James Hogg’, Fraser’s Magazine, 20 (October 1839), 414–30 (pp. 419, 425).

To John Ballantyne

[5—7 January 1815]

Dear John I send you the introductory lines you requested—If they do not accord with the disign of the work I shall alter them for they are written merely at random—please return me with your very first convenience the two M. S. poems that accompanied King Gregory— Do not neglect for I want them particularly and have no copy Yours most truly James Hogg P. S. I have read Ronald with great care and much pleasure I think it is the most spirited poem ever Scott wrote—He has availed himself of his peculiar forte, a kind of easy elastick rapidity which never once flags from beginning to end. It is a pity that the tale should be again butched the two females are a mere clog upon it, and no one natural occurrence connected with them takes place—I likewise expected some finer bursts of feeling with regard to Scottish independence— the coaxing apology to England is below any Scot to have uttered— But these are quite subordinate matters and can never materially affect the poem and I have not a doubt, tho’ the public seem to be recieving it with select caution, that it will finally succeed to the author’s highest anticipation—If it do not none of his ever deserved to do so which is enough for you and me J. H. [Addressed:] Mr John Ballantyne/ Sale-Rooms No. 4 Prince’ Street [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] The below is the veritable M S of James Hogg the celebrated/ Ettrick Shepherd Author of the Queens Wake, Pilgrims of the Sun & other/ Poems/ John Ballantyne [Watermark:] none [Location:] Fales Library & Special Collections, New York University: Fales MSS 89. 20.

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John Ballantyne John Ballantyne (1774–1821), younger brother to Scott’s printer James Ballantyne, and until 1 February 1816 officially head of the publishing business of John Ballantyne & Co. By this date he was primarily an auctioneer. He had contributed a letter of advice to no. 7 of The Spy—for further information see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 558–59. date Hogg’s letter discusses Scott’s The Lord of the Isles, published on 5 January 1815 (Todd & Bowden, p. 346), while Ballantyne’s reply (NLS, MS 2245, fols 11–12), dated ‘Saty Eveng’ and postmarked ‘JAN W8A 1815’, must have been written on 7 January. introductory lines probably ‘The Gipsies’, since Ballantyne’s reply states ‘I write you to night, having this moment received the Gipsies’ (NLS, MS 2245, fols 11–12). The work for which Hogg wrote it is unknown, the first recorded publication being in no. 7 of Ballantyne’s later periodical, The Sale-Room, of 15 February 1817 (pp. 53–54). Ballantyne paid Hogg five guineas for this poem, requesting a poem on the subject of ‘an Otaheitan girl [...] who almost died for a midshipman’ for the same work. This seems to be ‘Cary O’Kean’, the first recorded publication of which is in the Edinburgh Magazine, 9 (December 1821), 575–81. the two M. S. poems these have not been identified. King Gregory Hogg’s ‘The Ballad of King Gregory’ was published in the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1812 (Edinburgh, 1814), pp. i–xii. Ballantyne’s letter to Hogg of [7 January 1815] (NLS, MS 2245, fols 11–12) states that he paid Hogg five guineas for this poem. Ronald there is a cross after the word Ronald on this letter, and a note states ‘He alludes to the Lord of the Isles’. In Scott’s poem The Lord of the Isles, the Christian name of the eponymous Lord is Ronald. the two females Edith of Lorn and Isabel, sister of King Robert I (the Bruce). Ballantyne responded ‘I do not agree with you respecting Scott. The women in my mind were needful agents. I confess the speedy nunification of Isabell startles’ (NLS, MS 2245, fols 11–12). Scottish independence the historical setting of Scott’s poem is the struggle of King Robert I against England, culminating in the battle of Bannockburn on 23—24 June 1314. apology to England see Walter Scott, The Lord of the Isles, A Poem (Edinburgh, 1815), pp. 270–71 (Canto VI, division xxxv), where England as the ‘Land of Fame’ is urged not to grudge Scotland’s victory at Bannockburn in view of the many ‘battles stern by Scotland lost’. with select caution although initially sales of The Lord of the Isles were slow Edgar Johnson states that the first edition of 1800 copies then sold rapidly—see Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), I, 467.

To John Aitken

14 January 1815 Edin Jan 14th 1815

Dear Aitkin I am much beholden to you for your kind letter and all your kind concerns regarding me and believe me I rejoice with my whole heart

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in any thing that tends to your advancement or happiness in life. With regard to your invitation to join you at Burns’ Anniversary you must not think of it, for in the first place I am very ill in my health and have been confined to my room these two weeks and farther there is a great anniversary dinner to take place here of which I was the sole mover and was chosen one of the stewards though owing to my health I deputed a friend yesterday in my room so that you see in any case it is impossible that I can attend Believe me ever Yours most truly James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr John Aitkin/ Bank Office/ Dunbar [Postmark:] JAN W15A 1815 [and] Addl. ½ [Watermark:] [CROWNED SHIELD WITH ELABORATE INITIALS] [Location:] Mantell Family Papers, MS-Papers-0083-474, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. John Aitken see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Burns’ Anniversary a paragraph in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 30 January 1815 states that ‘A select party met in Mr SANG’s New Inn, Dunbar, on Wednesday the 25th curt. to commemorate the birth of “our great national bard”, ROBERT BURNS, a transparent likeness of whom was exhibited at one of the windows [...]’. Aitken had clearly invited Hogg to attend. very ill in my health see Hogg’s letter to Jane Wilson of [4 January 1815] and notes. William Blackwood’s letter to John Murray of [21 January 1815] ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2) reports, ‘He has been very unwell, and was out to day for the first time when he called on me’. great anniversary dinner [...] see Hogg’s letter to George Thomson of [28 November 1814] and notes. Although not an official steward Hogg attended, and took a prominent part in the proceedings. For the toasts he proposed the sentiment ‘May there never be awanting a Ploughman or a Shepherd to perpetuate and increase the honours of our country’, he sang two of his own songs, and brewed punch until the approach of morning—see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 28 and 30 January 1815. deputed a friend yesterday in my room when the names of the stewards were listed in drawing up a newspaper advertisement—see the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 January 1815. The friend who took Hogg’s place must have been one of the four named there, Robert Ainslie, John Wilson, R. P. Gillies, and James Gray.

To John Murray

18 January 1815 Edin Janr 18th 1815

Dear Sir I wrote to you a good while ago but I have heard nothing from you since and believe me I write in as high chagrin to day as can

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well be I thought I was too much delighted with you at first to be long so and in that I judged aright—After waiting impatiently for 7 weeks the advertisement of my new poem and the Wake first met my eyes yesterday and nothing could have displeased me more— Blackwood is the publisher (his name being first)—not you—this was not generous to a poor Shepherd I considered your name of greater importance to the success of the work than mine—What do you mean by A new Edition? If I understand right it means neither more nor less than the second edition Now as two editions had been fairly sold off and 600 of the 3d before I bought up the remainder it was very degrading to bring it back to a 2d edition again. It is the 3d ed. which is reviewed by Jeffery as you will see and sold by Goldie and Colburn so that this must be the fourth edition am I to lose the credit of two fair editions in all future times in your d—d New Edition. When do I recieve my pittance of £50 it has been due these six weeks—By the by I should have made an apology for this pencil writing The truth is I have been confined to my bed these many days by an inflamatory fever and am obliged to write this without lifting my head from the pillow. This will haply account for more things in the letter than the pencil writing—I have indeed been very ill and shall not be very soon well I fear if ever Why wont you write to me and tell me the literary news of London and in particular what is thought of the Lord of the isles. I confess I was pleased with it save the plot and augured good of it but I have heard very different breathings of late and some of these from headquarters but the Scots are chagrined at the fear he has shown of giving offence to the English in his description of the final battle and they maintain that he is himself the English bard who was taken captive there and compelled to celebrate the Scotish victory If a right strong effort is not made to support Scott at this time Like the snow on the mountain Like the foam on the river Like the bubble on the fountain, He is gone! and for ever. A friend brought me in the last Quarterly last night which I looked at tho’ but slightly as yet not being able There are by far too little variety in it though I think some of the articles good—I have always been afraid your Review would lose all character of independance by the system of one friend reviewing another but I never before thought you would suffer a poet to review himself I would not do it if you were to request me You have again neglected me—I am ex-

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tremely astonished at the late neglect of Lord Byron I am afraid I have offended him by these cursed dedications I suppose his lordship knows that I am a being that knows nothing about punctilios in life and save a few of the blues who will allways be taking a poet as he ought to be not as he is no body expects them of me. Lord Byron surely has more sense than to take any thing ill where the contrary was intended the man who would do so ought to be kicked out of society I should be almost mad to hear that he was offended at me though not for my own sake—I know I am a blundering fellow and constantly running out of one mistake into another but mine are always errors of judgement never of the heart I never look over a letter after I have written it I know there is something very ill natured in this—I wish you would ascribe it to the true cause great debility and indisposition if however you feel inclined to do otherwise it is of no great consequence I have not seen Blackwood I have forgot how long—he has never sent to ask for me while some of his brethren have sent every day Let me hear from you soon it will please me to hear from London in any wise and believe me Your highly obliged and Very hum servt James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr. John Murray/ Bookseller/ Albemarle Street/ London [Postmark:] JAN B18E 1815 [and] Addl. ½ [Endorsed—not JH:] Murray 60 [Watermark:] [SHIELD] [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box 37. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 92–94. a good while ago Hogg had written to Murray on 26 December 1814 to ask why his poem, The Pilgrims of the Sun, was not yet published in London—for an explanation see the notes to that letter. Blackwood had published it in Edinburgh on 12 December— see Hogg’s letter to him of [12 December 1814] and notes. waiting impatiently for 7 weeks dating from the time when the printing was complete. Blackwood’s letter to Murray of 25 November 1814 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2) reports ‘Hogg’s Poem is finished and will be shipt for you next week’. the advertisement [...] first met my eyes yesterday Blackwood’s advertisement for The Pilgrims of the Sun and The Queen’s Wake had appeared in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 15 December 1814. Murray’s advertisement appeared in the Morning Chronicle of 13 January 1815. For background information see Hogg’s letter to Murray of 26 December 1814 and notes. A new Edition? after the bankruptcy of George Goldie Blackwood published the

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remaining copies of the third edition of The Queen’s Wake with a new title-page as the ‘fourth’ edition. Murray seems to have been doubtful about this description, as Blackwood in his letter to him of 11 December 1814 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2) defended himself by stating, ‘It was by the Author’s desire I put upon the title of the Wake 4th edition. Indeed it appears to me that this will rather prevent than cause confusion, as both the publishers and the years are different’. Whereas Blackwood’s advertisement in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 15 December 1814 termed this ‘The fourth edition’ Murray’s advertisement in the Morning Chronicle of 13 January 1815 called it ‘a new Edition’. reviewed by Jeffery the November 1814 issue of the Edinburgh Review, which included Francis Jeffrey’s review of The Queen’s Wake, had recently been published—see the advertisement in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 22 December 1814. my pittance of £50 the author’s payment for The Pilgrims of the Sun. Murray’s letter to Hogg of 21 April 1815 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 17–18) mentions a payment of £30 and requests ‘a line in your next saying that you have received my two notes amounting to £80 for the first Edition of the Pilgrims of the Sun’. pencil writing except for the address Hogg’s letter is written in pencil rather than in ink. an inflamatory fever see Hogg’s letters to Jane Wilson of [4 January 1815] and to John Aitken of 14 January 1815 and notes. Lord of the isles Scott’s poem was published on 5 January 1815 (Todd & Bowden, p. 346). See also Hogg’s letter to John Ballantyne of [5–7 January 1815] and notes. Like the snow [...] for ever a quotation from the Coronach in Canto III of Scott’s own The Lady of the Lake, second edition (Edinburgh, 1810), presumably from memory since ‘snow’ should be ‘dew’ and the last line ‘Thou art gone, and for ever’ (p. 118). suffer a poet to review himself this may be a reference to the very favourable anonymous review of Wordsworth’s The Excursion in the Quarterly Review, 12 (October 1814), 100–11, which includes such remarks as ‘The causes which have prevented the poetry of Mr. Wordsworth from attaining its full share of popularity are to be found in the boldness and originality of his genius’ (p. 110). The October 1814 issue was advertised as ‘published this day’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 19 January 1815. the late neglect of Lord Byron Hogg had presumably published The Pilgrims of the Sun with its dedication to Lord Byron without having had a reply to his letter of 28 October 1814, enclosing the lines for his approval. Byron had previously returned ‘rather a satirical, bitter letter’ in answer to Hogg’s letter to him of 14 October 1814 (Memoir, pp. 39–40).

To John Murray

21 January 1815 Edin Janr. 21st 1815

My dear Sir I wrote to you a few days ago terribly chagrined about the advertisement you have now explained it and above all things in this world I love a man who tells me the whole simple truth of his heart as you have done and I freely forgive you for if I had thought the same way

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I would have acted the same way. But I cannot help smiling at your London critics—they must read it over again I had the best advice in the three kingdoms of the poem men whose opinions, even given in a dream, I would not exchange for all the critics in England before I even proposed it for publication. I will risk my fame on it to all eternity—I had a note from Mr. Jeffery on the very day after it was published who is not going to review it till he get another to join with it which makes me think it is no peculiar favourite with him, I copy his own words [eol] his own words from the note he sent which was an invitation to sup “I have run slightly over your new published poem—It unquestionably shows great powers of imagination and composition but I am afraid it is too stretchy and desultory—the public estimation of your powers will lose nothing by it of your judgement it may but of this we shall have a long crack”—You may be mistaken and you may be misled my dear Murray but as long as you tell me the simple truth as freely, you and I will be friends— Tho’ a few of the London critics have either shown their malice or their stupidity do not you be too frank in pledging it, in case of what may hap. My risk is high compared with yours and I am quite at my ease; perfectly secure. I have another poem ready whenever you like to put it to the press it is not nearly equal to the Pilgrims, but more congenial to human feelings and all in one kind of verse. My literary confessors who have ever been so, and whom I never will change, concieve the Pilgrims to be as far superior to any thing in the Wake as Milton is above Mr. Crabbe—What do your London bucks think of Superstition? I am still confined to my bed but I am able this day to sit up and write with a pen. I forgot entirely whether I wrote you about Scott’s poem the other day or not it is not very popular at all here. Mr. Jeffery and his brother-in-law called on me yesterday and talked a while. I think from what he said he is going to give it a lift but I suspect more on Constable’s account than his own approbation he spoke very freely of it. I know how little time you have but I am always happy to hear from you especially as I have not a correspondent in London at present save yourself never mind the postage when you have a leisure ten minutes. Will you soon need an edition of the Wake I think you should will our Repository not go on? I have at least a vol. of very superior poetry. Yours very truly James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr John Murray/ Bookseller/ Albemarle Street/ London

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[Postmark:] JAN B20A 1815 [and] B 23JA23 1815 [and] Addl. ½ [Endorsed—not JH:] 1814 Jany 21/ Hogg James [Watermark:] [SHIELD] [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box 37. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 94–95; Smiles, I, 345–46 [in part]; Batho, p. 76 [in part]. I wrote to you see Hogg’s letter to Murray of 18 January 1815. Murray’s letter to Hogg has not apparently survived, but must have explained that he had withdrawn his name as chief publisher of The Pilgrims of the Sun on the advice of ‘those on whose judgment he could rely’ (Memoir, p. 38). smiling at your London critics Blackwood reported to Murray on 21 January about the change of imprint that Hogg ‘bears the matter very philosophically—he told me he had written you—he appeared rather vexed at you altering the imprint—with regard to me this is not of the smallest consequence’ ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2). a note from Mr. Jeffery this has not apparently survived. another poem presumably Mador of the Moor, originally intended for publication before The Pilgrims of the Sun—see Hogg’s letter to Archibald Constable of 25 July [1814] and notes. all in one kind of verse The Pilgrims of the Sun had employed a variety of forms, including ballad stanzas, blank verse, and couplets. Mr. Crabbe the poet George Crabbe (1754–1832), author of The Borough (1812). Superstition? Hogg’s poem ‘Superstition’ had been included in his recent volume, The Pilgrims of the Sun (London and Edinburgh, 1815), pp. 131–48. Like Mador of the Moor it was written in the Spenserian stanza. Mr. Jeffery and his brother-in-law Francis Jeffrey (1773–1850), editor of the Edinburgh Review. The brother-in-law was perhaps George Napier, a W. S. who had married Jeffrey’s sister Mary in 1797. His other sister, Marion, married a Glasgow doctor, Thomas Brown, in 1800. on Constable’s account Archibald Constable was the publisher of both the Edinburgh Review and Scott’s The Lord of the Isles. an edition of the Wake Hogg’s letter to Murray of 26 December 1814 had hoped that sales of The Queen’s Wake would soon justify the production of a fifth edition. our Repository Hogg’s poetical repository, planned as a twice-yearly publication to include original poems by the best-known authors of the day—see his letters to Byron of 3 June 1814 and to John Murray of 17 August 1814 and notes.

To William Laidlaw

29 January 1815 Edinr. Jany. 29, 1815.

Dear Laidlaw, The weather seems so uncertain and broken that I believe I must postpone my journey to Traquair, and for some time, although Nicholson is out of all patience for the dog, and was perfectly in

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raptures when he heard that I was coming out for him. It is strange that I cannot get him in. You have won your shilling. There was scarcely one third of the club counted above me in our play for the medal. . . . With regard to the making of my new curling stones, you need not much mind until we see where we are to play next year, for yesterday I was waited on by Major Riddell (the Duke’s factor), who delivered me a letter from the Duke of Buccleuch, granting me in the most kind and flattering manner the farm of the Moss-end (Eltrieve lake), without any rent, or with what his Grace calls a nominal rent. The Major was extremely polite, and said that he had never been commissioned to confirm any grant that gave him so much pleasure, and that he wished much to be better acquainted with me. He said it was a pity it was not better worth my acceptance, but that it was the only place vacant, and would do for the present, as a retreat. He mentioned the exchange with the Craig, which was to take place, and said that whatever fell to the Duke’s share, would of course fall to me. This I knew would be a mistake, but as “a g’ien horse sudna be lookit i’ the mouth” I only said that with all these arrangements I would take no concern. I have written to his Grace to-day, shortly acknowledging the benefit conferred. You must get word to my father, who will be very uneasy. Yours truly, James Hogg [Location:] Printed, Garden, pp. 81–82. Traquair Traquair is in the Borders just to the south of Innerleithen, near Peebles. William Laidlaw was farming there at this time, and presumably had the care of Hogg’s dog while he was in Edinburgh. Nicholson the painter William Nicholson (1781–1844) had moved from his native Northumberland to Edinburgh in 1814. He painted at least three portraits of Hogg— the one referred to in this letter clearly included a colley dog, while two other Nicholson portraits survive in which Hogg is not accompanied by a dog, one on loan to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and one, formerly the possession of Lord Napier, at Aikwood Tower. Two Nicholson portraits of Hogg are mentioned in catalogues of early art exhibitions in Edinburgh—see Catalogue of the Edinburgh Exhibition of Paintings for 1815 (Edinburgh, 1815), no. 106, and Catalogue of the Edinburgh Exhibition of Paintings for 1816 (Edinburgh, 1816), no. 52. Rogers (II, 42) states that one of Nicholson’s portraits was commissioned by John Grieve. See also Hogg’s letter to Laidlaw of 14 February 1815 and notes. the dog Lion, the son of Hogg’s earlier favourite Hector. Hogg gives an account of Nicholson painting a separate portrait of Lion in ‘Dogs’ in The Shepherd’s Calendar, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 1995), pp. 57–67 (pp. 62–63). He describes the picture as being in the artist’s possession when ‘Dogs’ was written at the start of 1824.

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your shilling Laidlaw must have betted on Hogg’s performance at an Edinburgh curling match, perhaps that of the Duddingston Club. Major Riddell Charles Riddell of Muselee (1755–1849) had been a Major in the militia. He was Chamberlain to the Duke of Buccleuch and lived at Branxholm—see Corson, p. 609. a letter this letter from the Duke of Buccleuch to Hogg of 26 January 1815 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 13–14) offered him ‘a Possession on the Yarrow known by the name of Eltrieve Moss’ and added ‘your Rent will be nominal’. William Blackwood, in his letter to Murray of 5 February 1815 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2), reported, ‘The present rent I believe is about £70 but it is of course worth more’, exchange with the Craig Craig-Douglas was the neighbouring farm to Blackhouse, owned by the Earl of Traquair and tenanted at one time by James Laidlaw, William’s father. Hogg’s father, Robert, was living in a cottage at Craig-Douglas—see Memoir, pp. 16, 219. “a gi’en horse [...] mouth” see The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, third edition, rev. by F. P. Wilson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970, repr. 1982), p. 301. written to his Grace this letter has not apparently survived. my father Hogg’s old widowed father, Robert Hogg, would come to live with him at Altrive.

To William Laidlaw

14 February 1815 Edin Feb 14th

Dear Laidlaw If I cannot procure Lion before this day eight days I am positively condemned to sit for ages and centuries in company with a d—d butcher’s colley in this town, as unlike my strupit whalp as I to Hercules—If you can submit to this why then I must, but positively I shall never look at my own picture. If I were to come myself I have no time to stay for the artist says he would not that my picture were not in the exhibition this year for £50. and he cannot give it a tone until the figures are adjusted—Two nights and a day is quite sufficient for Rob to stay here and in that case he will get the dog home with him Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr William Laidlaw/ Traquair/ Peebles [Postmark:] FEB W14M 1815 [and] Addl. ½ [Endorsed—not JH:] 15 Feby Paid 7 [and] Mr Hogg/ Febr—1815 [Watermark:] FELLOWS/ 1[TEAR]13 [Location:] University of London Library, [S. L.] V. 14. There is also a typed transcript in NLS, MS 860, fol. 12. [Printed:] Garden, p. 83; Strout, pp. 97–98.

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Lion the son of Hogg’s colley Hector, who is the subject of ‘The Author’s Address to his Auld Dog Hector’, in The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), pp. 183–89. Hogg was sitting to the painter William Nicholson for his portrait—see Hogg’s letter to Laidlaw of 29 January 1815 and notes. strupit whalp the word strupit may possibly mean ‘striped’, but alternatively ‘shaggy’, since the similar German word struppig means ‘rough, bristly, shaggy’. I to Hercules a jocular allusion to Hamlet, I. 2. 152–53. the exhibition this year no. 106 in the Catalogue of the Edinburgh Exhibition of Paintings for 1815 (Edinburgh, 1815) is listed as ‘Portrait of Mr James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd’. The annual exhibitions, held in Raeburn’s premises at 32, York Place, Edinburgh generally opened near the beginning of April, after pictures had been previously submitted for hanging. The catalogue gives Nicholson’s address as 9, Greenside Place. The Edinburgh Evening Courant of 19 June 1815 says of Nicholson’s picture of Hogg exhibited there, ‘Mr Hogg’s is in too theatrical an attitude, and it does not convey a very strong likeness of this respectable poet.—His dog is admirably drawn, and equally well coloured, and the drapery of his plaid is broadly and judiciously cast’. Rob presumably a servant on William Laidlaw’s Traquair farm.

To Walter Scott

[28] February 1815 Gabriel’s Road Tuesday 29th Feb.

Mr Scott I think it is great nonsense for two men who are friends at heart, and who ever must be so, indeed it is not in the nature of things that they can be otherwise, should be professed enemies Mr Grieve and Mr. Laidlaw who were very severe on me and to whom I was obliged to show your letter have long ago convinced me that I mistook part of it and that it was not me you held in such contempt but the opinion of the public. The idea that you might mean that (though I still think the reading will bear either construction) has given me much pain for I know I answered yours intemperately and in a mortal rage I meant to have inclosed yours and begged of you to return mine but I cannot find it and am sure that some one to whom I have been induced to show it has taken it away. However as my troubles on that subject are never like to wear to an end I could not longer resist telling you that I am extremely vexed about it I desire not a renewal of our former intimacy for haply after what I have written to you your family could not suffer it but I wish it might be understood that when we meet by chance we might shake hands and [eop] and speak to one another as old acquaintances and likewise that we may exchange a letter occassionally for I find there are many things which I yearn to communicate to you and the tears always rush to my eyes when I consider that I may not

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If you allow of this pray let me know and if you do not let me know—Indeed I am anxious to hear honestly how you feel for “as the day of trouble is with me so shall my strength be” To be friends from the teeth forward is common enough, but it strikes me that there is even something more ludicrous in the reverse of the picture and so to be enemies; and why should I be From the teeth forward Yours sincerely James Hogg [Addressed:] Walter Scott Esq./ N. Castle Street [Postmarked:] MAR B1M 1815 [Endorsed—not JH:] Mr Hogg/ Tues/ 29. Feby [Watermark:] IVY MILL/ 1813 [Location:] NLS, MS 3886, fols 84–85. [Printed:] Lockhart, III, 393–94; The Private Letter-Books of Sir Walter Scott, ed. by Wilfred Partington (London, 1930), pp. 94–95. date 1815 was not a leap year, so there would have been no 29 February. The Tuesday of that week was 28 February. professed enemies Hogg had quarrelled with Scott during the previous autumn—see his letter to Byron of 14 October 1814 and notes. This letter was written to heal the breach, Hogg having heard that during his recent illness, Scott had called every day at Grieve’s place of business to inquire after him and had offered to pay for his medical treatment—see Memoir, p. 48. your letter this has not apparently survived, but according to Hogg’s letter to Byron of 14 October 1814 it concerned a drama written by Hogg. not me [...] but the opinion of the public in his letter to Byron of 14 October 1814 Hogg says that Scott, after criticising Hogg’s drama in a friendly way, ‘broke off and attacked me about some jealousies and comparisons between him and me [...]’. “as the day of trouble [...] strength be” Hogg is perhaps conflating two texts here, Deuteronomy 33. 25 (‘as thy days, so shall thy strength be’) and Nahum 1. 7 (‘The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble’). from the teeth forward proverbial—see The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, third edition, rev. by F. P. Wilson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970, repr. 1982), p. 806. Hogg writes that his letter ‘was heartily received, and he [Scott] invited me to breakfast next morning, adding, that he was longing much to see me’ (Memoir, pp. 48–49).

To John Murray

13 March 1815 Edin. March 13th 1815

Dear Sir I have been so long in writing to you only because I had nothing of any consequence to communicate nor have I at this time, only I should like to hear from you when at leisure, about how literature

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is thriving in general with you, and of my own little concern in particular, if I am likely to get a new edition of the wake before May-day, or when; as I expected one before this time. How your reprobated Pilgrims are making their way &c. &c. I am glad to see that they have been so favourably reviewed in some of the subordinate publications of the metropolis, which cannot miss to do some good to the work. I should like much to have something going on this spring as I will be engaged all the summer in the country; and I shall either publish Mador of the Moor a poem rather longer than the Pilgrims or The Thistle and the Rose the work of which we were talking. I think either of these would do, Mr. Jeffery is not going to review the Pilgrims until he get another of mine along with it; and both he and his colleagues, with whom I spent an afternoon lately, speak with more approbation of the plan of the latter work than I ever heard them talk of any thing. He says it is such a thing as every country should have—that Britain was never so well able to support it as at the present day—and if it appear once a year or every two years at least it is certain to succeed. I have every thing ready for putting it to the press for this half-year save that I want Lord Byron’s promised assistance. If I had but thirty lines from him I would be content but I cannot think to put it to press without something from him—if I am obliged to think not well of Lord Byron it will be with peculiar ill will Dont however mention the circumstance to him for tho’ it would be a material loss to me to want his name engraved on the Rose yet I would not for the world pester or dun him.—Think seriously of these things my dear Sir and tell me as usual freely what you think, the conditions shall always be of your own making for though I am somewhat needy I am not greedy. There is nothing to hinder them going to press at the same time for the miscellaneous work must be a London publication and is not to appear as mine more than any other of the supporters of it.—The duke of Buccleuch has been so kind as, all unsolicited, to give me a farm on Yarrow rent free for life—I have that farm to stock and a cottage to build this summer so that you need not think it strange that I would like to raise a few pounds as soon as I can. However do not let any casualty induce you to enter on any thing that appears contrary to your interest, for as you shrewdly hinted formerly, whatever is against that will prove much more against mine finally. but let me hear from you soon—I was much pleased with your last Review upon the whole which was the only No. I ever read; it is a much more amusing Review than the Edin. and I should think more engaging to common readers, I wish you would let me try my hand on some new poem or light work

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such as Guy Mannering There would at least be some originallity and common sense in them and under the hand of a master, to go over them, should I think make a respectable appearance. Do not bid me send my correspondent’s Manuscripts to London I can by no means do that Blackwood is gone to the north—he is very well and carrying briskly on. Scott is coming to London next week by sea he intends seeing both you and Ld Byron By an unhappy misconstruction of mine he and I had a serious difference which I suppose you were aware of he was so noble as quite to overlook it and we are at present better friends than ever so that you may talk of Hogg to him as freely as you like Believe me Dear Murray Yours very sincerely James Hogg [Addressed:] John Murray Esq./ 50 Albemarle street/ London [Postmark:] MAR W13A 1815 [and] Addl. ½ [and] B 16MR16 1815 [Endorsed—not JH:] 1815 March 13 Hogg Jas [Watermark:] IVY MILL/ 1813 [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box 37. [Printed:] Smiles, I, 346–47 [in part]; Strout, pp. 99–100 [in part]. a new edition of the wake before May-day Hogg’s author’s payment, required for the expenses of his taking possession of Altrive Lake. your reprobated Pilgrims Murray had withdrawn his name as the chief publisher of The Pilgrims of the Sun—see Hogg’s letter to him of 26 December 1814 and notes. Mador of the Moor first offered for publication in Hogg’s letter to Archibald Constable of 1 February 1814. The Thistle and the Rose Hogg’s poetical repository, so called as the contributors were both Scottish and English poets, perhaps with implications of rivalry between the two. A three-act historical play with music, entitled Caledonia, or the Thistle and the Rose, had been produced at the Theatre Royal on 23 December 1812—see James C. Dibdin, The Annals of the Edinburgh Stage (Edinburgh, 1888), p. 267. Lord Byron’s promised assistance it seems likely that Hogg had not heard from Byron since receiving a ‘satirical, bitter’ reply to his letter of 14 October 1814—see his letter to Murray of 26 December 1814 and notes. not to appear as mine Hogg’s original plan was that the poetical repository should be edited by John Wilson, R. P. Gillies, and himself, and that no names should be attached to individual poems—see his letter to Byron of 3 June 1814. The duke of Buccleuch see Hogg’s letter to William Laidlaw of 29 January 1815 and notes. While Hogg had not solicited the Duke himself for Eltrieve Moss, he had applied to the late Duchess for it in his letter of 7 March 1813. a cottage to build the original cottage at Altrive was barely habitable. Garden (p. 86) reports one of Hogg’s visitors saying that ‘all the plaids were hung up round the door as a screen from the cold’. Hogg’s new cottage was not finally built however until

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1818—see his letter to William Blackwood of 26 December 1818. your last Review Hogg refers to the Quarterly Review for October 1814, which was advertised as ‘published this day’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 19 January 1815. Guy Mannering Scott’s novel had been published anonymously on 24 February 1815—see Guy Mannering, ed. by P. D. Garside, EEWN 2 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), p. 369. my correspondent’s Manuscripts Hogg’s reluctance to produce the autograph contributions to the proposed poetical repository may indicate that he already had the parodies of The Poetic Mirror in mind if Byron failed to send something for it. Blackwood is gone to the north his destination has not been identified. Scott is coming to London Scott, together with his wife and elder daughter, set out by sea on 31 March and arrived in London on 8 April. Scott’s first meeting with Byron occured at Murray’s premises at 50, Albemarle Street during this London visit—see Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), I, 488, 492. a serious difference see Hogg’s letters to Byron of 14 October 1814 and to Scott of [28] February 1815 and notes.

To John Murray

31 March 1815 Edin March 31st 1815

Dear Sir Are you taken with the pet likewise that you so long neglect to answer a poet’s letter If you are I think you might tell me frankly as usual. I have nothing of consequence to tell you for there are no literary news here of much importance save what The Quarterly has created and what The Edin is just about to create. The Lord of the isles is in the latter and seems meant as a favourable review, in my opinion however it is scarce middling as we Scots folk say. Mr. Scott sails for London in The Pilot to day and as he asked me if I had no word to you or Lord Byron I take the opportunity of sending you this as a small remembrancer for I wish to know particularly about The Queen’s wake and how many copies remain in your hand. I have had a very pressing proposal for publishing all my poetical works in two neat post octavo vol’s but this I will not so much as think of nor any literary thing at present, without consulting you, I myself think it is rather too early to do so as yet. I know I will publish something much better than aught I have yet published if I could hit on a right theme but till that time it will haply be as good to keep them seperate and let the things sell that will sell. pray give me fair play in advertising reviewing &c. some would insinuate to me that you do the contrary. I have got hold of the Quarterly but have not yet got far on with it. The review of Gibbon is certainly a first rate article as indeed I

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think all your principal articles are, but O I am grieved to see such an ignorant and absurd review of Mannering so contrary to the feelings of a whole nation for I certainly never saw high and low rich and poor so unanimous about any book as that. It is one of those things which render the whole system of reviewing a mere farce—What a beast he must be who wrote it! By —— if ever I meet with him I’ll insult him and abide by the consequences. I think of all the men in Scotland, Scott has been the most strenous supporter of the character of your Miscellany as excellent, and there is an indelicacy in the the [sic] thing that cannot be thought of. How I do despise your London critics. They perswade you to refuse your name to the Pilgrims of the Sun and pretend to damn Guy Mannering I’ll keep both the article and your letter on the former subject, as two natural curiosities for the next century. But I find I am in too high a key to day for writing to a gentleman whom I sincerely wish to esteem therefore without more I will subscribe myself Yours very truly James Hogg [Addressed:] John Murray Esq./ 50 Albemarle/ London [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—JH:] favd. by Walter Scott Esq. [Endorsed—not JH:] 1815 March 31 Hogg Jas [Watermark:] none [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box 37. [Printed:] Strout, p. 100 [in part]. The Edin is just about to create no. XLVIII of the Edinburgh Review, the issue for February 1815, was advertised as ‘this day is published’ in the Caledonian Mercury of 13 April 1815. a favourable review Scott’s The Lord of the Isles was reviewed in Edinburgh Review, 24 (February 1815), 273–94. Wellesley Index, I, 453 attributes this to Francis Jeffrey. my poetical works Murray’s reply of 10 April 1815 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 15–16) stated that he had 183 copies of the fourth edition of The Queen’s Wake on hand, and 219 copies of The Pilgrims of the Sun, but does not refer to Hogg’s scheme of publishing a collected edition of his poetry. review of Gibbon Lord Sheffield’s edition of The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon was reviewed in Quarterly Review, 12 ( January 1815), 368–91. review of Mannering Hogg takes it entirely for granted in his letter that Guy Mannering is by Scott. He had proposed to review it himself in his letter to Murray of 13 March 1815. A review appeared in Quarterly Review, 12 ( January 1815), 501–09, advertised as ‘just arrived’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 30 March 1815. the most strenous supporter Scott had been instrumental in setting up the Quarterly Review in 1809, writing articles himself, enlisting contributors, and corresponding

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with the editor Gifford and with Murray as its publisher—see Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), I, 300–03. His business associate John Ballantyne was the first Scottish agent for the periodical.

To John Murray

17 April 1815 Edin. April 17th 1815

My dear Sir On reading your kind and enthusiastic letter I determined to come to London and join the illustrous bards, but to my great grief I find I cannot accomplish it. I enter to my farm at May-day which is fast approaching and at that time I must be in Yarrow, and besides I have not money to spare. I am however much vexed and dissapointed because I cannot accept of your warm invitation, and I am only comforted in the hope that by and by I may be enabled to appear among you to more advantage than I could have done at present. I am obliged to you for your fair statement of the sale such a thing lets ane see precisely what they may expect and when to expect it. I never had the slightest apprehension that you were dilatory or careless about pushing the works and I do not know how I came to men[eop] mention—One very warm friend has sometimes been harping on such a theme merely I suppose on account of none of them having been reviewed. I never was more satisfied of any man’s candor for my part. There is no new thing in Scotland in my way at present save a little very sweet and elegant poem in Rogers’ stile entitled Home which is well worth a short review of a few pages. If Southey’s Roderick is not bespoke I should be very happy to review it but I must warn you that I am very partial to that bard’s productions. It would be a most interesting thing to have a small piece of Lady Byron’s in the Thistle and Rose and the thing which you propose for me to do is a good subject both for humour and compliment. But there is nothing I am so afraid of as teazing or pestering my superiors for favours. Lord B. knows well enough that without his support at first the thing will not go on and as I am sure he is a kind soul I think I will for the present trust to himself. I have some thoughts of sending an M. S. to Scott before he leave town of which he knows, if so, I will write to you at length along with it the oftener you let me hear from you the better and as I am fairly interrupted by the arrival of two poets Campbell and Wilson for the present farewell my dear sir God bless you and Yours most truly James Hogg

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[Addressed:] John Murray Esq./ 50 Albemarl street/ London [Postmark:] APR W17A 1815 [and] B 20AP20 1815 [and] Addl. ½ [Endorsed—not JH:] 1815 April 17 Hogg James [Watermark:] none [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box 37. [Printed:] Smiles, I, 348 [in part]; Strout, p. 101 [in part]. your kind and enthusiastic letter Murray’s letter to Hogg of 10 April 1815 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 15–16). join the illustrous bards Murray’s letter had described his introduction of Scott to Byron, adding ‘This I consider as a commemorative event in Literary History & I sincerely regret that you were not present—I wish to God you had dash’d up to London at once and if you will do so immediately I will undertake to board you if you will get a Bed [...]’. my farm at May-day Hogg explained the expenses he would have on taking possession of Altrive Lake in his letter to Murray of 13 March 1815. statement of the sale Murray explained in his letter to Hogg of 10 April that he had altogether acquired 450 copies of the fourth edition of The Queen’s Wake and had sold 267 of them, and that he had 600 copies of The Pilgrims of the Sun and had sold 381 of these. He added ‘They are, each, selling every day & I have no doubt that they will both be out of print in two Months’. apprehension that you were dilatory or careless Murray had added to his statement of sales, ‘It is really no less absurd than malicious, to suppose that I do not advertise and by every other means, strive to sell these works, in which I am so much interested’. Home Anne Cuthbert Knight, Home: A Poem (Edinburgh, 1815), published by Constable. It was dedicated to the Earl of Buchan and contained a preface end-dated ‘PORTSOY, February 1815’. Southey’s Roderick is not bespoke Robert Southey’s Roderick, The Last of the Goths had been published in 1814. Hogg hoped to review it for the Quarterly Review, of which Murray was the publisher. In his letter of 10 April Murray had passed on a message from William Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly Review, that ‘he would receive with every disposition to favour it any critique which you like to send of New Scotch Works [...]’. Murray goes on to comment on Hogg’s rebuke in his previous letter of 31 March 1815 for the treatment of Scott’s Guy Mannering by the Quarterly Review. a small piece of Lady Byron’s Murray’s letter of 10 April had excused Byron’s tardiness in providing a poem for the poetical repository ‘The Thistle and the Rose’ on the grounds of his recent marriage, adding, ‘Could you not write a poetical Epistle, a lively one, to Lady Byron congratulating her on her marriage [...] & tell her that as she has prevented Lord B— from fulfilling his promise to you, she is bound to insist upon its execution & to add a poem of her own to it by way of interest’. Campbell and Wilson John Wilson and Thomas Campbell (1777–1844). Campbell, though normally resident in London, was in Scotland during 1815 on business connected with a substantial legacy.

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To Alexander Bald

23 April 1815

Edin., April 23d, 1815. Let the bust of Shakspeare be crowned with laurel on Thursday, for I expect it will be a memorable day for the club, as well as in the annals of literature,—for I yesterday got the promise of being accompanied by both Wilson, and Campbell, the bard of Hope. I must, however, remind you that it was very late, and over a bottle, when I extracted this promise—they both appeared, however, to swallow the proposal with great avidity, save that the latter, in conversing about our means of conveyance, took a mortal disgust at the word steam, as being a very improper agent in the wanderings of poets. I have not seen either of them to-day, and it is likely that they will be in very different spirits, yet I think it not improbable that one or both of them may be induced to come. [Location:] Printed, Rogers, II, 37. [Printed:] Strout, p. 102 [in part]. Alexander Bald see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. the bust of Shakspeare the Shakespeare Club of Alloa generally held its anniversary meeting on 23 April, Shakespeare’s birthday, but in 1815 this fell on a Sunday, a day not considered suitable to revelry in Presbyterian Scotland. Hogg’s letter, written on the actual anniversary, looks forward to the dinner on Thursday, 27 April. An account of the dinner in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 4 May 1815 relates that ‘the beautiful bust of the poet, which is placed in the hall, was crowned with laurel, and adorned with wreaths of flowers. His picture was also hung with garlands’. After a toast to ‘The Memory of the immortal Shakespeare’ the president recited the ‘Ode to the Genius of Shakespeare’, described as ‘written by one of the members’, in fact by Hogg himself. Wilson, and Campbell had also called on Hogg together on 17 April—see Hogg’s letter to John Murray of that date and notes. the word steam the most effective method of reaching Alloa from Edinburgh would be by steam-boat along the Forth. Steam-boats were a recent Scottish invention, the first commercial craft, the Comet, operating on the Clyde in 1812. Hogg’s subsequent Wilson parody was entitled ‘The Morning Star, or The Steam-Boat of Alloa’—see The Poetic Mirror (Edinburgh, 1816), pp. 257–65. one or both of them in a note to his printing of this letter Rogers states that neither Wilson, Campbell nor Hogg himself were in fact present at the dinner.

To John Murray

7 May 1815 Edin. May 7th 1815

My dear Sir I thank you with all my heart for the little timeous supply you

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have lent me at present. I did intend shortly to have asked from you what little you could spare from the copies of the Wake sold, but I had no thought that the final payment of the Pilgrims would have been made to me sooner than Novr—You are the prince of booksellers if people would but leave you to your own judgement and natural generous disposition. I offered Blackwood a regular receipt for the full payment made by you of the first edition of the Pilgrims but he declined it saying the bills were of themselves a sufficient receipt—I leave Edin on Thursday for my little farm on Yarrow. I will have a confused summer. for I have as yet no house that I can dwell in but I hope by and by to have some fine fun there with you fishing in Saint Mary’s Lake and Yarrow eating bull trouts singing songs and drinking whisky.—This little posession is what I stood much in need of a habitation among my native hills was what of all the world I desired and if I had a little more money at command I would just be as happy a man as I know of but that is an article of which I am ever in want I wish you or Mrs. Murray would speer me out a good wife with a few thousands I daresay there is many a romantic girl about London who would think it a fine ploy to become a Yarrow Shepherdess I suppose I must give up thoughts of farther publication in the summer—contrive however to keep me before the public—“out o’ sight out o’ mind” I hear of nothing in the literary world very interesting except that people are commending some of Lord Byron’s melodies as incomparably beautiful and laughing immoderately at Mr. Wordsworth’s new prefaces which certainly excel all that ever was written in this world in egotism vanity and absurdity. If Scott is still in London remember me to him and tell him I would fain see him before I leave town as I want particularly to consult him about some country affairs Believe me dear Murray very [TEAR] and sincerely yours James Hogg [Addressed:] John Murray Esq./ 50 Albemarle Street/ London [Postmark:] MAY B8E 1815 [and] B 12MY12 1815 [and] Addl. ½ [Endorsed—not JH:] 7 May 1815. Hogg Jas. [Watermark:] none [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box 37. [Printed:] Smiles, I, 349 [in part]; Strout, pp. 102–03 [in part]. little timeous supply Hogg’s letter is a reply to one from Murray of 21 April 1815 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 17–18), which enclosed a note for £30. Murray stated, ‘this will

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close our agreement for the Pilgrims & only anticipate by a few days the time when this sum would otherwise have become due—Pro forma you may add a line in your next saying that you have received my two Notes amounting to £80 for the first Edition of the Pilgrims of the Sun’. leave Edin on Thursday Hogg was to enter upon his farm of Eltrieve Moss at about this time. His letter to Murray of 17 April 1815 says ‘May-day’ (1 May), but this letter perhaps implies the more usual Scottish Quarter-Day of Whitsunday (15 May) since he intends to leave Edinburgh on 11 May. no house the existing cottage at Altrive was barely habitable—see notes to Hogg’s letter to Murray of 13 March 1815. some fine fun there with you Murray’s letter of 21 April 1815 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 17–18) had expressed a wish to visit Hogg at his farm ‘one of these days’. a good wife with a few thousands Hogg’s letter to Byron of 14 October 1814 also jests that Hogg might improve his financial standing by marriage at this time. “out o’ sight out o’ mind” proverbial—see The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, third edition, rev. by F. P. Wilson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970, repr. 1982) p. 602. Lord Byron’s melodies Byron’s Hebrew Melodies were advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 6 May 1815. Wordsworth’s new prefaces a ‘This day are published’ advertisement for Poems by William Wordsworth, including Lyrical Ballads in two volumes, appeared in the Edinburgh Evening Courant for 8 May 1815. The ‘Preface’ and ‘Essay, Supplementary to the Preface’ look forward to the justification of his work by posterity and argue that most major poets of the past have been undervalued by their contemporaries. Hogg also alludes to these essays in his Memoir, p. 42. Scott is still in London Scott did not embark for Scotland until 11 June—see Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), I, 494.

To William Blackwood

12 August 1815 Eltrieve Lake August 12th 1815

My dear Sir You may think me ungrateful in not writing to you as I promised especially when you have been so mindful of me but once you see how barren my letter is you will think different. There is not an article here that can bear any interest to a citizen, for though there are a number of black-cocks muirfowl &c on our hills there are such a crew of idle fellows (mostly from Edinr. I dare say) broke loose on them to day that it seems to a peaceful listener at a distance like me as if the French were arrived in the forest, yet all this and every thing I have in my power to mention you know must take place of course. In fact the people of Edinr. should always write to their friends in the country and never expect any answer for my part I know that

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all the letters I ever recieved from the country while I was there were most insipid nor can it otherwise be we converse only with the elements and our concerns are of the most simple and trivial nature for my part I feel myself so much at home here and so much in the plain rustic state in which I spent my early years that I have even forgot to think or muse at all and my thoughts seem as vacant as the wilderness around me I even wonder at some of my own past ideas I have neither written nor corrected a line since I left Edinr. and as I never intend returning to it for any length of time I think I may safely predict without the spirit of prophecy that you have seen the best and most likely all of my productions that you ever will see. They have gained me but little fame and far less profit and certainly the most graceful way of giving up the contest is to retire indignant into my native glens and consort with the rustic friends of my early youth This is no rhodomontade my dear sir but the genuine sentiments of my heart at this time. Do not however neglect to favour me still with a reading of all new works in my own way I will return the melodies but I will keep this and the future No ’s of the Revw. and you or Murray may debit me with it as cheap as you like. The Melodies bear a few striking marks of a master’s hand but there are some of them feeble and I think they must be Lady B’s. He is not equal to Moore for melodies. I am still harassed with visitors most of them what you Edinr. people would call great skemps but there have been a few here whom I was truly glad to see among whom I may mention Wilson and Ballantyne in Kelso whom you know I very much admire but tho’ the weather was delightful and though he testified the highest delight with the scenery of our lakes he was not at all in his usual spirits.—Pray let me hear from you on every emergency—if it were but two or three lines the oftener the better. We have no post nor any carrier from this and I neither know how nor when I am to get this letter conveyed. Query Am I to get any new editions betwixt this and the new year? Is the Thistle and the Rose abandoned for ever? Send every thing you wish to forward to [TEAR] Grieve & Scotts Yours ever most truly James Hogg [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq/ Bookseller/ South Bridge/ Edinr. [Postmark:] AUG B18M 1815 [Endorsed—not JH:] James Hogg/ Aug. 12. 1818 [sic] [Watermark:] [SHIELD] [Location:] NLS, MS 4001, fols 209–10. [Printed:] Oliphant, I, 321–22.

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so mindful of me Blackwood had sent Hogg various books and periodicals and newly-published works to enliven his stay at Altrive, some of which are referred to later in this letter. as if the French were arrived in the forest the grouse-shooting season opens on 12 August (the ‘Glorious Twelfth’), reminding Hogg of the Napoleonic Wars just ended by the battle of Waterloo on 18 June. the melodies Byron’s Hebrew Melodies, published in 1815, a collection of short poems, set by I. Nathan to favourite Jewish melodies normally used in religious services. the Revw. the Quarterly Review, published by John Murray. Blackwood was Murray’s Edinburgh agent at this time. not equal to Moore Thomas Moore (1779–1852) was a friend of Byron and had begun to publish his Irish Melodies in 1807: these songs were published at irregular intervals in ten numbers between then and 1834. In 1825 Hogg published a number of songs criticising Moore’s work in R. A. Smith’s The Irish Minstrel—see Gillian Hughes, ‘Irish Melodies and a Scottish Minstrel’, SHW, 13 (2002), 36–45. Wilson John Wilson gave an account of a visit to Hogg in June 1815 in an undated letter to his wife: ‘On Tuesday morning I walked to Hogg’s [...] and surprised him in his cottage bottling whisky. He is well, and dressed pastorally. His house is not habitable, but the situation is good, and may become very pretty. There being no beds in his domicile, we last night came here, a farmer’s house about a quarter of a mile from him’—see Mrs Gordon, ‘Christopher North’: A Memoir of John Wilson, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1862), I, 186. Ballantyne in Kelso Alexander Ballantyne (1776–1847), editor of the Kelso Mail. Hogg specifies ‘in Kelso’ to distinguish him from his older brothers, James and John Ballantyne, both of whom were settled in Edinburgh. no post nor any carrier from this letters would have to be collected from Selkirk, the nearest post town. the Thistle and the Rose the title of Hogg’s projected poetical repository—see his letter to John Murray of 13 March 1815 and note. Grieve & Scotts the business premises of the hatters’ firm at 26 North Bridge in Edinburgh.

To William Blackwood

6 October 1815 Oct 6th 1815

After a long consultation with my friend Mr Grieve on his return from London I am fully resolved to have an edition of all my poetry published this season in 3 vols post 8vo such as Southys; one of them original unpublished poetry. I beg you will consult with Mr Murray instantly as I coming to town in a week or two for a few nights. If you want the work there is no doubt of our dealing. If you do not I must then agree with some other for I want to set about the work immediately to meet the fresh season and must be off or on as the saying is in our bard. I write to day for the opportunity of one

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who is waiting to carry it to the post office a thing not to be attained here every day therefore pray excuse my briefness to day & believe &c. J Hogg [Addressed:] [none] [Endorsed—not JH:] Mr Hoggs Letter—/ Sent Mr Murray 9th Oct. [Location:] Transcript, Hogg Letters Project Papers, University of Stirling. Grieve on his return from London John Grieve had been in London and the Lake District with James Gray, visiting Francis Place and William Wordsworth, returning to Edinburgh on 1 October—see Peter Jackson, ‘William Wordsworth, James Gray, and the Letter to a Friend of Robert Burns: Some Unpublished Correspondence’, Notes and Queries, n. s. 50 no. 3 (September 2003), 293–97. an edition of all my poetry Hogg made a similar suggestion to John Murray in his letter of 31 March 1815. such as Southys ‘New Publications’ in the Quarterly Review, 13 ( July 1815), 532 lists ‘The Minor Poems of Robert Southey, Esq. Poet Laureat. 3 vols. foolscap 8vo. 18s.’. consult with Mr Murray John Murray had taken a share of Hogg’s The Pilgrims of the Sun and also of the ‘fourth’ edition of The Queen’s Wake in partnership with William Blackwood. This copy of Hogg’s letter is annotated ‘Sent Mr Murray 9th Oct.’. Blackwood wrote, however, to Hogg himself on 9 October (transcript, Hogg Letters Project Papers, University of Stirling) to say that the new edition was ‘entirly [sic] out of the question at present, as there are so many on hand both of the queens wake and the pilgrims. Of the former Mr Murray has 80 Copies & I have upwards of 120. I am not so certain of the quantity of the pilgrims, but I suppose there are about 400 copies remaining’. the fresh season the autumn months were the most important for new publications. off or on as the saying is ‘Syne soon now, have done now | Mak either off or on’, in Alexander Montgomerie, ‘The Cherrie and the Slae’, in Poems Volume I: Text, ed. by David J. Parkinson (Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 2000), pp. 177–274 (p. 247, lines 965–66). to the post office Selkirk was the post-town for the Yarrow valley.

To George Thomson

25 October 1815 Eltrieve Lake Octr 25th 1815

My dear Sir There is nothing that is in my power to accomplish that I will not cheerfully contribute to your miscellany for besides the esteem which I bear you as a friend and a gentleman I think your unwearied exertions in rescuing our national airs and songs from oblivion entitle you to the support of every Scottish bard I am sorry that songwriting is not so much my forte as one would think it should be but that which lies within my sphere I can accomplish with the utmost facil-

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ity and such are perfectly at your service. But that is not all which I wish to do I have now collected about 20 ancient Border airs which have never yet been published and which but for me would have been lost to all intents and purposes some of these are perfectly beautiful and may well have a place beside Cowdenknows and Gala Water I should like to write words to some of these and by all means I wish the airs were in your hands or some gentleman’s who would make something of them for if I should die before I see you these precious relicts would infallibly be lost. The song you desire is on the next page if it were possible to sing Delvin-side which I somewhat suspect it would answer it Could this ill warld hae been contrived To stand without mischievous woman, How peacefu’ bodies wad hae lived, Released frae a’ the ills sae common! But since it is the waefu’ case, That man maun hae this teasin’ crony, Why sic a sweet bewitchin face? O! had they no been made sae bonny! I might hae roamed wi’ cheerfu’ mind Nae sin nor sorrow to betide me As careless as the wandering wind As happy as the lamb beside me I might hae screwed my tunefu’ pegs And caroled mountain airs fu’ gaily Had we but wantit a’ the Megs Wi’ glossy een sae dark an’ wily I saw the danger—feared the dart The smile, the air, an’ a sae takin’! Yet open laid my warless heart An’ gat the wound that keeps me wakin’ My harp waves on the willow green; O’ wild witch notes it has nae ony, Sin’ e’er I saw that pawky queen, Sae sweet, sae wicked, an’ sae bonny. Adieu my dear Thomson. Compts to all friends I spent a most pleasant day with Scott at Abbotsford on Monday last and I am to meet him again at Bowhill where we are engaged to dine with his Grace on Monday next Yours very truly James Hogg

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[Addressed:] Geo. Thomson/ Royal Exchange/ Edinr. [Postmark:] NOV B4M 1815 [Endorsed—not JH:] 15 Octr 1815/ Mr Hogg/ Eltrieve Lake/ Song/ Could this ill warld/ hae been contriv’d— [Watermark:] F E LLOWS / 1815 [Location:] British Library, MS Add. 35,264, fols 231–32. [Printed:] J. Cuthbert Hadden, George Thomson, The Friend of Burns (London, 1898), p. 172 [in part]. George Thomson see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Hogg’s letter is a response to Thomson’s to him of 18 October 1815, recorded in Thomson’s LetterBook for 1809–1817 (British Library, MS Add. 35,267, fols 160v–161r). your miscellany in his letter of 18 October Thomson said, ‘I am just now employing my leisure hours in arranging my concluding volume of Scottish Songs’ and hoped Hogg ‘will perhaps allow me to put an Air or two in your view by and by, to be matched with songs of your inditing’. A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs was published in a number of editions between 1793 and 1841. Traditional tunes were arranged by composers such as Haydn, Beethoven, Weber, and Bishop. New words had been commissioned from Burns, and later from Scott, Hogg, Moore, Byron, and Campbell. it should be Hogg is referring to his role as the successor of Robert Burns, stressed for example in his Memoir, pp. 17–18. 20 ancient Border airs Hogg seems to have passed his collection of tunes to Alexander Campbell for use in his publication Albyn’s Anthology, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1816– 1818)—see his letter to John Clarke Whitfeld of 8 April [1816]. Cowdenknows ‘The Broom of Cowdenknows’ is a traditional tune, to which words are given in David Herd’s Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs Heroic Ballads &c, 2 vols (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1973), I, 181–82. Gala Water a traditional tune to which Burns had written a song beginning ‘Braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes’—see The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, ed. by James Kinsley, 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), II, 675–76. Delvin-side presumably Thomson had heard Hogg sing ‘Could this ill warld’ to this tune, the one specified in its previous printing in no. 15 of The Spy of 8 December 1810—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 163, 595. However, in his letter of 18 October Thomson wrote, ‘I [...] have an air in my eye which would suit that song admirably’. Hogg now reminds Thomson of the tune he had selected. A tune called ‘Delvin Side’ is given in John Hamilton, A Collection of Twenty-Four Scots Songs (Edinburgh, [c. 1796]), p. 12. Could this ill warld Thomson’s letter of 18 October reminds Hogg, ‘You was kind enough to promise me the beautiful song of Meg, which you sung the last time I had the pleasure of seeing you in the Exchange’. It was published by Thomson in volume 5 of the folio edition of A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs (Edinburgh, 1818), no. 204 with an air ‘composed for the words by a friend of the editor’. Beethoven is listed in the prefatory ‘Index to the Airs’ as the composer of the ‘Symphonies & Accompants.’ Beethoven’s Opus 128 (25 Scottish Songs) was composed in 1815 and 1816—see Georg Kinsky, Das Werk Beethovens Thematisch-Bibliographisches Verzeichnis seiner sämtlichen

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vollendeten Kompositionen, rev. by Hans Halm (Munich: G. Henle Verlag, 1955), pp. 300–310. feared the dart Hogg has written ‘dart’ above the word ‘smart’ but without deleting the original word. Abbotsford on Monday last i. e. on 23 October. Bowhill the country house near Selkirk owned by the Duke of Buccleuch, the chief of the Scott clan and the patron who had given Hogg Altrive rent-free for life. Hogg and Scott were to dine there on 30 October.

To Walter Scott

16 November [1815] Bowhill Novr. 16th

Dear Scott I have spent another highly pleasant evening here with his Grace and friends and the great match at Ball is finally settled to take place on Carterhaugh on Monday the fourth of Dec r. I never was so much delighted with the prospect of any thing I wish no lives may be lost. The two parishes of Yarrow and Selkirk are to be matched against each other Lord Hume as I understand to head the Yarrow shepherds against you and the other Souters of Selkirk. I hope at all events to see you then. I was delighted on learning from his Grace last night that you had made the intended purchase of Turnagain &c. I weened it only a thing of which you had a distant prospect God send you all the pleasure you well deserve of it. By the by since ever I saw you and heard your enthusiastic sentiments about the great events of late taken place in the world and of our honour and glory as a nation lately won I have been busily engaged with a poem on Waterloo as a small tribute to our heros which I think not unbecomes every British Bard. It has no connection with yours either in plan or matter but as far as I am gone I am rather pleased with it. With your approval I intend inscribing it to you in one single stanza acknowleding [sic] its source and my noble emulation of my master Grieve will forward any letter or parcel which at any time you may send me Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed—not JH:] W. Scott Esq./ North Castle St/ Edinburgh [Franked:] Doncaster Selkirk November sixteen 1815 [Postmark:] NOV B17M 1815 [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg/ —16 Nov [Watermark:] G PIKE/ 18[TEAR] [Location:] NLS, MS 3886, fols 229–30.

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Bowhill Hogg is dating from the Duke of Buccleuch’s mansion near Selkirk: he also mentions dining there on 30 October in his letter to George Thomson of 25 October 1815. his Grace Hogg’s host was Charles, 4th Duke of Buccleuch (1772–1819), who had franked this letter using his English title of Earl of Doncaster. the great match at Ball the football match between the parishes of Selkirk and Yarrow under the auspices of the Duke of Buccleuch did take place on 4 December 1815. Lockhart (III, 395–97) gives a contemporary newspaper account of the proceedings, while the report in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 9 December 1815 reports that Hogg ‘acted as aide-de-camp to the Earl of HOME in the command of the Yarrow men’. It was also reported in the London papers, for example in the Morning Chronicle of 27 December 1815. Lord Hume Alexander, 10th Earl of Home (1769–1841) had married the Duke of Buccleuch’s sister Elizabeth in 1798—see Corson, p. 497. In ‘George Dobson’s Expedition to Hell, and The Souters of Selkirk’ Hogg explains that the Earl of Home is a traditional enemy to the town of Selkirk—see The Shepherd’s Calendar, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 1995), pp. 118–41 (pp. 126–27). you and the other Souters of Selkirk a jocular insult, as Hogg explains in ‘The Souters of Selkirk’: the name Souter is ‘a title of great obloquy in that town, although the one of all others that the townsmen ought to be proud of. And it is curious that they are proud of it, when used collectively; but apply it to any of them as a term of reproach, and you had better call him the worst name under heaven’ (p. 132). The Selkirk men were led by Provost Ebenezer Clarkson, with Robert Henderson acting as his Lieutenant (Lockhart, III, 395, 396). the intended purchase of Turnagain &c. Scott had recently added the farm of Kaeside to the Abbotsford estate: this included ‘the little hillock of Turn-again, where the Scott clan had rallied after the battle of Melrose and the Knight of Cessford had bled his life into the ground’—see Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), I, 509. Kaeside was afterwards the home of Hogg’s friend William Laidlaw, who acted as Scott’s steward. a poem on Waterloo Hogg’s poem, ‘The Field of Waterloo’ does not seem to have been published until 1822 in his Poetical Works, 4 vols (Edinburgh, 1822), II, 281–323. William Blackwood reported to John Murray on [20 December 1815] ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2): ‘I have a curious epistle from The Ettrick Shepherd to day enclosing me two sheets of “The Field of Waterloo a Poem by James Hogg. I’ll cross it “though it blast me. Hamlet” He says he wishes it printed forthwith and that you will lend it a helping hand. From the glance I have given it appears bitter bad, but as he says I may send the proofs to Mr Scott, I mean to consult him this afternoon about it’. And writing again to Murray on 22 December ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2) he reports, ‘I call’d on Mr Scott yesterday by appointment to see what could be done with poor Hogg’s lamentable production. He was rather averse to corresponding with the Shepherd himself, yet by means of Mr Wilson (Isle of Palms) and another friend of Hoggs I have got it knock’d on the head’. Hogg seems to have been more angry with Wilson than with Blackwood over the affair—see Memoir, p. 49. yours Scott’s poem The Field of Waterloo was published on 23 October 1815—see Todd & Bowden, p. 377. As Lockhart (III, 386) relates, the profits of the first edition were

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‘the author’s contribution to the fund raised for the relief of the widows and children of the soldiers slain in the battle’. inscribing it to you Hogg’s letter to Scott of 24 November 1815 contains a dedication, which is also present in the surviving leaf of his manuscript in NLS, MS 582, fol. 182. None was attached to the poem as published in 1822.

To Walter Scott

24 November [1815] Eltrieve Lake Novr 24th

Dear Scott I got your letter only last night and I wrote the following verses this morning judging that there was no time to lose and you know I cannot endure to be behind in a ploy I beseech you to take them through hand and lop and add what you will. I am not the same person I was that way. To The Ancient Banner of Buccleuch And art thou here like hermit gray, With mystic characters unrolled, O’er peaceful revellers to play Thou emblem of the days of old? Oft hast thou tracked the mountain air, Swift onward, swifter to return, To call the hardy Forester To the grey moors of Rankleburn: Or southward far with bold intent, O’er Border waste and pathless wood, On foray and atchievement bent, Like eagle on her path of blood. Old relict! I must thee revere! Much has been dared and done with thee! I almost weep to see thee here And ween thee raised in mockery. I love thee for the olden day The iron age of hardihood But more, because thou led’st the way To rural bliss and human good. Even in the days ourselves have known, It seems contingent not the less, That havoc and dismay alone Can purchase peace and happiness:

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Had it not been the deeds of weir To which thou heralded’st the way, We had not been assembled here Rejoicing in a father’s sway. Hail! old memorial of the brave! The liegeman’s stay! the Border law! May thy grey pennon never wave O’er sterner field than Carterhaugh! The Hurry of composition is too palpable here but I know if you have time you can enter into my ideas and simplify them somewhat My Waterloo is drawn out to a considerable length I intend either to publish it in a pamphlet as a thing of the day or put it into my new edition I am rather pleased with it the following is the dedication or at least the ground work of it which I beg you to be as free with as you wont to be of yore. To W. S. &c &c. Sore did I deem our ancient lore disgraced When thou announced’st theme of modern day Till once I saw the path thy lays embraced And heard thy converse bolder far than they Aroused by these my little mite to pay And with my master hand in hand to go I send for thy approof this trivial lay For to that kind approval much I owe Those who not know thy heart but half our minstrel know [Addressed—not JH:] Walter Scott Esqre/ North Castle Street/ Edinburgh [Franked:] Selkirk November Twenty Four 1815 E. Stopford [Postmark:] NOV B25M 1815 [Endorsed—not JH:] 24 Novr. [Watermark:] IOHN HAYES / 1811 [Location:] NLS, MS 3886, fols 241–42. [Printed:] Douglas S. Mack, ‘“The Ettricke garland” by Scott and Hogg: a Note’, The Bibliotheck, 7 no. 4 (1975), 105–11. your letter this has not apparently survived, but was forwarded to Hogg by the Duke of Buccleuch. In his letter to the Duke of 19 November Scott had written ‘I wish Hogg to give me a little of his best assistance to celebrate the Lifting of the Banner and enclose a note to this purpose which some of your Graces people must get up to him without loss of time as it would lie too long at Selkirk’—see Scott, Letters, IV, 127. Hogg was invited to write a song for the Yarrow men for the forthcoming Carterhaugh football game, to match his own for the Selkirk men and both were published in a

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pamphlet subsequently—see Douglas S. Mack, ‘“The Ettricke Garland” by Scott and Hogg: a Note’, The Bibliotheck, 7 no. 4 (1975), 105–11. See also the notes to Hogg’s letter to Scott of 16 November [1815]. lop and add what you will Douglas Mack (p. 109) notes numerous changes made in the published version of Hogg’s song, including a new stanza and ‘considerable alterations [...] to the order of the lines of the last two stanzas’. not the same person I was that way Hogg is probably looking back to the early days of his acquaintance with Scott. In the version of his Memoir prefacing The Mountain Bard (Edinburgh, 1807), Hogg commented that it is ‘with the utmost difficulty that I can be brought to alter one line’ (p. xiv). To The Ancient Banner of Buccleuch Hogg’s poem was published as ‘To the Ancient Banner of the House of Buccleuch’ together with Scott’s ‘Lifting of the Banner’ in The Ettricke Garland, which was printed for the occasion by Ballantyne and Co. My Waterloo see notes to Hogg’s letter to Scott of 16 November [1815] for information about Hogg’s ‘The Field of Waterloo’. in a pamphlet this has not been located, though Hogg’s reference in his letter to Ebenezer Clarkson of 17 December [1816?] to a copy ‘extant by itself’ suggests that a pamphlet may indeed have been printed if not published. the dedication Hogg’s dedication appears in the first and apparently sole surviving leaf of his manuscript of ‘The Field of Waterloo. A Poem’, in NLS, MS 582, fol. 182, though it was not included when ‘The Field of Waterloo’ was printed in The Poetical Works of James Hogg, 4 vols (Edinburgh, 1822), II, 281–323.

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FOR 1816 To John Wilson

2 January [1816] Eltrieve Lake Janr. 2d

Sir If you were in your right senses when you wrote the attact upon me which you sent in the form of a critique I cannot help thinking that you are too presumtous [sic] and an officious impudent scoundrel for your pains. Who gave an ideot and a driveller like you a right to counterwork their designs to pick up manuscripts clandestinely and blab over them in taverns to your scum of acquaintance? You could only mean one thing by such an outrageous and unprovoked insult which you have compleatly gained, namely that there is only one kind of communication can ever pass between us again James Hogg [Addressed:] John Wilson Esq Advt/ [TEAR]3 Queen Street/ Edinr. [Postmark:] JAN B8E 1816 [and] [illegible stamp] [and in ink] 7½ [Watermark:] [CROWNED SHIELD] 1803 [Location:] The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York: Gordon Ray Collection, GNR MA 4500 H. John Wilson the journalist and poet John Wilson (1785–1854), shortly to become the mainstay of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine as ‘Christopher North’ and chief author of the Noctes Ambrosianae series which featured an exaggerated portrait of Hogg as the Shepherd. Wilson had published The Isle of Palms and Other Poems in February 1812, and Hogg had sought his acquaintance as a result—see Memoir, pp. 32–33, 231– 32. Wilson had married Jane Penny in 1811, and the couple had two sons and three daughters. He was an admirer of Wordsworth and owned a substantial house at Elleray near Windermere in the Lake District, where Hogg visited him in September 1814. The following year Wilson lost the greater part of his personal fortune, and then lived mostly in Edinburgh at his mother’s house at 53 Queen Street. He published The City of the Plague and Other Poems in 1816, but subsequently turned to sentimental, indeed mawkish, fiction with Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life (1822), Margaret Lindsay (1823), and The Foresters (1825). In 1820 he became Professor of Moral Philosophy of the University of Edinburgh, the result of a politically-motivated election among the members of the Town Council. His success enabled him in 1825 to build a house at 8 Gloucester Place. Wilson’s florid oratory and writing were popular in Edinburgh and he gradually became one of the city’s leading literary men, particularly after the death of Scott in 1832. On Hogg’s death Wilson agreed to write a biography, although this was never published—see Garden, pp. 329–30.

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the attact upon me this is probably the letter referred to in Hogg’s Memoir (p. 49): ‘Mr. Wilson once drove me also into an ungovernable rage, by turning a long and elaborate poem of mine, on “The Field of Waterloo,” into ridicule, on learning which I sent him a letter, which I thought was a tickler. There was scarcely an abusive epithet in our language that I did not call him by’. Wilson appears to have been consulted about Hogg’s poem by William Blackwood—see Hogg’s letter to Scott of 16 November [1815] and notes. which you sent Wilson’s written criticism of ‘The Field of Waterloo’ does not appear to have survived.

To John Clarke Whitfeld

18 January 1816 Eltrieve Lake Janr. 18th 1816

Dear Sir Being from home I found yours of the 2d only yesterday on my return and lose no time in assuring you of my utmost support in your proposed work I am not a very good song writer but to a few such as I can produce you are heartily welcome I have for several years been engaged in picking up old border airs and chaunts that are just hanging on the verges of oblivion and have not I believe been heard for centuries save at the shepherds’ ingle nook Though most of them consist only of one part they are so simply beautiful that even the celebrated Broom of Cowdenknows lags behind some of them. What a treasure they would be for a musical miscellany such as yours and if you will swear to me by all the holy trinity to preserve the unaffected simplicity of the melody you shall have a part of them for I have been distressed for a scientific man into whose hands to put them that they might not be ever lost. In that case how happy would I be to write appropriate stanzas for them all. Please let me hear from you with your convenience and believe me Yours most truly James Hogg Eltrive Lake By Selkirk To Dr. J. Whitfeld [Addressed:] none [no address panel] [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] none [Location:] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: Herman W. Liebert MS Collection GEN MSS 237, Box 5, Folder 218.

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two last little poems. They breathe a vein of poetry which you never once touched before and there is something in The Siege of Corrinth at least which convinces me that you have loved my own stile of poetry better than you ever acknowledged to me. Some of the people here complain of the inadequacy of the tales to the poetry I am perfectly mad at them and at Mr Jeffery among the rest for such an insinuation. I look upon them both as descriptive poems descriptive of some of the finest and boldest scenes of nature and of the most powerful emotions of the human heart. Perdition to the scanty discernment that would read such poems as they would do a novel for the sake of the plot to the disgrace of the age however be it spoken in the light romantic narrative which our mutual friend Scott has made popular this is the predominant ingredient expected and to a certainty the reviewers will harp upon the shortcoming of it in your poems as a fault.—If you ever see Murray give my kindest respects to him he has as you said dealt very fairly with me and very friendly though as yet he has made no profit of me which is in general the bookseller’s great inducement to friendship. I would fain have a neat cheap 12 mo edition of my principle poems this spring for I have much need of it and the poems have likewise some need of it to give them some new impulse. I would have it in three vol’s one of them to consist of original and hitherto unpublishd poetry Mr. Scott thinks it would do extremely well. Pray my Lord what do you think? if you approve of it stand my friend with Murray as you formerly did for without it I cannot get to London to see you where I have a great desire to be. In truth I have a literary scheme unconnected with publishing which has made me very anxious to be in London for a month or two the two last years but my finances would never admit of it. I am always so miserably scarce of money and so good a fellow of the little that I have that I am certain that unless I take the first chance of the first tolerable sum which I recieve I shall never see the metropolis. If ever I do reach it I intend to place myself principally under the patronage of Your Lordship. Wilson is publishing a poem entitled The City of the Plague. It is in the dramatic form and a perfect anomaly in literature. Wilson is a man of great genius and fancy but he is intoxicated with Wordsworth and a perfect dreamer of moons ships seas and solitudes were it not for this antihydrophobia (forgive my mangling of that long Greek word) I do not know what he might not be capable of. I have nothing you see of importance to say to you my Lord, but may God bless you. You have changed your mode of life since I last addressed you and are by this time sensible that it must have its pains as well as pleasures

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but if the mountain torrent of passion is at all descended into the calm and still vale of common life pray deign a line or two to one than whom none alive more admires your genius or values your friendship I am my lord with the highest respect Yours most truly James Hogg [Addressed:] The Rt. Honb. Lord Byron/ London [Postmark:] FEB B27A 1816 [and] FREE 1MR1 1816 [and] Addl. ½ [Watermark:] H SALMON/ 1814 [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box A 31 5. absence of 9 months in Yarrow Hogg had left Edinburgh in May 1815 to take possession of his newly-gifted farm of Altrive. In his letter to Murray of [24 February 1816] Blackwood reports Hogg’s return to town and his reaction to Byron’s most recent poems as follows: ‘Hogg came to town to day, but I only saw him for a few minutes at 4 o Clock. He had only glanced thro’ them on his way to town, as he had not recd the copy & the letter which came with it—they were sent to the country to him, but from the remoteness of the place he lives at, he gets parcels very irregularly. He is much pleased & I will have a chapter from him about them to morrow’ ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2). your two last poems Byron’s The Siege of Corinth and Parisina were advertised as ‘On Thursday [i. e. 15 February] will be published, in London and Edinburgh’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 10 February 1816. A bound volume of Byron’s poems in the James Hogg Collection, University of Otago Library, Dunedin, New Zealand contains a copy with Hogg’s signature and ‘Eltrieve Lake’ at the head of the title-page. I bade you not think of answering me see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 14 October 1814. something that I have [...] written see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 14 October 1814 and notes, which Hogg alludes to as a cause of offence in his Memoir (pp. 39–40). He stated that in reply Byron sent him ‘rather a satirical, bitter letter’, though this has not apparently survived. Byron’s reply to the present letter of 1 March 1816 opened, ‘I never was offended with you—& never had cause.—At the time I received your last letters—I was “marrying & being given in marriage”; & since that period—have been occupied or indolent’—see Byron’s Letters and Journals, ed. by Leslie A. Marchand, 12 vols (London: John Murray, 1973–82), V, 37. my own stile of poetry this stylistic resemblance seems to have been commented on also by John Wilson. In his letter to Murray of [24 February 1816] ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2) Blackwood reports that Wilson had remarked of The Siege of Corinth ‘it sounded odd that Lord B should follow the Ettrick Shepherd, but he was quite certain he must have had the versification of the Queen’s Wake in his eye’. Mr Jeffery in his letter to Murray of [24 February 1816] Blackwood reports ‘Jeffray I understand has spoken very highly of the Poems, but were I to mention all who have done so I might name every man of taste or any pretensions to it in Edinburgh’. However, no review of Parisina andThe Siege of Corinth appeared in the Edinburgh Review.

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dealt very fairly with me Murray had made Hogg his author’s payment for The Pilgrims of the Sun slightly before it was due—see Hogg’s letter to Murray of 7 May 1815 and notes. 12 mo edition of my principle poems Hogg had mentioned a collected edition of his poetry in his letter to John Murray of 31 March 1815, and made a definite proposal for publication to Blackwood the following autumn—see his letter to Blackwood of 6 October 1815 and notes. The Poetical Works of James Hogg was published in four volumes by Archibald Constable in 1822. as you formerly did see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 30 July [1814] and notes. a literary scheme unconnected with publishing this perhaps refers to Hogg’s wish to get one of his plays staged in London—see his letter to Bernard Barton of 7 June 1813. The City of the Plague Wilson’s poem was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 March 1816. Constable was the publisher, but Wilson had asked Hogg to mention the poem to John Murray the previous autumn— see Mrs Gordon, ‘Christopher North’: A Memoir of John Wilson, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1862), I, 198. intoxicated with Wordsworth Wilson had written a fan-letter to Wordsworth when he was still a teenager at the University of Glasgow, and had subsequently settled at Elleray on Lake Windermere to be close to him—see Elsie Swann, Christopher North (Edinburgh, 1934), pp. 14, 31. changed your mode of life Byron had married Anne Isabella (Annabella) Milbanke on 2 January 1815. At this date Hogg was unaware that the couple were about to separate—see Memoir, pp. 40, 237.

To John Scott

28 February 1816 Grieve & Scott’s Edinr Febr 28th 1816

Dear sir On my return to Edin on Friday last after an absence of 10 months I found your kind present of Paris Revisited and your letter awaiting me. I have not yet had time to peruse the book but I hear its charter [sic] here is very high. I can by no means want the Champion and your offer of sending it to me free on condition of giving you occassional assistance I accept most cheerfully; the arrangement suits better with a poets pocket. And the truth is that you are the only editor of a news paper whom I love in Britain for though I am myself rather a violent tory, why I never know but you are the only independant one that I ever met with. I have often regretted, now that politics have in great measure failed of their interest that there were too little of general literature in the paper but haply there may still be a majority who like the other better. As a first essay I send you a short criticism on a very singular production. Every thing relating to the author is wholly unknown here. My correspondent

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near Woodbridge who procured me the copy which I have reluctantly cut up to reduce the article within the size to be franked will have it that the work is Lord Byron’s which he proves from the following circumstances. The gentlemen whose hands it is in and who all have got it in presents. The printer’s name not being annexed, and the bookseller whose name is given only receiving one copy. The work not being for sale and most of all from one speech (page 105) which I likewise inclose you not for publication but for your own amusement. But this is all conjecture and perhaps misprision you may make what use of it you please. I am afraid my manner of writing will be a kind of anomaly in the Champion whatever alterations or additions you are pleased to make I will always view as an improvement. I am the most careless writer in the world. I would like to know what kind of essays you most lack. Would original tales or pieces of poetry be of any use. My number of the Champion must go on as it is to Yarrow my father and friends will read it in my absence and I see it here weekly in the reading room. You will soon get more Orders from Edin. for the paper I could procure plenty of writers but I do not know how they might please you. I think you may recon on something from me at least once a month Yours most truly James Hogg [Addressed:] John Scott Esq/ No. 1./ Catharine St./ Strand/ London [Franked:] Selkirk March first 1816/ Doncaster [Watermark:] [TRIPLE PLUME]/ [ORNATE INITIAL]/ 1813 [Location:] NLS, MS 3813, fols 64–65. John Scott John Scott (1783–1821) was a native of Aberdeen, where he had been Byron’s school-fellow, but moved to London at an early age and sought work as a journalist. He started various newspapers, and was employed by the radical Stamford publisher and newspaper proprietor John Drakard, for whom he edited the weekly paper The Champion, the first number of which was published on 2 January 1814. He later became editor of the London Magazine, and in the course of a quarrel with the writers for Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine was killed in a duel by Lockhart’s friend, John Christie—see Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), I, 724–27. Friday last that is, 23 February. Hogg’s letter to Byron of 26 February [1816], on the other hand, implies 24 February. Paris Revisited and your letter John Scott’s A Visit to Paris in 1814 (1815) was followed by Paris Revisited in 1815, advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 8 February 1816. John Scott’s letter to Hogg has not apparently survived. charter there is a line break in this letter after ‘char-’ and it may be that ‘character’ rather than ‘charter’ was intended.

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the Champion this was an eight-page Sunday newspaper costing tenpence and generally liberal in politics. It carried lengthy theatrical reviews, and published a number of poems, including sonnets by Wordsworth. a short criticism of Hogg’s own anonymous drama The Hunting of Badlewe, though no such review was published in The Champion. Hogg’s manuscript of this ‘short criticism’ survives in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: James Hogg Collection GEN MSS 61, Box 1, Folder 23. My correspondent near Woodbridge Bernard Barton, to whom Hogg sent two of the pre-publication printed copies of The Hunting of Badlewe—see his letter to Barton of 18 August 1813. The work not being for sale although the six copies printed in 1813 were distributed among Hogg’s literary advisers and were not for sale, The Hunting of Badlewe had been advertised for sale by George Goldie at five shillings in a ‘This day is published’ notice in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 31 March 1814. one speech (page 105) in the published edition of The Hunting of Badlewe this page contains part of a misogynistic speech by the Friar, who also attacks aristocratic abuses which make ‘one to doubt of heaven’s supremacy’. Hogg’s statement that the printer’s name is not given and that those who have copies received them as presents, though, seem to indicate that he sent John Scott pieces cut from one of the six prepublication copies printed in 1813, and the pagination of this may well have been different. a kind of anomaly Hogg may have thought both his Scots and his Toryism might be out of place in a radical English paper. the reading room Hogg had frequented a number of the city’s public-reading rooms, including those of his former publisher, George Goldie at 34 Prince’s Street, and another at 34 North Bridge—see his letter to Margaret Phillips of 25 November 1812 and notes. No. 18 of The Spy is set in James Taylor Smith’s Royal Exchange Reading Room—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 185–91, 597. at least once a month perhaps John Scott did not appreciate Hogg’s notice of The Hunting of Badlewe, for The Champion does not appear to contain any contributions by Hogg.

To [ John Murray]

1 March 1816 Grieve & Scott’s

Edinr.

March 1st 1816

Dear sir Though I have had no letters from you for a long while I have in effect often heard from you in the new works which you always so kindly sent—they were to me in the country a high treat and I felt very much beholden to you for your kind remembrance. Since my arrival in town on Friday last My literary friends have been pressing me hard to get a new and cheap edition of my poems published in the form of Lord Byron’s as they stand in need of any new impulse that can be given to them. Mr Blackwood who is al-

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ways inclined to throw obstacles in the way of publishing bids me inform you in this case that there is no objection to the plan unless some considerable number of The Pilgrims remain on hand with you that here they are off and the Wake reduced to below 40 copies Mr Scott’s plan is that I should publish in 3 vols The Wake to constitute the first. The Mountain Bard and the Pilgrims the second, and the third to consist of original poetry in order to give the Reviewers &c another chance. It is his opinion that the Mountain Bard which has long ago past thro’ two editions, would be as acceptable to the public as any of them all. Mr Blackwood again proposes that instead of 3 vols at £1..1 we should have only two volumes at 15/ and that the new poem Mador of the Moor shall form the first and major part of the 2d or first vol. which you think best. I give you both plans simply but I confess I do not like great masses of poetry published together and am rather inclined to adopt Mr. Blackwood’s plan but I leave the thing entirely to your decision. Mr. Blackwood throws out some hints that it is rather late in the season for Edinr. but the same objection will hold next year as I cannot be in town again before this time twelvemonth and I am sure if we give one vol. to Donaldson and one to Ballantyne they will print both in the course of 3 weeks. I am so certain that you publish more to serve me than to serve yourself that I leave the conditions entirely to you as well as every arrangement about the number of copies number of vols. &c only I wish you would not decline it for I am fully convinced that once the public loses sight of a poet he may almost be said no longer to exist. I hope to give you something by and by though not for a long space as yet that will make them all sell, in the mean time it is proper that we make the most of such wares as we have. Pray my dear sir let me hear from you with your first convenience and whatever you say on the subject let it be decisive for I have but a short time to remain in town and the season is far gone Yours very truly James Hogg [Addressed:] [no address panel] [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] none [Location:] The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York: MA unaccessioned RV: Misc. Engl. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 108–09 [in part]. new works recently these had included Byron’s Parisina and The Siege of Corinth—see Hogg’s letter to Byron of 26 February [1816].

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Friday last 23 February—see also Hogg’s letter to John Scott of 28 February 1816. a new and cheap edition of my poems see Hogg’s letters to Blackwood of 6 October 1815 and to Byron of 26 February [1816]. in the form of Lord Byron’s an advertisement for Byron’s Poetical Works in four volumes foolscap octavo, costing twenty-eight shillings, to be published on ‘Saturday next’ had appeared in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 8 June 1815. This appears to have been a composite of separate editions of previously-published poems, and was also clearly reissued from time to time with later poems included. The second volume of a copy with an 1815 title-page in the James Hogg Collection, Special Collections, University of Otago Library, Dunedin, New Zealand includes advertising leaves dated February 1816 and The Siege of Corinth and Parisina. number of The Pilgrims remain on hand Blackwood in his letter to Hogg of 9 October 1815 (transcript in Hogg Letters Project Papers, University of Stirling) had estimated that there were then about 400 copies of The Pilgrims of the Sun unsold altogether, adding ‘neither Mr M nor I could have any thing to do with the edition untill we get rid of the copies on hand’. Presumably Murray did still have a number of unsold copies since Blackwood reported to him in a letter of 11 March 1816, ‘I have got Mr Hogg put off from his plan of a new edition of his Poems’ ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2). the Wake Blackwood in his letter of 9 October 1815 (see previous note) stated that he then had upwards of 120 copies of the fourth edition of The Queen’s Wake unsold and Murray 80 copies. The Mountain Bard [...] Pilgrims The Mountain Bard was republished in 1821, with additions, by Oliver and Boyd of Edinburgh, and The Pilgrims of the Sun formed part of the group of ‘Midsummer Night Dreams’ in the second of the four volumes of The Poetical Works of James Hogg, published by Constable of Edinburgh in 1822. two editions Hogg is referring to the two states of The Mountain Bard published in 1807, 12mo copies for general sale at five shillings each and 8vo copies printed from the same type on larger paper for subscribers costing half a guinea (10s. 6d.). the new poem Blackwood reported in his letter to Murray of 11 March 1816 that Hogg ‘is however determined to print just now, and is going to put to press Mador of the Moor, a Poem which he has had ready for some time. I read it nearly twelve months ago, and liked it pretty well. It will make a volume of the size of the Pilgrims. He proposes only to print 500 or 750. I am to see the MS again & will write you about it’. Hogg had offered Mador of the Moor to Constable in his letter of 1 February 1814, and it was advertised as ‘This day is published’ by Blackwood in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 22 April 1816. late in the season the busiest time in the book trade was during the autumn and winter months. in town again before this time twelvemonth in fact Hogg seems to have spent much of his time in Edinburgh rather than at Altrive, until his marriage in April 1820. Donaldson James Donaldson (1751–1830), printer, and editor of the Edinburgh Advertiser—see Corson, p. 435. Ballantyne James Ballantyne (1772–1833), the printer of Scott’s Waverley Novels.

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To Eliza Izett

17 March [1816] Edinr. March 17th

My dear E. Neither in Yarrow Ettrick nor Edinr can I find your letter it was new directed by Mr. Grieve and sent to the south where it has undoubtedly miscarried I know there will be nothing in it that we need care much about the world knowing, yet I am sorry for it. If there is any general observations in it I beg you will transcribe and send them to me even yet, for I know they will be sensible and good, and though I seldom do profit much by your good and kind advices I always wish to do it, however I would rather have a new letter or at least partly new than an old one word for word.—I never was so much distressed at any thing of the same nature as I was when told that you were prevented from going to the Trossacks. I was actually hurt at it and said some very rash rediculous things which if ever any body mention to you you must forgive if none ever do the thing that is not known does no hurt. I fear our beloved and valuable Grieve is not well he looks very pal [sic] and thin and has a cough. I wish he were a while in the country—It is likely that I will tarry for some time here as my poem of Mador is gone to the press and about the beginning of May you may expect such a description of your own scenery as you have not yet seen in verse. We are all vexed here at the difference and consequent seperation of Lord Byron and his lady—it is a stain upon the poetical—what a pity when the qualities of the head and heart run counter to one another—he is likely to be as much if not more despised than ever he was admired—I must see you this summer. Goodbye my dear E. and believe me ever Yours most truly James Hogg [Addressed:] Mrs. Izet/ Kinnaird [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] March 17th/ Answered 10th April 1816/ Mr Hogg [Watermark:] [CROWNED SHIELD]/ 1809 [Location:] Liverpool Central Library: Hornby Autograph Letters. your letter Hogg probably arrived in Edinburgh on 24 February (see his letter to Byron of 26 February and notes). Clearly Eliza Izett had written to him previously care of John Grieve in Edinburgh, and the letter, redirected to Altrive, had never been delivered. prevented from going to the Trossacks the reasons for Mrs Izett’s excursion being cancelled, and Hogg’s comments on it, are alike unknown.

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Grieve is not well Rogers (III, 45) states, ‘Afflicted with a disorder in the spine, Mr Grieve became incapacitated for business in his thirty-seventh year’. This would be around 1818. In his subsequent letter to Eliza Izett of 14 December 1817 Hogg implies that Grieve’s illness was mental as well as physical. my poem of Mador Hogg had composed Mador of the Moor as early as 1813 while staying at Kinnaird as Mrs Izett’s guest—see Memoir, pp. 34–35, 234. It was printed by James Ballantyne, published by Blackwood and Murray, and advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 22 April 1816. Lord Byron and his lady Byron had married Anne Isabella Milbanke on 2 January 1815, and their daughter Ada Augusta was born on 10 December. Their separation early the following year was a widely-publicised scandal, in which Byron was generally and loudly blamed for outraging the feelings of a respectable and loving wife. Byron’s poem ‘Fare Thee Well’ and a letter from Sir Ralph Noel (Lady Byron’s father) to the editor of the Morning Chronicle on the subject of the separation were both reprinted in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 9 May 1816. this summer after withdrawing from his business as a hatter in Edinburgh Chalmers Izett seems to have given up his Edinburgh house and lived entirely at Kinnaird near Dunkeld—see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. It is not known whether Hogg was at Kinnaird in the summer of 1816, but he did make a Highland tour then—see his letter to Anne Bald of 1 June 1816.

To John Clarke Whitfeld

8 April [1816] Grieve & Scott’s Edinr April 8th

Dear Sir I recieved your former letter in due course but did not judge from the contents that any verses of mine were required for some time forward from the date—the letter was properly directed—I recieved your last from Mr. Scott yesterday and have this morning composed the song on the next page, so that if it is not the best on my list it is at all events the newest I wrote it for you and dedicate it to your work alone but if it does not suit, you may have another and another—Do not call me Esq. in the contents a common shepherd lad cannot be Esq. Say James Hogg the Scots Shepherd or something that way. I will still remain about a month here before my return to Yarrow for I am publishing a new Poem which will appear in a week or two I have given my old airs to a Mr Campbell here who is making a selection of Scotish ancient music and have likewise furnished him with verses for them he is a poor man and I wished to be of some service to him [ S IG NATU RE

CUT AWAY ]

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The Lark ———————————— Bird of the wilderness Blithesome and cumberless, Sweet be thy matin o’er moorland and lea! Emblem of happiness, Blest is thy dwelling-place, O to abide in the desart with thee! Wild is thy lay and loud, Far in the downy cloud; Love gives it energy, love gave it birth, Where, on thy dewy wing, Where art thou journeying? Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth. O’er fell, and fountain sheen, O’er moor, and mountain green, O’er the red streamer that heralds the day; Over the cloudlet dim, Over the rainbow’s rim, Musical cherubim, hie thee away! Then when the gloaming comes Low in the heather blooms, Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be! Bird of the wilderness, Blest is thy dwelling place! O to abide in the desart with thee! [Addressed:] Dr. Whitfeld/ Emanuel-House/ Cambridge [Postmark:] APR B8A 1816 [and] Addl. ½ [Endorsed—not JH:] Jas. Hogg/ Ettrick Shepherd [and] Printed in Vol. 1 of Clarke’s Twelve/ Vocal pieces—No 5 page 8 [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 9634, fols 7–8. your last from Mr. Scott neither of Whitfeld’s letters to Hogg appear to have survived. Both were presumably written after the receipt of Hogg’s letter to him of 18 January 1816. Scott’s support for Whitfeld is shown, for example, in his letter to him of 18 April [1817?]—see Scott, Letters, III, 254. The letter is redated in the Millgate Union Catalogue—see http://www.nls.uk/catalogues/resources/scott. your work alone John Clarke Whitfeld, Twelve Vocal Pieces, 2 vols (London, [1816]). ‘The Lark’ was printed as no. V of the first volume (pp. 8, 41–44), Hogg being

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described on page 8 in accordance with his wishes as ‘James Hogg, The Scots Shepherd’. This was one of Hogg’s most popular songs, being reprinted in A Border Garland (Edinburgh, [1819]), pp. 14–15, in The Border Garland (Edinburgh, c. 1828), pp. 13–15, and in Forget Me Not for 1828 (London, 1827), p. 27. a new Poem Mador of the Moor—see Hogg’s letter to Murray of 1 March 1816 and notes. a Mr Campbell here Alexander Campbell (1764–1824) was an organist and music teacher in Edinburgh. He published two volumes of Scottish songs entitled Albyn’s Anthology in 1816 and 1818 respectively, to which Hogg was a contributor. Hogg also mentions his collection of about twenty old Scottish airs in his letters to George Thomson of 25 October 1815 and to Whitfeld of 18 January 1816.

To William Blackwood

11 April 1816

Dear Sir The last sheets are now in my hands but I have no notes ready nor do I care much about them—in this I will conform entirely to your idea—Query is the book large enough or would it be the better for a sheet of notes or short poems? I must have a motto the title page will be quite naked without it I wish you would think of one I have got nothing better than the two following Wild mirth of the desert! fit pastime for kings Which still the rude Bard in his solitude sings Wilson I shall the effect of this good lesson keep As watchman to my heart Hamlet I will call before dinner [Addressed:] Mr Blackwood [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ Mr Hogg/ 11th Apl/ 1816 [and] recd 11 April 1816/ from Mr. Hogg [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 4001, fols 266–67. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 110–11. last sheets proofs of Mador of the Moor. Blackwood had written to Murray on 29 March 1816 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2), ‘I am going on with the printing of “Mador of the Moor” Mr Hogg’s new poem. I have made no bargain at all with him yet, but when I do so I will write you, and you can then take a share or not as you may like best’. On 20 April Blackwood wrote again ( John Murray Archive,

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Blackwood Box 2), saying that his letter would be enclosed ‘with the Edinburgh and Hogg’s Mador which I send you by this day’s Mail’. The poem was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 22 April 1816. notes or short poems the extra sheet was clearly not needed, as the first edition of Mador of the Moor contains neither other poems nor notes. motto the first of the quotations below, which appears on the title-page of the poem, is from John Wilson’s ‘Address to a Wild Deer in the Forest of Dalness, Glen-Etive, Argyllshire’, in The City of the Plague, and Other Poems (Edinburgh, 1816), pp. 188–96 (p. 196). Hamlet from Ophelia’s speech in Hamlet, I. 3. 45–46.

To Anne Bald

1 June 1816

Meggernie Castle June 1st 1816 My dear Mrs B. I promised when I parted with your husband to write to him from the Highlands and I promised to you some years ago to give you a specimen of my best hand of writ. Now as a poet is never expected to fulfil above one half of what he promises it has come into my head to day to write to you and thus “fell twa dogs wi’ ae bane.” Since I left you I have traced the Tay the Tummel the Lion and the Urchay to their most distant and minute sources besides many smaller Glens in Lorn Appin and Morven—I have fixed all the scenery of my next and greatest poetical work; with the country which I have just left I must as a poet live or die for ever and you will not think it any thing strange that I have lingered so long in a country where I must so often wander in imagination while my sheepish and indolent frame is far distant from it in reallity I have besides since I saw you taken very near 100-dozen of trouts and at a moderate calculation have waded I think at least 100 miles—I have drunk so much highland whisky that I actually dreamed one night that I was turned into a cask of that liquor that the gaugers took me into custody and fairly proved me to be a legal seizure about which I was greatly concerned I have not however fallen into any mistakes of great consequence saving once that I mistook the South for the North and after walking at least 30 miles I landed back in the same Glen at night which I left in the morning but I have since procured a small pocket compass which I hope will prevent the recurrence of such a disagreeable circumstance in future. I have likewise been in some jeopardies which it is needless to enumerate but there was one so truly ludicrous that I cannot help mentioning it. In crossing that wild and rugged chain of mountains between the Braes of Glenurchay and Appin I chanced to cross an immense wreath of snow that came in my way and filled

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up the whole of a ravine or cleuch as we call such a place in the South—When about the middle of this in one moment I vanished from the face of the earth and before I had time to think found myself standing in the middle of a large burn so deep from the surface that I could scarce see the day-light above my head at the small aperture by which I entered. I was compleatly vaulted in and saw no means of escape save holing like a fox down the track of the burn which I tried but soon found myself in utter darkness and being afraid of linns I was obliged to return I began to think in good earnest that I was at the end of my journey and could not help saying to myself “This is a queer place for a poet to be in” and I assure you it was not without long and hard exertion that I extricated myself When I began this journal of my tour to you I intended to give you likewise an account of all the curious charact [eol] that I had met with which I am certain would have amused you but on beginning to think them over I find the subject would take a volume—I write to you from a very romantic and beautiful spot indeed yet the greatest beauty about the castle is its lady who is one of those beings that grace our nature and form the combining link bet[TEAR] angels and the human race.—My ro[TEAR] so much t[TEAR]port of casualties that I cannot as yet [TEAR] assuredly whether I will return by Alloa or not I p[TEAR] to do so and I think I will my heart cleaves a good deal to [TEAR] there is a warmth of kindness in your circle of friends toward me which I have long noted with delight and which I believe has originated wholly with your husband the order of whose attachment to me wholly unmerited as it is has often astonished me Give my kindest respects to him and tell him that in the course of ten days at most from this date it will be as good that Mrs J. Wilson have her piano tuned that M,Isaac have a stock of fish-hooks on hand and that the girl which Sandy intends for my bride have on her best looks for my part I am compleatly in rags. And now my dear Mrs. Bald I have only room to say that I think this tour of which you have here the journal will be productive of something of consequence at least to me at all events keep this letter as the first indication of good and high intentions until you see the sequel Yours most truly James Hogg [Addressed:] Mrs. Alexr. Bald junr/ Alloa [Endorsed—not JH:] Jas. Hogg/ To/ Mrs. Bald/ June/ 1816 [Watermark:] C WILMOTT/ 1814 [Location:] NLS, Acc. 9953. [Printed:] Garden, pp. 69–72.

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Meggernie Castle Meggernie Castle is in Glen Lyon in Perthshire. It was owned by the Menzies of Culdares, and there is a report of the celebration of the twenty-first birthday of Stewart Menzies, Esq. of Culdares there on 3 June 1813 in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 5 July 1813. Hogg was still in the Highlands when Blackwood wrote to Murray on 6 and 7 June 1816, ‘I am happy to hear Mador has been doing so well. The Shepherd will be quite elated when he hears of it—he is at present in the Highlands exploring the wild scenery of Argyleshire’ ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2). My dear Mrs B. Anne, the wife of Alexander Bald of Alloa—for information see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Hogg’s promise to contribute to her album is referred to in his letter to Alexander Bald of 14 November 1813. “fell twa dogs wi’ ae bane.” a variant of the proverbial expression ‘to kill two birds with one stone’—see The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, third edition, rev. by F. P. Wilson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970, repr. 1982), p. 253. the Tay the Tummel the Lion and the Urchay the rivers Tay, Tummel, and Lyon are in Perthshire, and the Orchy is a stream in Argyllshire close to the boundary with Perthshire. my next and greatest poetical work Queen Hynde, the first part of which was written in or before 1817 although the poem was not published until the end of 1824. It is set in the Ossianic country of Morvern and Appin, the ancient city of Beregonium being located on the eastern side of Ardmucknish Bay—for further details see ‘Appendix: Beregonium’ in Queen Hynde, ed. by Suzanne Gilbert and Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 1998), pp. 238–44. the gaugers excise officers. Glenurchay Glenorchy is the district through which the river Orchy flows in the Lorn district of Argyllshire the greatest beauty [...] is its lady in a subsequent note to his ‘M‘Lean’s Welcome’ Hogg says this song was versified at Meggernie Castle, Glen-Lyon from a Gaelic song ‘sung by one of the sweetest singers and most accomplished and angelic beings of the human race. But, alas! earthly happiness is not always the lot of those who, in our erring estimation, most deserve it. She is now no more, and many a strain have I poured to her memory’—see Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd (Edinburgh, 1831), p. 68. Stuart Menzies of Culdares (1792–1827) had married Ronald, the daughter of Ronald Stewart of Fasnacloich, Argyllshire on 18 August 1814 (Fortingall OPR). A daughter was born to the couple at Meggernie Castle in March 1818—see the Perthshire Courier of 12 March 1818. Ronald Menzies died in 1829—see Burke’s Landed Gentry, seventeenth edition (London: Burke’s Peerage Ltd., 1952), pp. 1757–58. Alloa Hogg’s affection for Alloa and his friends there was no doubt responsible for its featuring subsequently in ‘The Goode Manne of Allowa’—see A Queer Book, ed. by P. D. Garside (S/SC, 1995), pp. 55–68, and in ‘Strange Letter of a Lunatic’ in Fraser’s Magazine, 2 (December 1830), 526–32. Mrs J. Wilson Hogg’s letter to Alexander Bald of 14 November 1813 praises a man named Wilson. This unidentified lady is perhaps his wife. M,Isaac M,Isaac, presumably a fellow angler, has not been identified. Sandy probably Anne Bald’s husband, whose name was Alexander.

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To William Blackwood

[ June 1816]

Saturday 1 o’clock Dear Sir I have missed seeing you these three days and am so busy I cannot get out to day but I am to leave town on Monday if you could advance me from £20 to 30 to help me to carry on my farming till the end of the year you would greatly oblige Yours most truly James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr Willm Blackwood [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ James Hogg/ June/ 1816 [Watermark:] [TRIPLE PLUME]/ [ORNATE INITIALS]/ 1813 [Location:] NLS, MS 4001, fol. 268. [Printed:] Strout, p. 111. date the endorsement suggests June. On 1 June Hogg was at Meggernie Castle in Perthshire and he was still in the Highlands on 7 June—see his letter to Anne Bald of 1 June 1816 and notes. He presumably tried to contact Blackwood on his return to Edinburgh after this Highland tour. leave town on Monday probably for his farm at Altrive in Yarrow. advance me the advance was presumably part of his author’s payment for Mador of the Moor, which had been published by Blackwood and Murray around 22 April 1816—see notes to Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 11 April 1816, which show that Blackwood had begun printing the poem before making a bargain with Hogg. The terms upon which it was published are unknown.

[To John Clarke Whitfeld]

11 November 1816 Eltrieve-Lake Novr. 11th 1816

Dear Sir The first or second time that you wrote to me you asked only one song and when you asked another and another last time, using my own words, I thought them merely words of course and meant as a kind of jocular compliment but on recieving yours yesterday I was very vexed that I had neglected you—I cannot bear that any work of such elegance and value as I know yours will be should be withdrawn or postponed on account of any trivial assistance that I can lend. I am very much engaged and likewise just on the eve of going from home for a considerable time therefore I was obliged to look over my old manuscripts out of which I selected the inclosed four for you—They are musical enough but more diffuse than they would have been had I composed them of late.—The border song by some

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unaccountable mistake found its way into a miscellany under another gentleman’s name but the work is wholly unknown and I wish to reclaim what is my own the rest are all unpublished and unapropriated and you are welcome to any one two three or all of them which you chuse, I only wish to be informed which of them you adopt that I may be at liberty to appropriate them otherwise should any pressing call overtake me. Pray my dear sir have you seen Albyns Anthology by Campbell— if you have will you be so good as tell me what you think of the adaptation I have had very ill reports of it from some people who ought to be versed in the science of Music which grieves me much as I am exerting myself very much for his behoof—My beloved and valuable friend W Scott is even more engaged than I am he is teazed at all hands I fear you will not readily get any more strains from him. I once asked him what assistance he meant to give you he said he meant to send you a ditty or two if he could get time and light upon a theme, but that he hated above all things to make a song without having previously a tune for it, that the one was like making a coat to a man but the other was making a man to a coat—I said you would likely do them all manner of justice—he replied that he neither knew nor cared about that, but that you were so good a man he could not refuse to comply with your small request Please let me hear from you occassionally And believe me ever yours Most truly James Hogg [Addressed:] [no address panel] [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] 1814 [Location:] The Huntington Library, San Marino, California: HM 17014. John Clarke Whitfeld Whitfeld was corresponding with Hogg in 1816 about his Twelve Vocal Pieces. Hogg’s letter to Whitfeld of 8 April [1816] uses the phrase ‘another and another’. the inclosed four these presumably included ‘Naething to Fear Ye’, published in Twelve Vocal Pieces, 2 vols (London, [1816]), II, 5, 28–33, and also ‘Lock the Door, Lariston’. The border song ‘Lock the Door, Lariston’ had been published anonymously as ‘Border Song’ in no. 31 of The Spy, dated 30 March 1811—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 318–19. It was reprinted from there in the Dumfries and Galloway Courier of 3 September 1811 and attributed to James Gray—see ‘Lock the Door Lariston’, Border Magazine, 11 (March 1906), 57–58. In a note in Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd (Edinburgh, 1831) Hogg stated: ‘This Border song was published in my own weekly paper, THE SPY, March 30, 1811, and found its way into the London papers, and partially through Britain, as the composition of my friend Mr Gray, now

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in India. I never contradicted it, thinking that any body might have known that no one could have written the song but myself. However, it has appeared in every collection of songs with Mr Gray’s name. [...] I hereby claim the song as one of my own early productions,—mine only, mine solely, and mine for ever’ (p. 198). Albyns Anthology by Campbell for information about Alexander Campbell and his song collection see Hogg’s letter to Whitfeld of 8 April [1816] and notes. Oliver and Boyd advertised the first volume of Albyn’s Athology as ‘Just published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 18 July 1816. Campbell had visited Hogg at Altrive on 12 October 1816, and Hogg had accompanied him during the following four days in his researches in Ettrick and Yarrow for traditional songs. Campbell’s manuscript account of this excursion, ‘Notes of my third Journey to the Border’, is in Edinburgh University Library, MS La. II. 378 (see fols 16–17).

To William Blackwood

[early December 1816]

Dear Sir If you would give the bearer Mr. Laidlaw a perusal of Old Mortality to day who is anxious to see it before leaving town you will greatly oblige Yours truly James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr. Blackwood/ 17 Prince Street [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ James Hogg [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 4719, fols 191–92. Mr. Laidlaw presumably Hogg’s early friend William Laidlaw—see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Old Mortality this tale of Scott’s, together with The Black Dwarf, was published in the four-volume Tales of My Landlord on 2 December 1816—see The Tale of Old Mortality, ed. by Douglas S. Mack, EEWN 4b (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993), p. 372. William Blackwood and John Murray were the publishers.

To William Laidlaw

[early December 1816]

Dear William, I am sorry the number of the Review is not here. Bridges got a loan of it, who takes care never to return a book . . . . I have had good, very high accounts of the ‘Poetic Mirror’. A new edition is already called for. I suppose you have it long ere this time, else I would have sent you a copy. Yours ever, most truly, James Hogg

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[Location:] Printed, Garden, p. 87. date although Mrs Garden dates this letter December 1815, The Poetic Mirror was not published until the following year. The second edition was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 16 December 1816. the Review perhaps issue 30 of the Quarterly Review, for July 1816, which was advertised as ‘Arrived on Saturday evening, [i. e. 23 November] in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 25 November 1816. This contained a review of Hogg’s anonymouslypublished The Poetic Mirror—see Quarterly Review, 15 ( July 1816), 468–75. Bridges David Bridges (1776–1840), the Edinburgh clothier and Secretary to the Dilettanti Society. According to James Nasmyth, the engineer son of the painter Alexander Nasmyth, Bridges was nicknamed ‘Director-General of the Fine Arts for Scotland’ because of the role he played in Edinburgh’s artistic circles—see An Autobiography, ed. by Samuel Smiles (London, 1883), p. 36. ‘Poetic Mirror’ the first edition had been advertised as ‘To-day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 12 October 1816. It consisted of an anonymous series of parodies of the Romantic poets, and was published by John Ballantyne (with Longmans). This was the eventual outcome of Hogg’s plan for the periodical publication of a poetical repository—see Memoir, pp. 39–41.

To William Laidlaw

[December 1816]

Dear Laidlaw Though George was speaking in an owerly[?] way about getting the barley threshed I never thought of beginning till hard weather came that the lad could not ditch as the barn is full of peats Hay &c and the barley not carried in it will be impossible to have it ready next week but the Thursday following you may depend upon it as I shall set him to it to morrow without fail Do not blame me for not coming over I am really very busy I have three volumes to get ready for publication in the spring and if I do not get something done before close-time is out, and the curling commence when am I to do it—The truth is from the applications I have just now I believe I may publish five new volumes this spring exclusive of old ones—Do not urge me to come over I never go over the door when people let me alone Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr W. Laidlaw [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg—/ Decr 1816 [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, Acc. 9084/9.

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George perhaps William Laidlaw’s brother, George Laidlaw (1781–1865), or his cousin and brother-in-law George Ballantyne, born at the neighbouring farm of Whitehope on 30 January 1791 (Yarrow OPR). not coming over perhaps to Blackhouse or to the neighbouring farm of Whitehope, possessed by the family of Laidlaw’s wife, Janet Ballantyne. Laidlaw’s farming at Traquair had been unsuccessful, and he was probably staying with relatives in Yarrow at the end of 1816. An advertisement of ‘the farm and lands of Traquair-Know, Riggs, and Tanielburn, presently possessed by William Laidlaw’ as to let, with entry from Whitsunday 1817, appeared in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 12 April 1817. This mentions the Laidlaw farms of Blackhouse and Craig Douglas as already let. James Laidlaw, ‘late tenant in Blackhouse’ had died at Traquair-Know on 26 August 1816—see Edinburgh Evening Courant for 7 September 1816. In 1817 Laidlaw moved to Kaeside, to act as factor on Scott’s Abbotsford estate. three volumes [...] for publication in the spring these probably included the two volumes of Hogg’s Dramatic Tales, published by John Ballantyne (with Longmans), and advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 24 May 1817. Hogg may also have been writing his epic poem, Queen Hynde, which he clearly had in mind during his Highland trip in the summer—see his letter to Anne Bald of 1 June 1816 and notes. In his Memoir (p. 42) Hogg dates the writing of the first part of Queen Hynde before the publication of his Dramatic Tales. By this date Hogg seems to have temporarily abandoned his hopes of publishing a collected edition of his poetry—see his letter to William Blackwood of 8 December 1816. close-time the season when salmon-fishing was illegal. This varied from river to river in Scotland. The Tweed Fisheries Act of 1830 established close-time as from 15 October to 15 February of the following year for nets and from 1 November until 15 February for angling, with penalties of a fine between £2 and £20 for each offence, plus confiscation of equipment and an additonal penalty of ten shillings for each fish in the offender’s possession—see William Scrope, Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing in the Tweed, facsimile of 1843 edition (Edinburgh: James Thin, 1975), pp. 257–96 (pp. 258– 59). Before 1830 the close-season appears to have finished somewhat earlier. A notice in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 10 January 1818 reads: ‘Salmon fishing in the Tweed and Teviot commenced this day’. Hogg engaged in night-time leistering parties, one of which is described in his Memoir, pp. 63–64. the curling commence this would begin locally when the ice froze.

To William Blackwood

8 December 1816 Eltrieve Lake Decr. 8th 1816

Dear Blackwood How can you expect any news from me, a solitary hermit amid wastes, while you at the fountain-head of literature, the news of which is the only thing that interests me favour me with one half page “which wants ease, and is written apparently in great haste” and for this you expect a long and minute diary of a poet’s life and avocations in the country for a period of six months Well I must comply so far for a man’s bookseller is his tyrant and

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the truth is that I am idler and more indolent if possible than ever; still projecting grand schemes both in farming and literature and effecting only small segments of a momentous circle What are you insinuating about your guerilla’s and Grey Cats to me? You know if I had had any hand in such a thing I would have mentioned it “By the by Mr. Blackwood I have been thinking of publishing a few imitations of the principal living poets of the age” “O I dont know sir: that will be a kind of rejected addresses thing—I would not degrade myself by any such attempt” (in a higher and slower tone) “take my word for it, that will never do” You do not remember of any such dialogue I am sure therefore it is ungenerous to impute such a work to me I have been projecting a work for the approaching spring but as it will consist of two vols at least I dare not for my life mention it to you—I never yet mentioned publishing to you but you let something slip out on me that was exactly like throwing cold water on one’s face in a frosty day—I have some hopes that Prince-Street will give a new impulse to things it has rather as yet always been a genial and inspiring climate for that species of adventure though never in so good a bottom—I wish you every success with my whole heart in your new and elegant situation for I think you deserve it—I am convinced that you are my friend at heart and that without any selfish motive, and considering that you are a very selfish man the idea certainly is something extraordinary—no matter I have that idea and would very gladly be of some service to you, but it is almost impossible to be of service to a man whether he will or not Grieve informs me that you decline the 12mo. ed. of my poetry farther than the Queen’s Wake. I am sorry for it but as I expect no new approval on its account nor any great emolument let it drop. I am determined to have at least one uniform edition of all of mine that is worth preserving or none. It is needless for me to write to Mr. Murray for he declines answering any of my letters but I am informed by a London correspondent that he has uniformly set himself against the Pilgrims of the Sun—A man I see can never yield to give his judgement the lie—to the others he is represented as highly friendly I have had a great treat this morning in perusing L. Byron’s 3d Canto—Considered as a continuation of Child-Harold it has some incongruities and perhaps too much egotism still it is a powerful and energetic work and superior to every long poem of my noble friend’s—I have had only time to read two articles of the Review which I was in a great hurry to do because I knew the authors of

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both and was informed of their being in Giffords hand before they were put to press, but I hope all the other articles are better—There is a freind of mine engaged in writing reviews of Wilson’s poetical works and my own for the Quarterly at present say not a word about it. I have made sure that Wilson and you shall see his before it is sent to press—You see I know a little how the world wags even in this howling wildernes [sic] I have a good deal of schemes of farming planting fishing &c. in contemplation and if I can avoid it will not be in Edin. to tarry any time this season—I thank you for the £20. which Grieve sent me it came in good stead and is all spent every farthing I am as ready for more but I am afraid I am near run with you and dare not ask it—I wonder that asking you for money does not put you in a worse frame than it does—if you were as averse to paying as publishing devil take me if ever I would look you in the face again Yours very sincerely James Hogg [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq./ 17 Prince Street/ Edinr. [Postmark:] DEC B10M 1816 [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter 1816 dec 8/ James Hogg [Watermark:] [SHIELD] [Location:] NLS, MS 4001, fols 269–70. “which wants ease, and is written apparently in great haste” apparently a quotation from a recent letter from William Blackwood which has not survived. guerilla’s and Grey Cats ‘The Guerilla’ and ‘The Gude Greye Katt’ are both poems in Hogg’s collection of parodies, The Poetic Mirror. This had been published by John Ballantyne (with Longmans) in October 1816, and sold so well that a second edition was published before the end of the year—see Hogg’s letter to William Laidlaw of [early December 1816] and notes. Blackwood was no doubt vexed at not having been the publisher. John Ballantyne’s letter to Hogg of 10 October 1816 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 23–24) suggests that they hoped that his vexation over The Poetic Mirror would lead to better terms for future works: ‘Do nothing with Murray or Blackwood till the fate of the present publication [The Poetic Mirror] is known [...] the success of this work will bring Murray & Blackwood to your feet, & your terms will then be acceded to [...]’. I would have mentioned it Hogg’s ironic tone suggests that the conversation which follows represents an actual discussion with William Blackwood. rejected addresses thing James and Horace Smith’s Rejected Addresses had been published in 1812. The committee in charge of the opening of the new Drury Lane Theatre in London had opened a competition for a suitable address to be spoken on the occasion, and the Smiths composed a number of imaginary ones parodying wellknown contemporary poets. a work for the approaching spring Hogg’s Dramatic Tales was published anonymously in two vols in Edinburgh, advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edin-

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burgh Evening Courant of 24 May 1817. The title-page attributed the work to ‘the author of “The Poetic Mirror”’ and, like The Poetic Mirror, it was published by the Longmans firm in London and John Ballantyne in Edinburgh. Blackwood wrote to Murray on 19 February 1817 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 3) that ‘Hogg is going to publish what he calls Dramatic Tales in 2 vols. He never said one word to me on the subject, nor did I know of it, till I saw it advertised in Monday’s Courant by Johnny Ballantyne. I don’t think they will be first rate, so that I am perhaps as well quit of them’. He subsequently reported in a letter of 19 May 1817, ‘He [Hogg] had made some engagement with John Ballantyne at the time the Poetic Mirror was published’ ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 3). Prince-Street Blackwood had recently moved his business from the South Bridge to a more prestigious establishment at 17 Princes Street in Edinburgh’s Georgian New Town. The move seems to have been originally projected for the end of May 1816 according to Blackwood’s letter to Murray of 27 April, but was clearly delayed. In his letter to Murray of 6 and 7 June 1816 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 2), Blackwood describes the remodelling of his new shop as not quite finished, but states proudly ‘I will have more elegant premises than almost any one in Edinburgh’. the 12mo. ed. of my poetry mentioned in Hogg’s letters to Byron of 26 February [1816] and to Murray of 1 March 1816. against the Pilgrims of the Sun Murray thought so badly of this poem that he had withdrawn his name as its publisher at the start of 1815—see Hogg’s letter to Murray of 26 December 1814 and notes. L. Byron’s 3d Canto the third canto of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage was advertised as ‘Just arrived’ in Edinburgh in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 21 November 1816. the Review the Quarterly Review, which was edited by William Gifford (1756–1826) and for which Blackwood was Murray’s Edinburgh agent. Issue no. 30 for July 1816, which included a review of Hogg’s The Poetic Mirror, had arrived in Edinburgh on 23 November 1816—see Hogg’s letter to William Laidlaw of [early December 1816] and notes. Wilson’s poetical works and my own perhaps the article on Hogg’s poetry referred to in his letter to Blackwood of 4 January 1817. No such article appeared in the Quarterly Review during 1817. thank you for the £20. Hogg had requested a similar sum in his letter to Blackwood of [ June 1816]. The money may represent part of the author’s profits from Mador of the Moor.

To Ebenezer Clarkson

17 December [1816?] Eltraive Lake Decr. 17th

My dear Sir I wrote to Edin. for the only copy, extant by itself, of my “Tale of Waterloo” and though I recieved word that it was forwarded along with a number of other books the parcel has some way miscarried. I send you Mr. Davidson’s work which you will find highly respectable both as to the poetry and the notes. I see it has been a

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present, but as it is not from the author, but only the publisher, Mr Murray of London I do not value it—tear out the blank leaf, and add it to your curious collection I had made up my mind to pay you a week’s visit at this time but I have got an ugly boil on my cheek which unfits me for appearing in society, I am likewise very busy this winter, having undertaken at least three times more than I can perform I remain Dear Clarkson Yours very truly James Hogg P. S. Tibby has been raving for these eight days about one Mr Clarkson, and powders, and laudenum, and tooth drawing &c and will I believe make a pilgrimage to him Tho’ storms and tempests intervene, And wreaths and mountains rise between. [Addressed:] Dr. Clarkson/ Selkirk [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—JH:] with a book [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD [Location:] Owned by Elizabeth McOwat. Ebenezer Clarkson Ebenezer Clarkson (1759–1844) was a surgeon, and Bailie and Provost of Selkirk. Hogg’s letter to William Laidlaw of [February 1801] shows that Clarkson was an early literary adviser. “Tale of Waterloo” probably a reference to Hogg’s poem, ‘The Field of Waterloo’. This was written in November 1815, and sent to William Blackwood for publication. Blackwood apparently suppressed the poem with the help of John Wilson—see Hogg’s letters to Scott of 16 and 24 November 1815 and notes. The first known publication is in The Poetical Works of James Hogg, 4 vols (Edinburgh, 1822), II, 281–323, but this letter suggests that a proof copy of a separate pamphlet may perhaps have been printed. Mr. Davidson’s work Henry Davidson, Waterloo. A Poem, with Notes was advertised in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 11 July 1816. Its London publisher John Murray regularly sent Hogg copies of books he published. three times more than I can perform for some idea of Hogg’s literary business see his letter to William Laidlaw of [December 1816] and notes. Tibby a shortened form of Isabella, perhaps the name of Hogg’s housekeeper at Altrive. Clarkson’s surgical practice would presumably also include dentistry. Tho’ storms [...] rise betweeen this quotation has not been identified.

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FOR 1817 To William Blackwood

4 January 1817 Eltrieve Lake Janr 4th 1817

Dear sir I have this day recieved a letter from a gentleman who chuses to be anonymous saying that he has just concluded the article for the Quarterly Review on my poetical works and character and offering me a perusal. This I have positively declined but I have desired him to forward it to Mr. Gray or Mr. Grieve for your perusal—I know but little about the writer but he is said to be a man of great learning and a highly polished mind and of course we may expect that the article in question will be a good one if you find it so I need not ask your best interest for its insertion for I am sure of it—He says the title of the article is simply Mador of the Moor I have answered that I think it would be better to call it The poetical works of James Hogg and haply to enumerate them by their several titles but of this you will be the best judge after reading it and I have referred him to you— You will be so good as to forward it? My “Cottage Winter Nights” is ready for the [eol] the press if you are for them tell me—the conditions of course shall be of your own making for the first Edition—but as I want money very particularly I will give you the Copyright for £63-7 per vol. of 300 pages. The work consists of “The Rural and Traditionary Tales of Scotland” They are simple carelessly and badly written but said to be very interesting The Bridal of Polmood which you read is the longest tale, not the best, but a fair specimen I tell you the honest truth which you may depend on, but to prevent you from plaging me with alterations you shall not see them till printed—Write me minutely about all these things—It is a great pity but that my poetry had been published in three small neat vols before this Review had appeared— What the devil can be the risk in publishing 100 copies of the first vol. and 500 of each of the other two Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq./ 17 Prince-Street / Edinr. [Postmark:] JAN B6M 1817

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[Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ 4th January 1817/ James Hogg [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1815 [Location:] NLS, MS 4002, fols 153–54. [Printed:] Oliphant, I, 323 [in part]; Strout, pp. 127–28 [in part]. the article for the Quarterly Review see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 8 December 1816. It seems to have been transmitted to Murray by Scott—see his undated letter to Murray in Scott, Letters, IV, 544. No review of Mador of the Moor appeared in the Quarterly Review. “Cottage Winter Nights” Hogg’s projected collection of tales dates back at least to April 1813, and probably comprised those works subsequently published as The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales (1818) and Winter Evening Tales (1820)—see Winter Evening Tales, ed. by Ian Duncan (S/SC, 2002), pp. xiv–xvii. Hogg had written to the Duke of Buccleuch asking permission to dedicate this collection to Lady Anne Scott, the Duke’s eldest daughter, since the Duke’s reply of 20 December 1816 (in NLS, MS 2245, fols 25–26) says, ‘Lady Ann will be proud of the honour you intend her provided there is nothing profane or irreligious in the Tales’. The Bridal of Polmood see Winter Evening Tales, ed. by Ian Duncan (S/SC, 2002), pp. 259–357. In his Memoir (p. 46) Hogg mentions that Blackwood had read this tale at the same time as The Brownie of Bodsbeck: ‘I mentioned to Mr. Blackwood that I had two tales I wished to publish, and at his request I gave him a reading of the manuscript. One of them was “The Brownie,” which, I believe, was not quite finished. He approved of it, but with “The Bridal of Polmood” he would have nothing to do’. my poetry see Hogg’s letter to Murray of 1 March 1816. At that time the first volume was to contain The Queen’s Wake.

To Charles, Duke of Buccleuch

28 January 1817 5 Teviot Row Janr. 28th 1817

My Lord I was applied to yesterday by two gentlemen of the law to speak to you in behalf of my friend the Revd. Angus Barton who is desirous of being appointed by you to be helper and successor to the present incumbent in the parish of Westerkirk. I said I would never take it on me to do such a thing but I should tell your Grace what I knew about him should any respectable application be made in his behalf—I have been intimately acquainted with Barton since ever I came to Edinr. and believe him to be a candid honest fellow and a good moral character—he is besides a genteel goodly borderer and farther I know not but he is reported to be a great scholar an able divine and acceptable to the parish and certainly should none better reccommended apply the appointment would be most feasible—I asked if he was not acquainted with any respectable nobleman of your acquaintance and was answered with none save Sir T. Kilpatrick

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who was ready to give full testimony in his favour but only if applied unto I remain My Lord Your most obedt James Hogg [Addressed:] His Grace The Duke of/ Buccleuch/ Dalkeith House [Postmark:] JAN B29A 1817 [Endorsed—not JH:] Edinr. 28 Jany 1817/ Mr Hogg [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1809 [Location:] National Archives of Scotland, GD 224/33/2/2. Charles, Duke of Buccleuch Charles William Henry Scott, 4th Duke of Buccleuch (1772–1819) was on terms of close friendship with Walter Scott, who had presumably introduced Hogg to him and induced him to take an interest in Hogg’s fortunes and in his writing. He had married Harriet Townshend, the daughter of Viscount Sydney in 1795, and succeeded to the title in January1812–see Corson, p. 389. On 26 January 1815 the Duke wrote to offer Hogg the farm of Altrive Lake in Yarrow effectively rent-free for his lifetime (NLS, MS 2245, fols 13–14), partly as a tribute to his deceased wife whom Hogg had valued and whose early death he had commemorated—see Gillian Hughes, ‘Hogg’s Poetic Responses to the Unexpected Death of his Patron’, SHW, 12 (2001), 80–89. During Hogg’s early years at Altrive he was a guest at the Duke’s house at Bowhill and dedicated The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales (1818) to the Duke’s eldest daughter. The Duke’s untimely death in 1819 therefore deprived Hogg of a kindly neighbour and patron. His son and heir, Walter Francis Montagu Scott, born in November 1806, was a mere schoolboy and being educated in England. 5 Teviot Row R. P. Gillies states that after his move to Altrive Hogg spent long periods in Edinburgh ‘as a resident in the house of his very sincere friend, John Grieve, of Teviot-row, George-square’—see Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, 3 vols (London, 1851), II, 241–42. Revd. Angus Barton Angus Barton was born in Morton parish, Dumfriesshire, in 1787, and was assistant librarian at the University of Edinburgh. He was presented to the parish of Castleton, Ettiltoun, Wheelkirk and Belkirk in the presbytery of Langholm by the Duke of Buccleuch and his curators in September 1822. He died unmarried in 1861—see Scott’s Fasti, II, 232. Westerkirk in 1817 the incumbent of Westerkirk, also in the presbytery of Langholm, was William Little, who had become minister in 1779. James Green was ordained as his assistant and successor on 2 June 1820, and Mr Little died on 13 November 1820—see Scott’s Fasti, II, 240. acceptable to the parish although the chief landowner had the right to appoint the minister to the parish, he was expected to choose someone acceptable to the congregation. The long-standing dispute in the Church of Scotland as to whether the congregation or the patron of a parish should select its minister led eventually to the Disruption of 1843. Sir T. Kilpatrick Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, 5th Baronet, of Closeburn, Dumfriesshire (1777–1844). He was admitted an advocate in 1798 and in 1804 married his

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cousin Jane, the daughter of Charles Sharpe of Hoddam. He had been appointed Sheriff of Dumfriesshire in 1811—see [P. G. Kirkpatrick], Kirkpatrick of Closeburn (London, 1858), pp. 65–67. Hogg gives the name Kirkpatrick as ‘Kilpatrick’ elsewhere—see the address of his letter to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe of 24 November 1818 and also The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, ed. by P. D. Garside (S/SC, 2001), pp. 27, 221.

Hogg to Walter Scott

[6 March 1817]

Dear Scott I never knew you were so dear to me till last night when I saw your seat taken by another—That circumstance engendered ideas that were unbrookable. I fear you were very ill last night that it was found necessary to let blood—You could not be the worse of that but I have a perfect horror at Laudenum and such things as I know they would administer I write this merely to inform you that at several periods of my life after an overstretch in running I was grieveously plagued with spasms in my limbs An old plowman said to me that if I would hold a little gun-powder in the hollow of my loof till it heated it would take out the cramp from any part of that side, from the crown of my head to my feet—I have tried the experiment fifty times which never failed in one instance while the very idea that I had a certain cure at hand seemed to have the effect of preventing the return of the spasm—I should think that a little gun-powder or sulphur pressed to the pit of your stomach till it heated, might have the same beneficial effect at any rate it can do no harm for the cure is almost instantaneous. Yours ever most affectionately James Hogg [Address:] none [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 869, fols 189–90. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 39–40. date Hogg refers to ‘last night’, and on 5 March 1817 he had attended a dinner at Scott’s house in Castle Street at which Scott had been seized with an excruciatingly painful attack of stomach cramp and had to retire from the table. Hogg had left the house in company with James Ballantyne, and had threatened to knock Ballantyne down in the street when he expressed his fears that Scott’s illness was serious—see Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), I, 565. let blood Hogg’s early knowledge that the doctor who had been called to Scott had let

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blood suggests that he had called or sent to enquire after Scott’s health between leaving the dinner and writing this note. Laudenum in the nineteenth century opium and its derivatives were the most effective painkillers. the cure Scott’s letter to the Duke of Buccleuch of 15 April [1819] gives an account of the symptoms of his stomach cramp and of the many remedies sent to him by friends—see Scott, Letters, V, 348–49.

To [Alexander Bald]

21 April 1817

Edin April 21 1817 My dear Sir As it is likely I will not see you before Wedensday afternoon I inclose you a few pages I have written in a great hurry this day thinking it would be necessary for you to read them over at your leisure in order to give them the full effect when read in public. You will observe that they are not designed to follow the toast “To the Memory of Shakespeare” but after your health is given as President of the club which will not likely be for some time afterward. I have nothing more to inform you of, only that I intend to be with you at five on Wedensday and earlier if I can make it—I intend coming to Falkirk by the coach and walking it to the ferry, I suppose the coach leaves this about nine, but I will make inquiry to day Yours most affectionately James Hogg [Address:] none [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg/ April 1817 [Watermark:] 1813 [and] [PART OF SHIELD] [Location:] NLS, Acc. 9953. Wedensday afternoon Hogg was proposing to be in Alloa for the anniversary dinner of the Shakespeare Club of Alloa, held on 23 April, the poet’s birthday. An acount of the Club states that the 1817 celebrations lasted ‘eight days complete; and [...] (saving on the 23d, the anniversary of their patron’s birth) during all that time every man of them went sober to his bed’—see ‘Shakspeare Club of Alloa’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 1 (May 1817), 152–54. after your health is given as President the article ‘Shakspeare Club of Alloa’ includes a poem ‘somewhat in the style of the Poet Laureate’ [Robert Southey], beginning ‘Brethren, know you the import of this meeting?’, describing it as ‘the sole copy of a poetical address delivered by the President, on his health being drank’—see Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 1 (May 1817), 152–54. It seems probable that both the poem and article are by Hogg himself.

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the coach the Edinburgh P. O. directory for 1817–18 lists only the Lord Nelson coach for Falkirk. This left Edinburgh daily from 2 Princes Street ‘at 5 afternoon’.

To Walter Cunningham

24 May 1817 Edinr May 24 1817

Dear Walter Knowing that you will need money just now I inclose you a note of £5. I meant to have sent double that sum but am sorry to find that it is at present out of my power—I will however endeavour to pay you other £11 and then I will fight you fairly out before I give you any more. Be sure I will send you this assoon as I can. I am very vexed that James is going away he will not leave a finer fellow behind him I am dear Sir Yours very truly James Hogg [Addressed:] none [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ Mr James Hogg/ to/ Walter Cunninghame, 24 May 1817 [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1809 [Location:] National Archives of Scotland, SC63/10/29. [Printed:] John Chisholm, Sir Walter Scott as a Judge (Edinburgh, 1918), pp. 213–14. a note of £5. part-payment of a farming debt dating back to 1808—see Hogg’s previous letters to Cunningham of 18 July, 17 November, and 18 November 1807, and 5 and 18 February 1814. other £11 Hogg acknowledged a debt of £21, and had previously paid Cunningham £5 on 6 July 1816, so that the £5 mentioned here would reduce his debt to £11. Cunningham, however, claimed that on 24 May 1817 there was not £11 outstanding but a sum of £25-17-6—see John Chisholm, Sir Walter Scott as a Judge (Edinburgh, 1918), pp. 207, 205. James has not been identified.

To William Blackwood

12 August 1817 Altrive Lake August 12th 1817

My dear sir My hay harvest is but just commenced and is this year large in proportion to the hands I have to work it—Next month the Highland cattle come so that I cannot get to Edinr. at present without incurring a loss for which my literary labours if they are as usual would but ill

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remunerate me. I am greatly concerned about your Magazine but I have some dependence on your spirit not to let it drop or relax till your literary friends gather again about you. Wilsons papers, though not perfect, have a masterly cast about them; a little custom would make him the best periodical writer of the age keep hold of him. I regret much that you have told me so little of your plan; if the name is to change who is to be Editor &c. For myself I am doing nothing save working at hay fishing &c save two or three Hebrew Melodies I have not written a page since I left Edinr I have no news, but unless in a case of absolute necessity I cannot leave the country just now. Crafty always affirms that of all classes ever he had to do with the literary men are the worst and most ungrateful I am very sorry to see this so often verified Yours ever very affectionately James Hogg [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq./ 17 Prince Street/ Edinr. [Postmark:] AUG B14M 1817 [Endorsed—not JH:] 1817/ Jas Hogg/ 12th. Aug [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1815 [Location:] NLS, MS 4002, fols 155–56. [Printed:] Oliphant, I, 324. the Highland cattle come black cattle were driven down from the Highlands to the great cattle markets, of which the main one was held in Falkirk. From there drovers conveyed them to their new owners in southern Scotland and England. Hogg’s father Robert worked for a time as a drover and one of the main drove roads passes across the hills near Blackhouse and down along St Mary’s Loch. concerned about your Magazine in April 1817 Blackwood published the first issue of the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, a new periodical intended to rival the Edinburgh Review. The editors, James Cleghorn and Thomas Pringle, soon fell into dispute with the publisher. Hogg’s Memoir (p. 44) states, ‘In the fourth month after the commencement of that work, I received a letter from Mr. Blackwood, soliciting my return to Edinburgh’, and that he did go according to request. Hogg acted as an intermediary between the parties, but in vain. Wilsons papers John Wilson subsequently became one of the leading contributors to the magazine, renamed Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in October 1817. if the name is to change Constable began a new series of the Scots Magazine entitled the Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany on 1 September 1817 (see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 28 August 1817) and soon afterwards Pringle and Cleghorn agreed to edit it for him. On 27 September Constable announced in the Edinburgh Evening Courant, ‘The Editors of the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, a work of which the discontinuance has just been announced, beg leave to intimate, that they have now undertaken to act as Editors of the Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany’, a new series of the Scots Magazine. Blackwood had advertised his new Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine on 20 September in the same newspaper. Both works signalled that they continued

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the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine by claiming to have the support of its former contributors. two or three Hebrew Melodies Hogg’s song collection, A Selection of German Hebrew Melodies was clearly inspired by Byron’s Hebrew Melodies of 1815. Hogg’s words were set to music by W. E. Heather, and published by C. Christmas. Charles Christmas had been a partner in the London music-publishing firm of Falkner & Christmas firstly at 9 and then at 36 Pall Mall between about 1811 and 1816, when the partnership was dissolved and both partners carried on business independently. Christmas moved from Pall Mall to 15 New Bond Street in about 1819—see Charles Humphries and William C. Smith, Music Publishing in the British Isles from the Beginning until the Middle of the Nineteenth Century, second edition (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1970), pp. 103, 144. The date of publication of this volume has not been firmly established, though in his Memoir (p. 51) Hogg states that he received the commission to write the songs in 1815. The cover of surviving copies describes the publisher as ‘Music Seller and Publisher to her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte of Saxe-Coburg’, and thus implies a publication date between the marriage of the daughter of the Prince Regent on 2 May 1816 and her death in childbirth on 5 November 1817. This and other letters imply that Hogg wrote at least some of the songs in the summer of 1817. Two of them, ‘The Rose of Sharon’ (‘A Hebrew Melody’) and ‘On Carmel’s Brow’, were also published in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 ( January 1818), 400 and 3 (April 1818), 90 respectively. Crafty the publisher Archibald Constable. The nickname clearly predates the description of him as ‘a man who was crafty in counsel’ in ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (October 1817), 89–96 (p. 90).

To Robert Surtees

14 August 1817 Eltrieve Lake August 14th 1817

My dear Sir I had a letter to day from my friend young Sherwood, your relative, containing a kind invitation to spend a week or two with you in England I fear the season is too far advanced for me to accept of it this year altho’ it is a thing that unknown to you I have had much at heart these many years, and once being called on business to Hexam accidentally, I determined to visit you, but had forgot your address and could not find out whether you were east or west or south from me, or where you abode at all. It so happened that you were the very first man in England that testified approbation of my rude genius after the publication of the Mountain Bard, which you did to Mr. Scott in very warm and friendly terms, following up your approval with something more than mere words; from that day to this I have been led to regard you as a friend which I was sure you were at heart though we were personally strangers, and though I may not be able to see you this season I will cherish the hope of accomplishing it ere long

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I am very fond of Ralph, he is such an enthusiast in all that is original and ingenuous. He is very fond of the company of literary men indeed rather too fond for he regards no other. I was once afraid that he might neglect his studies attending on them and their erratic motions, and Blore and I both agreed that it was necessary to give him some hints to that effect. He is however perfectly sober, never tasting spirits, and mild gentle and unassuming in his demeanour, he was of course introduced to all my select literary friends. I should like to meet him in his own country and among his own relations I thank you kindly for your continued attention to the interests of a poor stranger bard in the countenance you are lending to this new subscription edition of the Wake I have taken no hand in it my friends have set it on foot and are conducting it themselves if it turns out well I shall feel grateful to them and the public but should it not I do not care.—Pray may I request the honour of a line from Mainsforth if it were but acknowledging the reciept of this. I cannot even yet direct this but must send it to R. Sherwood to do it for me Believe me ever Dear sir most sincerely and affectionately Yours James Hogg [Addressed:] Robt Surtees Esq/ Of Mainsforth/ nr. Durham [Postmark:] AUG B25M 1817 [and] Addl. ½ [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1815 [Location:] NLS, MS 9309, fols 31–32. There is a typed transcript in NLS, MS 811, fols 5–6. [Printed:] George Taylor, A Memoir of Robert Surtees, Esq., ed. by James Raine, Surtees Society, 24 (Durham, 1852), p. 217; Strout, pp. 130–31 [in part]. Robert Surtees for information see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. young Sherwood Ralph Sherwood was clearly a young relative of Robert Surtees, studying at the University of Edinburgh in 1817, but there is no mention of him in George Taylor’s A Memoir of Robert Surtees, Esq., ed. by James Raine, Surtees Society, 24 (Durham, 1852). Hexham in Northumberland, 22 miles west of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. approbation of [...] the Mountain Bard see Hogg’s letter to Surtees of 18 March 1807 and notes. Blore probably the architect and artist Edward Blore (1787–1879), who had been introduced to Scott in 1816 and employed by him on designs for the house at Abbotsford. He also worked on the architectural drawings for Surtees’s History and Antiquities of Durham. Hogg refers to Blore in his story ‘The Witches of Traquair’—see The Shepherd’s Calendar, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 1995), pp. 223–41 (p. 240). this new subscription edition of the Wake Blackwood wrote of Hogg to Murray on

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28 May 1817 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 3), ‘He has laid aside for the present his intention of a pocket edition of the Queen’s Wake. We found it would make too thick a volume for the foolscap size, and that therefore it would be better to print another edition as formerly in Octavo which can be got ready for next winter. In the mean time Mr Scott and some of his friends, in order to raise a sum of money to make the poor Shepherd comfortable, have projected a 4to edition with a few plates to be published by subscription. [...] We have inserted your name, as we have no doubt of your doing every thing you can for the poor poet. The advertisement which is excellent is written by Mr Scott. I shall send you in a few days some of the Subscription Papers’. Scott’s manuscript prospectus (NLS, MS 30921) is endorsed ‘Saturday Morning/ 24 May 1817’, and was printed in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 26 May 1817. The subscription edition was to be a quarto volume costing two guineas, ‘ornamented with engravings from designs by Scottish artists’. For further details see the Appendix to The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004), pp. 394– 98.

To Sir Cuthbert Sharp

15 August 1817 Eltrieve Lake by Selkirk August 15th 1817

My dear and ever loved knight Sigillum Officii Majoris De Hartlepool I recieved both your kind and friendly letters in due course though long after the dates and cannot tell why I did not answer them sooner. I could not write a sonnet to please myself without gross flattery and to flatter any man alive is what I never could do and never will do. But did you really think my dear sir that I would celebrate your praises in Scottish verse for proving incontestibly that Robert the Bruce was an Englishman? it is such an affront as never was put on a Scotsman before: if I knew any way to contradict it, or any proof that the author and his book were wholly unworthy of credit I would adduce them without delay. The only fault that I found on reading over your curious disquisitions was in the derivation of the name. It is a very common and simple Saxon name; one half almost of the Border names are of the same formation. It is plainly neither more nor than [sic] Hart-hill-pool or the pool of the Hart hill. Thus we have a Hart-hill and adjoining to it Hartle-bank Hartle-haugh &c. and every hill, by the succession of the Anglo Saxon to the British language and the consequent mixture of the two has some cleuch burn holm pool or inferior object named by it as The Brock Hill Brockle-haugh Brockle-bank &c. You tried to cheat me into a discovery of my anonymous works by making me send them to your Bookseller which would have been a tacit acknowledgement and was indeed a trick so neat as to be well worthy of a Dutchman not to mention a simple careless English gentleman I however smelt a rat and said not a word about

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it neither good nor bad but now that the thing is partially discovered in Scotland tho’ not at all in England I think it is not fair that the best and most disinterested acquaintance that I have in our sister kingdom should not know. The works are “The Poetic Mirror Or Living Bards of Britain and Dramatic tales by the Author of &c.” There was a kind of indelicacy after the way that I had taken off some of my contemporaries in just publicly avowing it but I care not where my friends know and I will now weary very much to hear your sentiments of these works My friends have set on foot a splendid Edition of the Queen’s Wake for my behoof by subscription I think I gave the Duke of Buccleugh or Walter Scott your name among the small list of the friends whose interests I could depend on if so you would get one of the papers perhaps without any farther explanation as the thing explains itself I am living in perfect retirement here doing nothing but fishing sailing in St. Mary’s Lake working at Hay &c &c. I have written a few Hebrew Melodies this summer as you will see by the papers. I have nothing more in the world to inform you of my dear Sharpe that is worth your while but that I am as truly as ever Your affectionate Shepherd James Hogg [Addressed:] Honble Cuthbert Sharpe Knt./ Durham [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Hogg/ Ettrick/ Shepherd [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1815 [Location:] NLS, MS 1809, fols 77–78. Sir Cuthbert Sharp the antiquary Sir Cuthbert Sharp (1781–1849). He was Mayor when the Prince Regent visited Hartlepool in 1816, and knighted him. He also published The History of Hartlepool in 1816. Hogg’s letter was written in answer to Sharp’s letter of 31 May 1817 (NLS, MS 2245, fol. 27). Sigillum Officii Majoris De Hartlepool Hogg perhaps intends ‘by the sign of the office of Mayor of Hartlepool’. write a sonnet Sharp’s letter of 31 May 1817 says ‘this shall be merely to abuse you for not sending me a sonnet—is that fertile genius of yours shut up beyond the tweed— that it cannot stray so far as the banks of the Wear?’. proving [...] that Robert the Bruce was an Englishman there is an engraved plate of ‘Pedigrees of the Family of Brus’ between pages 14 and 15 of Sir Cuthbert Sharp’s A History of Hartlepool (Durham, 1816). This shows that Robert I of Scotland was descended from a Robert de Brus who came into England with William the Conqueror and became Lord of Skelton. my anonymous works Hogg’s volume of parodies, The Poetic Mirror was published in

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1816, and his two-volume Dramatic Tales in May 1817—see Hogg’s letter to John Aitken of 20 December 1817 and notes. John Ballantyne was the Edinburgh publisher of these works. Edition of the Queen’s Wake in his letter to Hogg Sharp said, ‘Seeing by chance an Edinbro’ paper with the account of the new edition of the Queens wake I have desired my bookseller here Mr Andrews to put down my name & this may bring to your recollection the drops o’ toddy we have drunk together—’, adding in the following paragraph ‘Send me a prospectus also & if I get no names twill not be from want of zeal & regard’ (NLS, MS 2245, fol. 27). For details of this advertisement see Hogg’s letter to Robert Surtees of 14 August 1817. a few Hebrew Melodies this summer see Hogg’s letter to William Blackwood of 12 August 1817 and notes. No newspaper account of the publication has been found to date.

To William Blackwood

24 September 1817 Eltrive Lake Septr 24th 1817

Dear Blackwood I recieved yours this morning with the Mag. and prospectus with either of which I have no fault to find. I am highly amused at this terrible trial of strength that is commencing between you and Constable and have a great mind to write something original on the occassion. I am convinced that both the miscellanies will turn out good, there is no excellence without emulation; and I likewise think that the reviews will in a great measure give way to this lighter and more general cast of literature. Which of you will best succeed is yet to be proven but it is the opinion of all my correspondents that the original part of C.’s will be nothing enriched by his editors and that yours will suffer slight loss by the change Crafty will have the advantage at first—He has a number of great guns about him which perhaps may be induced to fire off a shot at first but who will disdain to continue writing for a two shilling Magazine. Yours is more likely to gain ground by degrees provided you affix a price to the writers per sheet which every man may demand if he chuses. There is a charm in this to writers from the highest to the lowest the idea that their labours are not entirely thrown away. Another thing quite necessary is that every part should be literally and strictly anonymous provided the author wishes it a miscellaneous writer has no freedom with contemporaries without this and of this the printers should be fully apprized—and farther your correspondents should keep in view by the continuation of subjects and signatures to impress upon the country the fact that it is a continuation of the former work in reallity though you are not at liberty to avow it. You may be sure of my best

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efforts—If once I were beside you I will labour most incessantly and even now I must not forget you though I have little time and less convenience for study or writing here. My antipathy at doublecolumn priting [sic] is as strong as a bubbly-Jock’s at the colour of scarlet I will not support you there nevertheless to show the world that the redoubted Ettrick Shepherd is on your side I will inclose you in this one or two little poetical pieces of mine if I can light on any old thing worth publishing as well as verses by a respected friend which were sent to me for publication and which as my own right I send to you I have had a proof of a review of my dramas by Gillies—the analysis is good but the whole of the part that refers to me as the author I dislike but an author has no right to be either satisfied or dissatisfied with a review—it is kindly meant in honest G. and I think must be admitted. It was extremely shabby in my whole circle of literary friends Wilson Gray and several who could have given me a lift so well when the work was anonymous but I shall reccollect them in future they better [sic] to review underhand with a different intent. You never tell me a word how my subscription is coming on. Remember my dear Blackwood that it is my great stake at present, and I have much need of it; therefore do not neglect or overlook it The continuation of my pastoral anecdotes would scarcely do now as they are not in the published contents but they shall be continued by and by I have some other things also in view. I think I should not publish my grand editions without nearly a thousand subs-[eol] even though we should delay it for a while and though I should go to London to further it you may perhaps be so good as advance me some small sums in the interval—How would a short advertisement in two Edinr and two London papers do simply bearing that the subscriptions were soon to be closed and the names of those who intended patronizing the work wanted for publishing—Scott would still do it best were you to apply to him Wishing you that success which I think you well deserve I remain Yours truly James Hogg [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq./ 17 Prince Street/ Edinr. [Endorsed—JH:] With parcel [Endorsed—not JH:] James Hogg/ Sept. 24. 1819 [sic] [Watermark:] IVY MILL/ 1815 [Location:] NLS, MS 4002, fols 157–58. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 131–32.

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Mag. and prospectus the final issue of the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, for September 1817, was presumably accompanied by the prospectus for the first issue of the new Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, due to be published on 20 October. The prospectus may have been the one published in the Edinburgh Evening Courant and Caledonian Mercury of 20 September 1817. For details of the ‘trial of strength with Constable’ see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 12 August 1817 and notes. something original on the occassion see Hogg’s subsequent letter of 25 September, which clearly enclosed his original for ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’. Crafty a nickname for the rival publisher Archibald Constable. great guns as publisher of the Edinburgh Review Constable might be able to draw upon the talents of Francis Jeffrey and other contributors for his Edinburgh Magazine. a two shilling Magazine Constable’s Edinburgh Magazine was priced at two shillings, and Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine at two shillings and sixpence—see advertisements in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 28 August and 20 September 1817 respectively. affix a price to the writers per sheet William Blackwood, by paying his contributors a standard ten guineas per sheet of sixteen pages, revolutionised the monthly literary magazine, which then became an important outlet for professional writers rather than a miscellany of reprinted pieces and gratuitous amateur work—see Carol Polsgrove, ‘They Made it Pay: British Short-Fiction Writers, 1820–1840’, Studies in Short Fiction, 11 (1974), 417–21. a continuation of the former work the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine—see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 12 August 1817 and notes. As Blackwood’s letter to his London partners Baldwin, Cradock & Joy of 23 July 1817 (NLS, MS 30,001, fols 49–50) explains, his agreement with Pringle and Cleghorn included a provision that he should give three months’ notice to conclude the magazine and that ‘neither party can continue it under the same title’. a bubbly-Jock’s a turkey’s. any old thing worth publishing it is evident that Hogg had not yet realised the importance of the magazine as a profitable outlet for his poetry and tales. His ‘Elegy’ appeared in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (October 1817), 47, and presumably accompanied this letter. A four-page booklet in the Blackwood papers (NLS, MS 4805, fols 99–100) contains Hogg’s manuscript of the ‘Elegy’, and also of an ‘Extempore Song’, and his transcription of ‘To Mary’ by Southey. The ‘Elegy’ and the Southey poem had been published in The Spy previously—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 395–96, 220–21. verses by a respected friend possibly Southey’s poem ‘To Mary’, though Hogg may have thought of sending some of the verses still in his possession that had been sent to him for publication in his projected poetical repository. a review of my dramas by Gillies Gillies mentions writing for the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine edited by Pringle and Cleghorn ‘a review in favour of Hogg’s “Dramatic Tales,” just then published, and which, with all their faults, I thought and still think, a very marvellous demonstration of the Shepherd’s powers’—see Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, 3 vols (London, 1851), II, 231–32. Gillies describes his review as ‘forthwith printed’ (p. 231), and the ‘Notices to Correspondents’ on the verso of the contents page for the August 1817 issue lists a notice ‘of “Dramatic Tales, by the author of the Poetic Mirror,”’ as to appear in the next issue. However, it did not appear in the magazine.

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my subscription for a new edition of The Queen’s Wake—see the notes to Hogg’s letter to Robert Surtees of 14 August 1817. much need of it Hogg would need money for the building of his new house at Altrive, the old cottage being barely habitable. The new house was not completed, however, until the end of the following year—see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 26 December 1818. my pastoral anecdotes Hogg’s ‘Tales and Anecdotes of the Pastoral Life’ had appeared in the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, 1 (April, May, and June 1817), 22–25, 143– 47, 247–50. They were subsequently included in Winter Evening Tales of 1820—see Winter Evening Tales, ed. by Ian Duncan (S/SC, 2002), pp. 392–409, 579. the published contents Blackwood’s prospectus for the first issue of his relaunched magazine included a long list of articles to appear in it, but this did not include Hogg’s ‘Tales and Anecdotes of the Pastoral Life’—see Caledonian Mercury for 20 September 1817. go to London Hogg seems to have had a periodic desire to visit London, only realised towards the end of his life in 1832. a short advertisement no such advertisement has been discovered.

To William Blackwood

25 September 1817 Eltrieve Lake Septr 25th 1817

Dear Sir Please read over this beautiful allegory of mine with the editor of the Magazine and cause him to add a short history of its preservation in the archives of Rome or somewhere and by whom it came to be noticed and translated into our language I have been thinking of something to give the work a pastoral and agricultural turn. There is no fitter man of our acquaintance than Lai[TEAR] who is an universal theorist and versed in the [TEAR] science of tillage cropping &c. I think it would now be an easy thing to make the man whis [sic] crafty in counsel quake for his Farmer’s Mag. You should have apprized me of all this sooner that my articles might have been in the prospectus they would now appear like one born out of due season to continue the Eastern idiom which I am afraid I shall not easily get quit of again Write to me at a leisure hour. I am wearying terribly for the Quarterly review which I have not got nor No 5 of the Mag. Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq./ 17 Prince Street/ Edinr. [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1815 [Location:] NLS, MS 4807, fol. 1.

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this beautiful allegory of mine Hogg’s manuscript of ‘Translation of an ancient Chaldee Manuscript, supposed to have been written by Daniel ’ survives in NLS, MS 4807, fols 2–4. It was substantially revised and extended in Edinburgh and published as ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’ in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (October 1817), 89–96. history of its preservation the introductory paragraph of the published version located the manuscript ‘in the great Library of Paris Salle 2d, No 53, B. A. M. M.’ (p. 89). Lai[TEAR] William Laidlaw was employed to write the Chronicle portion of the magazine, partly to ensure Scott’s support for it—see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 5 January 1818 and notes. crafty in counsel Chapter 1 verse 36 of ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’ alludes to Archibald Constable as ‘the man who is crafty in counsel’ (p. 90), but the nickname of ‘Crafty’ predates this—see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 12 August 1817. Farmer’s Mag. Constable was the publisher of The Farmer’s Magazine; A Periodical Work, Exclusively Devoted to Agriculture and Rural Affairs, to which Hogg had previously contributed—see David Groves, ‘James Hogg and the Farmer’s Magazine ’, Newsletter of the James Hogg Society, no. 8 (May 1989), pp. 20–21. Blackwood did not set up his own Quarterly Journal of Agriculture until 1828. the Quarterly review issue no. 33 of the Quarterly Review, for April 1817, was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Caledonian Mercury of 15 September 1817. No 5 of the Mag. the issue of the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine for August 1817, advertised in the Edinburgh Evening Courant for 28 August.

To William Blackwood

19 October 1817 Eltrieve Lake Octr 19th 1817

My dear Sir How astonished was I yesterday when your last packet came to me and I had never heard of the first. I knew not what to do, but it is come to day and all is right I have received the £21 safe and sound a most seasonable supply for which a thousand thanks. I have laughed at least as heartily at the continuation of Daniel as you did at the original the conciet is excellent indeed I see that mine was quite an imperfect thing without some description of the forces on the other side—the third chapter however is very faulty—the characters are made too plain and the language of scripture compleatly departed from. I have remedied that in proof in a great measure but alas it is out of time!—As it is it will create great interest I am certain of its popularity as well as of its being blamed. Maggy Scott is likewise a good fancy it has no faults but one the name should not have been Dinmont else he should have spoken Scotish I have a dozen strangers in my house to night and write to you in the midst of a confusion I

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hope to be soon in town but yet I do not see how I can get away. I have not however been unmindful of you I have written a long essay “on the Smearing of Sheep as it affects the qualities of the wool and the flock.” My brother and I have read over together the Essay on Sheep their natural history &c which we so often talked about it is extremely curious and interesting and very original he has ordered me to sell it to the highest bidder for a Magazine Encyclopedia or any such thing but on the condition that the purchaser is to publish it in a small volume or pamphlet afterwards with notes and an appendix by me. I think Boyd and you might venture to give him £30 or at least 25£ for the copyright. I cannot write to Wilson to night but if I do not get away towards Edin immediately I will write soon I’ll wager I will write some reviews for the Magazine that shall astonish Jeffery himself. I would fain bespeak Rob. Roy if not engaged you have never yet given me a valuable or original work to review. By the by of all things connected with the Magazine I like that best of intermixing all things through other. A general miscellany should exactly be such an olio that when a man has done with a very interesting article he should just pop his nose upon another quite distinct but as good of its kind. One may then if they please begin with a review or a poem or any thing he pleases in short a reader should have no rule to go by but the table of contents. I like such bold and manly freedom how superior is that to Analytical notices and Antiquarian repertory forsooth. In truth I am very sanguine just now I would not be greatly surprised if [TEAR] the most popular periodical work in the kingdom I have great dependance on Wilson’s powers do not you see with what spirit the fellow writes whether it be to laud to blame or to mock the worst fault about him is that he lets his imagination run away with him if he leans to one side at all he leans too much he either praises or blames in the extreme. Brougham is the same way I dont like him I would take Jeffery for a model of all that I ever read he gives a cut now and then with such severity and at the same time with such perfect good nature but my pen has run away with me farewell for a few days God bless you and James Hogg [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq./ 17 Prince-Street/ Edin. [Postmark:] OCT B20M 1817 [Endorsed—not JH:] Mr Merrit/ Smith Esq/ Rev Mr Shepherd/ William Mc Keorch/ Hill house/ Kilmarnock [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1809 [Location:] NLS, MS 4807, fols 34–35.

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your last packet Blackwood’s letters to Hogg have not apparently survived, but the ‘last packet’ clearly included a copy of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine for October 1817, and galley-proofs of ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’ (Vol. 2, pp. 89–96). the £21 it is unclear what this payment represents, though Hogg had requested an advance of ‘some small sums’ in his letter to Blackwood of 24 September 1817. the continuation of Daniel Hogg records in his Memoir that when he had written his original version of ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’ and sent it to Blackwood, ‘some of the rascals to whom he showed it [...] interlarded it with a good deal of deevilry of their own, which I had never thought of [...]’ (p. 44). John Gibson Lockhart and John Wilson are most likely to have been responsible for this. the forces on the other side of the four chapters of the published ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’ the first two are mainly concerned with Blackwood and his struggle with Constable, while the last two describe Constable’s adherents. In his Memoir Hogg recollected that his own share of the article consisted of ‘the first two chapters, part of the third, and part of the last’ (p. 45). Chapter IV might well have offended Hogg for its attack on his friend James Gray in verse 18: ‘And in the second band was one which teacheth in the schools of the young men, and he was clad in a gray garment whereof one half his wife had weaved’. I have remedied that in proof a set of four galley-proofs marked with corrections and additions by Hogg survives in the British Library (C. 60. k. 4). As Hogg indicates these changes were made too late to influence the published article. Maggy Scott a reference to ‘Letter to the Lord High Constable, from Mr Dinmont’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (October 1817), 35–36, which is a satire on the demise of Constable’s old Scots Magazine. a long essay this was not published in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. Laidlaw subsquently remarked to Blackwood ‘that the high literary tone and character your Magazine had acquired, and which it was necessary to keep up, had got rather above agricultural subjects, and this appeared to me with greater force from knowing that Hogg’s spirited paper on a very interesting process in the management of sheep had been found inconsistent with it’ (see Oliphant, I, 154). A letter from Hogg to the Editor on sheep-smearing was subsequently published in the Dumfries and Galloway Courier of 21 September 1824. Essay on Sheep Hogg’s elder brother William had shared a premium given by the Highland Society of Scotland for his essay on the diseases of sheep in 1803—see Prize Essays and Transactions of the Highland Society of Scotland, 3 (1807), 339–535 (p. 341). ‘Appendix No. IV. On the Varieties of Sheep Pasture’ (on pp. 520–28) is also his work. No pamphlet publication of an essay on sheep by William Hogg has been located. Boyd and you George Boyd of the firm of Oliver & Boyd, which subsequently published Winter Evening Tales (1820) and the third edition of The Mountain Bard (1821). write some reviews few reviews by Hogg were published by Blackwood, one exception being ‘A Letter to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq. on his Original Mode of Editing Church History’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (December 1817), 305–09. Rob. Roy Scott’s Rob Roy was not published until 30 December 1817—see Todd & Bowden, p. 439. intermixing all things through other a traditional monthly magazine (such as the Scots Magazine) had an established running order of sections consistent from month to month.

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an olio a dish of mixed meats, vegetables, and spices, all stewed together. Brougham Henry Brougham (1778–1868), one of the originators of the Edinburgh Review and a prolific contributor to it. He eventually became Lord Chancellor. Jeffery Francis Jeffrey (1773–1850), the editor of the Edinburgh Review.

To William Blackwood

28 October [1817] Eltrieve Lake Octr. 28th

Dear Blackwood I cannot tell you how much I think of the Magazine it is so interesting and spirited throughout it is safe—But I have had an express from Edin. to day telling me of a dreadful irruption about a certain article and the imminent danger the author is in should he be discovered I care not much for the whole crew of them but as it is I think it as well to keep out of the way for a little until the indignation be a little overpast lest I should be inveigled in my drinking parties or by designing men to intimate more than I should do Meantime I will not be so idle as I have been. I have sent you herewith two long articles—the one on sheep I wish to be in the next for the sake of the season as it contains practical truths of which I wish my countrymen to avail themselves I have chosen a different signature lest they should despise a poet’s advice. Farewell God bless and prosper you James Hogg [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq./ 17 Prince Street/ Edin. [Postmark:] none [Endorsed–JH:] With a parcel [Watermark:] J ANSELL/ 1812 [Location:] NLS, MS 4807, fols 36–37. the Magazine the first issue of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine for October 1817 had just been published. In its early days the magazine was published on the 20th of the month in Edinburgh, and in London on the first day of the subsequent month—see the prospectus in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 20 September 1817. an express from Edin. the sender of this is unknown. a certain article a scandal had resulted from the publication of ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’ in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (October 1817), 89– 96. The issue sold out so quickly that a second edition was advertised in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 17 November 1817, and prosecutions were threatened by those who deemed themselves libelled in it. In his Memoir Hogg relates his astonishment at hearing the furore over the article in Edinburgh: ‘All that I expected was a little retaliation of the same kind in the opposing magazine; and when I received letter after letter, informing me what a dreadful flame it had raised in Edinburgh, I could not be brought to believe that it was not a joke’ (p. 45).

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two long articles for Hogg’s article on sheep see his letter to Blackwood of 19 October 1817 and notes. The other article has not been identified, but may be his anonymous ‘A Letter to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq. on his Original Mode of Editing Church History’, which appeared in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (December 1817), 305–09. Sharpe’s edition was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant for 7 July 1817.

To William Laidlaw

28 October [1817]

Eltrive Lake, Octr. 28 [1817] Dear Laidlaw For the love of God open not your mouth about the Chaldee M. S. All is combustion there have been meetings and proposals and an express has arrived from Edin to me this morning. Deny all knowledge else they say I am ruined if it can by any means be attached—Let all be silence—I see your hand in the Magazine. I am so concerned about any thing that may affect Grieve’s spirits for the health of such a man ought to be all his friends’ concern that against heart and conscience. I have strenuously applied to Scott this day to speak to his Grace about the matter. In the way that things stand just now the mentioning of it by Scott will be enough. Do not fail to remind him of it. I send this express to Selkirk to warn you and may probably see you about the end of the week. Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr. William Laidlaw/ Care of Walter Scott, Esq./ Abbotsford [Location:] Printed, Adam, p. 7. [Printed:] Strout, p. 137 [in part]. All is combustion for an account of the public reaction to ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (October 1817), 89– 96 see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 28 October [1817] and notes. your hand in the Magazine Laidlaw had been engaged by Blackwood to produce the Chronicle section that regularly concluded early issues of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine—see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 5 January 1818 and notes. Grieve’s spirits John Grieve was unwell, and Hogg had been advised that only part of his illness was due to physical causes—see his letter to Eliza Izett of 14 December 1817. speak to his Grace about the matter the reason for Grieve’s concern is unknown, but may perhaps be connected with the situation of his father, Rev. Walter Grieve (1747–1822), whom Scott invited to settle in a cottage on the Abbotsford estate—see Scott, Letters, V, 92 and Corson, p. 146. remind him Laidlaw was living at Kaeside on the Abbotsford estate, combining literary work with estate-management for Scott—see Scott’s letter to Laidlaw of 5

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April 1817, in Scott, Letters, IV, 427–28. the end of the week Hogg’s letter was written on a Tuesday.

To George Thomson

29 November [1817] Eltrieve Lake Nov 29 1811 [sic]

My dear Sir The devil’s in it if I did not send you a song for that tune nearly two years ago for I see I have the music by me in your hand and I think it was a good song too but if you have it not “Like the bubble on the fountain it is gone and for ever” A carrier from Selkirk put your letter into my hands this day and as I very seldom have an opportunity of communicating with the post at this season I have dashed a song down on the slate while he is engaged at his dinner which I will copy on the other page and send to you. It being so completely off-hand I have not the least guess whether it is good or bad but if it does not please I can easily make you another you may take any of the Chorus’s or all as you chuse or amalgamate them into one I have laughed immoderately at one part of yours You should take very good care my dear George how you mention such anonymous things in a Magazine and to whom. You could not possibly have been more unfortunate in your remarks. I have a great deal that I wished to say to you but I have neither time nor space God bless you Yours ever James Hogg The Highland watch Old Scotia wake thy mountain strain To echos wild and weirly, And welcome back the lads again Who fenced your honour dearly: Be every harp and viol strung, Till all the woodlands quaver; Of many a band your bards have sung But never hailed a braver! Then raise the peibroch Donald Bane With heart and hand we’ll join you To welcome back the lads again The pride of Caledonia

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Come maidens pitch as high your notes As virgin voice can carry; Sing of your brave your noble Scots Who fought and did not vary. Small is the remnant you will see; Lamented be the others! But such a stem, of such a tree, Take to your arms like brothers! Strike high the peibroch Donald Bane Till th’ elves of greenwood wonder; Make the chanter yell and the drone notes swell Till Music speaks in thunder! What storm can rend your mountain rock? What wave your headlands shiver? Long have they stood the tempest’s shock; Thou know’st they shall for ever: Sooner your eye these cliffs shall view Split by the wind and weather, Than foeman’s eye the bonnet blue Behind the nodding feather. O raise the peibroch Donald Bane, We’re all in key to cheer it; And let it be a martial strain, For warriors bold may hear it. Quoth the Great Wild Boar from the Forest of Lebanon [Addressed:] Geo. Thomson Esq./ Royal Exchange/ Edinr. [Postmark:] DEC B1M 1817 [Endorsed—not JH:] 29 Nov 1817/ Mr Hogg/ Eltrive Lake/ with a song for the/ Highland Watch/ “Old Scotia wake thy/ mountain strain.” [Watermark:] none [Location:] British Library, MS Add. 35,264, fols 320–21. [Printed:] J. Cuthbert Hadden, George Thomson, the Friend of Burns (London, 1898), p. 175 [in part]. nearly two years ago see Hogg’s letter to Thomson of 25 October 1815 and notes. Thomson had replied to this letter on 9 November 1815 (see British Library, MS Add. 35,267, fols 162r–163r), sending Hogg ‘a few Scottish Airs to be match’d with Songs suited to their characters’. These were specified as ‘the highland watch’, one with the refrain ‘Bonny Laddie Highland Laddie’, ‘Widow are you waking’, and ‘the haughs o’ Cromdale’. Thomson summarised a letter to Hogg of 23 November 1817 (British Library, MS Add. 35,268, fols 13v–14r) that accompanied another copy of the

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air ‘the Highland Watch’ as set by Beethoven with a request that Hogg should write ‘verses on any touching or striking soldierly theme’. He also states that the air itself is ‘frequently play’d by Gow’. “Like the bubble [...] for ever” a quotation from the ‘Coronach’ in Canto III of Scott’s The Lady of the Lake, second edition (Edinburgh, 1810): ‘Like the bubble on the fountain, | Thou art gone, and for ever!’ (p. 118). A carrier from Selkirk has not been identified. The Edinburgh P. O. directory for 1817–18 lists three carriers from Selkirk, J. Ballantine, J. Renwick, and J. Hynd, the first two stated to arrive in Edinburgh each Tuesday and leaving each Wednesday, and the third stated to arrive in Edinburgh twice a-week. anonymous things in a Magazine although there is no mention of it in Thomson’s record of his letter to Hogg of 23 November 1817 the letter as posted had presumably mentioned the uproar created in Edinburgh by the ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’ in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (October 1817), 89–96. Hogg mentions this semi-acknowledgement of his authorship of it in his Memoir: ‘I am not certain but that I confessed the matter to Mr. George Thomson, in the course of our correspondence, before I was aware of its importance’ (p. 45). Hogg’s letters of 28 October to Blackwood and Laidlaw, however, reveal his previous awareness of its importance. The Highland watch Hogg’s song was published in A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs, ed. by George Thomson, folio edition, volume V (Edinburgh, 1818), no. 205. welcome back the lads again for details of the reception given to the 42d regiment on their return to Edinburgh from Waterloo see Gillian Hughes, ‘James Hogg, and Edinburgh’s Triumph over Napoleon’, Scottish Studies Review, 4 no. 1 (Spring 2003), 98–111 (pp. 107–08). the Great Wild Boar/ from the Forest of Lebanon the description of Hogg in Chapter 2, verse 13 of ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (October 1817), 89–96 (p. 92).

To Eliza Izett

14 December 1817 Edin Decr 14 1817

My dear E. I recieved yours within these two minutes and you may be sure was as glad to hear from my loved correspondent and her rainy habitation as ever I have only been in Edin for a few days and hope only to remain a few days longer for I am shunning society and feel myself horrified at again entering into the dissipation of a town life and of course am meditating a sudden retreat from a society which I love again to bury myself among the mountains and wilds of Yarrow Grieve I am sorry to say it is not well nor looking well a kind of feebleness about his loins is still increasing and he can now walk but little not even to the shop by himself at present, which I hope is only

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a temporary ailment but so he has been ever since I came here You must by no means make mention of this not even to Mr. I. for we are charged by his phisicians and all his friends know that there is a nervish affection connected with it that the smallest alarm might affect so as to have consequences very disagreeable. He is not pained nor restless nor in low spirits and has no ailment that one can know of save sometimes a severe sciatica in the back yet he is as I have described. I am not certain whether the country air at this season would be bracing for him or not—I suspect greatly that it would not— He was two months in Ettrick and the south this year where you may be sure every attention was paid to him and yet no beneficial effect was produced. Yet I certainly should like to have him for a while under such tuition as yours but have very little hopes of its accomplishment. For God knows of all things in life the bodily state of this dear friend is nearest my heart, and yet I am compelled to take no notice of his ailment or only to speak of it in a slightful way Therefore my dear friend whatever you write to him or say of him to others let it be always as of one in perfect health but who has a hurt in his loin that enfeebles and harrasses him I have told him what you say and he only bids me send his kindest respects to you and add that he will write to Mr. I very soon that he should have done it long ago but it had been their throngest time and he had neglected it About myself I care not and I think there are but few who do. I have sometimes been scribbling since I saw you but very seldom having for the most part been employed in farming fishing sailing &c. My Cottage tales in prose will be published in the spring two or four volumes as my friends shall advise after they have seen the first two The Queen’s Wake will not I fear be published this year as the subscriptions have come in but very slow and the work is expensive. We do not yet know of many above 200 and would like to have about 1000 before putting to press I have for a good long time now been very much chagrined at the whole of your sex and think them most unnaccountable creatures void of right feeling or consideration. In speaking of them however I always in my own mind make you an exception you are so disinterested so kind and affectionate and withal so refined and pure that though I could take you in my arms it would be as a sister whom I had not for a long while seen. I have now no hopes ever to live beside you or under your eye and in spite of my teeth your image passes away from my remembrance. But when ever it rises there it

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is a vision in which I delight My old father is still well stout healthy and merry and still walketh to church 5 miles on fair Sundays though he is 90 again April. Walter Scott has again had a severe attack of the cramp in his stomach and is looking very ill He is truly a good as well as a great man Laidlaw is living in a good farm house on his property and has his house two cows and a pony all free of course he is better and happier under his protection than I daresay he has been for these many years hustling amid debt and confusion He was telling me the other day that he would pay him for assistance in literature and farming at least £150 a year I saw our friends in Adam square last night they are well and hearty as ever also Mr. & Mrs Gray I think I have no more news to tell you but must conclude this long letter by assuring you that I am ever my dear E Yours most affectionately James Hogg [Addressed:] Mrs. Izet/ Kinnaird/ Dunkeld [Postmark:] DEC B15M 1817 [and] Addl. ½ [Watermark:] RADWAY 1808 [and] [CROWN OVER A CIRCULAR SHIELD CONTAINING BRITANNIA] [Location] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: James Hogg Collection GEN MSS 61, Box 1, Folder 38. yours none of Eliza Izett’s letters to Hogg appear to have survived. Grieve [...] is not well Chalmers Izett was formerly in partnership with Hogg’s friend John Grieve in the hatter’s business on the North Bridge in Edinburgh. Grieve’s illness is probably also alluded to in Hogg’s letter to John Aitken of 4 March [1818]. Rogers (III, 45) says that due to his ‘disorder in the spine, Mr Grieve became incapacitated for business in his thirty-seventh year’. Grieve was born in 1781. such tuition as yours Mrs Izett had presumably asked after Grieve’s health in her letter, and invited him to stay at her Perthshire home of Kinnaird House if a country holiday might benefit him. My Cottage tales in prose see Hogg’s letter to William Blackwood of 4 January 1817 and notes for details of this collection, which probably comprised both The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales (1818) and Winter Evening Tales collected among the Cottagers in the South of Scotland (1820), each of these consisting of two volumes. See also Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 20 December 1817 and notes. The Queen’s Wake for information on the proposed illustrated two-guinea subscription edition see The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004), pp. lxvi–lxxv. My old father Robert Hogg was now living with Hogg at Altrive. His birth on 16 May 1729 (and baptism on 28 May) are recorded in the Selkirk OPR. The Hoggs attended Yarrow church. cramp in his stomach Scott had suffered from cramps in the stomach due to gallstones since the winter of 1816, and endured agonizing attacks in February and

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March 1817, one of which Hogg had witnessed—see his letter to Scott of [6 March 1817] and notes. Scott looked so ill in the course of this year that many of his friends thought he could not live much longer—see Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), I, 560, 564–66, 572, and 587–88. Laidlaw Scott’s letter to Laidlaw of 5 April 1817 had invited him to live at the farm of Kaeside on his Abbotsford estate from Whitsunday—see Scott, Letters, IV, 427–28. our friends in Adam square these friends have not been identified, but are mentioned in similar terms in Hogg’s letter to Eliza Izett of 26 October 1814. Mr. & Mrs Gray Hogg’s friend and future brother-in-law James Gray and his second wife, the former Mary Peacock.

To John Aitken

20 December 1817 Edin. Decr 20th 1817

My dear Aitken I am vexed to see your mind so much ruffled and discomposed and that too about a thing which I regard as of no consequence. If you really imagine that the world regards you with less respect on that account or that either sex will undervalue you for such a circumstance you will ere long find yourself agreeably mistaken. The disrespect believe me is all in your own bosom and I certainly esteem you the more for such a feeling as it bespeaks a heart uncorrupted. I have myself stood with a red face on the Stool of Repentance where I perhaps got the highest compliment paid to me ever I got in my life as the minister began by saying “he was sorry he had that day to rebuke a man who was more fit to be his teacher &c &c” I have two very lovely daughters who bear my name the one 11 the other 8 years of age the one I am sure is my own the other may be mine for any thing that I know to the contrary. The mothers are both married long ago to men much more respectable in life than ever I was the one of them to my own Cousin-German and even with their nearest relations I have never been for a day out of favour. The aunt of one of the young ladies ventured in full assembly of friends to propose marriage to me with her lovely niece. I said I was sure she advised me well but really I could not get time. She said I had had plenty of time since Candlesmass. “O yes said I that’s very true but then the weather was so wet I could not get through the water” at which they all burst out a laughing, the girl herself among the rest and there was no more of the matter nor was there ever a frown on either side. If you now saw my Keatie at church with her hat and feather and green pelice you would think it the best turn ever I did in my life. I have a great mind that you shall have her for your wife as I am sure she will never find a kinder heart

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I write you this droll letter to divert you a little and make you think of such things as a man should for every one of us must have a little share in the rubs of life. I thought of popping in on you some night next week from the coach but have resolved on going home for a month or two The Poetic Mirror and The Dramatic Tales are both mine save one poem in the former I do not like to acknowledge them publickly after taking off my brother bards but I care not where my friends know of it. The latter has not yet had such success as I flattered myself they would the former has done very well I find I cannot lay my hands upon the Magazine to day and I have not the Elegy by heart but I will enclose you a short thing which I think will suit your misanthropic ideas just now extremely well I have asked Wilson for you and he has promised to give it me instantly I am dear Aiken Yours truly James Hogg [Addressed] Mr. John Aiken/ Bank Office/ Dunbar [Postmark:] DEC B20A 1817 [and] Addl. ½ [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1816 [Location:] NLS, Acc. 8879. John Aitken for information on John Aitken see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. on that account Aitken had presumably fathered an illegitimate child, though no details are known. The Dunbar kirk session papers for this period do not appear to have survived. the Stool of Repentance public penance had to be undertaken for fornication in the Church of Scotland at this time before the guilty party could again receive communion. Hogg had acknowledged paternity of a child expected by Catherine Henderson to the minister and kirk session of Closeburn parish by letter in June 1807—see Gillian Hughes, ‘James Hogg and the “Bastard Brood”’, SHW, 11 (2000), 56–68. the minister in June 1807 Hogg was living at Corfardin farm in Tynron parish, Dumfriesshire, and probably underwent his penance in Tynron church. The minister of Tynron from 1780 until his death in September 1827 at the age of seventy-two was James Wilson—see Scott’s Fasti, II, 328. two very lovely daughters Catherine Hogg (‘Keatie’), the daughter of Hogg and Catherine Henderson was probably born in late July or early August 1807. Elizabeth Hogg (‘Betsy’), the daughter of Hogg and Margaret Beattie was born on 13 March 1810—see Gillian Hughes, ‘James Hogg and the “Bastard Brood”’, SHW, 11 (2000), 56–68 (pp. 58, 60). one of them to my own cousin-German Catherine Henderson was married to

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David Laidlaw, the son of Hogg’s maternal uncle William Laidlaw, on 18 July 1812 (Ettrick OPR). Nothing is known of Margaret Beattie’s marriage. Candlesmass Candlemas Day is 2 February, one of the Scottish Quarter Days. Catherine Henderson would be about three months pregnant by Candlemas Day 1807, and the implication is that this is when Hogg learned about it. my Keatie at church Hogg would clearly see his natural daughter from time to time, as she was probably living with her mother in the family of Hogg’s own cousin in the next parish. from the coach the Edinburgh P. O. directory records that the London mail, which called at Dunbar, left Edinburgh daily at 3. 30 p. m. There was also a Haddington and Dunbar stage-coach which left from Bell’s coach office at 177 High Street at 3 p. m. each day. It is not known whether or not Hogg was in Dunbar in 1817. In his letter to David Laing of 10 April 1819 Aitken reports on a recent visit from Hogg—see Edinburgh University Library, MS La. IV. 17, fols 123–24. On that occasion Hogg was presented with the freedom of the town. The Poetic Mirror Hogg’s collection of parodies was published in October 1816 and a second edition brought out in December 1816—see Hogg’s letter to William Laidlaw of [early December 1816] and notes. Hogg stated, ‘The second poem in the volume, namely, the Epistle to R— S—, the most beautiful and ingenious piece in the work, is not mine. It was written by Mr. Thomas Pringle, and was not meant as an imitation of Mr. Scott’s manner at all’—see Memoir, pp. 41, 237, 238. Dramatic Tales Hogg’s two-volume Dramatic Tales were advertised as ‘This day is published’ by John Ballantyne in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 24 May 1817. At first Blackwood perhaps regretted that he was not the publisher (see his letter to Murray of 19 February 1817 in the John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 3), but subsequently wrote to Murray on 28 May 1817, ‘I am much better pleased we did not publish the Dramatic Tales, as I fear they will not do much either for Author or Publishers. They contain many beautiful passages, but are much deficient both in plan and execution’ ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 3). Longmans wrote to Hogg on 9 April 1821, almost four years after publication, to inform him of their intention of including the remaining copies of the edition in a trade sale (University of Reading: Longman Archives, part 1, item 101, Letter-Book 1820–25, fol. 118), and Hogg declared that the ‘small degree of interest that these dramas excited in the world finished my dramatic and poetical career’ (Memoir, p. 42). the Elegy Hogg’s ‘Elegy’ had appeared in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (October 1817), 47. The poem refers to the death of a natural child, as Hogg later recorded in Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd (Edinburgh, 1831), p. 202: ‘An elegiac song on the death of a natural child, of the most consummate beauty and elegance. It was first published in THE SPY, but some of the original stanzas are omitted, as too particular’. See also The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 395–96. Hogg may have given Aitken a manuscript of this poem subsequently, but the version published in Aitken’s anthology, The Cabinet; or, The Selected Beauties of Literature (Edinburgh, 1824), pp. 196–97 appears to derive from Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. a short thing this poem has not been identified, though the reference to John Wilsom may indicate it had been submitted for publication in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine.

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John Clarke Whitfeld see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. yours of the 2d Whitfeld’s letter has not apparently survived, but must have invited Hogg to contribute to Twelve Vocal Pieces, Most of them with Original Poetry, Written expressly for this work by Mrs Joanna Baillie, Jas. Hogg, the Scots Shepherd, Walter Scott Esqr., John Stewart, Esqr., William Smyth Esqr., Lord Byron, 2 vols (London, [1816]). Hogg’s ‘The Lark’ is no. V in the first volume (pp. 8, 41–44) and ‘Naething to Fear Ye’ is no. III in the second volume (pp. 5, 28–33). See also Hogg’s letter to Whitfeld of 8 April [1816]. old border airs and chaunts Hogg also refers to this collection of tunes in his letter to George Thomson of 25 October 1815, which also mentions ‘The Broom of Cowdenknows’. Hogg seems to have given his collection to Alexander Campbell for Albyn’s Anthology, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1816–18)—see his letter to Whitfeld of 8 April [1816].

To Lord Byron

26 February [1816] Grieve & Scott’s Edinr. Febr. 26

My Lord After an absence of 9 months in Yarrow I returned here the night before last when for the first time I found a copy of your two last poems kindly sent to me by Murray, the perusal of which have so much renewed my love and admiration of you as a poet that I can no longer resist the inclination of once more writing to you Among the last times that I wrote you I bade you not think of answering me at all times for that I sometimes wrote very often and at other times not at all just as it came in my head. You have at this time complyed with my request to the utmost of my wishes and I thank you, but at the same time I must inform you that I rue my injunctions and long very much to hear from you again.—The truth is that I believe your Lordship is very angry at something that I have done or written I remember of using much freedom with you but not the least what it was about. I never keep a copy of any letter nor ever read one over after it is written for fear of being obliged to expunge, but I am sure that either these letters themselves or the distinct remembrance of them may show that I am an uncultivated fellow and know nothing of the world but to a certainty will never manifest a design to give offence. And besides tho’ you are angry and have very good reasons for it, there is no occassion of remaining always so. It is great nonsense for two people that must always be friends at heart from the very nature of things—from their conginiality of feelings and pursuits pretending to be otherwise. For me I have just one principle on which I invariably act, unless I love and approve of a man I hold no intimacy or communication with him, but I always take a poet as he is. I am highly dilighted with your

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To William Blackwood

20 December 1817 Teviot Row Decr. 20th 1817

Dear sir My proposal was that when my Cottage tales were printed off and you able to judge of them that you should then be at liberty to give me either one hundred Guineas per vol. for the copy-right or a moiety of the profits of the edition which ever you chose. Though the former would perhaps be more desirable in my present circumstances yet I am willing to accept either of these and put the work into your hands for putting to press this day or Monday I will see you before dinner but send me a writing desk with the bearer for I have need of a lock and key now which will perhaps in my life time never require to be used Yours as ever James Hogg [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq./ 17 Princes Street [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Blackwoods Magazine/ Letter/ 20th December 1817/ James Hogg [and] Scott Hogg/ Laidlaw &c [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1816 [Location:] NLS, MS 4002, fols 159–60. [Printed:] Strout, p. 145 [in part]. Teviot Row see the note to Hogg’s letter to Charles, Duke of Buccleuch of 28 January 1817. Cottage tales see Hogg’s letter to William Blackwood of 4 January 1817 and notes. putting to press Blackwood and Murray published part of Hogg’s collection as The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales in two volumes in May 1818—it was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 11 May 1818. this day or Monday Hogg is writing on a Saturday. a writing desk Hogg’s reason for needing a lockable repository is not known.

To George Thomson

[22 December 1817]

The highland Watch written for this work On the return of the 42d. regiment from Waterloo, By James Hogg Air, the Highland Watch.

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Old Scotia, wake thy mountain strain In all its wildest splendors And welcome back the lads again Your honour’s dear defenders Be ev’ry harp and viol strung, Till all the woodlands quaver; Of many a band your Bards have sung But never hail’d a braver. Chorus. Then raise the pibroch Donald Bane We’re all in key to cheer it And let it be a martial strain For warriors bold may hear it

Ye lovely maids pitch high your notes, As Virgin-voice can carry, Sing of your brave, your noble Scots Who fought and did not vary. Small is the remnant you will see,— Lamented be the others! But such a stem of such a tree Take to your arms like brothers. Chorus. Raise high the pibroch Donald Bane, Strike all our Let the chanter yell and the drone note swell ’Till Music speaks in thunder.

Glen with wonder

What storm can rend your mountain rock, What wave your headlands shiver, Long have they stood the Tempest’s shock, Thou know’st they will for ever. Sooner your eye these cliffs shall view Split by the wind and weather, Than Foeman’s eye the bonnet blue Behind the nodding feather. Chos. O raise the pibroch Donald Bane, Our caps to th’ sky we’ll send them; Scotland thy honour who can stain? Thy laurels who dare rend them?

My dear Sir I send you a corrected copy of the song which came to my hand this day from Yarrow send me a card saying if it will do I think it devilish clever and spirited now when I see it again. It seems that I

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have uttered with my lips words that are unadvised of which I knew not the import till I came here but as only other two in the world know or even suspect I beg for the sake of my future happiness that it may go with you [STAIN] place of all living. The continuation would make you burst your side. I will give a [STAIN] a copy who will swear secrecy for £100 I return to Yarrow this week and have little chance to see you. Any word farther from Col. Stuart? [Addressed:] Geo Thomson Esq/ Royal Exchange [Postmark:] DEC B22M 1817 [Endorsed—not JH:] Song for/ The highland Watch/ by Mr Hogg/ with his Corrections [Watermark:] [SHIELD DEVICE] [Location:] British Library, MS Add. 35,264, fols 325–26. [Printed:] J. Cuthbert Hadden, George Thomson, the Friend of Burns (London, 1898), p. 176 [in part]. The highland Watch Hogg had sent this song to George Thomson as part of his letter of 29 November [1817]. Thomson returned a copy of the song to Hogg as a proof, and this was then corrected by Hogg who used the blank part of the paper to write his accompanying letter. In the present text Thomson’s transcription is set in smaller type to distinguish it from the corrections in Hogg’s writing, and passages of the transcription deleted by Hogg are set within pointed brackets. from Yarrow the proof of ‘The Highland Watch’ had been sent to Altrive Lake, and forwarded to Hogg in Edinburgh. The song was published in Thomson’s A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs, folio edition, volume V (Edinburgh, 1818), no. 205. words that are unadvised a reference to Hogg’s allusion to his authorship of the ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’ in his letter to Thomson of 29 November [1817]. Hogg was afraid of prosecution for libel. other two in the world Hogg’s letter to William Laidlaw of 28 October [1817] shows that Laidlaw also knew of Hogg’s authorship. In fact, a number of people must have been aware of it, since William Blackwood had shown it to some of the other supporters of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine—see Memoir, p. 44. The continuation in his Memoir (p. 45) Hogg mentions ‘a long continuation [...] in which I go over the painters, poets, lawyers, booksellers, magistrates, and ministers of Edinburgh, all in the same style’. Fragments of this survive in the de Beer Collection, Special Collections, University of Otago Library, Dunedin, New Zealand. Col. Stuart? Colonel David Stewart of Garth (1772–1829) was a member of the Highland Society of London, which wished to have a published collection of Scotland’s surviving Jacobite Songs. Stewart wrote to George Thomson on 11 October 1817 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 28–29), asking him to undertake the task or to suggest a suitable person to perform it. Thomson had passed the commission on to Hogg and was presumably acting as an intermediary. His letter to Hogg of 23 November 1817 states, ‘The very day of my receiving yours, which I thought quite to the purpose, I dispatch’d it to Colonl. Stuart, with a few lines expressing my hope that he & the other members of the highland society will think such services as yours cheaply purchased by the sum you demand. Perhaps he may forward his reply directly to yourself: if it

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comes to me, it shall immediately be sent you’ (British Library, MS Add. 35,268, fols 13v–14r). For further details see Jacobite Relics of Scotland. [First Series], ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2002), pp. xix–xx.

[To an Editor]

[late 1817]

[...] effect as the production of Lord Byron, and that it was criticised as such by all the company. During the remainder of our visit The Poetic Mirror continued to be the subject of conversation; and as specimens of the other poets’ manner of writing, he showed us a most exquisite and friendly letter from Southey on the same subject, and likewise two poems in his own hand writing both sent purposely for the work in question. There was also one from Wordsworth, with a subsequent letter from that gentleman reclaiming it, and promising another in its room. We saw one from Wilson, of considerable length and two from other gentlemen whose names Mr Hogg thought proper to conceal, all in their own hand writing, and all avowedly for the same work. These sir are facts of which I can bring proof, and none of which Mr. Hogg himself will offer to controvert. I heard nothing of Mr. Scott, nor saw I ought of his that I remember of; but I think one of the poems, the author of which Mr. Hogg refused to give, is now attributed to him in the Mirror; and as he is well know [sic] to be Hogg’s earliest and most constant friend, it cannot be supposed that he would be behind in such a generous effort. From these circumstances I was very curious to see the work; but it was a full year after this before it made its appearance; and when it came to my hand, I certainly did suppose that every one of the poems were furnished by the gentlemen to whom they are ascribed in the contents. How could I deem otherwise? I had seen the poems collected in the gentlemen’s own hand writing for the work, and a positive promise by those who had not contributed; and I saw the whole of this very shortly and simply corroborated in the preface which the editor has prefixed; which is indeed so plain that any farther appeal to him would be an insult. How then was I astonished on coming to Edinburgh a few months ago to hear people with such perfect sang froid ascribe the whole of the work to Mr Hogg? From what I have stated this must be impossible; and as the work was originally intended to be of some utility to the editor, I think it is doing him a manifest injury to insinuate that the whole is a thing trumped up by himself. It is my humble opinion then sir, and you must at least acknowl-

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edge that I have not taken it up on very slight grounds, that the principal poems are furnished by the gentlemen to whom they are ascribed. On going through the work I had no doubt of it, until I read those ascribed to Wordsworth, which by some accident happened to be the last; and then I began to have my doubts—I read them over again, and soon saw it was impossible such a man would ever suffer himself to write such absolute nonsense. They are manifestly imitations; and as I never am in Edin to hear what is said of such matters, it is impossible for me to solve this. He contributed one, poem [sic] for the work as I said, which Mr. Hogg commended as very beautiful; reclaimed it, and promised a better in its place. I scarce can imagine he would be so little of a gentleman as to break a promise given in writing to a brother poet, yet I think it probable, that owing to some neglect, or failure of memory, he had suffered the thing to fall aside; and that some wicked wag of exquisite genius, had either imposed these on poor Hogg as Wordsworths own productions, or in sport as imitations. To ascribe the whole of these poems to Hogg as well as the two volumes of dramas would be ascribing to him a versatility of poetical genius which I am afraid no man of our day will ever possess. A solution of any part of these riddles, by any of your correspondents will greatly oblige Yours &c. J. P. Anderson Corseknock by Carlisle [Addressed:] none [Watermark:] EVANS & SONS/ 1814 [and] [SHIELD] [Location:] NLS, MS 2245, fols 301–02. [To an Editor] this letter in Hogg’s handwriting appears to have been intended for periodical publication, as part of the deliberate mystification surrounding the publication of The Poetic Mirror (1816), the collection of Hogg parodies developed from his projected poetical repository. The first surviving leaf of this letter is paginated 5 and 6, such page-numbering being more characteristic of Hogg’s copy for publication than of his private letters, and the prefatory Notices to Correspondents in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 ( January 1818) state, ‘“The Ettrick Shepherd not the author of the Poetic Mirror” is under consideration’. date the letter alludes to Hogg’s Dramatic Tales, which was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 24 May 1817, and the reference to it in the January 1818 issue of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine makes its composition towards the end of 1817 probable. criticised as such by all the company perhaps an allusion to the literary gathering recalled by Hogg in his Memoir (pp. 40–41). Hogg had got his Byron imitation ‘The Guerilla’ transcribed for Ballantyne to read to the company, ‘and before it was half done all pronounced it Byron’s. Every one was deceived, except Mr. Ballantyne, who

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was not to be imposed on in that way; but he kept the secret until we got to the Bridge, and then he told me his mind’. from Southey Hogg had applied to Southey for a contribution to his ‘Poetical Repository’ in his letter of 4 June 1814. Southey’s letter to Hogg of 1 December 1814 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 7–8) refers to ‘the Ballad of the Devil & the Bishop’, which Hogg was to use in his ‘projected publication’ before its appearance in Southey’s ‘miscellaneous poems collected into three volumes’. The poem is probably ‘A True Ballad of St Antidius, the Pope, and the Devil’, in The Minor Poems of Robert Southey, 3 vols (London, 1815), III, 171–80. The other poem has not been identified. Wordsworth Wordsworth appears to have sent ‘Yarrow Visited’ as his contribution to the ‘Poetical Repository’—see his letter to R. P. Gillies of 12 November 1814, in Gillies, Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, 3 vols (London, 1851), II, 148–49. It was first published in Wordsworth’s Poems, 2 vols (London, 1815), II, 20–23. Wordsworth’s letter to Hogg has not apparently survived. Wilson John Wilson is named in Hogg’s letter to Byron of 3 June 1814 as one of the editors of the proposed poetical repository. Mr. Scott Thomas Pringle’s ‘Epistle to Mr R. S * * * *’ featured as an imitation of Scott in The Poetic Mirror (Edinburgh, 1816), pp. 27–51. Hogg’s comment that ‘it cannot be supposed that he would be behind in such a generous effort’ was clearly intended as a reproach to Scott, whose refusal to support the poetical repository had angered him—see Memoir, p. 40. the preface Hogg’s prefatory ‘Advertisement’ to The Poetic Mirror opens with a statement that ‘The Editor claims no merit in the following work, save that of having procured from the Authors the various Poems of which the volume is composed; for, as to the arrangement, it is casual, and simply as the pieces came to hand’. those ascribed to Wordsworth in his Memoir (p. 41) Hogg stated that ‘I was led to think that, had the imitations of Wordsworth been less a caricature, the work might have passed, for a season at least, as the genuine productions of the authors themselves, whose names were prefixed to the several poems’. as well as the two volumes of dramas Hogg’s Dramatic Tales (1817) were attributed on the title-page to ‘the author of “The Poetic Mirror”’.

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FOR 1818 To William Blackwood

5 January 1818 Abbotsford Janr 5th 1818

My dear Sir Along with Scott’s and Laidlaw’s contributions to your miscellany I also inclose my mite a little Hebrew Melody which was written for a London work but not yet published. Perhaps I may get my tale finished likewise before I leave this which I will forward but now when I see so much good original matter here I am not so anxious. I actually pop’d in on Mr. Scott on Saturday in the very act of toiling for you; unconscionable being that you are taking up all the poets and men of genius in the country peddling at your small handwares! I have spoken to Laidlaw and Scott both separately and together about the detail business of the Mag. The former is perfectly willing to do either way but thinks that with a little attention on your part in forwarding papers fixed instructions &c. he might do it well enough and he appears to me to be taking a good deal of pains so that if the Register is defective I can scarcely think it his blame. Scott spoke with so much impatience of it that I did not think meet to dwell on the subject but said I supposed things would go on as they were for a season and Laidlaw by my advice is not going to show him your last letter with me, nor mention it to him. My own opinion is therefore that since an arrangement between you is understood to exist it should stand as it is for a season or a volume at least it looks so unstable to be proposing alterations by the time things are well begun and I am almost certain if you [eop] you would let Laidlaw know seriously what you wanted done and forward him the materials it would be done. If Scott see the least symptoms of your neglect of Laidlaw I find he is off at a tangent at once and it is not only what the want of his support would injure your work but what his name would effect in your opponnent’s— policy is requisite even with the greatest heros.—Now that Laidlaw has furnished one anecdote of the Shepherd’s dog mine will follow better next month—Go on with my tales that I may not say you will not publish any thing. If any sheets require to be sent to me send them under cover to the Duke of Buccleuch The weather has been very bad since I came here so that we have had no sport out of doors but

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we are as merry as larks within. I shall be home by the end of the week and forward you my M. S. S. I am dear sir Yours very truly James Hogg I spoke to Scott of our plan of the Octavo Edition of The Wake he is decided on the plan and thinks it should be set about immediately. He wishes for one copy of his own prospectus before he writes the new advertisement which please forward to him next coach reminding him shortly of the purpose for which it is sent lest he utterly forget among so many concerns JH [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq. [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Blackwoods Magazine/ Letter/ 5 January 1818/ James Hogg [Watermark:] [SHIELD] [Location:] NLS, MS 4003, fols 84–85. [Printed:] Oliphant, I, 331–32. Scott’s and Laidlaw’s contributions Scott’s article ‘On the Gypsies of Hesse-Darmstadt in Germany’ appeared in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 ( January 1818), 409–14. Laidlaw had undertaken to write the chronicle section of the magazine each month and his ‘Sagacity of a Shepherd’s Dog’ also appeared on pages 417–21 of the January issue. a little Hebrew Melody see ‘A Hebrew Melody’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 ( January 1818), 400. It was published as ‘The Rose of Sharon’ in Hogg’s A Selection of German Hebrew Melodies (London: C. Christmas, [c. 1817]), pp. 15–23. It seems likely that the work may have been published by this time, unbeknown to Hogg—see the notes to Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 12 August 1817. my tale perhaps ‘An Old Soldier’s Tale’—see Hogg’s subsequent letter to Blackwood of 13 January 1818 and notes. It was published in the Clydesdale Magazine, 1 ( July 1818), 106–12, and again in 1820—see Winter Evening Tales, ed. by Ian Duncan (S/SC, 2002), pp. 98–106. on Saturday as Hogg is writing on a Monday, he probably arrived at Abbotsford on 3 January. the Register the final section of an old-fashioned monthly magazine such as the Scots Magazine, a chronicle of recent political and literary events, lists of new public appointments, and of births, deaths, and marriages, &c. In a modified form it continued to appear in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine sporadically throughout the 1820s. Scott spoke with so much impatience Scott was evidently willing to write occasionally for Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine on the understanding that Laidlaw would be an acceptable contributor too—see Oliphant, I, 145–48. Laidlaw was living at the farm of Kaeside on the Abbotsford estate, combining literary work secured for him by Scott with assistance to Scott in the management of the estate. your last letter with me Blackwood’s letter to Laidlaw of 2 January 1818 (NLS, Acc.

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9084/9) states, ‘Our friend Mr Hogg is to carry this [...]. I have mentioned to him my difficulties and he will talk with you on the subject’. Blackwood explained that the length of the chronicle part of the magazine was dependent on the space left after the other articles had been printed and subject to last-minute variation, so that Laidlaw’s distance from Edinburgh was a serious problem. He stated that he would rather Laidlaw gave up this regular engagement and submitted original compositions to his magazine. the Shepherd’s dog Laidlaw’s ‘Sagacity of a Shepherd’s Dog’ in the January issue of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine was followed by Hogg’s ‘Further Anecdotes of the Shepherd’s Dog’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (March 1818), 621–26. Go on with my tales Hogg’s ‘Cottage Winter Nights’, part of which was published by Blackwood and Murray in two volumes as The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales—for further details see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 4 January 1817 and notes. It was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 11 May 1818. under cover to the Duke of Buccleuch a means of saving postage, which was normally paid by the recipient of a letter: the Duke as a peer would not have to pay to receive proofs from Blackwood, and could forward them free of charge to Hogg. my M. S. S. an instalment of ‘The Brownie of Bodsbeck’—see Hogg’s subsequent letter to Blackwood of 13 January 1818. Octavo Edition of The Wake see Hogg’s letter to Murray of 15 January 1818 and notes. Subscriptions had been slow for the two-guinea quarto subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake, and Blackwood evidently thought that a one-guinea royal octavo edition might do better. his own prospectus Scott’s manuscript prospectus for the proposed illustrated quarto subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake is in NLS, MS 30921. There is a printed copy with alterations in his hand and an explanation of the change to a one-guinea royal octavo with a single illustration in NLS, MS 4937, fol. 82. Both are printed in the appendix of The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004), pp. 394–98. the new advertisement no advertisement embodying the revised prospectus for the subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake appeared in the Caledonian Mercury or Edinburgh Weekly Journal, the papers in which Blackwood usually advertised his publications. It is possible that, besides printing separate subscription papers, he included a notice in the advertising leaves or on the cover of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. Unfortunately this material was generally destroyed when the separate issues were bound into volumes.

To William Blackwood

13 January 1818 Eltrieve Lake Janr. 13th 1818

Dear Sir I send you a farther portion of the Brownie There is another M. S. copy as long as this which will be to transcribe but I will have it ready in a week or two I send you likewise the woolgather [sic] for perusal and a tale for the Magazine. Push Mr. Scott about the advertisement calling in the names of subscribers for the Wake, and as soon as you think meet announce the tales some way as follows but take your own way

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In the press and speedily will be published Vol’s 1 and 2 of Mr Hogg’s COTTAGE TALES containing THE BROWNIE OF BODSBECK and THE WOOL-GATHERER These tales have been selected by him among the Shepherds and peasantry of Scotland and are arranged so as to delineate the manners and superstitions of that class in ancient and modern times &c &c [UNSIGNED] [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq./ 17 Princes Street/ Edinr. [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Blackwoods Magazine/ Letter/ 13th January 1818/ James Hogg [Watermark:] A MACGOUN/ 1816 [Location:] NLS, MS 4003, fol. 86. [Printed:] Strout, p. 146. a farther portion of the Brownie see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 5 January 1818 and notes. He was clearly producing copy by transcribing an earlier manuscript. the woolgather [sic] for perusal Blackwood had previously rejected ‘The Bridal of Polmood’ for publication with ‘The Brownie of Bodsbeck’, and Hogg had to ‘begin and write two other tales in place of the one rejected’ (Memoir, p. 46). ‘The Wool-Gatherer’ was published in The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1818), II, 89–228. a tale for the Magazine this is probably ‘An Old Soldier’s Tale’, which Hogg enquired after in his letter to Blackwood of 31 January 1818—see also his letter of 5 January 1818 and notes. the advertisement see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 5 January 1818 and notes. announce the tales Hogg’s draft announcement reveals the original unity of the published collections of The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales (1818) and Winter Evening Tales (1820)—for further details see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 4 January 1817 and notes. The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales was in fact advertised without reference to a continuation. Blackwood may have felt anxious about Hogg’s change of genre from narrative poetry since ‘(In Prose.)’ was carefully inserted after the title—see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 21 March 1818.

To Walter Cunningham

14 January [1818] Eltrieve Lake Janr. 14th

Dear Sir I am sorry at dissapointing you but I have got no money as yet if it do not come with Rbt Hogg on Thursday I must go to Edin. for it and the first money I can lift you shall have a part though all that I can spare will be but of small avail to you—if you knew how hardly I have been set for some time past you would not press me. Yours very truly James Hogg

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[Addressed:] Mr Walter Cunningham/ Catslackburn [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ Mr James Hogg/ to/ Walter Cunningham [Watermark:] [PART OF A CROWNED SHIELD] [Location:] National Archives of Scotland, SC63/10/29. [Printed:] John Chisholm, Sir Walter Scott as a Judge (Edinburgh, 1918), p. 214. money Hogg acknowledged a debt to Cunningham of £21, originating in a farming transaction dating back to 1807—see his letter to Cunningham of 24 May 1817 and notes. He had paid £10 of this to date, and seems to have paid another £10-4-0 on 10 April 1818—see John Chisholm, Sir Walter Scott as a Judge (Edinburgh, 1918), p. 205. with Rbt Hogg on Thursday clearly Hogg was expecting a visit from his teenage nephew, Robert Hogg, the eldest son of his elder brother William. Robert was a student at the University of Edinburgh at this time—see Hogg’s letter to William Blackwood of 29 October 1819. The Caledonian Mercury of 26 April 1819 recorded that ‘ Robert Hogg, Peebles-shire’ won a prize in the 1818–19 session for Latin poems in the Advanced Humanity Class. how hardly I have been set among other things Hogg was building his house at Altrive in 1818—see his letter to John Murray of 4 [ July] 1818.

To John Murray

15 January 1818 Eltrieve Lake By Selkirk Jan. 15th 1818

My dear Sir Blackwood and I have agreed about the publishing of two vols of Scotish legendary tales in prose which are now in the press and of which he is throwing off a large impression. He seems disposed from some former transaction that I know nothing of to employ some other agent in London but unless I cannot help it I cannot bear the thought of having any bookseller in England but you, as I can form no idea of any thing but your perfectly disinterested friendship and good wishes. May I then take the freedom to ask you if such an arrangement is agreeable to you as the public announcement of the work is delayed till I ascertain this? I heard of your liberal subscription for the Author’s copy of the Queen’s Wake set on foot by some of my friends and likewise that you were interesting yourself warmly in it. I must now inform you that the two Guinea subscriptions were coming so slowly in scarcely 200 in all that it has been abandoned and the subscription copy now is to be Royal 8vo, price One Guinea Pray could not you at some of your sales get off a few of them for me among the trade for as I have made nothing by my literary exertions for a long time bygone I have enough of need of it—You are quite given over writing to me but pray do send me a few lines in answer to this and tell me how you have been and

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when I shall again have the pleasure of drinking a glass with you in Scotland Yours ever most truly James Hogg To John Murray Esq. [Addressed:] John Murray Esq./ 53 Albemarle Street/ London [Postmark:] G 24JA24 1818 [and] Addl. ½ [Endorsed—not JH:] 1818 Jan 15/ Hogg, James [Watermark:] SIMMONS/ 1816 [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box 37. [Printed:] Strout, p. 148 [in part]; Smiles, II, 3–4 [in part]. some other agent in London relations between Blackwood and Murray were becoming increasingly strained as Murray felt that his reputation as a publisher was compromised by the often libellous personalities of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, which bore his name on the title-page—see Oliphant, I, 159–72. Nevertheless he responded warmly to Hogg’s letter on 24 January ( John Murray Archive, Box 37): ‘I should much rejoice in any occasion of doing you a service—I shall have great pleasure in taking a share in your new work, and in being its publisher in London’. your liberal subscription for further information about the subscription edition see The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004), pp. lxviii–lxxv, and Hogg’s letter to Robert Surtees of 14 August 1817. In Murray’s reply to this letter of 24 January ( John Murray Archive, Box 37) he asks Hogg to put his name down for twenty-five of the guinea copies, and promises to try to get other subscribers. Royal 8vo in his reply of 24 January ( John Murray Archive, Box 37) Murray replied that he thought the new one-guinea subscription would bring more money to Hogg than one at two guineas. ‘If you will draw out a neat advertisement of the royal 8vo, and give me all the names of subscribers, I will print the whole for you & insert it in the next Number of the Quarterly Review [...]’. This is probably a reference to the cover and advertising material in the journal, normally discarded when successive issues were bound into volumes. He also advised Hogg to publish ‘a Thousand in demy 8vo to sell for 9/ & throw off no more in the larger size than you are confident of obtaining subscribers for [...]. If Blackwood likes I will join in giving you at once half the profit of the Edition of 1,000 copies to sell at 9/ & let you throw off copies for your subscribers in Royal 8vo paying only for the paper & working.’ Hogg’s letter to Murray of 5 May 1821 ( John Murray Archive, Box 37) mentions, however, that his author’s profits for this thousand-copy sale edition were only due to be paid twelve months after publication. some of your sales John Murray held periodic meetings for other London booksellers who would agree to take a stated number of copies of works recently published by him. need of it Hogg built a new house at Altrive during 1818—see his letter to John Murray of 4 [ July] 1818. His letter to Walter Cunningham of 14 January [1818] demonstrates that he had outstanding debts in addition. drinking a glass with you in Scotland Hogg had first met Murray in Edinburgh in the summer of 1814, who had then agreed to publish The Pilgrims of the Sun—see Memoir, p. 38.

FOR 1818

To William Blackwood

329 31 January 1818 Eltrieve-Lake Janr. 31st 1818

Dear Sir I inclose you a letter I had from London the other day in answer to the one you desired me to write, the contents of which deserve immediate consideration. I do not think it can well be sold at 9/- but I leave the whole to your better experience, this will enable you to announce the tales as you think proper I thought they would have been in the Literary notices of the Magazine. Perhaps it was owing to something not properly arranged as I am informed by a correspondent that you wish them to be anonymous though I do not see in the least what advantage can be gained by that—the joke is now becoming stale. I will send in the remainder of the M. S. the first opportunity but in copying it I have been greatly puzzled about leaving out or keeping in the last chapter which is wholly an explanatory one and of course not animated; or of still leaving some mysterious incidents unexplained. I am much pleased by your attention in sending me such [CUT] and confess my weakness that such [CUT] and Z. to Leigh Hunt are quite delicious pray may I ask if the Indian Officer is from the same pen of masterly humour as the article on Cookery? I wish Z. had left out the allusion to primrose and Mildmay altogether all the rest is in his best genuine stile The Shepherd’s dog is also very well indeed Hoy was my uncle the anecdote is quite true—More of such by and by. What became of my Old Soldiers Tale—Not even acknowledged? I had a letter this day from my brother I wish you would take some notice of his poor fellow, either encourage or discourage him as the Editor chuses. He is such an enthusiast in literature and so anxious about his little efforts I feel quite vexed that he is always neglected. If you would send him a reading of the Mag. I would take it very kind and would make up the thing to you some other way. Publish the article on the Poetic Mirror. It will form an excellent contrast to the flaming thing in Constables and mark your independance. This Edition of The Wake surely ought to be set about instantly As I have a chaise[?] to Edin to morrow I write [CUT] [Addressed:] [none—no address panel] [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH] Jas Hogg Jany 31/18 [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 4003, fol. 87. [Printed:] Strout, p. 149 [in part].

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a letter I had from London John Murray’s letter to Hogg of 24 January 1818 ( John Murray Archive, Box 37), which advises the publication of an edition of The Queen’s Wake in demy-octavo for general sale at nine shillings in addition to the royal octavo edition for subscribers. The ‘sale edition’ was eventually published in 1819 and cost twelve shillings. Blackwood advertised this ‘sixth edition’ as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 1 July 1819, and Murray in the Morning Chronicle of 12 July 1819. announce the tales The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales was advertised as ‘Next month will be published’ and as ‘By the Ettrick Shepherd’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 21 March 1818. A similar advertisement appeared in London in the Morning Chronicle of 8 April 1818. joke is now becoming stale Hogg had published The Poetic Mirror and Dramatic Tales anonymously in 1816 and 1817 respectively, like Scott’s Waverley Novels. the last chapter Chapter V in the second volume of The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1818) begins ‘I hate long explanations, therefore this chapter shall be very short; there are, however, some parts of the foregoing tale, which require that a few words should be subjoined in elucidation of them’ (II, 81), and at the end of the chapter the reader is referred for further explanation to a pamphlet if ‘there are any incidents in this Tale that may still appear a little mysterious’ (II, 86). This perhaps represented a compromise position. Z. to Leigh Hunt Leigh Hunt (1784–1859) was editor of The Examiner and The Reflector, and a poet associated with the younger Romantics Shelley and Keats, dubbed the Cockney School of Poetry by the writers of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. Hogg refers to the article ‘Letter from Z. to Mr Leigh Hunt’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 ( January 1818), 414–17. The author was Lockhart—see Strout, Bibliography, p. 34. the Indian Officer ‘Letter from an Old Indian Officer’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 ( January 1818), 396–99. There is no attribution of authorship in Strout, Bibliography, p. 34. the article on Cookery see ‘The Dejeuné. A Pindaric Ode’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 ( January 1818), 394–96. There is no attribution of authorship in Strout, Bibliography, p. 34. the allusion to primrose and Mildmay in discussing Hunt’s Story of Rimini as condoning incest ‘Z’ refers to ‘the smooth villanies of Mildmay, and [...] the sufferings of the generous and unsuspecting Roseberry’—see ‘Letter from Z. to Mr Leigh Hunt’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 ( January 1818), 414–17 (p. 416). This appears to be a reference to the divorce of Archibald John Primrose, 4th Earl of Rosebery (1783–1868) from his wife, Harriet Bouverie, in 1815. The Shepherd’s dog William Laidlaw’s ‘Sagacity of a Shepherd’s Dog’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 ( January 1818), 417–21. Hoy was my uncle John Hoy in Chapelhope married Margaret Laidlaw’s younger sister Agnes on 4 January 1765 (Ettrick OPR). my Old Soldiers Tale see also Hogg’s letters to Blackwood of 5 and 13 January 1818 and notes. After being rejected by Blackwood ‘An Old Soldier’s Tale’ was published in the Clydesdale Magazine, 1 ( July 1818), 106–12, and subsequently in Winter Evening Tales in 1820—see Winter Evening Tales, ed. by Ian Duncan (S/SC, 2002), 98–106. my brother [...] his the prefatory Notices to Correspondents in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine for February 1818 indicate, ‘We have been greatly pleased with the

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Introduction to a Tale, by Mr WILLIAM HOGG, brother to the ETTRICK SHEPHERD. Will he send us the Tale itself, which we doubt not will be very interesting’. The tale was never published there, but Hogg’s elder brother William also wrote an account of the shepherd’s dog, subsequently published as ‘On the Shepherd’s Dog’, Literary and Statistical Magazine of Scotland, 3 (February 1819), 12–14. the article on the Poetic Mirror mentioned as ‘The Ettrick Shepherd not the author of the Poetic Mirror’ in the prefatory Notices to Correspondents in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine for January 1818. It is probably Hogg’s letter signed ‘J. P. Anderson’ of [late 1817]. the flaming thing in Constables the review of The Poetic Mirror had appeared in Constable’s magazine almost a year previously—see Scots Magazine, 79 (February 1817), 46–51. It seems more likely that Hogg is referring to the first part of James Gray’s ‘Life and Writings of James Hogg’, Edinburgh Magazine, 2 ( January 1818), 35–40.

To William Blackwood

[March 1818]

Dear Sir I have taken a copy of Grieve’s Regalia which I send you; it is needless to send aught of mine till I see whether there is room for this—It is but losing it— Yours James Hogg You must procure me as soon as possible the following books Cromek’s remains of Galloway song The Union Song Book lately published at Peterhead and any other work or M. S. that you think I will be the better of [Addressed:] Mr Blackwood [Endorsed—not JH:] Blackwood’s Magazine/ March 1818/ Letter/ James Hogg [Watermark:] [PART OF CROWNED SHIELD] [Location:] NLS, MS 4003, fol. 88. a copy of Grieve’s Regalia Scott had acquired a Royal Commission to search for the Regalia of Scotland in Edinburgh Castle, and on 4 February 1818 Scott and his party found these symbols of Scottish nationality. Lockhart (IV, 119–20) comments on the ‘profound seriousness’ with which Scott’s imagination had invested the matter, and states that there was ‘a great excitement among the common people of the town, and a still greater among the peasantry, not only in the neighbourhood, but all over Scotland [...]’. A poem entitled, ‘Regalia of Scotland’ and dated ‘Edinburgh, March 6th’ was published in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (March 1818), 691–92, though it is not known if the author was Hogg’s friend John Grieve. the following books materials for preparing the collection of Jacobite songs which Hogg had undertaken for the Highland Society of London at the instigation of George Thomson—see his letter to Thomson of [22 December 1817] and notes. Cromek’s remains of Galloway song R. H. Cromek, Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway

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Song (London, 1810). Hogg refers to this work as the source of Songs LI (‘The wee wee German Lairdie’), LXXVIII (‘The Waes of Scotland’), and LXXX (‘Hame, Hame, Hame’)—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. [First Series], ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/ SC, 2002), pp. 262–63, 292–93, and 294. As he remarked, many of the songs in Cromek’s volume were the compositions of his own friend Allan Cunningham. The Union Song Book perhaps The Union Song Book (Berwick, 1781), listed in the Bibliography to The Jacobite Relics of Scotland [First Series], ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/ SC, 2002), p. 509, though Hogg describes it as ‘lately published at Peterhead’. Another possibility is The Union Imperial Song Book (Edinburgh, 1815), which had been printed by D. Chalmers & Co. of Aberdeen though published in Edinburgh. The prefatory address ‘To the Public’ (pp. iii–iv) states that the volume includes ‘many old Scottish National Songs, which have been rescued from total oblivion; especially many of those composed about the years 1715 and 1745, which are not to be found in any collection whatever’ (p. iii). The Jacobite songs in this work include several also printed by Hogg (though probably simply deriving from a common source), such as ‘Carlisle Yetts’ and ‘Cumberland and Murray’s descent into Hell’ (pp. 231–34)—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. Second Series, ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2003), pp. 198–201, 523.

To [ John] Aitken

4 March [1818] Edin March 4th

Dear Aitken Your last followed me to Yarrow and though there was something about the selections of poetry which I wished to say I have now forgot what it was. As for your request to have my Kate down with you for a while that was impossible as she is in Nithsdale with her maternal uncle attending Closeburn academy. The severe indisposition of a loved friend has brought me reluctantly from my mountains. I cannot as yet leave him but I hope to visit you this spring. Some of my friends think that the introduction and moral of the Frogs are too high wrought and polished for the simplicity of the fable; it is however a very ingenious little thing. As you say I am very glad Campbell did not publish you it would have been rather indelicate. I take no charge of Blackwoods Mag. farther than contributing a little I will however put your verses into the Editor’s hands and I have no doubt of their being acceptable. Wilson has promised me yon I do not know how oft. preserve the integrity of your own heart and regard not what the world says Yours very truly James Hogg [Addressed:] none [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] none

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[Location:] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: James Hogg Collection GEN MSS 61, Box 1, Folder 28. the selections of poetry in 1824 Aitken published the first volume of his anthology, The Cabinet, or, The Selected Beauties of Literature. Possibly he was planning such a volume as early as 1818. my Kate Hogg’s illegitimate daughter by Catherine Henderson. Having been told of Kate’s existence the preceding December Aitken presumably wanted to see her. Her mother had married Hogg’s cousin David Laidlaw in Ettrick in 1812, so she would sometimes be with her mother in Ettrick and see Hogg there and at Altrive. For further details see Hogg’s letter to Aitken of 20 December 1817 and notes. in Nithsdale with her maternal uncle Kate had been conceived during Hogg’s period as a shepherd at Mitchelslacks in Closeburn parish in Dumfriesshire, and one of Hogg’s letters admitting paternity had been addressed to Catherine Henderson’s brother Thomas—see Gillian Hughes, ‘James Hogg and the “Bastard Brood”’, SHW, 11 (2000), 56–68 (p. 58). Thomas Henderson may be the maternal uncle referred to here. Closeburn academy there appear to have been several schools in Closeburn parish— Rev. Andrew Bennet writing his account of the parish in 1834 for the New Statistical Account of Scotland, 15 vols (Edinburgh, 1845), IV, 77–90 mentions five. The principal one was a free school, ‘amply endowed in 1723 by John Wallace, a native of the parish, who had realized a considerable fortune in Glasgow by mercantile pursuits. [...] In this seminary the children of the parish, but not those who attend from other parishes, are entitled to be taught English, writing, arithmetic, book-keeping, Greek, and Latin, free of expense. Other branches also are taught’ (p. 88). This is perhaps the most likely, particularly if Kate’s membership of her uncle’s family entitled her to a free education. severe indisposition of a loved friend probably John Grieve, whose illness Hogg described in his letter to Eliza Izett of 14 December 1817. the Frogs John Aitken, The Frogs: A Fable (Dunbar: Printed by G. Miller, 1816) is a small chapbook-sized pamphlet with sixteen pages of poetry, dedicated ‘To Gossips of every description, within the Borough of Dunbar’. The poem is based on Aesop’s fable about boys who stone a frog for amusement, while to the frog their sport means death. The concluding moral alludes to the teachings of Jesus, ‘He bids us view a brother’s wrongs, | As He our frailty does; | And do to every man as we | Would have him do to us’ (p. 15). Campbell no Dunbar printer named Campbell is listed in the Scottish Book Trade Index at http://www.nls.uk/catalogues/resources/sbti/index.html. your verses there are apparently no contributions by John Aitken in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine at this time—see Strout, Bibliography. the Editor’s hands after his breach with Pringle and Cleghorn in the summer of 1817 William Blackwood effectively acted as his own editor for Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. John Wilson was an important contributor, however, who developed an alter ego in the fictional editor Christopher North. Blackwood’s letter to Baldwin, Cradock & Joy of 23 July 1817 (NLS, MS 30,001, fols 49–50) suggests that he may have arranged to appoint another editor at first (‘I have however made arrangements with a gentleman of the first rate talents by which I will begin a new work of a far superior kind’). regard not what the world says perhaps an allusion to Aitken’s shame at having fathered an illegitimate child—see Hogg’s letter to him of 20 December 1817 and notes.

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To William Napier Scott

8 March [1818]

6 Charles Street March 8th Hond sir I was sorry I missed you the other day as I happened just to be engaged with you. In revising the Queen’s Wake for this new and splendid edition which Mr. Scott has set on foot I came to an odious reflection on some one of your ancestors which had quite escaped my memory. I instantly reccollected that I had written it in the plenitude of poetic wrath for which perhaps I had as little reason as ever one of the irritable tribe of rhymsters had for anger since the world began. But that which overpowered me most of all was the thought of your manly generosity that had scorned to take the least notice of the thing but had used me always as a friend and associate though I deserved to have been kicked for it. Of course the moment that my eye came on it I blotted it out, but in its place I could not refrain having a joke upon you for though I regard you as a most noble fellow I cannot help thinking there is something peculiar in your character. The verses at present run thus but as they will not go through the press for more than a month I have plenty of time to revise or alter them Red Will of Thirlestane came on With his long sword and sullen eye Jealous of ancient honours won Wo to the wight that came him nigh He was the last the ranks to break Flying he fought full desperately At length within his feudal lake He stood and fought unto the knee Wildly he looked from side to side No skiff was nigh the chief to save “O for a friendly barge” he cried “How I would maul them from the wave!” But neither net nor boat nor barge Nor minstrel’s skiff was there that day For why the knight had given a charge In wrath to drive them all away Sore did he rue the stern decree! Red rolls the billow from the West, And fishes hold their revelry, Deep o’er the hero’s boardly breast!

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Long may his lovely lady look From out the halls of Thirlestane O’er fairy holm and sounding brook, Ere her Red Knight return again. When loud has roared the wintry storm Till winds have ceased and rains are gone There shall the shepherd’s bending form Stand gazing o’er gigantic bone Thinking of time’s receding tide Of ancient chiefs by kinsmen slain Of feudal rights and feudal pride And doughty Will of Thirlestane ———————————— Now lest the bard’s song written in fun should have the smallest chance of ever proving prophetic I am sure you will not hinder me to put half a dozen new boats with as m[TEAR] nets and cannons on the loch this year Who are we to get to Ettrick? It is of great consequence to us both as an associate I was trying to take Ettrickhall for a brother of mine and have offered very high for it. If you want to have it I will withdraw my offer and try the hill part.—Do not mention this to any one I am Hond Sir Yours very truly James Hogg [Addressed:] The Honble/ Wm. Napier Scott/ Merchiston Castle [Postmark:] MAR B9M 1818 [Endorsed—pencil, not JH:] i. e. presumably William/ John Napier aft. 8th /Lord Napier [and] Mr. J. Hogg— [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 786, fols 55–56. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 144–45. William Napier Scott William John Napier (1786–1834) was the eldest son of Francis, 7th Baron Napier. At the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars he had retired from the Royal Navy, married and settled in Selkirkshire, and applied himself to sheep-farming. His book, A Treatise on Practical Store-farming was published in 1822, and he succeeded as 8th Baron Napier in 1823. Merchiston Castle was the Edinburgh base of the Napier family. 6 Charles Street Charles Street was in the South Side district of Edinburgh, adjoinng George Square. On his visits to town from Altrive Hogg stayed with his old friend John Grieve, who in a letter to Oliver and Boyd of 2 November 1823 (NLS, Acc. 5000/

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191) refers to ‘my old station Corner of Charles’ Street’. In the 1812–13 Edinburgh postal directory Grieve’s address is given as ‘12. Terrace’, and there is no subsequent entry for him until the volume for 1817–18 when his address is given as ‘5 Tiviot row’. revising the Queen’s Wake there is a copy of the third edition of The Queen’s Wake with Hogg’s alterations and corrections in his own hand for the printing of the subscription edition in NLS, MS 20440. For a full account of Hogg’s revisions see The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004). an odious reflection the Napiers were descended from the Scotts of Thirlestane in Ettrick. In ‘Mary Scott’ the Pringles and Scotts fight, but the Lord of Thirlestane hides to avoid the fray—see The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004), p. 125: But Francis, Lord of Thirlestane, To all the gallant name a soil, While blood of kinsmen fell like rain, Crept underneath a braken coil. Red Will [...] Will of Thirlestane this passage was included in the fifth or subscription edition—see The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004), pp. 321–22. There are significant differences between manuscript and published versions. drive them all away according to James Russell’s Reminiscences of Yarrow (Edinburgh, 1886), Lord Napier had the right of property in the shore-line of St Mary’s Loch and the adjacent Loch of the Lowes. He mentions (pp. 101–02) an ‘unwarranted attack by the Ettrick Shepherd in the “Queen’s Wake” on Lord Napier, for the removal of a boathouse erected without leave’. Russell goes on to record that Napier wrote on the margin of his copy of the poem, ‘I suppose this is a return for my not acceding to his request that I would debar all others, and grant the proprietorship solely to him’. Although the two men came to be on friendly terms, this incident continued to rankle on both sides. In his Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd (Edinburgh, 1831) Hogg wrote, ‘Lord Napier never did so cruel a thing, not even on the high seas, as the interdicting of me from sailing on that beloved lake, which if I have not rendered classical, has not been my blame. But the credit will be his own,—that is some comfort’ (p. 224). nets and cannons although Hogg was an angler the quoted verses mention a net. Hogg’s reference to cannons is perhaps a jocular allusion to his correspondent’s naval campaigns during the Napoleonic wars. The paper is creased and worn and Strout (p. 145) has ‘cannows’ (i. e. canoes) at this point. to get to Ettrick? Charles Paton, the minister of Ettrick since the end of 1791, had died on 18 February 1818, and Lord Napier as patron could appoint his successor. John Bennet was presented to the parish by Lord Napier, the father of Hogg’s correspondent, on 6 April and ordained on 7 August 1818. He caught typhus fever from a parishioner, and died on 10 October 1822—see Scott’s Fasti, II, 176. a brother of mine Hogg had three brothers, William, Robert, and David. It is not known which of them wanted to farm at Ettrickhall.

To George Thomson

[16 March 1818] Highland Laddie

“War gat ye that siller moon Bonny laddie Highland laddie!

FOR 1818

That bobs sae braw your belt aboon? Bonny laddie Highland laddie! Belted plaid an’ bonnet blue! Bonny laddie Highland laddie! Hae ye been at Waterloo? Bonny laddie Highland laddie! Weel’s me on your tartan trews! Bonny laddie Highland laddie! Tell me tell me a’ the news Bonny laddie Highland laddie! Saw ye Bony by the way? Bonny laddie Highland laddie! Or Blucher wi’ his beard sae gray? Bonny laddie Highland laddie! An’ wad ye tell me gin ye ken Bonny laddie Highland laddie! Ought o’ Donald and his men? Bonny laddie Highland laddie! O tell me o’ my kilted clan Bonny laddie Highland laddie! Gin they fought or gin they ran? Bonny laddie Highland laddie!” “Ye’re naething but some lawland loun, Ponny lattie Heelan lattie! And nae te plood tat pore te crown Ponny lattie Heelan lattie! Do you claim te Heelan name? Ponny lattie Heelan lattie! An’ dare you speer te ting for shame? Ponny lattie Heelan lattie! Kend ye fuat we tid langsyne? Ponny lattie Heelan lattie! For our loved and Royal line Ponny lattie Heelan lattie! An’ a’ our teeds in France an’ Spain, Ponny lattie Heelan’ lattie! Egypt Sands an’ Maida’s plain? Ponny lattie Heelan’ lattie! An’ fuan our all was at te stake Ponny lattie Heelan lattie!

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Trow’d ye Tonald’s heart wad ache? Ponny lattie Heelan lattie! Trow’d ye slave on foreign shore, Ponny lattie Heelan lattie! Wad ever turn te prood claymore? Ponny lattie Heelan lattie! Sae fua has fought or run away Ponny lattie Heelan lattie! Ye’ll ablins hear some ither day. Ponny lattie Heelan lattie Ye’re no te man for her-nan-sel, Ponny lattie Heelan lattie! Teol a news to you she’ll tell Ponny lattie Heelan lattie! Dear sir, I wrote a few English verses first to day, which were quite an anomaly the burden being so decidedly Scotch. I like the above better which I send Yours ever most affectionately James Hogg [Addressed:] George Thomson Esq./ Royal Exchange [Postmark:] MAR B16E 1818 [and] WEST/ N ICOLSON S T. / [S M U DG E D ]0 [Endorsed—not JH:] 17 March 1818. Mr Hogg/ Song, for Bonny laddie, high-/ -land laddie— [Watermark:] [CROWN E D S H I E LD ]/ 1817 [Location:] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: Osborn MSS, Folder 17968. George Thomson for information on the song-collector George Thomson (1757– 1851) see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Highland Laddie Thomson had first sent Hogg the tune for this song with his letter of 9 November 1815, describing it as ‘the air which you have frequently heard from our friend Robt. Miller, to Jacobite words, which tho’ laughable enough at the first hearing, will not bear examination, nor suit my Collection’—see British Library, MS Add. 35,267, fols 162r–163r. A version of Hogg’s song was published in Thomson’s folio edition of A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs, volume V (Edinburgh, 1818), no. 207 with music by Beethoven. Beethoven’s Opus 108 (25 Scottish Songs) was composed in 1815 and 1816, confirming the supposition that Thomson sent Hogg Beethoven’s music when inviting him to write the words—see Georg Kinsky, Das Werk Beethovens Thematisch-Bibliographisches Verzeichnis seiner sämtlichen vollendeten Kompositionen, rev. by Hans Halm (Munich: G. Henle Verlag, 1955), pp. 300–10.

FOR 1818

To George Thomson

339 25 March [1818] Charles Street March 25th

Dear Thomson I shall keep the valuable work you have been so kind as to send me this morning as a memorial of friendship but I want your name on the title page. I confess however that I felt a little distressed at recieving it for I have always valued your friendship and kind attentions so much that nothing gave me greater pleasure than any little chance that occurred of obliging you. Not only as my own particular friend but as the Bard’s friend and the friend of merit in general and one on whose experience and good taste I have so perfect a reliance that I find it always out of my power to oppose any amendment hinted at. I am very jealous of any appearance of interest in my friendships therefore in future let it always be understood that the more you require of me in my line, the more you scold me when I do not do it to your mind, and the fewer acknowledgements the better As this song is in fact a ballad and no great length I have added two stanzas to day in order to make it run somewhat smoother, but I will be happy to correspond with you on it any day before Tuesday next, when I leave town for a little. I have not been able to find a better word than Jeering but I think should your burden be adopted jeering should be first for the sake of the first line of the answer As the highlander however treats the other with a good deal of contempt throughout I have been trying the song and I think “Waefu’ body Lawland body” would have rather a good and comic effect in singing it—pray try it and tell me—I have no copy of the song nor of the other either I send you always the off hand copies and trust to your suggestions for the correcting of them—Grieve assured me you would alter the broken highland Scotch I thought so too but what I had written I had written I am my dear Sir Yours ever most truly James Hogg [Addressed:] none [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] [SHIELD]/ 1817 [Location:] British Library, MS Add. 35,265, fol. 23. [Printed:] J. Cuthbert Hadden, George Thomson, the Friend of Burns (London, 1898), pp. 177–78. the valuable work after thanking Hogg for his songs Thomson in his letter to Hogg of 18 March 1818 (British Library, MS Add. 35,268, fols 20r–21v) had added ‘I

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observed the other day that you have but the small edition of Johnson’s dictionary, without the illustrations or examples [...]. Do me the pleasure then to accept of the Quarto edition herewith sent, as a mark of my gratitude and esteem’. the Bard’s friend Robert Burns had been heavily involved with Thomson’s collecting of Scottish songs. this song Hogg had originally sent Thomson ‘Bonny Laddie, Highland Laddie’ in his letter of [16 March 1818]. British Library, MS Add. 35,265, fols 24–25 is a copy in Thomson’s hand with Hogg’s corrections and notes, presumably sent to Hogg as a form of proof, and returned by him with this letter. The song was published as ‘Where Got Ye that Siller Moon’ in Thomson’s A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs, folio edition, volume V (Edinburgh, 1818), no. 207. added two stanzas see British Library, MS Add. 35,265, fols 24–25. Hogg has written two new stanzas concerning Wellington in the margin at right angles to the song given in Thomson’s hand, but Thomson has added ‘+ Omit this verse’ and neither is included in the published version. Tuesday next Hogg intended to leave Edinburgh on 31 March, but was still there on 1 April from his letter to W. E. Heather of that date. Jeering Thomson had suggested that the Highlander in Hogg’s song might address his interlocutor with the refrain ‘Lawland laddie, jeering laddie’ as being more appropriate than continuing the refrain ‘Bonny laddie Highland laddie’. Hogg’s own suggestion presumably gave rise to the ‘Silly body, lawland body,’ of the published version. broken highland Scotch Hogg employed the common conventions for representing the English of a native Gaelic-speaker in his letter of [16 March 1818], so that the refrain, for instance, was ‘Ponny lattie Heelan lattie!’. what I had written I had written echoing Pilate’s words in John 19. 22.

To William Blackwood

[26 March 1818] Thursday ¼ past 5

Dear Blackwood Should I not see you again this week you will be obliged if at all convenient to advance me £50. on Monday for I am going away on Tuesday morning and cannot carry on without it—I will not be absent above ten days—I would like to see how our accounts stand lest I may be running myself into obligations which my prospects for the present do not warrant Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq. [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ March 1818/ James Hogg [Watermark:] RG LNS[?] [in part, across top edge] [Location:] NLS, MS 4003, fols 89–90. [Printed:] Strout, p. 149.

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date Hogg was in Edinburgh during March to visit his sick friend John Grieve. His letter to George Thomson of 25 March [1818] announces his forthcoming departure on ‘Tuesday next’, i. e. 31 March. This letter was written on the Thursday preceding Hogg’s Tuesday departure, that is on 26 March. advance me £50. the payment appears to have been made, as Blackwood in his letter to John Murray of 29 May 1818 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 3) said of Hogg, ‘He wrote you I believe some months ago that I had advanced him £50– to acct of his profits’. Hogg may have needed the money to fund the building of his new house, or to pay off old debts. He seems, for instance, to have paid Walter Cunningham £10–4–0 on 10 April 1818, and another £1 on 15 June 1818—see John Chisholm, Sir Walter Scott as a Judge (Edinburgh, 1918), pp. 205–06. going away on Tuesday morning presumably back to Altrive.

To John Murray

28 March 1818 Grieve & Scott’s Edin March 28th 1818

My dear Sir I have deferred answering your very friendly letter so long that I might be in Edin. and consult with Mr. Blackwood personally about its contents. He is extremely glad that you are going to interest yourself in my tales, as well as the edition of the Queen’s Wake and observes ( justly I dare say) that one who is truly friendly to a cause can always do much more for it than one who is merely indifferent farther than profit goes. He advises me to conform to your proposals with regard to the sale edition of the WAKE as to one who knows better than any man what will do with the public But I cannot help thinking that 9/ is too little for an 8vo vol. of 400 pages and that no profit will be made of it at all. We will however settle all these things time enough as we have resolved not to publish it till the beginning of Winter and in the mean time you must make a long pull and a strong pull in London for subscriptions as you and Mr. Rogers are the principal men we have to depend on. Walter Scott will write to you himself within these few days. In the mean time if you would be so good as distribute a few of the proposals among your acquaintances in the name of any one of my friends whose names are subjoined, that is with their compts. it might be furthering the plan somewhat. If it should not prove successful to a certain amount I should feel awkwardly on account of the projectors more than myself. I still think that at some of your great sales saying nothing about the intended sale copy you might put off a good deal among the trade. I am sure however that you will do all for the best if you do not in the bustle of business forget me Blackwood says he will give you one half two thirds or any share of my Romantic Tales that you please. At first we made some ar-

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rangements about a copy-right but have now resolved on your account principally as the plainest way for all parties to half the profits of the Edition which I believe is only 1500 copies only Blackwood is to advance me some money in the interim but he will tell you more distinctly about all these things himself He is keeping the literary world and the Trade here alive with a vengeance by that d—d Magazine of his. I think, all things considered, one of his writers in a very sharp but well written article, has given your Review fairly the superiority to the other. Write me soon and believe me Dear Sir Your’s most truly James Hogg P. S. I have seen Mr Scott this moment and he says he will not write till he have an article for the Review to send along with it to put you in better humour; but in the mean time you may use his name freely to any friend of yours that you think likely to forward the subscription. You will hear from him very shortly J. H. [Addressed:] John Murray Esq./ 59 Albemarle street/ London [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] 1818 Mar 28/ Hogg James [Watermark:] J WHATMAN/ 1815 [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box 37. [Printed:] Smiles, II, 5 [in part]; Strout, p. 150 [in part]. your very friendly letter probably that of 24 January 1818 ( John Murray Archive, Box 37), advising Hogg about the new edition of The Queen’s Wake and agreeing to become the London publisher of The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales—see Hogg’s letter to Murray of 15 January 1818 and notes. Mr. Blackwood Hogg’s letter was enclosed in one from Blackwood himself of 30 March 1818 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 3) about Hogg’s forthcoming publications: ‘By Mr Hogg’s desire I send in a parcel of his proposals. His own letter which which [sic] I enclose will explain what he wants done. He has also written you about his Tales. I shall either hold a half or a third of them as you chuse. I enclose you some slips as you will probably now insert the Adv in some of the London Papers’. Of the 1500 copies of this edition Murray received 906 from Blackwood—see the notes to Hogg’s letter to Murray of 4 [ July] 1818. For an account of the subsequent breakdown of relations between Blackwood and Murray see Peter Garside, ‘Three Perils in Publishing: Hogg and the Popular Novel’, SHW, 2 (1991), 45–63. the sale edition the sixth edition of The Queen’s Wake, set from the same type as the fifth or subscription edition. It was demy-octavo size and intended for general sale at a lower price than the subscription edition, which was royal octavo, contained plates, and cost

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a guinea. The price of the sale edition was eventually fixed at twelve shillings—see the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 1 July 1819. a long pull and a strong pull a sea-faring proverb—see The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, rev. by F. P. Wilson, third edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973, repr. 1982), p. 480. Mr. Rogers the poet Samuel Rogers (1763–1855), author of The Pleasures of Memory (1792), and a well-known London literary host. Walter Scott if Scott did write to Murray about the subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake his letter does not appear to have survived. A printed copy of Scott’s original prospectus for the two-guinea quarto edition, revised in his hand to explain the change to a one-guinea royal octavo survives in NLS, MS 4937, fol. 82, and is reprinted and discussed in the Appendix to The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004), pp. 394–98. Scott was extremely active in promoting the subscription among his friends. some of your great sales see Hogg’s letter to Murray of 15 January 1818 and notes. Blackwood is to advance me some money Hogg had asked Blackwood to advance him £50 before leaving Edinburgh in March and had apparently received it—see his letter to Blackwood of [26 March 1818] and notes. sharp but well written article presumably ‘Remarks on the Periodical Criticism of England’, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (March 1818), 670–79. The author, ‘Baron von Lauerwinkel’, was Lockhart—see Strout, Bibliography, p. 38. Murray was the publisher of the Quarterly Review, the Tory rival to Constable’s Edinburgh Review. an article for the Review not necessarily an article of Scott’s own writing, since Scott’s subsequent letter to Murray (Smiles, II, 5–6) mentions that the article on Hogg is to be returned to his friend John Grieve if not used. It was not printed in the Quarterly Review.

To W. E. Heather

1 April 1818

Edin April 1st 1818 My dear sir Though I think I remember the tunes that I sent off to you I do not remember in the least how they are numbered There is one on two flats consisting of three parts, two and a chorus for which the first verse runs thus O Mother tell the laird o’t Or sairly it will grieve me O That I’m to wake the ewes the night An’ Annie’s to gang wi’ me O I’ll wake the ewes my night about But ne’er wi’ ane sae saucy O Nor sit my lane the lee lang night Wi’ sic a scornfu’ lassie O I’ll no wake—I’ll no wake I’ll no wake wi’ Annie O

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Nor sit my lane o’ernight wi’ ane Sae thraward an’ uncannie O ———————————— There is another consisting of two parts and a chorus which is I think set on two sharps the first verse of which runs thus O sairly may I rue the day I fancy’d first the womenkind! For aye sinsyne I ne’er can hae Ae quiet thought or peace o’ mind. They hae plagued my heart, an’ pleased my ee An’ teazed an’ flattered me at will But aye for a’ their witcherye The pawkie things I lo’e them still CHORUS O the women fock! O the women fock! But they hae been the wreck o’ me O weary fa’ the women fock For they winna let a body be ———————————— The remaining two have each only two parts The one on two flats begins thus. O my lassie our joy to compleat again Meet me again in the gloaming my deary Low down in the dell let us meet again O Jeany there’s naething to fear ye! Come when the wee bat flits silent and eiry; Come when the pale face o’ Nature looks weary; Love be thy sure defence, Beauty and Innocense, O Jeany there’s naething to fear ye! ———————————— That 6/8 # # one I meant for a duet, but have no words ready for it. Those of The Banks of the Devon by Burns, or The Wounded Hussar by Campbell either will do for your purpose I intend in our old Scotch fashion to set only one verse to music. I have no plan of publication farther than this that I have seven or eight songs of my own composing tunes as well as words that are very popular here and that I am everlastingly plagued singing I am going to publish these in a small work by themselves price 5/ for a kind of original curiosity. I am told there will be thousands of them sell but I do not know nor care much.

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Of course I thought I would avail myself of your science and good taste which I certainly do very much admire and I was sure you would delight in doing that for a humble Bard Make them simple. Perhaps I may take it into my head to make the folk here believe that I am really inspired for the joke’s sake and swear that the accompaniments too are my own I have not recieved any Numbers of the Hebrew Melodies. I thought the thing had somehow quite knocked [sic] on the head and I forebore mentioning it as I knew you would be much more hurt and vexed about it than me I am dear sir Ever yours most sincerely James Hogg The Duke of Buccleuch is now on his way to London Direct no more to his care. If you can find him out there and send the parcels to Robt Reynolds Esq. his steward he will get them franked for me with the utmost cheerfulness J. H. [Addressed:] W. E. Heather Esq./ No 111 St. John street/ West Smithfield/ London [Postmarked:] S 5AP5 1818 [and] APR 82A 1818 [and] ½ [Watermark:] J WHATMAN/ 1815 [Location:] Boston Public Library/ Rare Books Department, Mss. Acc. 70. W. E. Heather the composer and pianist William Edward Heather was born in 1784, the son of Stephen Heather, choirmaster of Eton College. He was the author of a Treatise on Pianoforte Study (c. 1820), and of National Airs as Trios with Variations for the Harp, Pianoforte and Flute (c. 1820), as well as a number of songs, some of them to words by Scott. He had set Hogg’s words to music for A Selection of German Hebrew Melodies (London: C. Christmas, [c. 1817]). He died sometime after 1830—see James D. Brown and Stephen S. Stratton, British Musical Biography: A Dictionary of Musical Articles, Authors and Composers, Born in Britain and its Colonies (Birmingham, 1897), p. 193. the tunes that I sent off to you Hogg was seeking Heather’s help in harmonising tunes for his publication of A Border Garland, a collection of nine Hogg songs with piano accompaniments published by Nathaniel Gow and Son of Edinburgh. It was advertised as ‘No. I’ of a series, costing three shillings, in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 8 May 1819. The title-page says ‘The Music Partly Old Partly Composed by himself and friends & arranged with Symphonies and Accompaniments for the Piano Forte’. one on two flats ‘I’ll no wake wi’ Annie’ in A Border Garland (pp. 2–3), which attributes the tune to Hogg himself. In his Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd (Edinburgh, 1831) Hogg says that the tune ‘was first harmonized by Mr Heather, London, and subsequently by Mr Dewar of Edinburgh [...]’ (p. 224). Hogg’s letter quotes only the first verse and chorus. set on two sharps ‘The Women Fo’k’ in A Border Garland (pp. 6–7), which attributes the tune to Hogg himself. In his Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd (Edinburgh, 1831) Hogg says, ‘The air of this song is my own. It was first set to music by Heather, and most beautifully set too’ (p. 65). Hogg’s letter quotes only the first verse and chorus.

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The one on two flats ‘Naething to Fear Ye’ in A Border Garland (pp. 10–11), which says the tune is ‘Old’. In his Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd (Edinburgh, 1831) Hogg relates the circumstances in which he wrote the song and gives the name of ‘Over the Border’ to the tune: ‘Happening to spend an evening, as I had done many, with Patrick Maxwell, Esq., he played the old air, “Over the Border,” so well, that I could get no rest or sleep till I had composed the following verses for it that I could croon to myself. The late Mrs Gray went over and corrected them next day’ (p. 33). Hogg’s letter quotes only the first verse. That 6/8 # # one no tune with this key signature and time signature is included in A Border Garland. The Banks of the Devon by Burns see The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, ed. by James Kinsley, 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), I, 368–69. The Wounded Hussar by Campbell a sentimental song by Thomas Campbell (1777– 1844), frequently reprinted in popular song-books such as The Union Imperial SongBook (Aberdeen, 1820), p. 19. The tune is given there as ‘Captain O’Kaine’. the joke’s sake Hogg’s title-page for A Border Garland states that the music was ‘Partly Old Partly Composed by himself and friends’, but does not acknowledge Heather or any other musical assistant by name. Hogg could compose a tune (no doubt with the help of his fiddle), but he probably could not harmonise it successfully. Numbers of the Hebrew Melodies although Hogg seems to have been unaware of the fact, it seems likely that A Selection of German Hebrew Melodies had been published in London by C. Christmas in the second half of 1817—for information about the publisher and a discussion of the probable date of publication see the notes to Hogg’s letter to William Blackwood of 12 August 1817. In his Memoir (pp. 51–52) Hogg related that ‘in 1815, I was applied to by a celebrated composer of music, in the name of a certain company in London, to supply verses, suiting some ancient Hebrew Melodies, selected in the synagogues of Germany. I proffered to furnish them at a guinea a stanza, which was agreed to at once, and I furnished verses to them all. The work was published in a splendid style, price one guinea; but it was a hoax upon me, for I was never paid a farthing’. An advertisement for A Border Garland in the Edinburgh Weekly Journal of 28 April 1819 also includes a mention of this work, priced at sixteen shillings. The Duke of Buccleuch if Hogg’s letters were sent under cover to the Duke of Buccleuch they would be received and forwarded free of charge. Robt Reynolds has not been identified.

To George Boyd

[21 April 1818]

Tuesday Morning Dear Boyde The tickets are not quite ready I will get you one some time to day they are £1. each and you cannot get it unless I be present Yours very truly James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr. Boyde/ A [sic] Oliver & Boyde’s/ Printing Office [Postmark:] none

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[Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ James Hogg/ 21st April/ 1818 [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1816 [Location:] NLS, Acc. 5000/188, Special Correspondence Box, Oliver & Boyd Papers. George Boyd George Boyd was a partner in the Edinburgh printing and publishing firm of Oliver & Boyd—for further information see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. The tickets perhaps for a dinner held in ‘commemoration of Shakespeare’ by the Dilettanti Society at the Freemasons’ Hall on Thursday, 23 April—see the advertisement in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 16 April 1818. The Society’s Regulations stated that the Club dined together four times a year, ‘each Member having the liberty, on these occasions, of introducing one friend’ (NLS, MS 5406, fol. 18). A brief report in the same paper of 27 April mentioned that John Wilson, as Chairman, preceded the toast to the memory of Shakespeare by ‘a speech of unrivalled energy, feeling, and discrimination’.

To Mary Glassell

27 April 1818 Edin 6 Charles Street April 27

I have not forgot you my dear little Mary nor will I ever forget you. I do not think you have been five minutes out of my mind since I last saw you, and I am fully convinced that if ever I met with a heart and soul of kindred feelings with my own it is—I’ll not say whose it is—I have written the verses I promised but have judged them too familiar to go out of my hand to a young lady of rank and yet I cannot think to alter them or make them less kind—too kind I am sure they cannot be if the sentiments of the heart may be expressed in verse—After all I do not see why they should not, and openly avowed too—I have no design or sinister motive for my affection and why may I not love a fellow creature because I delight to look on her and hear her speak? Write to me freely I think the difference in our ages may warrant this and believe me Ever yours James Hogg I have got the fourth canto to day—It is a glorious morsel! [Addressed:] Miss Glassell/ Sir G. B. Hepburns’/ Smeaton/ Preston Kirk [Postmark:] APR B27E 1818 [and] Addl. ½ [Watermark:] KENT/ 1817 [Location:] NLS, MS 5319, fols 288–89. Mary Glassell has not been identified, though she may have been related to the Hepburns of Smeaton in Haddingtonshire, since Hogg directs his letter to the head of that family, Sir George Buchan Hepburn, Bart.—for information about the Hepburn

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family see William Anderson, The Scottish Nation, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1865), II, 468. the verses I promised perhaps a contribution to this young lady’s album. the fourth canto the fourth canto of Byron’s Childe Harold, which was advertised as due to be published on Tuesday, 28 April in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 9 April 1818. Hogg had received his copy, a present from John Murray, before it was generally available in Edinburgh, for Blackwood in his letter to Murray of 28 April 1818 (NLS, MS 30,001, fol. 109) acknowledges receipt of ‘2 copies one for myself for which I retd you my best thanks and another not address also copies for Mr Hogg & Mr Wilson— which I deld instantly and for which they also return you their warmest thanks [...] they are both in raptures with it. [...] I hope I will have it to morrow, as the smack is said to be in the roads’. Murray had clearly sent advance copies by land as well as the bulk of the copies for sale in Scotland by sea.

To George Thomson

[9 May 1818]

Dear Sir I wrote one song this morning and as nothing of Charley still arrived from the Royal Exchange I had no more patience and wrote the inclosed in less than ten minutes so that you may easily see with how little scruple you may ask a song from me. I have kept by the country sing-song stile, and if it is accepted I wish it to appear anonymously merely as some picked up country song. After you have looked at it I will make what alterations or additions you please I am dear Sir Yours ever most affectionately James Hogg Give my compts to the Queen of the Fairies when you see her [Addressed:] George Thomson Esq./ 4 Royal Exchange [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] 9 May 1818/ Mr Hogg/ with a song for/ Charlie is my darling [Watermark:] KENT/ 1817 [Location:] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: Osborn MSS, Folder 7423. Charley Hogg was perhaps expecting music from Thomson for the Jacobite song ‘Charlie is My Darling’. For Hogg’s version see Jacobite Relics. Second Series, ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2003), pp. 92–93. Hogg says in his note ‘I wrote the first of these songs some years ago, at the request of a friend, who complained that he did not like the old verses’ (p. 301), and it is possible that the unnamed friend was Thomson. Murray Pittock indicates (p. 506) that Hogg’s note in Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd (Edinburgh, 1831), states that it was altered from the original ‘at the request of a lady who sung it sweetly’ (p. 96). Hogg’s letter is accompanied in the Beinecke Library by a copy of ‘The Young Chevalier (Charley is my darling)’, but this is not in Hogg’s hand.

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‘The Young Chevalier’ does not appear in the fifth volume of Thomson’s folio edition of A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs of 1818. Royal Exchange a pun about a dispossessed prince being a royal exchange. Thomson was employed as Principal Clerk to the Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Manufactures in Scotland, and Hogg was expecting a letter sent from his place of business on the High Street. the Queen of the Fairies perhaps a reference to one of Thomson’s six daughters.

To the Editor of the Glasgow Chronicle

13 May 1818

SIR, A COPY of the Glasgow Chronicle has just been handed to me, in which I observe a paragraph concerning MR BLACKWOOD and “a gentleman from Glasgow,” which I declare to be manifestly false. The paragraph must have been written by that said gentleman himself, as no other spectator could possibly have given such a statement. Among other matters, he says that Mr B. was “accompanied by a man having the appearance of a shop porter.” He is “a gentleman from Glasgow,” and I am “a man having the appearance of a shop porter” (for there was no person accompanying Mr B. but myself). Now I do not take this extremely well, and should like to know what it is that makes him “a gentleman,” and me so far below one. Plain man as I am, it cannot be my appearance; I will show myself on the steps at the door of Mackay’s Hotel with him whenever he pleases, or any where else. It cannot be on account of my parents and relations, for in that I am likewise willing to abide the test. If it is, as is commonly believed, that a man is known by his company, I can tell this same “gentleman,” that I am a frequent and a welcome guest in companies where he would not be admitted as a waiter. If it is to any behaviour of mine that he alludes in this his low species of wit, I hereby declare, Sir, to you and to the world, that I never attacked a defenceless man who was apparently one-half below me in size and strength, nor stood patiently and was cudgelled like an ox, when that same person thought proper to retaliate. As to the circumstances of the drubbing which MR BLACKWOOD gave this same gentleman from Glasgow, so many witnessed it, there can be no mistake about the truth. JAM E S HOGG No 6, CHARLES STREET, EDINBURGH, 13th May 1818. [Location:] Printed, To the Editor of the Glasgow Chronicle (Edinburgh, 1818), p. 3 [NLS HH. 4/2. 40 (17)].

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[Printed:] Glasgow Chronicle, 14 May 1818; Edinburgh Evening Courant, 14 May 1818; Caledonian Mercury, 14 May 1818; Edinburgh Advertiser, 15 May 1818. Glasgow Chronicle Hogg’s letter is a response to the following paragraph in the Glasgow Chronicle of 12 May 1818, and was circulated by Blackwood with a letter of his own as a sheet publication: Yesterday forenoon, a gentleman from Glasgow, whose name had been impertinently introduced into Blackwood’s Magazine, horsewhipped him opposite to his own shop, in Prince’s Street. As this gentleman was stepping into the Glasgow coach, at four o’clock, Mr. Blackwood, armed with a bludgeon, and apparently somewhat intoxicated, and accompanied by a man having the appearance of a shop porter, attempted a violent assault, but without injury, the attack being repelled and retaliated by the free use of the horsewhip. A croud, attracted by the occurrence, speedily separated the parties. The Glasgow Chronicle was a Whig paper, published in Glasgow from 2 March 1811 onwards and edited by John Douglas. no person accompanying Mr B. but myself Scott gave an account in his letter to the Duke of Buccleuch of 25 May [1818]: Your Grace must know that Mr. Blackwood’s Magazine had been very severe upon a certain Mr. Douglas a blackguard Writer who conducts an equally blackguard Whig paper in Glasgow calld The Chronicle. Douglas incensed at these freedoms comes you to Edinburgh in the Maill, surprizes Ebony alias Blackwood at his door with half a dozen slaps with a horsewhip instead of an order for as many copies of his new magazine—moves from thence to Mr. Jeffrey—retains him as his counsel in case of an action for assault & battery and proceeds to take a luncheon at the Turf coffee house and return in triumph by the four o’clock stage. But mark how midst of Victory Fate plays her old dog-trick. Ebony when he recoverd from the astonishment which such discipline is apt to confer on those who are not used to it calls in the aid of the Ettrick Shepherd— chuses a kent under his experienced direction—& stations himself at the door of the coffee-house attacks Mr. Douglas as he comes out and lays on con amore. Apparently Mr. D’s fighting fit was off for he underwent this retaliative discipline with great patience much to the amusement of Peter of Symprim who saw & described the onset. He retired however to Glasgow & on his own Moniteur faild not like Bony to sing Te Deum for two victories instead of one. Now of our friend the Ettrick Shepherd he spoke in the said bulletin most contumeliously saying that Mr. B. was backed by a man resembling a shop-porter. The mountain bard justly indignant at this representation publishd a letter along with one from Blackwood giving an account of the whole transaction & which I will enclose in this parcel if I can get a copy. (Scott, Letters, V, 154–55) Douglas’s side of the story was given by his friend John Blair in ‘Memorandum of Facts’ in the Glasgow Chronicle of 16 May 1818. Mackay’s Hotel the list of hotels given by Robert Chambers in Walks in Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1825) includes ‘Mackay’s (late Macgregor’s,) 18 & 19, Prince’s Street’ (p. 276). companies where he would not be admitted as a waiter Scott’s comment on this was ‘not far off the truth as the Chief & Minstrel of a certain clan might bear witness’ (Scott, Letters, V, 155), alluding to Hogg’s visits at Bowhill (and perhaps Abbotsford).

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E DI N BU RG H Hogg retreated from Edinburgh to Altrive shortly after this letter was published, as Scott reported to the Duke of Buccleuch in his letter of 25 May. Two men had come over from Glasgow to challenge Hogg to fight a duel with Douglas; Hogg gave them in charge to the police and consulted Scott about the matter. He was unable to prove that a duel was intended, since ‘the words they used might as well imply an invitation to a dinner as to a battle. The Glaswegians returnd in all triumph and glory and Hogg took the wings of the morning and fled to his cottage at Altrive not deeming himself altogether safe in the streets of Edinburgh’ (p. 156).

To the Editor of The Scotsman

17 May [1818] 6 Charles Street May 17

Sir I can hardly express to you how much I was gratified by your friendly and disinterested remarks on my writings in your paper of last week and as it is the first public opinion that has been adventured on of the Tales it can scarcely fail of gaining to a certain degree the writer’s generous intent I have had a hard and patient struggle for literary fame and have often wondered that no one of my friends ever thought of lending me a lift—It was apparent that I wanted it and I was sure my efforts took away all risk of disgrace from the attempt. None however had the generosity (if we except Mr Gray in some late Magazines) and I have the honour to owe the first bold and strenuous attestion [sic] in my favour to one, even to whose name I am an utter stranger; and whom I have been regularly accusing every week of being a capricious and teazing devil.—I never in all my life hinted to a man to take any public notice of me or my writings, but when that has been done I think it would be ungrateful not to acknowledge it; I therefore thank you sir with all my heart for your very flattering and friendly notice. I have reason to be proud of them for had you not thought well of the work I mistake you much if it would have been easy to have wrung such an attestation from you The Dramatic Tales and Poetic Mirror are likewise mine, save one small poem in the latter. The compleat failure of the former has more astonished me than all I have ever witnessed in my short literary experience. The Brownie was written long before Old Mortality but I could not get the Booksellers to publish it Scott knows this well enough and that I was obliged to go over it again in order to take out Burly who was one of my principal characters but quite a poor one when compared with the other I am dear Sir Yours very truly James Hogg

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[Addressed:] To/ The Editor of/ The Scotsman [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1809 [Location:] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: James Hogg Collection GEN MSS 61, Box 1, Folder 14. [Printed:] Adam, p. 8; Strout, p. 147 [in part]. remarks on my writings a laudatory review of Hogg’s The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales had appeared in The Scotsman of 16 May 1818, pp. 158–59. The reviewer draws a distinction between Scott’s treatment of the Covenanters in Old Mortality and Hogg’s in the first tale of his collection: ‘But the distinction between this Brownie and Old Mortality, which gives us the highest satisfaction, is the important truth that the conduct of Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, and the Government of Scotland, in the bloody persecutions which preceded the Revolution of 1688, is here depicted in all its native deformity’. The article goes on to make a comparison of the repression of the people’s liberties in Covenanting times with that in post-Napoleonic Europe. Hogg’s letter of appreciation of this early review was not published in The Scotsman. the first public opinion the review in The Scotsman appeared only five days after the Edinburgh publication of The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales, which was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 11 May 1818. no one of my friends in his letter to Blackwood of 24 September 1817 Hogg says that it was ‘extremely shabby in my whole circle of literary friends’ not to review Dramatic Tales. Mr Gray in some late Magazines see James Gray’s three-part ‘Life and Writings of James Hogg’, Edinburgh Magazine, 2 ( January, February, and March 1818), 35–40, 122– 29, 215–23. The Dramatic Tales and Poetic Mirror published anonymously by John Ballantyne and the Longmans firm in 1816 and 1817 respectively. long before Old Mortality the reviewer in The Scotsman had remarked (p. 159), ‘We doubt much whether we should ever have seen the Brownie if we had not first been delighted with the Black Dwarf and Old Mortality: but still the one is merely the occasion of the other. There are no slavish imitations’. Hogg repeated his assertion in his Memoir (pp. 45–47). could not get the Booksellers to publish it as Douglas Mack has suggested, ‘The Brownie of Bodsbeck’ may have formed part of ‘The Rural and Traditionary Tales of Scotland’ Hogg offered to Constable in his letter of 20 May 1813—see The Brownie of Bodsbeck, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1976), pp. xiv– xvii.

To George Thomson

22 May [1818]

6 Charles’ Street May 22 My dear Sir Will you lend me M,Gibbon’s collection for a while? If you can

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spare it send it with the bearer—If you have it not perhaps Oswalds will do but I fear they are not such good sets Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] George Thomson Esq./ Royal Exchange [Postmark:] none [Endorsed:] To wait answer [Endorsed—not JH:] Mr Hogg/ wanting Oswald’s/ Collection of Scots tunes/ Sent [Watermark:] none [Location:] Fales Library & Special Collections, New York University: Fales MSS 89. 20. M,Gibbon’s collection William McGibbon, A Collection of Scots Tunes (Edinburgh, [1740– 55]). Hogg was looking at musical settings for Jacobite songs for his own forthcoming collection, where he remarks that the air to ‘Song LXI. Gladsmuir’ was composed by McGibbon—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. Second Series, ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2003), p. 336. Oswalds James Oswald, The Caledonian Pocket Companion, 7 vols (London, [c. 1745]). Thomson’s endorsement indicates that he did send this work to Hogg. Hogg’s note to ‘Song I. The King shall enjoy his own again’ says, ‘The air was taken down from a country singer, but is very nearly the same with one in Oswald’s collection of ancient Scottish music’—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. [First Series], ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2002), p. 154.

To Eliza Izett

25 May 1818

Edin May 25 1818 My dearest E. I have had ill accounts of your health from Dr. Irvine altho’ you make your friends here believe that you are again getting quite well. I have had other vexations of late with matters that no way concerned me but this concerns my heart indeed; and as I leave this for my home in a few minutes I could not do so without thus enquiring after you. I know from your Christian temper and disposition (from which I hope never wilfully to swerve) that you will be resigned and cheerful however it may be the Almighty’s will to dispose of you, and in this cheerful content I hope as much as any other thing for a full reestablishment of your health. I beg to hear from you if it were but by a card of three lines and if you are going to try a change of climate. That every blessing and happiness may attend you is the sincere wish and prayer of Your ever affectionate James Hogg

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[Addressed:] Mrs. Izet/ Kinnaird-House/ Dunkeld [Postmark:] MAY B25M 1818 [and] Addl. ½ [Endorsed—not JH:] Mr Hogg/ 25th May 1818 [Watermark:] V ALLEYFI E LD / 1816 [Location:] The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and his Circle, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, Misc. MSS. Eliza Izett for information on Eliza Izett see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. Dr. Irvine the Edinburgh P. O. directory for 1817–18 lists a Dr Irving living at 7 Meadow Place, his address being given as 6 Meadow Place in the following volume. other vexations of late notably Hogg’s encounter as Blackwood’s supporter with John Douglas of Glasgow and its aftermath—see his letter to the Editor of the Glasgow Chronicle of 13 May 1818 and notes. He may perhaps also allude to the discontinuation of James Gray’s articles about his life and work in the Edinburgh Magazine—see Hogg’s draft letter to Timothy Tickler of 3 August 1818 and notes. leave this for my home Hogg was intending to return to Altrive in Yarrow.

To William Blackwood

18 June 1818 Eltrieve Lake June 18th 1818

Dear Sir Please send me the Magazine and Review with the bearer for you may be sure I am wearying to see them with any news that you think can interest me. You should be pushing the Brownie just now by advertisements &c before Scott appears Some of my friends will perhaps select an extract or two for you to the papers. I have no news here. The weather is delightful beyond comparison God’s [TEAR] has been here these eight days and no word [TEAR] has neither shoes nor stockings [TEAR] breeches are completely in rags. My [TEAR] is advancing apace but I have as yet heard no more of the £50. from the Highland society I am afraid I will be obliged to apply to you after all as that sum by the contract should have been advanced before this time. I am however very loth to trespass on the goodness of one who has so many things coming against him, and will delay another month till I see. Would there be any impropriety in asking Murray to advance me that sum as you have already done it on your part? Or is it [TEAR] whether you or he do it? I am going on with my Jacobite selections many of which do not leave my favourites the Whigs of those days the characters of dogs and I confess I feel a little awkward in the business. Has there been any more word of TH E DO U G L A S CAU S E ?

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I have never thought or concerned myself in the least about it but if any thing have transpired on either side let me know I am ever yours truly James [TEAR] [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq./ 17 Prince Street/ Edin. [Postmarked:] none [Endorsed—JH:] The porter to/ wait answer [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ 18th June 1818/ James Hogg/ Eltrive Lake [Watermark:] V ALLEYFI E LD / 1816 [Location:] NLS, MS 4003, fols 91–92. [Printed:] Strout, p. 154 [in part]. the Magazine and Review issue no. 36 of the Quarterly Review, for January 1818, was advertised as ‘Just Arrived’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 11 June 1818. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine for June 1818 was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Caledonian Mercury of 20 June 1818. pushing the Brownie Blackwood intended to publish Hogg’s The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales in Edinburgh on 11 May, according to his letter to Murray of 2 May 1818 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 3) by which he notified his intention to ship 500 or 600 copies to London. When Murray read a copy of the work he clearly reacted as he had done over The Pilgrims of the Sun at the end of 1814: he now threatened once more to cancel the title-page of the work, withdrawing his name as its publisher. He seems to have been dissuaded by Scott, who wrote to him on 15 May 1818 (Smiles, II, 11), ‘Hogg’s Tales are a great failure, to be sure. With a very considerable portion of original genius he is sadly deficient, not only in correct taste, but in common tact. But I hope you will not cancel the title-page, because it would be doing the poor fellow irretrievable injury’. Murray’s London advertisement for the publication of The Brownie appeared in the Morning Chronicle of 30 May 1818. before Scott appears Scott’s Tales of My Landlord. Second Series (The Heart of Mid-Lothian) was published in Edinburgh on 25 July 1818—see Todd & Bowden, p. 467. Hogg takes it for granted that the anonymous novels are by Scott. My [TEAR] is advancing apace the missing word is perhaps cottage, as Hogg was building a new house at Altrive during 1818 and paying for it in instalments as the work advanced. the £50. from the Highland society David Stewart of Garth had applied to George Thomson on behalf of the Highland Society of London commissioning or suggesting a collection of Scottish Jacobite songs, which Hogg had subsequently undertaken to edit—see Hogg’s letter to Thomson of [22 December 1817] and notes. The exact terms upon which Hogg was employed are not known, and, as Murray Pittock indicates, the £100 mentioned by Stewart in his original letter of 11 October 1817 appears to have been an arbitrary sum ‘since sums of £150 and £200 also appear, cancelled, in the letter’—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. [First Series], ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2002), p. xx. Pittock’s argument that Hogg probably had no written agreement with the Society appears to be correct. A manuscript record in the papers of the Highland Society of London (NLS, Deposit 268/43) of ‘Extracts of the Proceedings of the Society from

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the 6th of February 1819 to the 15th of May 1824’ includes a note that on 6 March 1819 it was resolved that ‘the sum of £50 be presented to the Ettrick Shepherd to encourage him in the publication of a collection of the Whig and Tory Songs of Scotland from the Covenanters to the Rebellion in 1745’. The description implies a goodwill gesture rather than the part-payment of a debt. Murray to advance me that sum Hogg did ask Murray for an advance of £50 of his author’s profits in his letter of 4 [ July] 1818. Blackwood had paid a similar sum when Hogg left Edinburgh at the end of March—see his letter to Blackwood of [26 March 1818] and notes. Hogg does not seem to have received his full payment for The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales, however, until 1821—see Blackwood’s statement of 27 August 1821 in NLS, MS 30,301, p. 201. A fuller context is provided by Peter Garside in ‘James Hogg’s Fifty Pounds’, SHW, 1 (1990), 128–32. THE DOUGLAS CAUSE for details of Hogg’s involvement in Blackwood’s quarrel with John Douglas see his letter to the Editor of the Glasgow Chronicle of 13 May 1818 and notes. Hogg’s phrase here alludes to a celebrated legal case of the previous century. When the 3rd Marquis of Douglas died in 1761 he bequeathed his estates to the child of his sister Jane’s secret marriage to Sir John Steuart of Grandtully, born in 1748. The new head of the house of Douglas, the 7th Duke of Hamilton, attempted to prove that this child, Alexander Steuart, was not this lady’s legitimate offspring but the House of Lords found in favour of the boy.

To William Blackwood

[c. 24 June 1818]

Dear Blackwood I have recd the Review &c and have been very highly entertained with it indeed I have a thought of writing Murray and congratulating him on it. It is really a good number—They leave our people in the shade with regard to abuse both personal and literary of Hunt and Hazlitt How I am grieved to day when the carrier returned without the Magazine however I am sure you will take the first opportunity By the by I would like to have a paper after it is read in the shop for till Buccleuch come home I have none. I would like the Literary Gazzette best but I care not much what paper it be provided I get one I have not been writing any new thing for the Magazine I know W. will not let in any thing of mine. he will perhaps tell me as he did lately “This would perhaps do for the Mentor. If you like I shall try to get it in there” After the rejection The old Soldier’s tale I cannot think of any prose article just now that would possibly gain admittance, in the present taste of the editors. I know I will soon have a greater hand to bear in it so will keep up my matter till then Be so good as forward the inclosed in your first packet to Peterhead And believe me ever Yours truly James Hogg

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P. S. Should not the Edition of The Wake be added to the advertisements it would cost nothing [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq./ 17 Prince Street/ Edinr. [Endorsed—JH:] Care of J. Bryden [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ June 1818/ James Hogg/ Eltrieve Lake [Watermark:] R COLLINS/ 1810 [Location:] NLS, MS 4003, fols 93–94. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 154–55. date Hogg’s letter to Peter Buchan of 24 June 1818 is directed to him at Peterhead ‘care of W. Blackwood Esq. Edin.’ and is probably the enclosure mentioned in this letter. the Review issue no. 36 of the Quarterly Review—see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 18 June 1818, in which he requested Blackwood to send ‘the Magazine and Review with the bearer’. abuse [...] of Hunt and Hazlitt Leigh Hunt (1784–1859) and William Hazlitt (1778– 1830) were attacked in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine as Cockney writers. Hogg’s letter to Murray of 4 [ July] 1818 refers to a scathing review of Leigh Hunt’s Foliage; or, Poems Original and Translated in the Quarterly Review, 18 ( January 1818), 324–35. Buccleuch come home the Duke of Buccleuch presumably sent papers over to Altrive once they had been read at Bowhill, as an attention to a country neighbour. Literary Gazzette a weekly London literary paper, edited by William Jerdan, and founded in 1817. It often contained the earliest reviews of literary works. W. John Wilson, now a mainstay of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. the Mentor an insulting suggestion to a professional writer of Hogg’s standing, since Mentor; or, Edinburgh Weekly Essayist; containing Dissertations on Morality, Literature, and Manners was a cheap weekly paper of twelve small pages costing twopence, reminiscent of Hogg’s own The Spy of 1810–1811. It was printed by Michael Anderson, from his printinghouse in Lady Stair’s Close in the Lawnmarket and would-be contributors were reminded that ‘There is a Letter-Box affixed to the door of the Printing-House’ in no. 1 for Saturday, 24 May 1817. Each issue concluded with obviously amateur poetry. A number of articles were signed ‘Musomanicus’ and dated ‘East Nook of Fife’, suggesting that the paper had connections with the Musomanick Society of Anstruther of which Hogg was a member. The old Soldier’s tale this had been sent to Blackwood with Hogg’s letter of 13 January 1818. After being rejected for Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine it was published in the Clydesdale Magazine, 1 ( July 1818), 106–12, and subsequently in Winter Evening Tales of 1820—see Winter Evening Tales, ed. by Ian Duncan (S/SC, 2002), pp. 98–106. the inclosed [...] to Peterhead probably Hogg’s letter to Peter Buchan of Peterhead of 24 June 1818—see above. the advertisements Hogg had urged Blackwood to re-advertise The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales in his letter of 18 June 1818. Advertisements subsequently appeared in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 30 July and 5 December 1818.

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To Peter Buchan

24 June 1818 Eltrieve Lake June 24th 1818

My dear Sir A thousand thanks for your kind attentions to my interest. I cannot express how much I am gratified by the exertions of you and Mr. Wallace who are (the latter in particular) so much strangers to me. I have been highly amused by the descriptions of your several rural excursions and have accompanied you in imagination every foot of the way, and in your humourous adventure with the old Jacobite have in idea made one of the number. Mr Wallace is a highly valuable correspondent. I wish I were nearer to him; but I fear you are both putting yourselves to much more trouble than what is necessary, for the hoard of Jacobite matter that I have procured now is immense, and I have got no fewer than ten copies of the same song in some instances. Of the two first you sent me I have seen no other copies, but I fear they are modern imitations; however, among such, they may do very well, for a part of such there must be. All the rest I have save Skinner’s poems which are a valuable curiosity. As I am only publishing Jacobite Songs I cannot publish them as such, but as notes, all or a part of them will be very curious. If you hear of a song, the first verse or chorus, is sufficient to send, till you know if I have not got it, or any thing that will lead me to know what it is. It being now impossible to distinguish what were really the original verses of each song, I have resolved for the honour of our country to take always the best edition of each that I can find, and even the best set of each verse that I can find see next page My Peggy O The sun-beam dances thro’ the trees, Where ivy twines sae sweetly O; The gurgling rill an’ gloamin breeze Sae kindly there invite me O: The closing flowers and birken bowers, An’ hawthorns blooming bonny O, O they might please a heart at ease That trouble hasna ony O. But when I see yon hazilie brae Aneath the cliff sae craigy O, Where woodbines speel around the sheil

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Of my dear spotless Peggy O, Nae ither scene can please my een, To that they turn for ever O; For ah my heart is there bedeen An’ downa bide to leave her O Yestreen upon yon flowry knowe, Where blythsome lambs were playing O, I press’d her lips o’ hinney dew Nor thought o’ love’s betraying O: I’ll ask nae paradise mair sweet Than yon dear glen sae grassy O, Its birken bower, an’ mossy seat, An’ artless bonny lassie O! ———————————— I have ventured you see to curtail the song one verse and to make some trifling alterations for which I am sure I will recieve no thanks having had some experience how thankless an employment it is to cut and carve the works of a young poet. Indeed the thing is impossible. Every two men’s stiles are somuch [sic] unlike that they will not amalgamate without a thorough overhaul. With regard to your publishing, it is impossible for me to be uncandid with one who has been so much the reverse with me. I think you should not yet. Rhyme as much as you can—it is the most elegant and delightful of all amusements and will infallibly and insensibly invigorate and refine your taste— Show the pieces to your friends—revise—select and after your judgement is more mature and your enthusiasm somewhat cooled then publish I’ll tell you my dear Peter if I had never published any thing before the Queen’s Wake it would have been at least £2000 in my pocket to day, but the world cannot help measuring a man by the former impressions he has left on their minds. Any man of discernment may see that you have poetical fancy but it is only such that will see it, for you have learned to think without at all having learned the necessary arts of expression and arrangement, and in truth have not yet rhymed third enough to be a generally popular song-writer. If the music is well selected they may have a local popularity, and that is all in the present case that you need to expect. I return Mr. Wallac’s [sic] letter as I have not time to write to him to night. Bid him tell Miss Barbara that I owe her a kiss for the high and decided preference that she has given me She’s a dear delightful trifler. Publish the song in some northern paper or miscellany with your

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name or without it and see what the world say of it. I will write to Wallace with next week’s carrier if I do not forget Yours ever James Hogg P. S. I have had 21 letters this week [Addressed:] Mr Peter Buchan jun./ Peterhead/ care of W. Blackwood Esq./ Edin.) [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] [S H I E LD ] [and] R C OLLI N S / 1810 [Location:] NLS, MS 3925, fols 93–94. [Printed:] [David Scott], Grass of Parnassus from the Bents o’ Buchan (Peterhead, 1887), pp. 26–27. Peter Buchan Peter Buchan (1790–1854) was a native of Peterhead, and had published a book of poems entitled The Recreations of Leisure Hours: Being Songs and Verses in the Scottish Dialect there in 1814. Early in 1816 he visited Edinburgh with a number of letters of introduction and trained as a printer, and on his return to Peterhead at the end of March set up his own printing press. He published his ballad-collection, Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland, in two volumes in 1828. He helped Hogg to collect Jacobite songs for The Jacobite Relics of Scotland and subsequently wrote some of the notes to The Works of Robert Burns, ed. by Hogg and Motherwell, 5 vols (Glasgow, 1834– 36). Mr. Wallace Hogg lists ‘Mr John Wallace’ among his principal contributors—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. [First Series], ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2002), p. xvi. See also Hogg’s letter to Wallace of 25 November 1818. David Scott states that he was a schoolmaster in Peterhead—see Grass of Parnassus from the Bents o’ Buchan (Peterhead, 1887), p. 26. Skinner’s poems the song-writer John Skinner (1721–1807) was the episcopal clergyman of Longside in Aberdeenshire and a correspondent of Robert Burns. Among his best-known songs are ‘Tullochgorum’ and ‘The Ewie wi’ the Crookit Horn’. His son published two collections of his verses in Edinburgh in 1809, Amusements of Leisure Hours; or, Poetical Pieces chiefly in the Scottish Dialect and A Miscellaneous Collection of Fugitive Pieces of Poetry. Hogg also refers to Jacobite poems composed by Skinner in his letter to John Wallace of 25 November 1818. My Peggy O Buchan must have sent this song to Hogg for his correction and advice. A rather different version was subsequently published by Buchan as ‘Spotless Peggy’ in the section of ‘Miscellaneous Pieces, Chiefly Original’ of his Gleanings of Scotch, English, and Irish, Scarce Old Ballads, Chiefly Tragical and Historical (Peterhead, 1825), pp. 139–40. you should not yet Buchan had in fact already published The Recreations of Leisure Hours in 1814. before the Queen’s Wake until the publication of The Queen’s Wake in 1813 Hogg was generally regarded as a writer whose ‘celebrity was more than equal to the merit of any thing he had produced’—see Edinburgh Star of 5 February 1813. Mr. Wallac’s [sic] letter this has not apparently survived. Miss Barbara has not been identified.

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To John Murray

361 4 [ July] 1818

Eltrieve Lake By Selkirk June 4th 1818 Dear Sir As I am busy building a castle this year and as usual very short of money I wish you would send me £50– as soon as this comes to your hand. Blackwood has advanced me the same sum on The Brownie already and I did not like to ask him for any more so soon though I know he would not have refused me; and as I am in immediate want of it I knew not any application that was so likely to be answered as this. I am wearying very much to hear from you at any rate and to know what is become of Lord Byron—when we may expect him in Britain and what direction will find him at present. I think his last Canto a most glorious work throughout and not equalled by any of his works save some stanzas of the Third Canto. And I cannot write to you without congratulating you most heartily on the increasing interest and value of your Review. I never in all my life saw any periodical work so interesting and spirited throughout as your last and some of the last Nos. of its great opponnent having been so manifestly the reverse the literary feeling is very much in your favour at present more than I could wish for the honour of Scotland but not more nor so much as I could wish for the sake of my friend. I know the hand of the Reviewer of Kirkton but pray who may it be that writes Old and New Greenland &c. &c.? He must be a man of fine fancy feeling and genius I am delighted with him and I beg to embrace him as a brother in imagination I fear after all the subscriptions for the Wake are making but slow progress I do not think any one is interesting themselves in it and I cannot we will however publish an edition before the end of the year in the manner you were mentioning Write to me as soon as convenient and tell me how the Brownie is liked and if it is likely to sell and whether I should set about a new tale or a new poem for next year at the same time—Do not forget me Dear Murray and believe me Ever yours most truly James Hogg To J. Murray Esq. [Addressed:] John Murray Esq./ 53 Albemarle street/ London [Postmark:] G 9JY9 1818 [Endorsed—not JH:] 1818 Jun 4/ Hogg James [Watermark:] V ALLEYFI E LD / 1816

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[Location:] John Murray Archive, Box 37. [Printed:] Smiles, II, 6 [in part]. date the July postmark is more accurate than Hogg’s own dating here. Issue no. 36 of the Quarterly Review was not available in Edinburgh until 11 June, and Hogg had not yet seen it when he wrote to Blackwood on 18 June 1818. His letter to Blackwood of [c. 24 June 1818] mentions receiving it and expresses an intention of writing to Murray to congratulate him on it. Hogg refers to this letter in subsequent letters to Blackwood of 15 and 21 July 1818, and in the latter describes it as written ‘about a forthnight or ten days ago’. The letter obviously predates the postmark it bears of 9 July 1818, and it seems most likely that Hogg made the simple error of writing 4 June for 4 July. building a castle Hogg was putting up a new stone-built cottage at Altrive during 1818, and was able to move in by the end of the year—see his letter to Blackwood of 26 December 1818. Blackwood has advanced see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of [26 March 1818] and notes. In a subsequent letter to Murray of 24 March 1821 ( John Murray Archive, Box 37) Hogg recalled, ‘The bargain of the Brownie was £50. each of you, in advance, which I recieved from both and the rest was left to yourselves to be paid according as the work sold’. Lord Byron Byron had gone abroad after the breakdown of his marriage in 1816, travelling in Switzerland and Italy. The fourth canto of Childe Harold was advertised for publication in Edinburgh on 28 April 1818, but Hogg received an advance copy—see his letter to Mary Glassell of 27 April 1818 and notes. your last issue no. 36 of the Quarterly Review for January 1818, which was advertised as ‘Just Arrived’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 11 June 1818. Hogg mentions having received it from Blackwood in his letter to him of [c. 24 June 1818]. its great opponnent Murray’s Quarterly Review rivalled Constable’s Edinburgh Review. the Reviewer of Kirkton Scott had reviewed Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe’s edition of Kirkton’s The Secret and True History of the Church of Scotland in Quarterly Review, 18 ( January 1818), 502–41—see Todd & Bowden, p. 466. Old and New Greenland a review of a work by Hans Egede Socabye about Greenland, with the running heads reading ‘Ancient and Modern Greenland’ appeared in Quarterly Review, 18 ( January 1818), 480–96. subscriptions for the Wake a royal octavo subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake at a guinea was planned. The extent of the subscription at this date is unknown, but Hogg was clearly disappointed at English lack of support for it, and it seems that from his letter to Constable of 30 October 1818 only 550 copies were printed. It was probably ready for distribution in June 1819, since surviving printed receipts for subscribers are dated 1 June 1819 and Blackwood in his letter to Murray of 18 June 1819 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 3) says, ‘With this I send you a copy of the Demy Queen’s Wake, and likewise the Subscription copy. I shall ship them on Tuesday’, that is on 22 June. in the manner you were mentioning Murray’s letter to Hogg of 24 January 1818 ( John Murray Archive, Box 37) had suggested that a sixth edition of a thousand copies of The Queen’s Wake, set from the same type as the fifth or subscription edition, should be printed in demy-octavo size for general sale—see Hogg’s letter to Murray of 15 January 1818 and notes.

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the Brownie Blackwood had written to Murray on 9 June stating that he had sold 350 copies of The Brownie of Bodsbeck and asking Murray how sales were going in London. Another hand has noted on this letter ‘500 Brownie sold’—see Peter Garside, ‘Three Perils in Publishing: Hogg and the Popular Novel’, SHW, 2 (1991), 45–63 (p. 52). A loose paper enclosed in this letter, and perhaps representing Murray’s response to Hogg’s enquiry about sales of The Brownie of Bodsbeck, states that, on 9 July 1818, 536 of the 906 copies he had received from William Blackwood had been sold ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 3). The work had been published in May.

To William Blackwood

15 July 1818

Altrive July 15th 1818 Dear sir Owing to some wrong book-tickets two of the volumes of the Brownie that I brought with me are Second volumes send me therefore two first volumes to match them and if there be any other new thing the bearer will take charge of them. I have been quizzed too much by your chaps already I will not so easily take again. I am writing for another Magazine with all my birr and intend having most excellent sport with it as the editors will not understand what one sentence of my celebrated allegories mean, till they bring the whole terror of Edin aristocracy on them. For the soul that is in your body mention this to no living. You have quite forgot to send me a news-paper I care not though it lie two or three days in the shop A Saturday paper is soon enough to me by Wedensday’s post or a Wedendsday [sic] paper by the Saturday one. There are some very able papers in the last Magazine as usual but I do not think the selection likely to add much to its popularity The Notices however are inimitable more finished but scarce so piquant as the former ones. I had a letter from Col. Stewart the other day and I can have no money from the Society before Janr. is it not cruel to dissapoint one that way? I have written to Murray and as soon as I hear from him I will let you know Yours ever most faithfully James Hogg The bearer of this is a yarrow carrier who leaves John Sym’s Stabler Cross-casway every Saturday at two o’ clock [Addressed:] Wm. Blackwood Esq/ 17 Prince-Street/ Edin. [Endorsed—JH:] The porter to/ wait answer [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ 15 July 1818/ James Hogg/ Eltrieve [Watermark:] R C OLLI N S / 1810 [Location:] NLS, MS 4003, fols 95–96. [Printed:] Oliphant, I, 337 [in part]; Strout, p. 155 [in part].

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wrong book-tickets probably the paper labels on the spines of the volumes as they were sold in boards. quizzed too much by your chaps Hogg was presented as a figure of fun in several articles in the early Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, and had particularly resented the two letters addressed to him by Timothy Tickler in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (February and March 1818), 501–04 and 654–56 respectively. For Hogg’s response see his draft letter to Timothy Tickler of 3 August 1818. writing for another Magazine Blackwood seems to have taken alarm at this, in case Hogg was about to defect to the rival Whig publisher Archibald Constable. Hogg subsequently explained that he had it in mind to publish ‘John Paterson’s Mare’ in another town than Edinburgh—see his letter to Blackwood of 21 July [1818] and notes. terror of Edin a recollection perhaps of the reception of ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’—see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 28 Octobert [1817] and notes. a news-paper Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of [c. 24 June 1818] had expressed a preference for the weekly Literary Gazette, but his mention of a Saturday and a Wednesday paper here seems to indicate a more general newspaper. The Edinburgh Evening Courant and Caledonian Mercury were both published thrice-weekly, on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. The Notices after the contents pages of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine for June 1818 there are thirty-seven eight-lined stanzas entitled ‘The Notices, Done into Metre by an ingenious Friend’. These are not paginated with the rest of the issue. the former ones these had appeared in a similar fashion in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine for October 1817 and March 1818. letter from Col. Stewart the other day this has not apparently survived. David Stewart of Garth’s letter to George Thomson commissioning or suggesting a Jacobite collection for the Highland Society of London of 11 October 1818 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 28–29) had mentioned a fee of one hundred pounds or more. Hogg must have requested a part-payment of £50, since such a payment was approved by the Society on 6 March 1819—see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 18 June 1818 and notes. As Pittock indicates, in a subsequent letter to Hogg of 9 September 1821 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 62–63) Stewart attempted to repudiate the previous agreement by complaining about the contents of the volume and Hogg’s lack of consultation—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. Second Series, ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2003), pp. xvi–xvii. written to Murray see Hogg’s letter to John Murray of 4 [ July] 1818. Hogg’s subsequent letter to Blackwood of 21 July [1818] states that he had written to Murray ten days or a fortnight previously. a yarrow carrier has not been identified. The Edinburgh P. O. directory for 1818–19 lists only one Yarrow carrier, A. Mercer, leaving from Train’s in the Candlemaker Row on Wednesdays.

To William Blackwood

21 July [1818] Eltrieve Lake July 21st

Dear Blackwood Grieve has come over and dined with me to day and brought me the Mag. We have had a glorious afternoon laughing at it I do think

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this an excellent one. As I am come to the last extremity Grieve who is sitting beside me advises me strongly to write to you before you set out to London and request you to send me the £50. because my time is gone by the workmen are craving me and if you go away I may be left in the lurch having no other certain resourse. I wrote to Mr. Murray about a forthnight or ten days ago and have had no return and I think as he may not know my necessity he probably may not answer it for some time. If you should reach London before he writes let him pay it to you as it is likely the payment would come through your hands at any rate but I dare not let you away without making sure of the cash as I would like ill to stick the thing in the very outset; the mason work is finished and the wood and slates laid down and I should have paid £60 a month ago Does it ever enter into your stupid head that I would write any thing against your work and my old friends. It would only be on consultation and a certainty that it would be advantageous to all parties if I did. At any rate I never accused you of quizzing me and I hope I never shall have occassion as for the two devils the thing is implanted in their very natures and I must bear it though I believe they have banished me their too much loved society it may make me angry for an hour or two at a time but shall never make me admire or love them the less The thing that I hinted at was that I might publish John Paterson’s Mare and some strange rubs on another party which would not in the least be understood until they came to Edin. Pray do not forget to do something to set [sic] off the first Edit. of The Brownie and arrange with Mr Murray about the Edition of the Wake which I think should be put to press to meet the beginning of the winter market the subscriptions will not I see do a great deal as no one is interesting himself in it. I beg you will take this into consideration before your departure for though I am sure Murray will not disregard or put my request aside yet I cannot think of being reduced to borrow just now Yours ever most truly James Hogg [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq./ 17 Prince Street/ Edinr. [Postmark:] JUL B23M 1818 [Endorsed—not JH:] James Hogg/ July 21 1818 [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 4003, fols 97–98. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 155–56. Grieve has come over John Grieve was presumably staying at Cacrabank in Ettrick. At this date Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine was normally published around 20th of each

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month in Edinburgh, so Hogg refers to the issue for July 1818. the £50. Hogg had been trying to obtain a sum of £50 to let him continue building his new cottage at Altrive, either from the Highland Society of London for his work on The Jacobite Relics of Scotland or from John Murray as an advance on his author’s profits for The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales—see his letter to Blackwood of 18 June 1818 and notes. Hogg now seems to be requesting Blackwood as Murray’s Edinburgh partner to pay the £50 on his behalf. wrote to Mr. Murray see Hogg’s letter to John Murray of 4 [ July] 1818, also alluded to in Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 15 July 1818. write [...] against your work see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 15 July 1818 where he mentions writing ‘celebrated allegories’ for another magazine. the two devils John Wilson and John Gibson Lockhart, the principal contributors to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. banished me their too much loved society if this is a quotation it has not been identified. John Paterson’s Mare a representation of the conflict between the Edinburgh publishers Blackwood and Constable in terms of horse-racing. ‘Annals of Sporting. No. I.—John Paterson’s Mare’ was published eventually in the Newcastle Magazine, 4 ( January 1825), 3–12. the Edition of the Wake see Hogg’s letter to John Murray of 15 January 1818 and notes. The fifth or subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake was probably not ready for distribution until June 1819—see note to Hogg’s letter to Murray of 4 [ July] 1818. The sixth or sale edition was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 1 July 1819. For the terms of publication see the notes to Hogg’s letter to Murray of 15 January 1815. interesting himself Hogg has added ‘himself’ above the line but without deleting his first thought of ‘themselves’. Murray will not disregard [...] my request Hogg’s letter to Murray of 11 August 1818 acknowledges receipt of £50 as part of his author’s profits for The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales. It is not clear why Smiles (II, 6) describes the money as a loan.

To Timothy Tickler

3 August 1818

Honoured Sir This blunt way of yours of attacting every body slap-dash name and surname in the public prints (as my father calls them) will never do. Upon my word, you have given up all conformity with what is proper and decorous in life; and if you go on at this rate, you will only expose your own malignity and spleen, without ruffling a feather of the game at which your [sic] are levelling your old-fashioned rediculous matchlock. When you first begun, in public, to let fly your crackers at me, your whole manner and process had so much originality in it, that I was obliged to laugh with the rest, although I could scarcely prevent my face from growing red with anger at times.

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But now, since I retired again to this my sequestered shieling, and have had leisure to consider of matters that are past, and weigh the motives of the actors in these; and have often nothing else to do but sit “nursing my wrath to keep it warm” I have learned to see things in a very different light, and must therefore ask you in plain broad terms Mr. Tickler. What the devil was your business with me? There is no doubt that as an adventurer in the world of literature I have exposed myself to the rod of every one who thinks it worth his while to apply it. Every smart puppy, and old malevolent, starched, erudite gentleman, (begging your pardon sir) who with all hi[TEAR] greek and latin sentences; and all his inflated trope[TEAR] and figures injudiciously culled from the stupid pros[TEAR] poets of antiquity; and with all his rediculous attem[TEAR] too (begging your pardon again Mr. Tickler, you canno[TEAR] say that I mean you) could never earn a smile of approbation from the muses nor one of their true worshippers may belabour and bedaub me as long as they like I have nothing to say, as far as that I have given to the public is concerned. But pray sir allow me to ask what that had to do with my top boots or gloveless hands? Or how in the world was it connected with the tails of my coat, although these chanced perhaps to hang a little lower than the fashionable cut? Could you think it was to be expected that I should pay any attention to the fashoin [sic] of my clothes, or that I could at all be a judge what was the fashion? or that I should enter a drawing room as mim and upright as one who has walked the parliament house at least for thirty years? I can see no connection for my part; and if there is none, the joke is forced and out of place, and manifests a great lack of wit. But what is much worse than any of these sir, you have fairly insinuated that when I was a shepherd I drank whisky like a fish. I have none of the printed letters by me; but I remember you paint me as sitting in the bield of a craig, wet to the skin, and chumping up my dinner of dry cheese and bread, peeping now and then by the corner of my gourd, and wishing for the love of God that the weather would clear up somewhat—This is a true picture—many a time and oft have I been in that very situation. But what put it into your head that in such a situation I could possibly cheer up my heart with the pure and genuine essence of malt? or where was the likelihood that I was to procure it? Besides you knew it was not true; for I have told you often that as far as I could remember when I was twenty years of age, I could not have consumed above one gill of spirits; and even from [TEAR]hat time forward, as long as I remained at my pastoral employment, I could not calculate on more than a

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bottle in the year at an average; and though I may have made up my lee-way considerably since that period, your insinuation was not the less a vile one. Because I have sometimes indulged in a hearty tumbler with you, at your own table o’ Saturday nights, was that enough for you to publish to the world that I was a habitual drinker from my youth upward and even enjoyed the grateful beverage when sitting under the shelter of a grey stone or rash bush in the days of my innocence and primitive simplicity, when the highest ambition that I had in life was to be looked on with a favourable eye by some blooming ewe-milker, or to win the foot race at a country wedding or our annual football? After this what must the gentlemen farmers think of that enlightened and meritorious work HO G G O N SH E E P ?— And what will the enthusiastical admirers of poetic imagination think of The Pilgrims of the Sun the most beautiful and sublime poem that perhaps ever was written, as well as my inimitable witch and fairy ballads?—I blush to think in what a light they will now be viewed! as the ravings of a distempered fancy uncommonly elevated by the fumes of smuggled whisky forsooth. For shame Mr. Tickler! “Nunquam sunt grati qui nocuere salis” After all I do not blame you for writing the letters. I was delighted with them in manuscript; but for publishing them without my leave; and though I have never compared the originals with the printed copies, I shrewdly suspect there are some very pointed additions intermingled in the latter. The truth is Mr. Tickler that envy is the leading trait of your character—the prevalent passion that acts as a mainspring to every movement of your mind. I could prove it to you by every thing that you have either said, done, or written, since ever we two fell acquainted; and I will do it should you please to put me to the task. Granting it therefore as a position for the present, you had two very powerful motives for the publication of these two letters. In the first place you saw that it was an attempt to place me in a light that you could not endure; for tho’ always in a jocular manner, you have uniformly set yourself against every thing that had a tendency to raise my poetical character. In the second place you saw that the critical letters themselves were the best, and most original things in Constable’s Magazine; and however unworthy the subject, that they were in fact superior to any piece of criticism in that Magazine with which so many of our friends are engaged—Therefore it was a galling business to you in every respect, so you determined to knock it on the head; and you certainly have been but too successful in turning the laugh both against my biographer and myself. It was extremely rediculous, when your character and my own

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are both fairly taken into the account. Well may I exclaim with your old friend Mr Horace “O major tandem parcas insane minore” Think you no body can quote latin but you? It was moreover excessively ungenerous Mr. Tickler; you know there never was a man struggled harder than I have done for a little literary distinction, without a single advantage, stay, or support— You knew that I would have been the better of a lift, which neither you nor any of my literary friends had the generosity to offer—or granting that you did once promise such a thing, you know well the manner in which you fulfilled it—In a left handed way with a vengeance! Stinging your weetless friend in the dark with a poignancy scarcely to be surmounted. When I spoke to you some time ago about the publishing of your letters to me, your answer was (for you are never at a loss for a ready one) that Constables magazine was not a fit vehicle to give a fair criticism to the world in—I granted it, and do so still; yet you might surely have suffered one generous heart to give a scope to the enthusiasm and benevolence of its feelings without interposition or insult. But dear Mr. Tickler have you the vanity to believe that it was your gomral letters that put a stop to the publication of that criticism in Constables Magazine? I wish for the sake of human nature that I could have joined with you in the supposition; but my intelligence was too direct to be doubted; it was Mr. Constable himself that peremptorily ordered its discontinuation, because forsooth my name sometimes appeared as a supporter of his opponnent’s Magazine. Now I am extremely sorry for this apparent meanness in my old friend Archy, a man whom I always considered as rather generous and gentlemanly in his demeanour—one who indeed required a little flattery to make him do things liberally, an ingredient which I was so unfortunate as never to be able to bestow because I did not know what to flatter him for. However he and I agreed extremely well for a number of years, and never differed about any thing save once about a certain epitaph, and I believe we would have been the greatest of friends to this day if it had not been for the invincible stupidity of Bob Miller. Therefore you may believe me, when I assure you, that I would rather have given him the copy-right of all the works of which he stopped the review, and a manuscript poem into the bargain, ere I had discovered him to be capable of so much littleness (I wish that be not an Irishism) I never spoke an ill word, nor thought an ill thought of Mr Constable, farther than I have expressed myself to you at present, and that I am now in reason bound

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to support another publisher is entirely his own blame, for he needed not to have let the incomprehensibility of Bob Miller be a bar of seperation between us unless he had chosen. Men are not all what they seem Mr Tickler more than you are, but a tree will always be known by its fruit. It is needless however for the like of me to make remarks on such doings, for “Quantum quisque sua nummorum condit in arca. Tantum habet et fidei” I may add what some other old latin author says I forgot how they call him “Quem semper acerbum. Semper honoratum (sic dii voluistis) habebo” With regard to your letter to Mr. Jefferey sir, I thought it was very impertinent, and in bad taste. I have it not by me, for I left all my magazines in Mr. Grieve’s liberary, and ever since Whitsunday his books are lying in utter confusion, so that I cannot get a single volume from among them; but the impression left on my mind is, that it falls immeasurably short of all your other letters in producing the desired effect. Your assumed familiarity with such a man as Jefferey diverges at once towards the precincts of ribaldry, and that which applied to one like me, appears laughable, applied to him becomes disgusting. But the whole of this as well as the others may with ease be traced to your ruling passion Envy. You know that Mr Jefferey is a great man and that he will be regarded as such so long as the literature of this age continues to be held in estimation, which was sufficient to awaken your spleen, and so you tried to depreciate him in the eyes of the public as well as to hurt his own feelings by a few rude asseverations that are not true, and some ill chosen sarcasms on a mere trifle

I do not mean by what I have said above to represent the Edin. Review as free from alloy. On the contrary, I think with you that it has been very heavy and stupid of late; but I do not see how blame can be attached to the editor on that account. What can he help it if his associates send him dull drawling papers at times? Engaged in business as he is, he cannot be supposed to write all the Review; and one must put up with the fallings-off of his coadjutors at times, or otherwise affront them and thereby lose them altogether; and in science at least from whence was Jefferey’s to be replaced? I was amused beyond measure by a letter that I had the week before last from Mr. Jamieson (not Robert as you may be apt to suppose, as every body knows Robert) wherein he says with the greatest seriousness and concern “I have been anxiously expecting the Edin. Review for a quarter of a year past, according to promise, but have still been dissapointed. The proprietors and editor of that work should really give it up; and all who wish them well I am sure will advise it. It is evident to the whole world, that the work is now dragged on with the utmost difficulty, and when it does appear it is absolutely destitute of either information or amusement. Is it not a great pity that such a celebrated and respectable work should thus be urged on, like a wounded serpent through a brake, till it die of faintness and fatigue. It reminds me of a loch-leech that I once saw hanging by a cottage window in a vial of water, that was all dead and corrupted but the head, which still kept active and wagging. It would surely be much better to give it up at once with honour and eclat, for the men’s wit is fairly run aground, and their subjects exhausted”

Now pray my humoursome old friend do not send this letter to that outrageous Magazine in Prince-street, which I know you will never stop to do for the jest’s sake; but a poor devil like me does not want to give any body offence, and besides I have given up writing for that work, farther than a screed of poetry now and then. They refused to admit my articles and returned them all on my hand *sometimes, what I could stand worst of all w. a hint that I had

better send them to the New Series of the Scots Mag. the Dominies magazine, or the new magazine set afoot at Lanark. And now when you* presume again to speak of such men as Mr Jefferey and me just keep up your bridle hand a little, and take the way with circum-

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spection. Otherwise I will likewise speak to my friend Mr. Miller, and tip you an eighteen-penny pamphlet on my own bottom. [TEAR] do not think he will again refuse to publish any thing of mine, at least if he bargain fairly for it, as he and I are much better acquainted than we were once. But if he should, I am in good understanding with another firm, whose names no body can read and no body can spell, but who, I am told, in the continuation of the Chaldee Manuscript are denominated “the three brethren, Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego” If I am driven to this shift I have some anecdotes that will amuse the good town at least, and I shall not then have the disadvantage of writing as I do at present among cleverer people than myself Yours in the interim as ever James Hogg Altrive Lake *August* 3d 1818 [Addressed:] none [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] [CROWNED SHIELD] [AND] R COLLINS/ 1810 [Location:] Draft, James Hogg Papers MS-Papers-0042-08, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Timothy Tickler a character in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, modelled on Robert Sym (1752–1845). For Hogg’s own account of his friendship with Sym see Memoir, pp. 76–78, 259–60. Hogg’s letter is a response to reading four of a series of five letters signed Timothy Tickler that appeared in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine for February, March, April, July, and August 1818 and which Strout, Bibliography (pp. 35, 37, 39, 43) ascribes more or less tentatively to Sym’s nephew, John Wilson. Since Hogg mentions that he had seen the letters in manuscript he would naturally have known who had written them. Several details in his letter appear to refer to Sym, but this may be the deliberate maintenance by Hogg of the true author’s fiction. From its tone it is possible that Hogg’s letter may have been written with publication in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in mind. date at this time Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine was published on the twentieth day of the month in Edinburgh. Hogg had presumably just received the July issue containing the fourth of the Tickler letters, and this perhaps accounts for his having initially misdated his own letter 3 July. Hogg’s draft includes two important and lengthy deleted passages, which, exceptionally, have been included in this edition–see Note on the Texts. To make the extent of these easier to identify deletions are printed in smaller type as well as set within pointed brackets. Hogg’s additions are placed within asterisks. my father Robert Hogg (1729–1820), who was then living with Hogg at Altrive. your crackers at me the first two Tickler letters were addressed to Hogg—see ‘Letter

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to Mr James Hogg’ and ‘Letters of Timothy Tickler to Various Literary Characters. Letter II.—To the Ettrick Shepherd’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (February and March 1818), 501–04 and 654–56 respectively. They form a contemptuous response to James Gray’s three-part article ‘Life and Writings of James Hogg’, Edinburgh Magazine, 2 ( January, February, and March 1818), 35–40, 122–29, and 215–23. “nursing my wrath to keep it warm” see ‘Tam o’ Shanter: A Tale’, in The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, ed. by James Kinsley, 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), II, 557–64 (p. 557, line 12). top boots [...] tails of my coat in the first of the Tickler letters the writer tells Hogg, ‘I have seen you with my own eyes at a rout with top boots; and the flying Tailor of Ettrick [...] never hits your shape, and leaves the tail of your coat infinitely too long’ (p. 502). Hogg had written a parody of Wordsworth entitled ‘The Flying Tailor’—see The Poetic Mirror (Edinburgh, 1816), pp. 155–70. walked the parliament house [...] for thirty years Robert Sym had been admitted as a Writer to the Signet in 1775. The Scottish courts of justice were centred around the Edinburgh buildings formerly allocated to the Scottish Parliament. drank whisky like a fish the first Tickler letter argues that the Edinburgh Magazine biographer has ‘never pictured to himself you [...] with a great lump of bread and cheese in your fist, under the bleak shelter of a dripping rock, after a rainy night [...] and kept in life, not by the spirit of poetry, but of malt, and simply wishing that, for Heaven’s sake, the weather would but take up a little’ (pp. 503–04). my gourd an allusion to the temporary protection from the weather afforded to Jonah by a gourd in Jonah 4. 6–10. HOGG ON SHEEP the reading of the paper spine label of Hogg’s The Shepherd’s Guide of 1807 in its original boards. The Pilgrims of the Sun: A Poem had been published in December 1814. “Nunquam [...] salis” meaning ‘Those who have harmed the sharp of mind are never worthy of thanks’. The source has not been identified. Mr Horace from Horace’s Satires, 2. 3. 326. ‘O greater one, spare, I pray, the lesser madman’—see Horace, Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica, ed. by H. Rushton Fairclough, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1929, repr. 1999), pp. 180, 181. a certain epitaph Hogg had published a series of ‘Epitaphs on Living Characters’ in 1810. Constable might have been offended by the portrait of Francis Jeffrey, the editor of the Edinburgh Review, in ‘Epitaphs on Living Characters’, Scots Magazine, 72 ( June 1810), 447. Alternatively Alexander Gibson Hunter, Constable’s business partner, was one of the subjects of ‘Epitaphs on Living Characters’ in no. 2 of Hogg’s weekly essay-periodical dated 8 September 1810—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 19, 576. stupidity of Bob Miller for Hogg’s account of the breakdown of an arrangement made by Constable for the publication of The Pilgrims of the Sun by Manners and Miller in the summer of 1814, see Memoir, pp. 36–38. a tree will always be known by its fruit see Matthew 7. 16–20, where Jesus is recorded as saying that truly religious men will be known by their actions, as a tree by the kind of fruit it produces. “Quantum [...] et fidei” from Juvenal’s Satires, III, 143–44. ‘A man’s word is believed in exact proportion to the amount of cash which he keeps in his strong-box’—see

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Juvenal and Perseus, ed. by G. G. Ramsay, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1940), pp. 42, 43. “Quem [...] habebo” meaning something like ‘who is always harsh. I will consider him always honoured (gods, this was your wish)’. The source has not been identified. your letter to Mr. Jefferey ‘Letters of Timothy Tickler to Various Literary Characters. Letter III.—To Francis Jeffrey, Esq.’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 3 (April 1818), 75–77. James Pott has not been identified. Mr. Jamieson probably John Jamieson (1759–1838), author of the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language (1808). R. P. Gillies describes his fondness for poetry and good humour in his Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, 3 vols (London, 1851), II, 193– 94. Hogg distinguishes him here from Robert Jamieson (1780?–1844), known as ‘Scandinavian Jamieson’ because of his interest in the connections between Scandinavian and Scottish legends. your last letter ‘Letters of Timothy Tickler to Eminent Literary Characters. Letter IV.—To the Editor of Blackwood’s Magazine’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 3 ( July 1818), 461–63. Tickler comments of Constable’s Edinburgh Magazine, ‘It amazes me, that Mr Constable should have preferred Cleghorn and Pringle to Hugh Murray, his former Editor’ (p. 462). setting a Magazine on foot compare Hogg’s account of the commencement of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and the part played by Pringle and Cleghorn in this in Memoir, pp. 43–44, 239–40. “Alta [...] dextrae!” from Lucan’s The Civil War, I, 32. ‘The strokes of a kindred hand are driven home’—see Lucan, The Civil War, ed. by J. D. Duff, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1928, repr. 1997), pp. 4, 5. Dryhope about two miles to the west of Hogg’s farm at Altrive Lake in Selkirkshire. Magazine in Prince-street William Blackwood’s business premises were at 17 Princes Street in Edinburgh. New Series of the Scots Mag. Constable’s Edinburgh Magazine was a new series of his former monthly periodical the Scots Magazine. the Dominies magazine probably the Literary and Statistical Magazine of Scotland, published by Macredie, Skelly, & Co. in Edinburgh between 1817 and 1820. This reported schoolmasters’ promotions and deaths in its Notices, and in reviewing James Gray’s Selecta Latine recommended it, ‘giving it all the publicity which a Magazine, intended principally to promote the advancement of school learning, is able to confer’— see Literary and Statistical Magazine of Scotland, 4 (February 1820), 84–88 (p. 88). new magazine set afoot at Lanark the Clydesdale Magazine was published between May and December 1818, by the printers W. M. Borthwick & Co. of Lanark. Hogg’s ‘An Old Soldier’s Tale’ appeared in the issue for July (pp. 106–12). “the three brethren, Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego” Hogg refers to his continuation of ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’ in his Memoir (p. 45). Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were cast into a burning fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar for refusing to worship a golden image but were protected by God— see Daniel 3. The publishing firm alluded to by their names has not been identified.

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To John Murray

11 August 1818 Altrive Lake August 11th 1818

My dear sir Yours with the £50 note to the Brownie of Bodsbeck inclosed came safe to hand just as luck would have it when Mr. Walter Scott and two friends of his were here with me. I showed him the note at which he laughed heartily and I likewise read those parts of the letter which related to Jeffery himself again and the Queen’s Wake in both of which he heartily acquiesced. He is gone to Drumlanrig for a few days with his wife daughter and Capt. Ferguson and they honoured me with a visit and breakfasted with me en passant. From thence they go to Rokeby where they will tarry some weeks. I am told Gifford has a hard prejudice against me but I cannot believe it. I do not see how any man can have a prejudice against me; he may indeed consider me as an intruder in the walks of literature but I am only a saunterer and molest no body who chuses to let me pass I have no news as indeed I can have none from this wilderness. My house is roofed in and has the appearance of being comfortable I hope yet to see one in it who has thus lent me a hand with the rearing of it so readily. I was going to say before but forgot and said quite another thing that if Mr. Gifford would point out any light work for me to review for him I’ll bet a M. S. poem with him that I’ll write it better than he expects I am dear Sir Yours ever most sincerely, James Hogg [Addressed:] John Murray Esq./ 53 Albemarle Street/ London [Postmark:] G 17AU17 [TEAR]18 [and] Addl. ½ [Endorsed—not JH:] 1818 Aug 11/ Hogg J [Watermark:] R COLLINS/ 1809 [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box 37. [Printed:] Smiles, II, 6 [in part]. Yours with the £50 note sent in response to Hogg’s request in his letter of 4 [ July] 1818. See also Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 21 July [1818] and notes. Mr. Walter Scott and two friends Scott had called on Hogg on Monday, 10 August on his way to Drumlanrig Castle, the Dumfriesshire seat of the Duke of Buccleuch. He wrote to Murray from there on 12 August, ‘I rode to this place through the hills and breakfasted with Hogg on Monday. He rode with me as far as Loch-Skene & so to Moffat & seems in high feather’—see Scott, Letters, V, 176. One of the friends who accompanied him was clearly a brother of Sir Adam Ferguson, but the other has not been identified.

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Jeffery himself again perhaps an approving comment on the review of the fourth canto of Byron’s Childe Harold in Edinburgh Review, 30 ( June 1818), 87–120. This issue (no. 59) was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 10 August 1818. Scott was writing a review of Byron’s poem for Murray’s Quarterly Review and his letter to Murray of 12 August regrets that his own article ‘is not as good as I could wish it which I regret because Jeffreys is uncommonly fine indeed’—see Scott, Letters, V, 176. As Corson indicates, however, the review was written by John Wilson and not by Jeffrey (p. 151). the Queen’s Wake arrangements relating to the forthcoming subscription and sale editions of Hogg’s poem to be published by Murray and Blackwood. Capt. Ferguson probably John Macpherson Ferguson, the brother of Scott’s old friend Adam Ferguson, who had joined the navy in 1796 and been appointed Captain in 1817. He was in Scotland on half-pay in 1818—see Corson, pp. 461–62. Rokeby the Yorkshire estate of Scott’s friend J. B. S. Morritt (1771–1843). Gifford William Gifford (1756–1826) was editor of Murray’s Quarterly Review. an intruder Hogg used a similar image of himself in no. 52 of The Spy: ‘[...] he expects only such mercy as an intruder deserves, either to keep his ground by main force, or be kicked out of the premises of genius and learning, bruised and maimed’—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), p. 518. any light work for me to review Hogg had previously expressed a wish to review Southey’s Roderick, The Last of the Goths for the Quarterly Review—see his letter to Murray of 17 April 1815.

To Thomas Pringle

21 August 1818 Eltrive Lake August 21st 1818

Dear Pringle I recieved the parcel with your kind letter and am grieved that you should have given me so much as these books will all come against you some day and cost you money and the little that I did for the Mag. was not only out of pure friendship to you but in fact as some acknowledgment for more valuable though perhaps less lucrative favours of the same nature I shall however keep the books as a memorial of an intimacy which casualties have marred without I hope affecting the hearts of either party or in the least having the power to obliterate. I am sorry to say that my hands have not been altogether clean of this literary persecution that has been raised against you and your freind for though in one single instance only yet I have been as it were the beginner of the whole mischief. I expected retaliation of the same nature and to acknowledge it to you and crack over it as the editors of the Courier and Mor. Chronicle do But seeing that matters took a different turn I have done no more in the matter I have indeed been a good deal irritated at some things that have

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taken place—the stopping of Gray’s review—the lawsuit, and the unmerited prejudice that Constable has taken against me but in nothing so much as the illiberal awards of Lord Alloa, and indeed the stupidity of that whole process. The author of that article, I can prove, knew not that such a man as J. Graham Dalziel existed and in fact he was no more alluded to in the part litigated than you were. But the gig is just passing that is to carry this. adieu dear Pringle and believe me Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr Thos. Pringle/ No. 3 Arthur place/ Edin. [Postmark:] AUG B26A 1818 [Endorsed—not JH:] James Hogg/ Aug. 21. 1818 [Watermark:] R COLLINS/ 1809 [Location:] University of Kansas, Special Collections, Spencer Research Library: MS P146: 1. [Printed:] The Poetical Works of Thomas Pringle, ed. by Leitch Ritchie (London, 1838), pp. cxlvii–cxlviii; Strout, p. 157 [in part]. the parcel Pringle’s gift of books was an acknowledgement of Hogg’s contributions to the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, which was published for six months under the joint editorship of himself and James Cleghorn before being reconstituted as Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. favours of the same nature Pringle’s poem ‘Epistle to Mr. R. S * * * *’, in The Poetic Mirror (Edinburgh, 1816), pp. 27–51. casualties have marred the paper war between the Whigs of Constable and the Tories of William Blackwood and their respective periodicals, the Edinburgh Magazine and Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. your freind James Cleghorn (1778–1838), Pringle’s co-editor of the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine. He had been a farmer previously, and on his removal to Edinburgh in 1811 had edited a farmer’s journal. He became a successful actuary, and the founder of the Scottish Provident Assurance Company. The novelist Mrs Gaskell was christened Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson after her father’s old friend. one single instance a reference to Hogg’s original composition of ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’, published in revised form in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (October 1817), 89–96. retaliation of the same nature Hogg repeats in his Memoir (p. 45), ‘All that I expected was a little retaliation of the same kind in the opposing magazine; and when I received letter after letter, informing me what a dreadful flame it had raised in Edinburgh, I could not be brought to believe that it was not a joke’. editors of the Courier and Mor. Chronicle by the editor of the Morning Chronicle Hogg means James Perry (1756–1821), a friend of the Cunningham family of Dalswinton. The editor of the Courier’s name was Stewart. In his ‘Memoir of Burns’ Hogg relates that ‘Mr Perry was an enlightened, good-natured man, [...] and though he took a decided part in politics, cared less about them than any man in London. Mr Stewart of

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the Courier and he were wont to take their wine together every night, and concert their dreadful attacks on each other next morning’—see The Works of Robert Burns, ed. by James Hogg and William Motherwell, 5 vols (Glasgow, 1834–36), V, 156. the stopping of Gray’s review James Gray’s three-part article ‘Life and Writings of James Hogg’, Edinburgh Magazine, 2 ( January, February, and March 1818), 35–40, 122–29, and 215–23 finishes with a discussion of Hogg’s Mador of the Moor of 1816. It is clear from Hogg’s draft letter to Timothy Tickler of 3 August 1818 that a continuation had been planned, presumably discussing his more recently-published work. prejudice that Constable has taken against me see Hogg’s draft letter to Timothy Tickler of 3 August 1818. the illiberal awards of Lord Alloa John Graham Dalyell successfully sued William Blackwood for libel over the description of him in Chapter III, verse 36 of the ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’—see Oliphant, I, 130–32.

To John Steuart of Dalguise

1 September 1818

Eltrieve Lake Septr 1st 1818 Dear Sir A thousand thanks for procuring me these curious M. S. So uncertain is the carriage to this or so remiss my Edin. friends that I got your first note before the M. S. S reaced [sic] me. The comparing them verse by verse with all my hoard of Jacobite lore has caused me keep them longer than I would have done and perhaps I may be under the necessity of seeing them again in which case I shall make it my duty to come to them and thank you personally I remain Dr Sir Your very highly obliged James Hogg [Addressed:] John Stewart Esq. [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] The Ettrick Shepherd [and] James Hogg/ the Ettrick Shepherd/ Septr 1st/ 1818. [Watermark:] none [Location:] National Archives of Scotland, GD 38/2/63/33. John Steuart of Dalguise John Steuart, born in 1799 at Ardblair, was the son of the 9th Laird of Dalguise and the maternal grandson of the Jacobite 7th Laird of Gask—for further information see Richard D. Jackson, ‘John Steuart of Dalguise and the Jacobite Relics’, SHW, 10 (1999), 68–69. As Jackson indicates ‘it was natural, therefore, that a collection of Jacobite-related manuscripts, including songs and letters, should be located at Dalguise’. Hogg’s letter clearly accompanied the return of these papers, which he had used in compiling The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. Hogg’s preface names ‘John Steuart, Esq. younger of Dalguise’ among his principal contributors of songs—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. [First Series], ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2002), p. xvi. Dalguise

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is in the immediate vicinity of Kinnaird House near Dunkeld in Perthshire, and it seems possible that Hogg made Steuart’s acquaintance when visiting his friend Eliza Izett.

To George Boyd

2 September 1818 Eltrive Lake Septr 2d 1818

My dear Boyde The bearer of this “Jamie Telfer o’ the fair Dodhead” is a shepherd’s son on the Border and being rendered unfit for his pastoral occupation by lameness has taken it into his head to be a pedlar of books He’s a very honest well disposed lad and you may give him credit for a few pounds in such books as are lying on your hands. Small books of songs and poems editions of Burns &c. and some few religious tracks [sic] would best suit the country through he proposes [sic] to travel but I have told him to trust the selection entirely to yourself. You need not be afraid but that he will pay you and I doubt not but that he may sell a good many for you yearly. I need not desire you to charge him reasonably for I know you will do that. I have no news from the country only that I am daily poring away on my old Jacobite tracts which save the arrangement of the music I have now in a great state of forwardness I remain dear George Yours very truly James Hogg [Addressed:] George Boyde Esq./ Oliver & Boyde’s/ High Street [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ Jas Hogg/ Eltrive Lake/ Sept 2nd 1818. [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, Acc. 5000/188, Special Correspondence Box, Oliver & Boyd Papers. “Jamie Telfer o’ the fair Dodhead” the title of a Border raiding ballad included by Scott in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 2 vols (Kelso, 1802), I, 80–93. The lame youth of that name may perhaps be the James Telfer who dedicated his Border Ballads, and Other Miscellaneous Poems ( Jedburgh, 1824) to ‘Mr James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd’. my old Jacobite tracts the first volume of Hogg’s Jacobite Relics was in active preparation. It was printed by the firm of Oliver & Boyd, and was advertised as ‘This day are published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 9 December 1819. the arrangement of the music Hogg could clearly write out tunes he composed himself or heard (perhaps after playing them over on his violin) but preferred to have his music checked over before publication by someone with more formal musical education—see also his letter to W. E. Heather of 1 April 1818 and notes. In his ‘Introduction’ Hogg says that for correcting the music to his Jacobite songs ‘I have been much indebted to my friend William Stenhouse, Esq. accountant in Edinburgh, a gentleman whose

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science, good taste, and general information of all that relates to Scottish song and music, is not perhaps equalled by any contemporary’—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. [First Series], ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2002), p. xv.

To Robert Surtees

6 October 1818 Altrive Lake Octr 6th 1818

My dear sir I have deferred answering your kind letter of invitation to your fairy dwelling in hopes of answering it by a shake of your hand on your own door step for there is no man in England with whom I would like so well to meet but I have been building this year and a snug and elegant cottage has arisen beneath my eye which is a concern of as much importance to me as a castle would be to you and it has again quite deterred me from my intended jaunt till the season is over. I find I must decline promising visits for though I intend to perform them and believe that I will I have noticed for these several years that I never do; a kind of obstinate indolence is still gaining ground with my years and I cannot tell to what length it may prevail with me. I am very busy gathering up the Jacobite songs and relics of Scotland the first part to be published this winter. It will be a very curious work— The Subscription edition of the Wake is also now at press about which no one in South Britain has taken an interest save yourself. I saw our mutual friend Scott last week he is well—in excellent spirits and apparrently busy with something exclusive of farming Lord Melville Wilson Lockhart and your humble servt will be with him on Thursday next. I have no other news from this country that can interest you but believe me dear sir ever Yours most affectionately James Hogg [Addressed:] Robt Surtees Esq./ Of Mainsforth/ Rushieford [Postmark:] SELKIRK [and] JEDBURGH / 374—B [Endorsed—not JH:] Missent to Jedburgh [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 9309, fols 33–34. [Printed:] George Taylor, A Memoir of Robert Surtees, Esq., ed. by James Raine, Surtees Society, 24 (Durham, 1852), pp. 217–18; Strout, p. 158 [in part]. your kind letter of invitation this does not appear to have survived. building this year Hogg’s cottage seems to have been finished for Christmas—see his letter to Blackwood of 26 December 1818. Jacobite Songs [...] published this winter the first volume of The Jacobite Relics of

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Scotland was only advertised as ‘This day are published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 9 December 1819. However, the Dumfries and Galloway Courier of 1 December 1818 states that Hogg had been employed by the Highland Society of London in collecting and arranging the Jacobite Relics of Scotland and that the first volume was already in the press, and quotes from his introduction to the volume. The article was partially copied into the Edinburgh Weekly Journal of 16 December 1818, and there is also an announcement of Hogg’s having made ‘considerable progress’ with the work in the Morning Chronicle of 19 December 1818. Surtees contributed ‘Lord Derwentwater’s Good-night’ to the second volume, published in 1821—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. Second Series, ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2003), pp. 30–31. Hogg’s note prints Surtees’s remarks on it (pp. 269–71). Subscription edition of the Wake Surtees had probably written to Hogg about this in the summer of 1817—see Hogg’s letter to him of 14 August 1817 and notes. something exclusive of farming Scott was working hard on The Bride of Lammermoor in September 1818—see The Bride of Lammermoor, ed. by J. H. Alexander, EEWN 7a (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995), pp. 271–72. Lord Melville the statesman Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville (1771–1851) had been a schoolfellow of Scott’s at Edinburgh High School, and was First Lord of the Admiralty at this time as well as Lord Privy Seal in Scotland. Wilson Lockhart and your humble servt Lockhart and Wilson had been staying at Wilson’s country home of Elleray in the Lake District, and were invited to visit at Abbotsford on their way back to Edinburgh—see Lockhart, IV, 185. Lockhart says that they arrived on 8 October and describes this visit, his first sight of Abbotsford, in great detail (pp. 185–203), but without mentioning Hogg as one of the company. Thursday next i. e. 8 October.

To William Blackwood

12 October 1818 Eltrieve Lake Octr 12th 1818

Dear Sir I really had quite forgot the corrected copy of the Wake till I got your letter than which nothing could be more absurd considering the need that I have of its being forth-coming. I do not like to throw out Mr Barton’s verses altogether as he requested that they might be continued in every edition and I believe I promised in a letter that they should. They look however extremely clumsy as they are. How do you think it would do to give a short abstract of my literary life in the subscription edition and contrive to throw them into it? I have not as yet written to Borthwick. I do not see how printing any counter statement in a nameless journal such as his could have the effect of explaining away a thing that has crept into the public papers and I think the less that is said of such a mere trifle the better. I have been very busy arranging my Jacobite relics and have got plenty of songs at least six times more than I can publish. I have selected as many as

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will make three volumes conformable with those of Johnson but the paper must by all means be fairer. I should like it of the same texture with Thomsons but such matters I leave entirely to yourself. I am now certain that the work will be popular Many of the songs have a great deal of spirit and they form such a fine text for Highland anecdote. I have written an introduction to the work stating my plan and motives and requesting historical facts from the descendants of those that stood for the cause of the Stuarts. In the mean time the songs in the first part are either all ancient or of a general national tendency and of course will not dip into the history of the two rebellions. I inclose in the vol. my two first songs set to the original chaunts to which I am assured they were sung I look on them as great curiosities rescued from the brink of oblivion “Hey boys up go we” is not only an excellent caricature of the covenanters but the music is decidedly taken from their manner of singing psalms and must have afforded great amusement to the other party I have ten that are decidedly prior to the battle of Killicranky I say I inclose these two or three that you may send me a specimen how Boyde’s musical types execute. But perhaps one is enough for that. Tell him to be strick to the text of the Wake. I am glad it has fallen to his hand and hope he will do the firm credit by the work. Send me out the specimen of the types with the Magazine and be sure to send it along with Grieves I cannot live so long without it. This last is not near so interesting as the former, there is too much of pompous fine writing in it at least attempts at it. Such papers as that declamatory one on the state of parties are not the kind of political papers that will stand the test. Besides how absurd is it to praise Madam De Stael and attack Playfair?!! But enough of that which is not agreeable: no wonder that I begin to feel a cold side to a work which holds such an avowed one to me. Do not publish any of my articles in hand but send them out to me along with the Magazine I want to go over them again. I was vexed that I got so little cracking with Murray Scott and he had so many people to crack about whom no body knows aught about but themselves that they monopolized the whole conversation. Tell me seriously is the sale of my Tales really sticked that neither of you will mention them either by writing or word of mouth? There is surely no impropriety in my making this enquiry. I have heard this moment that Wilson and Lockhart are in Ettrick and probably I shall see them before this comes away There are few things in the world that could be so grateful as such a visit here at this gloomy season but though I am fidging fain to see them yet I intend to quarrel with them both and to tell them that I think it extremely hard to be set to the wall by men whom I consider and can prove to be inferior to

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myself at least in discerning what can amuse the generality of the public; and that it is a pity some people should see merit only in that which to all others appears totally void of it &c &c Goodbye for the present and believe me that illnatured as I am I am nevertheless always respectfully yours James Hogg P. S. I shall be very happy to look over my admired friend Cunninghame’s poem if I could have it sent here but can by no means think of coming any more to Edin. [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq./ Prince Street [Endorsed—in pencil, not JH:] Mr Reid/ Candle Maker/ Row [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ 12th Octr 1818/ James Hogg/ Eltrieve Lake [Watermark:] R COLLINS/ 1809 [Location:] NLS, MS 4003, fols 99–100. [Printed:] Oliphant, I, 336–37 [in part]; Strout, pp. 158–60. the corrected copy of the Wake a copy of the third edition of The Queen’s Wake, marked up by Hogg with corrections and alterations for publication by Blackwood and Murray as the fifth edition, survives in NLS, MS 20440. Mr Barton’s verses Bernard Barton’s poem, ‘Stanzas Addressed to the Ettrick Shepherd, on the publication of The Queen’s Wake’ had been included by Goldie in the second and subsequent editions (pp. vii–x). The 1819 editions, however, relegate it to the back of the volume (pp. 381–84) as ‘Note XXXIV’ with the prefatory remark, ‘The following Poem was inserted by the Publisher of the Second Edition, as illustrative of some of the Songs in the Work. It was written and sent to him by B. BARTON, Esq., Woodbridge, Suffolk’. See also The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004), p. 456. I promised in a letter perhaps in one that has not survived. Hogg’s letter to Barton of 7 June 1813 mentions the inclusion of this poem in a second edition of The Queen’s Wake but without promising that it would be included in future editions. Borthwick William Murray Borthwick (1782–1866), a native of Moffat working as a printer and publisher in Lanark, where he edited and published the Clydesdale Magazine in 1818. He subsequently moved to Glasgow and from 1821 edited the Glasgow Sentinel. counter statement in a nameless journal a letter signed ‘Quivive’, end-dated 23 July 1818, and entitled ‘Literary Mistakes Rectified’ appeared in Clydesdale Magazine, 1 ( July 1818), 133–35. Besides pointing out that the ‘Border Song’ printed as the work of James Gray in the June issue (p. 84) was Hogg’s composition, it asserted that The Brownie of Bodsbeck had been written before Scott’s Old Mortality. It also portrayed a ludicrous scene of cross-purposes that had allegedly taken place in Blackwood’s premises, when Blackwood and Wilson supposed that Old Mortality had been written by Hogg, and Hogg supposed it was the work of John Wilson. The identity of ‘Quivive’ is unknown and Blackwood was, of course, well aware of the true authorship of Old Mortality. Presumably he asked Hogg to write a corrective letter to the editor of the Clydesdale Magazine because he objected to being portrayed in such a ludicrous light.

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conformable with those of Johnson probably a reference to James Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum, 6 vols (Edinburgh, 1787–1803), to which Burns had been an important contributor. Blackwood was the publisher of Hogg’s Jacobite Relics. with Thomsons Hogg had contributed to the fifth volume of the folio edition of George Thomson’s A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs (Edinburgh, 1818) and may have had this recently-published volume in mind. It was advertised as ‘Tomorrow will be published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 18 June 1818. ancient or of a general national tendency Hogg plainly envisaged his collection as a record of Scottish national patriotism, with allusions both to Ossianic celticism and to the performance of Highland regiments in the Napoleonic wars—see Murray Pittock’s analysis in The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. [First Series], ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2002), pp. xiii–xv. my two first songs the first songs in the printed volume are ‘The King shall enjoy his own again’ and ‘The Haughs of Cromdale’. ‘Hey, then, up go we’, the second song mentioned here, is no. IX in the printed volume—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. [First Series], ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2002), pp. 1–5, 15–17. Pittock notes that Hogg’s first song dates from the 1640s (p. 425). the battle of Killicranky John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee (1649?–89), the ‘bloody Clavers’ of The Brownie of Bodsbeck, was killed at the battle of Killiecrankie, which took place on 27 July 1689. Boyde’s musical types both volumes of Hogg’s Jacobite Relics were printed by the Edinburgh firm of Oliver & Boyd. Engraved copper and pewter plates were often used for printing music rather than movable type: for a brief summary of both processes in this period see Philip Gaskell, A New Introduction to Bibliography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 138–39. along with Grieves Hogg’s friend John Grieve was presumably at Cacrabank in Ettrick. one on the state of parties probably ‘State of Parties, and the Edinburgh Review’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 3 (September 1818), 715–22. Strout Bibliography, p. 45 attributes this to a Mr. Russell. praise Madam De Stael in ‘Observations on Madame de Stael’s Posthumous Work’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 3 (September 1818), 633–48. Strout, Bibliography, p. 44 attributes this to J. G. Lockhart. Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) was the daughter of the French revolutionary minister Necker, and her salon was a centre for the most progressive elements in French society. Her published works include the novels Delphine (1802) and Corinne (1807). attack Playfair Playfair was attacked under the guise of the ‘Reverend Professor Laugner’, in ‘Letter to the Reverend Professor Laugner, Occasioned by his Writings in the Köningsberg Review’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 3 (September 1818), 689–95. Strout, Bibliography, p. 45 attributes this to J. G. Lockhart. The mathematician John Playfair (1748–1819) was Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, and familiar with Edinburgh’s Whigs. cracking with Murray the London publisher and Hogg had both been at Abbotsford in September 1818—see Anecdotes of Scott, ed. by Jill Rubenstein (S/SC, 1999), p. 24. ‘The only time that ever his [Scott’s] conversation was to me perfectly uninteresting was with Mr Murray of Albemarle Street London. Their whole conversation was about Noblemen Parliamenters and literary men of all grades every one of which Murray seemed to know with all their characters and propensities which information Sir Walter

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seemed to drink in with the same zest as I did his highland whisky toddy. And this discourse they carried on for two days and two nights with the intermission only of a few sleeping hours and there I sat beside them the whole time like a stump and never got in a word’. Hogg’s letter to John Murray of 20 February 1819 shows that he had hoped to engage Murray on the subject of Jacobite Relics at Abbotsford. the sale of my Tales really sticked Peter Garside has shown that after a promising start, with Murray having sold 500 copies of The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales by 9 June 1818, ‘out of an edition of 1500 only about 1000 had been cleared in the crucial first year of publication’—see ‘Three Perils in Publishing: Hogg and the Popular Novel’, SHW, 2 (1991), 45–63 (pp. 52–55). Wilson and Lockhart the pair had been at Abbotsford on 8 and 9 October, and then moved on to visit Pringle of Torwoodlee—see Lockhart, IV, 185, 203. my admired friend Cunninghame’s poem Hogg had made the acquaintance of Allan Cunningham during his time as a shepherd at Mitchelslacks in Dumfriesshire—see Memoir, pp. 69–73. The poem has not been identified. Cunningham does not appear to have published a separate volume of poetry at this time, and Cunningham’s first contribution to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine was to the issue for October 1819—see the list in Strout, Bibliography, p. 146.

To William Blackwood

30 October 1818 Eltrieve Lake Octr 30th 1818

Dear Sir I have seen that yesterday at Grieves that has given me no little vexation on your account as well as that of my erratic associates I allude to the scandalous pamphlet lately published and the two public challenges given in consequence The latter of these I cannot help viewing as manifestly wrong and unadvised. The signature of their names in such a way is a tacit acknowledgement of the whole charge and the very thing that the writer wanted and if some explanation is not instantly published they will infallibly be branded with some farther indignity and expelled the faculty. The writer’s statement of facts is so incorrect as to warrant a general denial of the whole charge although the few things of which Pringle is in the secret cannot be got over and though most unwarrantably betrayed yet it seems they are betrayed Now the thing that I regret is that the challenges are not given for the intended personal affront offered by the writer and at the same time denying the truth of the charges made against them if this is not done instantly depend on it matters will be worse and you must suffer me to urge at least the consideration of it Though I do not know how thankful to be that I am away from among you considering how I was guided before yet no literary thing could have grieved me worse than this outbreak, and it is nothing but their notice of it that could have given such a base publication celeb-

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rity. Certainly not one of all the scandalous accusations apply to Lockhart? I have seen him in public and private merry and grave—in every kind of key to which the therms of his mind could be screwed or lowered and I never heard a profane or sceptical innuendo proceed from his lips. If Lockhart is not a correct as well as an amiable character I renounce the society of Young Advts for ever. Besides every one of his writings in the Magazine will stand the test with any unprejudiced scrutinizer Wilson has been guilty of some wanton infractions of friendship but I think nothing more; indeed I was so much ashamed of the attack on Wordsworth that I acknowledged it publicly to remove as much as possible the unpleasantness of the idea and if it had not been for those that were in the secret it would never have gone farther—I have many things to write about to you but cannot think of imposing my own trivial concerns on you at this time—but in hopes that I shall soon hear from you I remain Yours as ever James Hogg [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq/ 17 Prince Street/ Edinr. [Postmark:] NOV B2M 1818 [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 4807, fols 38–39. at Grieves Hogg must have visited his friend John Grieve at Cacrabank in Ettrick. the scandalous pamphlet Hypocrisy Unveiled, and Calumny Detected: In a Review of Blackwood’s Magazine (Edinburgh: Printed for Francis Pillans, 1818). It was a response to an attack on Playfair, ‘Letter to the Reverend Professor Laugner, Occasioned by his Writings in the Köningsberg Review’ in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 3 (September 1818), 689– 95. (Hogg alludes to this article in his letter to Blackwood of 12 October 1818.) The anonymous author of this pamphlet unmistakeably alluded to Lockhart and Wilson in his denunciation of various articles in Blackwood’s, and they foolishly wrote signed letters challenging the author to a duel, which were printed in The Scotsman of 24 October 1818 along with a letter from the anonymous author of the pamphlet. a tacit acknowledgement of the whole charge the pamphlet writer’s letter was to this effect: ‘If you be not a principal conductor or supporter of Blackwood’s Magazine, you have no reason for addressing me’, and he went on to enumerate specific articles of which he claimed Wilson and Lockhart had now admitted the authorship—see The Scotsman of 24 October 1818. expelled the faculty the back cover of the pamphlet advertised ‘Preparing for Publication, A Letter to the Dean and Faculty of Advocates, on the Propriety of expelling the Leopard and the Scorpion from that Hitherto Respectable Body’. Wilson and Lockhart were alluded to as the Leopard and the Scorpion respectively in ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (October 1817), 89– 96 (p. 92), and were both members of the Faculty of Advocates. Pringle Thomas Pringle, one of the former editors of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Monthly Magazine.

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how I was guided before perhaps an allusion to ‘the Douglas cause’ of May—see Hogg’s letter to the Editor of the Glasgow Chronicle of 13 May 1818 and notes. scandalous accusations a footnote on p. 46 of the pamphlet stated, ‘The SCORPION (alias Z. alias Baron Von Lauwerwinkel,) has often, in conversation, expressed his disbelief of the Christian religion’. wanton infractions of friendship Wilson was accused by the pamphlet-writer of ‘betraying the confidences of friendship, or, which is the same thing, making use of facts and circumstances which friendship, honour, and humanity alike called on [him] to hold sacred, or bury in oblivion’, giving as an instance the article on ‘ Hogg’s Life’ (pp. 22–23). For details of this see Hogg’s draft letter to Timothy Tickler of 3 August 1818 and notes. the attack on Wordsworth Wilson’s emotional instability is clearly demonstrated, as Elsie Swann points out, in the way he could ‘abuse Wordsworth anonymously in an article, and, in a later number of the magazine, attack with scorn the author of his own article and write a stern letter against himself for libelling so great a poet—then, in the following number, round off this Protean transaction with another vigorous onslaught on the Lake poet’—see Christopher North (Edinburgh, 1934), p. 24. The three articles were ‘Observations on Mr Wordsworth’s Letter Relative to a New Edition of Burns’ Works’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 1 ( June 1817), 261–66, ‘Vindication of Mr Wordsworth’s Letter to Mr Gray, on a New Edition of Burns’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (October 1817), 65–73, and ‘Letter Occasioned by N.’s Vindication of Mr Wordsworth in last Number’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (November 1817), 201–04. those that were in the secret probably Thomas Pringle and James Cleghorn, who were editors of the magazine in June 1817 when Wilson’s original attack on Wordsworth appeared.

To Archibald Constable

30 October 1818 Altrive Lake Octr 30th 1818

Dear Sir I was very happy at recieving your generous offer I was afraid that you would not grant me the plates of the Harp but I see that your good nature has not yet forsaken you altogether for all that’s come and gane. I have always regretted the circumstance that parted two such good friends as the man that “aince cross’d is mair cross than the devil” and myself but though my lot is now cast in a different heritage and though I maun do something for my bread Why should hostility at heart Old friends from one another part? I believe my subscription edition of the Queens Wake is just to be 550 copies on Royal octavo therefore if you will take the trouble of seeing them thrown off for me it is much better than sending the plate to any other place and I think it is best never to let my publishers know of it till the plate appear

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There seems to be some terrible outbreak with my literary associates now. It is a mercy I am out of the way else my simple snout should have been infallibly thrust foremost in the quarrrel I am Sir Your most obliged Servt James Hogg [Addressed:] Arch. Constable Esq./ Edinr. [Postmark:] NOV B2M 1818 [and] SELKIRK [Endorsed—not JH:] 1818/ James Hogg/ Altrive Lake/ 30th October [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 7200, fols 211–12. [Printed:] Constable, II, 360. your generous offer Hogg had written to Constable on 6 October, partly to order a copy of the Edinburgh Review for the Yarrow parish library, and partly to ask if an engraved plate of Queen Mary’s harp might be loaned to print copies for his forthcoming subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake. His letter does not appear to have survived, but Constable replied on 9 October, ‘You are quite welcome to impressions of the Plate of Queen Marys Harp—which is in the very best condition as there were not above 250 Copies of it printed—If however it were the same to you I would rather not give the plate out of my possession—We have Copperplate Printers employed on our premises and if you will mention the number of Impressions required for the Subscription Edition of the Queens Wake, I shall order them to be got ready by the time you may want them’ (NLS, MS 790, p. 277). This plate is dated 1807, and originally appeared as the frontispiece to John Gunn, An Historical Enquiry Respecting the Performance on the Harp in the Highlands of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1807), an important source for The Queen’s Wake. The engraving appeared between pages 328 and 329 of the subscription edition, the necessary trimming of the paper conveniently removing the line ‘Published by A. Constable & Co Edinburgh April 1807’. “aince cross’d is mair cross than the devil” if this is a quotation it has not been identified. my lot is now cast in a different heritage an echo perhaps of Psalm 16. 6, ‘The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage’. Hogg is referring to his adherence to the Tory writers for Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine rather than to Constable’s Whig Edinburgh Magazine. Why should hostility [...] one another part this quotation has not been identified. 550 copies on Royal octavo Hogg’s letter to John Murray of 20 February 1819 indicates that not all these copies had been subscribed for, and an advertisement for the sixth, or sale, edition in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 1 July 1819 adds ‘Such of the Author’s Friends as have not already sent in their names, will do so without loss of time, there being only 100 copies unsubscribed for, and on the first of August the price of the remaining copies will be raised to one guinea and a half’. never to let my publishers know of it the original proposal for a subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake as a two-guinea quarto had specified that it would be ‘ornamented with engravings from designs by Scottish artists’—see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 26 May 1817. The altered plan drawn up by Scott (NLS, MS 4937, fol. 82) declared that the

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high expenses involved in the illustrations had threatened the author’s profits and that the ‘frontispiece representing (from the Witch of Fife) a dance of Scottish witches with the fairies of Lapland is therefore the only embellishment proposed’. Hogg was effectively taking steps to include extra engravings in the volume—see also his letter to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe of 24 November 1818. some terrible outbreak see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 30 October 1818 and notes.

To Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe

24 November 1818 Altrive Lake Novr 24th 1818

My dear sir I expected always to have come to Edin. and waited on you personally but have been detained at home on account of finishing my cottage &c and will not be in till the spring The large edition of the Queen’s wake is however in the press and well advanced—will be ready about the beginning of the year, and I must depend on your friendship to get me the witches etched by Lizars and the portrait of Queen Mary properly engraved for the frontispiece. It is useless to say any thing about it to the publishers only I wish it could be ready by the time the work is ready for delivery your own superintendance of the engravings is all that is necessary and pray make it a lovely likeness of my darling queen—The Royal 8vo impression is 550 The subscribers of course are not numerous but highly respectable If you have got any of your London friends’ names I should like to have them to insert among the others I have no news from the country but we have as yet never missed summer away the furze and primroses are in full blossom and the greatest phenomenon that I ever saw the crows have actually mistaken themselves and are as busy building their nests as the [sic] wont to be in April I am dear sir Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] Charles Kilpatrick [sic] Sharpe Esq/ prince street [Postmark:] DEC B2M 1818 [Watermark:] R COLLINS/ 1809 [Location:] In Case Y 185.H6745, The Newberry Library, Chicago. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe the antiquarian and amateur artist Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe (1781–1851) was the son of Charles Sharpe of Hoddam in Dumfriesshire and educated at Oxford. He lived as a literary recluse in Edinburgh, but had been attracted to Scott on the publication of his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802–03), and was also a friend of R. P. Gillies, who gives an amusing account of his way of life in his

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Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, 3 vols (London, 1851), II, 189–91. Sharpe published an edition of James Kirkton’s Secret and True History of the Church of Scotland [...] in 1817, which Hogg reviewed anonymously in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (December 1817), 305–09. His other publications include an edition of Robert Law’s Memorialls (1818) and A Ballad Book (1823). The large edition the subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake (Edinburgh, 1819) is a royal octavo, and copies are noticeably taller than copies of previous editions. the beginning of the year Hogg was optimistic, as the edition was probably not ready for distribution until June 1819—see the notes to Hogg’s letter to Murray of 4 [ July] 1818. the witches the subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake includes a double-page plate between pages 76 and 77 illustrating the witches visit to Lapland in ‘The Witch of Fife’. This was intended as the frontispiece to the volume and described by Scott in his revised proposal (NLS, MS 4937, fol. 82) as ‘the gift of an amateur friendly to that genius of which he himself possesses no common share the traits of whose pencil are marked by a mingled wildness gaiety and humour happily adapted to a subject so singular’. Although not ascribed to any artist, it was the work of Sharpe himself, whom Hogg mentions in his Memoir (p. 33) as among the friends who forwarded the publication of this edition. For a valuable discussion of this and other illustrations in the subscription edition see Meiko O’Halloran, ‘Hogg, Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Illustrations to The Queen’s Wake’, in The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004), pp. lxxxvii–cxiii. Lizars William Home Lizars (1788–1859) was the son of an Edinburgh engraver. He had been apprenticed to his father, but also trained as a painter at the Edinburgh Trustees Academy (where David Wilkie had been a fellow-student), exhibited at the Edinburgh Exhibitions held between 1808 and 1815, and took an active part in the founding of the Royal Scottish Academy. After his father’s death in 1812, however, Lizars had to concentrate on his work as an engraver and copper-plate printer to support his mother and the rest of the family. the portrait of Queen Mary the frontispiece portrait of Queen Mary in the edition is described as ‘Sketched by Sir John Medina, from a Picture in the Royal Cabinet at Versailles’. The original drawing has not been traced. useless to say any thing about it to the publishers Scott’s revised proposal for the edition stated that there would only be a single illustration, and Hogg was working to increase the number—see his letter to Constable of 30 October 1818 and notes. Royal 8vo Hogg is distinguishing the fifth or subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake from the smaller copies of the sixth or ‘sale’ edition, which are demy-octavo—see the notes to Hogg’s letter to John Murray of 15 January 1818. never missed summer away the Glasgow Chronicle of 3 December 1818 cites a passage from the Dumfries and Galloway Courier to similar effect: ‘On the first day of December we see the flowers of spring in full blow in our gardens [...] the rooks have for several weeks been rebuilding their nests, as if the winter were already passed, and the season of love had returned’. A return to seasonal normality in Dumfriesshire was reported in the Glasgow Chronicle for 31 December, there having been ‘two or three nights of pretty sharp frost [...] we believe we may now say that the winter has fairly set in’.

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TH E LETTE RS OF JAM E S HOGG

25 November 1818 Altrive Lake Novr 25th 1818

Dear Sir It would be folly indeed to drop a correspondence by which I only am the profiter yet so perfectly stupid am I and so confused with correspondence in which I never have any system to move by that I have forgot whether it was to you or Buchan that I sent the parcel. It was a parcel otherwise I would have sent it by post The Jacobite poems of Skinner are well worthy of being preserved but it only being songs music and tales that I am collecting I must throw a part of them into the notes of my last volume which will not yet be published for a good while for I am anxious to have all the curious anecdotes about the families that rose in behalf of the Stuarts that I possibly can but I will take good care of every thing and you shall have the original M. S. back when ever you require it. I regard you my dear sir as a correspondent highly valuable for by chance you reside in a district where I have not one literary acquaintance save Mr Buchan and where it is evident some relics of value are still extant. Of these I have already got several from yourself and though in possession of some of them before that in nowise depreciates their value in my eyes “Whurry Whigs awa” is a real antique I have got some more verses from a Mr. Graham and Walter Scott thinks he can procure me some more still Some of the fragments you sent me too are genuine and very rare You must not lose sight of your Jacobitical friend I have a great hoarde of songs far more than I can publish What I want chiefly at present is heroic anecdotes of highlanders but my volume for this year keeps me back before the Battle of Sherrifmuir. The songs refer mostly to King William Queen Anne George 1st & 2d Montrose Clavers &c &c but all the clans are occassionally mentioned the history or anecdotes of any one of them or of their chiefs would be acceptable you will see some prospectus’ of the work soon in some newspapers which will tell you more than I can do in this single sheet. I regret exceedingly that I did not see you could you not have made a short addition to your romantic pilgrimage and visited the classic banks of the Yarrow you should have found a very homely but a very hearty welcome from your pastoral friend and all his friends in Ettrick Forest the distance from Edin. is trivial I sometimes walk it in a day. I have no news that can be interesting to you from this wilderness only our winter is such that if it were not for the callendar it might be mistaken for summer the flowers the birds and even the docile craws have all mistaken it in good earnest the latter are as busy building their nests as I ever saw them in April which I account as great a phenomenon as I ever

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witnessed—the primroses are also in full blow on our wild banks. It is the best weather for the chace I have ever [sic] beside all these and we are engaged with it every day till our dogs are absolutely going to fail us I have three as fine greyhounds as ever sprung to a hill; their names will amuse you Clavers, Burly, and Kettledrummle Give my kindest respects to Mr Buchan when you see him and believe me my dear Sir Yours very truly James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr J Wallace/ Peterhead [Postmark:] DEC W2M 1818 [Endorsed—not JH:] To/ Mr J. Wallace/ Edinburgh [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 582, fols 180–81. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 160–62. John Wallace a contributor to Hogg’s Jacobite song-collection from Peterhead, who is referred to in Hogg’s letter to Peter Buchan of 24 June 1818, and named by Hogg as among the principal contributors to his Jacobite Relics—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. [First Series], ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2002), p. xvi. David Scott states that he was a schoolmaster in Peterhead—see Grass of Parnassus from the Bents o’ Buchan (Peterhead, 1887), p. 26. the parcel presumably Hogg was returning materials he had borrowed from Wallace and Buchan to consult in preparing his Jacobite Relics. Jacobite poems of Skinner for details see Hogg’s letter to Peter Buchan of 24 June 1818 and notes. In his note to ‘Song LXVI. By the side of a Country Kirk Wall’ Hogg states that this song ‘is from Moir’s MS. and there said to have been written by the Rev. and ingenious John Skinner’—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. Second Series, ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2003), pp. 338, 514. These appear to be the only verses by Skinner included in the volume. “Whurry Whigs awa” see ‘Song XXXII. Whurry Whigs awa’, in The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. Second Series, ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2003), pp. 63–67. In his note to this song (p. 288) Hogg stated, ‘Of this confused ballad I am sure I got twenty copies, and the greater part of them quite different from one another. On comparing one which I got from Mr Wallace of Peterhead with another sent me by Mr Gordon, both equally long, I found not one single verse the same. I made up the present copy out of several, leaving out a number of stanzas of extraneous matter’. Pittock’s discussion of Hogg’s sources (pp. 497–98) tends to substantiate this claim. Mr. Graham ‘Mr John Graham’ is listed among the principal contributors to Hogg’s collection—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. [First Series], ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/ SC, 2002), p. xvi. Battle of Sherrifmuir this took place on 13 November 1715, near Dunblane in Perthshire. in some newspapers no formal prospectus for Jacobite Relics has been found in newspapers in 1818, but the Dumfries and Galloway Courier of 1 December 1818, the Edinburgh Weekly Journal of 16 December 1818, and the Morning Chronicle of 19 December

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1818 all carried articles about Hogg’s forthcoming work—see the notes to Hogg’s letter to Robert Surtees of 6 October 1818. the distance from Edin. is trivial about 40 miles. mistaken for summer see also Hogg’s letter to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe of 24 November 1818 and notes. Clavers, Burly, and Kettledrummle all named after characters in Scott’s Old Mortality (1816). ‘Clavers’ is John Graham of Claverhouse (c. 1649–89), a Royalist leader active against the Covenanters; ‘Burly’ is John Balfour of Kinloch, or Burly, a Covenanting leader and one of the party that assassinated Archbishop Sharp in 1679; while ‘Kettledrummle’ is Gabriel Kettledrummle, a fictional Covenanting preacher much admired by the foolish Mause Headrigg.

To William Blackwood

22 December 1818 Altrive Lake Decr. 22d 1818

Dear Sir I have only time at present to say that I recieved your acceptance for one hundred pounds on my return from Edin. and that I cashed it on the 20th with Mr. Craig Galashiels agent for the Leith Bank I am yours very truly James Hogg [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq./ 17 Prince Street/ Edinr. [Postmark:] DEC T22M 1818 [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ 20 December 1818/ James Hogg/ Altrive Lake [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1816 [Location:] NLS, MS 4003, fols 101–02. one hundred pounds it is unclear what this payment represents, since Hogg’s letter to John Murray of 5 May 1821 ( John Murray Archive, Box 37) makes it clear that the £100 due to Hogg as his author’s profits for the sixth edition of The Queen’s Wake was payable only twelve months after publication. The publication of this edition was announced in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 1 July 1819. Mr. Craig Galashiels George Craig (1784–1843) was a Galashiels Writer to the Signet as well as agent for the Leith Bank—see Corson, p. 422.

To William Blackwood

26 December 1818 Yarrow-Sheil Decr 26th 1818

Dear Sir With this you will recieve 11 numbers of The Hebrew Melodies but please send the two inscribed on the title page as directed (it is Thomson Trustees office) the other nine ar [sic] for sale and be sure to sell them at whatever price as I can get as many of them as I like and

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I fear I will never get more for my £30. I am snug in my new house as you will see by the date and will be very loth to leave it, but necessity has no law! I will write to you as soon as I get the Magazine Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq./ 17 Prince Street/ Edin [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—JH:] With parcel [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ 26th December 1818/ James Hogg [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 4003, fols 103–04. [Printed:] Strout, p. 162. Yarrow-Sheil Hogg was evidently testing out a new name for his new house, but almost immediately reverted to the familiar Altrive or Altrive Lake—see, for instance, his letter to John Aitken of 15 January 1819. The Hebrew Melodies Hogg’s song-collection, A Selection of German Hebrew Melodies (London: C. Christmas, [c. 1817]). For further information see Hogg’s letters to William Blackwood of 12 August 1817 and to W. E. Heather of 1 April 1818 and notes. In his Memoir (pp. 51–52) Hogg mentions that his promised payment for the work was to be a guinea a stanza ‘but it was a hoax upon me, for I was never paid a farthing’. Thomson Trustees office the song-collector George Thomson (1757–1851) was Principal Clerk to the Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Manufactures in Scotland. Thomson sent Hogg various gifts as acknowledgements of songs he had written—see, for instance, Hogg’s letter to Thomson of 25 March [1818] and notes. my £30. this may be an approximation of the payment of ‘a guinea a stanza’ promised to Hogg by the publisher of A Selection of German Hebrew Melodies—see Memoir, pp. 51–52. Hogg presumably obtained copies of the work in lieu of his payment. The work was advertised for sale at sixteen shillings in the advertisement for A Border Garland in the Edinburgh Weekly Journal of 28 April 1819. snug in my new house Hogg had been building a new cottage at Altrive during 1818, paying the builders as the house progressed. necessity has no law! Hogg also mentions living in his new house in his letter to John Aitken of 15 January 1819, adding ‘but I must leave it for Edin. in the course of a few weeks where I will remain two or three months’.

To [R. A.] Smith

[February 1818–January 1824]

Edin Saturday morning My dear Smith On thinking over your plan of mingling my verses with those of others it is needless to say a word but one “It will not do” My songs must be my own but you are at perfect liberty to exclude any of

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them as I have no object but to oblige—Do not exclude the wee word we although it kept Moses from the land of promise. I always like to have the criticisms of ladies and I never refuse to alter at their suggestion but I like to alter myself. Look at “Lady Linley” in the Anthology for the Ettrick set of the air we spoke of Yours very the [sic] James Hogg [Address:] none [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] [TOP OF SHIELD] [Location:] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: James Hogg Collection GEN MSS 61, Box 1, Folder 15. [Printed:] Adam, p. 25. Smith Robert Archibald Smith (1780–1829) was a teacher of music, and from 1823 onwards conductor of music at St George’s church in Edinburgh. He published The Scotish Minstrel, a collection of ancient and modern Scottish songs in six volumes between 1821 and 1824, to which Hogg contributed. Hogg’s contribution to a subsequent collection entitled The Irish Minstrel (1825) is discussed in Gillian Hughes, ‘Irish Melodies and a Scottish Minstrel’, SHW, 13 (2002), 36–45. date the letter was written between the publication of the second volume of Alexander Campbell’s Albyn’s Anthology, advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 14 February 1818, and the publication of the final volume of R. A. Smith’s The Scotish Minstrel in 1824, which was advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 31 January 1824. the wee word we perhaps a reference to Smith’s having mentioned that his opinion was shared by his wife, Mary. Moses in Numbers 20. 1–13 Moses strikes the rock of Meribah with his rod at God’s command and it produces water for the children of Israel. Immediately after this God tells him and Aaron that they will not enter into the promised land because ‘ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel’. This was perhaps because Moses had said ‘must we fetch you water out of this rock?’ rather than attributing the miracle to God. the Anthology Hogg’s song ‘Lady Linley’ had been published in Albyn’s Anthology, ed. by Alexander Campbell, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1816–18), II, 8–9, from the singing of his cousin, Thomas Hogg—see the note to Hogg’s letter to William Laidlaw of 9 January 1801. The tune does not appear to have been used in The Scotish Minstrel.

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FOR 1819 To John Aitken

15 January 1819 Altrive Janr. 15th 1819

My dear sir I had forgot as usual to answer your letter in due course but chancing this morning to get a magistrate to my breakfast it brought my neglect to my mind. I recieved your present and friendly letter in due course and to make sure of your visit to the braes of Yarrow I intend positively to visit you this spring. I am now living in my new cottage and it is very neat and comfortable and rather elegant but I must leave it for Edin. in the course of a few weeks where I will remain two or three months. I have never yet parted with the Spy to any body as I know some day it will be looked upon as a great curiosity as a work conducted by a real Shepherd in imitation of Addison and the other great masters in periodical writing. I suppose there is not above five copies existing at most But as it will never be in my day that these things must come to pass I will transfer the right of my sole remaining copy to you and to enhance the value of it I will write the name of every author at the head of each essay and poem as far as I reccollect them I will be very happy indeed to see you at Eltrive again Summer at the same time I shall endeavour to get Kate to come over and see me for I have almost forgot what she is like but if the report of friends is to be believed there is not a prettier or more amiable child in the realm. I must have her to some female boarding school but there will be no such thing about Dunbar I suppose A good new year and much happiness till I see you my dear Aiken and believe me ever Yours very truly James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr John Aiken/ Bank Office/ Dunbar [Postmark:] JAN W16M 1819 [Watermark:] COLLINS/ 1809 [Location:] NLS, Ry. II. b. 6, pasted in a copy of The Spy. John Aitken for further information see Appendix: Note on Correspondents. a magistrate a red herring. Aitken sent Hogg a barrel of these from time to time—

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Hogg’s letter of 25 October 1820 (NLS, MS 786, fols 57–58) acknowledges a similar gift. visit you this spring Aitken’s letter to David Laing of 10 April 1819 (Edinburgh University Library, MS La. IV. 17, fols 123–24) shows that the visit had then been paid, as it was delivered by Hogg on his return to Edinburgh from Dunbar. Aitken records, ‘In a party on Friday he was presented with the freedom of the Burgh in a very handsome manner—nothing could have been more unexpected on his part and I presume you will believe me when I tell you that the way in which he received it was sufficiently creditable to his heart.—His words were few but they were warm and characteristic’. the Spy the copy of Hogg’s essay-periodical of 1810–11 in which this letter is pasted contains his hand-written attributions to contributors by each article, but from internal evidence these were probably written after Hogg’s marriage in April 1820—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 523–24. Hogg’s inscription on the fly-leaf reads ‘To Mr John Aitken/ From his affectionate friend/ James Hogg’. Kate Hogg’s illegitimate daughter Catherine Hogg, born to Catherine Henderson during the summer of 1807—see Hogg’s letter to Aitken of 20 December 1817, and also Gillian Hughes, ‘James Hogg and the “Bastard Brood”’, SHW, 11 (2000), 56–68. She was perhaps with her mother in Ettrick at this time.

To M. L.

31 January 1819

Mr Hogg is highly indebted to M. L. for the two elegant and energetic national songs with which he has been favoured. Though modern they shall have a place in his last volume of Jacobite relics they have made his heart sore and would enrich any collection—He cannot think that he is quite a stranger to the muse Altrive By Selkirk Janr 31 1819 [Addressed:] none [Postmark:] none [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 2524, fol. 39. [Printed:] Strout, p. 163. M. L. in the second volume of his Jacobite Relics of 1821 Hogg explains that two songs signed ‘M. L.’ were ‘sent me anonymously, with the signature here given; and the answer directed to be left at the post-office’—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. Second Series, ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2003), p. 434. Jacobite relics two songs signed ‘M. L.’ appear in the Appendix of Jacobite Songs in the second Series of Jacobite Relics (1821)—see ‘Song XIX. Prince Charles’s Lament’ and ‘Song XXV. Though rugged and rough be the Land of my Birth’, in The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. Second Series, ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2003), pp. 423–24 and 431–33.

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To Thomas Pringle

1 February 1819 Altrive Feb. 1st 1819

Dear Pringle I recieved your letter at the church about a forthnight ago and among the multiplicity of my Jacobite correspondence had forgot it till an accident brought it to my remembrance I approve entirely of your plan. The Poetic Mirror is a temporary thing and if it is preserved at all will only be with the rest of my poetical works in which your beautiful poem could not have with propriety have appeared. I hope the two affecting episodes are restored. I never met with any person who thought more of the poem than I did there are but few that can appreciate such a poem and Mr. Scott is one of these few who gave it all due praise. It is not however very fashionable now to read poetry and high as I value the thing and I am sure I am right you must not be very sanguine—Pray do not forget Mickle and the authors of all the beautiful and original ballads in the Border Minstrelsy and wishing all manner of success I remain Dear Tom Yours very truly James Hogg I hope Constable is returned from London. I am very proud of his behaviour to me of late he acted very much like a gentleman and a good natured fellow [Addressed:] Mr. Thos. Pringle/ 3 Arthur Place/ Edin. [Postmark:] FEB W4M 1819 [and] SELKIRK 334— [and in ink] 7½ [Endorsed—not JH:] James Hogg/ Feb. 1. 1819 [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1816 [Location:] Bodleian Library, MS. Montagu d. 4, fols. 260–61. your letter Pringle’s letter, to which this is a reply, does not appear to have survived. my Jacobite correspondence Hogg was gathering materials for his two Series of Jacobite Relics, published in 1819 and 1821 respectively. your beautiful poem Pringle’s ‘Epistle to Mr R. S * * * * ’ had been included in Hogg’s The Poetic Mirror (Edinburgh, 1816), pp. 27–51. Pringle must have informed Hogg of its recent republication in his volume The Autumnal Excursion, or Sketches in Teviotdale: With Other Poems (Edinburgh, 1819), advertised as ‘This day was published’ in the Caledonian Mercury of 30 January 1819. The preface to this volume explains that some passages of the title poem were ‘presented by the Author as a contribution to an intended POETICAL MISCELLANY, then in preparation by an ingenious friend; but this project having been relinquished for that of the POETIC MIRROR, the verses were transferred, at the request of the Editor (Mr HOGG), to that Work, under the character of an “Epistle” in the style of a distinguished “Living Bard;”—to which character, however, they had no other claim than what was altogether extrinsic and accidental’.

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Mr. Scott Hogg seems to have shown Scott Pringle’s poem before including it in The Poetic Mirror—see an undated letter from Scott to Hogg in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: Sir Walter Scott Collection GEN MSS 266, Box 1, Folder 17. Scott terms the verses ‘really very good’ adding ‘the author might say as a celebrated Empiric did at the bottom advertisements [sic]—“N. B. I am not the Doctor John Fothergill of London but much his superior”’. Mickle William Julius Mickle (1735–88), the author of the ballad of ‘Cumnor Hall’. the Border Minstrelsy Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border was published in two volumes in 1802, with a third, chiefly of ballad imitations by Scott and his friends, in the following year. Constable the publisher Archibald Constable had given Hogg permission to use a plate of Queen Mary’s harp in his subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake of 1819, even though this was to be published by his rival William Blackwood—see his letter to Hogg of 9 October 1818 in NLS, MS 790, p. 277.

To John Murray

20 February 1819 Edinr Febr. 20th 1819

My dear Sir I arrived here the day before yesterday for my spring campaign in literature drinking whisky &c and as I have not heard a word of you nor from you since we parted on the top of the hill above Abbotsford I dedicate my first letter from the Metropolis to you And first of all I was rather dissapointed in getting so little cracking with you at that time, Scott and you had so much and so many people to converse about whom no body knew any thing of but yourselves that you two got all to say and some of we great men who deem we know every thing at home found that we knew nothing. You did not even tell me what conditions you were going to give me for my Jacobite Relics of Scotland the first part of which will make its appearance this spring and I think bids fair to be popular, it is under the patronage and inscribed to the London Highland Society and each of the members takes a copy. I suppose we must be sharers in the profits of the edition as usual. Blackwood is willing to do any way that you chuse but he bid me write and ask yourself for that you would do the thing for me that you would not do for him The Queen’s Wake will be published Boyde says by the middle of next month. A gentleman in the Musical line has a good number of subscribers in London. If he gives them in to you take care how you deliver them for I suspect he is not much to lippen to. I wish you could induce some friendly Scotsman in London to interest himself in it. It is a pity but that I had as many subscribers as would take off the Royal copies at once that the sale copies might be put in

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circulation in the spring if you can think of any one I will write to him I have read both the Review and No 23 of the Magazine and never did I read any works with so much interest Though quite different messes they are both exquisite in kind a feast of fat things. No previous number of the Review has been better; no one of the Magazine has been near so good: for some months past I felt as if I suspected a falling off, but this must give it a heeze again else originallity of composition has lost its value—There has been a considerable fume among the trade about a new journal of Science that Blackwood is setting a going I find that he (the said man whose name is as ebony) is very much vexed and chagrined that he has missed your acquiescence and support in it and I overheard a conversation yesterday in which it was plotted that you should yet have a share of it and be induced to give up some other thing of the same nature which they agreed to be a bad concern. I wonder that you should be so shy in running shares with Ebony I am sure he is any thing but a rash or sanguine man; and as far as my little experience goes there is not a more reasonable man living if one will be reasonable with him He has only one great fault he never will confess that he has been in the wrong. Whether this proceeds from a consciousness of rectitude I know not but I am sure that it must do him hurt sometimes in transacting business especially when he meets with a hot headed Athol highlander like yourself—But I have nothing to do with these things only I cannot help when writing to a friend of saying whatever is uppermost Our worthy friend Scott has again had an attack of the cramp in his stomach and yesterday when I saw him was very far from being well He spoke in the very highest terms of both the Quarterly and the Magazine. I have no more news that I think of pray write to me before you fling this by among your thousands of business letters and forget. If it were but five lines to tell me how you are? What you deem the impression of [eol] of the Jacobite songs ought to be? What the fairest condition should be between friends? and if you know of any friendly enthusiastic gentleman to whom I could apply or to whom you could apply to procure me a few subscriptions for the Wake And believe me ever Yours very faithfully James Hogg [Addressed:] John Murray Esq/ Albemarle street/ London

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[Postmark:] FEB E20A 1819 [and] B 23FE23 1819 [and] Addl. ½ [Endorsed—not JH:] 1819 Feb 20/ Hogg, Jas. [Watermark:] J WHATMAN/ 1814 [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box 37. [Printed:] Smiles, II, 15–16 [in part]; Strout, pp. 163–65 [in part]. since we parted Murray had visited Scott at Abbotsford in the autumn of 1818. Hogg’s sense of exclusion is also expressed in his Anecdotes of Scott, ed. by Jill Rubenstein (S/SC, 1999), pp. 24 and 52. See also his letter to Blackwood of 12 October 1818 and notes. Jacobite Relics although this was eventually published by Blackwood, with Cadell and Davies in London, John Murray had been Blackwood’s intended partner. For a discussion of the patronage of the Highland Society of London for the work see the notes to Hogg’s letters to Blackwood of 18 June and 15 July 1818: it seems probable that the Society made no formal agreement to patronise the work. The Queen’s Wake for details of the publication of the fifth or subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake in royal octavo with engraved plates, and of the sixth or sale edition in demy-octavo see Hogg’s letters to William Blackwood of 31 January 1818 and to John Murray of 4 [ July] 1818 and notes. Only these editions were printed by Oliver & Boyd. A gentleman in the Musical line has not been identified. the Review and No 23 of the Magazine issue no. 38 of the Quarterly Review, dated July 1818, was advertised as ‘Just arrived’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 8 February 1819. Issue no. 23 of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine is the one for February 1819. a new journal of Science the first issue of the quarterly Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, edited by David Brewster (1781–1868) and Robert Jameson (1774–1854), was advertised as ‘This day was published’ in the Caledonian Mercury of 31 May 1819. Although Constable was the publisher, according to Oliphant (II, 8–9) the editors’ proposal had initially been made to Blackwood and Murray. whose name is as ebony Blackwood was referred to as a man whose ‘name was as it had been the colour of ebony’ in ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 2 (October 1817), 89–96 (p. 89) and the name came into common use among the magazine’s contributors. some other thing of the same nature John Murray was the publisher of the Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature and the Arts, which was sold for him in Edinburgh by William Blackwood. he never will confess that he has been in the wrong Hogg expresses a similar opinion of Blackwood in his Memoir : ‘The great fault of Blackwood is, that he regards no man’s temper or disposition; but the more he can provoke an author by insolence and contempt, he likes the better. Besides, he will never once confess that he is in the wrong, else any thing might be forgiven; no, no, the thing is impossible that he can ever be wrong! The poor author is not only always in the wrong, but, “Oh, he is the most insufferable beast!”’ (p. 58). a hot headed Athol highlander John Murray (1778–1843), though born in London, was a descendant of the Murrays of Athol. an attack of the cramp Scott had a series of severe attacks of stomach cramps in

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1817—see Hogg’s letter to Scott of [6 March 1817] and notes. The malady recurred in 1819. impression of [...] Jacobite songs 1500 copies were printed of both the First and Second Series of The Jacobite Relics of Scotland—see Blackwood’s letter to Hogg of 15 August 1820 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 44–45).

To John McDiarmid

8 March 1819 Edin March 8th 1819

My dear Mac. I deferred writing to you last winter till I could get Walter Scott to set his day as I wished to make it as little inconvenient for him as possible but what with ill health and one thing another he at length put me off till July next but I always expected a friendly chance visit from [sic] I was highly pleased with the way in which you announced my Jacobite relics as indeed I could not be otherwise. It is with no ordinary degree of pleasure that I observe with what friendly warmth you always mention my name publicly—I think I can still perceive something like the exultation of a brother in every thing that you say of me You mistook me terribly when you supposed that I meant to engage with you in writing on politics. I merely meant that I wished to enjoy your essays on them. I never liked any thing of the kind half so much and still concieve myself sitting listening attentively to you [sic] lively loquacity in Youngs without daring or wishing to interrupt you and I looked upon your request for me to assist you in the same light as I wont to do “Come Hogg speak a while” As for me lending any material assistance I may say the spirit truly is willing but the flesh is weak In fact I have more literary engagements than I can accomplish so that I must just be considered as a common subscriber direct the paper to 6 Charles’ Street Edin. until further orders for I think it is likely I will be here till nearly midsummer where I hope to see you when you visit Edin. I have no news nor is there any thing stirring here save Blackwoods Magazine which keeps the town in a constant ferment Excuse haste dear Mack but not the two idle students that are standing interrupting me and believe me Yours ever Most truly James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr John M,Diarmid/ Journal Office/ Dumfries [Postmark:] MAR W10A 1819 [and] Addl. ½

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[Watermark:] J. WHATMAN/ 1814 [Location:] Hornel Library, Kirkcudbright: S20. John McDiarmid John McDiarmid (1790–1852) had been Hogg’s fellow office-bearer in the Edinburgh Forum—see Gillian Hughes, ‘James Hogg and the Forum’, SHW, 1 (1990), 57–70 (pp. 65–66). In 1817 he had left Edinburgh to become editor of the Dumfries and Galloway Courier. He signed as a witness to Hogg’s marriage contract in Dumfries on 27 April 1820 (Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 2, Item 7). He was a trusted advisor of Burns’s widow, and active in many local causes, notably the organisation of a relief fund during the 1832 cholera epidemic in Dumfries. McDiarmid wrote a life of William Nicholson, the Galloway pedlar poet, edited Cowper and Goldsmith, and brought out several series of an anthology entitled The Scrap Book. Politically McDiarmid was a liberal, who had helped to prepare the first issue of The Scotsman, and with a particular interest in matters relating to the poor. Walter Scott clearly McDiarmid wished to meet Scott, and Hogg was to invite them to Altrive together. announced my Jacobite relics an enthusiastic advance notice of the work had appeared in the Dumfries and Galloway Courier for 1 December 1818, opening ‘We are happy in being the first to announce to the public, that Mr James Hogg, the celebrated Ettrick Shepherd, having been employed by the Highland Society of London to collect and arrange the Jacobite relics of his native country, has been silently prosecuting this task for some time past, and has already in the press the first portion of his interesting labours’, and continuing ‘This, we think, will form a very curious and interesting national work, especially when we consider the ungleaned and extensive field that lies before the Editor, and the host of respectable individuals who have interested themselves in the success of his undertaking. [...] With these feelings and qualifications we are certain that Mr Hogg if at all seconded in his meritorious efforts, will produce a work in the highest degree interesting to the antiquarian as well as the general reader [...]’. You mistook me terribly Hogg seems to refer to an earlier letter to McDiarmid, which has not apparently survived. in Youngs Young’s tavern on the High Street of Edinburgh. The anonymous writer of an account of a Burns dinner described it as ‘the great resort [...] of a number of men of genius here, in their hours of relaxation and hilarity’—see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 3 February 1817. lending any material assistance McDiarmid had presumably asked Hogg to become a regular contributor to the Dumfries and Galloway Courier. spirit [...] is willing but the flesh is weak see Matthew 26. 41. 6 Charles’ Street see the note to Hogg’s letter to William Napier Scott of 8 March [1818] for a potential connection of John Grieve with this address. a constant ferment most recently by ‘The Mad Banker of Amsterdam. Canto V’ in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 4 (February 1819), 563–67, attributed to J. G. Lockhart in Strout, Bibliography, p. 50. Blackwood’s letter to Murray of 19 February 1819 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 3) reports that he had got Hogg to consult Scott about this: ‘I thought myself that The Mad Banker was too strong on Jeffrey, and even Napier might have been let alone. However it was only partially altered. I was still so distrustful about it that I made our friend Hogg who is just come to town call

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on Mr Scott, and ask his opinion quietly, as our friends would even yet have cancelled some part of it if Mr. S. had thought it necessary’. two idle students Hogg must have written in a reading-room or other public place.

To Jane [?]

19 April [1819] Charles’ Street April 19th

My dear, sweet, honest, good natured, kind hearted Jane; I have behaved most unaccountably ill to Mrs W. and all the family in accepting of your kind invitations to your little friendly and joyous parties and yet absenting my illustrious self from them both, without either preface or apology. An apology I could not send, for I intended as firmly to come to both as I intend to take my dinner this day; but friends and circumstances always overcame me at the moment I should have set out. Now I have nothing in the world to say for myself only to beg that you will kindly plead my cause with all the good creatures in the house, and if you succeed in restoring me to favour I will write six Epic poems on you and court you every day till you are married, and as long after as you will let me Yours ever most faithfully James Hogg I have no servant to send so must employ my friend the post. [Addressed:] [no address panel] [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] ? 5.00 /1819/ J. Hogg [and] April 19—1819.– [Watermark:] none [Location:] Grenville H. Norcross Autograph Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society. [Printed:] Strout, pp. 168–69. Jane the identity of Hogg’s Edinburgh correspondent is not known, nor that of her friend or relation Mrs. W. While it is tempting to suppose Hogg’s correspondent was Jane Wilson, the sister of John Wilson, there is no firm evidence for it.

To Alexander Bald

20 April 1819 Edin April 20th 1819

My dear Sandy As a day backwards or forwards makes no difference I shall endeavour for once to rise early and come up on Thursday, for the

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sake of leading somebody down a country dance. I protest however against the black breeches and silk stockings or any other dress whatever save my fishing jacket and trousers which I think (with the addition of hair powder which you and I must of course appear in) may do very well. It will make some little difference to the club my coming a day sooner, on Friday I could have brought both the Queen’s Wake and a musical work of mine with me, on Thursday I can bring neither— Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] Alex Bald Jnr Esq/ Alloa. [Postmark:] none [Endorsed:] copy [Location:] Copy, Stirling University Library, MS 25B, Item 9. on Thursday Hogg had expected to be in Alloa on Friday, 23 April, for the annual dinner of the Shakespeare Club of Alloa held on Shakespeare’s birthday and which he attended regularly. He had clearly been invited to come a day earlier in order to attend a ball in the town. black breeches part of the formal evening costume expected of the male dancers at the ball. fishing jacket and trousers Lockhart describes Hogg’s holiday attire at this time as including ‘a most picturesque fishing-jacket, of the very lightest mazarine blue, with huge mother-of-pearl buttons—nankeen breeches, made tight to his nervous shapes,— and a broad-brimmed white chip hat, with a fine new ribbon to it, and a peacock’s feather stuck in front’—see Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1819), III, 121. the Queen’s Wake apparently a reference to the fifth or subscription edition of Hogg’s The Queen’s Wake, but there is clear evidence that copies were not ready for distribution to subscribers until June—see the notes to Hogg’s letter to John Murray of 4 [ July] 1818. a musical work of mine probably an early copy of A Border Garland, advertised as ‘In a few days will be published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 22 April 1819.

To Margaret Phillips

[12 May 1819]

Wedensday 4 o’clock My dear Margaret I thought to have called to day but could not find leisure. You would wonder I have seen you so seldom for some time past. I have been very unwell, but that was not all: from the hints that you gave me the other day I saw plainly that I was only earning to myself grief and dissapointment and so I took up a resolution that I would

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not trust my happiness and peace of mind on such a capricious foundation. In short that I would not put them again in a woman’s power. It was this that kept me away from the pleasure which I so much desired. Good bye till my return—God bless you Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] Miss Margaret Phillips/ At Mr. Gray’s/ St Leonards [Postmark:] MAY B13M 1819 [Watermark:] none [Location:] Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 6. date the letter is postmarked 13 May but dated on Wednesday, which was 12 May 1819. Margaret Margaret Phillips was on a visit from her Dumfriesshire home to her brother-in-law James Gray and his second wife in Edinburgh at this time. The Grays appear to have moved from 4 Buccleuch Place (still their address in the Edinburgh postal directory for 1813–14) to ‘Craigside’ (their address in the directory for the following year). ‘Crags’ is another name for the St Leonards given in Hogg’s direction—see Harris, p. 546. unwell nothing is known about Hogg’s illness. till my return Hogg is announcing his departure from Edinburgh for his country home at Altrive. He had been in town since 18 February (see his letter to Murray of 20 February 1819), and it seems from his letter to Neil Gow of 21 May that he did not in fact leave it until 22 May, ten days after this letter was written.

To Neil Gow

21 May 1819

Friday 4 o clock My dear Neil It has been such a day I could neither set out nor come over to see what you are doing. I go off early to morrow morning. Pray look at the inclosed account and see if it is any thing feasible. I bought a costly horse on Wednesday and will rather be short of the ready till the Wake is distributed. I therefore wish you would advance poor Anderson £4 or 5 till my return Yours ever James Hogg Charles’ Street May 21 [Addressed:] Mr. Neil Gow/ 60 Prince Street [Postmark:] WEST/ NICOLSON ST/ P. P. [and] MAY W22A 1819 [Watermark:] LONDON/ 1818

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[Location:] Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University: James Hogg Collection GEN MSS 61, Box 1, Folder 12. [Printed:] Adam, p. 8. Neil Gow the son of the music teacher and music publisher Nathaniel Gow, and grandson of the celebrated violinist Neil Gow. He was born in Edinburgh in 1795 and trained in medicine before becoming his father’s partner in the music-publishing business of Nathaniel Gow and Son. The firm had premises at 60 Princes Street from August 1818 until 1823, when it moved to 7 Hanover Street. Unfortunately Neil Gow died young on 7 November 1823, after showing great promise as a composer. His settings of Hogg songs were among his best-known work. The firm published A Border Garland, advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 8 May 1819, and also several single songs by Hogg with music by Neil Gow, including ‘The Lament of Flora McDonald’ and ‘O, Jeanie there’s Naething to Fear Ye’. For further information about Gow see Charles Humphries and William C. Smith, Music Publishing in the British Isles from the Beginning until the Middle of the Nineteenth Century, second edition (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1970), p. 160, and James D. Brown and Stephen S. Stratton, British Musical Biography: A Dictionary of Musical Artists, Authors and Composers, Born in Britain and its Colonies (Birmingham, 1897), p. 169. go off Hogg was about to return to his country home at Altrive in Yarrow. the inclosed account has not been identified. till the Wake is distributed the fifth edition of The Queen’s Wake, copies of which were sold to subscribers at a guinea and distributed in June 1819—see the notes to Hogg’s letter to John Murray of 4 [ July] 1818. poor Anderson has not been identified.

To George Boyd

[31 July 1819]

My dear George Lest I should not see you before leaving town I think you should give me a bill for £50— at four months by which time the Tales will be in circulation and I will ask no more till the edition be sold off. If you could however think of buying the copy-right I would sell you both this and the Brownie very cheap as I find I could get a little cheap farm from the house of Buccleuch if I had money to stock it which I want. Think about it and see what Mr. Oliver says. If you buy only the edition I will refer the price to yourself or Mr Blackwood Yours ever most affectionately James Hogg [Addressed:] Mr George Boyde [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Letter/ James Hogg/ Edinburgh/ 31st July 1819 [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, Acc. 5000/188, Special Correspondence Box, Oliver & Boyd Papers.

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before leaving town Hogg’s stay in Altrive from 22 May (see his letter to Neil Gow of 21 May 1819) must have been brief, since by the end of July he was nearing the end of another Edinburgh visit. a bill for £50– Hogg is negotiating terms for the publication of his Winter Evening Tales. These are embodied in his letter to Oliver & Boyd of 2 August 1819 and their acceptance. Blackwood appears to have suggested to Hogg that Oliver & Boyd might publish the collection, envisaging it simply as an anonymous reprint of tales from The Spy and other periodicals—see his letter to Hogg of 25 November 1820, in NLS, MS 30,002, fol. 15. in circulation Winter Evening Tales was listed in an Oliver & Boyd advertisement of ‘New Works, &c. in the Press’ to be published ‘In the course of October and November next’—see the Caledonian Mercury of 14 August 1819. Publication was delayed, and the tales were advertised as ‘This day are published’ in the Caledonian Mercury of 22 April 1820. the Brownie The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales had been published by William Blackwood and John Murray in May 1818, and when Blackwood finally settled his account with Hogg at the end of August 1821 not all the copies had then been sold— see Blackwood’s letter to Hogg of 31 August 1821 (NLS, MS 30,301, pp. 201–02). Publication of a second edition in 1819 was therefore unfeasible. a little cheap farm Hogg had been granted the small farm of Altrive rent-free by the Duke of Buccleuch in 1815, and subsequently rented the much larger Mount Benger farm from the Buccleuch estate in 1821. The name of the ‘little cheap farm’ mentioned here is unknown.

To Oliver & Boyd

2 August 1819 Edin. August 2d 1819

Gentlemen I hereby offer you the first Edition of my Winter Evening Tales for the sum of One Hundred Pounds Sterling. The edition to consist of fifteen hundred copies and the work to be in two volumes each volume to contain not less than 350 pages—You are to have full liberty to divide the impression into two or three editions as you see meet and the terms of payment to be—A bill of this date payable in four months for one half of the Sum specified; and at the time of publication, a bill for the remaining £50= payable in twelve months. If you please to accept of these terms I bind myself to stand by them. I am Gentlemen Your most Obedt James Hogg To Messrs Oliver & Boyde Booksellers & Publishers Edin.

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Edin 2nd August 1819 Mr James Hogg Dear Sir We are favoured with yours of this date, of the following tenor “I hereby offer you the first Edition of my Winter Evening Tales for the sum of One Hundred Pounds. The Edition &c &c—————————” We hereby accept of your offer & bind ourselves to the performance of the conditions therein stated. We are &c signed Oliver & Boyd [Addressed:] Messrs. Oliver & Boyde/ Booksellers/ Edin [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—signature only JH:] Edinb. 2d Augt 1819 Received Messr. Oliver & Boyds Promissory Note at 4 Months for Fifty Pounds as agreed James Hogg [Endorsed—not JH:] Obligation/ James Hogg/ Edinburgh/ 2nd August 1819 [Watermark:] G WILMOTT/ 1818 [Location:] NLS, Acc. 5000/188, Special Correspondence Box, Oliver & Boyd Papers. Winter Evening Tales this formal letter of offer and acceptance conclude the negotiations begun by Hogg in his letter of [31 July 1819] for the terms of publication for his Winter Evening Tales. Oliver & Boyd’s acceptance, added to Hogg’s letter, is included in the text here in smaller type. As the agreement specifies the amount of matter to be submitted for each volume the firm clearly did not have all Hogg’s copy for the publication at this date.

To Margaret Phillips

5 August 1819 Edin August 5th 1819

My dear Margaret Your anxiously looked for letter has given me but little satisfaction. I knew what it would be when you got home among your friends, and often foretold you of it and now I see I am too right. The mighty objection that you dwell upon must be obvious to every one, and it would not have been fair dealing with the woman of my heart not to have given a true picture both of my present circumstances and future prospects. If it had not been for the paying off old debts with interest and expenses most foolishly and inadvertantly contracted in Nithsdale and building a new cottage I would have had a good deal of money before my hand as it is I have very little. It is all a pretence your saying that my letter bore marks of my having changed my mind. As far as I remember it was as affectionate a letter as ever was written. certain I am it was meant to be so. My mind is made up; but my heart will not suffer any insult and if I see the least symptoms of dislike among your friends, and that they

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are influencing you against me I am off in a moment. I think too much of myself to truckle or cringe to man that is born of woman or to woman either. I cannot comprehend what Walter’s advice means or what time is to bring about that we do not know already. Your great objection is one that cannot be removed in a day nor a year. But I find I am in bad humour to day and ought not to have written It is your letter that has made me so. I expected something endearing and behold I find a cold calculating epistle the most distressing of all things among lovers You must not be angry at poor Mrs. Grey I think she acted imprudently but still she loves you and the thing cannot be amended but there is not a woman loves her sister or child better than she loves you I told her of this letter but she does not know of any former correspondence Before this reaches you I will be at home and therefore your letters must in future be directed to “Altrive by Selkirk” If you would be so kind as send up a note to M,Diarmid at the Courier office thus “Please send Mr. Hogg’s paper to Altrive by Selkirk” You need not sign it and it will astonish him. I have not a word of news. It was a queer fancy to think that I had changed my mind. It never once comes into my mind unless sometimes when I meet with a drove of oxen. I have never gone out to walk without thinking how much more happy I would have been had you been hanging on my arm and teasing me with your Dumfries tongue. Nor have I ever lien down to sleep without thinking how much more happy I would have been had you been lying in my bosom. Yet for all my fondness and affection I get a cold dry letter telling me in plain terms “Mr. Hogg you are too poor for me that is the plain matter of fact and unless you have funds laid up so as to secure us against misfortune of every kind you cannot be the man for me.” Well done Maggy! What do you think a poet and a lover must feel at such a sentiment? Be sure he will not like you any the better for it. But just take your own way my little dear lassie. I will neither fleech you nor fight with you and your friends that are so much interested in your welfare. Whenever you feel disposed to be cordial and affectionate and steady to what was fairly understood between us I will meet you with open arms but think not that I am coming either to plead with them or to brag of my riches and run the risk of biding jibes on my poverty. It is yourself that I want. I would do a good deal to court you but I cannot court any other body I am notwithstanding Your affectionate and faithful James Hogg

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[Addressed:] Miss Margaret Phillips/ Mousewald [sic] Place/ Dumfries [Postmark:] AUG B5E 1819 [Watermark] J WHATMAN/ 1814 [Location:] Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 7. [Printed:] Garden, pp. 121–22 [in part]. Your anxiously looked for letter Margaret Phillips had evidently finished her visit to James and Mary Gray in Edinburgh and returned to her home in Dumfriesshire on 16 July 1819. She wrote to Hogg the following Tuesday (20 July) to announce her safe arrival—see Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 19. Since writing to her on [12 May 1819] when they were both in Edinburgh Hogg had clearly made a serious proposal of marriage, which she was inclined to accept. Her letter speaks of waiting for an opportunity to consult her father and regrets that the weather had prevented her from visiting her brother Walter at Longbridgemoor farm in Ruthwell parish. A second letter, postmarked 3 August (Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 20), refers to a letter from Hogg which has not apparently survived, and was written after she had seen her brother. The mighty objection Hogg was in poor financial circumstances compared to the prosperous Phillips family. old debts with interest Hogg’s letters to Walter Cunningham, for instance, reveal that he still had debts going back to 1808 when he was farming in Dumfriesshire. expenses [...] contracted in Nithsdale the nature of these is not known, but Hogg may possibly have contributed to the financial support of his two illegitimate daughters. building a new cottage in 1818 Hogg put up a a stone-built cottage at Altrive to replace a former barely-habitable house, but only paid for it with difficulty—see his letter to William Blackwood of 21 July [1818]. my letter bore marks of my having changed my mind in her second letter Margaret Phillips said ‘after reading your letter I thought you had perhaps taken a different view of the subject. If you have, be candid and tell me, second thoughts are often best I believe a hint from you ought to be enough, but as I like plain dealing, more is required’. This earlier letter from Hogg has not apparently survived. Walter’s advice Margaret Phillips had acted as housekeeper to her brother Walter at Longbridgemoor farm before his marriage to Christian Duncan (Parr, p. 17), and consulted him about Hogg’s proposal. In her second letter she reported that ‘his advice is not to be in a hurry and also advises me to say nothing to my Father at present until we see what time brings about’. She described Walter and Christie as ‘deeply interested in our welfare’. angry at poor Mrs. Grey Hogg’s letter had reported Mrs Gray’s comments on how late Margaret and Hogg had sat up at night together in Edinburgh: in her second letter Margaret said ‘I cannot forgive her saying she was ashamed to mention the time we parted’. former correspondence Hogg’s first surviving letter to Margaret Phillips is dated 27 July 1811, not long after their acquaintance first began at the Grays’ house in Edinburgh. to M,Diarmid Hogg’s friend John McDiarmid was editor of the Dumfries and Gallo-

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way Courier. Hogg’s letter to him of 8 March 1819 shows that he was a subscriber, and he occasionally contributed to the paper. His ‘Hymn to the Evening Star’, for example, appeared in the issue for 5 October 1819. funds laid up Margaret Phillips’s letter had argued in support of her brother’s view ‘don’t you think there should be something we could reckon upon should any misfortune befall us’.

To Margaret Phillips

20 August 1819 Eltrive August 20th 1819

My dearest Margaret I have always regretted my last letter lest you should have taken it ill but really I could not help thinking that the advices of your friends had changed your mind and I rather think so yet. It is true as you say that they are concerned in your welfare, but I am sure they cannot be more concerned in it than I am. I have nothing selfish in my affections for you, if I did not think that you would be happier with me than you are at present I would like better to want you than have you. I am very unwilling to come to Dumfries-shire as things stand at present but if you think it can contribute any thing to the furtherance of our plans I shall come next month—Remember you are to contrive things so that we are to have a night’s courting and no one to know or tell of it as formerly. My mind is quite fixed and immovable. I might perhaps get a better wife and a richer wife but I find I could not get one that I like so well or that would suit me better therefore I am determined that no failure or shortcoming shall take place on my part yet I confess to you that ever since you took the resolution of going home to Nithsdale and leaving me I have had a kind of prepossession that some obstacle would come in the way to prevent our union and I expect that these obstacles will arise with your friends I am so convinced of it that I have a jealousy of every one of them. I feel very much for the distresses of your family but a good deal on your account you know it is not so easy to feel for those we do not know as for those we know and love. I met with John Steven at Peebles and got word from you all there is something uncommonly uncultivated and ignorant about him he would never do for my Margaret. I have had a good deal of company since I came home but none that I care much about I had one lady yesterday and another to day a most beautiful creature but her husband was with her. Grieve is much about as when he left Edin. he is really no better. I have a neighbour gentleman living with me now whose house is repairing I suppose I shall have his company till

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near the end of next month Besides him I have had six visitors this forenoon and got your letter while two of them were here. judge you what leisure I have to do any thing of consequence for myself. I think I have no news farther from the Forest as you do not know the people. You will know them better I hope before this time twelvemonth. You are never making the least progress in what you promised to do but remember we are to be married in November when the nights are long and cold. I would not venture on it just now on any account. If you do not bring matters somewhat to bear I will give in the names and come and demand you at once. I really feel very averse to coming just now unless you assure me in your next that I can bring matters so to bear for my coming as that I need not come back till I come for you altogether. You are a gay cunning sly creature I think always you might manage matters better with your father than I would do in my blunt downright way. I can scarcely believe but that I have a friend at heart in you, yet to confess the truth I am somewhat jealous that you want me to come to Mouswald only for a spur to some younger and richer lover; the Doctor or some one else I know not who. You have done so little with your friends or rather you have done nothing at all that makes me suspect you do not wish to do any thing farther than making a kind of show and a tool of me You are not to be angry at this nor any thing else that I say my dear Maggy for I just write whatever comes uppermost to you. I wish I had you safely in Yarrow which I might have had if you had listened to my plan Write earlier. Why are you so long. I just write to you the moment I finish reading your letter I am Dearest Margaret Your ever faithful James Hogg [Addressed:] Miss Margaret Phillips/ Mouswald Place/ By Dumfries [Postmark:] [TRACES OF UNINKED AND ILLEGIBLE STAMP] [Watermark:] R COLLINS/ 1809 [Location:] Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 8. [Printed:] Garden, pp. 118–19 [in part]. my last letter that of 5 August 1819. Margaret Phillips had replied on 14 August 1819 (Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 21), saying ‘you are too hurried in blaming me & my friends too’ and promising that if Hogg came to Dumfriesshire he would be treated ‘with that respect which is due’. I shall come next month Hogg did visit the Phillips family in Dumfriesshire in September, for in his letter to Peter Phillips of 3 August 1820 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 40– 41) he states that he will be unable to visit previous to the middle of September ‘about the time I came last year’.

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a night’s courting presumably this is another reference to Margaret Phillips sitting up with Hogg at the Grays’ house in Edinburgh at night. the distresses of your family Margaret’s mother and her sister Jessie had been ill, and she reported in her letter of 14 August, ‘I have been a sick nurse almost since I came home have slept more nights (till last week) upon the floor than in bed—the invalids are in the way I hope of getting well’. John Steven Margaret reported as a joke in her letter that ‘the people here say I am or rather was to be married to John Stevens. I was a little amused at the report, as the gentleman & me are but little acquainted’. Grieve Hogg had reported on John Grieve’s illness in his letter to Eliza Izett of 14 December 1817. Presumably Grieve was at Cacrabank in Ettrick. a neighbour gentleman named Bryden—see Hogg’s letter to Margaret Phillips of 7 September 1819. the Doctor Margaret’s supposed suitor has not been identified. my plan the details of this are not known.

To Margaret Phillips

7 September 1819 Altrive Septr 7th 1819

My dear Meg I will not have you any longer to be a sick nurse, and a nurse to crying wives and sprawling children, so soft and jointless that one dare hardly touch them. No no you must submit to be nursed yourself in the arms of love and true affection, which are growing more and more impatient for you to bestow all their endearments on. I am vexed that you have never broken the ice for me for I hoped to be at your side by the time this letter will reach you, and I am not very sure that I shall not be in in a few days even as it is. Mr. Bryden insists that I shall not leave him as long as he remains in my house, and I feel it is a little awkward, but yet it appears that no progress will be made unless I come, and perhaps there will be as little then. Would to heaven that this mentioning of matters and making of treaties were over! My heart recoils from it more than any thing I ever set about. Tell Walter that I’ll give him twenty guineas (a matter of some concern to a farmer now when grain is so cheap) if he will just bring you over and place you down at my side, and make me free of all the rest of it save taking you by the hand and making a short awkward bow to the minister for as to pulling of gloves you know I never wear any; and then after that he may return home to his compost middens and threshing mills and leave us to pouss our fortunes as Jack the Giantkiller has it. I could not but regret very sincerely that Mr. & Mrs Gray should have been here and Mrs. John Phillips so ill; they manifested the most serious concern about her. I have

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heard two accounts since they went away both highly favourable but you will know all these things before me. Your brother has been in Edin. these ten days past. I think I shall wait your answer before I come from home for I have a long ride to take through Nithsdale and I would like to see the weather rather in a settled state from which it is very far at present. However write as soon as this comes to your hand and tell me where I will find you and what road I shall come to Longbridge Moor. I am 20 miles from Moffat and about 40 miles from Annan by the south road and intend coming on horseback and staying with you only one night I know I shall recieve a very hearty welcome as a friend and a visitor I am nothing afraid of that it is what I can allways account on in every house in Britain but as to recieving encouragement in my errand I am very much afraid indeed and it is evident that you and all the rest feel the same way else it would often have been brought over head before this time. I think the sooner we are married the better we are both losing our time and doing no good to ourselves either in a spiritual or temporal point of view and I am certain if I had you home I would be enabled to do much more good in my literary pursuits I have much in hand but am doing very little because every one that comes in servant traveller or neighbour takes me off and I would leave all these to you and pursue my studies. I am often pondering about these things and you have always a share of my musings. I get my letters only once a week and if they be not in with the mail to Selkirk on Wedensday evening I do not get them till eight days after. If they were put into the south mail and directed “By Langholm & Selkirk” they would come a post earlier. The people hereabouts reconed our worthy friends the Greys very queer this year in their manners appearance &c. In short rather laugh at them. I am vexed at it but cannot help it. I was rather severe on Mrs. Gray for telling of us and she was greatly vexed about it and was rather disposed to blame Grieve and say that he had made a part of it but it was too near the truth for any one to make Yours ever James Hogg [Addressed:] Miss Margaret Phillips/ Longbridge-moor/ Dumfries [Postmark:] 8½ [in ink] [Watermark:] none [Location:] Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 9. [Printed:] Garden, pp. 119–20 [in part].

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a sick nurse Margaret Phillips’s mother and sister had both been ill, and nursed by her since her return home from Edinburgh in July—see Hogg’s letter to her of 20 August 1819 and notes. crying wives and sprawling children from the address Margaret Phillips was staying with her brother Walter at his farm at Longbridge-moor. His wife Christie had given birth to a son, George Walter Phillips, on 21 August 1819 (Ruthwell OPR). Mary Gray’s letter to Margaret Phillips of 27 September 1819 (Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 30) mentions the christening and says ‘I was very happy to hear that Mrs Phillips & her little one were doing so well [...]’. Mr. Bryden a neighbour who was living at Altrive while his own house was being repaired—see Hogg’s letter to Margaret Phillips of 20 August 1819. Mr. & Mrs Gray had evidently been on a visit to Altrive. Mrs. John Phillips so ill Euphemia Crighton, the daughter of an Edinburgh doctor, had married Margaret Phillips’s eldest brother John, an Edinburgh W. S. (Parr, p. 17). Had the Grays been at home they would have been able to send Margaret upto-date news of her sister-in-law. Your brother perhaps John Phillips, who, according to Mary Gray’s letter to Margaret Phillips of 27 September 1819, had been the bearer of ‘a short letter’ from her previous to that. Mrs. Gray for telling of us see Hogg’s letter to Margaret Phillips of 5 August 1819 and notes. In her reply of 14 August (University of Stirling Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 21) Margaret Phillips responded ‘I am provoked with her but have a great affection for her she has acted very imprudently towards me’.

To William Blackwood

[c. 23 September 1819]

Dear Blackwood I take the half of my last sheet of paper to write you a few lines and implore of you not to insist on my coming to town just yet. Believe me you do not know what you ask. It is cruel in the extreme. Can I leave my fine house—my greyhounds—my curling stones—my silver punch bowl and mug—my country friends—my leister and my sweetheart to come and plunge into general dissipation? And worst of all can I leave Home a home made by my own head and the most snug and comfortable that ever perhaps was made to be a lodger in the house of another [TEAR] my own ingle-cheek desk and night-gown with my servants [TEAR] assidiously on me only to be a pest to others or to [TEAR] roundly for lodgings and keep the same establishment at home. I know it is all kindness and affection in you but they are misdirected for any one who wishes me to spend my life happily would wish me to spend it at home. Besides I cannot take any hand in managing the publication or pushing the sale of my own works. If delicacy even permitted it I am the worst hand in the

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world to do such a thing farther than the proofs I can do nothing You are right—The Magazine is a most excellent one However I never was so much diverted with any thing as the expedition to the kirk of Shotts. How came it that my No. wanted the plates? I have no more room. God bless you James Hogg [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq. [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] James Hogg 1819? [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 4004, fol. 162. [Printed:] Oliphant, I, 324–25. date Hogg’s letter refers to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine for September 1819, advertised as ‘This day is published’ in the Caledonian Mercury of 23 September 1819. my fine house Hogg’s stone-built cottage at Altrive had been completed towards the end of the previous year—see his letter to Blackwood of 26 December 1818 headed ‘Yarrow-Sheil’. my greyhounds see Hogg’s letter to John Wallace of 25 November 1818. my silver punch bowl and mug a silver punch bowl, ‘Presented by JAMES FRANK, Esq. of Boughtrigg to the Ettrick Shepherd’, in 1816, is still in the possession of Hogg’s descendants (Parr, p. 64). my sweetheart perhaps an attempt to divert suspicions on Blackwood’s part about Hogg’s marriage plans with Margaret Phillips. managing the publication probably the first volume of The Jacobite Relics of Scotland, advertised as ‘This day are published’ in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 9 December 1819. expedition to the kirk of Shotts ‘Pilgrimage to the Kirk of Shotts’ forms part of ‘The Tent’ in the issue for September 1819. The contributors to Blackwood’s make a sporting excursion to Braemar, while the contributors to Constable’s Edinburgh Magazine go off to the Kirk of Shotts—see Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 5 (September 1819), 672–79. the plates? the issue for September 1819 was prefaced by a sketch of ‘The Stott’ outside Blackwood’s shop at 17 Princes Street, with a copy of The Scotsman tied to his foreleg and one of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine tied to his hind leg, while a placard fixed to his horns reads ‘Kirk of Shotts’. There is a plate of the Constable contributors setting off on their expedition between pp. 672 and 673 of the same issue (see p. 420 of the present edition).

To William Blackwood

29 October 1819 Eltrive Octr 29th 1819

My dear sir The intelligence I got of your going to London was so short that I did not write knowing it could not reach you and in truth I had

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nothing to write about that you did not know before. I knew you would make such arrangements with Murray about the Wake and Jacobite relics as you judged best for me for though I am of late beginning to have some inward feelings of your remissness as a publisher I have never had one of your truth and affection as a friend. I wrote a long letter to Wilson on the subject of the tent though not a communication it might be called a letter of localities that he might have availed himself of them. To my great regret that letter was lost But really I have been so much mortified by the refusal of all my pieces that I cannot bear to think of writing for the Magazine now. And though I always praise it above all other periodical works and wish it with all my heart every success yet would I rather sit down and write for the shabbiest work in the kingdom where every thing I write is revered. Indeed I have always felt that to whatever I gave my deserved admission I might have disgraced myself but my name now should not be a disgrace to any literary work I find that all my friends without exception think that the editors have dealt cavalierly with me in the tent scenes and that their representation is meant to injure my literary character throughout I have judged as impartially of the thing as I can and I do not see it. I think it is excellent sport and very good natured sport beside. I might pretend to be angry. I could easily do that; but the truth is I am not. I do not see that the contrast between such a blundering ignorant good natured fellow and his poetry can have aught but a good effect. I only wish the quiz on my worthy friend Dr. Russel had been left out as I am universally blamed for it here and it is likely to cherish a good deal of ill-will here among friends that were formerly so happy together I find your Mag. a great favourite in Dumfrieshire especially with the ladies. Macculloch had been trying to stir up a party against it— It is little wonder With all the cleverness and carelessness of composition (which has generally I think a good grace) I cannot help feeling that the two last numbers are too egotistical which never has a good grace But perhaps this will not be generally felt if they have not that fault they have no other I am wearying terribly for this month’s one I am very busy hatching treason but have no news Pray dear Blackwood interest yourself a little in my poor nephew Robt Hogg now when I am not in town We want a little private teaching for him to enable him to go through his classes You have sons at the high school yourself who I will answer for it he shall bring on if employed He is a very excellent steady boy and if you could get him

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employment from any friend you would much oblige me and encourage a highly deserving youth. His conditions are £1=1 per Qur. not to be altered this year. Pray let me hear from you and send me all the [TEAR] not coming near me this year. Yours ev[TEAR] [SIGNATURE CUT AWAY] [Addressed:] William Blackwood Eq. [sic]/ 17 Princes Street [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] Jas Hogg/ Oct 29/19 [Watermark:] RADWAY/ 1[SEAL]8 [Location:] NLS, MS 4004, fols 154–55. [Printed:] Oliphant, I, 325–26 [in part]; Strout, p. 174 [in part]. your going to London John Murray had withdrawn his name from Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in February 1819, and Blackwood’s London visit seems to have been in consequence of this—see Oliphant, I, 172. arrangements with Murray relations between Murray and Blackwood deteriorated rapidly after Murray’s withdrawal from Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. For instance, Murray had advertised the sixth edition of The Queen’s Wake in his own name, without mentioning Blackwood as his partner, in the Morning Chronicle of 12 July 1819. Before the end of the year Blackwood had transferred the London share of his publications to Cadell and Davies—see Blackwood’s letter to Hogg of 7 December 1819 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 34–35). a long letter to Wilson on [...] the tent this does not appear to have survived. ‘The Tent’ occupied the whole issue of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine for September 1819 and Hogg commented on it in his letter to Blackwood of [c. 23 September 1819]. the refusal of all my pieces only three pieces by Hogg appeared in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine during 1819. the quiz on my worthy friend Dr. Russel in ‘The Tent’ Kempferhausen gives a paper, and Hogg remarks that Hector is shaking himself and yawning ‘as if he had been listening to ane of Mr R— of Y—’s very weariesomest action-sermons’ (p. 654). Dr Robert Russell (1766–1847) was minister of Yarrow from September 1791 until after Hogg’s death—see Scott’s Fasti, II, 197–98. Dumfrieshire [...] with the ladies Hogg’s visit to Dumfriesshire was made to Margaret Phillips and her family. Macculloch John Ramsay McCulloch (1789–1864), the economist, was editor of The Scotsman and under the name of the ‘Galwegian Stot’ a satirical target for the writers in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. A stot is a young castrated bullock, or figuratively a clumsy, stupid person. Robt Hogg Robert Hogg (1802–1834) was the eldest son of Hogg’s older brother William. His parents had sent him to the University of Edinburgh in preparation for his becoming a minister of the Church of Scotland. sons at the high school Blackwood had married in 1805 (see Oliphant, I, 19) and eventually the couple had seven sons and two daughters. Only the three eldest sons, Alexander (born 5 December 1806), Robert (born 9 May 1808), and William (born 8

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February 1810), would be old enough to attend the Edinburgh High School in November 1819—see Edinburgh St Cuthberts OPR.

To William Blackwood

16 November 1819 Eltrive Novr. 16th 1819

My dear Blackwood If I could be in the least service to you in the world I am sure I would come in to town but as matters stand I cannot meddle with the Magazine. However what you may communicate to me shall be sacred from all and I shall tell you what I think. But if I were you I would pay the editors their moiety or whatever you have agreed half yearly or quarterly (expenses incurred by their madness excepted) and would not so much as look at or regard their Magazine; it is impossible you can take all the drudgery and bear all the obloquy too, and perhaps shorn a good deal of your profits beside. But I am speaking about things of which I am not aware and it may be matters abstract from these that are causing your uneasiness. I think however that an editors demands should always be in proportion to the sale of the publication and should be fixed to that proportion I am going to publish a romance in two volumes this spring coming, anonymously. And if you did not really consider it as an object to you I would rather have it in some respectable company’s hands in London. I not only think that you make your general publishing a very subordinate consideration but I do not like to have all my ventures however small in one hand. I was down on a long visit at Fleurs Kelso Abbotsford &c and saw a good deal of Scott. I told him of my work and of my plan but he did not approve of it He asked if you had dealt honourably by me? I said always like a brother but I feared that you were so much engaged with your miscellany that you were careless as a publisher. This he would not admit of a man’s own interest he said would insure that and finally said if the work was an object to you as my friend you should have it if not he would assist me in making my bargain. I do not suspect you my dear friend without cause. I know that The Brownie should have gone through more editions than either one or two. I have been assured of it again and again by gentlemen that had no interested motive in saying so and who knew better than either you or me. One gentleman tells me that from the interest with which it was first read in London he concieved it would have sold as well as any novel ever published but that the work appeared to all men to have been suppressed and was never yet to be had in a shop in England. Dr. [CUT] his and as he

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had little [CUT] there he went day after day [CUT] that he could find and he [CUT] was not a work of mine for sale in it all (the Sale Edition of the Wake was not then published). I beg you will not mention this work to any one living as I mean to send it to press in a different hand writing and positively to deny it. But as I never met with any thing but candor and truth from you I am resolved not to do any thing underhand. I have not much more than one vol written but I will not be long in finishing [TEAR] I wish you would publish the Jacobite songs and really let folk hear a little of the works you are going to publish and have published if it were but on the cover of a Magazine. It will not do merely to get them printed and make Lesly bring them up in large bales to the shop. Mine are carefully kept out of all your lists. But enough of reflection a dull author I am aware always blames his publisher I have looked over the Mag. which is a very commonplace one. N. B. Send a set of all my works uniformly half bound to Torwoodlee he has ordered them from me. Lord how the honest man will be astonished. Be sure to get Hogg on Sheep The Spy Mountain Bard [CUT INCLUDES SIGNATURE] [Addressed:] Willm. Blackwood Esq/ 17 Prince Street/ Edin [Postmark:] HAWICK/ 343—C [and] NOV B17M 1819 [Endorsed—not JH:] Jas Hogg/ Nov 16/1819 [Watermark:] none [Location:] NLS, MS 4004, fols 156–57. [Printed:] Oliphant, I, 333–34 [in part]; Strout, p. 175 [in part]. the editors Thomas Pringle (1789–1834) and James Cleghorn (1778–1838) had been the original editors of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, and had produced the first six numbers from April to September 1817. After their breach with Blackwood the magazine had no editors officially, but was under the management of William Blackwood himself as the publisher and owner. However, John Wilson and John Gibson Lockhart were his key contributors and influential advisors, effectively performing some of the functions of editors of the magazine. Both were prone to publishing scandalous and outrageous articles—see, for instance, Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 30 October 1818 and notes. On occasion this involved Blackwood in threatened legal action and even the payment of damages—see Oliphant, I, 131–44. a romance in two volumes a first intimation of Hogg’s Border Romance The Three Perils of Man, published by Longman in three volumes in 1822. Fleurs Kelso Floors or Fleurs Castle, Kelso, Roxburghshire was the home of James Innes-Ker, 5th Duke of Roxburgh (1736–1823) and his second wife Harriet. From his letter to Margaret Phillips of 16 November Hogg had spent three days there in company with Scott, going on to Scott’s home at Abbotsford with him, and had only returned to Altrive on 15 November. The Brownie William Blackwood and John Murray published Hogg’s The Brownie of

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Bodsbeck; and Other Tales in 1818. Peter Garside has shown that sales flagged after an extremely promising start and is inclined to lay the blame at Murray’s door—see ‘Three Perils in Publishing: Hogg and the Popular Novel’, SHW, 2 (1991), 45–63 (pp. 52–55). the Sale Edition of the Wake was not then published i. e. before mid-July 1819, since the sixth edition of The Queen’s Wake was advertised as published in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 1 July 1819 and in the Morning Chronicle of 12 July 1819. the Jacobite songs the first volume of Hogg’s Jacobite Relics was advertised as ‘This day are published’ by Blackwood in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 9 December and by Cadell and Davies in the Morning Chronicle of 21 December 1819. Lesly presumably an employee at the Blackwood shop at 17 Princes Street in Edinburgh. Torwoodlee James Pringle succeeded to the Borders estate of Torwoodlee in 1780, and had been a neighbour of Scott when he lived at Ashiestiel—see Corson, p. 598. Hogg on Sheep The Shepherd’s Guide published in Edinburgh by Constable and in London by Murray in 1807 had a paper spine-label reading ‘Hogg on Sheep’. The Spy Hogg’s weekly essay-periodical of 1810–11, published firstly by James Robertson and then by Andrew and James Aikman. Mountain Bard The Mountain Bard published in Edinburgh by Constable and in London by Murray in 1807.

To Margaret Phillips

16 November 1819 Eltrive Nov. 16th 1819

My dearest Margaret I returned only yesterday from a long visit to Kelso and the beautiful scenery around it which delighted me exceedingly—how unlike your abominable country! Among other places I was three whole days and nights at Fleurs castle with the Duke and Duchess of Roxburgh where the attentions shown to me were enough to put a wise man mad. I met Mr. Walter Scott there and returned by Abbotsford with him where I remained three days more But this is all foreign to the purpose of my writing were it not to account for my delay in answering your very kind and very sensible letter. What could I do less than give you the information contained in my last? In your letter before when mentioning a certain young person you say what started me a little “it is a heart-rending subject to me” Now as I had always made light too light perhaps of such matters I bethought me if you laid such things so much to heart it was incumbent on me to tell you every secret relating to every part of my conduct with which the world had ought to do or which might ever reach your ears at any future period before proceeding one step farther in our proposed change of life. I have done so and if I knew

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another circumstance that would vex you should it come to your ears after you are made my own should that ever be I would consider it as my duty to tell you beforehand I am far from thinking you did wrong in what you communicated to your father. A parent is always a sure confidant. Indeed I have always thought that a young lady who recieves the addresses of a lover out of her father’s knowledge or without his approbation had better not recieve them at all therefore you did what was highly proper at all events. I love you my dear Margaret as well as ever I did and with as chaste and pure an affection as is consistent with my ardent disposition and I could not cherish a thought of losing you but some things that you said to me set me a thinking and that very seriously and I am not yet convinced of the prudence of such a step as our marriage considering my years and the uncertain state in which I hang as it were between poverty and riches for Gods sake advise farther with your father for I have no one to consult on the subject and have got some very urgent remonstrances against it. Indeed your father is the only man whom I would consult knowing that he has your happiness so much at heart and would I am sure advise what he judges best. I have very much need of you just now for my housekeeper, a valuable honest woman, refuses to stay and I have not sought after any other. I think it is from an apprehension that I am going to be married that she is leaving me yet I cannot concieve why she should care. We are likely to have a very gay winter in the Forest we have one splendid ball set to be Decr. 18th and another on the 25th of the same month. What would I give to have you for my partner! I intended on reading your letter to have inclosed a carteblanch order to your session clerk to proclaim us, the date and day to be filled up by yourself but after considering of it for a night my late resolution of prudence and caution prevailed: and yet I know that were you living in one of the farm houses here my next door neighbour I would marry you next week, for my affection would soon get the better of all prudence or caution or any such concern. I have got some singular letters lately which I may perhaps have the pleasure of showing you some time hence and which will astonish you. Some of them are from ladies. You will not say when you read them as you have sometimes done “that I can get no other body but you.” But the one that has puzzled me most is an anonymous one advising me in the strongest and most impressive terms not to marry. The writer seems to be a lady. She professes not to know you or any thing about you. The post-mark is from the north. I am endeavouring to find it out. On my return from Kelso I found your letter among

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other fourteen. After writing so much I find I have said nothing and shall only add that I am my dear Margaret’s ever affectionate lover and friend James Hogg [Addressed:] Miss Margaret Phillips/ Mouswald-mains/ By Dumfries [Postmark:] HAWICK/ 343—C [Watermark:] none [Location:] Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 10. [Printed:] Garden, pp. 124–25 [in part]. Fleurs castle see Hogg’s letter to William Blackwood of 16 November 1819 and notes. your very kind and very sensible letter probably Margaret Phillips’s letter of 26 October 1819 (Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 18). my last this letter has not apparently survived, but probably contained the information that Hogg had a second illegitimate daughter. One, Catherine (‘Katie’) was born in 1807, and the other, Elizabeth (‘Betsy’) in 1810—see Gillian Hughes, ‘James Hogg and the “Bastard Brood”’, SHW, 11 (2000), 56–68. Margaret Phillips’s letter says ‘I [...] can only say the best and most wise, will in an unguarded moment go astray, confession of guilt is certainly a step to amendment keep your resolution, to repair as much as lies in your power the injury done. I am done with this subject, at least ever to reproach you.’ your letter before this letter from Margaret Phillips has evidently not survived: the ‘young person’ was probably Hogg’s illegitimate daughter, Katie. Her existence was probably no secret, since Hogg was clearly in the habit of seeing her from time to time and her mother had subsequently married Hogg’s cousin, David Laidlaw. what you communicated to your father Margaret Phillips’s letter of 26 October indicates that she had at last spoken to her father on the subject of her intended marriage to Hogg. However she seems to have been in doubt as to whether Hogg still wished to marry her, or whether his frankness about his illegitimate children was designed to break off the match. had better not recieve them at all Hogg expresses similar sentiments in no. 16 of The Spy for 15 December 1810: ‘This is not an example which I can recommend to my fair readers for their imitation; for indeed, I think, if any of them are admitting of the visits of a lover, of whom they would be ashamed to a father or brother, they would do as well not to admit them at all’—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S\SC, 2000), p. 169. remonstrances against it it is not known who advised Hogg against marrying. Hogg records elsewhere that Scott had cautioned him on one occasion against marrying a very religious woman—see Anecdotes of Scott, ed. by Jill Rubenstein (S/SC, 1999), p. 15. my housekeeper her name is not known. one splendid ball [...] another the details of these balls to be held on the successive Saturdays of 18 and 25 December are not known, but they were perhaps county balls held in Selkirk. The first of the season was advertised to take place in ‘Mitchell’s Ball Room, Selkirk’ on Tuesday, 7 September 1819 in the Caledonian Mercury of 21 August 1819.

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order [...] to proclaim us unless it was to be by special licence a marriage in church was preceded by banns, declaration of the intention to marry read out three times before the congregations of the parishes in which the intending parties lived. Hogg would need to give Margaret Phillips a signed letter of instruction to hand to the session-clerk of Mouswald parish. an anonymous one Hogg’s subsequent letter of 14 December 1819 indicates that the anonymous letter was posted at Brechin in Angus, but the writer has not been identified.

To William Blackwood

30 November 1819 Altrive Novr 30th 1819

My dear sir As the carrier has missed a week I have time to add a few lines more to those inclosed There is really scarce a practicability of corresponding with any part of the world from this place and to me it has no other fault whatever I really would like better that my book were published in London because my bookseller and stile are so well known that I may as well put my name to it as publish it with you. I do not know about the transaction I myself will never try to do it and I take it very kind in you offering your experienced hand though it is only of a piece with all your dealings formerly. It is however somewhat ticklish. Should I trust it solely to Mr. Scott it would be conducted through the medium of Ballantyne and would likely fall into hands I should not like, most probably Hurst and Robinson. I might as well give up all previous connections and publish it at home. With Murray or Cadell and Davies I would be in the same scrape as with yourself. I really think then that you should try your hand with Longman & co. and if you cannot arrange matters we shall try what can be done some other way Be sure keep them in the dark I would not even tell them the name but merely that it is a Romance or Tale of Chivalry in two volumes descriptive of the characters of the Scots and English Borderers in former times. You may farther assure them that they are the only people in London that are to have [CUT] should be granted me in bills at the publication one at six another at twelve months. This he says he has always been accustomed to receive as his moiety. I remember of having a letter once from Longman & co wherein they stated one sixth to be their proportion of the author’s profits but that indeed was on a small edition. However I leave this entirely to yourself. If you think proper to do this the sooner you begin the correspondence the better as I would like to have every thing ready for throwing it off in the spring months when I am in

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town I am particularly delighted with the praises my friends have given to Honest Gillies. I am perswaded he will be an excellent translator. He is the very man for it a good scholar, a fine taste, and a polished mind but one who never gives himself the time or trouble to hunt for many original ideas—Here he does not need to do it I love the Warder as much as I detest these radicals and the general harping spirit of the Whigs Pray is my dear friend Cunninghame the author of The Cameronians Surely he must it is so like him and so graphic. I should like to know as he is coming to see me some of these days Mr Gray has got a list of 17 subscribers from Bury-St-Edmunds. They want their copies sent to London. They are excellent people. Take a note of this and send them to Murray without loss of time. The Nithsdale and Selkirk [sic] are playing me for the [CUT INCLUDES SIGNATURE] [Addressed:] William Blackwood Esq [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] James Hogg/ Nov 30/19 [Watermark:] [CROWNED SHIELD]/ 1814 [Location:] NLS, MS 4004, fols 158–59. [Printed:] Oliphant, I, 334–35 [in part]; Strout, p. 176 [in part]. add a few lines more to those inclosed Hogg’s previous surviving letter to Blackwood is dated 16 November 1819 and postmarked the following day, suggesting that there was an intervening letter that has not survived. my book eventually published by Longmans in 1822 as The Three Perils of Man, with Hogg’s name on the title-page, after being sent to Oliver & Boyd—see Hogg’s letter to Oliver & Boyd of 5 May 1821 (NLS, Acc. 5000/188, Special Correspondence Box, Oliver & Boyd papers). Ballantyne John Ballantyne was accustomed to negotiate the terms for publication of Scott’s Waverley novels. Hurst and Robinson Hurst, Robinson and Co. were the London partners for Constable’s publication of Waverley (1814) and other Scott novels. Murray John Murray was Blackwood’s London partner for the publication of The Pilgrims of the Sun (1815), Mador of the Moor (1816), The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales (1818), and the subscription and sale editions of The Queen’s Wake of 1819. Cadell and Davies the firm of Cadell and Davies was the London partner for Blackwood’s publication of the first Series of Jacobite Relics of 1819. he says Scott’s advice had presumably been given when he and Hogg were together at Floors Castle and Abbotsford earlier that month. Hogg cited it years afterwards in his letter to Blackie and Son of 11 February 1833 (NLS, MS 807, fols 18–19). a letter once from Longman & co this has not apparently survived.

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Gillies Gillies is praised as a translator of works of German literature at the end of ‘Horae Germanicae. No. I. Guilt; or, The Anniversary’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 6 (November 1819), 121–36. Strout, Bibliography, p. 61 attributes the article to R. P. Gillies (the translator of the German work under discussion) and J. G. Lockhart (the author of the linking commentary). the Warder an article on politics, ‘The Warder. No. I’, appeared in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 6 (November 1819), 208–12. No author is named in Strout’s Bibliography. The Cameronians the first instalment of Allan Cunningham’s series, ‘Recollections No. I.—The Cameronians’ appeared in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 6 (November 1819), 169–74. Mr Gray Hogg’s friend James Gray, one of the masters of the High School in Edinburgh. subscribers from Bury-St-Edmunds subscribers of one guinea for copies of the fifth edition of The Queen’s Wake published by Blackwood and Murray in 1819. Hogg had formerly corresponded with Bernard Barton and Capell Lofft of Suffolk. In his letter to Hogg of 7 December 1819 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 34–35) Blackwood says, ‘Your Nephew brought me the list of Subscribers to the Wake to day from Mr Gray.’ send them to Murray relations between William Blackwood and John Murray seem to have deteriorated rapidly since Murray’s withdrawal from Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in February, and by the time Blackwood wrote to Hogg on 7 December Cadell and Davies were his London partners. Despite Murray’s partnership in The Queen’s Wake Blackwood wrote of this list of subscribers ‘I shall send these to Messrs Cadell & Davies [...]’.

To John Murray

9 December 1819 Altrive by Selkirk Decr 9th 1819

My dear Sir By a letter from Blackwood to day I have the disagreeable intelligence that circumstances have occurred which I fear will deprive me of you as a publisher; I hope never as a friend; for I here attest, though I have heard some bitter things against you, that I never met with any man whatever who on so slight an acquaintance has behaved to me so like a gentleman.—Blackwood asks to transfer your shares of my trifling works to his new agents I answered “never without your permission” As the Jacobite relics are not yet published and as they would only involve you further with one with whom you are going to close accounts I gave him liberty to transfer the shares you were to have of them to Mess. C and D. But when I consider your handsome subscription for the Queen’s Wake if you have the slightest inclination to retain your shares of that work and The Brownie as your name is on them, along with Blackwood I would much rather, not only from affection but interest Cadell and Davis will never

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send me so many new books and reviews as you have done. But you know I am so involved and circumvolved with Blackwood that I cannot give up any of his shares to any one I know these books are of no avail to you and that if you retain them it will be on the same principle that you published them namely one of friendship for your humble poetical countryman. I’ll never forget your kindness for I cannot think I am tainted with the general vice of authors Ingratitude; and the first house that I call at in London will be the one in Albemarle Street To make a long tale short my dear sir send me a line telling me whether it is best for me to transfer the remainder of the editions of these two books to C. & D. or let them remain with you. That is all I want to know and exactly as you say it shall be done for you are a better judge of these things than I am and I am conscious that you are disinterested I remain Ever Yours most truly, James Hogg To J. Murray Esq. [Addressed:] John Murray Esq./ Albemarle Street/ London [Postmark:] G 14DE14 1819 [Endorsed—not JH:] Recd J Hogg/ Decr 9. 1819 [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1816 [Location:] John Murray Archive, Box 37. [Published:] Strout, pp. 177–78 [in part]; Smiles, II, 17 [in part]. a letter from Blackwood to day see William Blackwood’s letter to Hogg of 7 December 1819 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 34–35). Blackwood blamed Murray for delaying the publication of the first volume of Jacobite Relics, and announced Murray’s withdrawal from their understanding that he was to take a half-share in this publication. He also told Hogg that he had offered this share to Cadell and Davies, and ordered a new title-page to be printed for the work, giving their name instead of Murray’s. Blackwood also advised Hogg to transfer the London management of the subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake from Murray to Cadell & Davies, though his letter does not mention The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales. a friend Hogg’s earlier correspondence shows that he had a personal relationship with John Murray that he certainly did not have with Cadell and Davies. I answered Hogg’s reply to Blackwood of 9 December does not appear to have survived. Jacobite relics advertised by Blackwood in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 9 December 1819 and by Cadell and Davies in the Morning Chronicle of 21 December 1819. From Thomas Blackwood’s letter to Murray of 17 December 1819 ( John Murray Archive, Blackwood Box 3) it appears that when Blackwood transferred the London share of the publication to Cadell and Davies Murray had refused to release his copies

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to them before receiving a guarantee from them that Blackwood would settle a debt to him of a thousand pounds. Cadell and Davies’s London advertisement also listed the sixth edition of The Queen’s Wake, Mador of the Moor, and The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales as available from them, another move in what seems to be part of an ongoing power-game between Murray and Blackwood, as Murray did keep his interest in these Hogg publications. However, he could hardly object to a free advertisement for his publications being made by a rival firm who had a right to state that they were retail sellers of the works. your handsome subscription see Hogg’s letter to Murray of 15 January 1818 and notes. new books and reviews Murray sent Hogg copies of his new publications from time to time, including the fourth canto of Byron’s Childe Harold—see Hogg’s letter to Mary Glassell of 27 April 1818 and notes. send me a line Murray’s letter to his new Edinburgh partners, Oliver & Boyd, of 15 December 1819 (NLS, Acc. 5000/189) said, ‘If you see Mr Hogg be so good as to say that I will write to him tomorrow’, but no letter to Hogg has apparently survived.

To William Blackwood

10 December 1819 Altrive Decr. 10th 1819

I have recieved the books and letter to day but I wrote you yesterday. I have settled nothing about marriage I believe I could get Miss Phillips and I believe also that she is much too good for me and that is all I know about the matter I inclose you one hundred and fifty receipts for which I charge you in the regular course of business 150 guineas. I am not sure but I would rather have had you transacting the business with Longman & Co. than Scotts agents they are only interested in one author in the world. He indeed let me know that he would not act in it personally. Supposing you were to try you need not care what you promise for were it either to fall into your hand finally or any part of it you know you are dealing with a brother who at all events would not suffer you to lose therefore as I have disclosed it to you and Scott only I think you should try and hear what they say. The Relics is a beautiful book I think I never saw the like of it and I give Oliver & Boyde very high credit for their work. I think with the expense of the music it is the cheapest new book at 12/ ever I saw it is much liker a guinea book. I do not however approve of extravagant prices therefore do not change your scheme for any idea of mine It is certainly however a singularly cheap book It is 12 o clock and I am very weary God bless you James Hogg

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[Addressed:] Mr. William Blackwood [Postmark:] none [Endorsed—not JH:] James Hogg/ Decr 10/19 [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1816 [Location:] NLS, MS 4004, fols 160–61. [Printed:] Strout, p. 178. the books and letter perhaps Blackwood’s letter of Tuesday, 7 December 1819 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 34–35), though in that Blackwood mentions ‘my hurried letter of Saturday’. The books were copies of the first volume of The Jacobite Relics of Scotland, since Hogg comments on the high production quality later in this letter. I wrote you yesterday this letter, which is also referred to in Hogg’s letter to John Murray of 9 December 1819, has not apparently survived. I have settled nothing Hogg’s letters to Margaret Phillips of 16 November and 14 December 1819 reveal his hesitations about marriage. receipts in his letter to Hogg of 7 December 1819 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 34–35) Blackwood had said ‘I have no signed receipts, the whole 300 you gave me being filled up. I hope you have the rest of the blank receipts with you, and I beg you would sign a parcel of them and send them by the very first opportunity’. The receipts were for one guinea copies of the subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake. Hogg would sign that he had received the money, and Blackwood would fill in the subscriber’s name and credit Hogg accordingly. transacting the business finding a London publisher for Hogg’s The Three Perils of Man—see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 30 November 1819 and notes. Oliver & Boyde the firm who had printed the first series of Jacobite Relics. Any volume containing printed music was normally more costly, while in size the Jacobite Relics volume resembled the one-guinea subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake rather than the sixth edition selling at twelve shillings.

To Margaret Phillips

14 December 1819 Eltrive Decr 14th 1819

My dear Margaret I see your letter is of an old date and yet it is several days since I got it but at this season I am quite secluded almost from the possibility of communication with the world, it being only by chance that I get my letters at all, and I do not even know when I shall get this away to the post without sending ane’s errand I certainly join you in deep concern about your worthy father’s health in particular, and shall weary very much to hear from you how he is as well as your sister, for I have had many perplexing dreams about you all; and that night before I got your letter, which was on Saturday last, I had such a dream of distress as I never be-

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fore almost experienced. It was all about your family and terminated at an old church with gothic windows among graves and gravestones and strangers. But why need I fright my dearest Margaret by the vagaries of such a visionary as I am only the circumstance has made me uneasy and I cannot help it It was never in any view of recieving a fortune with you that induced me to pay my addresses to you Margaret. On the contrary you know that I declined an independant fortune that was mine for the taking for your sake and that it was out of pure affection made me proffer you my hand. I had no doubt but that your father had the same affection for you that he had for the rest of his family and judging from my own feelings perhaps I thought he might have more. Whatever portion therefore he thinks proper to give or bequeath to you with that I have made up my mind to be satisfied and grateful both to him and his memory. But having no fortune of my own to bestow on you I would scorn to enter into conditions for the woman that I loved Now my dear Margaret if you have any the least feeling that I am behaving improperly or ungenteelly by you in putting off our marriage tell me so and whatever it may cost me it shall be put off no longer. Well may I dislike your country for since ever I last set foot in it all my fondest hopes and desires have undergone an alteration, and that in spite of my heart. I know not whether to blame you or myself, but I have for the present taken such an aversion to the married state that in the same mood of mind in which I am just now I durst hardly trust myself to venture into it. I have no new views in life; no new affections; not another woman that I care a pin for beyond common acquaintance. Nay I could not even bear the thoughts of losing you and though I believe in all these feelings I may be wrong yet I confess that I would rather be as I am for the present. Still I would pay a great deference to your sentiments on the subject.—It is not the anonymous letter that has affected me so much yet it is a very extraordinary letter and I am sure has been manufactured by some friends in Edin. or nearer home for what purpo[TEAR] cannot [TEAR]ll concieve. I have even found out w[TEAR] was that put it into the post office at Brechin but n[TEAR] a gleam of who the writer is. Whoever it be they know me better than I thought any one living had done I had a long letter from Mrs. and another from Mr. Gray but they are both on the old subject namely the magazine with which I am resolved no more to interfere so I did not answer them. Let me hear from you very soon. I am afraid I shall be obliged to go into Edin in

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a short time for the season but direct to me here till farther advice I remain Dear Margaret Your ever affectionate James Hogg [Addressed:] Miss Margaret Phillips/ Mouswald Place/ By Dumfries [Postmark:] 8½ [in ink] [Watermark:] VALLEYFIELD/ 1816 [Location:] Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 11. [Printed:] Garden, pp. 122–23 [in part]. your letter Margaret Phillips had replied to Hogg’s letter to her of 16 November 1819 on 24 November (see Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 22). She stated that she had expected to hear from him sooner, and teasingly rebuked him for the dislike he expressed of her native countryside. ane’s errand on purpose, for the sole purpose of getting her letter to the post—it would mean that Hogg or one of the farm servants would have to ride into Selkirk and back. your worthy father’s health Margaret Phillips said in her letter of 24 November that her sister was still ill, and that her father was ill too, suffering from what the doctors diagnosed as enlargement of the liver. recieving a fortune Margaret had told Hogg that if they married they should not expect much from her father at present ‘though he said he was willing to do all he could for us and should you require his assistance you should have it [...] perhaps any thing which might be for us would be as acceptable afterwards’. The marriage settlement dated 27 April 1820 (University of Stirling Library, MS 25 Box 2, Item 7) does not name the amount of Margaret Phillips’s dowry, but her father’s will of 1812 specified legacies of one thousand pounds to each of his surviving daughters (Parr, p. 18) declined an independant fortune perhaps a reference to Hogg’s first meeting with Margaret Phillips. ‘G.’ (clearly one of the sons of James Gray) relates how he met her at Gray’s house in Edinburgh: ‘he found his future bride residing with her relative Mr. Gray; she was accompanied by a cousin, who, to much beauty, had the prospect, which was eventually realised, of inheriting a considerable fortune. After dinner, when the young ladies retired to the drawing-room, the Shepherd was asked what he thought of Miss Susan P—? He answered, “Margaret’s the lass for me.”’—see ‘Some Particulars Relative to the Ettrick Shepherd’, New Monthly Magazine, 46 (February 1836), 194–203 (p. 202). I last set foot in it Hogg had visited Margaret Phillips and her family that autumn to promote his marriage plans—see his letters to Margaret Phillips of 20 August and 7 September and to Blackwood of 29 October 1819 and notes. the anonymous letter see Hogg’s letter to Margaret Phillips of 16 November 1819. In her reply of 24 November she teases ‘my affection never changed, now I don’t know if even an anonymous letter would make any difference’. The writer is unknown, and also the identity of the person who posted it at Brechin. the old subject James Gray was clearly the ‘Dominie’ of the band of Constable contributors in ‘Pilgrimage to the Kirk of Shotts’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 5

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(September 1819), 672–79. For example, the Dominie uses the title-page of Gray’s Cona; or, The Vale of Clwyd as wadding for his gun (p. 678). In her letter to Margaret Phillips of 27 September 1819 (Stirling University Library, MS 25 Box 4, Item 30) Mary Gray said, ‘The whole Town is in a ferment about Blackwoods last Magazine prosecutions & such are talked of—you will be thinking that I am fretting about their impertinence to Mr Gray—but no, I am not—for the whole number has raised such an outcry against them, & they are spoken of with such contempt, & the band they attack are so respectable—that I think it is more honourable to have their enmity than friendship [...]’. for the season presumably the winter social season, though Hogg may also imply the publishing season when he would forward the publication of his Winter Evening Tales by Oliver & Boyd.

To Robert Surtees

19 December 1819 “Altrive Lake by Selkirk. December 19, 1819.

“My dear Sir,—I received your splendid work the other day; and have placed it in my little library, having only looked over the plates, and some references from these; and read the general history, in which I have found many things that interested me in no ordinary degree. “The book itself is become a wonder and an astonishment, as Jeremiah hath it, to my neighbouring farmers, who term it, ‘The great beuk o’ a’ beuks.’ I was amused with one of them yesterday; who chancing to call, his eye soon rested on the book so much larger than the rest. He asked me, with an exclamation of surprise, what it was? ‘It is the History of Durham,’ said I. ‘The History of Durham!’ said he; ‘what do you mean? Is that Durham in England?’ I answered in the affirmative. ‘Lord sauf us, man!’ said he, ‘had it been the history of the warld I wad hae thought less, or the history of a’ Christendom at least. An there be a history like that put out about ilka place, it will be true the Evangelist says, that the world will not contain the books that should be written.’ So much for the first criticism that I have heard of your extraordinary work, in which the labour and research truly confounds me; and I wonder how a man of genius could go through with it. “The English Jacobite Relics are come in very good time, as you will see when the published work comes into your hand; another volume being forthcoming, provided I retain life and health, and can raise materials; but these the Bibliopolist seems by his advertisement not to have relied on. Yours form a desideratum for the

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second part, which was much wanted, and I hope you will not let any other thing of the same nature escape you. “The Howard book I had read, but had not a copy of it. I have the Sonnet to Sharpe, which I admired greatly for its simplicity, and truly antique style, long ere I knew who was the author. I think I got a copy of the other from Ralf Sherwood, but cannot lay my hands on it to-day. I wished we lived nearer to each other, that we might see each other oftener; but the days for either of us paying many distant visits are over, and I fear we must just rest contented with seeing one another occasionally, and breathing in absence the most sincere aspirations of friendship and good wishes. “I never in my life spent so happy a night with strangers as one that I spent with you and Mr. Raine; but I have often noted that a similarity of feelings and pursuits created at once the same kind of cordiality, that we three seemed all to feel for each other. “Walter Scott sets off for London next week: should you see him on his return, how will you get his new title every word, do you think? ‘I like not such grinning honour as that of Sir Walter.’—Shakespeare—hem! “I have no news from the Forest. We are all keenly engaged in our winter sports; and my two greyhounds, Clavers and Burly, are decidedly the best dogs that ever have been seen in this country. Farewell, my dear Mainsforth. God bless you for your valuable present to “Your ever affectionate shepherd, “JAMES HOGG.” [Location:] Printed, George Taylor, A Memoir of Robert Surtees, Esq., ed. by James Raine, Surtees Society, 24 (Durham, 1852), pp. 158–59. [Printed:] Strout, p. 170 [in part]. Robert Surtees for information on Robert Surtees (1779–1834) see Appendix: Notes on Correspondents. your splendid work the first of the four volumes of Surtees’s The History and Antiquities of the County Palatinate of Durham, almost certainly sent to Hogg as a remembrance after their meeting in the summer. It had been advertised as ‘just published’ by George Andrews of Durham in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 26 August 1816, a folio volume costing six guineas with a ‘few copies [...] on large paper, carefully hotpressed’ at ten guineas. Jeremiah perhaps an imperfect recollection of Jeremiah 25. 18, which contains the phrase ‘a desolation, an astonishment’. the Evangelist says the final verse of St John’s Gospel says that if every one of Jesus’s actions were written ‘I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written’.

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English Jacobite Relics Surtees’s book and his letter to Hogg had presumably been accompanied by copies of Jacobite songs from northern England with notes, for Hogg’s use in Jacobite Relics. They included ‘Song XI. Lord Derwentwater’s Good Night’ and ‘Song LXXIX. The Sun rises bright in France’—see Hogg’s notes in The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. Second Series, ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2003), pp. 269–71, 355. his advertisement in his advertisement of publication in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 9 December 1819 Blackwood had simply described Jacobite Relics as being ‘in one volume’, with no indication that it was an instalment of a two-part work. The Howard Book the catalogue of sale of the Mainsforth library in January 1837 (British Library, 1570/499) lists ‘Howard, Anecdotes of the Howard Family, 1769’ as item 1452, probably a reference to Charles Howard, Historical Anecdotes of Some of the Howard Family (London, 1769). A Lady Jane Howard features in Hogg’s The Three Perils of Man of 1822 and it seems likely that Surtees had recommended the book to Hogg for this. the Sonnet to Sharpe the poem (not identified) may have been addressed to Sir Cuthbert Sharp of Hartlepool (1781–1849) or Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe (1781– 1851), both of whom were mutual acquaintance of Hogg and Surtees. Ralf Sherwood a young relative of Surtees—see Hogg’s letter to Surtees of 14 August 1817 and notes. with you and Mr. Raine Hogg and Surtees met for the first time in Edinburgh in the summer of 1819 when Surtees and his friend James Raine (1791–1858) visited Scotland. Surtees had then drawn out for Hogg ‘a rough map of Northumberland, assigning to each district its clan, and noting the situation of the principal castles and fortresses’, information Hogg presumably required in writing The Three Perils of Man. Raine reported that Surtees was not as pleased with Hogg as he expected to be, and was particularly irritated by Hogg’s insistence on promenading up and down Princes Street with him arm-in-arm in sultry weather: ‘Surtees was, however, extremely kind to him, notwithstanding his roughness, and he spent more than one evening with us at Walker’s hotel, in Prince’s Street, amusing us with the history of himself, and the legendary lore, of which he possessed a wonderful fund, and in which Surtees so peculiarly delighted’—see George Taylor, A Memoir of Robert Surtees, Esq., ed. by James Raine, Surtees Society, 24 (Durham, 1852), p. 157. Walter Scott sets off for London Scott was to be made a baronet and intended to go to London for this after Christmas, but the deaths of his mother, aunt and uncle in December caused him to delay his journey until the spring of 1820—see Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), I, 692– 93. Shakespeare see I Henry IV, V. 3. 58–59. Clavers and Burly see Hogg’s letter to John Wallace of 25 November 1818, which also mentions a third dog called Kettledrummle. Mainsforth Hogg is calling Surtees by the name of his estate.

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Appendix: Notes on Correspondents Where there is only a single letter to a particular correspondent in the present volume basic biographical information about Hogg’s correspondent and his relationship with him or her is given in the annotation to the relevant letter. The following notes are designed to provide such information in one place where (because there is more than one letter to a correspondent in the volume) it would either be divided into instalments or needlessly duplicated if included in the annotation to individual letters. The notes are necessarily selective, the emphasis being not on the biography of the correspondent but on his or her dealings with James Hogg. A separate note is provided for each correspondent, except in two instances where there is more than one correspondent in the same family and the relationship of one of the parties with Hogg is largely determined by his relationship with the other: as Hogg wrote to Anne Bald as Alexander Bald’s wife, and to Robert M‘Turk as James M‘Turk’s son there are notes for ‘Alexander and Anne Bald’ and for ‘James and Robert M‘Turk’. The notes generally outline Hogg’s relations with the correspondent for the whole of his lifetime and not simply for the period covered by this first volume of letters up to 1819, but an exception has been made for Margaret Phillips, who became Hogg’s wife in April 1820. After that date her concerns are inseparable from Hogg’s own and a separate account of her as a correspondent is superfluous. Information from the Dictionary of National Biography is a major source for many of the individual notes, and so, of course, are Hogg’s letters. Hogg’s letters before the end of 1819 are not individually referenced, since they can most easily be found by turning to the relevant page of the present volume. References to other sources of information are given within the notes themselves and generally employ the same list of abbreviations given in the Note on the Texts (pp. 482–84 below). In addition the following abbreviations are used in this Appendix: EUL (Edinburgh University Library); and SUL (Stirling University Library).

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J OH N A ITKE N John Aitken was born at Camelon, Stirlingshire on 25 March 1793, and became a bank clerk, working at one time in the bank run by Mungo Park’s brother at Selkirk, where he made Hogg’s acquaintance. From about 1813 he was employed as a teller by the East Lothian bank in Dunbar, where he organised a Burns anniversary dinner at Mr Sang’s New Inn on 25 January 1815 which he failed to persuade Hogg to attend—see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 30 January 1815. During 1817 Aitken appears to have fathered an illegitimate child, though no details are known. A small, chapbook-sized publication of his poem The Frogs: A Fable, published in Dunbar in 1818, and dedicated ‘To Gossips of every description, within the Borough of Dunbar’, implies that Aitken had suffered a serious loss of reputation from this being known locally. Hogg’s letter of 20 December 1817, written to cheer Aitken, also confides in him about Hogg’s own illegitimate daughters Katie and Betsy. Hogg also confided his literary secrets to Aitken, such as those connected with the ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’—see Aitken’s letter to George Goldie of 26 June 1821, in NLS, MS 2245, fols 66–67. Hogg paid a visit to Aitken at Dunbar in the spring of 1819, and at an evening party on 9 April, the last of his visit, was presented with the freedom of the burgh—see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 15 April 1819 and Aitken’s letter to David Laing of 10 April 1819 (EUL, MS La. IV. 17, fols 123–24). In Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd (Edinburgh, 1831) Hogg mentions that he composed ‘The Mermaid’s Song’ in Aitken’s house in Dunbar (p. 87). Aitken’s brother seems to have been a source of anxiety to him. In a letter to David Laing of 14 October 1820 (EUL, MS La. IV. 17, fols 135–36) Aitken reports him as in bad health and requests Laing to try to find him another job as a tutor, though Hogg’s letter to Aitken of 25 October (NLS, MS 786, fols 57–58) seems to imply that he had recently died. At various times Aitken sent Hogg the gift of a barrel of red herrings, and in 1819 Hogg gave him an annotated copy of his essayperiodical The Spy. When George Goldie attacked Hogg’s memoir prefixed to the third edition of The Mountain Bard, Aitken wrote to remonstrate with him on 26 June 1821 (NLS, MS 2245, fols 66–67). In the spring of 1822, the East Lothian bank was wound up following serious fraud by the cashier, and Aitken moved to Edinburgh towards the end of the year where he established himself as a stationer and bookseller. The record of his marriage to Margaret

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Aitchison ‘residing Shrub Place Leith Walk’ for 28 December 1822 (Edinburgh St Cuthberts OPR) describes him as ‘Bookseller No 13 Hailes Street Gilmore Place’. According to the St Cuthberts OPR five children were born to the couple: Marjory Atkinson Aitken (21 September 1823); Elizabeth Bell Aitken (23 December 1825); Margaret Aitchison Aitken (30 October 1828); Mary Rennie Aitken (30 June 1827); and Thomas Aitken (29 April 1831). One of Aitken’s daughters, however, died in early infancy—see Torrop’s ‘Memoir of the late Mr John Aitken’, in The Cabinet of Friendship; A Tribute to the Memory of the late John Aitken, ed. by W. C. Taylor (London, 1834), pp. i–xi (p. vi). From Hogg’s letter to Aitken of 11 March 1826 (NLS, Acc. 8879), Betsy Hogg seems to have been employed as a servant in the family. During his visits to Aitken in Edinburgh Hogg would be able to keep in touch with his daughter. Aitken first appears in the Edinburgh postal directories in the volume for 1823–24, as a ‘bookseller’ of 2 Anthony’s place, with his home address given as 13 Hailes street, Gilmore place. Apart from the entry in the directory for 1826–27 (which records Aitken as ‘late bookseller, 13 Gayfield square’ and clearly reflects his uncertain position after the Edinburgh financial crash early in 1826), the Hailes street house continued to be recorded as his home until the volume for 1829–30 which indicates a move to 16 Rankeillor street. In Edinburgh Aitken edited and published a reprint anthology entitled The Cabinet, or, The Selected Beauties of Literature, two series of which appeared in 1824 and 1825 respectively and included several items by his friend James Hogg. He was also appointed the editor of ‘Constable’s Miscellany’, and was by that means involved in Constable’s ruin in 1826. After Constable’s death in 1827 when the work was owned by Henry Constable and the London firm of Hurst, Chance & Co. he continued as editor and is described in Edinburgh directories as ‘of Constable and Co.’. His connection with it was finally dissolved on the failure of the London firm in 1831, when he set up his own printing establishment at 1 St James’s square, with his home being nearby at 30 St James’s square. He took a prominent part in establishing the Edinburgh Literary Journal in 1828 (to which Hogg was an important contributor). Aitken was also on intimate terms with Hogg’s nephew and literary assistant Robert Hogg, who in a manuscript poem addressed ‘To the Ladies and Gentlemen in Tea-Party Assembled at No. 13 Hailes Street’ portrays him addressing the company on the subject of books ‘Spleet new and auld black letter’. He goes over the heads

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of the ladies and is told to sit down by ‘Miss Mary’—see NLS, MS 20437, fols 46–47. In Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd (Edinburgh, 1831) Hogg, after describing how his songs had been published in newspapers and other periodicals for the last thirty years, added ‘there is only one person alive who ever can collect them, Mr John Aitken, of the house of Constable and Co’ (p. 112). Aitken died suddenly on 15 February 1833 at the age of thirty-nine. The printing business he had established may have been continued by his widow. Edinburgh directories from 1833–34 up to 1837–38 list ‘M. Aitken, printer, 1 St James’s square’, the volume for 1836–37 giving the printer’s home address as 17 London Street, while Mrs John Aitken is listed for 7 London Street in the following issue.

R OB E RT A N DE RSON Dr Robert Anderson, born in 1750, was more active as a literary man than as a practising physician. He had at one time been the editor of the Edinburgh Magazine and was well known as a friend of young poets. Thomas Campbell dedicated The Pleasures of Hope to him, and he also befriended the poets Anne Bannerman and John Leyden, the scholar Alexander Murray, and Thomas Brown, who subsequently became Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. Janet Stuart, who contributed to The Spy, was another of his young friends. His house at 11 Windmill Street was one of the literary centres of Edinburgh, and he also corresponded with eminent literary men in England, Ireland, and America. In 1802, 1809, and 1810 he paid three long visits to Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore, and editor of the Reliques of English Poetry (1765)—see the memoir of him in the seventh edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica: Volume III (Edinburgh, 1840), pp. 114–15. Anderson’s own most notable achievement was A Complete Edition of the Poets of Great Britain (1792–95), in thirteen volumes with biographical and critical notices written by him as editor, to which a fourteenth volume was added in 1807. Anderson had been familiar with Hogg’s work since May 1802, when ‘Sandy Tod’ was published in the Edinburgh Magazine, and his own ‘A Traveller’s Letter to The Spy’ appeared in no. 36 for 4 May 1811 (see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 364– 66), but it is not clear if their personal acquaintance began before the publication of The Queen’s Wake. Hogg’s letter of 3 May [1813] shows that he then sent Anderson two pieces for inclusion in R. A.

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Davenport’s Poetical Register. The following autumn Anderson joined Hogg and Wordsworth at Traquair manse and walked with the party from there to the vale of Yarrow on 1 September—see Memoir, pp. 67, 253. Anderson died on 20 March 1830.

A LEXAN DE R

AN D

A N N E B ALD

Alexander Bald was born at Alloa on 9 June 1783, the third son of Alexander Bald and his wife Jean Christie. His father was a colliery manager firstly for the Earl of Dundonald at Culross and then for the Earl of Mar, and also the author of a book of arithmetical tables for the use of farmers entitled The Corndealer’s Assistant. Hogg’s early friend John Grieve worked in Alloa, firstly as a clerk to Mr Virtue, the wood-merchant, and (after a brief period of working in a bank at Greenock in 1801) as the partner of Mr Virtue’s successor, Francis Bald (Rogers, III, 43). Alexander Bald’s own business was that of a timber-merchant and brick-manufacturer, and it must have been at this time that his friendship with Grieve was formed. He contributed a number of poems to the Scots Magazine at the start of the nineteenth century, and may have seen Hogg’s poetry there. According to Rogers (V, 34) Bald had been ‘attracted by the merit of his [Hogg’s] compositions’ and accompanied Grieve on ‘a visit to the forest bard [...] long prior to his public recognition as a poet’. Rogers dates the introduction elsewhere (II, 37) to 1803, when Bald was visiting Grieve at Cacrabank in Ettrick. Alexander Bald married Anne Geddes of Alloa on 15 September 1809, and a daughter, Margaret, was born on 24 August 1812 (Alloa OPR). In 1804 Bald had established the Shakespeare Club of Alloa, the members of which met in a hall decorated with a bust of Shakespeare to recite, sing, and read works of genius. Hogg’s ‘Ode to the Genius of Shakespeare’ was written for the Club and recited following the toast to ‘The Memory of the immortal Shakespeare’ at the annual birthday festival in 1815— see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 4 May 1815. It seems probable that the rhyming account of the Club printed in ‘Shakspeare Club of Alloa’, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 1 (May 1817), 152–54 is also Hogg’s work. Hogg had been appointed an honorary member and the Club’s poet laureate, attended several of these annual festivals during his Edinburgh years, and was presented with a commemorative silver cup at the 1816 dinner—see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 6 May 1816. During these years Hogg also visited the Balds at Alloa in starting out on his summer excursions in the Highlands. Alexander Bald died at Alloa in 1859.

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B E RNARD B ARTON Bernard Barton was born to Quaker parents at Carlisle on 31 January 1784, and sent to a Quaker school at Ipswich in Suffolk. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to an Essex shopkeeper but after eight years moved to Woodbridge in Suffolk, where he married in 1807 and went into business as a coal and corn merchant. On the death of his wife in 1808 he was employed for a year as a tutor by a Liverpool merchant, Mr Waterhouse, and became acquainted with William Roscoe, returning afterwards to Woodbridge. He worked as a bank clerk there until his death, seldom leaving the town. Barton corresponded with Robert Southey and Charles Lamb as well as Roscoe, and was known to the literary enthusiast Capell Lofft (1751–1824), who lived near Bury St Edmunds. Lofft had edited Robert Bloomfield’s The Farmer’s Boy in 1800, and secured its publication with woodcuts by Bewick. Barton himself wrote verses on the death of Bloomfield in 1823, and it was presumably his interest in the work of peasant poets that drew him to James Hogg. The Queen’s Wake, advertised as the work of ‘James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd’, had fallen into Barton’s hands ‘by accident’ and he had then written ‘by the suggestion of Mr Capel Lofft’ to the publisher, George Goldie, requesting ‘some particulars respecting the Author’— see Barton’s letter to William Roscoe of 22 April 1813 (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 208) drawing his attention to Hogg’s poem. On receiving Goldie’s reply he wrote a poem, ‘To James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, Author of the Queen’s Wake. By a Gentleman of Suffolk’, published by Goldie in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 29 April 1813, and in revised form in the second edition of The Queen’s Wake, where it is dated 21 April 1813. In his letter to William S. Fitch of 28 April 1830 Barton refers to the first letter he received from Hogg, ‘giving a curious account of his early life, education, and literary progress; his first learning to read and still more to write, & the first stirrings of a spirit of literary ambition & enterprise’—see The Literary Correspondence of Bernard Barton, ed. by James C. Barcus (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1966), p. 76. This letter has not apparently survived, but the reference seems to indicate that Hogg presented himself to Barton very much in the expected role of peasant poet. In his letter to Alexander Dirom of 10 November 1813 Hogg says, ‘I was drawn into a literary correspondence with two gentlemen in Suffolk a Mr. Loft and a Mr Barton neither of whom I know much about’. Possibly Hogg was not only flattered by Barton’s poem but also anxious to contact William Roscoe through Barton. In the summer of 1813 he sent Barton two

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of the six printed copies of his drama, The Hunting of Badlewe, one of which was transmitted to Roscoe in Liverpool—see a draft letter from Roscoe to Hogg, written before 21 March 1814 (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 2047). A letter from Lofft to Roscoe of 9 July 1813 (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 2450) indicates that Hogg, and Barton on his behalf, were anxious to obtain Roscoe’s opinion of it. Barton published numerous collections of his own poetry, the first of which was Metrical Effusions of 1812. He died in 1849.

W I LLIAM B LACKWOOD William Blackwood was born in Edinburgh in November 1776, and apprenticed in 1790 to the booksellers Bell and Bradfute. Further experience came from acting as agent and manager of a new Glasgow branch for Mundell and Co., as the partner of a bookseller’s auctioneer named Robert Ross, and as an employee of a London antiquarian bookseller named Cuthill—see Oliphant, I, 3–17. In 1804 he returned to Edinburgh and to his own premises near the university (I, 18). He married Janet Stewart in October 1805 and according to the Edinburgh St Cuthberts OPR the couple had seven sons and two daughters: Alexander (born December 1806); Robert (born June 1808); William (born March 1810); Isobella (born February 1812); James McCleish (born July 1814); Thomas (born July 1816); John (born December 1818); Archibald (born August 1821); and Janet (born June 1823). He lived at 2 Salisbury Road in the south Edinburgh suburb of Newington. ‘William Blackwood, bookseller’ is listed at 64 South bridge street in Edinburgh postal directories from 1804–05 through to the volume for 1815–16. Blackwood’s earliest business was that of an antiquarian bookseller and his first publication a catalogue of his own stock. James Grahame’s The Sabbath (1805) was an important early Blackwood publication. In 1810 he was involved in starting David Brewster’s Edinburgh Encyclopedia (finally completed in 1830), and published Thomas M‘Crie’s Life of John Knox the following year, when he also became the Edinburgh agent for the London publisher John Murray. Hogg probably made Blackwood’s acquaintance in the autumn of 1814, in connection with the bankruptcy of George Goldie, publisher of The Queen’s Wake, so that Blackwood’s connection with Hogg was formed relatively early in his career as a publisher. In partnership with Murray Blackwood published Hogg’s The Pilgrims of the Sun in December 1814, and his Mador of the Moor in April 1816. It was also during 1816 that Blackwood moved his business from the

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Old Town to the New Town of Edinburgh, to 17 Princes Street and became the publisher of Scott’s first series of the Tales of My Landlord. In April 1817 he launched the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, after consultation with Hogg and others, appointing Thomas Pringle and James Cleghorn as editors. He was soon in dispute with them, and Hogg acted as an unsuccessful mediator. The magazine was stopped after six issues, and then relaunched under his own control as Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in October 1817. Hogg contributed his ‘Daniel’ to the first issue, rewritten by others into the notorious ‘Translation from an ancient Chaldee Manuscript’ that made the reputation of the new periodical for liveliness and scandal. At this time Blackwood seems to have placed great importance on Hogg’s support, using him as a negotiator with Scott and Laidlaw at Abbotsford, taking him as a backer in his dispute with Douglas of the Glasgow Chronicle, and expressing disappointment in a letter to Laidlaw of 13 February 1818 that Hogg had not produced an expected article (NLS, Acc. 9084/9). But in his letter to Blackwood of 12 October 1818 Hogg mentioned being ‘set to the wall’ by Lockhart and Wilson with respect to the magazine. With John Murray Blackwood published Hogg’s The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales in May 1818 and the fifth (or subscription) and sixth editions of The Queen’s Wake in the summer of 1819. However, the partnership between Blackwood and Murray was effectively over. Murray’s name disappeared from Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine after January 1819 (he had originally paid a thousand pounds for a half-share). The first series of Hogg’s Jacobite Relics was published by Blackwood with the London booksellers Cadell and Davies in December 1819, the second series following in February 1821, just over a year later. Hogg’s contributions to the magazine and the many comments on successive issues of it in his letters show his close links with William Blackwood, who also sent copies of volumes he had recently published. Hogg even wished to employ Blackwood as a literary agent to obtain a suitable London publisher for his Border Romance, The Three Perils of Man (1822)—see Hogg’s letter to Blackwood of 20 August 1820 (NLS, MS 4005, fols 162– 63). Relations were interrupted by a quarrel in September 1821, partly a dispute about the author’s payment due for The Brownie of Bodsbeck but also motivated by a savage review by Wilson in the magazine for August 1821 of Hogg’s ‘Memoir’ prefacing the third edition of The Mountain Bard (Vol. 10, pp. 43–52). Hogg was also caricatured in articles in the magazine featuring supposed social meetings of its

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contributors, which crystallised into the ‘Noctes Ambrosianae’ series, the first of which appeared in the issue for March 1822 (Vol. 11, pp. 369–[89] [mispaged]). Hogg’s quarrel with Blackwood was however made up by his letter of 11 April 1822 (NLS, MS 4008, fols 265–66). Blackwood published The Royal Jubilee, Hogg’s celebration of the visit of George IV to Edinburgh, in August 1822, and was eager to share with Longmans in the publication of Hogg’s epic Queen Hynde, published in December 1824. William Blackwood became a baillie of Edinburgh in the autumn of 1823—see the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 2 October 1823. During the later 1820s Hogg frequently sent presents of game to the Blackwood household from Yarrow in return for an annual present of a shooting licence, and the Blackwood family sometimes holidayed in nearby Innerleithen, for instance in the summers of 1828, 1830, and in 1831, when Blackwood attended the St Ronan’s Border Games— see David Groves, James Hogg and the St Ronan’s Border Club (Dollar: Douglas S. Mack, 1987), p. 3. A letter from William Blackwood to his son of the same name of 30 July 1831 implies that his younger sons, Thomas and Archie, were then at school in Peebles (NLS, MS 30,004, fols 159–62 (fol. 159r)). Blackwood, with the London firm of T. Cadell, published Hogg’s The Shepherd’s Calendar in March 1829. Blackwood’s prosperity at this time is indicated by the fact that he moved his business to grander premises at 45 George Street, opened on 28 May 1830 (Oliphant, II, 98). Furthermore the Edinburgh postal directory for 1831–32 records the removal of the Blackwood home to 3 Ainslie Place in the imposing Moray Place development in the New Town. Blackwood’s eldest sons, Alexander and Robert, were becoming more prominent in the publishing firm at this time. In a letter to Hogg of 23 April 1829 (NLS, MS 30,311, pp. 251–53), for instance, Blackwood mentions that he is about to take Alexander with him on a business trip to London, leaving Robert in charge of the magazine during his absence. In the early 1830s a formal partnership was arranged, each son having one of six shares in the business, their father retaining the remaining four shares. William Blackwood himself, however, continued to be Hogg’s main correspondent in the firm, which in January 1831 published Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd. During 1831 Blackwood was occasionally unable to attend to business himself because of a painful eye complaint. Hogg and he quarrelled in early December that year, partly over Blackwood’s refusal to support Hogg in an accusation of plagiarism against Andrew

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Picken, and partly because Blackwood appeared reluctant to publish Hogg’s magazine contributions and his projected twelve-volume collected prose fiction. Hogg continued to write to Blackwood during his London visit of 1832, but the breach was worsened by what Blackwood interpreted as an attack on his commercial integrity in the 1832 Memoir—see Altrive Tales, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/ SC, 2003), p. lv. Hogg’s A Queer Book, though printed in the summer of 1831, was actually published in late April or early May 1832 during this period of estrangement—see A Queer Book, ed. by P. D. Garside (S/SC, 1995), pp. xi, xxiv–xxvi. Although a reconciliation was attempted in March 1833, Hogg’s quarrel with Blackwood was not finally made up until May 1834. By this time William Blackwood was suffering from cancer, his illness was declared serious the following month, and he died on 16 September 1834.

G EORG E B OYD Remarkably little is known about the Edinburgh publisher, George Boyd. He was probably born about 1784 and trained as a bookbinder. In 1807 or 1808 he entered into partnership with the printer, Thomas Oliver (1776–1853), creating the printing and bookselling firm of Oliver & Boyd. Thomas Oliver had been listed as a printer in Edinburgh postal directories since 1799–1800, first at North Richmond Street and then at the Netherbow, an area of Edinburgh’s High Street. The new firm clearly continued to operate from Oliver’s old premises, the 1811–12 postal directory specifying Baron Grant’s Close at the Netherbow as the address. George Boyd is first listed individually in the directory for 1813– 14 as ‘printer, 9 James’ place’ and he continues to appear at the same address in successive volumes up to the one for 1824–25. On 20 March 1817 Boyd was made a burgess of Edinburgh—see Roll of Edinburgh Burgesses and Guild-Brethren, 1761–1841, ed. by Charles Boog Watson (Edinburgh: Scottish Record Society, 1933), p. 21. The publishing side of the firm was transferred in November or December 1820 to new premises in Tweeddale Court—see the announcement of the removal of the firm’s bookselling in the Caledonian Mercury of 2 December 1820. The firm’s surviving correspondence (NLS, Acc. 5000/191) reveals that Boyd was on terms of intimacy during the 1820s with several of the friends who had contributed to Hogg’s earlier essay periodical, The Spy, such as Janet Stuart, James Gray, and John Grieve, and also suggests that he was the more active and managing partner of the publishing firm.

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The firm printed for William Blackwood the subscription edition of Hogg’s poem The Queen’s Wake in 1819, and both series of his Jacobite Relics of Scotland (1819 and 1821), besides publishing both editions of Hogg’s Winter Evening Tales (1820, 1821), and the third edition of The Mountain Bard (1821). Relations with the firm were broken off, however, in the summer of 1821 when Hogg’s Border Romance The Three Perils of Man was refused for publication. Hogg also felt that Boyd took the side of Hogg’s former publisher, George Goldie, in the dispute over Hogg’s account in his ‘Memoir’ in The Mountain Bard of their dealings over the third edition of The Queen’s Wake in 1814—see Hogg’s letters to Boyd of 24 and 27 June 1821 (NLS, Acc. 5000/188). The Edinburgh postal directory for 1827–28 records the removal of George Boyd from James’ place to 14 Windsor Street, and the volume for 1836–37 a subsequent removal to 14 Royal Terrace. Both were part of the prestigious New Calton development designed by William Playfair in 1818–19, and originally intended to cover 250 acres but eventually confined to Calton Hill and the Hillside property—see Harris, pp. 144–45, 539, 641–42. Royal Terrace was named in compliment to George III and the then Prince Regent, and intended to be the grandest street in the development. Both addresses are clear indications of the success of the Oliver & Boyd firm. George Boyd was probably unmarried, for when he died intestate on 1 February 1843, his executors (normally the next-of-kin) were his brother, John Boyd, and his sister, Jean Boyd (National Archives of Scotland, SC70/1/63, pp. 928–29). John Boyd and members of his family afterwards lived in the house at 14, Royal Terrace, which had formerly been George Boyd’s home—see the census returns for 1851, 1861, and 1881, and the Edinburgh postal directory for 1843–44 which instead of George Boyd lists John Boyd and John Boyd, junior ‘(Oliver & Boyd’s)’ at this address. After Boyd’s death the publishing firm was effectively reformed under the management of his brother John and nephew Thomson Boyd, and it seems possible that John Boyd can be identified with the bookseller who is listed in the Edinburgh postal directory for 1827–28 as ‘(of Waugh & Innes)’ and from the following volume up to the one for 1831–32 as a bookseller with premises at 37 George Street in Edinburgh. George Boyd’s obituary in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 4 February 1843 particularly mentions his publication of various educational works, and of the ‘Edinburgh Cabinet Library, which has now

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attained to 33 volumes’. He is also described as having raised the Edinburgh Almanac from ‘a mere common place chronicle of the most uninteresting details into a valuable repository of statistical information’.

A DAM B RYDE N Adam Bryden, born in 1766, was son to William Bryden of Aberlosk farm in Eskdalemuir parish, a prosperous tenant of the Duke of Buccleuch who had drained his hill-farm and thus rendered it capable of supporting sheep over the winter. Adam, known as Aedie o’ Aberlosk, formed a contrast with his father, wearing a broadcloth coat instead of homespun, and replacing the old farmhouse with a new-built slate-roofed one—see ‘Account of Mr Bryden’, in Prize Essays and Transactions of the Highland Society of Scotland, 3 (1807), 533– 35. The writer of this account reported that ‘William Bryden is still alive, but can no more go out. His son, Adam Bryden, hath the charge of the farm, and hath had for a run of years. He excels his father in the management of affairs, and is well-beloved with all around him’. The date of his marriage to Margaret Armstrong is unknown, but the birth of successive children to the couple is recorded in the Eskdalemuir OPR as follows: a son ( June 1800); Janet ( July 1802); Adam ( January 1804); Margaret (September 1807); and David (September 1809). Hogg’s earliest letter to Bryden of 1 July [1800] implies an acquaintance at that point but not necessarily close friendship. However, he became Hogg’s partner in the lease of the Locherben farm in Closeburn parish, Dumfriesshire from Whitsunday 1807. The records of the birth of successive Bryden children in Eskdalemuir parish, however, suggest that Bryden continued to live at Aberlosk during this period, and that Hogg himself was the resident farmer at Locherben. Hogg’s portrait of ‘Aedie o’ Aberlosk’ at a country wedding in ‘The Shepherd’s Calendar’ of Winter Evening Tales is that of a lively entertaining man, as full of fun and daffing as of whisky. He relates several ‘curious and extravagant stories’ about him, including his fighting another farmer by flinging dung at him with a pitchfork, and writing a personal letter to George III with his arrears of taxes enclosed—see Winter Evening Tales, ed. by Ian Duncan (S/SC, 2002), pp. 373–409 (pp. 400–09). Bryden had a reputation, however, as a hard drinker—see John Morrison, ‘Random Reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott, of the Ettrick Shepherd, Sir Henry Raeburn, &c. &c.—No. I’, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, n. s. 10 (September 1843), 569–

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78 (p. 573), and went down in the world. Hogg, meeting him in Edinburgh in 1821, described him in a letter to William Blackwood of 7 March (NLS, MS 4719, fols 154–55) as ‘much fallen off: indeed quite doited by worldly misfortune now’. His gravestone in St Mary’s churchyard by describing him as ‘once tenant in Aberlosk’ suggests that he lost his Eskdalemuir farm. He died in March 1850.

L ORD B YRON George Gordon was born in London on 22 January 1788, and brought up in Aberdeen by his mother. He succeeded as 6th Lord Byron in May 1798 and with his mother, formerly Catherine Gordon of Gight, took possession of the family estate of Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire. He was educated at Harrow until 1805, and then at Trinity College, Cambridge. His Hours of Idleness was published in 1807, and severely criticised in the Edinburgh Review. His response was English Bards and Scotch Reviewers of 1809. Between 1809 and 1811 he travelled in Portugal, Spain, Greece, and Turkey, returning to England in 1812 to take his seat in the House of Lords and publish the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, when he awoke to find himself famous. This was followed by The Giaour (1813), The Bride of Abydos (1813), and The Corsair (1814). Byron had read Hogg’s The Queen’s Wake (1813) and written enthusiastically about it to Walter Scott in a letter, now unfortunately lost, of 27 September 1813, and Scott naturally told Hogg of Byron’s praise. This encouraged Hogg to open a direct communication with Byron during the following summer, when he was hoping to obtain a poetic contribution from him for his projected ‘Poetical Repository’. Byron intended to offer Lara for this, but it was published separately, together with Samuel Rogers’s Jacqueline, shortly afterwards. Byron also recommended Hogg to his own publisher John Murray in 1814, and exchanged a number of letters with Hogg that year. Hogg dedicated The Pilgrims of the Sun (1815) to Byron, and ‘The Guerilla’ in Hogg’s collection of parodies, The Poetic Mirror (1816), was written in imitation of Byron’s exotic verse narratives, particularly The Corsair and its sequel, Lara. There are several copies of Byron’s poems among books once owned by Hogg in the James Hogg Collection of the Special Collections, University of Otago Library, gifted either by Byron himself or his publisher, John Murray. Relations between Hogg and Byron became more distant around the time of Byron’s ill-starred brief marriage to Anne Isabella Milbanke, and Byron’s last surviving letter to Hogg of 1 March 1816

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was written just before his departure from England that spring. The two men never actually met though they continued to be readers and admirers of one another’s work. Byron travelled in Switzerland and Italy, and published two more cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1816 and 1818), as well as The Lament of Tasso (1817), Beppo (1818), a number of dramas, and his great comic poem Don Juan. He died at Missolonghi in Greece, where he had gone to serve the cause of Greek national independence, on 19 April 1824.

A RCH I BALD C ON STAB LE Archibald Constable was born at Carnbee, Fife, on 24 February 1774, the son of the Earl of Kellie’s land-steward, and in 1788 was apprenticed to the bookseller Peter Hill in Edinburgh. He married Mary Willison, daughter to the printer David Willison, in January 1795, and at about the same time set up in business for himself in the High Street. He began the Farmer’s Magazine as a quarterly publication in 1800. It was his publication of the first number of the Edinburgh Review in October 1802 that made him a first-rank publisher, a status confirmed by his successive publication of most of the poems of Scott and the Waverley Novels. Between 1804 and 1811 Alexander Gibson Hunter became his partner, and after that Robert Cathcart and Robert Cadell (who married Constable’s daughter Elizabeth in 1817), but Cathcart died in 1812. Hogg had been a contributor to Constable’s periodical the Scots Magazine, but it was through Scott’s intervention that Constable published The Mountain Bard for Hogg in February 1807 (with John Murray as his London partner), and also The Shepherd’s Guide in June 1807. Hogg’s brother William was an occasional contributor to The Farmer’s Magazine at much the same time. In August 1810 Constable published Hogg’s The Forest Minstrel, and although he declined to publish The Spy he must have helped Hogg to sell the volumes assembled from the weekly issues on the periodical’s conclusion as his name appears on the printed title-page for the volume. It may have been during his Edinburgh years that Hogg formed a friendship with Constable’s eldest son, David (1795–1866), who after being apprenticed to a London bookseller in 1811, returned to Edinburgh and became an advocate. Hogg refers to him as a source for two Jacobite songs, a number of years before their publication in 1821 and ‘before either he or I had any notion of collecting the Jacobite Relics of the country’—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. Second Series, ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2003), pp. 305, 307.

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Constable’s first wife died in 1814, and David Constable inherited his grandfather Willison’s fortune which he enjoyed until it was swallowed up in the financial crash of 1826. Hogg offered Constable his poems, The Queen’s Wake (1813), The Pilgrims of the Sun (1815), and Mador of the Moor (1816), though in fact Constable published none of them. Hogg’s close links with William Blackwood and his adherence to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine from its appearance in 1817 inevitably limited his friendship with Constable, the literary world of Edinburgh being so riven by political factions and trade rivalries. In 1818 Constable married Charlotte Neale. His health was failing in the spring of 1821 and he spent some time first at Brighton and then at Castlebeare Park, Middlesex. When Hogg quarrelled with Blackwood in the summer of 1821, and began to contribute once more to the Edinburgh Magazine and to negotiate with the Constable firm for the publication of his fourvolume Poetical Works of 1822 (published by the Constable firm with their London partners Hurst, Robinson & Co.) he therefore dealt primarily with Robert Cadell and not with Constable himself. The failure of his London partners early in 1826 ruined Constable, and on the breaking up of the partnership between Constable and Cadell Scott stuck to Cadell. Constable died on 21 July 1827. (Information in this note is largely drawn from Thomas Constable, Archibald Constable and his Literary Correspondents, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1873).)

W ALTE R C U N N I NG HAM Walter Cunningham was the eldest son of James Cunningham, the tenant of Thirlestane farm in Ettrick, and was baptised on 7 October 1771 (Ettrick OPR). At Whitsunday 1801 he became tenant of the Buccleuch farm of Catslackburn in Yarrow, his father making him a gift of the money necessary to stock it. Walter Cunningham’s brother, James, took over the management of his father’s farm at Thirlestane and in April 1807 the old man formally ratified his previously informal settlement of his property on his two sons, with a financial provision of £300 for his unmarried daughter, Helen Cunningham, and of £100 each for his three sons-in-law, George Rodger (a W. S. in Selkirk), Walter Beattie (the tenant of Yelbyre farm), and John Sibbald (tenant of Borthhaugh farm)—see National Archives of Scotland, CC18/4/8, pp. 19–25, 229–33. Old James Cunningham died on 12 September 1810 (Ettrick OPR). It seems likely that there was a family connection between Hogg

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and Cunningham, since Hogg’s elder brother William was the husband of Mary Beattie, the Ettrick schoolmaster’s daughter and Cunningham’s sister Agnes had married a Walter Beattie on 26 February 1803 (Ettrick OPR). It seems possible at least that Walter Beattie was related to the Ettrick schoolmaster, since ‘John Beattie, schoolmaster’ was one of the witnesses to old James Cunningham’s 1807 settlement of his property—see National Archives of Scotland, CC18/4/8, pp. 19–25. Hogg and Walter Cunningham agreed in 1807 that Hogg should graze some of Cunningham’s lambs at Locherben in Dumfriesshire, and on Hogg’s failure in 1809 Cunningham’s claim on him for the value of the lambs was not settled, enabling him to make a subsequent demand for payment at any future period when Hogg appeared to have become a prosperous man. In 1814 after the success of The Queen’s Wake (1813), Hogg seems to have attempted to reach a settlement with Cunningham, and to have paid him several sums of money on account of the debt, but the two disagreed about its extent and Cunningham pursued the matter in the Selkirk Sheriff Court in the spring of 1821. Hogg’s recent lease of the large Mount Benger farm in Yarrow had presumably suggested once again that he was in thriving circumstances. Scott as Sheriff (and Charles Erskine as Sheriff-Substitute) gave judgement (dated 30 May 1821) against Hogg and he was ordered to pay a sum of £31-17-10d—see John Chisholm, Sir Walter Scott as a Judge (Edinburgh, 1918), pp. 100, 204–14. Walter Cunningham married Margaret Sutherland on 10 March 1811 (Yarrow OPR) and the couple had two sons at Catslackburn, James (born 15 May 1813) and George (born 27 December 1815).

A LEXAN DE R D I ROM Alexander Dirom, the son of Alexander Dirom of Muiresk, Aberdeenshire, was a soldier who had served in Jamaica and India, playing an active part in the campaign against Tipu Sultan, and the siege of Seringapatam of 1792. His account of the campaign was published in London the following year. He married Magdalen Pasley, a Dumfriesshire heiress in August 1793 and the couple settled at Mount Annan in Dumfriesshire, where Dirom became known as an active and improving landlord, publishing an account of the improvements to his estate in 1811. Dirom and his wife had seven sons and five daughters, and among the tutors they employed were Thomas Carlyle, Edward Irving, and David Brewster.

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Hogg appears to have been introduced to Dirom by John Morrison in 1807 a few months before the publication of The Shepherd’s Guide, which was dedicated to Dirom as ‘a gentleman who has the welfare and improvement of his country so much at heart’. Dirom was a member of the Highland Society of Scotland, and of the Wernerian Natural History Society, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. From Hogg’s letter to his brother William of 8 October 1811 Dirom subsequently employed Hogg to value some farms on his estate. In 1811 Dirom was appointed to command the government forces in the north-west of England and made his headquarters in Liverpool, where he became intimate with the poet William Roscoe and recommended The Queen’s Wake to him—see Dirom’s letter to Roscoe of 19 May 1813 (Liverpool Record Office: 920 Ros 1239). He returned to Mount Annan only in 1815. It was during his term of duty in Liverpool that two of his adolescent daughters died within weeks of each other, his eldest daughter Madaline on 19 December 1812 aged seventeen, and her sister, Sophia, a year younger ‘four weeks after the death of her eldest sister’. Hogg’s poem ‘The Harp of the Hill’ was written as a memorial for his friend’s daughters. Back at Mount Annan Dirom published his Remarks on Free Trade and on the State of the British Empire in 1827. Although primarily a friend and patron of Hogg’s during the earlier part of Hogg’s writing career, the two did meet subsequently at the Burns dinner at the Commercial Inn in Dumfries on 25 January 1822, when Dirom proposed the toast to Hogg as the man ‘who, of the whole herd of self-taught poets, was the only man of whom it could be said [...] that he had caught the mantle of Burns’—see Dumfries and Galloway Courier of 29 January 1822. Dirom died at Mount Annan on 6 October 1830. For further information see Richard Jackson’s edited text of ‘The Harp of the Hill’, SHW, 13 (2002), 134–42, from which information in this note is largely drawn.

W I LLIAM H OGG James Hogg’s elder brother was born in Ettrick and baptised on 12 July 1767 (Ettrick OPR). He was his brother’s friend and companion throughout their youth, and he clearly shared Hogg’s literary interests. He was the ‘dearly-loved brother’ belonging to the literary society described in Hogg’s essay on ‘Storms’—see The Shepherd’s Calendar, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 1995), pp. 1–21 (p. 16). He was also one of the four young shepherds who competed to

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write the best poem upon the stars in 1798, his entry being entitled ‘Urania’s Tour’ (Memoir, p. 19). On 28 December 1798 William Hogg married Mary Beattie, the daughter of the Ettrick schoolmaster (Ettrick OPR). He managed the little farm of Ettrickhouse for the support of the Hogg parents until 1800, when Hogg himself took over this role, and the young couple moved to the Muchra, where William was employed as a shepherd. His first three children, Margaret (baptised 4 May 1800), Robert (baptised 14 June 1802), and William (baptised 1 April 1804) were all born in Ettrick parish. He subsequently moved to Menzion, a farm in Tweedsmuir belonging to Sir James Montgomery, and three more children, James (born on 2 June 1807), Janet (born on 12 April 1809), and David (born on 9 February 1815), were born in Tweedsmuir parish. William Hogg contributed several articles to Constable’s Farmer’s Magazine, and his ‘Essay on the Diseases of Sheep’ with the Ossianic signature of Teutha was (along with one by James Hogg) one of thirteen entries for a forty-guinea premium offered by the Highland Society of Scotland in 1803. These were subsumed into a published digest by Dr Andrew Duncan—see ‘A Treatise on the Diseases of Sheep; Drawn up from Original Communications Presented to the Highland Society of Scotland’, Prize Essays and Transactions of the Highland Society of Scotland, 3 (1807), 339–535 (pp. 339–43). William Hogg wrote two letters giving an account of his brother James’s early life in response to a request from James Gray, subsequently used by Gray for his ‘Life and Writings of James Hogg’, in the Edinburgh Magazine, 2 ( January, February, and March 1818), 35–40, 122–29, 215–23. William Hogg’s article ‘On the Shepherd’s Dog’ was published in the Literary and Statistical Magazine of Scotland for February 1819 (Vol. 3, pp. 12–14), and the ‘Notices to Correspondents’ prefacing Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine for February 1818 refers to the Introduction to a tale sent in by him as a potential contribution. In 1818 William Hogg moved to Stobohope, still in the service of Sir James Montgomery, where he remained for the rest of his life. His eldest son Robert was particularly close to his famous uncle, contributed a ballad to the third edition of The Mountain Bard (1821), and helped to prepare several of his later works for the press. Six of William Hogg’s essays on the treatment of sheep were published in the new series of Prize Essays and Transactions of the Highland Society of Scotland between 1829 and 1839, one of these, ‘On the Treatment of Sheep with a View to the Improvement of the Fleece’ (Vol. 6, pp. 231–41), being awarded a premium of ten guineas—see Index to the First, Second, and Third Series of the Transactions of the Highland and

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Agricultural Society of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1869), p. 33. These essays reveal him to be an acute observer of natural history. His ‘Essay on a Mossy Soil’ was accompanied by specimens of the plants referred to in it, and his ‘Essay on the Flesh fly and Maggot in Sheep’ gives details of an experiment he conducted to trace the development of the insect—see Prize Essays and Transactions of the Highland Society of Scotland, n. s. 1 (1829), 271–82 (p. 271) and 325–40 (p. 339) respectively. He died on 29 January 1847—see Sheila A. Scott, Monumental Inscriptions (pre-1855) in Peeblesshire (Edinburgh: Scottish Genealogy Society, 1971), p. 91.

E LIZA I ZETT Elizabeth Stewart, the daugher of James Stewart, W. S. and his wife Jannet Haggart, was born at Dowally, Perthshire, on 9 June 1774. Around April 1797 she married Chalmers Izett, a prosperous Edinburgh hatter, born in Edinburgh on 12 October 1765. (Information from the couple’s gravestone in Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh and the Dowally OPR. I thank Janette Currie and Richard Jackson for information from Dowally OPR.) Chalmers Izett was the son of a hat-maker in the Canongate, James Izett, and his wife Margaret Reid (Canongate OPR). Elizabeth Stewart may have been his second wife, for according to James Brown, The Epitaphs and Monumental Inscriptions in Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1867), p. 272, Chalmers Izett’s daughter Helen, who died on 11 March 1867, is buried with him. The record of her death in Inveresk parish gives her mother’s name as Jane Izett or Maclean and her age as eightytwo, so she must have been born around 1785, before her father’s marriage to Elizabeth Stewart. She is described as the widow of George Lindsay, wax merchant. (I thank Richard Jackson for this information from the record of Helen Izett’s death.) Helen Izett’s mother was not apparently buried with the rest of the family, and the Izett gravestone was erected not by Chalmers Izett’s daughter but by his two nephews, John and William-Wemyss Anderson, and his niece, Chalmers Forrest, so it seems at least possible that Helen Izett was illegitimate. Hogg’s acquaintance with Eliza Izett is likely to have been formed after 1804 when his early friend John Grieve joined the hatter’s firm of Chalmers Izett on the North Bridge in Edinburgh (Rogers, III, 43). The Izetts moved at about this time from New Street to 6 St John’s Street, both in the Canongate district of Edinburgh. When the Rev. Alexander Brunton and his wife, Mary, moved to Edin-

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burgh in the autumn of 1803 they also lived in St John’s Street. Mary Brunton was later well-known as the author of Self-Control (1811), Discipline (1814), and Emmeline (1819), and the future novelist and Eliza Izett became close friends as well as neighbours. According to Rev. Alexander Brunton’s memoir of his wife, the two women were much together and ‘read together—worked together— and talked over, with confidential freedom, their opinions’ for about six years, when the Izetts moved from Edinburgh—see ‘Memoir’ in Mary Brunton, Emmeline. With some other Pieces (Edinburgh, 1819), pp. v–cxxi (pp. xvi–xvii). During this period, when Eliza Izett made friendships with Mary Brunton and James Hogg, she seems to have spent her winters in Edinburgh and her summers at Kinnaird House, near Dunkeld in Perthshire on her husband’s estate. After his farming failures at Corfardin and Locherben in Dumfriesshire Hogg was looking for a profitable occupation, and his first letter to Eliza Izett of 23 July 1808 reveals that Chalmers Izett had then offered Hogg a lease of one of the farms at Kinnaird. Hogg went to look at the farm, but having no money to buy stock, was obliged to decline the offer as Izett did not wish to stock it himself—see his letter to Scott of 26 September 1808. Chalmers Forrest, the niece and namesake of Chalmers Izett, was clearly an accomplished amateur musician, and not only performed Hogg’s songs (such as ‘Caledonia’) but also set some of them to music (such as ‘The Flower’ and ‘The Moon was a-Waning’)—see Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd (Edinburgh, 1831), pp. 26, 242, 253. No doubt the music of Eliza Izett’s Edinburgh drawing-room had its influence on Hogg’s song-collection The Forest Minstrel of 1810. A notice appeared in the Edinburgh Weekly Journal of 27 December 1809 to say that the co-partnery of Izett, Grieve and Scott, hat-manufacturers had been dissolved on 14 December due to the retirement of Chalmers Izett and that the business would be continued by Grieve and Scott, while the Post-Office Directory for 1810–1811 does not list the St John’s Street address for Chalmers Izett like its predecessors. It seems likely that during 1810 or early in 1811 Chalmers Izett gave up his Edinburgh house as a consequence of his retiring from business. Hogg’s letter to Eliza Izett of 15 October 1811 speculates on how she will pass the winter at Kinnaird and regrets her absence from Edinburgh during the forthcoming season. During the Edinburgh years before his marriage and settlement at Altrive Hogg frequently made an excursion into the Highlands during the summer, and on several such occasions spent a week or more at Kinnaird

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House on his way. His poem, Mador of the Moor, was composed there during his convalescence from a cold during a Highland tour in the autumn of 1813—see Memoir, pp. 34–35, 233–34. The heroine of this poem is named Ila or Elizabeth Moore, and after an illicit sexual relationship with the disguised King of Scotland, marries him and becomes Elizabeth Stewart, the maiden name of Mrs Izett herself. Hogg’s relationship with Eliza Izett must remain a matter of speculation, but some of his letters to her do suggest a love relationship. He refers to himself as ‘an old faithful lover’ in his letter of 20 August 1813, for instance, and sets out to allay her anxiety that a letter from her has been mislaid in one of 17 March [1816], saying that it contained nothing that the world might not know about. There are no surviving letters to Eliza Izett written after Hogg’s marriage in April 1820. On the other hand Hogg’s letters are more flirtatious than passionate, and show both affection and genuine friendship. He enquires after her health, gives her the literary gossip of Edinburgh, reports on the well-being of mutual friends, and confides his own literary plans. Perhaps, as Hogg modelled himself so much on Burns, he sometimes envisaged her as Clarinda to his Sylvander, the equivalent of Burns’s Agnes Maclehose. During this period Chalmers Izett settled down to being a Perthshire landowner—Morison’s Perth and Perthshire Register for 1815 lists him as in the Commission of the Peace (p. 6), as a Commissioner of Supply (p. 21), and as a curator of the M‘Intosh Library (p. 72). However, by 1820 the estate of 820 acres together with the mansion house was advertised for sale—see Edinburgh Weekly Journal of 10 May 1820. It seems to have been purchased eventually by the Duke of Atholl, the major landowner of that district. According to Hogg’s letter to her of 25 May 1818 Eliza Izett was then so ill that Hogg wondered if she was to try a change of climate, but Richard Jackson has traced the couple to another Perthshire house called Altamont, near Blairgowrie. They were clearly residing in Edinburgh again, however, by 1831 since the Edinburgh Postal Directory for 1830–31 gives ‘Blacket Place, Newington’ as Chalmers Izett’s address, on the south side of the city and in close proximity to his former business partner John Grieve at Newington Cottage. The Izetts were still there in 1834, when Mrs Izett corresponded with Dr John Lee about the sale and dispersal of his library (NLS, MS 3440, fols 263–67 and MS 3443, fols 38–41). Hogg almost certainly saw the Izetts during his later visits to Edinburgh, since his letter to Wilson of [May 1834] about the mending of his breach with William Blackwood says ‘Mrs Izet

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too will rejoice beyond measure’ (NLS, MS 4039, fols 35–36). Chalmers Izett is named as a member of the committee of Hogg’s friends that, after the poet’s death, met in Edinburgh on 21 December 1835 and organised a subscription appeal to make financial provision for Hogg’s widow and children—a printed subscription paper survives in National Archives of Scotland, GD224/795/2. An entry for Chalmers Izett at the Blacket Place address continued to appear in successive Edinburgh postal directories up to the volume for 1839– 40. He died on 17 April 1840 (see The Scotsman for 29 April 1840), and was buried in Greyfriars Churchyard in Edinburgh. The Izett gravestone records that his widow, Eliza Izett, died at Currie near Edinburgh on 16 October 1842. There is no record of her in the 1841 census returns for Currie or at the Blacket Place address in Edinburgh, so it is not clear whether she was simply visiting friends or had moved to Currie after the death of Chalmers Izett. Her epitaph records that ‘she endeared herself to all by her Christian love, and spent her life in the exercise of piety and charity united to a highly cultivated mind’. She and Chalmers Izett, the gravestone claims, ‘both sought in the happiness of others, the chief sources of their own’.

W I LLIAM L AI DLAW William Laidlaw was the eldest of the three sons of James Laidlaw, the farmer of Blackhouse in Yarrow, baptised on 28 November 1779 (Yarrow OPR). During Hogg’s ten-year service on the farm as a shepherd from 1790 the two became close friends. Laidlaw received a basic education at Peebles Grammar School before assisting his father on the farm, and introduced Hogg to the circulating library kept in Peebles by the local bookseller, Alexander Elder. Laidlaw was Hogg’s early literary confidante, and according to him ‘the only person who, for many years, ever pretended to discover the least merit in my essays, either in verse or prose’—see Memoir, p. 18. Laidlaw also shared Hogg’s fondness for athletic exercises. He became a member of the Selkirkshire Yeomanry, and was in attendance when the yeomanry mustered in 1799 to receive Scott as the newly-appointed Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire. By the summer of 1801 Laidlaw was helping to collect ballads for Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and as a result he drew Scott’s attention to Hogg. Laidlaw accompanied Hogg to Harris in the spring of 1804, and is described by him then as follows: ‘Mr William, with whom I had

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been intimately acquainted from his childhood, was bred to the occupation of a farmer in the country, where he likewise received his education. [...] He had good natural parts, which, he had, by reading, improved so far, as to have acquired a partial knowledge of most of the arts and sciences. He delighted in painting, poetry, and music; was of a thoughtful disposition, absent, overbearing, and impatient of controul. Easily convinced by a single well-timed remonstrance, but immoveable by the most passionate and lengthened arguments’—see ‘A Journey through the Highlands and Western Isles, in the Summer of 1804 [...]. Letter I’, Scots Magazine, 70 ( June 1808), 423–26 (p. 423). About 1803 Laidlaw had the charge of a farm at Liberton, near Edinburgh, and on 8 April 1810, during his time at Liberton, he married his maternal cousin, Janet Ballantyne, daughter of the farmer of Whitehope (Yarrow OPR). Soon afterwards he must have moved to farm at Traquair Knowe in Peeblesshire, for his daughter Elizabeth was born there on 14 October 1811. Three other children were born to the Laidlaws there subsequently, a daughter named Katharine on 1 April 1813, a son named James on 26 June 1815, and a daughter named Mary on 1 June 1816 (Traquair OPR). When Hogg published his song-collection The Forest Minstrel (1810) he included three songs by Laidlaw, ‘Lucy’s Flittin”, ‘Alake for the Lassie!’, and ‘Her Bonnie Black E’e’. Laidlaw was also one of the handful of people to whom Hogg sent a printed copy of his drama, The Hunting of Badlewe, in the summer of 1813, for comment and correction previous to its publication the following year. While Hogg was living in Edinburgh Laidlaw seems to have looked after his dog, Lion, the descendant of Sirrah and Hector, for him at Traquair. Before Hogg became the tenant of Altrive Lake at Whitsunday 1815 it seems probable that his aged father lived in a cottage on the farm of Craig-Douglas in Yarrow, tenanted by William Laidlaw’s father, Hogg’s old master, James Laidlaw. James Laidlaw died at his son’s farm of Traquair Knowe on 26 August 1816, the notice of his death in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 7 September 1816 describing him as ‘late tenant in Blackhouse’. The farm of Craig-Douglas in Yarrow was advertised as to let in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 27 February 1817 as ‘lately possessed by the deceased Mr James Laidlaw’. It seems likely that William Laidlaw was unable to farm without his father’s backing, since a similar advertisement in the same paper of 12 April 1817 also mentions the farm of Traquair Knowe as to let, ‘presently possessed by William Laidlaw’. In the spring of 1817 Scott invited Laidlaw to live at the farm-

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house of Kaeside on his Abbotsford estate, to act as his steward and give him literary assistance—see Scott, Letters, IV, 427–28. Hogg in his letter to Eliza Izett of 14 December 1817 gave it as his opinion that Laidlaw was happier there than he had been for many years ‘hustling amid debt and confusion’: he had ‘his house two cows and a pony all free’ and Scott expected to be able to pay him ‘for assistance in literature and farming at least £150 a year’. Hogg would see Laidlaw frequently, both on his own visits to Abbotsford and when Laidlaw visited relations in Yarrow. During a period of ill-health Scott dictated the end of The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), most of A Legend of Montrose (1819), and part of Ivanhoe (1820) to Laidlaw, and according to Lockhart (V, 284–85) he also gave Scott the idea for St Ronan’s Well (1824) by suggesting a novel might be written about ‘Melrose in July 1823’. Through Scott’s recommendation Laidlaw contributed a chronicle of recent events to the Edinburgh Annual Register, and also for a while to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. Four more children were born to William Laidlaw and his wife Janet Ballantyne at Kaeside, though there were also a number of deaths in their family. Their daughter Margaret Crammond Laidlaw, born on 1 May 1820, died in infancy—see Scott’s letter to his son Walter of 15 May 1821 (Scott, Letters, VI, 444). Another Margaret was born to the couple on 22 March 1822, but a subsequent daughter named Janet, born on 14 October 1823, died on 5 January 1824. Corson (p. 520) also notes the death of a son on 6 April 1826. William Laidlaw’s youngest daughter, Anne Ballantyne, was born a few months later on 11 June 1826. Laidlaw, according to Rogers (II, 313) ‘was an amateur physician, a student of botany and entomology, and a considerable geologist. He prepared a statistical account of Innerleithen, wrote a geological description of Selkirkshire, and contributed several articles to the “Edinburgh Encyclopedia”’. Rogers also mentions (II, 5) that he wrote a manuscript life of his friend, James Hogg. After Scott’s ruin in 1826 Laidlaw left Kaeside and seems to have lived with his relatives, the Ballantynes of Whitehope, in Yarrow, returning in 1830. After Scott’s death he became a factor in Ross-shire, firstly to Mrs Stewart Mackenzie of Seaforth and then to Sir Charles Lockhart Ross of Balnagowan. Hogg missed him greatly, and may never have seen him after his removal from the Borders. Laidlaw died at his brother’s house at Contin, near Dingwall, Rosshire, on 18 May 1845.

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AN D

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R OB E RT M‘T U RK

James M‘Turk was born in Tynron, Dumfriesshire on 6 December 1755 (Tynron OPR). He married Isobel Hunter, and held the farm of Stenhouse in the same parish, where his eldest son Robert (named after his own father) was born on 11 July 1793. His other children were Agnes (born in 1795), John (born in 1796), Thomas (born in 1798), Mary (born in 1800), Isobel (born in 1802), and Jean (born in 1804). Hogg presumably became acquainted with him when he leased the farm of Corfardin in the same parish from Whitsunday 1807. In Rev. Robert Wilson’s account of Tynron parish, dated February 1836, in The New Statistical Account of Scotland, 15 vols (Edinburgh and London, 1845), IV, 473–82 (p. 478) M‘Turk is mentioned as a notable agricultural improver at this time: ‘The improvements in fences, planting, and breaking up of waste land were carried on to a great extent from the year 1800 to 1812. About that period, the greatest improvers in this parish were the late Alexander Smith, Esq. of Landhall; the late James M‘Turk, Esq. of Stenhouse; and the late William Smith, Esq. of M‘Question’. Rogers (II, 12) relates that when Hogg had to give up Corfardin after the death of his flock in the winter of 1807–08, he went to live with M‘Turk at Stenhouse for three months. M‘Turk is mentioned as coming to the assistance of Douglas ‘with troops from Shinnel glens and Scaur’ in Hogg’s poem ‘Dumlanrig’. Hogg makes this subordinate chieftain to the Douglases fierce and brave, relating ‘M‘Turk stood deep in Southron gore, | And legions down before him bore’— see The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004), pp. 145, 147. M‘Turk was an important subscriber to the poem, and at the end of January 1813 when The Queen’s Wake was published Hogg invited his eldest son, Robert, to a celebratory dinner at John Grieve’s house in Edinburgh. James M‘Turk died on 4 December 1833, the parish register recording that he was ‘aged 78 years with Exception of 2 days’. Robert M‘Turk had married Janet Hastings, described as ‘only Daughter of James Hastings Esqr of Hastings Hall’ of Moniaive, on 23 April 1827 (Tynron OPR). His essay, ‘On the Extirpation of Ferns from Pasture Lands where the Plough cannot be used’ published in Prize-Essays and Transactions of the Highland Society of Scotland, n. s. 5 (1837), 371–76, was awarded a premium of seven guineas.

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J OH N M U RRAY John Murray was born in London in 1778, the son of a bookseller of the same name. His father died in 1793 and the business was managed until 1803 by his father’s assistant, Samuel Highley. Murray was the London agent for Archibald Constable, and as such published Marmion and the Edinburgh Review up to 1808. He was also therefore the London publisher for Hogg’s The Mountain Bard (1807) and The Shepherd’s Guide (1807). In March 1807 he married Anne Elliot in Edinburgh, the daughter of the bookseller Charles Elliot. Business relations with Constable were broken off temporarily between 1808 and 1810, and finally in 1813. Murray started the Quarterly Review in February 1809 with the support of Scott and Southey. His house and business premises at 50 Albemarle Street were acquired in May 1812, in which year he became the publisher of the first two cantos of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. During the summer of 1814 Hogg, dissatisfied with his Edinburgh publisher George Goldie, was looking for a new publisher for The Pilgrims of the Sun and got Byron to interest Murray in it. Hogg and Murray met in Edinburgh in the autumn of 1814 when Murray was there to fetch his wife and children home from a visit to their Scottish relations. On hearing Hogg read part of his new poem aloud Murray offered Hogg £500 for the copyright, but Hogg preferred to sell only the right to a single edition. When printed copies were shipped to London in mid-December, however, Murray withdrew his name from the title-page, appearing in those copies as a mere agent for William Blackwood. Together with William Blackwood Murray published the fourth edition of The Queen’s Wake (1815), and Mador of the Moor (1816). His personal relations with Hogg were friendly and he invited him to London to meet Scott and Byron, and regularly sent him copies of his own publications. He was active in promoting the subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake, and (although considering withdrawing his name from it as publisher) was Blackwood’s London partner in the publication of The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales (1818). The sixth edition of The Queen’s Wake appears to have been his own idea, initially. Hogg met Murray at Abbotsford in the autumn of 1818. Murray had bought a half-share in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in August 1818 but quickly became alarmed by its personalities and his name appeared on it for the last time in January 1819. He reclaimed his investment from Blackwood at the end of 1819, and transferred his Scottish agency to the firm of Oliver and Boyd. Blackwood took the firm of Cadell and Davies as his London partner, but Hogg was

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reluctant to lose Murray as the London publisher of his own works. But Murray was less attentive to Hogg thereafter and the misunderstandings that occurred over the delayed settlement of accounts for Hogg’s most recent publications seem to have been exacerbated by his failure to answer Hogg’s letters—see Peter Garside, ‘James Hogg’s Fifty Pounds’, SHW, 1 (1990), 128–32. Friendly relations between Hogg and Murray were resumed during Hogg’s London visit in 1832, however. Hogg was on good terms with John Gibson Lockhart, then editor of Murray’s Quarterly Review, and also seems to have got on well with Murray’s eldest son John (1808–1892), who assisted his father in running the family business. After the failure of James Cochrane, publisher of Hogg’s Altrive Tales, Murray projected another illustrated subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake to ease Hogg’s financial difficulties, though this was unpublished at the time of Hogg’s death in November 1835— see Meiko O’Halloran, ‘Hogg, Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Illustrations to The Queen’s Wake’, in The Queen’s Wake, ed. by Douglas S. Mack (S/SC, 2004), lxxxvii–cxiii (pp. c–civ). Murray himself died in 1843.

M ARGARET P H I LLI P S Margaret Phillips was born in 1789, the youngest of the six surviving children of Peter Phillips, a prosperous Dumfriesshire farmer, and his wife Janet Carruthers. Her elder siblings, Mary, Walter, Peter, and Janet were all born between 1773 and 1779 (Mouswald and Ruthwell OPRs), making her the youngest of the family by about ten years. Margaret’s eldest sister, Mary, had married James Gray while he was Rector of the High School in Dumfries, and moved with him to Edinburgh in 1801. Although Mary Gray died in November 1806 and Gray married Mary Peacock in October 1808 he remained on close terms with his first wife’s family, and as a young woman Margaret Phillips frequently visited the Grays in Edinburgh. Soon after his own removal to Edinburgh in February 1810 Hogg seems to have met Margaret Phillips at Gray’s house at 4, Buccleuch Place. She is alluded to in no. 13 of Hogg’s essay-periodical The Spy, dated 24 November 1810—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/ SC, 2000), pp. 562, 130, 589. Hogg’s first flirtatious letter to her, dated 27 July 1811, was clearly written after her return from a recent visit to the Grays in Edinburgh. At this time she was living with her brother Walter at Longbridge-moor, acting as his housekeeper

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before his marriage to Christian Duncan, sister to Rev. Henry Duncan of Ruthwell, after which she probably returned again to her father’s house at Mouswald Place, near Dumfries. Hogg and Margaret Phillips saw each other during her visits to Edinburgh over the next few years, but Hogg’s uncertain finances and lack of a settled home were probably a barrier to any serious courtship leading to marriage. However, Hogg was granted the small farm of Altrive for his lifetime by the Duke of Buccleuch early in 1815, and by the end of 1818 had finished putting up a comfortable stone-built cottage there. During the spring and summer of 1819 Margaret Phillips was clearly in Edinburgh again, and Hogg seems to have proposed marriage shortly before her return to Dumfriesshire in July. She was clearly favourably disposed towards him but wanted to consult her father before finally resolving upon the marriage. Hogg visited her family in Dumfriesshire in September (see his letter to Peter Phillips of 3 August 1820, in NLS, MS 2245, fols 40–41), and on his return home wrote to inform her about his two illegitimate daughters, Katie and Betsy. The marriage was finally resolved upon in March 1820, when Hogg requested Margaret’s signature to a notice of the banns for a wedding to take place at the end of the following month—see Hogg’s letter of 14 March 1820 (SUL, MS 25 Box 4, Item 13). Margaret Phillips and James Hogg were married at Mouswald Place on 28 April 1820.

T HOMAS P RI NG LE Thomas Pringle was born on 5 January 1789 at Blaiklaw farm in Teviotdale, which had been tenanted by several generations of his family. An accident in infancy meant that he was lame and had to use crutches for the rest of his life. He was educated at Kelso Grammar School and went to the University of Edinburgh in 1805, where he shared lodgings with Robert Story, later the minister of Roseneath and the inspiration for James Gray’s poem A Sabbath Among the Mountains (1823)—see Robert Herbert Story, Memoir of the Life of the Rev. Robert Story (London, 1862), p. 63. In 1808 Pringle became a copying-clerk at the General Register House in Edinburgh, and later published an anonymous poem called The Institute (1811) which gives a mock-heroic insider’s account of the founding of the Edinburgh Institution. This provided instruction for those who could not attend Edinburgh University, notably tradesmen and clerks and women, and seems to have had links with the Forum debating soci-

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ety—see Gillian Hughes, ‘James Hogg and the Forum’, SHW, 1 (1990), 57–70 (p. 58). It seems probable that Hogg made Pringle’s acquaintance at about this time. Like Hogg, Pringle became a contributor to Alexander Campbell’s song-collection Albyn’s Anthology in 1816. An unfinished poem addressed to Pringle’s friend Story on the subject of one of their country excursions together was finished at Hogg’s suggestion, given to him as a contribution towards the projected ‘Poetical Repository’ in 1814, and afterwards included as an imitation of Scott entitled ‘Epistle to Mr R— S * * * *’ in The Poetic Mirror of 1816—see Story, pp. 33–34. It was subsequently included by Pringle, with Hogg’s agreement, in his The Autumnal Excursion, or Sketches in Teviotdale with Other Poems (Edinburgh, 1819)—see the prefatory leaf to that volume. Pringle had previously invited his friend Robert Story to contribute to the ‘Poetical Repository’. Pringle and Hogg planned to begin a new monthly magazine in Edinburgh. Hogg subsequently related, ‘Pringle, at my suggestion, made out a plan in writing, with a list of his supporters, and sent it in a letter to me. I inclosed it in another, and sent it to Mr. Blackwood; and not long after that period Pringle and he came to an agreement about commencing the work, while I was in the country’—see Memoir, p. 43. James Cleghorn was appointed joint editor at Pringle’s own instigation, however. The magazine was begun in April 1817 and was not the innovative one Blackwood had expected, but this was hardly the editors’ fault since the articles of agreement between himself and Pringle and Cleghorn show that he allowed only ten pounds payment for copy for each monthly issue. The articles also included a provision whereby if either party withdrew from the concern they should give three months’ notice and that neither would be ‘at liberty to continue the work, or any other under the same title for three years’ (NLS, MS 4002, fols 69–70). On the strength of this appointment Pringle resigned his job at the Register House to become a full-time literary man. On 19 July 1817 he married Margaret Brown. After a number of disputes during the summer of 1817, which Hogg vainly tried to mediate, Pringle and Cleghorn gave Blackwood the stipulated notice of withdrawal on 1 September 1817 (NLS, MS 4002, fols 82–83). They then became editors of a new series of Constable’s Scots Magazine, relaunched under the title of the Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany. At the same time Pringle seems also to have undertaken the editorship of the Edinburgh Star newspaper, but finding it impossible to make a living by literature he returned to his old position at Register House in 1819. In February 1820 Pringle left Scotland with a group of his own

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and his wife’s relations for South Africa, where they formed the colony of Glen-Lynden along the upper part of the Baavians river. Pringle himself left the settlement at the end of 1821 for the Cape, where he was appointed the librarian of the government library and also ran a school. He lived there for three years, and produced a short-lived magazine entitled the South African Journal (1824) and a newspaper called the South African Commercial Advertiser. Pringle’s journalism however was not acceptable to the colonial government, and he left South Africa, arriving in London in July 1826. In London Pringle was appointed Secretary to the Anti-Slavery Society, a post which he held until the abolition of slavery in June 1834, shortly before his death. In 1827 he undertook the editorship of the Annual Friendship’s Offering, when it was acquired by the publishers Smith, Elder and Co. Hogg contributed several pieces at his invitation to the issues for 1829 and 1830, but Pringle’s superfine notions of the delicacy of his readership were unduly restrictive to Hogg. Hogg seems to have met Pringle frequently during his stay in London in the early months of 1832, and in his letter to Hogg of 29 January [1832] (NLS, MS 2245, fols 183–84) Pringle announced that he was to meet with others of Hogg’s literary friends ‘to hold a council as to what can be done (with delicacy and propriety) to save our country from farther disgrace in your case’, or in other words to discuss the means of making a financial provision for Hogg’s widow and children after his decease. Pringle was also one of the literary friends Hogg intended to take charge of the production of subsequent volumes of his Altrive Tales after his return to Scotland—see Altrive Tales, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2003), p. xxv. Pringle died on 5 December 1834.

W I LLIAM R OSCOE William Roscoe was born on 8 March 1753 in a country suburb of Liverpool where his father had a large market-garden. He left school and began to work for his father at the age of twelve, learning French, Latin, and Italian from a young Liverpool schoolmaster named Francis Holden. Roscoe was articled to a local solicitor in 1769 and became an attorney in 1774, afterwards becoming a banker. He married Jane Griffies, the daughter of a Liverpool tradesman, in 1781 and the couple had seven sons and three daughters. At about the time of his marriage Roscoe became a collector of rare books and of Italian art. In 1782 he met the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli in London. His early poetry included Mount Pleasant, a Descriptive Poem

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(1777) and The Wrongs of Africa (1787), both of which opposed the evils of slavery. In 1796 Roscoe published a life of Lorenzo de Medici, which gave him a European reputation. In 1799 he bought the mansion of Allerton Hall near Liverpool, the gardens of which encouraged his study of botany. He was the founder of many Liverpool cultural institutions, including the Liverpool Botanic Gardens. The Life and Pontificate of Leo X was published in 1805. When he was elected M. P. for Liverpool in October 1806 he spoke in favour of the abolition of the Slave Trade, and he also supported parliamentary reform and the granting of full political rights to Catholics and Dissenters. His best-known poem, for children, is The Butterfly’s Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast. Hogg was eager to gain Roscoe’s support in publicising The Queen’s Wake (1813) in England, and approached him through both Bernard Barton and Alexander Dirom, before opening a direct correspondence. Hogg invited Roscoe to contribute to his projected ‘Poetical Repository’, and also consulted Roscoe about the possibility of staging The Hunting of Badlewe before its 1814 publication. In 1816, following the collapse of his banking business, Roscoe was forced to sell his collection of books, paintings, and manuscripts. He died of influenza on 30 June 1831. (This note is indebted to the ‘William Roscoe 250th Anniversary Exhibition’, held at Liverpool Central Library from April to July 2003.)

W ALTE R S COTT Walter Scott, an Edinburgh lawyer’s son with good social and literary connections, was born in August 1771 and brought up and educated in Edinburgh itself, though with intervals spent in the Borders with his grandfather’s family. In December 1799 he was appointed Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire and at much the same time began to collect traditional ballads in the Scottish Borders. These activities drew him into the orbit of the Laidlaw family at Blackhouse, and through William Laidlaw he made the acquaintance of James Hogg. The date of Hogg’s first meeting with Scott is not easily fixed. Hogg himself in his account of this life-changing event thought it was in 1801, though his date is inconsistent with a remark that the first two volumes of Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border were then published, since these came out only in February 1802—see Memoir, pp. 60, 248. The date may never be precisely established, but sometime during the summer of 1802 appears likely. In the second instalment of ‘A Journey through the Highlands of Scotland, in the Months of

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July and August 1802’ Hogg mentions calling on Scott in Edinburgh towards the end of July at the outset of his journey and that Scott persuaded him not to abandon it—see Scots Magazine, 64 (December 1802), 956–63 (p. 961). It is possible that Hogg’s account in his Memoir is not of his first meeting with Scott, which may well have taken place in Edinburgh, but of his first significant encounter with Scott on his own home-ground. Scott promoted the publication of Hogg’s accounts of his Highland Journeys in the Scots Magazine, and Hogg became an important contributor of ballads to the third volume of Scott’s collection. He was inspired by the modern ballad imitations it contained to write his own, later published in The Mountain Bard in 1807, a publication which Scott warmly supported. Over the next few years, as Hogg lost money on farming speculations in the Highlands and in Dumfriesshire and spent part of his time as a hired shepherd and part of it unemployed, Scott achieved international fame as a poet with his narratives of The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), Marmion (1808), and The Lady of the Lake (1810). Hogg knew Scott’s poems, admired them greatly, and reacted to them in various ways in his own poems of The Queen’s Wake (1813), The Pilgrims of the Sun (1815), and Mador of the Moor (1816). Scott was generous with his time, influence, and money on Hogg’s behalf during these years, a kind friend and respected literary advisor. Yet differences of class and education were always felt on both sides. Hogg’s eccentricity and lack of conventional social graces meant that he was not always a welcome member of Scott’s aspirational social circle. Furthermore his emotional dependence on Scott made him angry and resentful whenever he felt Scott undervalued him either socially or as a poet, and there was a quarrel in the autumn of 1814 of which Hogg recorded, ‘I could not even endure to see him at a distance, I felt so degraded [...]; and I was, at that time, more disgusted with all mankind than I had ever been before, or have ever been since’. The wound was healed in February 1815 when Hogg heard of Scott’s affectionate behaviour during his recent illness: Scott had enquired of a mutual friend every day about Hogg’s health and had offered to pay his medical expenses—see Memoir, pp. 40, 48. Scott’s friendship made Hogg known to the family of the Duke of Buccleuch, head of the Border Scott clan, and in 1815 the Duke granted Hogg the small farm of Altrive in Yarrow rent-free during his life-time. Hogg’s settlement in Yarrow made him a country neighbour of Scott at Abbotsford near Melrose as well as of the Buccleuch family at Bowhill near Selkirk, and the near-feudal relations between the parties were aptly summarised in a Yarrow-Selkirk parish foot-

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ball match held in December 1815 under the Duke’s auspices, which both poets attended and for which both wrote celebratory songs. The publication of Scott’s novel Waverley in 1814 marked the start of his international fame as the father of the historical novel, and Hogg’s own prose fiction relates to the Waverley Novels in various ways, The Brownie of Bodsbeck sharing concerns with The Tale of Old Mortality, for instance, and The Three Perils of Man with Ivanhoe. His interest in ballad-collecting made Scott a natural person for Hogg to consult about his major song-collection, The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. Scott had married Charlotte Charpentier as early as 1797, and by 1805 had four children, whereas Hogg remained a bachelor until April 1820. Hogg himself felt that the marriage of his friend, John Gibson Lockhart to Scott’s daughter, Sophia, at about the same time as his own marriage created something of a family connection in his later years—see Memoir, p. 75. Hogg encountered Scott less pleasantly when Scott exercised his legal responsibilities in Selkirkshire— see John Chisholm, Sir Walter Scott as a Judge (Edinburgh, 1918), pp. 100, 204–14, and Scott, Letters, XI, 338. In 1817 Hogg had been distressed at witnessing one of Scott’s attacks of stomach cramp, and he was equally moved by the spectacle of Scott’s prolonged and humiliating final decline in the early 1830s. Scott’s death in September 1832 ended an important friendship of over thirty years. Hogg’s own moving and amusing account is given in Anecdotes of Scott, ed. by Jill Rubenstein (S/SC, 1999).

R OB E RT S OUTH EY Robert Southey was born at Bristol on 12 August 1774, the son of a linen-draper. He was educated at Westminster School, and at Balliol College, Oxford. He married Edith Fricker on 14 November 1795, and as Coleridge (whom Southey had met in June 1794) married her sister Sara, the two were brothers-in-law. Together they planned to emigrate to America to found a pantisocratic colony. In 1803 Southey moved to Greta Hall in Keswick, with Coleridge and his family living under the same roof. Coleridge had, however, effectively left his family by 1809 and Southey as poet, historian, and periodical writer supported both households. He published a series of narrative poems—Thalaba (1801), Madoc (1805), The Curse of Kehema (1810), and Roderick, The Last of the Goths (1814). He was a prominent contributor to the Quarterly Review from its inception, and an article there became the basis of his Life of Nelson (1813). Southey was also a friend of Scott’s, who had promoted the publication of

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The Curse of Kehema by Constable, and enlisted his help with the Edinburgh Annual Register in 1809—see Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, 2 vols (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970), I, 283–84, 309–10. It was through Scott’s interest that Southey was appointed Poet Laureate in 1813. Hogg gives an account of his first and only meeting with Southey during his visit to the Lake District in September 1814 (Memoir, pp. 65–66), but the two had corresponded previously and Southey had contributed a poem, ‘To Mary’, to no. 21 of The Spy, dated 19 January 1811—see The Spy, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2000), pp. 220–21, 600. Hogg’s visit was partly designed as an attempt to enlist Southey among the contributors to his proposed ‘Poetical Repository’ and he was given a poem, probably ‘A True Ballad of St Antidius, the Pope, and the Devil’ (Memoir, p. 252). He recorded that ‘the whole of Southey’s conversation and economy, both at home and afield, left an impression of veneration on my mind, which no future contingency shall ever either extinguish or injure’ (p. 66). In 1835 Southey received a government pension of £300 a-year from Sir Robert Peel. His wife became insane and died in November 1837, and he married Caroline Bowles in June 1839. Southey died on 21 March 1843.

R OB E RT S U RTE E S Robert Surtees was born in 1779, the only child of Robert Surtees of Mainsforth. He was educated at Oxford and studied law at the Middle Temple but settled on the family estate after his father died in July 1802. He married Anne Robinson on 23 June 1807. Surtees was a friend of Scott’s, sharing his antiquarian interests, and with his letter of 21 February 1807 (Scott, Letters, I, 356) Scott sent him a copy of Hogg’s The Mountain Bard (1807), ‘a small volume of ancient modern ballads and traditions, composed by one of our shepherds [...]. You will, I think, be pleased both with the prose and verse of this little publication’. With his reply of 28 February Surtees sent Scott £5 for Hogg, and subsequently also received a copy of The Shepherd’s Guide (1807). Hogg sent Surtees an autograph copy of ‘Prince Owen and the Wizard’ in his letter of 18 March 1807. When a two-guinea subscription edition of The Queen’s Wake was advertised in 1817 Surtees became a subscriber. The printed catalogue of the sale of Surtees’s library at Mainsforth in January 1837 (British Library, 1570/499) indicates that he owned many of Hogg’s subsequent publications, including even the relatively obscure The

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Hunting of Badlewe of 1814 and the anonymous Poetic Mirror. His own History of Durham was published in four volumes in 1816, 1820, 1823, and (posthumously) in 1840. Surtees and his friend James Raine were in Scotland in the summer of 1819 and met Hogg in Edinburgh, where they discussed legendary lore with him and drew up a map of Northumberland and of various castles at his request and very likely for his use in writing The Three Perils of Man. After his return home Surtees sent Hogg a copy of the first volume of his History of Durham, and also some English Jacobite material for Hogg’s collection of The Jacobite Relics of Scotland (1819 and 1821). This included ‘Lord Derwentwater’s Good-night’ and ‘The Sun Rises Bright in France’—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. Second Series, ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2003), pp. 487, 355. Hogg seems to have been on friendly terms at this time with a young relative of Surtees named Ralph Sherwood, a student at the University of Edinburgh. Surtees died at Mainsforth on 11 February 1834, and the Surtees Society was founded in May in his memory. For further information see George Taylor, A Memoir of Robert Surtees, Esq., ed. by James Raine, Surtees Society, 24 (Durham, 1852), from which information in this note largely derives.

G EORG E T HOM SON George Thomson was born at Limekilns in Fife on 4 March 1757, the son of a schoolmaster. He was apprenticed to the law in Edinburgh, and in 1780 became a junior clerk for the Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Manufactures in Scotland. He was soon promoted to Principal Clerk, a position he held until his retirement in 1839. In 1781 he married a Miss Miller, and had two sons and six daughters, one of whom, Georgina, married George Hogarth, the musical critic, in June 1814. Hogarth was on friendly terms with many of Edinburgh’s literary men, including Scott and Lockhart, and his sister Christian married James Ballantyne in February 1816. Thomson was an enthusiastic amateur musician, who played the violin. He was a director of the first Edinburgh music festival in 1815, and a collector of Scottish songs. Robert Burns had contributed over a hundred songs to the earlier volumes of his Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs (1793–1818), and Thomson was later much criticised by Burns’s biographers for the fact that in July 1796 as he was dying, Burns was obliged to appeal to Thomson for a loan of £5 to pay a debt. Thomson subsequently published a three-volume collection of Welsh songs (1809–1814), a two-volume collection of

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Irish songs (1814–1816), and a smaller, octavo, edition of Scottish songs in 1822. The settings for the songs in Thomson’s collections included introductory and concluding passages and accompaniments provided by composers such as Haydn, Beethoven, Weber, Hummel, and Bishop. Burns was an important role-model for Hogg and (during his Edinburgh years in particular) Hogg sought out surviving traces of the older poet and became acquainted with his surviving family and friends. It is not clear exactly when Hogg became acquainted with Thomson, but they were working together for public occasions early in 1815. At an anniversary dinner to mark Burns’s birthday of 25 January 1815 at Oman’s Hotel, for instance, Hogg brewed punch in Burns’s bowl and sang a song in his honour, and Thomson was elected an office-bearer for the next meeting—see Edinburgh Evening Courant of 28 and 30 January 1815. Hogg was first invited to contribute Scottish songs for Thomson’s collection in the autumn of 1815. Both Hogg and Thomson seem to have been conscious in their correspondence of Thomson’s earlier relations with Burns, Hogg making it clear that he was delighted to succeed Burns and Thomson carefully acknowledging his work with several handsome gifts. ‘Mischievous Woman’, ‘The Highland Watch’, and ‘Where Got Ye that Siller Moon’ were published in the fifth volume of Thomson’s collection in 1818, and ‘The Lament of Flora Macdonald’, ‘The Three Men of Moriston’, and ‘Pull Away Jolly Boys’ in the third and fourth volumes of his octavo edition of 1822. In October 1817 David Stewart of Garth had approached Thomson on behalf of the Highland Society of London to commission a collection of Jacobite song, and Thomson passed the request on to Hogg who, as a result, produced the two volumes of his Jacobite Relics of Scotland in 1819 and 1821—see The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. [First Series], ed. by Murray G. H. Pittock (S/SC, 2002), pp. xix–xx. Thomson lived in London between 1840 and 1845, but then returned to Edinburgh and died at Leith on 18 February 1851.

J OH N C LARKE W H ITFE LD John Clarke was born in Gloucester on 13 December 1770, and took the name of his mother’s family, Whitfeld, by letters patent in 1814. He held various posts as organist and choir-master and was appointed a professor of music at Cambridge in 1821, a position he held until his death, although he was non-resident and inactive. The entry for him in the second edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and

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Musicians records that only one candidate presented himself for a music degree during Whitfeld’s entire tenure of the post. Whitfeld set many of Scott’s verses to music and also others by Byron, Moore, and Joanna Baillie. His Twelve Vocal Pieces was published by subscription in 1816, and to this Hogg contributed ‘The Lark’ and ‘Naething to Fear Ye’. Hogg was not paid for his lyrics, and reprinted them with other music both in A Border Garland (Edinburgh, [1819]), and in The Border Garland (Edinburgh, c. 1828), this last edition being published by the music-seller Robert Purdie. In 1830, however, there was a copyright dispute and Hogg was startled to find that he had unintentionally conveyed the copyright of ‘The Lark’ to Whitfeld—see his letter to Purdie of 9 June 1830 (NLS, Acc. 3196). Whitfeld was organist and choir-master of Hereford Cathedral from 1820 until 1833, when he was unable to fulfil his duties through paralysis. His oratorios The Crucifixion (1822) and The Resurrection (1825) were produced for the Three Choirs Festival. He died near Hereford on 22 February 1836.

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Note on the Texts James Hogg is one of Scotland’s great letter-writers, by turns witty, outrageous, descriptive, flattering, abusive, opinionated, comical, and tender, but always memorable. While it is therefore appropriate that his letters should appear with his other major literary achievements as part of the first complete and scholarly edition of his works, the Stirling/ South Carolina Research Edition of the Collected Works of James Hogg (S/SC Edition), they are not quite like his other works. Most of the works in the S/SC Edition were written specifically for publication, but letters are a more personal and private form of communication and in some respects require slightly different treatment. A letter is not normally composed or prepared by its author for the eye of the printer. There are, of course, exceptions and qualifications to this statement. Alexander Pope famously requested the return of his personal letters in order to revise and correct them for publication, and many more writers less overtly considered the future appearance of their private communications in the public forum of print. Letters are most obviously written communications to an absent person, but the word also indicates literature itself and letters are of course associated with publications. Richardson’s novels (and those of a host of successors and imitators) take the form of a series of fictional private letters written and exchanged by his main characters. Successive editions of the historical letters of Madame de Sevigné to her daughter were among the best-loved books of the eighteenth century, widely valued for their wit and charm and for their detailed portrait of aristocratic French life during the reign of Louis XIV. The letters of Saint Paul were addressed to a body of fellow-believers, partly as religious and doctrinal instruction as well as private and particular encouragement. Letters addressed formally to the editor of a newspaper are primarily intended for public dissemination. The intended audience for a letter can vary, and some are meant to be preserved while others were written only for a temporary purpose. Hogg’s own intentions as a letter-writer are similarly dependent on circumstance. Many of his shorter fictions and his pieces of travelwriting and natural history, for example, take the form of letters. At the start of his career his Highland Journey of 1802 and his 1807 ‘Memoir of the Life of James Hogg’ both take the form of letters to Walter Scott. A humorous article written as a contribution to

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Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine more than twenty years later is entitled ‘A Letter about Men and Women’. These are naturally interpreted not as personal letters but as literary works and will appear in the S/SC Edition in volumes devoted to Highland Journeys, The Mountain Bard, and Contributions to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine respectively. Other documents are just as obviously personal and private communications to individuals. Hogg’s apprehension of a potential invasion of privacy when one of Eliza Izett’s letters to him miscarried is plain enough when he wrote to her on 17 March [1816], ‘I know there will be nothing in it that we need care much about the world knowing, yet I am sorry for it’. Between these extremes of public and private, however, is a sliding scale of readership. Hogg describes his letter of 1 June 1816 to Anne Bald, for example, as both a personal communication to a friend and a literary curiosity, an object of domestic display to those friends and visitors who entered her drawing-room: I promised when I parted with your husband to write to him from the Highlands and I promised to you some years ago to give you a specimen of my best hand of writ. Now as a poet is never expected to fulfil above one half of what he promises it has come into my head to day to write to you and thus “fell twa dogs wi’ ae bane.” Hogg’s letter to the editor of The Scotsman of 17 May [1818] is similarly hard to classify. Is this a private letter thanking an individual journalist for a favourable review of The Brownie of Bodsbeck: And Other Tales or was it intended as a sequel to the review, designed and offered for publication in the pages of that newspaper, a counter in the public Whig and Tory dispute over the respect due to the celebrated Ettrick Shepherd? Hogg’s letters to editors, in particular, are often an inseparable mix of the public and private. His letter to George Thomson of 29 November [1817], for instance, contains a private hint as to Hogg’s authorship of the libellous ‘Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript’ but also a literary manuscript of ‘The Highland Watch’ offered for publication in Thomson’s Scottish song collection (though presumably without the Chaldean signature of ‘Quoth the Great Wild Boar/ from the Forest of Lebanon’). A subsequent letter of [22 December 1817] is centred on a corrected proof of this song but asks Thomson ‘for the sake of my future happiness’ to keep his authorship of the ‘Chaldee Manuscript’ a profound secret and enquires if he has news from Colonel David Stewart of a payment to Hogg for Jacobite Relics from the Highland

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Society of London. The separation of public and private here would mean dismemberment. The draft of Hogg’s letter to Timothy Tickler of 3 August 1818 is addressed to a fictional character on the subject of a public attack, but nevertheless its tone is highly personal and private. In compiling the present edition, therefore, the definition of a letter has been made an inclusive one, and some individual letters that have been included undoubtedly seep and ooze their way into the other category of literary works. Only by such a broadly inclusive approach can the full range and context of Hogg’s letterwriting practices be adequately represented. Every surviving Hogg letter located and identified to date and known to the present editor will be included in this edition. There has been no attempt at selection on grounds of literary merit or historical interest since what is irrelevant to one reader may be of vital importance to another. Hogg’s letters may be variously interesting to the social historian, the student of the book, the literary critic, the biographer, or simply for entertainment. They are arranged in purely chronological order and divided into convenient sections by year. The main disadvantage of this simple arrangement is that it disperses the natural and often illuminating grouping of letters by addressee, disturbing the reader’s grasp of the development of a particular relationship, and leading to repetition of information about Hogg’s correspondent in the annotation to each letter in the group. Information about Hogg’s correspondents is given in the annotation to individual letters where there is only a single letter to that correspondent in the present volume. But where he wrote more frequently an appendix of Notes on Correspondents attempts to compensate for these problems by providing, whenever possible, basic biographical information about the recipients of Hogg’s letters within a brief contextualising summary of the relationship. The present volume is intended as the first of three, with a gap of approximately two years between the publication of each successive volume. It seems likely that, despite every effort, there are surviving Hogg letters that have not yet been located and that publication of the first volume may bring some of them to light. Any letters belonging to the chronological sequence of the first volume located subsequent to its publication will be included in an appendix to the third, and the present editor will be delighted to hear of any fresh Hogg letters. The chief disadvantage of publication by instalments is that a comprehensive index will only be possible with the publication of the third volume, and that if an interim index were to be included in the other volumes this would quickly become redun-

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dant. Such an interim index has, however, been prepared and is available electronically through the James Hogg Society. The text of each letter has been followed precisely, including the spelling and punctuation. Even obvious slips have not been corrected, although sometimes the reason why Hogg has made an error has been noted within parentheses: for instance, where Hogg in turning his paper over has repeated the last word on one page at the start of the next the text reads ‘you [eop] you’. In such places eop signifies the end of a page and eol the end of a line in Hogg’s letter. Hogg’s orthography is on occasion archaic or idiosyncratic, but nevertheless ‘[sic]’ has been used sparingly in order to avoid distracting the reader. It is generally employed only where Hogg has made an unusual, uncharacteristic, or unexpected error in writing, or omitting to write, a word or phrase. For instance, in his letter to William Blackwood of 24 September 1817 he uses the phrase ‘double-column priting’ of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine where clearly he intended to write ‘double-column printing’ and in such cases ‘[sic]’ provides a useful way of informing the reader that the phrase as it stands in the present edition is what Hogg actually wrote. Occasionally letters have been torn, there is a hole in the paper where the seal has been, or some words at the start or end of a line are concealed because the letter is now mounted or framed. While in many cases the complete reading of the passage appears to be obvious, in others a variety of possibilities exists for the reader and the editor is reluctant to appear to authorise one of them. Such lacunae have therefore themselves been recorded in the present edition by the use of a word such as TEAR or MOUNT given in square brackets in the appropriate position, and the reader is left to determine for herself what the missing word or words might have been. (This also serves the useful purpose of reminding the reader of the original physical object.) Where Hogg underlines a word or phrase italic type has been used. In general Hogg’s deletions and additions have not been noted and the text printed represents the final version of the letter. An exception has been made in the case of letters which now exist only in the form of a draft, where the deletions may be substantial and give a significant insight into Hogg’s thoughts and intentions towards his correspondent. The deletions (and the very existence of a draft letter) also qualify Hogg’s often-repeated statement to his correspondents that he never reads over a letter once he has written it. In such cases the deletions are included in the present edition as and when appropriate but are clearly marked as such. In those cases where Hogg has written a word or phrase and then inserted second

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thoughts above the line but without deleting the original reading this is recorded in the annotation. Occasional directions to the recipient of a letter such as ‘see next page’, which no longer relate to its physical appearance in the present edition have been retained, for they remind the reader of the original physical object and sometimes give an insight into Hogg’s working methods, suggesting perhaps that he wrote out the words of a song first and then used the space before and after it to compose the accompanying letter. Paper was expensive and Hogg is often acutely aware of the paper on which he is writing as a factor in the shaping and extent of what he writes and then dispatches. In one of his earliest letters to William Laidlaw of [?1800], for instance, he states, ‘Because of my scarcity of paper I held you with half a sheet this time, which I now begin to repent as I have ran my self out at the very first’. The bottom of the first page of his first surviving letter to Eliza Izett of 23 July 1808 marks a shift between the flattering, jocular Sternean riff with which it opens and the more down-to-earth friendly enquiries about health and friends that follow overleaf. The cost and relative scarcity of paper is sometimes an implied reason for sending rather than rewriting a letter that might be considered inappropriate by the recipient. Writing to Scott on 17 March 1806, for instance, Hogg concludes, ‘There now my sheet is done and I am not well begun and what I have written is a mere hotch-potch Lord help your poor Shepherd’. Hogg’s marked awareness of his letters as physical objects seems to justify the retention of every surviving reminder of the paper on which he wrote. The question of emendation has been problematic. In the case of private letters the argument that a text is the result of a process of social co-operative work preparing the author’s manuscript for its public appearance in print is largely irrelevant. Hogg’s slips and errors are often revealing of his thoughts, intentions, or simply of the haste in which he was writing and form a legitimate part of the text of a manuscript letter. It is much more tempting to emend the text of a letter where the original does not appear to have survived and the present text is based on a copy or a printed version, but the temptation has been resisted. It seems obvious enough, for example, that where the typescript of Hogg’s letter to William Laidlaw of 9 January 1801 says ‘We then supposeth’ and ‘If you can get my word’ Hogg intended to write ‘He then supposeth’ and ‘If you can get any word’, but Hogg makes similar slips often enough in his letters to make it by no means certain that the copyist rather than the author was responsible for these errors. In such cases the aim has

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been to provide an accurate transcript of the copy rather than to try to reconstruct Hogg’s lost original. Although Hogg’s division of his letters into paragraphs has been retained their appearance and layout has been partially standardised. The start of each letter is signalled by a line of bold type, with the name of the addressee to the left and the date to the right: where a letter is not fully dated conjectures are given in square brackets and if the reason for the conjecture is not a postmark or an obvious allusion discussed in the annotation then a note following the letter headed ‘date’ briefly discusses the reason why a particular conjecture has been made. If no firm date can be assigned then the date is normally given as falling between two possible limits, and the letter itself placed at an apppropriate point in the sequence for the reader. Addresses and dates appear fairly randomly placed at the start of Hogg’s letters, and it is often difficult to determine whether he has intended to centre them or to have this line conclude at the righthand side of his paper. Similarly with his signature and preceding expressions of affection or respect. In the present edition the date and address line is on the right, and Hogg’s signature is centred. Postscripts are given below the signature, even when these were crammed into a vacant space elsewhere on Hogg’s paper, and in the body of the letter Hogg’s words are given in the sequence in which they were clearly meant to be read, whether or not Hogg utilised margins and spaces surrounding the address panel of the folded paper in order to complete his letter without beginning a new sheet of paper. It is also often difficult to decide on the placement of stops following superior letters: sometimes they seem to be underneath the superior letters, sometimes after them at the same height and sometimes level with the line of writing in which they occur, or at various points inbetween. These have uniformly been placed after and in line with the preceding superior letters in the present edition. Several lines of archival information follow the text of the letter in smaller type, giving details of the address, postmark, any endorsement, the watermark, and the present location of the original letter or the copy on which the entry is based. Occasionally the location for a transcript of a Hogg letter is given as the Hogg Letters Project Papers at the University of Stirling. During the years which have passed since the inception of the project the location of some of the original letters has changed and their present whereabouts is unknown. In these cases it has seemed best to give an old transcript as the source rather than to omit the text of the letter altogether. The present editor will be glad to hear of the present location of any

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such letters. The existence of previously printed versions is also noted in this archival information, where possible. In general the successive volumes of the S/SC Edition maintain a clean text page, and explanatory notes are provided at the back of book. The reader thus experiences Hogg’s published work in a way that is as close as possible to the experience of his original readership and is not distracted or distanced from Hogg’s words by the sometimes cumbersome apparatus of a scholarly edition unless she chooses to use them. This works well for Hogg’s public literary output, where many assumptions and pieces of information were shared by most of his contemporary audience. A private letter, however, often contains allusions specific to the writer and recipient alone or to ephemeral matters and is much less comprehensible to the modern reader, who will consequently be obliged to resort to the annotation frequently enough to become irritated by constantly flipping between text and notes. It seemed sensible to place the notes relating to each letter immediately after the letter itself, which also has the advantage of keeping cross-referencing between letters simple, since this can then be done merely by giving the recipient’s name and the date. A clear visual separation between text and annotation is nevertheless achieved by the use of smaller type for the notes, allowing the reader who wishes to do so to float from one letter to another ignoring the intervening sections of smaller print. Single words are, however, explained in a separate glossary. The explanatory notes are intended to be comprehensive as well as concise, and the present editor will be grateful to learn of any omissions and errors for correction and for future reference. Quotations from the Bible are from the King James version, the translation most familiar to Hogg and his contemporaries; in the case of the Psalms, however, reference is sometimes given to the metrical Psalms of David approved by the Church of Scotland, where this seems apposite. For references to plays by Shakespeare, the edition used has been The Complete Works: Compact Edition, ed. by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988). For references to other volumes of the Stirling/South Carolina Edition the editor’s name is given after the title, with the abbreviation ‘S/SC’ and date of first publication following in parentheses. References to Sir Walter Scott’s fiction are to the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels (EEWN). The National Library of Scotland is abbreviated to NLS and the National Archives of Scotland to NAS. OPR is an abbreviation of Old Parish Register. The notes are greatly indebted to the following standard works: Dictionary of

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National Biography, Oxford English Dictionary, and Concise Scots Dictionary. A number of abbreviations are used for the titles of works frequently referred to, and these are listed below. 1807 Mountain Bard James Hogg, The Mountain Bard; consisting of Ballads, and Songs, founded on Facts and Legendary Tales (Edinburgh, 1807) 1821 Mountain Bard James Hogg, The Mountain Bard; consisting of Legendary Ballads and Tales, third edition (Edinburgh, 1821) Adam R. B. Adam, Works, Letters and Manuscripts of James Hogg, “The Ettrick Shepherd” (Buffalo, 1930) Batho Edith C. Batho, The Ettrick Shepherd (Cambridge, 1927) Child The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, ed. by Francis James Child, 5 vols (Boston, 1882–98) Constable Thomas Constable, Archibald Constable and his Literary Correspondents, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1873) Corson James C. Corson, Notes and Index to Sir Herbert Grierson’s Edition of the Letters of Sir Walter Scott (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979) Scott’s Fasti Hew Scott, Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae, 9 vols (Edinburgh, 1915–61) Garden Mary Gray Garden, Memorials of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd (Paisley and London, n. d.) Groome Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, ed. by Francis H. Groome, 6 vols (Edinburgh, 1882–85) (Quotations from Groome in the annotation are from the entries for the various places under discussion.) Harris Stuart Harris, The Place Names of Edinburgh: Their Origins and History (Edinburgh: Gordon Wright Publishing, 1996) Lockhart J. G. Lockhart, The Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., 7 vols (Edinburgh and London, 1837–38) Memoir James Hogg, ‘Memoir of the Author’s Life’ and ‘Reminiscences of Former Days’ in Altrive Tales, ed. by Gillian Hughes (S/SC, 2003), pp. 11–78 (with annotation on pp. 216–60)

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Oliphant Mrs Oliphant, Annals of a Publishing House: William Blackwood and his Sons, their Magazine and Friends, second edition, 2 vols (Edinburgh and London, 1897) Parr Norah Parr, James Hogg at Home: Being the Domestic Life and Letters of the Ettrick Shepherd (Dollar: Douglas S. Mack, 1980) Rogers Charles Rogers, The Modern Scottish Minstrel, 6 vols (Edinburgh, 1855–57) Scott, Letters The Letters of Sir Walter Scott, edited by H. J. C. Grierson and others, 12 vols (London, 1932–37) SHW Studies in Hogg and his World, the annual journal of the James Hogg Society Smiles Samuel Smiles, A Publisher and his Friends: Memoir and Correspondence of the late John Murray, with an Account of the Origin and Progress of the House, 1768–1843, 2 vols (London, 1891) Strout Alan Lang Strout, The Life and Letters of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd: Volume I (1770–1825), Texas Technological College Research Publications, 15 (Lubbock: Texas Tech Press, 1946) Strout, Bibliography Alan Lang Strout, A Bibliography of Articles in Blackwood’s Magazine: Volumes I through XVIII 1817– 1825 (Lubbock: Texas Technological College, 1959) Todd & Bowden William B. Todd and Ann Bowden, Sir Walter Scott: A Bibliographical History 1796–1832 (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 1998) Wellesley Index The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824– 1900, ed. by Walter E. Houghton and others, 4 vols (Toronto: University of Toronto Press; and London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966–87)

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Glossary This Glossary sets out to provide a convenient guide to Scots, English, and other words in The Letters of James Hogg: Volume I 1800 to 1819 which may be unfamiliar to some readers. It is greatly indebted to the Oxford English Dictionary, to The Scottish National Dictionary, to the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, to The Concise Scots Dictionary, ed. by Mairi Robinson (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1985), and also to A Dictionary of Historical Slang, ed. by Eric Partridge and abridged by Jacqueline Simpson (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972). The reader requiring further information is advised to refer to these works. The Glossary concentrates on single words, and guidance on phrases and idioms of more than one word will normally be found in the explanatory notes following the relevant letter.

a’: all ablins: perhaps aboon: above accouchement: delivery in child-bed addresses, (to pay): to court adduce: to bring forward for consideration adjure: to entreat solemnly, as if under oath adventure, adventured: to take the chance of, to venture upon again: towards, by a certain time aince: once ambrie: a cupboard or pantry anent: concerning, about ane’s (errand): especially for that purpose anti-hydrophobia: opposed to a horror of water aught: anything whatever ava: at all avidity: extreme eagerness, greed avocation: a minor occupation, that which calls one away from one’s usual employment ay, aye: yes; continually, always, at all times, still bagnios: bathing-houses; brothels bairns: children

bane: poison, that which destroys life (literally or figuratively) barouche: a four-wheeled carriage with a collapsible top, a seat in front for the driver and inside seats for two couples to sit facing each other bating: leaving out of account bed: the level surface in a printing press on which the forme is laid bedeen: altogether, entirely; at once, quickly beholden: obliged behoof: use, benefit bells: bubbles Bens: mountains bent: coarse grass; a moor bespeak, bespoke: to speak for; to arrange beforehand beuk: book bibliopolist: a dealer in books; a bookseller bide: tolerate, put up with bield: a refuge or shelter birk: a birch tree birken: made of birch wood, birchen birr: force, energy, enthusiasm black-cocks: males of the black grouse blues, bluestockings: learned women,

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those affecting literary tastes boardly: burly, of a strong or sturdy build bogle: a terrifying ghost or phantom boots: profits, avails, benefits bottom: the foundation; the keel of a ship bows: arches, or rainbows brae: the steep bank of a river, or slope of a hill bravado: an ostentatious display of courage or boldness broke: shattered in worldly estate, bankrupt bubbly-Jock: a turkey cock bucks: dashing fellows, dandies buirdly: burly, of a strong or sturdy build bull: something large or clumsy of its kind burden: the refrain or chorus of a song burn: a brook, a stream but: in addition to, not counting; barring ca’: call callan: a young man, a youth callar: fresh, healthy, refreshing candid: frank, ingenuous, sincere Candlesmass: 2 February, a Scottish quarter-day candour: freedom from reserve, kindliness, ingenuousness cast out: disagree, quarrel certes: of a truth, assuredly chaise: a light travelling carriage, particularly one intended for one or two people and drawn by a single horse chanter: the double-reeded pipe on which a bagpipe melody is played chiel: a lad, a fellow, a young man chumping: chewing vigorously, champing claymore: a large two-edged sword cleuch: a gorge, a ravine

corsair: a pirate, often from a ship sanctioned by the country to which it belongs cot: a cottage cour’d: cowered, bent or crouched covenants: the National Covenant of 1638, and Solemn League and Covenant of 1643 crack: a gossip, a conversation crackers: fireworks which explode with a series of sharp reports cracking: talking, conversing, gossiping craig: a crag, rock or cliff; a projecting spur of rock craving: demanding, asking as of a legal right crying: to be in labour or childbirth cut: a sharp stroke with a whip dale: deal, a plank or shelf damask: a rose, originally the rosa gallica damascena, cultivated for attar of roses in the East dang: defeated, beat down darned: hid, concealed; loitered deil: devil deil a’: not a, never a deoch-an-doruis: a stirrup-cup, a farewell drink (Gaelic deoch an dorus, a drink at the door) desideratum: something wanting and desired or required dight: defeat; strike diligence: application of legal means against a person for recovery of a debt directed: wrote the address on a letter direction: address discounts: abatements or deductions from the total amount of anything; the interest charged for discounting a bill or promissory note doited: foolish, confused, feebleminded, especially from old age dour: sullen, humourless, dull

G LOSSARY

downa: to be unable or incapable of doing something dram: a small drink of liquor drone notes: notes produced by the bass pipe of a bagpipe dule: grief, distress dun: to importune, to press repeatedly ee: eye eiry: fearful, timid election: an act of deliberate choice encomium: a panegyric, a formal expression of praise engraved: incised upon metal for reproduction by printing enow: a sufficient number or quantity ensign: the lowest rank of commissioned infantry officer ere: before, formerly ern: iron etched: engraved by acid eating away metal for reproduction by printing express: a special postal messenger, used for immediate delivery fa’: fall, befall fallen (through): broken down, miscarried, come to nothing faring (to get one’s): to be punished, to get one’s deserts fause: false, deceitful, treacherous fell: skin, hide of an animal feu (duty): a fixed annual payment for the exclusive possession and use of a heritable property fidging ( fain): restlessly or excitedly eager fike: the fidgets, a fit of restlessness fleech: to coax, flatter, entreat folio: volume made up of sheets of paper folded once forbye: besides, in addition; as well franked: a letter signed to ensure its being delivered free of charge fray: fight, disturbance, brawl friend: a relative, a blood-relation

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fugi: runaway, fugitive, coward gabby: garrulous, chatty gar’d: made, caused, obliged to gaugers: excisemen gay: considerably, very, rather gie: give gi’en: given gig: light, two-wheeled, one-horse carriage glen: a steep valley or hollow, especially one traversed by a stream gloaming: evening twilight, dusk gomral: fool, stupid person goud: gold graven: engraved grinding: to crush grain by rubbing it between two hard surfaces; the sexual act grist: corn to be ground; something to be turned to account groat: an old coin worth fourpence grunstane: a revolving millstone; a revolving stone on an axle used for sharpening tools guerdon: reward, requital, recompense guinea: a gold coin worth 21 shillings (£1–1s) half-seas (over): half, or almost, drunk hap: wrap, cover up, surround haply: perhaps; by chance or accident haud: hold hauld: habitation, dwelling-place hecht: promised, undertook heeze: a heave, hitch up; a helping hand helper: a minister’s or teacher’s assistant her-nan-sell: a Highlander’s supposed way of speaking of himself hogs, hoggs: yearling sheep, between being weaned and being shorn of their first fleece holm: a stretch of low-lying land beside a river

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holographs: letters or other documents written entirely in the author’s handwriting hose: an article of clothing for the legs, generally stockings reaching to the knee hotch-potch: a dish containing a mixture of many ingredients; a confused assemblage or medley howe: a depression or hollow, a basin-shaped piece of country humoursome: indulgent; humorous, witty husband: to manage prudently and thriftily ilka: each, every ingle-cheek: fireside, chimney-corner intelligence: news, information in toto: as a whole, absolutely, completely jill: a measure of liquid of one fourth of a Scottish mutchkin (a quarter of a pint Scots, or three quarters of a pint imperial) jilting: deceiving after holding out hopes in love kale: cabbage; a main meal, a dinner keeks: peeps, glances kempy: a champion, one who fights in single combat kindly: native, indigenous, true-born knowe: a knoll, a mound or round hillock kraken: an enormous mythical seamonster, associated with Norwegian waters lane, (my): solitary, on one’s own langsyne: long ago, long since laud: praise, celebrate laudanum: alcoholic tincture of opium lave: wash, flow past, scoop water lay: brief lyric or narrative poem intended to be sung; the song of a bird lee-lang: livelong

legal: stressing Old Testament law and salvation by works rather than justification by faith leister: a pronged spear used for salmon-fishing linn: a waterfall; a deep, narrow gorge lippen: trust, depend upon loof: the palm of the hand loun: a fellow; a male servant or lower-class man maele: payment magistrate: a red herring mart: market-place, emporium matchlock: an old-fashioned musket where a match has to be applied to ignite the gunpowder matin: a morning song maun: must meet: suitable, fit, proper mickle, muckle: a great deal of mill: a building or apparatus for grinding corn; the female pudend mim: prim, restrained in manner or behaviour mite: a small contribution but the best one can do (see Mark 12. 43) moiety: a half, or (sometimes) one’s proper share of something multure: a toll in kind paid to the miller for grinding corn muirfowl: the red grouse nebs: noses nervish: nervous, easily agitated nettle: to irritate, vex, or pique octavo: the size of book where each sheet is folded to make eight leaves oeconomy: careful management of resources olio: a spiced dish of mixed meats and vegetables outré: beyond the usual limits; eccentric, exaggerated

G LOSSARY

pallions: cloaks, mantles palm: triumph, victory, supreme excellence patronage: the right of presentation to an ecclesiastical benefice pawkie: wily, shrewd, slyly witty, coquettish pearling: lace trimming peibroch, pibroch: the music of the Scottish bagpipe, with a theme and variations pelice: pelisse, a woman’s mantle, reaching to the ankles, with armholes or sleeves pendicle: an appendage; a small piece of property, separately sublet peppered: given the death-blow to someone pet, (the): a fit of ill humour at being slighted physicking: to dose with medicine, especially purging players: actors ploy: a venture or undertaking; an enterprise for one’s own amusement, a piece of fun pointed: punctuated; having the proper points and stops in writing post: a pile of four to eight sheets of hand-made paper fresh from the mould, laid with alternate sheets of felt for pressing postillion: an attendant who rides the near horse pulling a carriage pouss: to push one’s fortune, to take steps to improve one’s financial situation preceptor: a teacher or tutor punctilios: minute details of action or conduct; nice points of ceremony puppy: a vain, empty-headed young man, a coxcomb quarto: the size of book where each sheet of paper has been folded twice to make four leaves

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quincey: inflammation of the throat; suppuration of the tonsils, or tonsillitus quiz: an odd or eccentric person, either in behaviour or appearance quizzing, quizzed: making or having made fun of a person or thing rash bush: a clump of rushes rhodomontade: a piece of extravagant bragging, boasting, or ranting riggs: measures of land, usuallly fifteen feet wide, but varying in length; the arable land belonging to one farmer or proprietor rouped: sold by compulsion by public auction to pay debts rout: a large and fashionable evening party or reception rubs: obstacles, impediments, hindrances runagate: a vagabond, a wanderer sanguine, sanguinary: hopeful, of a courageous disposition sauf: save saut: salt sciatica: a disease characterised by pain in the sciatic nerve, the largest in the body, and affecting the hip and leg screed: a long discourse or piece of writing session clerk: the secretary of the kirk session set: leased, let by contract sheil, shieling: a small house; a temporary hut used by shepherds Shirra: Sheriff, the chief judge of a district shoon: shoes siller: silver; money sinsyne: since then, after that time skiff: a small light boat slack: remiss, careless, lax snuff: something of little significance or value

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spark: a young man who affects smartness or elegance speel: climb, clamber speer: to ask a question, to inquire, to make enquiries started: startled, suddenly disturbed stays: a corset; part of a supporting structure steelbow: a form of land-tenancy where the landlord provides and owns the stock, an equivalent being returned to him by the tenant at the end of the lease steward: a person appointed to supervise the arrangements and keep order at a dinner or other public gathering stick, sticked: break down in the middle of a job, come to a premature halt stomachiach: a medicine good for the stomach store-farmers: men who run farms on which sheep are reared and grazed strupit: see note to Hogg’s letter to William Laidlaw of 14 February 1815 sub-set: sub-lease sudna: should not surety: a bond or guarantee given for the fulfillment of an undertaking; a person who makes himself responsible for a payment by another swakked: struck heavy, sudden blows swat: sweated syren: a woman who charms and allures, like the mythical creatures who lured sailors to destruction by their singing tack: a lease

therms: gut twisted and dried into cords; fiddle-strings thraward: perverse, contrary, twisted threshed: to have separated the grain of a cereal from the husks throngest: busiest, most occupied tikes: dogs, curs timeous: early, betimes titty: sister toddy: a drink made with whisky, hot water, and sugar trow: believe, trust to, have confidence in tuition: protection, care tushy: tusky; having a canine tooth or incisor projecting beyond the mouth uncannie: dangerous, unreliable, mischievous vacants: period of suspension from business; leisure, a holiday van: the foremost division of a military force wa’: wall wae: grieved, wretched, woeful wafer: a small disc of flour mixed with gum for sealing letters wan: pallid, leaden-hued wat: wot, know waur: worse weened: thought, supposed, surmised weetless: unknowing, unconscious weirly: warlike whalp: a whelp, a young dog or puppy whit, (not a): (not a) particle or jot wight: a human being, a person winna: will not wreaths: banks or drifts of snow yestreen: yesterday evening, last night; yesterday yon: that, over there