will! I admire Wordsworth, as who does not, whatever they may pretend? But for that short sentence I have a lingering ill will at him which I cannot get rid of. It is surely presumption in any man to circumscribe all human excellence within the narrow sphere of his own capacity. The Where are they?' was too bad. I have always some hopes that De Quincy was leeing, for I did not myself hear Wordsworth utter the words."

Whether Wordsworth did utter these words, or De Quincy only quizzed Hogg with them, it is a great pity that poor Hogg's mind was suffered to the last to retain the rankling supposition of it. The anecdote appeared in the Noctes; it was made the subject of much joke and remark, and must have reached Wordsworth's ears. What a thousand pities then, that, by a single line to Hogg, or in public, he did not take the sting out of it! Nobody was so soon propitiated as Hogg. To have been acknowledged as a brother-poet by Wordsworth would have filled his heart with much happiness. Immediately after his death, Wordsworth hastened to make such a recognition; but of how little value is posthumous praise! Hogg died on the 21st of November, and on the 30th Wordsworth sent the following lines to the Athenæum, which I quote entire, because they commemorate other departed lights of the age.

THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.

Extempore Effusion, upon reading, in the Newcastle Journal, the notice of the death of the poet, James Hogg

"When first descending from the moorland,
I saw the stream of Yarrow glide

Along a fair and open valley,

The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide.
"When fast along its banks I wandered,
Through groves that had began to shed
Their golden leaves upon the pathways,
My steps the Border Minstrel led.
"The mighty minstrel breathes no longer,
'Mid mouldering ruins low he lies:
And death upon the braes of Yarrow
Has closed the shepherd-poet's eyes.

"Nor has the rolling year twice measured
From sign to sign his steadfast course,
Since every mortal power of Coleridge
Was frozen at its marvellous source.

"The rapt one of the god-like forehead,
The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in death;
And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle,
Has vanished from his lonely hearth.

"Like clouds that rake the mountain summits,
Or waves that own no curbing hand,
How fast has Brother followed Brother,
From sunshine to the sunless land!

"Yet I, whose lids from infant slumbers
Were earlier raised, remain to hear
A timid voice that asks in whispers,
Who next will drop and disappear?'

"Our haughty life is crowned with darkness,
Like London with its own black wreath,
On which with thee, O Crabbe, forth looking,
I gazed from Hampstead's breezy heath,

"As if but yesterday departed,

Thou, too, art gone before; yet why
For ripe fruit, seasonably gathered,
Should frail survivors heave a sigh?
"No more of old romantic sorrows,

The slaughtered youth and love-lorn maid;

With sharper grief is Yarrow smitten,

And Ettrick mourns with her their Shepherd dead."

These extracts throw much light on the peculiar character of Hogg's mind. Simple, candid to an astonishment, vain without an attempt to conceal it, sensitive to an extreme, with such a development of self-esteem, that no rebuffs or ridicule could daunt him, and full of talent and fancy. But to estimate the extent of all these qualities, you must read his prose as well as his poetry; and these, considering how late he began to write, and that he did not die very old, are pretty voluminous. During the greater part of his literary life, he was a very popular contributor to various magazines. Of his collected works he gives us this list.

It may be imagined that while the produce of his literary pen was so abundant, that of his sheep-pen would hardly bear comparison with it. That was the case. Hogg continually broke down as a shepherd and a farmer. He

"Tended his flocks upon Parnassus hill;"

his imagination was in Fairyland, his heart was in Edinburgh, and his affairs always went wrong. To afford him a certain chance of support, the Duke of Buccleuch gave him, rent free for life, a little farm at Altrive in Yarrow, and then Hogg took a much larger farm on the opposite side of the river, which he called Mount Benger. From this, it will be recollected that he often dated his literary articles. The farm was beyond his capital, and far beyond his care. It brought him into embarrassments. To the last, however, he had Altrive Lake to retreat to; and here he lived, and wrote, and fished, and shot grouse on the moors. Let us, before visiting his haunts, take a specimen or two of his poetry, that we may have a clear idea of the man we have in view.

In all Hogg's poetry there is none which has been more popular than the Legend of Kilmeny in the Queen's Wake. It is the tradition of a beautiful cottage maiden, who disappears for a time, and returns again home, but, as it were, glorified and not of the earth. She has, for her purity, been transported to the land of spirits, and bathed in the river of immortal life.

"They lifted Kilmeny, they led her away,
And she walked in the light of a sunless day:
The sky was a dome of crystal bright,
The fountain of vision and fountain of light:
The emerald fields were of dazzling glow,

And the flowers of everlasting blow.

Then deep in the stream her body they laid,
That her youth and beauty never might fade;

And they smiled on heaven when they saw her lie

In the stream of life that wandered by..

And she heard a song, she heard it sung,
She kenned not where, but sae sweetly it rung,
It fell on her ear like a dream of the morn;
O! blest be the day Kilmeny was born.
Now shall the land of the spirits see,
Now shall it ken what a woman may be !
The sun that shines on the world sae bright,
A borrowed gleid frae the fountain of light";
And the moon that sleeks the sky sae dun,
Like a gowden bow, or a beamless sun,
Shall wear away, and be seen nae mair,

And the angels shall miss them travelling the air.
But lang, lang after baith night and day,

When the sun and the world have elyed away;
When the sinner has gaed to his waesome doom,
Kilmeny shall smile in eternal bloom!"

But Kilmeny longs once more to revisit the earth and her kindred at home, and

"Late, late in a gloaming, when all was still.

When the fringe was red on the westlin hill,
The wood was sere, the moon i' the wane,
The reek o' the cot hung over the plain,
Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane;
When the ingle glowed with an eiry leme,

Late, late in the gloaming Kilmeny came hame!
Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?
Lang hae we sought baith holt and den;

By linn, by ford, and greenwood tree,

Yet you are hailsome and fair to see.

Where gat you that joup o' the lily scheen!

That bonny snood o' the birk sae green?

And these roses, the fairest that ever were seen!-
Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?'

Kilmeny looked up with a lovely grace,
But nae smile was seen on Kilmeny's face;
As still was her look, and as still was her ee,
As the stillness that lay on the emerant lea,
As the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea.

For Kilmeny had been she knew not where,
And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare;
Kilmeny had been where the cock never crew,

Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew!"

But on earth the spell of heaven was upon her. All loved, both man and beast, the pure and spiritual Kilmeny; but earth could not detain her.

"When a month and a day had come and gane,
Kilmeny sought the greenwood wene;

There laid her down on the leaves so green,
And Kilmeny on earth was never mair seen.
But O the words that fell from her mouth
Were words of wonder, and words of truth!

But all the land were in fear and dread,

For they kenned na whether she was living or dead.

It wasna her hame, and she couldna remain;

She left this world of sorrow and pain,

And returned to the land of thought again."

The Legend of Kilmeny is as beautiful as anything in that department of poetry. It contains a fine moral; that purity of heart makes an earthly creature a welcome denizen of heaven; and the tone and imagery are all fraught with a tenderness and grace that are as unearthly as the subject of the legend.

There is a short poem introduced into the Brownie of Bodsbeck, which is worthy of the noblest bard that ever wrote.

DWELLER IN HEAVEN.

"Dweller in heaven high, Ruler below!

Fain would I know thee, yet tremble to know!
How can a mortal deem, how it may be,

That being can ne'er be but present with thee?
Is it true that thou sawest me ere I saw the morn?
Is it true that thou knewest me before I was born?
That nature must live in the light of thine eye?
This knowledge for me is too great and too high!

"That, fly I to noonday or fly I to night,

To shroud me in darkness, or bathe me in light,
The light and the darkness to thee are the same,
And still in thy presence of wonder I am!
Should I with the dove to the desert repair,
Or dwell with the eagle in cleugh of the air;

In the desert afar-on the mountain's wild brink-
From the eye of Omnipotence still must I shrink!
"Or mount I, on wings of the morning, away,
To caves of the ocean, unseen by the day,
And hide in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there to be living and moving in thee!
Nay, scale I the clouds, in the heaven to dwell,
Or make I my bed in the shadows of hell,
Can science expound, or humanity frame,
That still thou art present, and all are the same?
"Yes, present for ever! Almighty! Alone!
Great Spirit of Nature! unbounded! unknown!
What mind can embody thy presence divine:
I know not my own being, how can I thine?
Then humbly and low in the dust let me bend,
And adore what on earth I can ne'er comprehend:
The mountains may melt, and the elements flee,
Yet an universe still be rejoicing in thee!"

The last poem that we will select is one which was written for an anniversary celebration of our great dramatist; yet is distinguished by a felicity of thought and imagery that seem to have sprung spon taneously in the soul of the shepherd-poet, as he mused on the airy brow of some Ettrick mountain.

Come from thy roamings the universe over.
"Whether thou journeyest far,

On by the morning star,

Dream'st on the shadowy brows of the moon,
Or lingerest in Fairyland,

'Mid lovely elves to stand,

Singing thy carols unearthly and boon:
"Here thou art called upon,

Come thou to Caledon !

Come to the land of the ardent and free!
The land of the lone recess,

Mountain and wilderness,

This is the land, thou wild meteor, for thee!

"O never, since time had birth,

Rose from the pregnant earth

Gems such as late have in Scotia sprung;

Gems that in future day,

When ages pass away,

Like thee shall be honoured, like thee shall be sung!

"Then here, by the sounding sea,

Forest, and greenwood tree,

Here to solicit thee, cease shall we never
Yes, thou effulgence bright,
Here must thy flame relight,

Or vanish from nature for ever and ever!"

Such strains as these serve to remind us that we go to visit the native scenes of no common man. To reach Ettrick, I took the mail from Dumfries to Moffat, where I breakfasted, after a fresh ride through the woods of Annandale. With my knapsack on my back, I then ascended the vale of Moffat. It was a fine morning, and the green pastoral hills rising around, the white flocks scattered over them, the waters glittering along the valley, and women spreading out their linen to dry on the meadow grass, made the walk as fresh as the morning itself. I passed through a long wood, which stretched along the sunny side of the steep valley. The waters ran sounding on deep below; the sun filled all the sloping wood with his yellow light. There was a wonderful resemblance to the mountain woodlands of Germany. I felt as though I was once more in a Swabian or an Austrian forest. There was no wall or hedge by the way,-all was open. The wild raspberry stood in abundance, and the wild strawberries as abundantly clothed the ground under the hazel bushes. I came to a cottage and inquired, it was Craigieburn Wood, -where Burns met "The lassie wi' the lintwhite locks."

But the pleasure of the walk ceased with the sixth milestone. Here it was necessary to quit Moffat and cross over into Ettrick dale. And here the huge hills of Bodsbeck, more villanous than the Brownie in his most vindictive mood, interposed. I turned off