Sir Walter Scott, Professor Wilson, Captain Adam Fergusson, and Peter Robertson.

Another curious thing is, that he states himself in his Life to be one of four sons, and, on the headstone, that his father and three sons lie there. Now he himself was living, of course, when he set up the stone, and his brother William still survives. There could then be but two, if he were one of four.

Hogg died at Altrive, but was buried here, as being his native parish; and, indeed, I question whether there be a nearer place where he could be buried, though Altrive is six miles off, and over the hills from one valley to another. His funeral must have been a striking thing in this solitary region-striking, not from the sensation it created, or the attendance of distinguished men, but from the absence of all this. The shepherd-poet went to his grave with little pomp or ceremony. Of all the great and the celebrated with whom he had associated in life, not an individual had troubled himself to go thus far to witness his obsequies, except that true-hearted man, Professor Wilson. An eye-witness says: "No particular solemnity seemed to attend the scene. The day was dull and dismal, windy and cloudy, and everything looked bleak, the ground being covered with a sprinkling of snow. Almost the whole of the attendants were relatives and near neighbours, and most of them, with stolid irreverence, were chatting about the affairs of the day. Professor Wilson remained for some time near the newly-covered grave after all the rest had departed."

I walked over this road to Altrive the day after my arrival in Ettrick. But before quitting Ettrick, I must remark, that every part of it presents objects made familiar by the Shepherd. At the lower end are Lord Napier's castle, Thirlstane, a quaint castellated house with round towers, and standing in pleasant woodlands; and the remains of the old tower of Tushielaw, and its hanging-tree, the robber chief of which stronghold James VI. surprised, and hanged on his own tree where he had hanged his victims, treating him with as little ceremony as he did Johnny Armstrong and others of the like profession. All these the hearty and intelligent schoolmaster pointed out to me, walking on to the three-mile-distant inn, and seeing me well housed there.

What is called Altrive Lake, the farm on the Yarrow, given for life by the Duke of Buccleuch to Hogg, and where he principally lived after leaving Ettrick, and where he died, stands in a considerable opening between the hills, at the confluence of several valleys, where the Douglas burn falls into the Yarrow. Thus, from some of the windows, you look up and down the vale of Yarrow, but where the vale has no very striking features. The hills are lower than on Ettrick, and at a greater distance, but of the same character, green and round. Shepherds are collecting their flocks; the water goes leaping along stony channels; you see, here and there, a small white farm-house with its clump of trees, and a circular enclosure of stone wall for the sheepfold. A solitary crow or gull flies past; there are black stacks of peat on the bogs, and on the hill-tops

-for there are bogs there too, and you perceive your approach to a house by the smell of peat. That is the character of the whole

district.

Altrive Lake is, in truth, no lake at all. One had always a pleasant notion of Hogg's house standing on the borders of a cheerful little lake. I looked naturally for this lake in the wide opening between the streams and hills, but could see none. I inquired of the farmer who has succeeded Hogg, for this lake, and he said there never was one. Hogg, he said, had given it that dignified name because a little stream, that runs close past the house, not Douglas burn, but one still less, is called the Trive lake. The farmer at the time of my visit, who was an old weather-beaten Scotchman, eighty-two years of age, but hardy and pretty active, and well-off in the world, expressed himself as quite annoyed with the name, and said it was not Altrive Lake; he would not have it so called. It should be Aldenhope, for it was now joined to his farm, which was the Alden farm. I believe the Altrive farm is but about a hundred acres, including sheepwalk on the hills, and lets for 451. a-year; but old Mr. Scott, the then tenant, had a larger and better farm adjoining; and in his old house, which was just above this, across the highway from Ettrick, but almost hidden in a hollow, he kept his hinds. Hogg's house is apparently two white cottages, for the roof in the middle dips down like it, but it is really but one. It stands on a mound, in a very good and pleasant flower garden. The garden is enclosed with palisades, and the steep bank down from the house, descending to the level of the garden, is gay with flowers. It has another flower garden behind, for the tenant has his kitchen garden at his other house; and around lie green meadows, and at a distance, slope away the green pastoral hills. As you look out at the front-door, the Yarrow runs down the valley at the distance of, perhaps, a quarter of a mile on the left hand, with a steep scaur, or precipitous earthy bank, on its further side, in full view, over the top of which runs the highway from Edinburgh to Galashiels. Down the valley, and on the other side of the water, lies, in full view also, the farm of Mount Benger, which Hogg took from the Duke of Buccleuch, after he came to Altrive. It is much more enclosed and cultivated in tillage than Altrive. The house where Hogg lived, however, is now pulled down, all except one ruinous white wall, and a very capital farm-house is built near it; with a quadrangle of trees, which must have been originally planted to shelter a house long ago gone.

An old farmer and his wife in the neighbourhood, who seemed the last people in the world to admire poets or poetry, though very worthy people in their way, blaned Hogg extremely for taking Mount Benger. He was more fitted for books than for farming, said they. "Perhaps," I observed, "he did not find that little farm of Altrive enough to maintain him." "Why should he not?" asked they. "He had nothing to do there but look after his little flockthat was all he had to care for-and that was the proper business of a man that called himself the Ettrick Shepherd-as though there was never a shepherd in Ettrick besides himself. And if he wanted

more income, had not he his pen, and was not he very popula the periodicals? But he was always wanting to take great without any money to stock them. He was hand-and-glove great men in Edinburgh, Professor Wilson, and Scott, and the he was aye going to Abbotsford and Lord Napier's; and thought himself a very great man too, and Mrs. Hogg thought h a great woman, and looked down on her neighbours. These think nothing's good enough for them. Hogg paid the Du rent, but he caught his fish, and killed his game; he was a desp fellow for fishing and shooting. If people did not do just wh wanted, he soon let them know his mind, and that without ceremony. He wrote a very abusive letter to Sir Walter because he would not give him a poem to print when he asked and would not speak to him for months; and when he took M Benger he wrote to his generous friend Mr. Grieve, of Ettrick, desired him to send him 350l. to stock the farm, which Mr. G refused, because he knew that the scheme was a ruinous one which he wrote him a very abusive letter, and would not spea him for years. The upshot was that he failed, and paid eight pence in the pound; and yet the Duke, though he got no allows the widow the rental of Altrive."

It is curious to hear the estimation that a man is held in b neighbours. It is generally the case, that a man who raises hir above those with whom he set out on equal or inferior terms in is regarded with a very jealous feeling. I found Grace Darling de all merit by those of her own class in her own neighbourh Hogg, who is admired by the more intellectual of his country is still, in the eyes of the now matter-of-fact sheep farmers of Ett and Yarrow, looked upon only as an aspiring man, and bad far They cannot comprehend why he should be so much more regar than themselves, who are great at market, great on the hills, pay every man, and lay up hard cash. Yet these men who eighteenpence in the pound, have farms for nothing, and t families after them, and associate with lords and dukes,-tha very odd, certainly.

For worldly prudence, I am afraid, we cannot boast of Hogg; he confesses that he did rate Sir Walter soundly for not giving a poem for his Poetic Mirror, and that he would not speak him, till Scott heaped coals of fire on his head by sending the do to him when he was ill, and by Hogg finding out that Scott come or sent daily to inquire how he was going on, and had told friends not to let Hogg want for anything. Hogg was a creatur the quickest impulse; he resented warmly, and he was as s melted again by kindness. He had the spirit of a child, sensit quick to resent, but forgiving and generous. His imprudence taking Mount Benger is much lessened, too, when we learn that expected 1,000l. from his wife's father, whose circumstances, howe became embarrassed, and Hogg had already, through the intervent of Scott, obtained possession of the farm, and incurred the debt the stocking of it, before he became aware of the disastrous fact.

truth, he was probably too good a poet to be a good farmer; nor need we wonder at the opinion yet held of him by some of his neighbours, when we find him relating in his Life that, when leaving Edinburgh once because his literary projects had failed, he found his character for a shepherd as low in Ettrick, as it was for poetry in the capital, and that no one would give him anything to do. Such are the singular fortunes of men of genius!

It is said in his own neighbourhood, that his last visit to London hastened his death. That the entertainments given him there, and the excitement he went through, had quite exhausted him. That he never afterwards seemed himself again. That he was listless and feeble, and tried to rally, but never did. Probably his breach with Blackwood might prey upon his spirits; for, on Blackwood declining to give a complete edition of his works, he had entered into arrangements with Cochrane and Johnstone of London, who commenced his edition, but failed on the issue of the first volume. By the act of quitting Blackwood, all the old associations of his life, its happiest and most glorious, secmed broken up. After that, his name vanished from the magazine, and was no more seen there, and the new staff on which he leaned proved a broken reed. Truly many are the verifications of the melancholy words of Wordsworth :

"We poets in our youth begin in gladness;

But thereof comes in the end, despondency and madness."

I have received the following account of his last days from one of his oldest and most intimate friends:

"Innerleithen, 21st Feb. 1846.

"Mr. Hogg, although apparently in good health, had been ailing for some years previous to his death, with water in the chest. When this was announced to him by his friend, Dr. W. Gray, from India, a nephew of Mr. Hogg's, he seemed to laugh at the idea, and pronounced it impossible, as one drop of water he never drank. Notwithstanding, he very shortly after had a consultation with some of the Edinburgh medical folks, who corroborated Dr. Gray's opinion. Mr. Hogg, on his return from town, called upon me in passing, and seemed somewhat depressed in spirits about his health. The Shepherd died of what the country folks call black jaundice, on the 21st November, 1835, and was buried on the 27th, in the churchyard of Ettrick, within a few hundred yards of Ettrick-house, the place where he was born. It was a very imposing scene, to see Professor Wilson standing at the grave of the Shepherd, after every one else had left it, with his head uncovered, and his long hair waving in the wind, and the tears literally running in streams down his cheek. A monument has been erected to the memory of Hogg, by his poor wife. At this the good people of the forest should feel ashamed. Mr. Hogg was confined to the house for some weeks, and, if I recollect right, was insensible some days previous to his death. He has left one son and four daughters; the son, as is more than probable you are aware, went out to a banking establishment in Bombay, some two years ago. Mr. Hogg left a considerable library, which is still in the pos

session of Mrs. Hogg and family. With regard to the state of his mind at the time of his death, I am unable to speak. I may mention, a week or two previous to his last illness, he spent a few days with me in angling in the Tweed; the last day he dined with me, the moment the tumblers were produced, he begged that I would not insist upon him taking more than one tumbler, as he felt much inclined to have a tumbler or two with his friend Cameron, of the inn, who had always been so kind to him, not unfrequently having sent him home in a chaise, free of any charge whatever. The moment the tumbler was discussed, we moved off to Cameron's; and, by way of putting off the time until the innkeeper returned from Peebles, where he had gone to settle some little business matter, we had a game at bagatelle; but no sooner had we commenced the game, than poor Hogg was seized with a most violent trembling. A glass of brandy was instantly got, and swallowed; still the trembling continued, until a second was got, which produced the desired effect. At this moment the Yarrow carrier was passing the inn, on his way to Edinburgh, when Mr. Hogg called him in, and desired him to sit down until he would draw an order on the Commercial Bank for twenty pounds, as there was not a single penny in the house at home. After various attempts he found it impossible even to sign his name, and was, therefore, obliged to tell the carrier that he must of necessity defer drawing the order until next week. The carrier, however, took out his pocket-book, and handed the Shepherd a fivepound note, which he said he could conveniently want until the following week, when the order would be cashed. A little before the gloaming, Mr. Hogg's caravan cart landed for him, which he instantly took possession of; but, before moving off, he shook hands with me, not at all in his usual way, and at the same time stated to me that a strong presentiment had come over his mind that we would never meet again. It was too true. I never again saw my old friend, the Shepherd, with whom I had been intimately acquainted since the year 1802.

"Yours truly,

"P. BOYD."

I went over his house at Altrive with much interest. His little study is in the centre of the front of the house; and within that is the equally small bedroom where he died. The house has been much improved, as well as the garden about it, since his time, for all agree that Hogg was very slovenly about his place. However, as Lockhart has justly observed, there will never be another such a shepherd.

He had a brother still living, William Hogg, who had always been considered a very clever man. He lived somewhere in Peebleshire, as a shepherd. Hogg's widow and family were living in Edinburgh.

In many of my visits to the homes and haunts of the poets, I have fallen in with persons and things which I regret that I could not legitimately introduce, and which yet are so full of life that they