Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

A HIGHLY-RESPECTED SHEPHERD. 327
good grace." This Is very well said, though perhaps
Hogg himself, the most egoistical of writers, was not
the man to say it.
The following letter, addressed to Mr Blackwood,
but the beginning of which has been changed from
"Dear Sir" into "Dear Christopher," as if intended
for publication, though it has no appearance of having
gone through any printer s hands, may be quoted as a
good specimen of Hogg in prose, in one of the rustic
stories of which he afterwards printed so many, and
which are now absolutely forgotten. It will show
what was the realism of that early day in comparison
with the present much-prevailing Literature of the
Kailyard, as it has been aptly called. Hogg has
nothing ornamental or sentimental in his unvarnished
tale :
—
I enclose you a very curious letter from a cousin-german of
my own to his son, who still remains in this country. . . . The
writer [Laidlaw] was a highly respected shepherd, and as suc-
cessful as most men in the same degree of life; but for a
number of years bygone he talked and read about America till
he grew perfectly unhappy ; and at last, when approaching his
sixtieth year, actually set off to seek a temporary home and a
grave in the New World : but some of his sons had formed
attachments at home, and refused to accompany him.
He was always a singular and highly amusing character,
cherishing every antiquated and exploded idea in science,
religion, and politics. He never was at any school, and what
scraps of education he had obtained had been picked up by
himself. Nothing excited his indignation more than the theory
of the earth whirling round on its axis and journeying round
the sun : he had many strong logical arguments against it, and
nailed them all with Scripture. When he first began to hear
tell of North America, about twenty years ago, he would not
thought he saw it from the
believe that Fife was not it ! and