Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

UNTHRIFTY SCOTS. 331
with greater bitterness the want of confidence shown
in his gifts and in his power to please the pubhc.
For he was no thrifty Scot, unfortunately for himself,
any more than Burns was, or, on a larger argument,
Scott himself, the leader and head of his generation.
It is curious, indeed, how little this supposed national
characteristic appears in the greatest of Scotsmen,
though we should not attempt to place Hogg in that
category. The Shepherd was always in sore need of
that fifty pounds.
Here, however, is a sketch in the first year of the
Magazine, in a letter dated from Abbotsford, of a
happier record. At that moment he was no neglected
contributor, but, to his own consciousness, putting a
powerful shoulder to the wheel, in cheerful confidence
of being no insignificant member of the team. We
think he had some hand in the suggestion of Will
Laidlaw as one of the regular stafi". And the glimpse
he affords us of that homely workman, and of the
kind master's hand which trimmed up and put in
order the monthly Chronicle supplied by Laidlaw, is
attractive and delightful :
—
Along with Scott's and Laidlaw's contributions to your
miscellany, I also enclose 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 anxious. I actually pop'd in
on Mr Scott on Saturday in the very act of toiling for you,
uncompanionable being that you are, taking up all the poets
and men of genius in the country peddling at your small hard-
wares ! I have spoken to Laidlaw and Scott, both separately
and together, about the detail business of the Magazine. The
former is perfectly willing to do either way, but thinks that