The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

Social Life oj Ike Borders. 217
Fortune, indeed, in a worldly sense, never smiled upon
Hogg, notwithstanding the care of the kindest and most
watchful friends. The money he made by his literary
works was lost, from his too optimistic views and rash
farming speculations. Even the kindness and consideration
of the Duke of Buccleuch, who looked upon the wayward
poet, as he expressed it, " as a legac\- from the Duchess,"
one of whose last requests was that something should be
done for the poet, could not sa\e him from difficulties, and
his last efforts were directed to redeem his position by the
publication of a new edition of his works, but which, like
all his speculations, proved unsuccessful.
With barely six months' education, which he lost
running wild among the hills as a herd boy, a very Flib-
bertigibbet in appearance, at eighteen he again taught
himself to read by poring over Sir William W'allace and
the Psalms, and b\- making letters on the large flat stones
on the hillsides, he recovered the little knowledge of writing
that he formerly possessed. This he ultimately perfected,
b\- carrying a few crumpled sheets of paper, and an ink
bottle atttached to his buttonhole, copying out his poetic
efforts as he lay watching the sheep. Writing, however, at
this time—though he afterwards, from letters I have seen,
learned to write a fair hand— was evidently an effort, and
he has left, with that openness of confession so charac-
teristic of him, confident that everything in connection
with himself was interesting, a somewhat ludicrous account
of his pursuing the art. " b\' stripping off his coat and waist-
coat, like one preparing for a desperate deed, and squaring
his elbows for the feat." Kind and generous friends, however,
encouraged him at Blackhouse, where he had now
passed to the dignity of a shepherd ; and with these
sympathetic companions, the shepherd lad was undergoing
a still higher education from his surroundings, rich in
legend and song, and gifted with a strange melancholy
beauty, which those who see it never forget. The poetic
instinct was quickening into life. Everything around him