Offspring of Birmingham's creative art, JAMES HOGG. JAMES HOGG, generally known by his poetical name of The Ettrick Shepherd,' was perhaps the most creative and imaginative of the uneducated poets. His fancy had a wide range, picturing in its flights scenes of wild aerial magnificence and beauty. His taste was very defective, though he had done much to repair his early want of instruction. His occupation of a shepherd, among solitary hills and glens, must have been favourable to his poetical enthusiasm. He was not, like Burns, thrown into society when young, and forced to combat with misfortune. His destiny was unvaried, until he had arrived at a period when the bent of his genius was fixed for life. Without society during the day, his evening hours were spent in listening to ancient legends and ballads, of which his mother (like Burns's) was a great reciter. This nursery of imagination he has himself beautifully described : O list the mystic lore sublime Hogg was descended from a family of shepherds, and born, as he alleged (though the point was often disputed) on the 25th January (Burns's birthday), in the year 1772. When a mere child he was put out to service, acting first as a cow-herd, until capable of taking care of a flock of sheep. He had in all about half a year's schooling. When eighteen years of age he entered the service of Mr Laidlaw, Blackhouse. He was then an eager reader of poetry and romances, and he subscribed to a circulating library in Peebles, the miscellaneous contents of which he perused with the utmost avidity. He was a remarkably fine-looking young man, with a profusion of light-brown hair, which he wore coiled up under his hat or blue bonnet, the envy of all the country maidens. An attack of illness, however, brought on by over-exertion on a hot summer day, completely altered his countenance, and changed the very form of his features. His first literary effort was in song-writing, and in 1801 he published a small volume of pieces. He was introduced to Sir Walter Scott by his master's son, Mr William Laidlaw, and assisted in the collection of old ballads for || the Border Minstrelsy. He soon imitated the style of these ancient strains with great felicity, and published another volume of songs and poems under the title of The Mountain Bard. He now embarked in sheep-farming, and took a journey to the island of saved as a shepherd, or by his publication, was lost Harris on a speculation of this kind; but all he had in these attempts. He then repaired to Edinburgh, and endeavoured to subsist by his pen. A collection his second was a periodical called The Spy; but it of songs, The Forest Minstrel, was his first effort: was not till the publication of the Queen's Wake, in 1813, that the shepherd established his reputation as an author. This 'legendary poem' consists of a collection of tales and ballads supposed to be sung to Mary Queen of Scots by the native bards of Scotland assembled at a royal wake at Holyrood, in order that the fair queen might prove The wondrous powers of Scottish song. The design was excellent, and the execution so varied and masterly, that Hogg was at once placed among the first of our living poets. The different productions of the native minstrels are strung together by a thread of narrative so gracefully written in many parts, that the reader is surprised equally at the delicacy and the genius of the author. At the conclusion of the poem, Hogg alludes to his illustrious friend Scott, and adverts with some feeling to an advice which Sir Walter had once given him, to abstain from his worship of poetry. The land was charmed to list his lays; Blest be his generous heart for aye! Scott was grieved at this allusion to his friendly counsel, as it was given at a time when no one dreamed of the shepherd possessing the powers that he displayed in the Queen's Wake.' Various works now proceeded from his pen-Mador of the Moor, a poem in the Spenserian stanza; The Pilgrims of the Sun, in blank verse; The Hunting of Budlewe, The Poetic Mirror, Queen Hynde, Dramatic Tales, &c. Also several novels, as Winter Evening Tales, The Brownie of Bodsbeck, The Three Perils of Man, The Three Perils of Woman, The Confessions of a Sinner, &c. &c. Hogg's prose is very unequal. He had no skill in arranging incidents or delineating character. He is often coarse and extravagant; yet some of his stories have much of the literal truth and happy minute painting of Defoe. The worldly schemes of the shepherd were seldom successful. Though he had failed as a sheep farmer, he ventured again, and took a large farm, Mount Benger, from the Duke of Buccleuch. Here he also was unsuccessful; and his sole support, for the latter years of his life, was the remuneration afforded by his literary labours. He lived in a cottage which he had built at Altrive, on a piece of moorland (seventy acres) presented to him by the Duchess of Buccleuch. His love of angling and field-sports amounted to a passion, and when he could no longer fish or hunt, he declared his belief that his death was near. In the autumn of 1835 he was attacked with a dropsical complaint; and on the 21st November of that year, after some days of insensibility, he breathed his last as calmly, and with as little pain, as he ever fell asleep in his gray plaid on the hill-side. His death was deeply mourned in the vale of Ettrick, for all rejoiced in his fame; and notwithstanding his personal foibles, the shepherd was generous, kind-hearted, and charitable far beyond his means. In the activity and versatility of his powers, Hogg resembled Allan Ramsay more than he did Burns. Neither of them had the strength of passion or the grasp of intellect peculiar to Burns; but, on the other hand, their style was more discursive, playful, and fanciful. Burns seldom projects himself, as it were, out of his own feelings and situation, whereas both Ramsay and Hogg are happiest when they soar into the world of fancy or the scenes of antiquity. The Ettrick Shepherd abandoned himself entirely to the genius of old romance and legendary story. He loved, like Spenser, to luxuriate in fairy visions, and to picture scenes of supernatural splendour and beauty, where The emerald fields are of dazzling glow, His 'Kilmeny.' is one of the finest fairy tales that ever was conceived by poet or painter; and passages in the Pilgrims of the Sun' have the same abstract remote beauty and lofty imagination. Burns would have scrupled to commit himself to these aërial phantoms. His visions were more material, and linked to the joys and sorrows of actual existence. Akin to this peculiar feature in Hogg's poetry is the spirit of most of his songs-a wild lyrical flow of fancy, that is sometimes inexpressibly sweet and musical. He wanted art to construct a fable, and taste to give due effect to his imagery and conceptions; but there are few poets who impress us so much with the idea of direct inspiration, and that poetry is indeed an art 'unteachable and untaught.' Bonny Kilmeny. [From the Queen's Wake.'] Bonny Kilmeny gaed up the glen; The scarlet hypp and the hindberrye, rung, you Late, late in a gloamin, when all was still, And in that waik there is a wene, And in that wene there is a maike * * 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 kend 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! The sun that shines on the world sae bright, A borrowed gleid frae the fountain of light; 74 Then Kilmeny begged again to see The friends she had left in her own countrye, And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower; To suck the flowers and drink the spring, Oh, then the glen was all in motion; And the tod, and the lamb, and the leveret ran; When a month and a day had come and gane, To the Comet of 1811. How lovely is this wildered scene, Stranger of heaven! I bid thee hail! Broad pennon of the King of Heaven! From angel's ensign-staff unfurled? Bright herald of the eternal throne! To sail the boundless skies with thee, To brush the embers from the sun, Where other moons and planets roll! And airy as thine ambient beam! When the Kye comes Hame. Come all ye jolly shepherds I'll tell ye of a secret That courtiers dinna ken; What is the greatest bliss That the tongue o' man can name? "Tis to woo a bonnie lassie Nor arbour of the great- When the kye comes hame. *It was reckoned by many that this was the same comet which appeared at the birth of our Saviour.-Hogg. Then he pours his melting ditty, Then the lavrock frae the blue lift, When the kye comes hame. O there's a joy sae dear, That the heart can hardly frame, In this love without alloy, The Skylark. Bird of the wilderness, Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! Blest is thy dwelling-place O to abide in the desert with thee! Wild is thy lay and loud, Love gives it energy, love gave it birth, Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth. O'er fell and fountain sheen, O'er moor and mountain green, O'er the red streamer that heralds the day, Over the cloudlet dim, Over the rainbow's rim, Musical cherub, soar, singing, away! Then, when the gloaming comes, Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be! Blest is thy dwelling-place O to abide in the desert with thee! ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, a happy imitator of the old Scottish ballads, and a man of various talents, was born at Blackwood, near Dalswinton, Dumfriesshire, December 7, 1784. His father was gardener to a He and the genius of Burns. His uncle having attained some eminence as a country builder, or mason, Allan was apprenticed to him, with a view to joining or following him in his trade; but this scheme did not hold, and in 1810 he removed to London, and connected himself with the newspaper press. In 1814 he was engaged as clerk of the works, or superintendent, to the late Sir Francis Chantrey, the eminent sculptor, in whose establishment he Mr continued till his death, October 29, 1842. Cunningham was an indefatigable writer. early contributed poetical effusions to the periodical works of the day, and nearly all the songs and fragments of verse in Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song (1810) are of his composition, though published by Cromek as undoubted originals. Some of these are warlike and Jacobite, some amatory and devotional (the wild lyrical breathings of Covenanting love and piety among the hills), and all of them abounding in traits of Scottish rural life and primitive manners. As songs, they are not pitched in a key to be popular; but for natural grace and tenderness, and rich Doric simplicity and fervour, these pseudo-antique strains of Mr Cunningham are inimitable. In 1822 he published Sir Marmaduke Maxwell, a dramatic poem, founded on Border story and superstition, and afterwards two volumes of Traditional Tales. Three novels of a similar description, but more diffuse and improbable-namely, Paul Jones, Sir Michael Scott, and Lord Roldan, also proceeded from his fertile pen. In 1832 he appeared again as a poet, with a rustic epic,' in twelve parts, entitled The Maid of Elvar. He edited a collection of Scottish songs, in four volumes, and an edition of Burns in eight volumes, to which he prefixed a life of the poet, enriched with new anecdotes and information. 6 To Murray's Family Library he contributed a series of Lives of Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, which extended to six volumes, and proved the most popular of all his prose works. His last work (completed just two days before his death) was a Life of Sir David Wilkie, the distinguished artist, in three volumes. All these literary labours were produced in intervals from his stated avocations in Chantrey's studio, which most men would have considered ample employment. His taste and attainments in the fine arts were as remarkable a feature in his history as his early ballad strains; and the prose style of Mr Cunningham, when engaged on a congenial subject, was justly admired for its force and freedom. There was always a freshness and energy about the man and his writings that arrested the attention and excited the imagination, though his genius was but little under the control of a correct or critical judgment. Strong nationality and inextinguishable ardour formed conspicuous traits in his character; and altogether, the life of Mr Cunningham was a fine example of successful original talent and perseverance, undebased by any of the alloys by which the former is too often accompanied. The Young Maxwell. 'Where gang ye, thou silly auld carle? And what do ye carry there?' 'I'm gaun to the hill-side, thou sodger gentleman, To shift my sheep their lair.' Ae stride or twa took the silly auld carle, An' a gude lang stride took he: "I trow thou to be a feck auld carle, And he has gane wi' the silly auld carle, 'Light down and gang, thou sodger gentleman, He drew the reins o' his bonnie gray steed, An' lightly down he sprang: Of the comeliest scarlet was his weir coat, He has thrown aff his plaid, the silly auld carle, An' wha was it but the young Maxwell! 'Thou killed my father, thou vile South'ron! Draw out yere sword, thou vile South'ron! That sword it crapped the bonniest flower There's ae sad stroke for my dear auld father! Hame, Hame, Hame. Hame, hame, hame, hame fain wad I be, When the flower is i' the bud, and the leaf is on the tree, The larks shall sing me hame in my ain countrie; But I'll water't wi' the blude of usurping tyrannie, [Fragment.] Gane were but the winter-cauld, Cauld's the snaw at my head, Let nane tell my father, Or my mither sae dear, I'll meet them baith in heaven She's Gane to Dwall in Heaven. She's gane to dwall in heaven, my lassie, O what'l she do in heaven, my lassie ? She'll mix her ain thoughts wi' angels' sangs, An' make them mair meet for heaven. She was beloved by a', my lassie, She was beloved by a'; But an angel fell in love wi' her, Low there thou lies, my lassie, A bonnier form ne'er went to the yird, Fu' soon I'll follow thee, my lassie, I looked on thy death-cold face, my lassie, I looked on thy death-shut eye, my lassie, Thy lips were ruddy and calm, my lassie, There's naught but dust now mine, lassie, |