21 November: Boreham on James Hogg

The Ettrick Shepherd
If ever a clodhopper found his way into the classics, it was James Hogg, the anniversary of whose death we mark today. He was about as rough a diamond as one need wish to see. Indeed, if the kindly but penetrating eyes of Sir Walter Scott had not detected his genuine worth, nobody would have suspected the lowland cowherd of being a diamond at all.

The story of his debut makes interesting reading. Having convinced himself that, under an uncouth and repulsive exterior, Hogg possessed real genius, Scott, who had a flair for discovering exceptional gifts in unlikely places, invited him to his home. And then, the fun began.

The lady of the house, being at the time in a delicate state of health, was reclining on a sofa. Hogg accordingly stretched himself on another sofa on the opposite side of the room. Making himself very much at home, he laughed loudly, ate heartily, and imbibed freely. As the liquor operated, he became more and more familiar, until, to everybody's astonishment, he was boisterously addressing his distinguished host and hostess, not only by their Christian names, but by their pet names and nicknames.

Yet, in spite of all Hogg's coarseness and crudity, Scott became devotedly attached to him. He loved his transparent simplicity, his native originality, his irresistible quaintness. "His thousand little touches of absurdity afforded me more enjoyment," Scott would say, "than the best comedy that ever put the pit in a roar." And he retained his deep affection for his strange friend to the very end.

The Birth Of A Noble Ambition
The annals of literature if they prove anything prove that the instincts of poesy may subsist side by side with the most pitiful illiteracy. Slaves and savages have often excelled as minstrels. Whilst watching his cows on the hillside, young Hogg taught himself to write—after a fashion—and then proceeded to compose simple stanzas descriptive of the beauties spread so plentifully about him.

The first thrill of his literary career came to him when he discovered that these artless verses could bring tears to the blue eyes of a pretty little ewe-milker with whom he was sometimes associated in his pastoral vigil. She was, he says, a rosy-checked maiden whose duty it was to herd a flock of newly-weaned lambs. She had no dog; he had an excellent one; and so they guarded their charges co-operatively. She would sit and sew: he—sprawling on the grass with his head pillowed in her lap—would read or recite his verses; and it was the sympathetic vibration awakened in the breast of this unsophisticated listener that first inspired Hogg with the hope that he was born to be a poet.

The thought soon grew into an uncontrollable obsession; it swept him off his feet; it filled him with frantic excitement and the wildest ecstasy. Hogg was 26 when Burns died. He was deeply moved by the universal grief amidst which the bard was committed to his grave. It flashed upon his mind that the dead singer should have a successor. Upon whose shoulders should the mantle fall? Why not upon his? His heart stood still and he caught his breath at the very thought of such a thing; but it became a beckoning ideal towards which he struggled during all the years that followed.

A Bright Close To A Cloudy Day
The personal pilgrimage of the Ettrick Shepherd derives both its comedy and its tragedy from the desperate financial straits in which he chronically floundered. He was one of those superlative unfortunates who, finding it extremely difficult to make money, display extraordinary facility in losing it as soon as it comes. His embarrassments were a ceaseless anxiety to Sir Walter Scott. When Scott himself was wealthy, he helped Hogg liberally and obtained for him the patronage and assistance of titled and influential friends. And when his own affairs become whelmed in uttermost disaster, the poverty of Hogg worried him almost as much as the devastating catastrophe that, like an avalanche, had swooped down upon himself.

Nothing that Hogg touched seemed to prosper. He writes a treatise on the diseases of sheep. To his unbounded delight he received £300 for it. He at once invests it in a flock of sheep and loses the lot! He writes "The Queen's Wake," which promises £200; but, just as he is looking for the cheque, the publisher files a petition in bankruptcy. This sort of thing dogged all his days, or almost all of them. For, happily, there came a brighter phase towards the end.

At the age of 50 he married a woman who was very comfortably off, and, his merit, having by this time been recognised, he had no difficulty in securing excellent terms from some of the best publishing houses. In 1831 he visited London and was so feted and banqueted that he began to wonder if the poet praised was really himself. Lockhart and Carlyle feared that the cataract of eulogy would turn his head. Even his wife grew nervous and begged him to come home. "Leave the Londoners something to guess at," she wrote. On his return to Scotland a public dinner was tendered to him at Pechles. He simply revelled in this flurry of fame.

But he deserved it. The handsome monument that stands beside St. Mary's Loch, and the memorial in Ettrick church yard, celebrate the renown of one who, for sweetness, naturalness and tuneful ease, has never been surpassed. Some of his lyrics are as nearly perfect as anything in any language. He exercised, as Wordsworth finely said, "a mighty minstrelsy," and he has bequeathed to posterity a record of noble achievement that is calculated to shame into activity those who, with more lavish endowments and ampler opportunities, nevertheless make no serious attempt to enrich the minds and hearts of their fellows.

F W Boreham

Image: James Hogg