108 THE BORDER ANGLER. 



England to wage a foolish and disastrous war. 

 There is now a modern Thirlstane Castle beside the 

 old tower, belonging to Lord Napier, and there are 

 also some fine woods of recent growth in the neigh- 

 bourhood. Gamescleuch, also a hold of the Scotts, is 

 opposite. But perhaps as interesting as these me- 

 morials of mosstrooping times, is a little old cottage 

 standing at the roadside above Ettrick Kirk, where 

 James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, was born. James 

 Hogg is the tutelary genius of the Forest ; and, to 

 our mind, his life and labours are amongst the most 

 remarkable of any that have yet been recorded. 

 Never had genius to surmount greater difficulties be- 

 fore it found expression or recognition. Just barely 

 able to spell through Blind Harry when he was twenty 

 unable to write with anything like accuracy when 

 he was thirty still a tarry-handed shepherd when he 

 was forty he has yet left some songs that are almost 

 unsurpassed in their sweetness, and some poems that 

 are wonderful in their delicacy. Never was genius 

 united with commoner clay ; but yet never did genius 

 more truly manifest itself. Never was poet more 

 conceited (in some respects he was very coarse and 

 vulgar) ; and yet he wrote " Kilmeny," and " Mary 

 Scott," and " The Abbot M'Kinnon," and dozens of 

 poetical pieces exhibiting singular command of lan- 

 guage and great variety of beautiful thoughts. Surely 

 nobody ever dreamed so prettily of fairies and elves, 

 since the kingdom of Oberon and Titania was unveiled 

 to the world, or since the nameless old minstrels, his 

 predecessors, left their ballads in the memories of the 

 borderers. Let us be thankful that James Hogg was 



