. INVEHLEITHEN JAMES HOGG. 103 



the angler does not heed this. At Inverleithen is the small 

 stream, of the Leithen, almost dried up when I saw it. Yet in 

 winter, I have been told, large bull trout and sea trout ascend 

 the river to spawn. They are slaughtered, of course, by the 

 country people. 



At Inverleithen, Hogg, the so-called Ettrick Shepherd, passed 

 much of his time. Not that he lived there ; his house and farm 

 were on Yarrow's braes ; but Inverleithen was his favourite 

 haunt, his chief delight being to carouse and indulge in deep 

 potations with strangers and friends. I well remember an esteemed 

 friend who boasted that, with the aid of another, a drunken Edin- 

 burgh writer, he had settled the Ettrick Shepherd, who drank so 

 much and so long at one carousing bout, that he was never more 

 seen to raise his head ! Hogg was a poet of no mean order ; ima- 

 ginative and gifted by nature. He lived by Yarrow ; Yarrow, 

 called classic before his time. I remember inviting him to sup- 

 per with half a dozen others of the " Homer Craft." As the 

 champagne flew to their heads, they seemed to become almost 

 deranged. They are now either dead or mad in reality. This 

 was not long before his death. A vile crew of scribblers and 

 assassins of character were in the habit of using poor Hogg's 

 name to give a sort of respectability or zest to their malicious 

 monthly filth. They proved his ruin. 



Hogg experimented on the parr and wrote about sheep, for he 

 was a sheep farmer, and might have done well under a most in- 

 dulgent landlord (Buccleugh) ; but, like others of his craft, he 

 was scarcely ever at home. Here is a picture of the crew by one 

 of themselves ; let it be remembered, also, that he lived in a 

 country where whisky is, or was, the universal drink, and of 

 which the immortal bard says : 



" Thou art the life of public haunts ; 

 But* thee, what were our fairs and rants ? 

 E'en godly meetings of the saints, 



By thee inspired, 

 When gaping they besiege the tents, 



Are doubly fired." , 



The rhyming crew have been painted by one of themselves, by 

 one who knew the human heart. 



* Without. 



