Preface 



The present writer has been asked the question whether 

 the biography of the Ettrick Shepherd is worth the writing. 

 The answer, of course, is evident : yes, if it is worth the reading. 

 But whether a new biography is needed is another question. 

 The Ettrick Shepherd is a name that has dropped out of pop- 

 ular knowledge in just about the same proportion as has the 

 name of the Nodes Amhrosianae. Sixty years ago everyone 

 was familiar with the poetry and prose of Hogg, and there 

 are signs of a renewal of interest in his work. Even today 

 his songs are sung in the Ettrick Forest with unabated pleas- 

 ure, and the folk are familiar with his tales. 



There is at the present time no satisfactory sketch of 

 Hogg's life in print. The interesting Memoir by Mrs. Garden 

 makes no pretense to be other than a daughter's loving tribute 

 to her father. The biography in ''The Famous Scots Series" 

 is in parts not wholly accurate. The more notable life by 

 Thomson, prefixed to Blackie's edition of Hogg's poems, now 

 long out of print, is, like the others, inaccurate thru having 

 accepted as fact a composition that is largely fiction. 



Hogg wrote an autobiography that is true to fact in the 

 main but which contains innumerable errors due to a playful 

 but wilful exaggeration, and to lapses of memory. So far as 

 the present writer knows, no biographer has taken the trouble 

 to investigate the facts contained in the Autobiography, much 

 less to note the unsigned and original draft, that differed so 

 much in detail, and that appeared in the Old Scots' Magazine. 

 It has been the present writer's pleasant task to search out 

 many details that put the story of Hogg's life, in parts, in a 

 new light. 



In perusing these three biographies of Hogg the reader is 

 struck with the fact that none of them deals with him as a 

 •literary artist. The fact that he wrote, and what he wrote, 

 seems to be important, but the quality and character of what 

 he wrote is quite neglected. In the following pages some 

 notice of this aspect of his life is taken. 



A word of justification may be necessary concerning several 

 extracts of length from The Spy and the Lay Sermons. There 



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