Stephenson: The Ettrick Shepherd 19 



of them! — that was a job! I had no method of learning to write, save 

 by following the Italian alphabet; and though I always stripped myself 

 of coat and vest when I began to pen a song, yet my wrist took a cramp 

 so I could rarely make above four or six lines at a sitting. Whether 

 my manner of writing it out was new, I know not, but it was not with- 

 out singularity. Having vei^y little spare time from my flock, which 

 was unruly enough, I folded and stitched a few sheets of paper, which 

 I carried in my pocket. I had no inkhorn; but in place of it I bor- 

 rowed a small phial which I fixed in a hole in the breast of my waist- 

 coat; and having a cork fastened by a piece of twine, it answered the 

 purpose fully as well. Thus equipped, whenever a leisure minute or 

 two offered, and I had nothing else to do, I sat down and wrote out my 

 thoughts as I found them. This is still my invariable practice in writing 

 prose. I cannot make out one sentence by study, without the pen in 

 my hand to catch the ideas as they arise, and I never write two copies 

 of the same tiling.^" 



Nothing illustrates so aptly the isolated life led by the 

 Yarrow shepherds as the fact that Hogg never so much as 

 heard of the existence of Burns till 1797, the year after he 

 died. 



One day during that summer a half daft man, named John Scott, 

 came to me on the hill, and to amuse me repeated Tam O'Shanter. I 

 was delighted! I was far more than delighted — I was ravished! I can- 

 not describe my feelings ; but, in short, before Jock Scott left me, I could 

 recite the poem from beginning to end, and it has been my favorite poem 

 ever since. He told me it was made by one Robert Burns, the sweetest 

 poet that ever was born ; but that he was now dead, and his place would 

 never be supplied. He told me all about him, how he was born on the 

 25th of January, bred a ploughman, how many beautiful songs and 

 poems he had composed, and that he had died last harvest, on the 21st 

 of August. 



This formed a new epoch of my life. Every day I pondered on the 

 genius and fate of Burns. I wept, and always thought with myself — 

 what was to hinder me from succeeding Bums, I too was born on the 

 25th of January and I have much more time to read and compose than 

 any ploughman could have, and can sing more old songs than ever 

 ploughman could in the world. But then I wept again because I could 

 not write. However, I resolved to be a poet, and to follow in the steps 

 of Burns.'' 



, Hogg, of course, never equalled Burns as a poet, but, con- 

 sidering the difficulties against which he had to contend, we 

 may well say that he fulfilled his resolution nobly. From this 

 date we hear constantly of his literary efforts, tho for some 



^ Autobiography. 



See page 10. 

 ^' Autobiography. 



