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Indiana University Studies 



time, he goes on to tell us, William Laidlaw was the only per- 

 son who found the least merit in his verses. But here, as in 

 some other places, Hogg is exaggerating the trials of his early 

 apprenticeship to letters for the sake of effect. He had in reality 

 begun to be locally recognized by this time. 



Hogg's first attempt at composition of which anything is 

 known was a poetical epistle to a student friend of divinity, 

 composed of borrowed lines from Dryden's Virgil and 

 Harvey's Life of Bruce. The first piece wholly his own was 

 An Address to the Duke of Buccleiigh on Behalf o' myseV and 

 ither poor folk. Then The Way that the World goes on and 

 W attic's and Geordic's Foreign Intelligence earned for him 

 the title of which he was so proud — Jamie the poeter. 



There was a group of men commonly known as the Big 

 Four, who met generally upon the hillside for self-improve- 

 ment. This coterie consisted of Hogg and William Laidlaw 

 and their brothers, William Hogg and Alexander Laidlaw. 

 They would prepare essays and write verses, read to one 

 another, criticize and lay wagers upon their respective abil- 

 ities. A full account of their doings and how their incanta- 

 tions were thought in the countryside to have raised the devil 

 and produced the great storm of 1794 is fully set forth in the 

 paper on Storms. The Autobiography contains another in- 

 teresting anecdote about the early work of this set. 



In the spring of the year 1798, as Alexander Laidlaw, a neighboring 

 shepherd, my brother William, and myself, were resting on the side of 

 a hill above Ettrick Church, I happened in the course of our conversa- 

 tion to drop some hints of my superior talents in poetry. William said, 

 that, as to putting words into rhyme, it was a thing which he never 

 could do to any sense: but that, if I wished to enter the lists with him 

 in blank verse, he w^ould take me up for any bet that I pleased. Laid- 

 law declared that he would venture likewise. This being settled, and 

 the judges named, I accepted the challenge; but a dispute arising re- 

 specting the subject, we were obliged to resort to the following mode 

 of decision: Ten subjects having been named the lots were cast, and, 

 amongst them all, that which fell to be elucidated by our matchless 

 pens, was, the stars! — things which we knew little more about, than 

 merely that they were burning and twinkling over us, and to be seen 

 every night when the clouds were away. I began with high hopes and 

 great warmth, and in a week declared my theme ready for the compari- 

 son; Laidlaw announced his next week; but my brother made us wait 

 a full half year; and then, on being urged, presented his unfinished. 

 The arbiters were then dispersed, and the cause was never properly 

 judged; but those to whom they were shown rather gave the preference 

 to my brother's. This is certain that it was far superior to either of 



