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Indiana University Studies 



Were it not for the care this author shows in other parts 

 of his work one would be prompted to let this assertion go as 

 quite unfounded, it is so opposed to Hogg's own account of 

 the transactions and to the accounts given by several of his 

 contemporaries who were his personal friends.- The remark 

 that Hogg ''let out" may be interpreted to mean merely that 

 there was a chance to condemn the proof sheets that was not 

 taken. In all probability Hogg saw no reason to belittle the 

 work till he began subsequently to trim his sails in accordance 

 with the failure recorded by its reception. There can be no 

 doubt that the Shepherd thought well of the poems at the 

 time. He quoted five stanzas of the Dialogue in a Country 

 Churchyard in one of his Letters from the Highlands (1802) 

 and was much pleased to find Willie and Keatie republished in 

 the Scots' Magazine (January, 1801, page 52). 



And, indeed, Hogg had reason to be proud. When one con- 

 siders that these poems were written long before 1801, when 

 Hogg was raising himself almost unaided from the condition 

 of an ignorant shepherd, one finds them marvelous enough. 

 But few, perhaps none, of the readers of the little volume, at 

 the time of its appearance, knew much about the name on the 

 title page. Judged without allowance for the conditions under 

 which these poems were written, the verses seem poor enough 

 to deserve the oblivion into which they promptly fell. Much 

 of what is good in the volume is contained in the second song, 

 which is not even dignified with a title. What is elsewhere 

 mere jingle here passes into true rhythm: 



O Shepherd, the weather is misty and changing, 

 Will you show me over the hills to Traquair? 



She's young and she's witty, she's lovely and pretty, 

 She's chaste as the swans upon Lochfell at Yule. 



In Dustie we find one of those sympathetic passages about 

 dogs that abound in the Shepherd's writings : 



But yet for a' his gruesome dealins', 



He was a dog o' tender feelins'; 



When I lay sick and like to die, 



He watched me wi' a constant eye; 



An' then when e'er I spak' or stirred. 



He wagged his tail, an' whinged an' nurr'd. 



When saams were sung at any meetin'. 



He yowl'd an' thought the fock war greetin'. 



- See Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, by R. P. Gillies, Vol. 1, page 120 ; also Mrs. 

 Garden, page 33, where she quotes the Autohiography without contradiction. 



