Stephenson: The Ettrick Shepherd 



37 



Before long Hogg's cottage was the gathering-place for all 

 the Ettrick Forest and beyond, and we soon find the Shep- 

 herd, between his friends and Glenlivet, living far beyond 

 his means. One of the most peculiar contradictions in this 

 extraordinary man's character is the fact that he was one 

 of the most careful, capable, and successful shepherds in the 

 Forest, but in all other affairs of the farm and in his literary 

 work he was shiftless in the extreme. 



Some of his literary carelessness can be excused on the 

 score of his lack of formal education. His knowledge of 

 polite learning was derived wholly from his desultory read- 

 ing without a guide that did not begin till he had reached 

 the age of manhood. We have seen how a tricky memory 

 led him to include many inaccurate assertions in the Auto- 

 biography. Scott accuses him of being utterly unfit for the 

 task of historian and, by implication, unable to write suc- 

 cessful historical novels. But Scott, great as he was, was not 

 just the man to throw stones at such a house of glass, for he 

 made no secret of the fact that he himself departed from the 

 facts of history whenever the practice improved his story; 

 and, in all probability, Scott's personal bias on one hand and 

 Hogg's on the other led them to about equal excesses of lauda- 

 tion and damnation of the character of Claverhouse, 



Never having been trained to study, Hogg could hardly be 

 expected to prove an accurate investigator of the facts of 

 history; but less venial is his failure to apply himself to the 

 task of improving his literary style. Here, again, Scott, 

 whose patient interest in the Shepherd's welfare withstood 

 a thousand shocks, was always at him, reasoning, command- 

 ing, beseeching him to strive harder to do himself greater 

 justice. Hogg was an extremely rapid composer, and much 

 of his verse and most of his prose gives evidence of this fact. 

 Scott's frequent advice to cut and to revise was never heeded 

 by the head-strong shepherd. He rather boasts in the Aiito- 

 biography of the fact that he never wrote a second draft of 

 his manuscripts, a habit that sometimes occasioned an utter 

 loss of a composition thru miscarriage in transportation. The 

 utmost concession he would make to Sir Walter's well meant 

 efforts at improvement was the resolution to do better the 

 next time. 



Hogg's vanity and egotism were so monumental as to be 



