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Indiana University Studies 



brilliantly described on her return to Scotland from France. 

 One of the finest qualities is the description of each bard that 

 precedes his song. Each one is thoroly different from all the 

 others, and is not only vividly painted but also in complete 

 harmony with the tone of the song he sings. Above all, The 

 Queen's Wake contains the two songs upon which Hogg's repu- 

 tation as a poet could rest alone and not diminish. Kilmeny 

 and The Witch of Fife are not only the best of Hogg's produc- 

 tions, but the best of the kind in our language. No one has 

 ever touched the supernatural so supernaturally. No wonder 

 that Hogg sprang with one leap into renov/n I All Edinburgh 

 read the poem breathlessly. Everyone wanted to know the 

 author of Kilmeny. People asked themselves how it happened 

 that he had been among them all this time like a light under 

 a bushel. They began to recognize at this tardj^ hour the ex- 

 cellence of The Spy. People shook the Shepherd by the hand, 

 invited him to their houses, and showed him off. 



At last, in the following year, The Edinburgh Review pub- 

 lished an article from which the following quotation is taken. 

 From the date of this criticism Hogg may be considered as an 

 established man of letters. 



It ought also be recorded to liis honour that he has uniformly sought 

 this success by the fairest and most manly means; and that neither 

 poverty nor ambition has been able to produce in him the slightest 

 degree of obsequiousness towards the possessors of glory or of power; 

 or events subdue in him a certain disposition to bid defiance to critics 

 and to hold poets and patrons equally cheap and familiar; and to think 

 that they can in general give no more honour than they receive from 

 his acquaintance. These traits, we think, are unusual in men whom 

 talents have raised out of a humble condition of society — especially 

 when they are unaccompanied as in the present instance, either with 

 any inherent insolence of character, or any irregularities of private 

 life; and therefore we have thought it right to notice them. But at 

 all events, the merit of the volume before us, is such as to entitle it to 

 our notice; and as the author has fairly fought his vray to that dis- 

 tinction, we are not disposed to withhold from him either the additional 

 notoriety that it may still be in our power to bestow, or the admonition 

 that may enable him still further to improve a talent that iias already 

 surprised us so much by its improvement. . . . 



Mr. Hogg has undoubtedly many of the cualifications of a poet — 

 great powers of versification — an unusual copiousness and facility in 

 the use of poetical diction and imagery — a lively conception of natural 

 beauty — with a quick and prolific fancy to body forth his conceptions. 

 With all this, hovcever, he is deficient in some more substantial req- 



