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Indiana University Studies 



as to what it all meant. Powerful as it is, the reflection of 

 the writer's own uncertainty constitutes its chief flaw as a 

 work of art. 



There is no continuity and no unity in The Shepherd's 

 Calendar. It is merely a collection of short stories reprinted 

 from Blackwood's Magazine. One exception is Number IV, 

 The School of Misfortune, an essay whose tenor is suggested 

 by the title and which foreshadows the Lay Servfions, written 

 later in his career. Number XVIII, Odd Characters, is of a 

 biographical nature and is mostly anecdotal. It contains the 

 sketch of Will OThaup that has already been quoted in this 

 volume. The other numbers of this score of sketches are 

 stories of shepherd life in the Ettrick Forest. 



Here, as elsewhere, Hogg shows but little imaginative 

 creation in prose. Yet the stories are not devoid of char- 

 acterization. The character drawing, however, is the work of 

 an accurate copyist, not that of a creator. Hogg excels, in his 

 short stories, always as a portrayer of situation, and in this 

 respect his work is eminent to a degree. In Mr. Adamson of 

 Laverhope the writer has come nearest to originating a demon 

 in human shape which required the touch of genuine imagina- 

 tion to evolve it from whatever prototype may have passed 

 under the Shepherd's observation. And the situation with 

 which it ends — the open valley, the shepherds and their flocks, 

 the sudden storm, the cloud-burst, deluge, and disaster — all 

 this is portrayed in one grand burst of description which re- 

 minds one of that comprehension of the terrible force of na- 

 ture that inspired Turner's picture of the Bass Rock. 



George Dobbin's Expeditio7i to Hell is noteworthy only be- 

 cause it illustrates in small compass Hogg's almost invariable 

 method of dealing with the supernatural. 



In 1832 Hogg planned the Altrive Tales in twelve volumes, 

 which was to be a reprint of many of his stories together with 

 some new ones. Thru the failure of the publisher only the 

 first volume appeared, the principal contribution to which was 

 Captain John Locky. A close comparison between Captain 

 Singleton and Captain Locky would certainly be favorable to 

 the latter. The method of each writer is the same. Neither 

 rises above the grade of mere anecdotal literature. Hogg 

 attempts to characterize the mad king of Sweden with only 

 partial success. His hero, too, is constantly getting into dire 



