gown and bands, however becoming in the eyes of the younger portion of the congregation, as proper clerical distinctions in the performance of the duties of the pulpit, were, in the judgment of the older members, an utter abomination, as the badges of Erastianism, Prelacy, or even downright Popery. Psalmody also had of late been somewhat attended to (and verily there was need!); and not only was the slavish practice of reading the psalm line by line, while singing, beginning to be discontinued, but new tunes were introduced, in which the last line, or part of the line, of each verse, was repeated. This was astounding to the orthodox: it was like the introduction of the Liturgy itself in the days of Charles I.; and although no joint-stools flew on the occasion, it was only, perhaps, because such modes of church controversy could no longer be available. These prejudices, so silly, and worse than silly, were even tolerated and connived at by not a few of the Secession ministers, who were afraid, by a more manly course of action, to thin their congregations and lessen their influence. Such was one of the inevitable consequences of the Voluntary system, by which Dissenterism will be hampered to the end. It speaks not a little for the intrepid disinterestedness of Mr. Heugh, that in spite of these obstacles he held onward in his own course, both in gown-wearing and psalmody, as well as in the more important dogma of territorial distinction, to which some of the most distinguished leaders of his own party were obstinately wedded. Another duty, in which he was worthy of the highest commendation, consisted in the faithful diligence of his pulpit preparations. On being transferred from one charge to another, it is natural for a minister to draw upon his old stock of sermons, while few think of blaming him for such a convenient substitution. But Mr. Heugh could not be thus satisfied. Although he brought with him to Glasgow about two thousand discourses, which he had written during the fifteen years of his past ministry, scarcely more than twenty of these were delivered during the quarter of a century over which the rest of his labours extended. Combined with all this diligence, he possessed the true spirit of an orator, in never rising to address an audience without a certain degree of anxious diffidence and tremor. "I scarcely ever enter a pulpit," he said, "without a temporary hectic." Such a preacher can never be dull or uninteresting; independently of feeling the sacred nature of his message, he is keenly sensitive to the propriety and effectiveness of its delivery. Accordingly, his hearers were in the habit of remarking the singular equality of his pulpit labours, where every sermon was essentially a good one. All this was nothing more than the result of that careful preparation that would not permit him either to trust to extemporaneous oratory, or delay the study of his subject to the last. In 1831, he enjoyed one of the earlier drops of that thunder-shower of Doctors' caps which has lately crossed the Atlantic, and descended upon our island-whether to fertilize or impoverish our literary spirit, time will reveal. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by the college of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Such distinctions he seems to have estimated at their real worth—and nothing more. Considering all things," he said, "they are of vastly little value; a mere tinsel shoulder-knot-neither helmet, sword, nor shield, much less brawny arm or valorous soul."

Such was the character and such were the labours of Dr. Heugh in Glasgow -an earnest, diligent, pains-taking minister, and eloquent instructor in the truths of the gospel, while every year added to the affection of his flock and the esteem of the public at large. Of his share in the ecclesiastical controversies

of the day, and his visits to England and the Continent, important though they were to himself, it is unnecessary to speak in a short biographical sketch. He died at Glasgow, on the 10th of June, 1846, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. HOGG, JAMES.-This delightful poet of nature's own rearing, who, of all our national bards under similar circumstances, ranks nearest to Burns, was born in Ettrick Forest, on the 25th of January, 1772. Whence he derived his most unpoetical of names it is not easy to determine, unless we are to suppose that it was the name of some honoured follower of the Conqueror, subsequently fattened into its present form by the rich fruits of the conquest, or finally by a profitable emigration into Scotland in the days, it may be, of Malcolm Canmore. But upon this dangerous question we have no particular wish to enter. At all events, we know that James Hogg was fully sensible of this grunting incongruity in connection with the tuneful avocation of minstrel, and therefore chose for himself the name of the Ettrick Shepherd as the more fitting appellative. Whatever may have been the good fortune of his earliest ancestors in Scotland, we well know that none of it descended to himself; for his predecessors had been shepherds as far back as he could trace them. His father, who followed the same humble calling, had been so successful in it as to save some money, which he invested in a farming speculation soon after James was born. The young poet, who was the second of four sons, was therefore sent to school, and would probably have received the usual amount of education bestowed upon the children of our Scottish peasantry, had it not been for a reverse of fortune, by which his father was stripped of all his earnings. This happened when James was only six years old; and he was taken from school in consequence of his parents and their children being "turned out of doors," as he informs us, "without a farthing in the world." After a resting-place had been found, James was obliged to enter into service at the early age of seven. His occupation was to herd a few cows, upon a half-year's wage of a ewe lamb and a pair of new shoes. In this lonely occupation, with nothing but his cows for companions, the imaginative boy could find no better amusement than to run races against time, or rather against himself. For this purpose he was wont to strip like a regular athlete, until his clothes were lost piece by piece, so that he was reduced to primitive nudeness; and it was only by a diligent search of the other servants that the lost articles were found. After a year spent in this kind of servitude, he was sent once more to school. Hitherto his education had advanced so far as reading in the "Shorter Catechism" and the Proverbs of Solomon; but now he was transferred into a higher class, where the Bible itself was the text-book of lessons. He also learned writing, after a fashion, in a large coarse hand, where every letter was nearly an inch in length. A quarter of a year spent in this way completed his education; all that was afterwards to be done depended upon his own efforts.

Having thus received a more limited tuition than usually happens to the children even of the poorest in our country, Hogg was again obliged to return to the occupation of a cow-herd, the lowest grade of rural employment; and after serving in this capacity for several years, under different masters, he was raised to the more honourable office of a shepherd. But long before he attained this promotion, and while still a mere boy, the first stirrings of the poetical spirit came upon him; and like almost every poet, past, present, and to come, his inspirations were awoke by female beauty, tenderness, and worth. He had already found the being who afterwards was, in all likelihood, the "bonny Kil

meny," who bewitched the world, as well as the animating muse of his first rugged efforts in song. That episode, so important in a poet's life, we give in his own tender and truthful language :-" When only eight years of age, I was sent out to a height called Broad-heads, with a rosy-cheeked maiden, to herd a flock of new-weaned lambs, and I had my mischievous cows to herd besides. But as she had no dog, and I had an excellent one, I was ordered to keep close by her. Never was a master's order better obeyed. Day after day I herded the cows and the lambs both, and Betty had nothing to do but to sit and sew. Then we dined together every day at a well near to the Shiel-sike-head, and after dinner I laid my head down on her lap, covered her bare feet with my plaid, and pretended to fall sound asleep. One day I heard her say to herself, 'Puir little laddie! he's jist tired to death;' and then I wept till I was afraid she would feel the warm tears trickling on her knee. I wished my master, who was a handsome young man, would fall in love with her and marry her, wondering how he could be so blind and stupid as not to do it. But I thought if I were he I would know well what to do."

From love to music was but a step in one of such a temperament, and when Hogg had reached the age of fourteen he laid out five shillings, which he had saved from his wages, in the purchase of an old violin. This new charm of existence occupied him so wholly that all his leisure was devoted to it; and as his only spare hours were taken from sleep, while his only dormitory was a stable or a cow-house, his desperate attempts in music had commonly no better auditory than that which was wont to gather around the harping of Orpheus. He ever after retained his love of music, and by dint of perseverance became a tolerable violinist. However trivial, or even ridiculous, such a pursuit may be in common life, it is no frivolous matter in that of a poet. It indicates that the soul of harmony is within him, and that whether he learns to fiddle well or not, he will turn it to the best account in that music of words which forms so necessary an adjunct in poetry. Who does not recognize this fact in the singular melody which characterizes the Ettrick Shepherd's versification? No sounds can be sweeter, and no notes more appropriate, than those which embody "Kilmeny " and the Abbot M'Kinnon, in the "Queen's Wake." The first of these poems, as illustrative of the mere music of language, independently of its poetical merits, has never been surpassed.

In the meantime the education of the future poet went on, and that, too, so oddly as to give most uncertain promise of his future destination. He had already committed the Psalms of David in metre to memory; but though he liked their rhymes, he seems to have understood nothing else than the short measure into which they are rendered. In his eighteenth year, "The Life and Adventures of Sir William Wallace," modernized by Hamilton of Gilbertfield, and forming the choice epic of our Scottish peasantry, fell into his hands, and also the equally popular pastoral of the "Gentle Shepherd." But partly from having almost forgotten the art of reading, which he had learned so imperfectly, and partly from his scanty reading having been hitherto limited to English, the Scottish dialect, in which "Wallace" and the "Gentle Shepherd" are written, was so new and so puzzling, that Hogg struggled on from line to line at a snail's pace. But what was more ominous still was his dislike at their versification, so that he felt as if he would have relished them better had they been written in prose. His love of reading having been noticed by his employers, books were lent him, chiefly of a theological character, and newspapers; through the

last of which he was wont to wade, from the title at the beginning to the names of printer and publisher at the end, without stint or omission.

At length, when he had reached his twenty-fourth year, Hogg commenced the life of a poet in earnest. He had now read much, although very miscellaneously; and his imprisoned ideas, after struggling for a vent, burst forth in the language of song. His first attempts were of a humble description, being chiefly ballads and songs, intended to be sung by the lasses of the district; while the name of "Jamie the poeter," by which they soon learned to distinguish him, was the "muses' meed" with which he rested satisfied for the present. It was easy, indeed, for him to compose verses: they sprang up in his mind as rapidly as prose does with ordinary mortals; but to embody them in form to the eye, so that others might read and learn them-here was the crowning difficulty. We have already noticed his very scanty education in penmanship, and from want of occupation it had slumbered since his boyhood until now, that it was urgently called into full exercise. His writing, at the best, was a sort of laborious printing, letter by letter; while his model was the Italian alphabet, for want of a more concise character. To add to his difficulties, his chief opportunities for writing were derived from the chance intervals that occurred in the management of his unruly flock. Armed with a few sheets of paper, stitched together, in his pocket, and a phial, instead of an ink-horn, dangling from his button-hole, he used to sally to the hill-side with his sheep; and as soon as a season for writing occurred, he stripped off coat and waistcoat, like one preparing for a desperate deed, and squared his elbows for the feat. In this way his earliest poems were committed to paper. One advantage of this slow and toilsome process was that it afforded sufficient time for reflection and correction; so that his MS., however uncouth, was not defiled with those many erasures and alterations that so sorely trouble the author, as well as perplex the printers. The word once down was as immutable as the laws of the Medes and Persians. The habit thus established was of immense service to Hogg when he acquired greater facility in penmanship, and to this, perhaps, we may attribute the ready accuracy he afterwards acquired, both in prose and verse, and the numerous productions which he was enabled to give to the world in the midst of his other avocations.

It was now full time that Hogg should have higher models than Ettrick ballads, and better judges than the rude peasantry of the district. Accordingly, after he had harped and preluded for a twelvemonth, he was so fortunate as to hear of Robert Burns, who had died only a year before. His informant was a "half-daft man," who recited to him the whole of "Tam O'Shanter," and told him that its author was the sweetest poet that ever was born; that he was now dead, and had left a place that would never be filled. Hogg, who was so delighted with "Tam O'Shanter " that he quickly learned every line by heart, had now full proof that there was still higher poetry than his own, and a better poet than himself; and his whole enthusiasm thenceforth was to become the rival, or at least the worthy successor of Robert Burns. And why not? For had he not been born, of all days in the year, upon the 25th of January, the very birthday of Robert Burns? And was he not, in a great measure, an uneducated and self-taught man, even as Burns was? And, moreover, was not his own occupation of herding sheep every whit as poetical as following the plough, if not even more so? All this was such proof demonstrative, that he never afterwards seems to have lost sight of the hope that the Ettrick Shepherd would at last

become as famed as the Ayrshire ploughman. In other individuals such soaring ambition is not only kept a secret from the world, but as much as possible from their own hearts also; but with James Hogg there never was such concealment. He uttered what he felt, so that those who loved were often compelled to laugh at him, and reckon him not only the simplest of poets, but the most vain-glorious of poetical simpletons. For this, however, he cared very little, while he felt within himself that new-born ardent enthusiasm which, he judged, would carry him far, even though it should fall short of the mark. And in this he was right; for if he did not become wholly a Burns, he still distanced others as far as he was himself distanced by his prototype.

The first publication of Hogg was a song, and nothing more-but it was such a song as the best of our poets would not have been ashamed of. Such was the general suffrage, by the high popularity which this patriotic lay, called "Donald M'Donald," attained, and continued to hold for years. It appeared in 1800, in consequence of Napoleon's threatened invasion; and, while it denounced all manner of calamity and disaster upon the intruder—which, luckily, were not brought to the test-it kindled, wherever it was sung, such an ardent spirit of patriotism as Alcæus himself would have longed to second.

In the following year he made a still more intrepid plunge into authorship. Having come to Edinburgh with a flock of sheep for sale, and being incumbered with several days of interval, he resolved to spend the time in writing out such of his compositions as he could most readily remember, and publishing them in the form of a poetical pamphlet. He transcribed them accordingly, placed them in the hands of a publisher, and then retired to the Forest; where his production afterwards followed him, unrevised and uncorrected, with not a few blunders gratuitously added by the printer. This was but a sorry commencement; and like many poets after their first work appears, his lucubrations seemed in his own eyes so inferior in the form of a published book, that he wished them cancelled and annihilated. But the press had clutched them, and their recal was too late.

Soon after this commencement, Hogg, impatient of the narrow circumstances within which he was hampered, and conscious that he was fitted for something better, resolved to amend his fortunes, by migrating either to the Highlands or the Hebrides, and finding occupation as the superintendent of an extensive sheep-farm. But, strongly recommended though he was, especially by Sir Walter, then Mr. Scott, who had thus early recognized a kindred genius in the Shepherd, the attempt was unsuccessful; and poor Hogg, on returning home, lost all the money he still possessed, and that, too, in the short space of a week. Something was needful to be done immediately; and in this strait he was advised, by his steadfast friend, Sir Walter Scott, to publish a volume of poetry. The materials were already at hand; for Hogg, dissatisfied with the imitations of the ancient ballads which Scott had published in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," had made several attempts of the saine kind himself, which were highly estimated. It is worthy of remark, by the way, that the three great poets of Scotland-Scott, Hogg, and Allan Cunningham-commenced their poetical career, not upon the refinements of the modern school, but the rough spirit-stirring songs of shepherds and moss-troopers. Hogg's collection was soon in readiness; and on reaching Edinburgh, Scott introduced him to Constable, by whom the volume was published, under the title of "The Mountain Bard." By this work, which, notwithstanding the roughness of a