Hogg

Hogg, James, "The Ettrick Shepherd,"' was born in 1770, in Ettrick Forest, and from his mother, Margaret Laidlaw, he inherited a taste for ballad poetry and ancient traditions. Owing to his father's ruin, he had, as a mere child, to seek his own livelihood, and in 1790 found himself in the service of Mr. Laidlaw of Yarrow, who fostered his turn for verse and introduced him to Sir Walter Scott. His first effort, The Mistakes of a Night, appeared in 1794, and a rather poor volume of collected poems saw the light in 1801. The Mountain Bard, six years later, gave promise of better things, but the little profit that resulted was lost in farming. He now started as a literary man in Edinburgh, and The Queen's Wake (1813), by far his ablest work, brought him into notice. He died 1835. Kilmeng is an admirable fairy-tale, and The Shepherd's Calendar testifies to his ability as a writer of prose.