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It may not be commonly known that the Ettrick Shepherd was an agricultural author, and wrote "Hogg on Sheep," for which, as he tells us, he received the sum of eighty-six pounds. It is an octavo book, and relates to the care, management, and diseases of the black-faced mountain-breed, of which alone he was cognizant.

A treatise on the diseases of sheep brought him £300, on the strength of which he embarked upon a sheep-farming enterprise in Dumfriesshire which, like a previous smaller venture in Harris, proved a failure, and he returned to Ettrick bankrupt. Thenceforward he relied almost entirely on literature for support. With this view he, in 1810, settled in Edin., pub.

Behind them, regardless of precedence, came the Ploughman Poet and the Ettrick Shepherd, Boswell and Dr. Johnson, Dr.

Ballantyne, the intelligent printer of nearly the whole of Sir Walter's works, and whom the Poet much respected for his taste and good sense, has promised a memoir of the deceased. Public expectation, however, points more decidedly to Mr. Lockhart; although the Ettrick Shepherd will, doubtless, pay his announced tribute to the talents and virtues of his illustrious contemporary.

March, march, Ettrick and Teviotdale, Why the deil dinna ye march forward in order? March, march, Eskdale and Liddesdale, All the Blue Bonnets are bound for the Border Many a banner spread, Flutters above your head, Many a crest that is famous in story; Mount and make ready then, Sons of the mountain glen, Fight for the Queen and the old Scottish glory!

But picture to yourself the coral sea reaching away to the north, to the foot of the Welsh mountains; and then fancy yourself, if you will, in a canoe, paddling up through the coral-reefs, north and still north, up the valley down which the Severn now flows, up through what is now Worcestershire, then up through Staffordshire, then through Derbyshire, into Yorkshire, and so on through Durham and Northumberland, till your find yourself stopped by the Ettrick hills in Scotland; while all to the westward of you, where is now the greater part of England, was open sea.

He gave me the letter, which was addressed in these words: "To the hands of Ebenezer Balfour, Esquire, of Shaws, in his house of Shaws, these will be delivered by my son, David Balfour." My heart was beating hard at this great prospect now suddenly opening before a lad of seventeen years of age, the son of a poor country dominie in the Forest of Ettrick. "Mr.

But as a short-story writer he shares the failing of all his English brothers in that art, until James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, penned his tales namely, that his short-stories do not stand apart, as things total in themselves, but are woven into a larger narrative by whose proportions they are dwarfed, so that their true completeness is disguised.

"You may bring the kitten. I know I'm asking you to do something that I disapprove of, but I'm rather worried and I must see you alone." For three days he explored cautiously to discover how far the Ettrick story had spread. Saturday brought him a heavy bundle of news-cuttings; but they were all concerned with "The Bomb-Shell."

But by Bell and a few others, who saw the diamond glittering in the rough casket, Hogg was duly appreciated. To the Literary Journal he was a constant contributor both of prose and verse, and he took a warm interest in its success. When the proposal to erect a monument to the Shepherd in Ettrick Vale took a practical shape, Sheriff Bell was selected to inaugurate the structure.