and gilded canopies cannot confer. In a sequestered mode of life, where the affections are limited in their range, they acquire a strength greater in proportion as the sphere of their action is narrowed; and imagination is most vigorous when it has to work on a small number of simple ideas. Never was a family more closely linked together than the children of this admirable woman, and never was a mind of great original power more strenuously exerted in the formation of the heart and the developement of the understanding. She was in the daily habit of reading to them from the sacred volume such passages as she thought most likely to interest their minds and improve their moral feelings; and this she diversified by animated recitations from the Border Ballad, something between chant and song; and she brought superstition to her aid, held them in breathless silence and fearful, though pleasing, agitation, by stories of ghosts, and fairies, and brownies, and witches, and dead lights,-or she thrilled their hearts and wet their cheeks by an account of the death of some young shepherd who had perished, not far from his own dwelling, amid the mountain snows.

James enjoyed even fewer of the advantages of education than his brothers, for he never attended school above three months; and though his mother taught him to read, his whole stock of literature, till he was 20 years of age, consisted in the knowledge of his Bible, Hervey's Meditations, The Gentle Shepherd, an occasional number of the Scots Magazine, and a large store of oral poetry; but these he knew thoroughly, and still retains; and it may be questioned if any man alive is more thoroughly acquainted with the sacred scriptures than himself. The searching eye of a mother soon marked his talent for versification, and she used to say to him, "Jamie, my man, gang ben the house and mak me a sang," while she proposed a subject for his muse. How he succeeded in these boyish efforts, we have not learned, yet the effects of such a training, on such a mind, may be easily conceived. It fanned the spark of poetry that nature had implanted in his bosom into a flame, that neither poverty, nor misfortune, nor meglect, nor even the sneer of the po

lished critic, could ever extinguish or diminish.

But he was soon deprived of the fostering cares of one of the kindest of mothers, and the most original of women; for his parents were then struggling with worldly difficulties, in consequence of a misadventure in sheep-farming, and were obliged to send him to service when he was little above seven years of age; and his boyhood and youth were spent in the solitude of the mountains, with no other moral guardian than the good principles which they had instilled into his mind, and his own reflections, and no other intellectual guide than nature. He grew up to manhood in a state of servitude, but in him it produced no degradation, and could not repress the noble aspirings of a generous mind, conscious of its own value, leaning with confidence on its resources, and feeling itself equal to great undertakings. The untowardness of his circumstances did not injure the strong independence of a spirit that seemed to rise in proportion to the weights that pressed upon it, and he enjoyed advantages which he could not have had in any other situation. While his flocks were wandering on the summits of the mountains, or in the bosom of a sequestered glen, he had the opportunity of looking on nature, freed from the mists of prejudice, or the pedantry of books, where she is seldom seen in her original forms and native hues. It was not with him, as is too often the case, the study of poetry that led him to the study of nature; it was nature herself, green, and fresh, and vernal, that inspired him with a passionate admiration of her untouched grandeur, and an ambition of singing her glories; and he would have been a poet if no one had ever existed before him. All the various shows of the visible universe, and all the doings of the elements were familiar to his imagination, which reflected on them its own lights, and called into existence a creation of its own, of such beauty and magnificence as never appeared but in the eye of inspiration. În such a situation, all his dreams were poetry, and we have often heard him describe mountain phenomena with such fidelity, and beauty, and shadowy grandeur, as to convince us, that, as a landscape painter, he would have had

no rival. All his organs, indeed, are so acute, and all his perceptions of such uncommon vividness, and leave such complete pictures, that we believe were he to apply to art, his paintings in truth and originality of conception, at least, would be equal to his poetry. These circumstances have rendered him, above all men, the poet of the mountains, which he never approaches but his imagination takes wing, and, like the eagle, wheels and soars with a magnificence and loftiness of range in her native element.

The principal object of this essay is to unfold the circumstances that assisted nature in the formation of Mr Hogg's mind. These were chiefly the legendary tales and superstitions of his country, and the wildness and solitude of its scenery, and the impression of one or other of them is stamped on almost every line of poetry he has written. The Border Ballad, which is impetuous and daring, and as little subject to rule as the men whose achievements it celebrates, was peculiarly adapted to engage the young fancy of such a man. Nature had richly gifted his mind, and accident and education were alike favourable to the developement of its peculiar faculties; nor if Scotland had been searched for the purpose, would it have been possible to find a woman better qualified than his mother to discover the early sparks of his genius, and to kindle them into an unquenchable flame. Af ter the death of the old man above mentioned, she became the great repository of the Border ballad, being able to recite almost every line that is to be found in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and many others, which were by her death lost to the world. She possessed a soul of great sensibility, and a voice ever in unison with its movements; and in her recitations, which resembled the enthusiasm of immediate inspiration, rather than the repetition of the ideas of others, she caught the tone of the piece in all its variety of rapidity and grandeur. These rude lays of our forefathers contain the hardy adventures and constant vicissitudes of men who spent their lives amid the alarms and dangers of a predatory warfare; their affluence and spoliation,-their valour in making and repelling an attack,

their love of glory, and contempt of death,-the song of the triumph, and the dirge of the slain,-and to each of these she gave an appropriate emphasis and action, rising into the wildness of possession, or melting into an overpowering tenderness. Such were the effects of her manner, that when her son saw these poems printed, of which her recitations had delighted him so much, he could not believe they were the same. His mind was early imbued with these ballads; on them his taste was formed; and the "Mountain Bard" is a professed imitation of them.

In this memoir of the progress of the genius of the poet, rather than the life of the man, it would be unpar donable not to mention the family of Mr Laidlaw of Blackhouse. Here he was received rather as a son at the house of his father, than a servant; yet this respectable man is mentioned, not so much on account of the kindness Hogg received under his roof, as the means he there enjoyed of cultivating his mind, and improving his poetical talent. Mr Laidlaw himself was an intelligent and a well informed man, and possessed a good library for his situation, which was always at Mr Hogg's command, and it was then that he may be said to have commenced reading. He never speaks of this respectable man but as a father; but it was the friendship that he formed with his son, Mr William Laidlaw, that must make this change in his situation be remembered as an era in his life. Before this period, he had had some acquaintances, but he had never till now enjoyed a friend out of his own family. The young man who was now his associate, was a kindred spirit; like himself, an unspoiled pupil of nature, who, to a vigorous imagination, added an acute judgment, and soon discovered the genius of the future poet, through the ungainly exterior that concealed it. With a knowledge of character almost intuitive, he saw, under the unpretending simplicity of the shepherd, a mind of strong originality, and capa ble of extraordinary things. He admired him to enthusiasm, and roused him to a sense of his own importance, cheering him in his poetical attempts, and zealously propagating his fame; and though many of those to whom he shewed his verses received them

with indifference or condemnation, he continued unshaken in his judgment of the powers of his friend.

Some time after the period of which we have been speaking, Mr Scott and Mr Leyden began to make their collections for the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. They had heard of Mr Laidlaw as a man likely to assist them in the object of their search. To him they applied, and by him Hogg was introduced to Mr Scott. He was at first rather surprised to hear that the poems to which he had been accustomed to listen with such delight from his infancy, and which he supposed were little known out of his own glens, were sought after with such avidity by the learned and the ingenious; yet he was proud to comply with the requisition, and wrote out several ballads for insertion in that work. Some of his own poetry was shewn to Mr Scott, who approved of it. This was a sanction from which there was no appeal, and the most infidel of his acquaintances among the farmers and shepherds now began to discover merit in those productions which had lately been the subject of their ridicule. His fame now began to spread, and he was spoken of in Edinburgh and other places as a surprising man for his opportunities. At the first meeting between him and Mr Scott, that gentleman, after spending some hours in his company, declared, that he had never met a man of more originality of genius, and henceforth became his zealous friend. From the time he began to write poetry, he had never doubted of his ultimate success. He felt within him the stirrings of inspiration so strong, that he could not doubt of his vocation. Yet the countenance of such a man was a triumph to him and his friend, for which they had hardly dared to hope. All that he now wanted was a little mechanical skill, and he applied to his beloved art with the natural warmth of his temperament, kindled into enthusiasm by applause so highly valued, and was naturally enough led to the initation of the Border ballad.

It was not till he was about twentytwo years of age that he composed much poetry. This was in 1793, and thirteen years elapsed before he published his Mountain Bard. In the intermediate space, he published a small volume in as peculiar circum

stances as poet was ever placed. He had been sent to Edinburgh with a flock of sheep for sale. He accidentally arrived two days before the market, and not knowing how to employ himself, he recollected that he had some poems, and was seized with a strong desire of seeing them in print. He hired a small lodging in a garret storey, and wrote out, not the best of his compositions, but such as he could remember. He left them with an obscure printer, and heard no more of them till some of the copies were sent to him, with an account of the expences of printing. To his mortification, they were most inaccurately printed, yet, with all their faults, some of them found their way into the Magazines of the day. Though there is not a line in this volume which its author now thinks worthy of being preserved, yet he then thought this notice the summit of human fame.

We now come to consider the "Mountain Bard." And if the success of an imitation depend on its likeness to its prototype, we should be disposed to pronounce the imitations in this volume superior to the more polished ones in the Border Minstrelsy. There is in these early essays of Mr Hogg's genius, much of the spirit and energy, as well as the rudeness that characterize the ancient ballad. He seems to have caught a fold of the mantle of the old minstrels, and to have struck the very harp on which they played to the same tones of wildness and enthusiasm. Yet perhaps. they do not resemble them more in any thing than in a true doric simplicity, both of thought and expression; and though their simplicity often degenerates into prose, and their familiarity into vulgarity, they contain many touches and some passages which the author has hardly yet surpassed in his happiest moments; and are never uninteresting, the mortal sin of poetry. Few people open the volume without the desire of going through it, and it is impossible to read it through without discovering strong proofs of an original and poetical mind.-But we must postpone till next Number our further remarks on this interesting volume, and on the astonishing progress that the author has, since its appearance, attained in power of expression and poetical reputation.

Y.

Rob Roy. By the Author of Waverley, &c. 3 vols. Constable and Co. Edinburgh, 1818.

Few works have excited so much expectation as the present, or been so much in people's mouths before it

came into their hands. There seems

even to have been a prophetic anticipation, (not indeed a true one,) of what it was to contain. The whole antiquarian world has been reading and writing about Rob Roy, * and all the world of tourists have been pouring from every corner of the kingdom to visit his cave. The mighty magician who was, in the meantime, conjuring up in his own secret cell of invention, this terrible spectre, must, no doubt, have enjoyed not a little the bustle and the blundering which the busy idlers of the age were making about the probabilities of his creations, and we have some reason to think, shaped his story in such a manner, as to throw them out in their chase, with a slight degree of malicious finesse. The book comes out, and we almost read through two volumes before we hear of the redoubt ed Rob in propria persona. There is nothing in it on the genealogical history of the Macgregors, to please the taste of antiquarianism;—all the ties in steam-boats, &c. to the wonderful cave have been utterly thrown away, for said cave is not once, we think, mentioned from beginning to end. There are some murmurings among the ladies, that the Highland Chieftain is not quite so romantic and noble a character as they had expected to find him, and most readers are at first a little disappointed, to meet with less of that poetical colouring and sentiment thrown over his descriptions of nature, and of human life, which are so conspicuous in the former productions of this inimitable

par

We have lately received from a learned and able correspondent, some curious antiquarian illustrations for our review of Rob Roy, and some interesting notices respecting the clan of Macgregor,-but the press of other materials obliges us to postpone their insertion till our next Number,

VOL. II.

author. With respect to any thing which he writes, few people, indeed, have the courage to speak out; and if it were possible for him to write any thing utterly stupid, it would be altrial of his power over the public most worth his while to do it, as a mind. In the present instance, scarcely any one will confess that he is disappointed, but, we suspect most readthough, for our parts, we are inclined to ers have been disappointed a little, ly admire this great writer, no less for think very unreasonably; and we realwhat he has not now given us, than for the abundance and the riches which he has often scattered so profusely around him. It seems to have been his present object (surely a much finer one, than to satisfy the tastes of idle people who run over the country poking into caves) to give a distinct the state of domestic manners in both and very little exaggerated picture of divisions of the kingdom at the beginning of the last century. In this view he first gives us a specimen of the exact and formal London merchant, whose ideas are confined within his ledger, of the reckless and stupid country squire in the more uncultivated parts of England, with his dogs and horses, and cubs of sons. With the limited and arithmetical intellect of the London merchant, we have afterwards admirably contrasted in the nor◄

thern part of the kingdom, the more excursive talent and undisciplined pretensions of the Glasgow adventurer in trade; and the wild Highland charac ters, with the great Rob at their head, are finely set off against the southern barbarians above mentioned. The great perfection of all these pictures is their truth, and we cannot enough admire the ability with which our author has kept down the poetry of his genius, which must naturally have led him to exaggerate and to throw insensibly awhich they did not in reality possess. round them a romantic colouring In his former novels, his lowest characters, amidst all their nature, had a certain interest of sentiment given to them. The meanest example of Scotch cunning was still made some

F

thing amiable. In the present work, we have an honest specimen of the worst sort of Sawney, so provokingly correct, that it would almost make us blush for our country, were not ample amends made, in the descriptions of the stupid brutality of one class of our southern neighbours,—and were not the virtues even of the most uncivilized beings among us brought forward with the same adherence to truth and nature. In excellent keeping with this picture of human life, is the manner in which the author presents us with the aspects of natural scenery. There is only so much glow imparted to them, as to shew us how much farther he could carry us if he would--but it is the naked truth even with respect to these, that he is much more concerned about, than any warm glow of description. This is our general idea of the peculiar merits of this work, and we believe we can justify our opinion, by the passages which we shall produce from it. It is scarcely necessary to give a sketch of a story which every one has read― but we could not well connect together our quotations without some such sketch.

Nothing seems farther from the Highlands and Rob Roy's cave, than its outset. Mr Francis Osbaldistone, son of a great London merchant, is suddenly recalled home by his father from Bourdeaux, where he had been sent to get a better insight into trade. Here he took rather to the study of poetry and the Belles Lettres, than of "Brandies, Barils, and Barricants," and although the French merchant with whom he resided often wrote home, with the civility of his country, that he was every thing his father could wish, yet his own letters did not tell so flattering a tale. The dissatisfaction with the mercantile life which they expressed, was the cause of his recall, and of an unsatisfactory examination which he underwent on his return, under the penetrating scrutiny of his father, and which ended in a peremptory command that, in a month's time, he must make up his mind, whether he would seriously take to trade, or be turned adrift upon the world. Old Owen, the head clerk, uses all his rhetoric and arithmetic, to persuade him to come to reason; but obstinacy and Ariosto get the better, and on the ex

piration of the prescribed term, he is sent off on a visit to his uncle in the north of England, one of whose sons Mr Osbaldistone selected as a suitable partner, instead of his own impracticable boy. On the road (he travelled on horseback, according to the custom of those times, when there were no mail-coaches,) he fell in with another traveller who was in desperate dread of robbers, and of being deprived of a portmanteau, which he would suffer no one to touch but himself, and on which he regularly sate down whenever they got into an inn. The young gentleman could not but frequently divert himself at the expence of his companion, in so much that he became suspected by him of being a highwayman himself. At the Black Bear in Darlington, where our travellers rested on the Sunday, (according to the good obsolete custom of those times,) they were entertained at the table of mine host, (another good obsolete custom,) where among other individuals, there was a sort of a gentleman" from Scotland. He was the first Scotchman whom young Osbaldistone had ever seen, and he was not disposed to like him, as, from his infancy, he had imbibed violent prejudices against that nation. It is worth while to give the account of this gentleman, and his behaviour at dinner, in our author's own words.

"There was much about him that coincided with my previous conceptions. He had the hard features and athletic form, said to be peculiar to his country, together with the national intonation and slow pedantic mode of expression, arising from dialect. I could also observe the caution the desire to avoid peculiarities of idiom or and shrewdness of his country in many of the observations which he made, and the

answers which he returned. But I was not prepared for an air of easy self-possession and superiority, with which he seemed to predominate over the company into which he was thrown, as it were by accident. His dress was as coarse as it could be, being still decent; and, at a time when great expence was lavished upon the wardrobe, even of the lowest who pretended to the diocrity of circumstances, if not poverty. character of gentlemen, this indicated me

His conversation intimated, that he was engaged in the cattle-trade, no very dignified professional pursuit. And yet, under these disadvantages, he seemed, as a matter of course, to treat the rest of the company with the cool and condescending politeness,