The Ettrick Shepherd

“ Of these, we can give only a few specimens. "My dog Sirrah," says the Ettrick shepherd, "was, beyond all comparison, the best dog I ever saw. He was of a surly and unsocial temper. Disdaining all flattery, he refused to be caressed; but his attention to my commands and interests will never again, perhaps, be equalled by any of the canine race. When I first saw him, a drover was leading him in a rope. He was both lean and hungry, and far from being a beautiful animal, for he was almost all black, and had a grim face, striped with dark-brown. ”

“ Of these, unquestionably the most remarkable was James Hogg, commonly designated "The Ettrick Shepherd." This distinguished individual was born in the bosom of the romantic vale of Ettrick, in Selkirkshire,—one of the most mountainous and picturesque districts of Scotland. The family of Hogg claimed descent from Hougo, a Norwegian baron; and the poet's paternal ancestors at one period possessed the lands of Fauldshope in Ettrick Forest, and were followers, under the feudal system, of the Knights of Harden. For several generations they had adopted the simple occupation of shepherds. ”

“ No sooner had the man opened the door than the dog bounded out, leaped up at him, barked, and then ran forward, but quickly returned, leaped up again, barked, and then ran forward, as if to hasten the man's speed. The faithful dog led the man and his companions to the prison of his master. The ropes were instantly lowered, and Mr. Satterthwaite was providentially released from his perilous situation. The sheep also were recovered.
How well do I recollect the Ettrick Shepherd descanting on the sagacity and perseverance of his favourite sheep-dog! ”

“ We who read are very far from wishing for anything more. With the Ettrick Shepherd, we are fain to remember that old tunes, and old songs, and well-worn fancies are best fitted for so simple and so ancient a theme:—
"A' the world has been in love at ae time or ither o' its life, and kens best hoo to express its ain passion. What see you ever in love-sangs that 's at a' new? ”

“ These remarks, applicable to the Shepherd of the "Noctes," would, indeed, be much overstrained if applied to their prototype; yet it is equally certain that the leading features of the ideal Shepherd were depicted from those of the living Shepherd of Ettrick, by one who knew well how to estimate and appreciate human nature. ”

“ The reader knows that I refer to James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, a more wonderful (perhaps) instance of merit in a completely untaught man than even the case of the comparatively early and well-educated and civilized Bard of Coila. This situation was accordingly centrical and retired; elevated, and yet surrounded by still higher eminences, and commanding the higher districts or moors of the Yarrow, the Ettrick, the Tweed, and the Annan. Mr Thomas Shiels was well-known to be a fit coadjutor to [194] the worthy Mr Samuel Austin ”

“ When the kye come hame.
[This spirited song by the Ettrick Shepherd first appeared in his novel entitled "The Three Perils of Man," 1821, 3 vols. It is sung to the old tune of "The Blathrie o't."]
Come all ye jolly shepherds
⁠That whistle through the glen,
I'll tell ye of a secret
⁠That courtiers dinna ken.
What is the greatest bliss
⁠That the tongue o' man can name? ”

“ Laird o' Lamington," the " Women Folk," and " Paddy O'Rafferty," he gives with irresistible force and fire. About this time, however, the reporters (i.e., R. C.) with it is not in our power to state any further of the Candlemaker Row Festival.
And so farewell to the sweet-voiced, warm-hearted Shepherd.
↑ "The Works of the Ettrick Shepherd. A new Edition; with a Memoir of the Author, by the Rev. Thomas Thomson [and Hogg's Autobiography and Reminiscences and Illustrative Engravings] ." Two vols. Blackie and Son; Lndon, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. ”

“ The father, about the time of his marriage, having saved a considerable sum of money, took a lease of the farms of Ettrick House and Ettrick Hall, and commenced dealing in sheep. A sudden fall in the price of these, and the absconding of his principal debtor, ruined him when our Hogg was in his sixth year; everything was sold by auction, and the family was turned out of doors without a farthing in the world. A good man, Brydon of Crosslee, had compassion, took a short lease of the Ettrick House, made the father his shepherd there, and was kind to them all till the day of his death. ”

“ It may be mentioned here that in 1793 he had a bit of travel which considerably influenced him, having gone with a flock of his master's sheep to Strathfillan, in Perthshire, and viewed the wild grandeur of the mountains and glens of the West Highlands. Here is another bit of peasant Ufe worth recording; as Mr. Thomson says, " It was the third Eclogue of Virgil starting into life among the braes of Ettrick — it was Menalcas, Damoetus, and Palaemon preparing to pipe over again, with the stake of a kid against a bicker of beech-wood!" ”

“ Sleeping always in stables or cow-houses, his sawing at night usually disturbed nobody but himself and the quadrupeds, JAMES HOGG 405 "whom I believed to be greatly delighted with my strains. At all events, they never complained, which the biped part of my neighbours did frequently, to my pity and utter indignation." At length, having passed the stage of farm drudge of all work, he arrived at the dignity of shepherd to Laidlaw of Willenslee, and here, in his eighteenth year, got his first perusal of Allan Ramsay's " Gentle Shepherd " and Blind Harry's " Life and. ”

“ Looks like his Master, lean, and full of scurf,
Not caring for the Pipe or Whistle: this man may
(If he be well wrought) do a deed of wonder,
Forcing me passage to my long desires:
And here he comes, as fitly to my purpose,
As my quick thoughts could wish for.
Enter Shepherd.
Shep. Fresh Beauty, let me not be thought uncivil,
Thus to be Partner of your loneness: 'twas
My Love (that ever working passion) drew
Me to this place to seek some remedy
For my sick Soul: be not unkind and fair,
For such the mighty Cupid in his doom
Hath sworn to be aveng'd on ”

“ But amid all this din and uproar of conflicting voices, amid the wrangling tumult and confusion of converging opinions, those who will may hear and discern the loving voice of the true Shepherd speaking to the world through His Church with the same calm, assuring words which He uttered to living witnesses two thousand years ago. He has not changed, neither has His teaching; He has not deserted His chosen flock, but is with it all days, even to the end of the world.34 His love for us, His watchfulness for our needs, His enduring care for our interests, in spite of our enemies, can never fail. ”

“ Shepherd is able to come back to you."
"We don't want to lose Mr. Shepherd, sir. He's what they call high in these parts, but he's a great favourite with all the poor people, because you see he understands them as if he was of the same flesh and blood with themselves—as, for that matter, I suppose we all are."
"If we weren't there would be nothing to say at all. Will any of these men be at church to-morrow, do you suppose? ”

“ First let our great God cease to keep my flocks,
That being left alone without a guard,
The Wolf, or Winters rage, Summers great heat,
And want of Water, Rots; or what to us
Of ill is yet unknown, full speedily,
And in their general ruine let me feel.
Amo. I pray thee gentle Shepherd wish not so,
I do believe thee: 'tis as hard for me
To think thee false, and harder than for thee
To hold me foul. ”

“ A Shepherd may be as Easy in a Cottage, as a Prince in a Palace, with a Mind Suited to his Station, but if they will be Launching out into Trade, or Bus'ness that they do not understand, they have nothing left them to trust to when they are once Bewilder'd, but the Hope of some Kind Providence to put them in the Right Way Home again. ”

“ Did not our blessed Shepherd, speaking in the beginning to His little flock, warn them that men would deliver them up in councils and scourge them? Did He not say to them plainly, “And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake; but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. And when they persecute you in this city, flee into another.... The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. ”

“ Enter Clorin.
Clor. See where he lyes; did ever man but he
Love any woman for her Constancie
To her dead lover, which she needs must end
Before she can allow him for her friend,
And he himself must needs the cause destroy,
For which he loves, before he can enjoy?
Poor Shepherd, Heaven grant I at once may free
Thee from thy pain, and keep my loyaltie:
Shepherd, look up. ”

“ In those interesting dialogues, the Shepherd is represented as a character of marvellous shrewdness and sagacity, whose observations on men and manners, life and literature, uttered, as they are, in the homeliest phrases, contain a depth of philosophy and vigour of criticism rarely exhibited in the history of real or fictitious biography. "In wisdom," writes Professor Ferrier, "the Shepherd equals the Socrates of Plato; in humour, he surpasses the Falstaff of Shakspeare; clear and prompt, he might have stood up against Dr Johnson in close and peremptory argument ”

“ Frequently during life we are, of a certainty, encompassed round with perils; we hardly know where to turn or what to do, we are breathless with fright; but even then, if we have proper faith, we shall grow calm, like the shepherd's flock in the midst of devouring animals and beasts of prey, for our Saviour and Shepherd is with us, and no evil can befall us. Even when we think Him farthest, He is often nearest; when we think Him sleeping, His heart is watching. He loves us, His weak and timid sheep; we are the objects of His heart's affection and ever active solicitude ”

“ Calmly and fearlessly they go down to death; joyously and with feelings of exultation they hail the coming of Him on whom their thoughts have rested throughout life, of Him whom they have ever seen by faith, whom they have loved, whom they have trusted, whom they have chosen for their own. Confident of the power and goodness of their faithful Shepherd, pain daunts them not, the enemy frets them not. The last hour for them is not one of darkness, but of light ”

“ For each and all of these how important it is that the Shepherd should stand at the door of the fold and bind up their wounds with His tender grace before they pass through the portals of death! Scarred and wayward children, victims of evil circumstances, creatures of vanity and of folly, they realize at the end how impotent they are, how helpless in the presence of the coldness of death to redeem or make sure the years that are fled, unless He draw near and assist them who has sustained them in life, and who is at once the author and the master of both life and death! ”

“ For Shepherd was a very fair musician, and gave a good deal of time to the organ. "It's a grand notion, to think of him sitting here in the gloom, with that great musical instrument towering above him, whence he sends forth the voice of gladness, almost of song to his people, while they are mowing the grass, binding the sheaves, or gazing abroad over the stormy ocean in doubt, anxiety, and fear. 'There's the parson at his bells,' they would say, and stop and listen; and some phrase might sink into their hearts, waking some memory, or giving birth to some hope or faint aspiration. ”

“ These city actors would have thought it absurd to render shepherds as quiet, well-educated men. Did they not know plenty of shepherds round Chester who had hard times and hard fare, and whose only knowledge was of the diseases of animals? Were they not plagued with mischievous shepherd-boys who were ever ready for fun and play? And if Noah’s wife was a shrew, were they not well acquainted with many such, and was not the scold’s bridle and the ducking-stool kept at the Cross for such offending citizens? ”

“ Hath not some newer love forc'd thee forget
Thy Ancient faith?
Per. Still nearer to my love;
These be the very words she oft did prove
Upon my temper, so she still would take
Wonder into her face, and silent make
Signs with her head and hand, as who would say,
Shepherd remember this another day.
Amo. Am I not Amaret? where was I lost?
Can there be Heaven, and time, and men, and most
Of these unconstant? Faith where art thou fled? ”

“ When he grew a tolerable big lad his friends put him out as apprentice to a butcher, where having served a great part of his time, he fell in love, as they call it, with a young country lass hard by, and Dick's passion growing outrageous, he attacked the poor maid with all the amorous strains of gallantry he was able. The hearts of young uneducated wenches, like unfortified towns, make little resistance when once beseiged, and therefore Shepherd had no great difficulty in making a conquest. ”

“ I have been often urged to restrain and humble him by legal measures as an incorrigible offender deserves. I know I have it in my power, and if he dares me to the task, I want but a hair to make a tether of."
The Shepherd appears to have written since 1813, fifteen volumes of poetry and as many volumes of prose, besides his contributions to periodical works; and, what is not the less extraordinary he was forty years of age before he wrote his first poem. ”

“ And he that will Sacrifice all Those Blessings to a Restless Appetite, deserves to be Miserable. Our Shepherd’s Case, in short here, is every Man's Case that Quits a Moral Certainty for an Uncertainty, and Leaps from the Honest Bus'ness he was brought up to, into a Trade he has no Skill in. ”

“ Than the new Milk we strip before day-light
From the full fraighted bags of our fair flocks:
Your hair more beauteous than those hanging locks
Of young Apollo.
Amo. Shepherd be not lost,
Y'are sail'd too far already from the Coast
Of our discourse.
Peri. Did you not tell me once
I should not love alone, I should not lose
Those many passions, vows, and holy Oaths,
I've sent to Heaven? did you not give your hand,
Even that fair hand in hostage? ”