As Hogg used to boast that he was born on the same day as Burns, and as this assertion was negatived by the parish register, we can not but admire the thoughtful delicacy which induced the widow to omit the day of his birth altogether, though carefully inserting the day of his death.
On the right hand of the poet's headstone stands another, erected by the shepherd himself, as follows: "Here lieth William Laidlaw, the far famed Will o' Phaup, who, for feats of frolic, agility, and strength, had no equal in that day. He was born at Ettrick, A.D. 1691, and died in the eighty-fourth year of his age. Also Margaret, his eldest daughter, spouse to Robert Hogg, and mother of the Ettrick Shepherd, born at Over Phaup in 1730, and died in the eighty-third year of her age. Also Robert Hogg, her husband, late tenant of Ettrick-hall, born at Bowhill, in 1729, and died in the ninety-third year of his age."
There are several curious particulars connected with these stones. Those which I have pointed out—Hogg's birthday being omitted; Ettrick-hall being given as his birthplace, yet the people asserting it to be Ettrick-house; and the much shorter life of the poet than those of his parents and ancestors. His father died at the age of ninety-three, his mother at eighty-three, his grandfather at eighty-four; he died at sixty-three. The poet had lived faster than his kindred. What he lost in duration of life he had more than made up in intensity. They held the quiet tenor of their way in their native vale; he had spread his life over the whole space occupied by the English language, and over generations to come. In his own pleasures, which were of a far higher character than theirs, he had made thousands and tens of thousands partakers. Many of Hogg's family and friends were not pleased at the memorial he thus gives to Will o' Phaup; but it is very characteristic of the Shepherd, who gloried as much himself in the sports, feats, and exploits of the borders, as in poetry.
Hogg, in his younger years, displayed much agility and strength in the border games, and in his matured years was often one of the umpires at them. In Lockhart's Life of Scott are related two especial occasions in which James Hogg figured in such games. One was of a famous football match, played on the classic mead of Carterhaugh, between the men of Selkirk and of Yarrow, when the Duke of Buccleugh, and numbers of other nobles and gentlemen, as well as ladies of rank, were present. When the different parties came to the ground with pipes playing, the Duke of Buccleugh raised his ancient banner, called the banner of Bellenden, which, being given by Lady Ann Scott to young Walter Scott, he rode round the field displaying it; and when Sir Walter led on the men of Selkirk, and the Earl of Home, with James Hogg as his aid-de-camp, led on the men of Yarrow. The other occasion was at the annual festival of St. Ronan's Well, when James Hogg used to preside as captain of the band of border bowmen, in Lincoln Green, with broad blue bonnets; and when, already verging on three score, he used often to join at the exploits of racing, wrestling, or hammer-throwing, and would carry off the prizes, to universal astonishment; afterward presiding, too, at the banquet in the evening, with great éclat, supported by Sir Walter Scott, Professor Wilson, Dr. Adam Fergusson, and Peter Robertson.
Another curious thing is, that he states himself, in his Life, to be one of four sons, and, on the headstone, that his father and three sons lie there. Now he, himself, was living, of course, when he set up the stone, and his brother William still survives. There could, then, be but two, if he were one of four.
Hogg died at Altrive, but was buried here, as being his native parish; and, indeed, I question whether there be a nearer place where he could be buried, though Altrive is six miles off, and over the hills from one valley to another. His funeral must have been a striking thing in this solitary region—striking, not from the sensation it created, or the attendance of distinguished men, but from the absence of all this. The shepherd-poet went to his grave with little pomp or ceremony. Of all the great and the celebrated with whom he had associated in life, not an individual had troubled himself to go thus far to witness his obsequies, except that true-hearted man, Professor Wilson. An eye-witness says: "No particular solemnity seemed to attend the scene. The day was dull and dismal, windy and cloudy, and every thing looked bleak, the ground being covered with a sprinkling of snow. Almost the whole of the attendants were relatives and near neighbors, and most of them, with solid irreverence, were chatting about the affairs of the day. Professor Wilson remained for some time near the newly-covered grave, after all the rest had departed."
I walked over this road to Altrive, the day after my arrival in Ettrick. But before quitting Ettrick, I must remark, that every part of it presents objects made familiar by the Shepherd. At the lower end are Lord Napier's castle, Thirlstane, a quaint castellated house, with round towers, and standing in pleasant woodlands; and the remains of the old tower of Tushielaw, and its hanging-tree, the robber chief of which strong-hold James VI. surprised, and hanged on his own tree where he had hanged his victims, treating him with as little ceremony as he did Johnny Armstrong, and others of the like profession. All these the hearty and intelligent schoolmaster pointed out to me, walking on to the three-mile distant inn, and seeing me well housed there.
What is called Altrive Lake, the farm on the Yarrow, given for life by the Duke of Buccleugh to Hogg, and where he principally lived after leaving Ettrick, and where he died, stands in a considerable opening between the hills, at the confluence of several valleys, where the Douglas burn falls into the Yarrow. Thus, from some of the windows, you look up and down the vale of Yarrow, but where the vale has no very striking features. The hills are lower than on Ettrick, and at a greater distance, but of the same character, green and round. Shepherds are collecting their flocks; the water goes leaping along stony channels; you see, here and there, a small white farmhouse with its clump of trees, and a circular inclosure of stone wall for the sheep-fold. A solitary crow or gull flies past; there are black stacks of peat on the bogs, and on the hill-tops—for there are bogs there, too, and you perceive your approach to a house by the smell of peat. This is the character of the whole district.
Altrive Lake is, in truth, no lake at all. One had always a pleasant notion of Hogg's house standing on the borders of a cheerful little lake. I looked naturally for this lake in the wide opening between the streams and hills, but could see none. I inquired of the farmer who has succeeded Hogg, for this lake, and he said there never was one. Hogg, he said, had given it that dignified name, because a little stream, that runs close past the house, not Douglas burn, but one still less, is called the Trive Lake. The present farmer, who is an old, weather-beaten Scotchman, eighty-two years of age, but hardy, and pretty active, and well off in the world, expressed himself as quite annoyed with the name, and said it was not Altrive Lake; he would not have it so called. It should be Aldenhope, for it was now joined to his farm, which was the Alden farm. I believe the Altrive farm is but about a hundred acres, including sheep-walk on the hills, and lets for £45 a-year; but old Mr. Scott, the present tenant, has a larger and better farm adjoining; and in his old house, which is just above this, across the highway from Ettrick, but almost hidden in a hollow, he keeps his hinds. Hogg's house is apparently two white cottages, for the roof, in the middle, dips down like it, but it is really but one. It stands on a mound, in a very good and pleasant flower-garden. The garden is inclosed with palisades, and the steep bank down from the house, descending to the level of the garden, is gay with flowers. It has another flower-garden behind, for the tenant has his kitchen-garden at his other house; and around lie green meadows, and at a distance, slope away the green pastoral hills. As you look out at the front door, the Yarrow runs down the valley at the distance of, perhaps, a quarter of a mile on the left hand, with a steep scaur, or precipitous earthy bank, on its farther side, in full view, over the top of which runs the highway from Edinburgh to Galashiels. Down the valley, and on the other side of the water, lies, in full view also, the farm of Mount Benger, which Hogg took of the Duke of Buccleugh after he came to Altrive. It is much more inclosed and cultivated in tillage than Altrive. The house where Hogg lived, however, is now pulled down, all except one ruinous white wall, and a very capital farmhouse is built near it; with a quadrangle of trees, which must have been originally planted to shelter a house long ago gone.
An old farmer and his wife in the neighborhood, who seemed the last people in the world to admire poets or poetry, though very worthy people in their way, blamed Hogg extremely for taking Mount Benger. He was more fitted for books than for farming, said they. "Perhaps," I observed, "he did not find that little farm of Altrive enough to maintain him." "Why should he not?" asked they. "He had nothing to do there but look after his little flock—that was all he had to care for—and that was the proper business of a man that called himself the Ettrick Shepherd—as though there was never a shepherd in Ettrick beside himself. And if he wanted more income, had not he his pen, and was not he very popular with the periodicals? But he was always wanting to take great farms, without any money to stock them. He was hand and glove with great men in Edinburgh, Professor Wilson, and Scott, and the like; he was aye going to Abbotsford and Lord Napier's; and so he thought himself a very great man too, and Mrs. Hogg thought herself a great woman, and looked down on her neighbors. These poets think nothing's good enough for them. Hogg paid the duke no rent, but he caught his fish, and killed his game; he was a desperate fellow for fishing and shooting. If people did not do just what he wanted, he soon let them know his mind, and that without much ceremony. He wrote a very abusive letter to Sir Walter Scott, because he would not give him a poem to print when he asked him, and would not speak to him for months; and when he took Mount Benger he wrote to his generous friend, Mr. Grieve, of Ettrick, and desired him to send him £350 to stock the farm, which Mr. Grieve refused, because he knew that the scheme was a ruinous one; on which he wrote him a very abusive letter, and would not speak to him for years. The upshot was, that he failed, and paid eighteenpence in the pound; and yet the duke, though he got no rent, allows the widow the rental of Altrive."