I went over his house at Altrive with much interest. His little study is in the center of the front of the house, and within that is the equally small bedroom where he died. The house has been much improved, as well as the garden about it, since his time, for all agree that Hogg was very slovenly about his place. However, as Lockhart has justly observed, there will never be such another shepherd.

He has a brother still living, William Hogg, who has always been considered a very clever man. He lives somewhere in Peebleshire, as a shepherd. His widow and family live in Edinburgh.

In many of my visits to the homes and haunts of the poets, I have fallen in with persons and things which I regret that I could not legitimately introduce, and which yet are so full of life, that they deserve to be preserved. Exactly such a person did I meet with at Altrive Lake, at Mr. Scott's, the successor of Hogg. It was a jolly wool-buyer. He was a stout, fine, jovial-looking man, one of that class who seem to go through the world, seeing only the genial side of it, and drawing all the good out of it, as naturally as the sun draws out of the earth flowers and fruit. The hearty fellow was sitting at luncheon with Mr. Scott as I went in, and I was requested to join them. His large, well fed person, and large, handsome face, seemed actually to glow and radiate with the fullness of this world's joyousness and prosperity. His head of rich, bushy, black hair, and his smooth, black suit, both cut in town fashion, marked him as belonging to a more thronged and bustling region than these tawny, treeless, solitary hills. The moment I mentioned Hogg, and my object in visiting Altrive and Ettrick, the stranger's countenance lit up with a thorough, high-flowing tide of rosy animation. "Eh, but ye should ha' had me in Ettrick wi' ye! I know every inch of all these hills, and the country round. Haven't I bought the wool all over this country these twenty years? Hogg! why, sir, I've bought his wool many a time, and had many a merry 'clash' and glass of toddy wi' him at this verra table." Nothing would do, but I must accept half his gig thence to Galashiels that evening, a distance of twenty miles. It was a very friendly offer, for it saved me much time. Our drive was a charming one, and my stout friend knowing all the country, and apparently, every body in it, he pointed out every thing, and had a nod, a smile, a passing word, for every one that we met, or passed in their cottages by the road-side. He pointed out the piece of a wall, the only remains of Hogg's old house, at Mount Benger, adding,—"Ay, I bought his wool!" We descended the vale of Yarrow, passing through the beautiful woods of Hangingshaw. "Ye'll remember," said he, "what was said by some English noblemen in the rising in '45, when they heard that the lairds of Hangingshaw and Gallowshiels were among the Scotch conspirators. These are ominous names, said they, we'll have nothing to do with 'em; and withdrew, and thereby saved their own necks." So we went on, every few hundred yards bringing new histories of my jolly friend's wool-buying, and of matters which seemed nearly as important in his eyes. There was Newark tower, a beautiful object, standing on a lofty green mound on the other side of the Yarrow, the banks of which are most beautifully wooded. The tower, indeed, is included in the pleasure-grounds of Bowhill, a seat of the Duke of Buccleugh's, within sight; and you see neat walks running all along the river side for miles amid the hanging woods, and looking most tempting. Opposite to Newark, my friend pointed out a farmhouse. "Do you know what that is?" "A farmhouse," I replied. "Ay, but what farmhouse, that's the thing? Why, sir, that's the house where Mungo Park lived, and where his brother now lives." He then related the fact recorded in Scott's Life, of Sir Walter finding Mungo Park standing one day in an abstracted mood, flinging stones into the Yarrow; and asking him why he did that, he told Scott that he was sounding the depth of the river, it being a plan he had discovered and used on his African tour; the length of time the bubbles took coming to the top indicating the comparative depth, and showing whether he might venture to ford the stream or not. Soon after, Park again set out for Africa, never to return. "There, too, I buy the wool," added my companion. "But do you see," again he went on, "the meadow there below us, lying between those two streams?"—"Yes."—"Well, there meet the Ettrick and Yarrow, and become the Tweed; and the meadow between is no other than that of Carterhaugh; you've heard of it in the old ballads. I buy all the wool off that farm." I have no doubt, if the jolly fellow had fallen in with the fairies on Carterhaugh, he would have tried to buy their wool.

Ever and anon, out of the gig he sprung, and bolted into a house. Here there was a sudden burst of exclamation, a violent shaking of hands. Out he came again, and a whole troop of people after him. "Well but Mr. ——, don't you take my wool this time!" "Oh! why not? What is it? what weight? what do you want?" "It is so and so, and I want so much for it." "Oh, fie, mon! I'll gie ye so much!" "That's too little." "Well, that's what I'll gie—ye can send it, if ye like the price;" and away we brushed, the man all life and jollity giving me a poke in the side with his elbow, and a knowing look, with—"He'll send it! It won't do to spend much time over these little lots;" and away we went. At one house, no sooner did he enter, than out came a bonny lass with a glass and the whisky-bottle, and most earnestly and respectfully pressing that I should take a glass! "What could the bonny girl mean by being so urgent that I should take some of her whisky?" "Oh," said he, laughing heartily, "it was because I told her that ye were a Free-church minister frae London, and they're mighty zealous Free-church folk here."

At Selkirk my jolly friend put himself and horse to a great deal of labor in ascending the steep hill into the town, which we might have avoided, that I might see the statue of Sir Walter Scott, by Richie, in the market-place. This, however, was but part of his object. Leaving the gig at the inn, he said we must just look in on a friend of his. It was at a little grocer's shop, and, in a little dusky parlor, he introduced me to a young lady, his wife's sister, and we must have some tea with her. The young lady was a comely, quiet, dark-complexioned person, who seemed to have a deal of quiet sense, and some sly humor; just such a person as Scott would have introduced into one of his stories as a Jenny Middlemass; or the like; and it was most amusing to sit and listen to all their talk, and jokes, and his mystifications, and her quick detection of them, and their united mirth over them. The good man finally landed me in Galashiels, and there I had no little difficulty in getting away to my inn; as he thought of nothing less than my staying to supper with him, and hearing a great deal more of all the country round, of Scott and Burns, Hogg and wool-buying, trading and tradition, the old glories of border reiving, and new glories of Galashiels, and its spinning and weaving, without end.

Coleridge Enlisting

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

Coleridge, whose simple, unworldly character is as well known as his genius, seems to have inherited his particular disposition from his father. His father was the Rev. John Coleridge, the vicar of Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire. He was a learned man, the head master of the free grammar-school at Ottery, as well as vicar. He had been previously head master of the school at South Molton, and was one of the persons who assisted Dr. Kennicott in his Hebrew Bible. "He was an exceedingly studious man," says Gillman, on the authority of Coleridge himself, "pious, of primitive manners, and the most simple habits: passing events were little heeded by him, and therefore he was usually characterized as 'the absent man.'" Coleridge was born October 21st, 1772, the youngest of thirteen children, of which nine were sons, one of whom died in infancy. Of all these sons Coleridge is said to have most resembled his father in mind and habit. His mother was, except for education, in which she was deficient, a most fitting wife for such a man. She was an active, careful housekeeper and manager, looked well after worldly affairs, and was ambitious to place her sons well in the world. She always told them to look after good, substantial, sensible women, and not after fine harpsichord ladies. Coleridge used to relate many instances of his father's absence of mind, one or two of which we may quote. On one occasion, having to breakfast with his bishop, he went, as was the practice of that day, into a barber's shop to have his head shaved, wigs being then in common use. Just as the operation was completed, the clock struck nine, the hour at which the bishop punctually breakfasted. Roused as from a revery, he instantly left the barber's shop, and in his haste forgetting his wig, appeared at the breakfast-table, where the bishop and his party had assembled. The bishop, well acquainted with his absent manners, courteously and playfully requested him to walk into an adjoining room, and give his opinion of a mirror which had arrived from London a few days previously, and which disclosed to his astonished guest the consequence of his haste and forgetfulness.