of the ground where we are entitled to expect the fruits of research. As a writer of English, if he be considered in that light only, he does not rank high; many of his sentences being slovenly and defective in their construction, and deformed by no small quantity of Scotticisms. Perhaps the most objectionable feature in his novels is their unvarying tone of deference to established authority, and the aristocratic manners which he infuses into all his descriptions of a character in ordinary life. "He seems," says a writer, from whom we have before quoted," to have never conceived the idea of a manly character in middle or humble life; and, in his novels, where an individual of these classes is introduced, he is never invested with any virtues, unless obedience, or even servility to superiors, be of the number." The private character of Sir Walter Scott is irreproachable, and he is said to have passed through every period of his life without a single stain upon his character. He is generous and benevolent, affable and gracious, and so totally free from literary vanity, that he might be almost supposed to be unconscious of the reputation he has attained. Riding and walking form his favourite exercise, and this, with the superintendence of his planting and agricultural operations, occupies the chief part of his day from eleven till five; his hours of composition being confined to the time between seven o'clock and the former hour in the morning. He is passionately fond of field sports, and every thing connected with them,

and is particularly attached to dogs and horses.

Sir Walter held a conspicuous place in the esteem of George the Fourth, during whose visit to Scotland he acted as a sort of master of the ceremonies; and when his majesty was first informed of his approach to the royal vessel in the Leith Roads, he exclaimed, "What, Sir Walter Scott ?-the man in Scotland I most wish to see: let him come up." An anecdote is told of Burns and Scott, when the latter was fifteen years of age, and was in the company of the former at Edinburgh. Burns happening to ask who was the author of some lines under a picture, no one was able to inform hin but Scott, on which the Ayrshire poet complimented him for his good taste, in reading such an author as the one who had been the subject of inquiry; and, turning half away, said to the company, This

boy will be heard of yet." Sir Walter, it is said, is much given to punning:a friend borrowing a book, one day, he put it into his hands with these words:

"Now I consider it necessary to remind you, that this volume should be soon returned; for, trust me, I find, that although many of my friends are bad arithmeticians, almost all of them are good book-keepers."

Of the memory of the subject of our memoir, two wonderful instances are recorded: one, of his having repeated the whole of Campbell's Pleasures of Hope, after twice perusing it; and the other, of his going through the whole of a ballad, three years after he had first heard it.

modesty and reserve keep him silent among strangers; but he is said, by his familiar acquaintance, to possess colloquial powers of a first-rate order. Like his prototype, Cowper, he entertains an overpowering sense of his religious obligations; and exhibits, occasionally, a melancholy gloom, which enchains his vigorous and elastic fancy, and arrests the progress of his playful pen. Mr. Montgomery is one of the poets

of the present day, who, though not of the highest class, will hereafter take his place in a rank superior to that which he now occupies in the eye of the public. He has, however, already enjoyed more than an ordinary share of reputation, and the gratification of seeing some of his minor poems adopted as standard quotations in reference to certain subjects, both for their moral and poetical beauty.

JAMES HOGG, known by the soubriquet of The Ettrick Shepherd, was born in 1771, and is the son of a respectable farmer and sheep-dealer, of Ettrick, in Scotland. He received but a scanty education, and, at the early age of seven, became a cowherd, and was afterwards raised to the more dignified post of shepherd. During his progress in these callings, he suffered many hardships, in describing which, in his publislied autobiography, he says, "Time after time, I had but two shirts, which grew often so bad, that I was obliged to quit wearing them altogether; for, when I put them on, they hung in long tatters as far as my heels. At these times," he adds, "I certainly made a very grotesque figure; for, on quitting the shirt, I could never induce my breeches to keep up to their proper sphere." It was not till his eighteenth year, that he began to read poetry; at this time, he was in the service of Mr. Laidlaw, whose lady lent him The Gentle Shepherd, besides some theological books, and, occasionally, a newspaper, which, he says, he "pored over with great earnestness; beginning at the date, and reading straight on, through advertisements of houses and lands, balm of Gilead, and every thing." In 1790, he hired himself to a new master, of the same name, with whom he lived nine years in the capacity of shepherd, and by whom he was treated with the kindness of a parent. This gentleman possessed many valuable books, all of which Hogg was allowed to read; and, in the spring of 1793, he made his first essay in verse, which, in his literary

career, was followed by some pastorals and ballads, and a comedy, entitled The Scotch Gentleman. In allusion to the composition of this comedy, he says, in his autobiography, "Whether my manner of writing it out was new, know not; but it was not without singularity. Having very little spare time from my flock, which were unruly enough, I folded and stitched a few sheets of paper, which I carried in my pocket. I had no inkhorn; but, in place of it, I borrowed a small vial, which I fixed in a hole in the breast of my waistcoat; and, having a cork, affixed by a piece of twine, it answered the purpose full as well."

In 1801, he ventured to publish a volume of his poems; and, afterwards, whilst still in the capacity of a shep. herd, being encouraged by Walter Scott, to publish The Mountain Bard, which was succeeded by his work on the management of sheep, he became master of nearly £300; a sum, he says, which made him "perfectly mad:" and it may be taken as a proof of his temporary insanity, observes his biographer, "that he hired two extensive farms, the management of which required ten times the capital he possessed." The consequence was, that at the end of three years, he found himself pennyless, and was compelled to return to his old associates at Ettrick, but, being unable to obtain occupation, he, in 1810, took his departure for Edinburgh, determined, as he says, "to force himself into notice as a literary character." Fortune, however, was not yet propitious; a volume of songs, called The Forest Min

strel, added nothing to his coffers; and he was unsuccessful in attempting to establish a periodical paper, called The Spy. His abilities, however, were not wholly unknown in Edinburgh, where he became one of the principal conductors of a debating society, called The Forum; and the publication of his Queen's Wake, in 1813, at once established his reputation in the Scottish metropolis. His Pilgrims of the Sun, and Mador of the Moor, which followed successively, were not so popular, though he himself thought both of them superior to The Queen's Wake. next scheme was to publish a volume, containing a poem from every living poet in Great Britain; but this being frustrated by Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron declining to contribute, he published a volume of imitations, called The Poetic Mirror, which was well received, and had a profitable sale. In addition to the works already mentioned, he pub

His

lished Perils of Man; Perils of Woman; The Brownie of Bodsbeck, and other tales; Winter Evening Tales; and Jacobite Relics of Scotland. These works were followed, in 1825, by his Queen Hynde, a poem, which made some noise in the literary world. In 1829, he printed his Shepherd's Calendar, in two volumes. Besides these, he has been a considerable contributor to the various annuals and magazines: but his greatest celebrity, as a periodical writer, is in connexion with Blackwood's Magazine, of which he was the principal founder.

Mr. Hogg is now married, and comfortably settled on a considerable farm, but it is doubtful whether his emoluments have not fallen far short of the merits of a man of his genius and celebrity. Lord Byron was one of those who thought highly of Hogg: and used to call him a strange being, of great, though uncouth, powers.

ROBERT SOUTHEY, the son of a linen-draper, of Bristol, was born there on the 12th of August, 1774. He received the rudiments of education at a day school in his native city, and was afterwards placed under the care of a private tutor, previously to his being sent to Westminster, which he entered at the age of fourteen. By a strict attention to his father's maxim, "to tie the stocking up tight, and be punctual," he passed through the school with sufficient steadiness to avoid corporal punishment, though his sympathy for others induced him to write some essays in a periodical paper, called The Flagellant.

In November, 1792, he was entered a student of Baliol College, Oxford, with the intention of studying for the church; but imbibing Unitarian principles, and fired with the then recent events of the French revolution, he became a red-hot republican; and, forming an acquaintance with Coleridge, entered into the pantisocratic scheme, mentioned in our memoir of that poet. In 1793, he married a Miss Fricker,

VOL. III.

and in the same year, published, in conjunction with his friend Lovel, The Retrospect, and other poems, under the signatures of Moschus and Bion. After taking his bachelor's degree, he left Oxford, and became a member of Gray's Inn; and, about the same period, he gave to the world his Wat Tyler, in which he advocated republican principles, with an enthusiasm and vehemence, which he afterwards, either from interest or principle, much regretted. He also sought to suppress the work itself, and made an application for an injunction against Carlile and others, who had printed it, but the chancellor refused to interfere, on the ground of its objectionable principles. After making a six months' tour in Spain and Portugal, he published an epic poem, in ten books, entitled Joan of Arc, a second edition of which appeared in 1797, together with a volume of minor poems.

In 1798, he printed Letters from Spain and Portugal, with translations from the poems of both countries; and shortly afterwards he contributed, with

Mrs. Opie and others, to The Annual Anthology for 1799 and 1800. In 1801, he obtained the appointment of secretary to Mr. Corry, chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland; and after the union, he was fortunate enough to obtain the grant of a pension of £200

a-year.

On his retirement from office, he took up his residence at Keswick, where, devoting himself to literary employments, he produced, successively, Amadis de Gaul, from the Spanish; an edition of the works of Chatterton; Thalaba, the Destroyer; Metrical Tales, and other poems; Madoc; Palmerin of England, from the Portuguese; Letters from England, written under the fictitious name of Espriella; and the Remains of Henry Kirke White, with his life, in two volumes; to which he has since added a third. In 1808, he printed the Chronicle of the Cid, from the Spanish; in 1810, appeared the first volume of his History of Brazil, which he has since completed by a second; and, in 1812, he published an amusing miscellany, entitled Omniana. These were succeeded by his Curse of Kehama, Life of Nelson, and his poem of Roderick, the last of the Goths.

In 1815, two years before which he had succeeded Mr. Pye, as poet laureate, he published the Poet's Pilgrimage to Waterloo; and, in 1821, came out his Vision of Judgment, which gave rise to Lord Byron's poem of the same name, in The Liberal, and to a severe castigation of the laureate in a preface thereto. His next publications were a History of the Peninsular War, in three volumes, quarto; and his famous Book of the Church, which was replied to by Mr. Charles Butler, on behalf of the Roman catholics, whom our author answered in a supplement to his former work, entitled Vindiciae Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ. In 1829, he published his Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society; and, in the same year, he added to his poetical works his All for Love, and The Pilgrim to Compostella, neither of which added to his reputation. In addition to the works before-mentioned, Mr. Southey has written The Byrth, Lyf, and Actes of King Arthur; A Tale of Paraguay; The Life of Wesley; besides several pieces, prose and poetical, in the various

periodicals of the day. Some time ago, the University of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of LL.D., and he was also returned to parliament for a ministerial borough, but declined taking his seat.

The laureate is undoubtedly a man of genius and erudition, but we doubt whether any of his works are destined to reach posterity. As a poet, his reputation has already faded; though his Thalaba, and a few of his miscellaneous poems, deserve to be rescued from oblivion, containing, as they do, beauties of a rare and original character. There is as much chaff in his prose as in his poetry; and, indeed, the chief fault of his writings is the preponderance of quantity over quality. Speaking of him, in 1813, his inveterate enemy, Lord Byron, says, "Southey I have not seen much of. His appearance is epic; and he is the only existing entire man of letters. His manners are mild, but not those of a man of the world; and his talents of the first order. His prose is perfect. Of his poetry there are various opinions: there is, perhaps, too much of it for the present generation;-posterity will, probably, select. He has passages equal to any thing. At present, he has a party, but no public-except for his prose writings. The Life of Nelson is beautiful.' This is still a fair estimate of his abilities; for, looking back upon his performances of the last seventeen years, we see nothing in them that has advanced his literary reputation. A reviewer in Blackwood's Magazine calls his History of Brazil "the most unreadable production of our time;" and observes, that his History of the Peninsular War is "little better than another Caucasus of lumber." Upon the whole, however, he ranks high among the writers of the present century; though, if his grade be determined by his popularity, it will be found to be lower than his admirers suspect, or than he himself, perhaps, deserves.

His character has been variously represented according to Mr. Coleridge, it is all that is estimable, and has, for its only enemies, "quacks in education, quacks in politics, and quacks in criticism." No one, however, we believe, disputes the fact of his being an amiable member of society, and a zealous phi