James Hogg | Laboring-Class Poets Online

James Hogg

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Names

First Name:

James

Last Name(s):

Hogg

Pseudonym(s):

The Ettrick Shepherd

Gender:

male

Bio Dates

Birth Year:

1770

Birth year approximated

Death Year:

1835

Cause of Death:

illness

Death Description:

"In the autumn of 1835 Hogg fell ill. Jaundice was diagnosed, and as the illness progressed it became clear that there was little hope of his recovery." (ODNB)

Locations

Nationality:

Scottish

Birthplace:

Ettrick Hill, Selkirkshire

Transatlantic:

Class and Labor

Industry:

Occupation:

Began working at age:

Disability and Illness:

other illness

Disability and Illness Description:

"In the autumn of 1835 Hogg fell ill. Jaundice was diagnosed, and as the illness progressed it became clear that there was little hope of his recovery." (ODNB)

Politics and Religion

Affiliations:

radical

whig

tory

"The Spy nevertheless had various supporters, including James Gray of the Edinburgh high school, with whom Hogg shared Dumfriesshire links. Through Gray, Hogg established contacts with radical whig political circles in Edinburgh. In the early 1810s he also became actively involved in ‘the Forum’, a public debating club that attracted large paying audiences, often several hundred strong; indeed, Hogg for a time received a small salary as secretary of the Forum." (ODNB) "Likewise his new acceptance as an established literary figure helped him to play a significant part in the founding of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in 1817. ... Hogg already had contacts with tory circles through his friendship with Scott, and from 1817 onwards the tory group of writers associated with Blackwood's were to play an important part in his life. Hogg's dealings with the tory wits were never comfortable or easy (although he shared their interest in the traditions and customs of the old Scottish peasantry)." (ODNB) "Hogg's middle-class audience began to feel increasingly uncomfortable about a subversive strand discernible in the writings of this uncouth farmworker. Hogg, like Burns before him, really believed that 'The rank is but the guinea's stamp, / The Man's the gowd for a' that' (Burns) and his middle-class audience came to have reservations about the way in which this uppity peasant demanded that his social superiors treat him as an equal." (ODNB)

Education

Education Types:

Self-taught (autodidact)

Formal Education:

Minimal formal education

Formal Education End Age:

Hogg's father's bankruptcy (Hogg was 6 at the time) "cut short the formal schooling of his children, and the young James for the remainder of his childhood had to earn his keep by doing menial work (herding cows and the like) on various local farms" (ODNB). Hogg was largely an autodidact: "At fourteen he bought a violin with money he had saved from his wages. In the evenings, after work, he would spend ‘an hour or two … sawing over my favourite old Scottish tunes’ (Memoir of the Author's Life). When he reached his late teens he graduated to the responsible work of shepherding; this increase in his status ensured that he had the time to begin to master once again the long-neglected skill of reading" (ODNB). At age 20, Hogg became a shepherd at Blackhouse Farm, where he gained "access to a wide variety of books, and read voraciously" (ODNB).

References and Sources

References and Sources:

Biblio Texts:

93-8

326-42

98-126

xlii-xliii

I, 173-210; IX, 77-88

13-15

I, 446-61

no. 337

items 244-9

247

461 (numerous manuscripts of poems and letters)

14, 151

Other Digital References:

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Other Analog References:

Valentina Bold, James Hogg: A Bard of Nature’s Making (Berne: Peter Lang, 2007)

Studies in Hogg and His World (journal, ongoing)

New critical editions of Hogg are available as part of a major multi-volume editorial project led by Edinburgh University Press and University of South Carolina Press: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/james-hogg.html

James Hogg's Publications

Title	Publication Date	Publisher	Edition	Other Editions	Editor	Digitized or Digital Editions	Additional Notes
Winter Evening Tales, collected among the cottagers in the south of Scotland		Oliver & Boyd, G. & W. B. Whittaker				HathiTrust (Volume I), HathiTrust (Volume II)
Scottish Pastorals, Poems, Songs, &c., mostly written in the dialect of the south	1801	John Taylor				Archive.org
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border: consisting of historical and romantic ballads, collected in the southern counties of Scotland; with a few of modern date, founded upon local tradition	1802 to 1803	Longman, Rees, Orme, & Brown (Green, Hurst)	2			Archive.org: Vol. I (2nd Ed), Archive.org: Vol. II (2nd Ed), Archive.org: Vol. III (2nd Ed), Walter Scott Minstrelsy Project (2011-2014, first critical ed, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and University of Edinburgh)
The Mountain Bard; consisting of ballads and songs, founded on facts and legendary tales	1807	Archibald Constable & Co., John Murray				Google Books
The Shepherd's Guide: Being a Practical Treatise on the Diseases of Sheep, Their Causes, and the Best Means of Preventing Them; with Observations on the Most Suitable Farm-Stocking for the Various Climates of this Country	1807	Archibald Constable & Co., John Murray				Archive.org
The Forest Minstrel; A Selection of Songs, Adapted to the Most Favourite Scottish Airs. Few of them Ever Before Published.	1810				James Hogg	Archive.org
The Queen's Wake: A Legendary Poem	1813	George Goldie, Longman, Rees, Orme, & Brown (Green, Hurst)	2	Edition: 3 Publication Date: 1814 Other Information: "Contains important revisions" (ODNB)		Google Books	This book-length narrative poem tells of the return of Mary, queen of Scots, to Scotland after her long sojourn in France. To welcome the young queen a poetic competition—described by Hogg as a ‘wake’—is held at Holyrood Palace among the minstrels of Scotland. The poem tells the story of this event, interspersed with the songs sung by the minstrels. The Queen's Wake was immediately recognized as a major achievement, with spice added by the circumstances of Hogg's background and upbringing. Indeed, George Goldie, the publisher of the poem, assured readers in the second edition (1813) that the work was ‘really and truly the production of James Hogg, a common shepherd, bred among the mountains of Ettrick Forest, who went to service when only seven years of age; and since that period has never received any education whatever’ (p. vi). (ODNB)
Pilgrims of the Sun	1815	John Murray, William Blackwood				Google Books
Mador of the Moor	1816	William Blackwood, John Murray				Archive.org
The Poetic Mirror; or, the Living Bards of Britain	1816	Longman, Rees, Orme, & Brown (Green, Hurst), James Ballantyne & Co.				Archive.org
Dramatic Tales	1816	Longman, Rees, Orme, & Brown (Green, Hurst), John Ballantyne				Google Books (Volume I)
The Brownie of Bodsbeck; and other tales	1817	William Blackwood, John Murray				Google Books (Volume I), Google Books (Volume II)
The Jacobite relics of Scotland; being the songs, airs, and legends of the adherents to the House of Stuart	1819 to 1821	William Blackwood, Thomas Cadell				Archive.org (Volume I), Archive.org (Volume II)	"Hogg's Jacobite Reliques is a two volume collection of songs related to the Jacobite risings, compiled by the Scottish poet and novelist James Hogg on commission from the Highland Society of London in 1817. Most of the songs in the collection are Jacobite, and a minority are Whig. A number of the songs were written or adapted by Robert Burns and scholars speculate as to how many of them were authored or at least substantially altered by Hogg himself." (Wikipedia)
The Poetical Works of James Hogg	1822	Archibald Constable & Co., Hurst, Robinson & Co.				HathiTrust (Volume I), HathiTrust (Volume II), HathiTrust (Volume III), HathiTrust (Volume IV)
The Three Perils of Man: War, Women and Witchcraft. A Border Romance.	1822					Google Books
The three perils of woman: or, Love, leasing, and jealousy. A series of domestic Scottish tales	1823	Longman, Rees, Orme, & Brown (Green, Hurst)				HathiTrust (Volume I), HathiTrust (Volume II), HathiTrust (Volume III)
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner	1824	Longman, Rees, Orme, & Brown (Green, Hurst)				British Library
Queen Hynde. A Poem, in Six Books.	1824	Longman, Rees, Orme, & Brown (Green, Hurst), William Blackwood				Google Books
The Shepherd's Calendar	1829	William Blackwood, Thomas Cadell				Archive.org (Volume I), Archive.org (Volume II)
Songs, by The Ettrick Shepherd	1831	William Blackwood, Thomas Cadell				Archive.org
A Queer Book	1832	William Blackwood, Thomas Cadell				Google Books
Altrive Tales: Collected Among the Peasantry of Scotland, and from Foreign Adventures	1832	James Cochrane				HathiTrust	This is volume 1 of a planned series of prose works, but no more were published
Familiar Anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott	1834	Harper				HathiTrust
A Series of Lay Sermons on Good Principles and Good Breeding	1834	James Fraser				Archive.org
Tales of the Wars of Montrose	1835	James Cochrane				Archive.org (Volume I), Archive.org (Volume II), Archive.org (Volume III)

Personal Map

Relationships

Source	Relationship Type	Target	Description	View
John Leyden	addressed in writing by	James Hogg	"James Hogg bewailed his loss of the poet's [Leyden's] 'glowing measure" (ODNB).	View
Thomas Pringle	corresponded with, collaborated with	James Hogg	Pringle published poems by and corresponded with James Hogg when he co-edited the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, the short-lived predecessor to the famous Blackwoods Magazine.	View
Allan Cunningham	friends with	James Hogg	Cunningham and Hogg were friends, and Hogg's ‘Sixteenth Bard’ in his portmanteau poem The Queen’s Wake (1812) is said to be based on Cunningham.	View
Robert Southey	addressed writing to, corresponded with	James Hogg	Several letters between Hogg and Southey are available at Romantic Circles in The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Hogg wrote poetic parodies of major poets (including Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Scott, Wilson, Southey, and himself) in The Poetic Mirror (1816) (ODNB; Murray, 1904, p. 116).	View
James Hogg	addressed writing to	Samuel Taylor Coleridge	Hogg wrote poetic parodies of major poets (including Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Scott, Wilson, Southey, and himself) in The Poetic Mirror (1816). (ODNB; Murray, 1904, p. 116)	View
William Wordsworth	addressed writing to, addressed in writing by, mutual influence	James Hogg	"Wordsworth's 1835 'Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg', written in the year of [Hogg's] death, includes the lines: 'The mighty Minstrel breathes no longer, 'Mid mouldering ruins low he lies; And death upon the braes of Yarrow, Has closed the Shepherd-poet's eyes.' This eulogy notwithstanding, Wordsworth's notes state 'He was undoubtedly a man of original genius, but of coarse manners and low and offensive opinions.' " (Wikipedia) Hogg wrote poetic parodies of major poets (including Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Scott, Wilson, Southey, and himself) in The Poetic Mirror (1816). (ODNB; Murray, 1904, p. 116)	View
James Hogg	friends with, supported by, addressed writing to, corresponded with, wrote about	Sir Walter Scott	"Through William Laidlaw [Hogg] was also helping to provide assistance in collecting traditional ballads for the third volume of Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1803), and in 1802 Laidlaw was instrumental in setting up a meeting in Ettrick between Hogg and Scott. A friendship developed that was to last until Scott's death in 1832" (ODNB). Scott encouraged Hogg to publish The Mountain Bard and The Shepherd's Guide in 1807. "As a rival of Scott and Byron among the fashionable poets of the 1810s he produced a formidable output in the years following the publication of The Queen's Wake. The third edition of that poem (1814) contains important revisions and was followed in 1815 by Pilgrims of the Sun, dedicated to Byron. Two new volumes followed in 1816: Mador of the Moor, which echoes and interrogates Scott's Lady of the Lake; and The Poetic Mirror, a volume of Hogg's brilliant and well-received poetic parodies (of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Scott, Hogg, and others [Southey, Wilson])" (ODNB). Hogg published Familiar Anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott (1834) after Scott's death. See also: "Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg" (walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk)	View
James Hogg	read, influenced by	Robert Burns	"For much of his life Hogg believed that he was born on 25 January 1772. He took great pride in sharing the birthday of Robert Burns; indeed there is much evidence that he saw his life's work in terms of being Burns's successor. However, the parish register of Ettrick records Hogg's baptism at Ettrick church on 9 December 1770, a fact that he discovered with disappointment during his later years" (ODNB). "After the failure of the projected move to Harris in 1804, Hogg obtained work as a shepherd in Dumfriesshire, in south-west Scotland, an area in which Burns had spent the final years of his life. Indeed, while living in Dumfriesshire, Hogg made the acquaintance of Jean Armour, Burns's widow" (ODNB). "Like Burns, Hogg questioned and subverted aspects of the Scottish Enlightenment, and created a space in which the allegedly ‘marginal’ and ‘primitive’ culture of the old Scottish peasantry could speak with eloquence and power. Like Burns, Macpherson, and Scott, Hogg made a distinctive Scottish contribution to European Romanticism." (ODNB)	View
James Hogg	knew	Robert Tannahill	"Hogg had been in the Highlands on business ... and Paisley not being far off their way, Hogg expressed a desire to see Tannahill, the Weaver Poet of Paisley ... [James] Barr has said Hogg was enraptured with their company, and it was a treat to see the friendship of the two bards. The contrast was striking - the one healthly, lively, and off-hand; the other delicate, quiet, and unassuming" (Semple lxxx)	View
William Laidlaw	written about by	James Hogg	Laidlaw was described in Hogg's memoir	View