"Happy should I be to rescue from oblivion the name of _Ald Hogart_, whose songs and quibbles have so often delighted my childhood! These simple strains of this mountain _Theocritus_ were fabricated while he held the plough, or was leading his fewel from the hills. He was as critical an observer of nature as his nephew, for the narrow field he had to view her in: not an incident or an absurdity in the neighbourhood escaped him. If any one was hardy enough to break through any decorum of old and established repute; if any one attempted to over-reach his neighbour, or cast a leering eye at his wife; he was sure to hear himself sung over the whole parish, nay, to the very boundaries of the _Westmoreland_ dialect: so that his songs were said to have a greater effect on the manners of his neighbourhood, than even the sermons of the parson himself. "But his poetical talents were not confined to the incidents of his village. I myself have had the honour to bear a part in one of his plays (I say _one_, for there are several of them extant in MS. in the mountains of _Westmoreland_ at this hour). This play was called 'The Destruction of _Troy_.' It was written in metre, much in the manner of _Lopez de Vega_, or the ancient _French_ drama; the unities were not too strictly observed, for the siege of ten years was all represented; every hero was in the piece; so that the Dramatis Personæ consisted of every lad of genius in the whole parish. The wooden horse--_Hector_ dragged by the heels--the fury of _Diomed_--the flight of _Æneas_--and the burning of the city, were all represented. I remember not what Fairies had to do in all this; but as I happened to be about three feet high at the time of this still-talked-of exhibition, I personated one of these tiny beings. The stage was a fabrication of boards placed about six feet high, on strong posts; the green-room was partitioned off with the same materials; it's cieling was the azure canopy of heaven; and the boxes, pit, and galleries, were laid into one by the Great Author of Nature, for they were the green slope of a fine hill. Despise not, reader, this humble state of the provincial drama; let me tell you, there were more spectators, for three days together, than your three theatres in _London_ would hold; and let me add, still more to your confusion, that you never saw an audience half so well pleased.