His adventures afterward in Edinburgh, publishing his subsequent poems, are equally curious. How he published by subscription, and one third of his subscribers took his books, but never paid for them. How he set up a weekly literary paper--"The Spy," which he continued a year. How he became a great spouter at a debating club called "The Forum." How he wrote a musical farce, and a musical drama; all ending in ruin and insolvency, till he brought out the Queen's Wake, and won a good reputation. Here he with great simplicity tells us, that Mr. Jeffrey never noticed the poem till it had got into a third edition, and having given offense to Mr. Anster by comparing the two poets, he never afterward took any notice of any of his writings. Whereupon, Hogg says, proudly, he thinks that conduct can do him no honor in the long run; and that he would match the worst poem he ever published with some that Mr. Jeffrey has strained himself to bring forward. But Hogg was now a popular man. His Queen's Wake went on into edition after edition. He was introduced to Blackwood, who became his publisher, and Hogg looked upon himself as on a par in fame with the first men of his time. The familiar style in which he relates his first acquaintance with Professor Wilson, will excite a smile. "On the appearance of Mr. Wilson's Isle of Palms, I was so greatly taken with many of his fanciful and visionary scenes, descriptive of bliss and woe, that it had a tendency to divert me occasionally of all worldly feelings. I reviewed this poem, as well as many others, in a Scottish review then going in Edinburgh, and was exceedingly anxious to meet with the author; but this I tried in vain for the space of six months. All I could learn of him was, that he was a man from the mountains of Wales, or the west of England, with hairs like eagle's feathers, and nails like bird's claws, a red beard, and an uncommon degree of wildness in his looks. Wilson was then utterly unknown in Edinburgh, except slightly to Mr. Walter Scott, who never introduces any one person to another, nor judges it of any avail. However, having no other shift left, I sat down and wrote him a note, telling him that I wished much to see him, and if he wanted to see me, he might come and dine with me at my lodgings in the road of Gabriel, at four. He accepted the invitation, and dined with Grieve and me; and I found him so much a man according to my own heart, that for many years we were seldom twenty-four hours asunder when in town. I afterward went and visited him, staying with him a month at his seat in Westmoreland, where we had some curious doings among the gentlemen and poets of the lakes."