Hogg died at Altrive, but was buried here, as being his native parish; and, indeed, I question whether there be a nearer place where he could be buried, though Altrive is six miles off, and over the hills from one valley to another. His funeral must have been a striking thing in this solitary region--striking, not from the sensation it created, or the attendance of distinguished men, but from the absence of all this. The shepherd-poet went to his grave with little pomp or ceremony. Of all the great and the celebrated with whom he had associated in life, not an individual had troubled himself to go thus far to witness his obsequies, except that true-hearted man, Professor Wilson. An eye-witness says: "No particular solemnity seemed to attend the scene. The day was dull and dismal, windy and cloudy, and every thing looked bleak, the ground being covered with a sprinkling of snow. Almost the whole of the attendants were relatives and near neighbors, and most of them, with solid irreverence, were chatting about the affairs of the day. Professor Wilson remained for some time near the newly-covered grave, after all the rest had departed." I walked over this road to Altrive, the day after my arrival in Ettrick. But before quitting Ettrick, I must remark, that every part of it presents objects made familiar by the Shepherd. At the lower end are Lord Napier's castle, Thirlstane, a quaint castellated house, with round towers, and standing in pleasant woodlands; and the remains of the old tower of Tushielaw, and its hanging-tree, the robber chief of which strong-hold James VI. surprised, and hanged on his own tree where he had hanged his victims, treating him with as little ceremony as he did Johnny Armstrong, and others of the like profession. All these the hearty and intelligent schoolmaster pointed out to me, walking on to the three-mile distant inn, and seeing me well housed there. What is called Altrive Lake, the farm on the Yarrow, given for life by the Duke of Buccleugh to Hogg, and where he principally lived after leaving Ettrick, and where he died, stands in a considerable opening between the hills, at the confluence of several valleys, where the Douglas burn falls into the Yarrow. Thus, from some of the windows, you look up and down the vale of Yarrow, but where the vale has no very striking features. The hills are lower than on Ettrick, and at a greater distance, but of the same character, green and round. Shepherds are collecting their flocks; the water goes leaping along stony channels; you see, here and there, a small white farmhouse with its clump of trees, and a circular inclosure of stone wall for the sheep-fold. A solitary crow or gull flies past; there are black stacks of peat on the bogs, and on the hill-tops--for there are bogs there, too, and you perceive your approach to a house by the smell of peat. This is the character of the whole district.