"O list the mystic lore sublime, Of fairy tales of ancient time! I learned them in the lonely glen, The last abodes of living men; Where never stranger came our way, By summer night or winter day; Where neighboring hind or cot was none-- Our converse was with heaven alone-- With voices through the cloud that sung And brooding storms that round us hung. O lady judge, if judge ye may, How stern and ample was the sway Of themes like these, when darkness fell And gray-haired sires the tales would tell! When doors were barred and elder dame Plied at her task beside the flame, That through the smoke and gloom alone On dim and cumbered faces shone-- The bleat of mountain goat on high, That from the cliff came quavering by; The echoing rock, the rushing flood, The cataract's swell, the moaning wood; The undefined and mingled hum-- Voice of the desert never dumb! All these have left within this heart A feeling tongue can ne'er impart A wildered and unearthly flame, A something that's without a name." Another circumstance in the early life of Hogg tended to nurse his fancy. He had, in all, something like six months' schooling, and having entered the service of Mr. Laidlaw, another great lover of legends, songs and stories of the olden time, he subscribed to a circulating library at Peebles, whose diversified contents he devoured within a short time. He read poetry, romances and tales with avidity, and stored his mind with traditionary ballads, songs and stories. This circumstance will account for his wayward, changeable life, as well as for the wildness and strength of his imagination. In the field of reality he was nothing, in that of fancy everything. He is said to have been a remarkably fine-looking young man, having a florid complexion, and a profusion of light brown hair, which he wore, coiled up, beneath his "blithe blue bonnet." An attack of illness induced by over-exertion, on a hot summer's day, so completely altered his appearance, that his friends scarcely recognized him as the same person. Of a jovial and merry disposition, he was a great favorite in all companies, and at times partook too freely of "the mountain dew."