"Blest be his generous heart for aye! He told me where the relic lay; Pointed my way with ready will, Afar on Ettrick's wildest hill; Watched my first notes with curious eye; And wondered at my minstrelsy: He little weened a parent's tongue Such strains had o'er my cradle sung. "But when to native feelings true I struck upon a chord was new; When by myself I 'gan to play, He tried to wile my harp away. Just when her notes began with skill To sound beneath the southern hill, And twine around my bosom's core, How could we part forevermore? 'Twas kindness all--I cannot blame-- For bootless is the minstrel's flame: But sure a bard might well have known Another's feelings by his own!" Scott, it is said, was grieved at this reference to his friendly counsel, given at a time when he knew not the powers of Hogg. This, however, illustrates a fact often occurring in the history of genius, which often struggles hard to develop itself, alone conscious of its native powers. When Sheridan first spoke in the house of commons he made an utter failure. But instead of being discouraged, he remarked with energy, "I know that it is in me, and I _must_ have it out!" Campbell offered his "Pleasures of Hope" to nearly all the book publishers in Scotland, who refused it. Not one of them could be prevailed upon even to risk paper and ink upon the chance of its success; and at last, it was only with considerable reluctance that Mundell & Son, printers to the University, undertook its publication, with the _liberal_ condition that the author should be allowed fifty copies at the _trade price_, and in the event of its reaching a second edition, a thing hardly anticipated, that he should receive the _immense_ sum of fifty dollars! The Ettrick Shepherd continued for a number of years to publish sketches, stories, and so forth, in prose and verse. He describes well, and in his prose compositions often breaks out into flashes of keen broad humor, but he is not particularly successful in the construction of plots, or in the arrangement of incidents. He is most at home in the regions of pure fancy. The moment he sets foot in fairyland he becomes inspired, and pours out "in delightful profusion" his beautiful imaginings. Inferior to Burns in depth of passion, in keen perception of the beautiful, and in the description of actual scenes, he is perhaps superior to him in the wild delicacy of his inventions and in the rich coloring of his imaginative pictures. Burns was the poet of nature, and went far beyond his Scottish contemporaries and successors, in strength of conception, beauty of imagery, intensity of feeling, and melody of verse. But Hogg excelled in imaginative musing, and became, by natural right, the acknowledged "bard of fairyland." His legend of "Bonny Kilmeny" has been universally admired.