Highland style; he met us at the door and gave us a drain from the
bottle, first gulping a glass himself of that double-strong like &
fire-eater, without a twink of the eye or a wince of the mouth; and
then with a grip o' the daddle, which made the fingers crack, he
pulled us into his bonnie wee bit shooting box of a house, with a
"Come awa ben ye'll be the better o' a bite o' venison pasty;" so in
we went, and were introduced to his bonnie wife and sousy barnes,
which latter, Jammie Hogg nursed as though he lov'd 'em frae the
uttermost ends o' his sowl.

Campbell has it against Byron, that "the poetic temperament is
incompatible with matrimonial felicity." Fudge, fudge, Mr. Campbell,
did you ever visit James Hogg?

Well, we sat down to take a snack with James and an extraordinary
monkey of his, which he has dressed in the garb of a Highland soldier,
and which too, sat down at table, and played his knife and fork like
a true epicure. "An extrornry crater is that wee Heelan-man o' mine,
gentlemen, he can conduc himsel' as weel's ony Christan man at table,
and aft when I'm pennin' a bit rhyme 'thegither, the crater'll lowp up
'ith chair anent me and tak' up a pen, in exac emeetation o' me, and
keck into my 'een in his cunnin way, as if he was speering me what to
write aboot; he surely maun ha' a feck o' thocht in his heed if are
could gar him spak it; but ye ken his horsemanship beats a'. I had a
spire-haired collie, a breed atween a Heelan lurcher, a grew, and a
wolf, dog, a meety, muckle collie he is for sure--weel, gentlemen, do
ye ken, he a' rides on him when we hoont the tod (fox), an' to see him
girt a screep o' red flannin on for a saddle, that the neer-do-weel
toor fra a beggar-wife's tattered duds ane day; an' then to see him
lowp on like a mountebank, and sit skreighin an' chatrin, an' cronkin