been usually victorious in the annual competitions at Eskdalemuir; in
his advanced years, he was constituted judge at the annual Scottish
games at Innerleithen. A sportsman, he was famous alike on the moor and
by the river; the report of his musket was familiar on his native hills;
and hardly a stream in south or north but had yielded him their finny
brood. By young authors he was frequently consulted, and he entered with
enthusiasm into their concerns; many poets ushered their volumes into
the world under his kindly patronage. He had his weaker points; but his
worth and genius were such as to extort the reluctant testimony of one
who was latterly an avowed antagonist, that he was "the most remarkable
man that ever wore the _maud_ of a Shepherd."[49]

Hogg left some MSS. which are still unpublished,--the journals of his
Highland tours being in the possession of Mr Peter Cunningham of London.
Since his death, a uniform edition of many of his best works,
illustrated with engravings from sketches by Mr D. O. Hill, has been
published, with the concurrence of the family, by the Messrs Blackie of
Glasgow, in eleven volumes duodecimo. A Memoir, undertaken for that
edition by the late Professor Wilson, was indefinitely postponed. A
pension on the Civil List of £50 was conferred by the Queen on Mrs Hogg,
the poet's widow, in October 1853; and since her husband's death, she
has received an annuity of £40 from the Duke of Buccleuch. Of a family
of five, one son and three daughters survive, some of whom are
comfortably settled in life.


[28] The Shepherd entertained the belief that he was born on the 25th of
January 1772.

[29] Mr Macturk is well remembered in Dumfriesshire as a person of