uietly around efforts of greater
poets than himself.

_James Hogg_, 1770-1835: a self-taught rustic, with little early
schooling, except what the shepherd-boy could draw from nature, he wrote
from his own head and heart without the canons and the graces of the
Schools. With something of the homely nature of Burns, and the Scottish
romance of Walter Scott, he produced numerous poems which are stamped with
true genius. He catered to Scottish feeling, and began his fame by the
stirring lines beginning;

My name is Donald McDonald,
I live in the Highlands so grand.

His best known poetical works are _The Queen's Wake_, containing seventeen
stories in verse, of which the most striking is that of _Bonny Kilmeny_.
He was always called "The Ettrick Shepherd." Wilson says of _The Queen's
Wake_ that "it is a garland of fresh flowers bound with a band of rushes
from the moor;" a very fitting and just view of the work of one who was at
once poet and rustic.

_Allan Cunningham_, 1785-1842; like Hogg, in that as a writer he felt the
influence of both Burns and Scott, Cunningham was the son of a gardener,
and a self-made man. In early life he was apprenticed to a mason. He wrote
much fugitive poetry, among which the most popular pieces are, _A Wet
Sheet and a Flowing Sea_, _Gentle Hugh Herries_, and _It's Hame and it's
Hame_. Among his stories are _Traditional Tales of the Peasantry_, _Lord
Roldan_, and _The Maid of Elwar_. His position for a time, as clerk and
overseer of Chantrey's establishment, gave him the idea of writing _The
Lives of Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects_. He was a
voluminous author; his poetry is of a high lyrical order, and true to
nature; but his prose will not retain its place in public favor: it is at
once diffuse and obscure.

_Thomas Hope_, 1770-1831: an Amsterdam merchant, who afterwards resided in
London, and who illustrated the progress of knowledge concerning the East
by his work entitled, _Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Modern Greek_.
Published anonymously, it excited a great interest, and was ascribed by
the public to Lord Byron. The intrigues and adventures of the hero are
numerous and varied, and the book has great literary merit; but it is
chiefly of historical value in that it describes persons and scenes in
Greece and Turkey, countries in which Hope travelled at a time when few
Englishmen visited them.

_William Beckford_, 1760-1844: he was the son of an alderman, who