r have known the half that was in me. Indeed, I can
never see the design of Providence in taking me to your district at all,
if it was not to breed my acquaintance with you and yours, which I hope
will be one source of happiness to me as long as I live. Perhaps the
very circumstance of being initiated into the mysteries of your
character,[29] is of itself a sufficient compensation for all that I
suffered in your country."

Disappointed in obtaining an ensigncy in a Militia Regiment, through the
interest of Sir Walter Scott, and frustrated in every other attempt to
retain the social position he had gained, he returned to Ettrick, once
more to seek employment in his original occupation. But if friendship
had somewhat failed him, on his proving unsuccessful at Ettrick-house,
his _prestige_ was now completely gone; old friends received him coldly,
and former employers declined his services. He found that, till he
should redeem his reputation for business and good management, there was
no home for him in Ettrick Forest. Hogg was not a man who would tamely
surrender to the pressure of misfortune: amidst his losses he could
claim the strictest honesty of intention, and he was not unconscious of
his powers. With his plaid over his shoulders, he reached Edinburgh in
the month of February 1810, to begin, in his fortieth year, the career
of a man of letters. The scheme was singularly adventurous, but the die
was cast; he was in the position of the man on the tread-wheel, and felt
that he must write or perish.

It affords no matter of surprise that the Shepherd was received coldly
by the booksellers, and that his offers of contributing to their
periodicals were respectfully declined. His volume, "The Mountain Bard,"
had been forgotten; and though his literary fitness had been undisputed,
his lengthened want of success in life seemed to imply a doubt of his
general steadiness. Mr Constable, his former publisher, proved the most
friendly; he consented to publish a collection of songs and ballads,
which he had prepared, two-thirds being his own composition, and the
remainder that of his ingenious friends. This publication, known as "The
Forest Minstrel," had a slow sale, and conferred no benefit on the
unfortunate author. What the booksellers would not do for him, Hogg
resolved to do for himself; he originated a periodical, which he
designated "The Spy," acting as his own publisher. The first number of
this publication--a quarto week