by James Hogg
Other complete works of Hogg’s are long out of print and the largest gathering, The Works of the Ettrick Shepherd, edited by T. Thomson in 1865, follows the corrupt 1837 text for the Confessions. We must thus currently rely on Judy Steel’s collection, A Shepherd’s Delight: A James Hogg Anthology (1985), for a flavour of the author’s poems, stories and plays. (‘The Poachers’ and ‘The Witches of Traquair’ are reprinted here.) Some of his letters are printed in James Hogg at Home by Norah Parr (1980) and his autobiographical writings have been edited by D. S. Mack, President of the James Hogg Society, as Memoir of the Author’s Life (1972).
Regarding critical studies, there is E. C. Bathos’s The Ettrick Shepherd (1927), D. Craig’s Scottish Literature and the Scottish People (1961), L. Simpson’s James Hogg: A Critical Study (1962) and James Hogg by D. Gifford (1976). There is a concise account of the novel in Walter Allen’s The English Novel (1954), where it is described as ‘an astonishing self-exposure of religious aberration and delusion … a psychological document compared with which Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a crude morality’.
As to additional, concomitant surveys: the best account of witchcraft and its many ramifications is Sir Keith Thomas’s Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971); the atmospherics of Romanticism are to be found in The Portable Coleridge, edited by I. A. Richards (1950, copyright renewed 1978), and in entries by Addison, Lamb, Hazlitt, De Quincey and Leigh Hunt in A Book of English Essays, edited by W. E. Williams (1942); the points raised in the foregoing preface of Hamlet’s relationship with Robert Wringhim Colwan may be checked against essays and remarks on Shakespeare’s play by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writers collected in Hamlet: A Casebook, edited by John Jump (1968). Ideas about Edmund Kean and profiles of similar personalities may be found in On Actors and the Art of Acting by George Henry Lewes (1875, reprinted in recent times by the Grove Press, New York). A discussion of the overlaps between acting and madness is also to be located in the present editor’s Stage People (1989). Alexander Mackendrick and Ealing films are dealt with extensively by Philip Kemp in his Lethal Innocence: The Cinema of Alexander Mackendrick (1991). Anthony Burgess’s autobiography comprises two volumes, Little Wilson and Big God (1987) and You’ve Had Your Time (1990).
CHRONOLOGY
Please note: Text is repeated below at a larger size.
DATE AUTHOR’S LIFE
1770 James Hogg born at Ettrickhall Farm, near Selkirk, and baptised on 9 December.
1777 Hogg’s only few months of schooling.
1794 First poem, ‘Donald McDonald’, published in Scots Magazine.
1801 Scottish Pastorals.
1802 Assists Walter Scott with Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.
1807 The Mountain Bard and The Shepherd’s Guide.
1810 The Forest Minstrel.
1813 The Queen’s Wake.
1815 The Pilgrims of the Sea.
1816 Mador of the Moor and The Poetic Mirror.
1818 The Brownie of Bodsbeck.
1820 Marries Margaret Phillips.
Winter Evening Tales.
1822 Poetical Works and The Three Perils of Man.
1823 The Three Perils of Woman.
1824 The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.
1825 Queen Hynde.
1829 The Shepherd’s Calendar.
1831 Songs, By The Ettrick Shepherd.
1832 Altrive Tales.
1834 Familiar Anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott.
1835 Tales of the Wars of Montrose.
Dies 30 November.
DATE LITERARY CONTEXT
1770 Death of Chatterton.
Birth of Wordsworth.
1772 Birth of Coleridge.
1773 The Works of Ossian, ‘collected’ by Macpherson and edited and published by Goethe in Frankfurt.
1775 Sheridan: The Rivals.
Birth of Jane Austen.
1776 Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations.
1777 Sheridan: The School for Scandal.
1784 Death of Dr Johnson.
1787 Birth of Edmund Kean.
1789 Blake: Songs of Innocence.
1792 Birth of Shelley.
1794 Blake: Songs of Experience.
1795 Birth of Keats.
1796 Death of James Macpherson.
1797 Coleridge begins ‘The Ancient Mariner‘.
1798 Wordsworth and Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads; Wordsworth begins The Prelude.
1803 Chatterton: Works (3 volumes), edited by R. Southey and J. Cottle.
1807 Wordsworth: ‘Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood’.
1811 Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility.
1812 Birth of Charles Dickens.
1813 Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice.
1814 Scott: Waverley.
Jane Austen: Mansfield Park.
Edmund Kean’s first success in The Merchant of Venice.
1816 Coleridge: ‘Kubla Khan’.
Jane Austen: Emma.
1817 First number of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine.
Coleridge: Biographia Literaria.
Death of Jane Austen.
1818 Scott: Heart of Midlothian.
Mary Shelley: Frankenstein.
1819 Shelley: ‘The Masque of Anarchy’.
Scott: Ivanhoe.
1820 Keats: ‘The Eve of St Agnes’.
Shelley: ‘Ode to the West Wind’, and ‘To a Skylark’.
1821 Death of Keats.
1822 Death of Shelley.
1827 Carlyle starts to contribute to the Edinburgh Review.
Scott: Life of Napoleon Buonaparte.
Deaths of Blake, Beethoven.
1830 Scott: Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft.
1831 Disraeli: The Young Duke
1832 Birth of Lewis Carroll.
Deaths of Scott, Jeremy
Bentham, Goethe.
1833 Lamb: The Last Essays of Elia.
Death of Kean.
1834 Death of Coleridge.
DATE HISTORICAL EVENTS
1770 Captain Cook discovers New South Wales.
1774 Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen.
1776 American Declaration of Independence.
1783 Treaty of Versailles recognizes American independence.
1789 French Revolution begins.
1793 Execution of Louis XVI.
1804 Napoleon becomes Emperor.
1805 Battles of Trafalgar and Austerlitz.
1807 Abolition of the slave trade in Britain.
1815 Battle of Waterloo.
1819 Birth of the future Queen Victoria.
1820 Death of George III.
1821 Death of Napoleon.
1825 First railway, Stockton to Darlington, opened.
1829 Catholic Emancipation Act; Metropolitan Police Force established.
1830 Death of George IV.
1832 Reform Bill passed.
1834 The Tolpuddle Martyrs.
The Private Memoirs
and Confessions of
a Justified Sinner:
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF:
With a detail of
curious traditionary facts,
and other evidence,
by the Editor.
THE EDITOR’S NARRATIVE
IT APPEARS from tradition, as well as some parish registers still extant, that the lands of Dalcastle (or Dalchastel, as it is often spelled) were possessed by a family of the name of Colwan, about one hundred and fifty years ago, and for at least a century previous to that period. That family was supposed to have been a branch of the ancient family of Colquhoun, and it is certain that from it spring the Cowans that spread towards the Border. I find that, in the year 1687, George Colwan succeeded his uncle of the same name, in the lands of Dalchastel and Balgrennan; and, this being all I can gather of the family from history, to tradition I must appeal for the remainder of the motley adventures of that house. But, of the matter furnished by the latter of these powerful monitors
, I have no reason to complain: It has been handed down to the world in unlimited abundance; and I am certain that, in recording the hideous events which follow, I am only relating to the greater part of the inhabitants of at least four counties of Scotland matters of which they were before perfectly well informed.
This George was a rich man, or supposed to be so, and was married, when considerably advanced in life, to the sole heiress and reputed daughter of a Baillie Orde, of Glasgow. This proved a conjuction anything but agreeable to the parties contracting. It is well known that the Reformation principles had long before that time taken a powerful hold of the hearts and affections of the people of Scotland, although the feeling was by no means general, or in equal degrees; and it so happened that this married couple felt completely at variance on the subject. Granting it to have been so, one would have thought that the laird, owing to his retired situation, would have been the one that inclined to the stern doctrines of the reformers; and that the young and gay dame from the city would have adhered to the free principles cherished by the court party, and indulged in rather to extremity, in opposition to their severe and carping contemporaries.
The contrary, however, happened to be the case. The laird was what his country neighbours called ‘a droll, careless chap’, with a very limited proportion of the fear of God in his heart, and very nearly as little of the fear of man. The laird had not intentionally wronged or offended either of the parties, and perceived not the necessity of deprecating their vengeance. He had hitherto believed that he was living in most cordial terms with the greater part of the inhabitants of the earth, and with the powers above in particular: but woe be unto him if he was not soon convinced of the fallacy of such damning security! for his lady was the most severe and gloomy of all bigots to the principles of the Reformation. Hers were not the tenets of the great reformers, but theirs mightily overstrained and deformed. Theirs was an unguent hard to be swallowed; but hers was that unguent embittered and overheated until nature could not longer bear it. She had imbibed her ideas from the doctrines of one flaming predestinarian divine alone; and these were so rigid that they became a stumbling block to many of his brethren, and a mighty handle for the enemies of his party to turn the machine of the state against them.
The wedding festivities at Dalcastle partook of all the gaiety, not of that stern age, but of one previous to it. There was feasting, dancing, piping, and singing: the liquors were handed around in great fulness, the ale in large wooden bickers, and the brandy in capacious horns of oxen. The laird gave full scope to his homely glee. He danced — he snapped his fingers to the music — clapped his hands and shouted at the turn of the tune. He saluted every girl in the hall whose appearance was anything tolerable, and requested of their sweethearts to take the same freedom with his bride, by way of retaliation. But there she sat at the head of the hall in still and blooming beauty, absolutely refusing to tread a single measure with any gentleman there. The only enjoyment in which she appeared to partake was in now and then stealing a word of sweet conversation with her favourite pastor about divine things; for he had accompanied her home after marrying her to her husband, to see her fairly settled in her new dwelling. He addressed her several times by her new name, Mrs. Colwan; but she turned away her head disgusted, and looked with pity and contempt towards the old inadvertent sinner, capering away in the height of his unregenerated mirth. The minister perceived the workings of her pious mind, and thenceforward addressed her by the courteous title of Lady Dalcastle, which sounded somewhat better, as not coupling her name with one of the wicked: and there is too great reason to believe that, for all the solemn vows she had come under, and these were of no ordinary binding, particularly on the laird’s part, she at that time despised, if not abhorred him, in her heart.
The good parson again blessed her, and went away. She took leave of him with tears in her eyes, entreating him often to visit her in that heathen land of the Amorite, the Hittite, and the Girgashite: to which he assented, on many solemn and qualifying conditions — and then the comely bride retired to her chamber to pray.
It was customary, in those days, for the bride’s-man and maiden, and a few select friends, to visit the new-married couple after they had retired to rest, and drink a cup to their healths, their happiness, and a numerous posterity. But the laird delighted not in this: he wished to have his jewel to himself; and, slipping away quietly from his jovial party, he retired to his chamber to his beloved, and bolted the door. He found her engaged with the writings of the Evangelists, and terribly demure. The laird went up to caress her; but she turned away her head, and spoke of the follies of aged men, and something of the broad way that leadeth to destruction. The laird did not thoroughly comprehend this allusion; but being considerably flustered by drinking, and disposed to take all in good part, he only remarked, as he took off his shoes and stockings, that, ‘whether the way was broad or narrow, it was time that they were in their bed.’
‘Sure, Mr. Colwan, you won’t go to bed to-night, at such an important period of your life, without first saying prayers for yourself and me.’
When she said this, the laird had his head down almost to the ground, loosing his shoe-buckle; but when he heard of prayers, on such a night, he raised his face suddenly up, which was all over as flushed and red as a rose, and answered:
‘Prayers, Mistress! Lord help your crazed head, is this a night for prayers?’
He had better have held his peace. There was such a torrent of profound divinity poured out upon him that the laird became ashamed, both of himself and his new-made spouse, and wist not what to say: but the brandy helped him out.
‘It strikes me, my dear, that religious devotion would be somewhat out of place to-night,’ said he. ‘Allowing that it is ever so beautiful, and ever so beneficial, were we to ride on the rigging of it at all times, would we not be constantly making a farce of it: It would be like reading the Bible and the jest—book, verse about, and would render the life of man a medley of absurdity and confusion.’
But against the cant of the bigot or the hypocrite, no reasoning can aught avail. If you would argue until the end of life, the infallible creature must alone be right. So it proved with the laird. One Scripture text followed another, not in the least connected, and one sentence of the profound Mr. Wringhim’s sermons after another, proving the duty of family worship, till the laird lost patience, and, tossing himself into bed, said carelessly that he would leave that duty upon her shoulders for one night.
The meek mind of Lady Dalcastle was somewhat disarranged by this sudden evolution. She felt that she was left rather in an awkward situation. However, to show her unconscionable spouse that she was resolved to hold fast her integrity, she kneeled down and prayed in terms so potent that she deemed she was sure of making an impression on him. She did so; for in a short time the laird began to utter a response so fervent that she was utterly astounded, and fairly driven from the chain of her orisons. He began, in truth, to sound a nasal bugle of no ordinary calibre — the notes being little inferior to those of a military trumpet. The lady tried to proceed, but every returning note from the bed burst on her ear with a louder twang, and a longer peal, till the concord of sweet sounds became so truly pathetic that the meek spirit of the dame was quite overcome; and, after shedding a flood of tears, she arose from her knees, and retired to the chimney-corner with her Bible in her lap, there to spend the hours in holy meditation till such time as the inebriated trumpeter should awaken to a sense of propriety.
The laird did not awake in any reasonable time; for, he being overcome with fatigue and wassail, his sleep became sounder, and his Morphean measures more intense. These varied a little in their structure; but the general run of the bars sounded something in this way: ‘Hic-hoc-wheew!’ It was most profoundly ludicrous; and could not have missed exciting risibility in anyone save a pious, a disappointed, and humbled bride.
The good dame wept bitterly. She could not for her life go and awaken the monster, and request h
im to make room for her: but she retired somewhere, for the laird, on awaking next morning, found that he was still lying alone. His sleep had been of the deepest and most genuine sort; and, all the time that it lasted, he had never once thought of either wives, children, or sweethearts, save in the way of dreaming about them; but, as his spirit began again by slow degrees to verge towards the boundaries of reason, it became lighter and more buoyant from the effects of deep repose, and his dreams partook of that buoyancy, yea, to a degree hardly expressible. He dreamed of the reel, the jig, the strathspey, and the corant; and the elasticity of his frame was such that he was bounding over the heads of the maidens, and making his feet skimmer against the ceiling, enjoying, the while, the most ecstatic emotions. These grew too fervent for the shackles of the drowsy god to restrain. The nasal bugle ceased its prolonged sounds in one moment, and a sort of hectic laugh took its place. ‘Keep it going — play up, you devils!’ cried the laird, without changing his position on the pillow. But this exertion to hold the fiddlers at their work fairly awakened the delighted dreamer, and, though he could not refrain from continuing his laugh, he at length, by tracing out a regular chain of facts, came to be sensible of his real situation. ‘Rabina, where are you? What’s become of you, my dear?’ cried the laird. But there was no voice nor anyone that answered or regarded. He flung open the curtains, thinking to find her still on her knees, as he had seen her, but she was not there, either sleeping or waking. ‘Rabina! Mrs. Colwan!’ shouted he, as loud as he could call, and then added in the same breath, ‘God save the king — I have lost my wife!’
