74 Bibliotheck

Offprint from

THE BIBLIOTHECK:a Scottish journal of bibliography and allied topics,

vol. 7 (1974) no. 3

The bibliography of James Hogg: five unrecorded items

Derek Law

JAMES HOGG was a regular contributor to the ‘Annuals’, which flourished briefly in the 1820’s and 1830’s. Their editors vied with each other to attract contributions from famous names, paid well for these names, and were not too concerned about the quality of what they received in return. Thomas Pringle, editor of the Forget Me Not, wrote to Hogg in 1831:

Now, what I want from you this year is not a prose tale nor a long poem, but three or four short pieces, about a page or a couple of pages each, such as you have once or twice sent me. And if you have not such by you, you will soon screed them off the sclate if you set about it. ¹

And ‘screed them off’ he did. Hogg—like many of his contemporaries— was willing to exchange his literary dross for gold. (Though it should be pointed out that, of the handful of still remembered poems which appeared in the Annuals, Hogg’s ‘The skylark’ is one.)

From the start, the adult Annuals had their juvenile counterparts, and Hogg’s work appeared regularly in them also. Ackermann’s JuveniJe Forget Me Not was fairly typical of these, being full of ‘nothing but what is con-ducive to moral improvement’²— which is, perhaps, one of the reasons why it survived only from 1830 until 1832. Hogg contributed to each of the three volumes, but the pieces seem to have escaped the notice of his bibliographer, Edith C. Batho. They are not listed in her comprehensive bibliography which forms part of her book The Ettrick Shepherd (Cambridge, 1927). nor in her additional list ‘Notes on the bibliography of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd’, The Library, IV, xvi (1935—36), 309-26. In all, five pieces by Hogg appeared in Ackermann’s Juvenile Forget Me Not. These may be listed as follows:

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1 Quoted in Mrs M. G. Garden, Memorials of ]ames Hogg, Paisley, 1884, p. 225.

• 2. Ackermann’s Juyenile Forget Me Not for 1830, p. iii.

1. 1830 [Vol. I], pp 176- 7, a poem, ‘A Child’s prayer’.

This is completely different from the poem of the same title which appeared in the same year in the Juvenile Forget Me Not (with which Ackermann’s Juvenile Forget Me Not merged in 1833), and which is listed by Batho. The Ackermann’s poem begins:

O God! I am a little child Who fain to thee would pray,

But am so mazed in folly’s wild,

I know not what to say.

2. 1830 [Vol. I], pp 222—7. a dialogue, ‘What is sin?’

In this dialogue between Jessie and her elder sister Ellen, Jessie is solemnly warned that she is a dreadful sinner for disobeying Mama, and her protests are silenced with ‘you are too young and too wild to talk about these matters’.

3. 1831 [Vol. 2], pp 99—116, a short story, ‘The poachers’.

A moral tale in which Little Benjy’s love for his dog finds him a patron who sends him to university, instead of the gallows for which he seemed destined.

I love, O Lord ! this holy day

In mercy sent to me,—

5. 1832 [Vol. 3], pp 157— 8, a poem, ‘The shepherd boy’s song’. This begins:

Play up, my love, my darling Sue !

For listening to my little woman.

1831 [Vol. 2], pp 172—3 a poem ‘Hymn for Sabbath morning’. This begins:

That strain was rather mair than common: The lambies darena chump nor chew,