MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. I LIKE to write about myself:* in fact, there are few things which I like better; it is so delightful to call up old reminiscences. Often have I been laughed at for what an Edinburgh editor styles my good-natured egotism, which is sometimes any thing but that; and I am aware that I shall be laughed at again. But I care not for this important Memoir, now to be brought forward for the fourth time,t at different * [This is an auspicious opening for an Autobiography, and highly characteristic of the Shepherd. Many have affected, and some, perhaps, have even felt, a reluctance at entering upon a history of their own life, deploring the dire necessity which obliges them, for the sake of truth and justice, to outrage the habitual modesty of their nature, by speaking of themselves; but the Shepherd neither feels, nor thinks it necessary to pretend to feel, any reluctance of the kind: he jumps with glee to his work, and at once acknowledges that he likes to write about himself; in fact, he adds, there are few things which he likes better. The candour of this avowal must prepare the reader, at the outset, for a very frank and open-hearted narrative-and indeed he will not be disappointed in that matter-yet the author's history of himself and his friends must be taken with the usual allowance for that child-like love of exaggeration and mystery in which Hogg sometimes indulged, but which his honest simplicity always rendered so transparent that no body was deceived by it.] † [This was written for a projected collection of his Tales, to be published in London-a work of which only one volume appeared.] |