The life of a cow-herd affords limited opportunities for mental
improvement. And the early servitude of the Ettrick Shepherd was spent
in excessive toil, which his propensities to fun and frolic served just
to render tolerable. When he reached the respectable and comparatively
easy position of a shepherd, he began to think of teaching himself to
read. From Mrs Laidlaw, the wife of the farmer at Willinslee, on which
he served, he was privileged with the loan of two works, of which the
reputation had been familiar to him from childhood. These were Henry the
Minstrel's "Life and Adventures of Sir William Wallace," and the "Gentle
Shepherd" of Allan Ramsay. On these the future poet with much difficulty
learned to read, in his eighteenth year. He afterwards read a number of
theological works, from his employer's collection of books; and among
others of a speculative cast, "Burnet's Theory of the Conflagration of
the Earth," the perusal of which, he has recorded, "nearly overturned
his brain."
At Whitsunday 1790, in his twentieth year, Hogg entered the service, as
shepherd, of Mr James Laidlaw, tenant of Blackhouse,--a farm situate on
the Douglasburn in Yarrow. This proved the most signally fortunate step
which he had yet taken. Mr Laidlaw was a man of singular shrewdness and
of a highly cultivated mind; he readily perceived his shepherd's
aptitude for learning, and gave him the use of his library.
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