Record Number: 23835

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'It was while serving here [Willenslee at the farm of Mr Laidlaw] , in the eighteenth year of my age, that I first got a perusal of "The Life and Adventures of Sir William Wallace", and "The Gentle Shepherd"; and though immoderately fond of them, yet (which you will think remarkable in one who hath since dabbled so much in verse) I could not help regretting deeply that they were not in prose, that every body might have understood them; or, I thought if they had been in the same kind of metre with the Psalms, I could have borne with them. The truth is, I made exceedingly slow progress in reading them. The little reading that I had learned I had nearly lost, and the Scottish dialect quite confounded me; so that, before I got to the end of a line, I had commonly lost the rhyme of the preceding one; and if I came to a triplet, a thing of which I had no conception, I commonly read to the foot of the page without perceiving that I had lost the rhyme altogether. I thought the author had been straitened for rhymes, and had just made a part of it do as well as he could without them. Thus, after I got through both works, I found myself much in the same predicament with the man of Eskdalemuir, who had borrowed Bailey's Dictionary from his neighbour. On returning it, the lender asked him what he thought of it. "I dinna ken man", replied he: "I have read it all through, but canna say that I understand it; it is the most confused book that ever I saw in my life!".'

Century:

1700-1799

Date:

Between 25 Jan 1788 and 25 Jan 1789

Country:

Scotland

Time

n/a

Place:

city: Willenslee

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

James Hogg

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

25 Jan 1772

Socio-Economic Group:

Labourer (agricultural)

Occupation:

shepherd, later poet

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

Scotland

Country of Experience:

Scotland

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Henry the Minstrel

Title:

Life and Adventures of Sir William Wallace

Genre:

Poetry

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

read in situ
read at Willenslee Farm

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Source Information:

Record ID:

23835

Source:

Print

Author:

James Hogg

Editor:

Gillian Hughes

Title:

Altrive Tales

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh

Date of Publication:

2003

Vol:

Collected Works 13

Page:

15-16

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

James Hogg, Gillian Hughes (ed.), Altrive Tales (Edinburgh, 2003), Collected Works 13, p. 15-16, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/RED/record_details.php?id=23835, accessed: 19 April 2024

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Additional Comments:

None