ng these cases, moods, and tenses?
Still the wrong-placed words arranging,
Ever in their finals changing;
Out and in with hic and hockings,
Like a loom for working stockings.
Latin lords and Grecian heroes--
Oh, ye gods, in mercy spare us!
How may mortals be contented,
Thus confined and thus tormented!'

"My teacher, the late Richard Scott, was an accurate classical scholar,
which perhaps accounts for his being, unlike some others of his
profession, free from pedantry. He was kind-hearted and somewhat
disposed to indolence, loving more to converse with one of my years than
to instruct him in languages. He had seen a good deal of the world and
its ways, and I learned much from him besides Greek and Latin. We were
great friends and companions, and rarely separate when both of us were
unengaged otherwise.

"I bore aloof from making many acquaintances; yet, ere long, I became
pretty extensively acquainted with the people of the place. It went
abroad that I was a bard from the mountains, and the rumour affixed to
me a popularity which I did not enjoy. A party of young men in the
village had prepared themselves to act 'the Douglas Tragedy,' and wished
a song, which was to be sung between this and the farce. The air was of
their own fixing, and which, in itself, was wild and beautiful; but,
unfortunately, like many others of our national airs possessed of these
qualities, it was of a measure such as rendered it difficult to write
words for. Since precluded from introducing poetic sentiment, I
substituted a dramatic plot, and being well sung by alternate voices,
the song was well received, and so my fame was enhanced.

"It was about this time that I wrote 'The Crook and Plaid'--not by
request, but with the intention of supplanting a song, I think of
English origin, called 'The Plough-boy,' and of a somewhat questionable
character. 'The Crook and Plaid' accomplished the end intended, and soon
became popular throughout the land. So soon as I got a glimpse of the
Roman language, I began to make satisfactory progress in its
acquisition. But I daily wrote more or less in my old way--now also
embracing in my attempts prose as well as verse. I wrote a Border
Romance. This was more strongly than correctly expressed. Hogg, who took
the trouble of reading it, gave me his opinion, by saying that there
were more rawness and more genius in it than in any work he had seen.
It, sometime afterwards, had al