Familiar Songs - Their Authors & Histories

Share page


	DOWN THE BURN.	255


	WHEN THE KYE COMES HAME. The precise date of the birth of James Hogg, author of the following song, is not kaown. He believed that he was born January 25, 1772, but the baptismal register of Mtrick, his native parish, records his baptism as occurring December 9, 1770. At six years old, he was bound out as cow-boy, and was paid for his first year's service in " one ewe lamb, and a pair of shoes." He had but six months' schooling, and when eighteen years old, taught himself to read. For practice in writing, he copied the Italian alphabet upon a paper spread on his knees, his ink-bottle being hung at his button-hole; for he was on the hill-side watching his sheep. When at last he ventured to write out the verses that had formed themselves in his mind, he flung off his coat and vest for the effort, and could put down but few lines at a sitting. He died November 21, 1835. In 1860, a monument was raised to his memory, on the margin of St. Mary's Lake, in Ettrick Forest, where his