the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Janet Stuart : 'Ode to Dr Thomas Percy'

[a long anecdote about how Hogg found his correspondent Janet Stuart's book in an Edinburgh bookshop and had to pay 7/6 for a 'pamphlet' which the bookseller argued was 'a very extraordinary production'] 'I did not only read it I devoured it: the man was right; it is an [italics] extraordinary production [end italics]. I do not think a man is flattering when he tells what he thinks I think there is not a more beautiful poem in the English language of its kind. Some of my friends, though they acknowledge it contains great beauties, blame it for what they are pleased to call a [italics] mysterous [sic] obscurity [end italics], while to me who am luckily versant in ancient ballads, it is as plain as the ABC. Yet I acknowledge I should be happy to see in my Adeline's next piece a little more of the unaffected simplicity so visible in her whole character and deportment'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: James Hogg      

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