{"id":2015,"date":"2020-12-11T11:00:29","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T11:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/edinburghuniversityarchives\/?p=2015"},"modified":"2020-12-11T11:00:29","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T11:00:29","slug":"good-riddance-to-an-intolerable-year-james-hogg-bids-farewell-to-1831","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/edinburghuniversityarchives\/2020\/12\/11\/good-riddance-to-an-intolerable-year-james-hogg-bids-farewell-to-1831\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Riddance to an ‘Intolerable’ Year: James Hogg Bids Farewell to 1831"},"content":{"rendered":"

To mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of James Hogg (1770-1835)<\/strong>, we are featuring a peculiarly timely manuscript from Edinburgh University Library\u2019s collections. Hogg\u2019s poem \u20181831\u2019 will strike a familiar chord with readers in 2020. It bids a hearty good riddance to a year plagued by a rampant epidemic, public unrest, conspiracy theories, and disruption to work and trade.<\/p>\n

The poem\u2019s refrain damns 1831 as the accursed year of \u2018Burking, Bill, and Cholera\u2019. The first major 19th-century outbreak of cholera reached Northern England in late summer 1831, probably via ships bringing imports from India. By the end of the year, it had entered Scotland, where it spread rapidly through the growing industrial towns, killing over 9,500 people. The disease also caused massive unemployment, particularly among weavers, as the demand for their wares plummeted. Quarantine regulations further prevented hawkers and travelling salesmen from travelling between towns. Economic deprivation led to \u2018cholera riots\u2019 in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Paisley. The target of the rioters’ fury was the medical profession which was suspected of Burking<\/strong> cholera patients. This term alluded to the body-snatching spree of Burke and Hare, crimes fresh in the public memory. It implied that doctors were systematically murdering cholera-sufferers to meet the demand for anatomic specimens.<\/p>\n

Some protesters also claimed that the British government was deliberately spreading cholera in order to thin the numbers of the politically troublesome working classes. By \u2018Bill\u2019, Hogg means the Reform Bill of 1831, which envisaged a huge expansion of the (male) electorate. The rejection of the Bill by the House of Lords led to a nationwide outbreak of popular violence. Rioters set fire to Nottingham Castle (hence Hogg\u2019s references to \u2018flames\u2019 and \u2018fumes\u2019) and seized control of Bristol for three days. Suspicion that cholera was being used to suppress the working classes blurred the boundaries between \u2018Reform riots\u2019 and \u2018Cholera riots\u2019.
\n
\nHogg\u2019s essentially humorous poem is built around a series of outrageous run-on rhymes where \u2018cholera\u2019 is made to rhyme with \u2018intolera(ble)\u2019, \u2018follower a\u2019, \u2018hollower a\u2019 \u2018scholar a\u2019, \u2018roller a\u2019, and \u2018polar a\u2019. The poet imagines a reader upbraiding him for \u2018impiously\u2019 laughing at \u2018flames and death\u2019 but protests that he merely longs to see an end to \u2018drivelling without end | \u2018Bout Burking, Bill, and Cholera!\u2019. Although a man of the people himself, Hogg was, in fact, no friend to the Reformers.<\/p>\n

See below for the two-page manuscript ((Dc.4.101-103), which Hogg signs with his literary soubriquet \u2018The Ettrick Shepherd\u2019:<\/p>\n

\"\"

‘1831’ by James Hogg (Dc.4.101-103)<\/p><\/div>\n

Transcript (page 1)<\/em><\/p>\n

1831 by the Ettrick Shepherd<\/strong><\/p>\n

O Eighteen hundred thirty one
\nThou hast been an intolera-
\nBle year for fume, for fudge, and flame
\nFor Burking and for cholera<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad that some <\/em>thine end hast seen;
\nAnd may heaven make thy follower a
\nBetter year than thou thou hast been
\nWith thy fumes, bill, and cholera<\/p>\n

\u201cHold, Shepherd! Hold thy impious breath!
\nIt would be most intolera-
\nBle thus to laugh at flames and death
\nAt Burking and at cholera!\u201d<\/p>\n

Alas! I neither laugh nor flout
\nNor give my tongue a tolera-
\nTion either to deride or scout
\nThe burking, bill, or cholera<\/p>\n

I only pray this year may send
\nTo chief, to hind, to scholar a
\nRelief to drivelling without end
\n\u2018Bout burking, bill, and cholera<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Transcript (page 2)<\/em><\/p>\n

For all the years that I have seen,
\nA heartlesser and hollower a
\nYear than thou has never been,
\nWith burking, bill, and cholera<\/p>\n

Farewell, farewell! I see a storm
\nA rapper and a roller, a-
\nPproaching so fiercely \u2018bout Reform\u2014
\nTwill burke both bill and cholera<\/p>\n

Farewell, farewell! God speed thy flight
\nFar o\u2019er the regions polar a
\nLong farewell to thee\u2014jade outright
\nThy burking, bill, and cholera<\/p>\n

‘1831\u2019 may well have been written during Hogg\u2019s sole visit to London (late December 1831 to late March 1832), or possibly during the interminable one-week boat-trip that took him there from Edinburgh. Hogg had travelled to London to arrange for the publication of his collected fiction by the emerging publisher James Cochrane. This project, which Hogg hoped would offer financial security to his young family, was destined to fail when Cochrane was bankrupted shortly after the appearance of the first volume. During his three-month stay in the capital, Scott was feted by both high society and the literary world. ‘1831’ was published in the February 1832 edition of Fraser\u2019s Magazine<\/em>, which also featured a humorous account of the public celebration of Hogg\u2019s \u2018official\u2019 birthday on 25 January. (Hogg\u2019s date of birth is unknown. He was baptized on 9 December 1770 but may have been born up to three weeks earlier. He chose 25 January as his official birthday so as to share the date with another peasant-poet, Robert Burns.) The account is accompanied by a portrait by Daniel Maclise, where Hogg is wrapped in his characteristic shepherd\u2019s plaid, but otherwise cuts a more distinguished figure than in previous portraits, where he depicted as either a dreaming rustic or a drunken buffoon.<\/p>\n

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James Hogg, by Daniel Maclise (Corson P.1703)<\/p><\/div>\n

For further images of Hogg, see Edinburgh University Library\u2019s Walter Scott Image Collection<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For further manuscript holdings of James Hogg in Edinburgh University Library, see a new resource<\/a> on our \u2018Scottish Literary Papers\u2019 site.<\/p>\n

Further Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n