as any by Teniers or Hogarth, is presented in the strength of this enactment the magistrates of first stanza of the third canto! Now frae the east nook of Fife the dawn Ramsay now left off wig-making, and set up a bookseller's shop, opposite to Niddry's Wynd.' He next appeared as an editor, and published two works, The Tea-table Miscellany, being a collection of songs, partly his own; and The Evergreen, a collection of Scottish poems written before 1600. He was not well qualified for the task of editing works of this kind, being deficient both in knowledge and taste. In the Evergreen, he published, as ancient poems, two pieces of his own, one of which, The Vision, exhibits high powers of poetry. The genius of Scotland is drawn with a touch of the old heroic Muse: Great daring darted frae his e'e, A shining spear filled his right hand, A various rainbow-coloured plaid Down his braid back, frae his white head, Amazed, I gazed, To see, led at command, Edinburgh shut up Allan's theatre, leaving him without redress. To add to his mortification, the envious poetasters and strict religionists of the day attacked him with personal satires and lampoons, under such titles as-A Looking-glass for Allan Ramsay; The Dying Words of Allan Ramsay; and The Flight of Religious Piety from Scotland, upon the Account of Ramsay's Lewd Books, and the Hellbred Playhouse Comedians, &c. Allan endeavoured to enlist President Forbes and the judges on his side by a poetical address, in which he prays for compensation from the legislature— Syne, for amends for what I've lost, Edge me into some canny post. His circumstances and wishes at this crisis are more particularly explained in a letter to the president, which now lies before us : 'Will you,' he writes, 'give me something to do? Here I pass a sort of half-idle scrimp life, tending a trifling trade, that scarce affords me the needful. Had I not got a parcel of guineas from you, and such as you, who were pleased to patronise my subscriptions, I should not have had a gray groat. I think shame-but why should I, when I open my mind to one of your goodness?-to hint that I want to have some small commission, when it happens to fall in your way to put me into it.'* It does not appear that he either got money or a post, but he applied himself attentively to his business, and soon recruited his purse. A citizen-like good sense regulated the life of Ramsay. He gave over poetry 'before,' he prudently says, 'the coolness of fancy that attends advanced years should make me risk the reputation I had acquired.' Frae twenty-five to five-and-forty, Let be your sangs, and learn to pray. In 1725, appeared his celebrated pastoral drama, The Gentle Shepherd, of which two scenes had previously been published under the titles of Patie and Roger, and Jenny and Meggy. It was received with universal approbation, and was republished both in London and Dublin. When Gay visited Scotland in company with his patrons, the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, he used to lounge in Allan Ramsay's About the year 1743, his circumstances were shop, and obtain from him explanations of some sufficiently flourishing to enable him to build himof the Scottish expressions, that he might com- self a small octagon-shaped house on the north side municate them to Pope, who was a great admirer of the Castle Hill, which he called Ramsay Lodge, of the poem. This was a delicate and marked but which some of his waggish friends compared to compliment, which Allan must have felt, though he a goose-pie. He told Lord Elibank one day of this had previously represented himself as the vicegerent ludicrous comparison. What!' said the witty peer, of Apollo, and equal to Homer! He now removeda goose-pie! In good faith, Allan, now that I see to a better shop, and instead of the Mercury's head which had graced his sign-board, he put up the presentment of two brothers' of the Muse, Ben Jonson and Drummond. He next established a circulating library, the first in Scotland. He associated on familiar terms with the leading nobility, lawyers, wits, and literati. His son, afterwards a distinguished artist, he sent to Rome for instruction. But the prosperity of poets seems liable to an uncommon share of crosses. He was led by the promptings of a taste then rare in Scotland to expend his savings in the erection of a theatre, for the performance of the regular drama. He wished to keep his troop' together by the 'pith of reason;' but he did not calculate on the pith of an act of parliament in the hands of a hostile magistrate. The statute for licensing theatres prohibited all dramatic exhibitions without special licence and the royal letters-patent; and on the you in it, I think the house is not ill named.' He lived in this singular-looking mansion-which has since been somewhat altered-twelve years, and died of a complaint that had long_afflicted him, scurvy in the gums, on the 7th of January 1758, at the age of seventy-two. So much of pleasantry, goodhumour, and worldly enjoyment, is mixed up with the history of Allan Ramsay, that his life is one of the 'green and sunny spots' in literary biography. His genius was well rewarded; and he possessed that turn of mind which David Hume says it is more happy to possess than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a year-a disposition always to see the favourable side of things. Ramsay's poetical works are sufficiently various; and one of his editors has ambitiously classed them under the heads of serious, elegiac, comic, satiric, * From the manuscript collections in Culloden House. with all lovers of Scottish song. In one of the least happy of the lyrics there occurs this beautiful image: How joyfully my spirits rise, When dancing she moves finely, O; His Lochaber no More is a strain of manly feeling and unaffected pathos. The poetical epistles of Ramsay were undoubtedly the prototypes of those by Burns, and many of the stanzas may challenge comparison with them. He makes frequent classical allusions, especially to the works of Horace, with which he seems to have been well acquainted, and whose gay and easy turn of mind harmonised with In an epistle to Mr James Arbuckle, the poet gives a characteristic and minute painting of himself: his own. Well judging a sour heavy face Ramsay addressed epistles to Gay and Somerville, and the latter paid him in kind, in very flattering verses. In one of Allan's answers is the following picturesque sketch, in illustration of his own contempt for the stated rules of art: I love the garden wild and wide, Where oaks have plum-trees by their side; In wimplings led by nature's hand; 1 A sirloin. Yet this to me's a paradise Till all looks mean, stiff, and confined. Heaven Homer taught; the critic draws The Gentle Shepherd is the greatest of Ramsay's works, and perhaps the finest pastoral drama in the world. It possesses that air of primitive simplicity and seclusion which seems indispensable in compositions of this class, at the same time that its landscapes are filled with lifelike beings, who interest us from their character, situation, and circumstances. It has none of that studied pruriency and unnatural artifice which are intruded into the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher, and is equally free from the tedious allegory and forced conceits of most pastoral poems. It is a genuine picture of Scottish life, but of life passed in simple rural employments, apart from the guilt and fever of large towns, and reflecting only the pure and unsophisticated emotions of our nature. The affected sensibilities and feigned distresses of the Corydons and Delias find no place in Ramsay's clear and manly page. He drew his shepherds from the life, placed them in scenes which he actually saw, and made them speak the language which he every day heard the free idiomatic speech of his native vales. His art lay in the beautiful selection of his materials-in the grouping of his well-defined characters-the invention of a plot, romantic yet natural-the delightful appropriateness of every speech and auxiliary incident-and in the tone of generous sentiment and true feeling which sanctifies this scene of humble virtue and happiness. The love of his 'gentle' rustics is at first artless and confiding, though partly disguised by maiden coyness and arch humour; and it is expressed in language and incidents alternately amusing and impassioned. At length the hero is elevated in station above his mistress, and their affection assumes a deeper character from the threatened dangers of a separation. Mutual distress and tenderness break down reserve. The simple heroine, without forgetting her natural dignity and modesty, lets out her whole soul to her early companion; and when assured of his unalterable attachment, she not only, like Miranda, 'weeps at what she is glad of,' but, with the true pride of a Scottish maiden, she resolves to study 'gentler charms,' and to educate herself to be worthy of her lover. Poetical justice is done to this faithful attachment, by both the characters being found equal in birth and station. The poet's taste and judgment are evinced in the superiority which he gives his hero and heroine, without debasing their associates below their proper level; while a ludicrous contrast to both is supplied by the underplot of Bauldy and his courtships. The elder characters in the piece afford a fine relief to the youthful pairs, besides completing the rustic picture. While one scene discloses the young shepherds by 'craigy bields' and 'crystal springs,' or presents Peggy and Jenny on the bleaching-green A trotting burnie wimpling through the groundanother shews us the snug thatched cottage with its barn and peat-stack, or the interior of the house, with a clear ingle glancing on the floor, and its inmates happy with innocent mirth and rustic plenty. The drama altogether makes one proud For what they have a mind to do, That will they do, should we gang wud; If they command the storms to blaw, Then upo' sight the hailstanes thud. But soon as e'er they cry, 'Be quiet,' The blattering winds dare nae mair move, But cour into their caves, and wait The high command of supreme Jove. Let neist day come as it thinks fit, Of ilka joy when ye are young, And lay ye twafald o'er a rung. Sweet youth's a blithe and heartsome time; Before it wither and decay. Watch the saft minutes of delight, On you, if she kep ony skaith. 'Haith, ye're ill-bred,' she'll smiling say; 'Ye'll worry me, you greedy rook ;' Syne frae your arms she 'll rin away, And hide hersell in some dark nook. Her laugh will lead you to the place, Where lies the happiness you want, And plainly tells you to your face, Nineteen naysays are half a grant. Now to her heaving bosom cling, And sweetly toolie for a kiss, Frae her fair finger whup a ring, As token of a future bliss. These benisons, I'm very sure, Are of the gods' indulgent grant; Then, surly carles, whisht, forbear To plague us with your whining cant. In this instance, the felicitous manner in which Ramsay has preserved the Horatian ease and spirit, and at the same time clothed the whole in a true Scottish garb, renders his version greatly superior to Dryden's English one. For comparison, two stanzas of the latter are subjoined: Secure those golden early joys, That youth unsoured with sorrow bears, For active sports, for pleasing rest, The appointed hour of promised bliss, The pleasing whisper in the dark, The half-unwilling willing kiss, The laugh that guides thee to the mark, When the kind nymph would coyness feign, These, these are joys the gods for youth ordain. Song. TUNE-Bush Aboon Traquair. At setting day and rising morn, With soul that still shall love thee, I'll ask of Heaven thy safe return, With all that can improve thee. I'll visit aft the birken bush, Where first thou kindly told me Sweet tales of love, and hid thy blush, Whilst round thou didst enfold me. To all our haunts I will repair, By greenwood shaw or fountain; Or where the summer day I'd share With thee upon yon mountain: There will I tell the trees and flowers, From thoughts unfeigned and tender; By vows you're mine, by love is yours A heart which cannot wander. The Last Time I came o'er the Moor. The last time I came o'er the moor, I left my love behind me; Ye powers! what pain do I endure, When soft ideas mind me! Soon as the ruddy morn displayed The beaming day ensuing, I met betimes my lovely maid, In fit retreats for wooing. Beneath the cooling shade we lay, Gazing and chastely sporting; We kissed and promised time away, Till night spread her black curtain. I pitied all beneath the skies, E'en kings, when she was nigh me; In raptures I beheld her eyes, Which could but ill deny me. Should I be called where cannons roar, Where mortal steel may wound me; Or cast upon some foreign shore, 602 Where dangers may surround me; Yet hopes again to see my love, Shall make my cares at distance move, In prospect of such blisses. In all my soul there's not one place To let a rival enter; Since she excels in every grace, In her my love shall centre. Sooner the seas shall cease to flow, Their waves the Alps shall cover, On Greenland iee shall roses grow, Before I cease to love her. The next time I go o'er the moor, Lochaber no More. Farewell to Lochaber, and farewell my Jean, Though hurricanes rise, and rise every wind, Then glory, my Jeanie, maun plead my excuse; Since honour commands me, how can I refuse? Without it I ne'er can have merit for thee, And without thy favour I'd better not be. I gae then, my lass, to win honour and fame, And if I should luck to come gloriously hame, I'll bring a heart to thee with love running o'er, And then I'll leave thee and Lochaber no more. [Rustic Courtship.] [From the Gentle Shepherd.-Act I.] I saw my Meg, but Meggy saw na me; For yet the sun was wading through the mist, Her coats were kiltit, and did sweetly shaw Her straight bare legs, that whiter were than snaw. Her cockernony snooded up fu' sleek, Her haffet locks hang waving on her cheek; 'Then, fare-ye-weel, Meg Dorts, and e'en's ye like,' [Dialogue on Marriage.] PEGGY and JENNY. Jenny. Come, Meg, let's fa' to wark upon this green; This shining day will bleach our linen clean; The water clear, the lift unclouded blue, Will mak them like a lily wet wi' dew. Peggy. Gae far'er up the burn to Habbie's How, Jenny. I dinna like him, Peggy, there's an end; And spreads his gartens diced beneath his knee; But ye'll repent ye, if his love grow cauld― Jenny. I never thought a single life a crime. He glow'rs and sighs, and I can guess the cause; Jenny. Heh, lass! how can ye lo'e that rattle-skull? A very deil, that aye maun hae his wull; We'll soon hear tell, what a poor fechting life Peggy. Sic coarse-spun thoughts as thae want pith to move My settled mind; I'm ower far gane in love. But want o' him, I dread nae other skaith. He reads fell books that teach him meikle skill. To mak them brats, then ye maun toil and spin. Peggy. Yes, it's a heartsome thing to be a wife, When round the ingle-edge young sprouts are rife. Gif I'm sae happy, I shall hae delight To hear their little plaints, and keep them right. Can there be toil in tending day and night Dear Meg, be wise, and live a single life; Peggy. May sic ill-luck befa' that silly she |