Allan Ramsay

“ The tenderness of correspondent affections,—the hesitation and anxiety of a timid lover,—the mutual bliss on the mutual discovery of long concealed attachment,—the uneasiness of jealousy, with the humorous and condign punishment of its evil devices,—the fidelity of the shepherd notwithstanding his elevation to an unexpected rank,—the general happiness that crowns, and winds up the whole, are all impressively and vividly delineated.
With regard to its sentiments, the Gentle Shepherd has nothing to be ashamed of; though in a very few places coarse, the thoughts are nowhere impure ”

“ My sweetest May let love incline thee,⁠
t' accept a heart which he designs thee
And, as your constant slave, regard it,
Syne for its faithfulness reward it.
'Tis proof a shot to birth or money,
Receive it then with a kiss and a smily,
There's my thumb I'll ne'er beguile ye. ”

“ Nothing can be more delicately beautiful, or more agreeable to the true simplicity of pastoral, than Amyntas's recounting to Tircis the rise of his passion for Silvia. The description of their joint occupations and sports, till love insensibly arose in the breast of Tircis; the natural and innocent device he employed to obtain a kiss from Silvia; the discovery of his affection, and his despair on finding her heart insensible to his passion, are proofs that Tasso was a true poet, and knew [how] to touch those strings, with which our genuine feelings must ever harmonize. ”

“ The Soger Laddie.
[The tune and first verse of this song are old. The rest is by Ramsay.]
My soger laddie is over the sea,
⁠And he will bring gold and money to me:
And when he comes hame, he'll make me a lady;
⁠My blessing gang wi' my soger laddie.
My doughty laddie is handsome and brave,
⁠And can as a soger and lover behave;
True to his country, to love he is steady ”

“ Hunting in the forest, he holds a long discourse with an echo, and is half persuaded, by the reflected sounds of his own voice, that there is some real pleasure in love, and that he himself must one day yield to its influence. Dorinda clothes herself in the skin of a wolf, and is shot by him with an arrow, mistaking her for that animal. Then all at once he becomes her most passionate lover, sucks out the barb of the arrow with a plaister of green herbs, and swears to marry her on her recovery, which, by the favour of the gods, is fortunately accomplished in an instant. ”

“ That s naething like leaving my love on the shore.
To leave thee behind me my heart is sair pain’d:
By ease that’s inglorious no fame can be gain’d,
And beauty and love’s the reward of the brave,
And I maun deserve it before I can crave.
Then glory, my Jeany, 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 hae luck to come gloriously hame.
I’ll bring thee a heart with love rinnin’ o’er,
And then I’ll leave thee and Lochaber no more. ”

“ Despise the court and din of state;
⁠Let that to their share fall,
Who can esteem such slavery great,
⁠While bounded like a ball:
But sunk in love, upon my arms
⁠Let your brave head recline,
We'll please ourselves with mutual charms,
⁠As we did lang syne. ”

“ But, as associated ideas arise only where the connection is either in itself necessary, or the relation is so intimate, the two ideas are seldom found disunited; so of late years, that disunion has taken place in a twofold manner; for the language, even of the common people of Scotland, is gradually refining, and coming nearer to the English standard; and it has fortunately happened, that the Scotish dialect has lately been employed in compositions of transcendant merit, which have not only exhibited the finest strokes of the pathetic, but have attained even to a high pitch of the sublime. ”

“ I am sure of vast numbers that will crowd into your Ladyship's opinion, and think it their honour to agree in their sentiments with the Countess of Eglintoun, whose penetration, superior wit, and sound judgment, shines with an uncommon lustre, while accompanied with the diviner charms of goodness and equality of mind.
If it were not for offending only your Ladyship, here, Madam, I might give the fullest liberty to my muse to delineate the finest of women, by drawing your Ladyship's character, and be in no hazard of being deemed a flatterer ”

“ Bonnie Chirsty.
[This song is by Allan Ramsay. It was probably a favourite of the author's, as it is placed first in his Tea Table Miscellany.]
How sweetly smells the simmer green;
⁠Sweet taste the peach and cherry;
Painting and order please our een,
⁠And claret makes us merry:
But finest colours, fruits and flowers,
⁠And wine, though I be thirsty,
Lose a' their charms, and weaker powers,
⁠Compar'd wi' those of Chirsty.
When wand'ring o'er the flow'ry park,
⁠No natural beauty wanting;
How lightsome is't to hear the lark,
⁠And birds in concert chanting! ”

“ To the sarcastical picture which Jenny draws of the anxieties and turmoil of a wedded life, Peggy thus warmly replies:
Such are the sentiments of nature; nor is the language, in which they are conveyed, inadequate to their force and tenderness: for to those who understand the Scotish dialect, the expression will be found to be as beautiful as the thought. It is in those touches of simple nature, those artless descriptions, of which the heart instantly feels the [xlix] force, thus confessing their consonance to truth, that Ramsay excels all the pastoral poets that ever wrote. ”

“ The principal shepherd never speaks out of consistency with the habits of a peasant, but he moves in that sphere with such a manly spirit, with so much cheerful sensibility to its humble joys, with maxims of life so rational and independent, and with an ascendency over his fellow swains so well maintained by his force of character, that if we could suppose the pacific scenes of the drama to be suddenly changed into situations of trouble and danger, we should, in exact consistency with our former idea of him, expect him to become the leader of the peasants, and the Tell of his native hamlet. ”

“ Equally unnatural with the fable are the sentiments of this pastoral. Amaryllis, passionately adored by Mirtillo, and secretly loving him, employs a long and refined metaphysical argument to persuade him, that if he really loves her, he ought to love her virtue; and that man's true glory lies in curbing his appetites. The moral chorus seems to have notions of love much more consonant to human nature, who discourses for a quarter of an hour on the different kinds of kisses, and the supreme pleasure felt, when they are the expression of a mutual passion. ”

“ The admirers of the Gentle Shepherd, must perhaps be contented to share some suspicion of national partiality, while they do justice to their own feeling of its merit. Yet as this drama is a picture of rustic Scotland, it would perhaps be saying little for its fidelity, if it yielded no more agreeableness to the breast of a native than he could expound to a stranger by the strict letter of criticism. ”

“ In what I have said of the manners of the characters in the Gentle Shepherd, I know that I encounter the prejudices of some Scotish critics, who allowing otherwise the very high merits of Ramsay as a poet, and giving him credit in particular for his knowledge of human nature, and skill to touch the passions, quarrel with him only on the score of his language; as they seem to annex inseparably the idea of coarseness and vulgarity to every thing that is written in the native dialect of their country: but of this I have said enough before. ”

“ Here, surrounded by wild and mountainous scenery, and amid an artless and secluded people, whose manners and language were of patriarchal simplicity, his childhood received those pastoral and Arcadian impressions, which were too lively to be effaced by future habits, however uncongenial, and of which he in his manhood, amid all the artificial life of the city, made so lively and fascinating a transcription. ”

“ Her sons, in trying to adorn her, have shown remarkable defects of judgment. The ancient history of the Picts, so splendid in the page of Tacitus, is lost in our own fables. We neglect all our great poets, and are in raptures with Allan Ramsay. Our prejudices are as pitiful as strong; and we know not that the truth would make us far more illustrious, than all our dreams of prejudice, if realized, to use an expression of impossibility. Good sense in antiquities, and good taste in poetry, are astonishingly wanting in Scotland to this hour. ”

“ And we think the Gentle Shepherd, 'in some respects,' the best pastoral that ever was written, not because it has anything, in a poetical point of view, to compare with Fletcher and Milton, but because there is, upon the whole, more faith and more love in it, and because the kind of idealized truth which it undertakes to represent, is delivered in a more corresponding and satisfactory form than in any other entire pastoral drama. ”

“ I have been the fuller on this subject, because, to the great discredit of taste in Scotland, while we admire the effusions of this scribbler, we utterly neglect our really great poets, such as Barbour, Dunbar, Drummond, &c. There is even a sort of national prejudice in favour of the Gentle Shepherd, because it is our only drama in the Scotish language; yet we ought to be ashamed to hold prejudices so ridiculous to other nations, and so obnoxious to taste, and just criticism. I glory in Scotland as my native country ”

“ Peggy, beautiful in person as in mind, endowed with every quality that can adorn the character of woman; gentle, tender-hearted, constant in affection, free from vanity as from caprice; of excellent understanding; judging of others by the criterion of her own innocent mind, and therefore forming the most amiable views of human nature. Jenny, sensible and affectionate, sprightly and satirical; possessing the ordinary qualities of her sex, self-love, simulation, and the passion of conquest; and pleased with exercising a capricious dominion over the mind of a lover ”

“ Ramsay was a man of strong natural parts, and a fine poetical genius, of which his celebrated pastoral The Gentle Shepherd will ever remain a substantial monument; and though some of his songs may be deformed by far-fetched allusions and pitiful conceits, The Lass of Patie's Mill, The Yellow-hair'd Laddie, Farewell to Lochaber, and some others, must be allowed equal to any, and even superior, in point of pastoral simplicity, to most lyric productions, either in the Scotish or any other language. ”

“ The character of Silvio, utterly insensible to the charms of beauty or of female excellence, and who repays an ardent passion with insolence and hatred, if it exists at all in nature, is fitted only to excite contempt and detestation. Dorinda's courtship of Silvio is equally nauseous, and the stratagem she employs to gain his love is alike unnatural. ”

“ The principal difficulty in pastoral poetry, when it attempts an actual delineation of nature, (which we have seen is too seldom its object,) lies in the association of delicate and affecting sentiments with the genuine manners of rustic life; an union so difficult to be accomplished, that the chief pastoral poets, both ancient and modern, have either entirely abandoned the attempt, by choosing to paint a fabulous and chimerical state of society ”

“ There is not a milk-maid, a plough-boy, or a shepherd, of the Lowlands of Scotland, who has not by heart its favourite passages, and can rehearse its entire scenes. There are many of its couplets that, like the verses of Homer, are become proverbial, and have the force of an adage, when introduced in familiar writing, or in ordinary conversation. ”

“ The highest refinement of the heart, though too rare in most classes, is luckily to be found in all; and hence it is, that certain meetings of extremes in lovers of different ranks in life are not always to be attributed either to a failure of taste on the one side, or unsuitable pretensions on the other. Scotish dukes have been known to meet with real Gentle-Shepherd heroines; and everybody knows the story of a lowly Countess of Exeter, who was too sensitive to survive the disclosure of the rank to which her lover had raised her. ”