Allan Ramsay

“ Allan Ramsay knew his friends Gay and Somerville as well in their writings, as he did when he came to be personally acquainted with them; but Allan, who had bustled up from a barber's shop into a bookseller's, was 'a cunning shaver;' and nobody would have guessed the author of the Gentle Shepherd to be penurious. Let none suppose that any insinuation to that effect is intended against Mr. Campbell: he is one of the few men whom I could at any time walk half-a-dozen miles through the snow to spend an afternoon with; and I could no more do this with a penurious man than I could with a sulky one. ”

“ To the end of life, Ramsay remained the same kindly, genial, honourable man, whose appearance in any of the social circles he frequented, was the signal for 'quips and cranks and wreathèd smiles' to go round, and for the feast of reason and the flow of soul to commence. His squat, podgy figure waddling down the High Street on his way to his shop in the Luckenbooths, his head covered with the quaint three-cornered hat of the period, beneath which peeped his tie-wig, was one of the familiar sights of Edinburgh, to be pointed out to strangers with a pride and an affection that never diminished. ”

“ Allan Ramsay was born on the 15th of October 1686, in the little town of Leadhills, situate in the parish of Crawfordmuir, in the upper ward of Lanarkshire, and in the very heart of the bleak, heathy Lowther hills. The house wherein he saw the light is now 'a broken-down byre,' according to Dr. John Brown in Horæ Subsecivæ. Standing, as it does, 1400 feet above the level of the sea, the village is chiefly notable as being the most elevated inhabited ground in Scotland. ”

“ Scotland honored herself when she honored her poet Ramsay. Happy is the nation that appreciates her sons who bid her people look within to find enduring treasure. To Ramsay, the prophet’s words apply: “And they that be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations and thou shalt be called ... the restorer of paths to dwell in.”
The second Allan Ramsay (1713–84) , an accomplished scholar and gentleman, was the son of the poet. Being carefully educated by his father and sent to Rome to study art, he became an able portrait-painter. ”

“ He was a frequent visitor at the University, and Dugald Stewart relates that an old friend of his father informed him, the students of the fourth and fifth decades of last century used to point out a squat, dapper, keen-eyed little man, who was wont to walk up and down the space in front of their classrooms with Professors Drummond and Maclaurin, as 'the great poet, Allan Ramsay.' The narrator also added, he felt a secret disappointment when thus viewing for the first time a real live poet, and noting that he differed neither in dress nor mien from ordinary men. ”

“ In the spring of 1707 Allan Ramsay received back his indentures, signed and sealed, with the intimation from the ancient and honourable 'Incorporation of Wigmakers' that he was free of the craft. He appears almost immediately thereafter to have commenced business on his own account in the Grassmarket, being admitted at the same time, in virtue of being a craftsman of the town, a burgess of the City of Edinburgh. ”

“ Ramsay possessed all the qualities constituting a song-writer of great and varied genius. His work exhibits ease and elasticity of rhythm, liquid smoothness of assonance, sympathetic beauty of thought, with subtle skill in wedding sense to sound. Though his verse lacked the dainty finish of Herrick and Waller, the brilliant facet-like sparkle of Carew, Suckling, and Lovelace, the tender grace of Sedley, and the half-cynical, half-regretful, but wholly piquant epicureanism, of Rochester and Denham, yet Ramsay had a charm all his own. Witness the 'Lass o' Patie's Mill' ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now, as Ramsay’s new house was a good way below this obstruction, and in that open space of the High Street where there was plenty of room to breathe, it was in an excellent position for bookselling or any similar business. There was actually a temptation for a citizen lingering in this spot to ascend Allan Ramsay’s stone stair to have a look at the books on sale, especially if he could have his wig dressed at the same time. ”

“ He delighted in sociality and conviviality, but recoiled from aught savouring of licence or excess. To coarseness, it is true, he may at times have stooped in his work; but we must remember the spirit of the times was in favour of calling a spade a spade, and not 'an implement for disintegrating planetary particles.' To no degree greater than did Swift, or Steele, or Arbuthnot, or Gay, can Allan Ramsay be considered to have smirched his pages with references either ribald or indelicate. The spirit of the age was in fault when coarseness was rated as wit ”

“ Smibert is believed to have executed a second portrait of Allan Ramsay, that kit-cat likeness with the head turned nearly in profile to the left, which formed the frontispiece to “The Gentle Shepherd, with Illustrations of the Scenery,” Edinburgh 1814, engraved by A. Wilson, from a drawing made by A. Carse from the picture (now at New Hall, Mid-Lothian) , which had belonged to the poet himself, and afterwards to Janet Ramsay, a daughter who survived him. ”

“ Thy lover heeds nought of thy sighs,
He lies a corpse on the Braes of Yarrow.
ALLAN RAMSAY. Crawford Muir, in Lanarkshire, was the birthplace of this true poet. His father was manager of the Earl of Hopetoun's lead-mines. Allan was born in 1686. His mother was Alice Bower, the daughter of an Englishman who had emigrated from Derbyshire. His father died while his son was yet in infancy; his mother married again in the same district; and young Allan was educated at the parish school of Leadhills. At the age of fifteen, he was sent to Edinburgh, and bound apprentice to a wig-maker there. ”

“ A complete edition of his Poems appeared in London in 1731 and in Dublin in 1733. With a touch of vanity he expressed the fear lest “the coolness of fancy that attends advanced years should make me risk the reputation I had acquired.” He was already on terms of intimacy with the leading men of letters in Scotland and England. He corresponded with Hamilton of Bangour (q.v.) , Somerville (q.v.) , Gay (q.v.) and Pope. Gay visited him in Edinburgh, and Pope praised his pastoral-compliments which were undoubtedly responsible for some of Ramsay's unhappy poetic ventures beyond his Scots vernacular. ”

“ RAMSAY, ALLAN. The Poems of. A new edition, corrected and enlarged; with a Glossary. To which are prefixed a Life of the Author, from authentic documents; and Remarks on his Poems from a large view of their merits; authentic Portrait, from an original drawing by his son, the late Allan Ramsay; fac simile of the Poet's handwriting, and copper-engraved Vignette. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 573 and 608. London, 1800.
RAMSAY, ANDREW. The Creation—the Happy Condition of Man before the Fall. Edinburgh, 1630.
RAMSAY, JOHN. Poems and Songs in the Scottish dialect. ”

“ Nevertheless Allan Ramsay is not only entitled to the designation we have given him, but in some respects is the best pastoral writer in the world. There are, in truth, two sorts of genuine pastoral—the high ideal of Fletcher and Milton, which is justly to be considered the more poetical,—and the homely ideal, as set forth by Allan Ramsay and some of the Idyls of Theocritus, and which gives us such feelings of nature [Pg 157] and passion as poetical rustics not only can, but have entertained, and eloquently described. ”

“ RAMSAY'S GENTLE SHEPHERD.
By Lord Woodhouselee.
As the writings of Allan Ramsay have now stood the test of the public judgment, during more than seventy years; [36] and, in the opinion of the best critics, he seems to bid fair to maintain his station among our poets, it may be no unpleasing, nor uninstructive employment, to examine the grounds, on which that judgment is founded; to ascertain the rank, which he holds in the scale of merit ”

“ He has a staff of workmen under him. A second time he visits Rome, making a stay of some months; and journeys to Edinburgh, residing there long enough to establish, in 1754, “The Select Society.” He grows wealthy, too. Poor Allan Ramsay senior dies much in debt in 1757; the painter takes upon himself his father’s liabilities, and pensions his unmarried sister, Janet Ramsay, who survived to 1804. He is possessed, it is said, of an independent fortune to the amount of 40,000l.; and this before the accession of King George the Third, and his extraordinary patronage of the painter. ”

“ As might well be supposed, such bigoted austerity had no friend in Allan Ramsay. All that he could do he{77} did to dissipate the mistaken ideas of the Scottish clergy and the stricter section of the Presbyterian Church, on the subject of dancing and the holding of the Assemblies. In the preface to his poem of The Fair Assembly he remarks: 'It is amazing to imagine that any are so destitute of good sense and manners as to drop the least unfavourable sentiment against the Assembly. It is to be owned with regret, the best of things have been abused. ”

“ His only son, the second Allan Ramsay, was a painter of some reputation, and he had daughters to care for him and keep his home cheerful as long as he lived. A man more {464}satisfied with his lot could not be. His chirrup of self-satisfaction, the flattery, yet familiarity, of his address to all the noble lords and lairds, the judges and advocates, his laugh of jovial optimism and personal content, belong perfectly to the character of the comfortable citizen, "in fair round belly with good capon lined," and the shopkeeper's rather than the poet's desire to please. ”

“ There is another view of the case not so creditable to the future poet, but still within the range of possibility—that the scion of the house of Ramsay, whose anxiety to let the world know he was of gentle lineage was so chronic, may have felt himself a cut above the children of the bonnet-lairdie. Ramsay's nature was not one wherein the finer sympathies and delicate regard for the feelings of others were mortised into a sturdy independence and a desire to carve his fortunes out of the block of favouring opportunity. ”

“ Amongst the gay and ingenious, who patronised and defended theatricals, Allan Ramsay stood conspicuous. He entertained a kind of enthusiasm on the subject, was keenly controversial in behalf of the stage, and willing to incur some risk in the hope of seeing his ideal of a sound drama in Scotland realised. We have seen traces of his taking an immediate and personal interest in the performances carried on for a few years by the ‘Edinburgh Company of Comedians’ in the Tailors’ Hall. He was now induced to enter upon the design of rearing, in Edinburgh, a building expressly adapted as a theatre ”

“ From start to finish of his career a subtle egoism, born of his lonely situation in life and fostered by his inordinate vanity, was his distinguishing trait. Generous acts he did, benevolent and kindly on numerous occasions he undoubtedly was, but his charity was not altruism. He was not the man to deny himself for the good of others.
Henceforth Edinburgh was to be Ramsay's life's home. ”

“ He revived the interest in vernacular literature, and directly inspired the genius of his greater successors. The preface to his Ever Green is a protest against “imported trimming” and “foreign embroidery in our writings,” and a plea for a return to simple Scottish tradition. He had no scholarly interest in the past, and he never hesitated to transform the texts when he could give contemporary “point” to a poem; but his instinct was good, and he did much to stimulate an ignorant public to fresh enjoyment. ”

“ From this shop proceeded, in 1721, a collection of his various poems in one quarto volume, published by subscription, which contained every eminent name in Scotland. It was thus advertised in the Edinburgh Evening Courant: "The poems of Allan Ramsay, in a large quarto volume, fairly printed, with notes, and a complete glossary (as promised to the subscribers) , being now finished; all who have generously contributed to carrying on of the design, may call for their copies as soon as they please, from the author, at the Mercury, opposite to Niddry's-wynd, Edinburgh." ”

“ The morning rises in the poet's description as she does in the Scottish horizon; we are not carried to Greece and Italy for a shade, a stream, or a breeze; the groves rise in our own valleys, the rivers flow from our own fountains, and the winds blow upon our own hills.'
To the fact that Ramsay has painted Scotland and Scottish rustics as they are, and has not gone to the hermaphrodite and sexless inhabitants of a mythical Golden Age for the characters of his great drama, the heart of every Scot can bear testimony. ”

“ In all the above editions, with the exception of those of 1788 and 1798, the orthography of the "Gentle Shepherd" is more or less changed from that of the original quarto of 1728.
The editions marked thus (*) follow a different text of the "Gentle Shepherd" from that of the present edition. See the Notes.
[xi]
THE LIFE
OF
ALLAN RAMSAY.
Born 1686.—Died 1758.
Allan Ramsay, the restorer of Scottish Poetry, was born on the 15th day of October, 1686, at Leadhills, in the parish of Crawfordmoor, in Lanarkshire. His father, John Ramsay, superintended Lord Hopetoun's lead mines at that place ”