Allan Ramsay: A Study of His Life and Works [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674423459, 9780674499706

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ALLAN RAMSAY

LONDON : H U M P H R E Y MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

FAMILY

TREE

CONSTRUCTED

EGERTON M S S . , 2 0 2 3 , B R I T I S H

BY

THE

MUSEUM

POET

A L L A N RAMSAY ^STUDT HIS LIFE AND

OF WORKS

BY

B U R N S M A R T I N , PH.D. KING'S COLLEGE, HALIFAX

CAMBRIDGE

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1931

COPYRIGHT, I 9 3 I BY T H E P R E S I D E N T A N D F E L L O W S O F HARVARD C O L L E G E

PRINTED AT THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U . S . A .

PREFACE

A

WORD concerning the scope of the following study may be in place. It is not a study of Scotland in the eighteenth century, however desirable such a work may be. I believe that the first step toward a survey of Scottish life and literature in that period is a series of definitive biographies of its leading men. If the present work should be considered one of these, I should feel rewarded. This work is, then, merely an attempt to set forth the facts •—• as distinct from the traditions and idle fancies — about Ramsay, to evaluate his poetry, and to trace his influence. To some readers I may seem to over-emphasize minor points in biography; but so long as historians of literature and writers on Old Edinburgh continue to mention Ramsay, it is desirable that they have at their disposal — should they wish to use it — accurate information. To other readers, the slight attention paid to pre-romanticism may seem strange. T h a t is not, however, an oversight. In our eagerness to trace literary movements we have too frequently exalted minor writers, in virtue of one or two poems, into precursors of romanticism; whereas, by the bulk of their work, generally ignored by the investigator, they are clearly shown to be more sympathetic with neo-classicism. This is especially

vi

PREFACE

true of Ramsay, and to call attention to his natural affiliations I have minimized his so-called romantic tendencies. My heartiest thanks are due to Miss Marguerite Wood, Town Archivist, and to Mr. C. T. Maclnnes of the Historical Department, Register House, Edinburgh, for help with documents under their care. Miss Bella Hutchen of Edinburgh and Mr. W. D. Robson-Scott of London have frequently looked up references for me. Only one who has had the privilege of studying under Professor George Lyman Kittredge will realize how great is my debt to his unfailing encouragement and penetrating criticism. And, finally, but for the generosity of the President and Fellows of Harvard College, I should not have been able to consult source material in Great Britain. B . M . CAMBRIDGE, M A S S A C H U S E T T S

July, 1931

CONTENTS I.

T H E L I F E OF A L L A N R A M S A Y

3

Π.

T H E POEMS

51

III.

" T H E GENTLE SHEPHERD"

73

IV.

R A M S A Y AS EDITOR

97

V.

R A M S A Y AND THE T H E A T R E

M

VI.

T H E REPUTATION AND THE INFLUENCE OF R A M S A Y

NOTES

124 137

APPENDICES: A.

OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS RELATING TO ALLAN R A M S A Y ' 1 6 7

B.

BIOGRAPHIES AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF ALLAN RAMSAY 178

C.

PERFORMANCES OF " T H E GENTLE SHEPHERD"

.

.

181

BIBLIOGRAPHY

185

INDEX

197

A L L A N RAMSAY

Chapter I T H E LIFE OF ALLAN RAMSAY was the first to honour Ramsay with the ancestry that, with here and there a minor change, is usually given him. Through five generations by way of a great-grandfather dignified with a captaincy, and the Ramsays of Cockpen, the poet's pedigree was traced to the earls of Dalhousie.^ All this Chalmers gave without stating his authority — not, however, a heinous crime in the early nineteenth century. But when he claimed that the poet had boasted of this ancestry in the lines,

C

HALMERS

Dalhousie of an auld descent, My chief, my stoup, and ornament,'

he was reading into them something that is not there. Ramsay is merely stating with a flourish what any other person of the same name might with equal truth assert. Moreover, when the poet himself in an idle moment constructed a family tree, he named only three ancestors: Jo. Ramsay, father; Ro. Ramsay, grandfather; and Jo. Ramsay, g r e a t - g r a n d f a t h e r W a s it modesty — a virtue that has always been denied him — or ignorance

4

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that caused the poet to omit the earlier and more illustrious part of his lineage ? His son, Allan the Painter, was apparently more ambitious, for in his MS. Life " of the poet he states that the latter's father was "descended of the Ramsays of Cockpen, an ancient and respectable family in Mid Lothian." It is possible that the son had sources of information unknown to the father; it is also possible that, having advanced in the world and wishing a more distinguished ancestry, the painter engrafted himself on the Ramsays of Cockpen.^ In any case, until further light is thrown on the question, we should remain mildly skeptical of Chalmers's excursion into genealogy. Concerning the poet's father, John Ramsay, we have definite information. From the MS. Life we learn that "he was factor to the Earl of Hopeton, and superintendant of his lead mines." This statement is corroborated by the entry of Allan Ramsay's apprenticeship in the Guild Register of Edinburgh, where the future poet is described as "sone Law[fu]ll to the deceased John Ramsay overseer to the Lady Hopetouns lead works." ® With the help of 'The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland we can probably catch a glimpse or two of John Ramsay at work. At a sitting of the Council on October 5, 1677, Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh complained that John Hope of Hopeton with a great number of servants and "John Ramsay his officer"

THE L I F E OF ALLAN RAMSAY

5

had invaded a piece of land to obstruct the removal of corn.' Again from the same source we learn that in October, 1684, "Mungo Wilson, chamberlane to Hoptoun and John Ramsay his grieve" had been sent in charge of a band of sixty men in pursuit of rebels who had detained a servant of Leadhills.' But John Ramsay's days of seizing corn and chasing rebels were soon to end. We learn from a testament dative of August 1 1 , 1685, that he had died the previous M a y . ' From these facts let us turn to certain statements made by the poet's biographers concerning John Ramsay. All have agreed that he was the son of an Edinburgh writer, Robert Ramsay, who was also factor of the Hope estates at Leadhills; that he was sent to that place as overseer about 1684 or 1685; " that he was married the next year; and, finally, that at the time of his death he was only twenty-four or five. Obviously, in the light of the testament dative, any date after May, 1685, the time of his demise, can be at once dismissed. If the John Ramsay of the raid of 1677 mentioned above was the poet's father — and there seems no reason to doubt the identification — then he certainly did not take up his residence in Leadhills in the eighties. Again, if he were only twenty-five at the time of his death in 1685, he must have been only seventeen in 1677 — surely an extremely early age to be "officer" to Hope of Hopeton. Another bit of evidence seems to con-

6

ALLAN RAMSAY

flict with the accepted view of John Ramsay's age. In 1695, a son Robert was apprenticed to an Edinburgh wigmaker." If we assume that at the time the youth was fifteen — an early age for beginning an apprenticeship — his father must have been only twenty at the time of the lad's birth. While of course not impossible, it seems strange that John Ramsay should at such an early age be in a position of responsibility toward a wife and an employer. In any case, the evidence of Robert's apprenticeship in 1695 rules out the accepted date of John Ramsay's marriage. In the next place, was this John Ramsay born in Edinburgh, or did he have any direct connections with the capital? Examination of the Edinburgh Register of Births shows that between January, 1650, and June 30, 1665, no child of a Robert Ramsay was baptized John. We have, moreover, another interesting bit of evidence. In the churchyard of Kirkbride in Dumfriesshire there is a stone with the following inscription: "Heir Lyeth Robert Ramsay Servitor To Hopton Who Died In November 17 The Year Of God 1674." " The name agrees with that given in the poet's family tree, and the death in 1674 fits well with the fact that John Ramsay was overseer in 1677. Very close to this tombstone is another. Although it is too badly weathered to give any information, its proximity to that of John Ramsay would suggest that it marked the grave of another

T H E LIFE OF ALLAN R A M S A Y

7

member of the family. When to these bits of evidence we add the fact that the poet never made reference to Edinburgh relatives, we seem to be justified in doubting that his fatljer, John Ramsay, was born in the metropolis or had any family connections with it. T h e epitaph quoted above is the only information we possess concerning the poet's grandfather.'^ Of his great-grandfather John we know nothing beyond the fact that the poet gave him a place on the tree. Let us turn, then, to another problem of ancestry, the poet's supposed descent from the Douglas family. Under patent from Chalmers, Janet Douglas, daughter of Douglas of Muthill, is his grandmother. All subsequent biographers have confirmed the grant in Mo except Smeaton, who has gallantly married her off to the poet's legendary great-grandfather, Captain John Ramsay, son of Ramsay of Cockpen.'" B u t they disagree hopelessly whether the lady was the poet's paternal or maternal grandmother. More surprising is the fact that the only evidence adduced in support of this relationship of Ramsay to the house of Douglas is a verse in ^he Gentleman's Qualifications Debated: " I , being a poet sprung from a Douglas loin." But the poem is merely a versified account of a debate that took place at the Easy Club, and in it Ramsay always refers to the members by their pseudonyms. As his own was Gawin Douglas,

8

ALLAN RAMSAY

what was more natural than for him to describe himself as " a poet sprung from a Douglas loin"? If we accept this simple and obvious explanation and recall that the poet's son makes no mention in the MS. Life of Douglas ancestry, this problem of previous biographers vanishes into thin air. The question of Ramsay's maternal ancestry is not so involved. The MS. Life says: His mother, Alice Bower, was daughter of Allan Bower, a gentleman of Derbyshire, who, on account of his great skill in mining, had been invited by Sir James Hope of Hopeton to set his valuable mines in motion. This statement receives support from the testament dative of 1685. In that document John Ramsay's widow is called Alison boar and signs herself Alles Bower\ a creditor of the deceased is named Allan boar and signs himself Allen Bower^^ Beyond these scant facts we cannot go." Lest we be accused of emulating Sterne, we must hasten to get our hero born. In The Petition to the Whinbush Club Ramsay gives the place of his birth: "Of Crawfurd-moor, born in Leadhill."'® The date is, however, another matter. The problem is complicated by the absence of parochial registers for the period. The death of John Ramsay in May, 1685, rules out Chalmers's date, October 15, 1686, so far as the year is concerned. The failure of the testament dative of August, 1685, to mention him does not prove that Allan Ramsay was a posthu-

T H E L I F E OF A L L A N R A M S A Y

9

mous child, as the naming of minor children in such documents was neither compulsory nor customary; moreover, there is no mention in the document of Robert, Allan's elder brother. In An Epistle to James Clerk, dated May 9, 1755, the poet says: Now seventy years are o'er my head, And thirty mae may lay me dead.''

Taken literally, this would imply that Ramsay had been born between May 9, 1684 and May 8, 1685, but we need not be so precise in our interpretation — absolute accuracy may easily have given way to exigencies of metre or to the tendency, as shown in the second line, to use round numbers. Another poem, Τ0 the Hon'''' Sr. Ale¡Í Bick, is dated Anno Domini, /755, Et' suae LXX.'^" This also brings us to late 1684 or sometime in 1685. When we turn to the MS. Life, which as the work of Ramsay's son should carry weight, we find, unfortunately, contradictory statements. Ramsay Junior says explicitly that his father was born on October 15, 1685, adding in a footnote that an ode to Sir Alexander Dick written on the poet's seventieth birthday is dated October 15, 1755. If there ever was a poem to Sir Alexander dated exactly as the younger Ramsay claims, the matter would be settled. No such poem, however, has been published, and the present writer has never, in a rather extended study of Ramsay manuscripts, seen one. Moreover, the general description bears such a close resemblance

IO

ALLAN RAMSAY

to the poem discussed immediately above that we are inclined to think that Ramsay the Painter's memory played him false regarding the exact dating of the ode. The son has also made a serious error in the Life. He states that when the future poet was about a year old, his father died; but as we have already seen that John Ramsay died in May, 1685, we cannot reconcile this remark with the same writer's dating of the birth — October 15 1685. It would seem from all the evidence, then, that Allan Ramsay was very probably born on October 15, but whether in 1684 or in 1685 cannot at present be decided. Now that we have brought our hero safely into the world, it may be well to sum up the results of our investigations. The son of John and Alison (Bower) Ramsay, the poet was born in Leadhills, October 15, 1684 or 1685. He had at least one brother, whose name was Robert. His father was overseer to the Hopes of Hopeton. His grandfather was a Robert Ramsay, also in the service of Hopeton, and his great-grandfather was a John Ramsay. It was the poet's son, and not the poet, who laid claim to descent from the Ramsays of Cockpen. On his mother's side he was grandson to Allan Bower, who, according to the MS. Lije, was a mining expert brought to Leadhills from Derbyshire. There is no evidence that the poet was descended from any person of the name of Douglas.

THE LIFE OF ALLAN RAMSAY

ii

Likewise, there is no evidence that he had relatives on his father's side in Edinburgh. In May, 1685, Alison Bower found herself a widow either with two children or with one child born and another unborn." The MS. Life states that "being but ill provided for she soon after married a second husband in the Neighborhood, by whom she had several children." Chalmers adds the information that the second husband's name was Chrighton and that he was a small-holder. Smeaton, enlarging as usual on his predecessors, made the period of widowhood only three months, and gave Crichton the Christian name of David." There is no evidence for or against the brief widowhood, but the parochial registers of Lanark show that Crichton's Christian name was not David, but Andrew.^' The testament dative lends colour to the statement of the MS. Life that poverty was the reason for the second marriage. This "inventar of the goods geir sumis of money and debts" of John Ramsay at the time of his death shows that his resources were £96 Scots, and his debts £230 Scots.^"· Concerning the boyhood of Allan Ramsay we have no official records. What we know comes from his biographers and his poems. It would seem probable — and the MS. Life suggests it — that Alison Bower kept her children with her after her second marriage. Since Andrew Crichton was a bonnet laird, we can imagine young Allan growing

12

ALLAN RAMSAY

up a country lad. This conjecture is supported by passages in the poems. To Hamilton of Gilbertfield he later wrote: Said L — Whisht! — Quoth the vougy jade, — William's a wise judicious lad, Has havins mair than e'er ye had. Ill-bred bog-staker.^s

Closely allied in thought are lines in An Ode on . . . the Marquis of Orumlanrig: But bred up far frae shining courts In moorland glens, where nought I see But now and then some landart lass. What sounds polite can flow frae me? ^^

In To Mr. William Starrat we catch a glimpse of this shepherd lad's life: Aft have I wid thro' glens with chorking feet, When neither plaid nor kelt cou'd fend the weet: Yet blythly wald I bang out o'er the brae. And stend o'er burns as light as ony rae.^'

We should not be far wrong if we considered the finest touches in Robert·, Richy, and Sandy —· for example, the description of the dog mourning for his dead master — the result of personal observation. I t was very probably as a lad in Lanarkshire that Ramsay noted how the farmer passes the long winter evenings and with what eagerness cattle and horses go to pasture in spring.^» One is tempted to assert that Bauldy's belief in witchcraft з» and the rural dismay occasioned by the eclipse ^^ reflect boyhood impressions, but one must not push the

THE LIFE OF ALLAN RAMSAY

13

theory too far. In Edinburgh as Ramsay knew it, there were still superstitious folk aplenty. The line between rural and urban conditions and occupations was still uncertain, as a quotation from a letter of the poet shows: The little grass I had my cow eat up in a month's time but the good natured Beast eats her winline of Bought Grass Hay and DrafF with all good humour imaginable gives her six pints dailie three yellow pounds weekly, my cocks crow and Hens lay with cheerfulness and civility.32 Akin to this close observation of men and domestic animals is the poet's keen delight in external nature, which is reflected in many of his poems. The MS. Lije can hardly be wrong in attributing it to the early years in Crawfordmoor. The verses revealing it have too genuine a ring to be the product of a taste acquired later in life amid urban surroundings or on occasional visits to the country Biographers of the poet have been somewhat concerned about his early education. The MS. Life states that he had access to all the learning the village school could afford. The anonymous writer on Ramsay in Lives of the Scottish Poets had a very high opinion of parochial schools; he thought that the poet had in all probability studied the classics in the local school.''* Smeaton naturally converted the probability into fact in a passage so typical that we quote it:

14

ALLAN RAMSAY

To the future poet he [Crichton] gave, as the latter [Ramsay] more than once testified, as good an education as the parish school afforded. That it embraced something more than the "three R's," we have Ramsay's own testimony, direct and indirect — direct in the admission that he had learned there to read Horace " faintly in the original"; indirect in the number and propriety of the classical allusions in his works. He lived before the era of quotation books and dictionaries of phrase and fable . . . but the felicity of his references is unquestionable, and shows an acquaintance with Latin and English literature both wide and intimate.^s There are several statements in the above paragraph worthy of examination. Ramsay never once, so far as the present writer is aware, made acknowledgment of any kindness shown him by his stepfather. In the preface from which Smeaton quotes, the poet does not specify where he learned to "understand Horace faintly in the original." Moreover, Smeaton's partial quotation gives an impression quite at odds with the meaning of the whole sentence: But I'm even with them [his critics], when I tell them to their Faces, without Blushing, that I understand Horace but faintly in the Original, and yet can feast on his beautiful Thoughts dress'd in British; — and do not see any great Occasion for every Man's being made capable to translate the Classicks, when they are so elegantly done to his Hand.^^ Indeed, the closing remark sounds much like the challenge of a man who knew very little Latin and

THE LIFE OF ALLAN RAMSAY

15

was proud of the fact. The MS. Life corroborates this impression when it says that the poet knew enough Latin to catch with the help of Dacier the spirit of the Odes of Horace. Undoubtedly, there are many classical allusions in Ramsay's verse, but every one of them could easily be paralleled several times over in contemporary English poetry, with which Ramsay was very familiar. It is also true that the poet introduced Latin into a few of his poems, but the expressions are tags that he could have acquired in less painful ways than close study of Latin literature. Let us, however, approach this question of Ramsay's education from an angle hitherto ignored. Are we certain that the parish of Crawfordmoor had a school, and, if it had, was it so situated that the lad could attend it? Undoubtedly, the Scots have, as a nation, always been eager to give every child an education — one of the glories of the First Book 0/ Discipline (1561) was its emphasis on this matter. Various acts of parliament culminating in that of 1696 provided for schools under the aegis of the Church. It should be remembered, however, that from 1662 to 1690 no one was permitted by law to teach without a license from the bishop.^' This requirement must have interfered greatly with the operation of the educational acts in Presbyterian sections of the country, making necessary a virtual re-establishment of the school system

16

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with the return to Presbyterianism in 1690. Anyone who has lived in rural communities knows that it takes considerable time to enforce a new educational act. It would be foolish, then, to suppose that in the last decade of the seventeenth century, merely because there were excellent statutes, educational conditions in Crawfordmoor were commendable. At that time the parish church, manse, and school were very probably in the village of Crawford, which is five or six miles from Leadhills. We do not know the exact situation of Crichton's farm, but it is usually said to have been in the vicinity of Leadhills. Five or six miles would seem a great distance for a small boy to walk regularly to school ' ' — and as he grew older he would be more in demand for work on the farm. But granted that young Ramsay could have got to school, what sort of place would he have found? In 1697 a committee of investigation reported to the presbytery of Lanark on the condition of the church property at Crawford: We find the manse insufficiently thatched, and scarce habitable. . . . Anent the school, it is reported that ther is a school, and ane hundreth pounds Scots of sallarie, but there wants a schoolhouse. Anent the church, it wants a bell . . . glass windowes and seats." Plainly, the good parishioners of Crawfordmoor were not unduly interested in things spiritual or intellectual. Need we suppose that their criterion of successful teaching of Latin was very high ?

THE LIFE OF ALLAN R A M S A Y

17

It might be thought that since Leadhills was a fairly important village it would have a school. W e have, however, conclusive evidence that the first school there was in 1715/° T h a t was, of course, too late to be of any use to Ramsay. As there was no permanent church in the village before 1736, we cannot suppose that an altruistic minister taught the youth prior to 1715. It is often stated that farmers too far from the parish school engaged resident teachers. Was Crichton rich enough or sufficiently interested in his stepsons to do this? Moreover, the following account is probably indicative of the kind of education most farmers appreciated: The herds and their wives, who live at too great a distance from the public school to send their children thither, are carefu to teach them not only to read the Bible, but to get Psalms by heart àc."^ In all the above evidence we have found no support for the accepted view that Ramsay, while a boy in Leadhills or the vicinity, received a thorough grounding in Latin. W e are not, of course, contending that Latin was not taught in the parochial schools. Excerpts in Robertson's Selections from the Registers of Lanark, to which reference has already been made, show that some parishes insisted on a master's being able to teach this subject. Our contention is that we have no proof of its being taught in Crawfordmoor in the 1690's. Nor are

18

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we contending that Ramsay was ignorant of Latin — in the light of the poet's own remarks and achievements such a position would be absurd. He may have picked up his small knowledge of the subject in Crawfordmoor, but it would seem more probable that he acquired it during his early years in Edinburgh, where opportunities were certainly more abundant. T h e M S . Life says that the poet was very proficient in French, and Ramsay himself says that he translated some of his fables from L a Motte and L a Fontaine-^^ This mastery of French must have been acquired after his removal from Lanark, as parish schools made no attempt to teach that language. If Ramsay was capable of acquiring this knowledge in Edinburgh, is it unreasonable to think him capable of learning Latin there? One more side of Ramsay's development in Lanark calls for comment. According to the MS. Life he had no opportunity for reading any books but such as were in the hands of country people; for example, poetical accounts of Bruce and Sir William Wallace, and the poems of Sir David Lindsay. If this is true — and there is no reason to doubt it — we should perhaps trace to this period the seeds of Hhe Ever Green and, possibly, of Ramsay's sentimental Jacobitism, of which more will be said later. As the M S . Life mentions particularly the poetry of Lindsay, it might be noted here that in 1724 and 1743 Ramsay made, possibly with a view to pub-

THE LIFE OF ALLAN RAMSAY

19

lication, transcripts of that ^VLÙLOÎ's-Interludes or Allegorical Plays.^'^ The MS. Life and all the other biographies state that about 1700 Ramsay's mother died. This date receives some corroboration from the Register of Baptisms for Lanarkshire.''^ A child of Andrew Crichton and Alison Bower was baptized on April 29, 1699. In June, 1703, a daughter of Andrew Crichton and Grissell Colhart was baptized. These entries would suggest that Alison Bower had died some time between these two dates."·® Accepting Ramsay's statement that he lived in Crawford fifteen years/' his biographers have, with the exception of Mr. Gibson,'·' dated his departure from Lanarkshire for Edinburgh about 17СЮ. Almost uniformly they have been unfair to Andrew Crichton, the youth's stepfather. The MS. Life states that on the death of the lad's mother "his stepfather to get him out of the way, sent him to Edinburgh." The later version has a paragraph scored out, but fortunately not completely, in which it is related that Allan had wished to be a painter "as he has often told his friends" and that he had "even made attempts at drawing before he left the country." Language similar to this has been used by other biographers. Let us examine the situation dispassionately. Ramsay had no relatives, so far as we can learn, in Crawfordmoor except probably some half-brothers and half-sisters.

20

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In 1695 his full brother had been apprenticed to an Edinburgh wigmaker;"" other things being equal, now that his mother was dead, Allan would prefer to be with him — provided, of course, that Robert was still in the capital. He had no property to hold him in Lanark. As agriculture was in a very bad state about 1700 because of a series of bad seasons, Crichton with children of his own could not be expected to provide longer for him. The life of a farm labourer was not attractive. Miners were treated almost as s e r f s . A writer in the Statistical Account gives a picture of life in Leadhills that is far from prepossessing: The external appearance of Leadhills is ugly beyond description: rock, short heath, and barren till. . . . Fowls of any kind will not live many days at Leadhills ... Horses, cows, dogs, cats, are liable to the lead-brash— About thirty years ago, most of the smelters died either mad-men or idiots.^' Any person who helped a lad to escape from such an environment should surely be considered not his enemy, but his friend. As for the charge that Crichton ignored the boy's aspiration to be a painter, we should note that nowhere in his writings does Ramsay suggest that he at any time wished to be an a r t i s t . T h e statement of the MS. Life that the poet often told of this frustrated desire may well be true — many a father of a successful son has thought in his later years that he too,

THE L I F E OF ALLAN RAMSAY

21

as a youth, had shown signs of promise. Moreover, it should be remembered that Ramsay was somewhat vain and prone to babble. But even if we grant that the boy had not merely the desire to be an artist but also the necessary talent or genius, was it criminal of his stepfather not to recognize and aid a possible Angelo? Had Crichton the means to indulge the boy in his whims ? The position of his detractors is ludicrous. About 1700, then, Ramsay left the scenes of his boyhood. We have no proof that he ever revisited the district or had communication with his stepfather and the numerous children that the biographers have given Crichton." That he sought membership in the Whinbush Club, which was composed of Clydesdale men living in Edinburgh, may mean that the poet retained some feeling for his old home, or it may merely signify that Ramsay, a congenial soul in an age of clubs, would use any means to become a clubman. The Leadhills Miners' Library claims to have been instituted in 1741 by the poet, but this would appear to be a modern tradition. S"· But the natives of Leadhills did not forget their illustrious townsman. In 1828 Chambers said that the ruins of Ramsay's birthplace were lately to be seen." In 1852 a visitor to Leadhills found that the children thought and talked of Allan Ramsay and that somebody had painted outside the library "something which is called a portrait of the poet." s®

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Although there is no documentary evidence that Ramsay left Lanarkshire for Edinburgh about 1700, all the circumstantial evidence, as we have seen, points to that conclusion. The first unquestionable fact we have is the entry of his apprenticeship in the Guild Register of Edinburgh under date of March 17, 1704." Of the years preceding that event we know nothing. His brother Robert had been apprenticed to an Edinburgh wigmaker in 1695 ; Allan might conceivably have lived with him, since he (Robert) should have completed his apprenticeship by the beginning of 1700. But unfortunately we cannot be sure that Robert was still in Edinburgh.Allan's apprenticeship was for five years; on July 19, 1710, according to the Guild Register, he was admitted a burgess. Of the period of Ramsay's apprenticeship we know as little as of the years immediately preceding. Smeaton quotes a letter supposedly written by Ramsay about this time. In it the future poet laments the Act of Union (1707), but says that he finds consolation in Shakespeare, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, the Fletchers, Jonson, and Drummond.^" If this letter, with its invective against those statesmen and politicians who engineered the union of the two countries, is genuine, one wonders whether Ramsay took part as a 'prentice in the riots of the day. On the other hand, as Chalmers acutely remarks, the poet's early life could not have been untoward;

T H E LIFE OF ALLAN R A M S A Y

23

otherwise his detractors would have cast it at him. How soon after becoming a burgess in 1710 Ramsay set up as a master wigmaker in a shop of his own we do not know. There is apparently no foundation for the " tradition " that places his first shop in the Grassmarket.'' The entries in the parochial registers concerning his marriage (December 14, 1712) and the birth of his first child (October 6, 1713) show Ramsay connected with North (or New Kirk) Parish. When his second child was born (October 3, 1714), he was a member of NorthEast Parish; there he still was in 1716.'^ It would, therefore, seem probable that Ramsay had changed his residence between October, 1713 and October, 1714; but to be dogmatic concerning the situation of either shop or residence would be unwise. In 1718 Ramsay's shop is described on the title-page of Christ's Kirk on the Green as " a t the Mercury opposite to Nidderies W y n d " ; this brings us back to North Parish! Mr. Gibson, indignant at the carelessness of earlier writers concerning the exact name of Ramsay's sign, produces evidence to show that, although known in 1718 as the Mercury, it had previously been called the Wig and Mercury.^^ B u t Mr. Gibson's evidence is unconvincing — one feels that in a humorous or satirical letter such as he quotes, the writer might well have added the Wig for effect. Really, the combination Wig and

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Mercury seems almost too grotesque for even the eighteenth century. A word concerning the craft of periwigmaking may be in place. The trade does not appear as one of the incorporated crafts of the city; but, since its practitioners on completion of their apprenticeship were admitted burgesses, there must have been some oranization among its members. This lack of precise information led to a confusion, in the minds of some writers, of barbers and wigmakers, much to the annoyance of certain admirers of our poet. Chalmers scotched, even if he did not kill, the story of Ramsay's having been a barber.®'· To his evidence might be added the fact that in official records of the period, which are always careful to distinguish wigmakers, barbers, or barbers and wigmakers, Ramsay never appears but as a wigmaker or bookseller. An anonymous writer in Hogg's Weekly Instructor (1846) gave a most romantic account of Ramsay's courtship and marriage.®^ Smeaton took the story, enlarging on it considerably, but it would serve no purpose to examine his errors in detail. Let us proceed to give the simple facts of the matter." On December 14, 1712, Ramsay married Christian Ross, daughter of the late Robert Ross, writer, and Elizabeth Archibald. The bride's father had died on either April 1, 1699, or March 29, 1703, and her mother on March 14,1697. Born

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in 1683, Christian Ross was twenty-nine years of age, slightly older than her husband. Of her parents' numerous family at least four other members lived to maturity. If the Robert Ross, writer, who married Janet Dalrymple on September 24, 1697, was her father, Christian Ross had, like her husband, known the joys and sorrows of a stepchild.«' Much nonsense has been written about Ramsay's connection with the Easy Club, but fortunately Mr. Gibson, into whose possession the M S . Journal of the little group finally came, has given a true and apparently complete account of the poet's membership.'® T h e Easy Club was founded by a few young men on M a y 12, 1712, " i n order that by a Mutual improvement in Conversation they may become more adapted for fellowship with the politer part of mankind and Learn also from one another's happy observations." Ramsay was one of the founders of the club. As all members had pseudonyms, he adopted that of Isaac BickerstafF until November 5, 1713, when, the club adopting Scottish patrons, he assumed the name of Gawin Douglas. On July 21, 1712, Ramsay was "appointed Keeper of ye original letters and other writs belonging to the Club," a position he held until November 12, 1713. On August 8 of the same year (1712) it was "ordered that one Specktator be Read at every meeting till all be read, and Isaac BickerstaflF [Ramsay]

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to provide the ist Volume." On February 2, 1715, "Gawin Douglas" [Ramsay] demanded his patent as poet laureate to the club, a request that was speedily granted. On May 1 1 , 1715, in conformity with a by-law, " D r . Pitcairn and G. Douglas were declar'd Gentlemen having behaved themselves 3 years honest fellows and good members of this Club." Though the club was supposed to meet regularly, apparently no sessions were held between April, 1713 and November 5, 1713, and between December 22, 1713 and December 6, 1714. The minutes of the club end on May 1 1 , 1715, but Mr. Gibson thinks that there is evidence for meetings as late as July 20, 1715. The presence of a poem, 'The Lamentation, addressed to the Easy Club and dated November 9, 1715, among the Laing MSS. would, however, suggest even later activities.'" Mr. Gibson is very probably correct in scouting the old suggestion that the Easy Club was suppressed after the Rebellion of 1715 because of its Jacobite sympathies. The same writer has conferred another service by his proof that Ruddiman and Pitcairne were not members of the club — a claim that had been made to enhance Ramsay's reputation. So much for the mere facts of Ramsay's membership in the Easy Club. Let us now see what influence it may have had on his poetry. Mr. Gibson has shown that contrary to previous statements the

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club had no connection, except in one instance, with the publication of Ramsay's poemsJ' On the other hand, it gave the poet opportunities for writing verse; and practice is, or should be, of great aid in perfecting one's technique. During the session of November-December, 1713, "there was a poetick war between Gawin and Ld. Napier. W e were often amused with letters and poems and spent many evenings very aggreeably." " Ramsay was made, as we have seen, poet laureate, the patent being granted the more readily because all were "acquaint with his Naturall abilities for poetry and some of his performances." A poet needs not only encouragement and opportunity to write, but also criticism. Unfortunately we cannot say what were the critical standards of the members of the Easy Club. Presumably, however, they felt themselves capable of passing judgment on Ramsay's "Naturall abilities." (It is a matter for regret that the poet did not early come under the influence of some really competent critic, for the prime weaknesses of Ramsay as a poet are the uncertainty of his inspiration and his inability " t o blot.") Then again, the Easy Club, although it was not suppressed for Jacobite activities, must have encouraged a patriotic discontent — otherwise, a poem like Îhe Lamentation would not have been written. In other words, the Easy Club nourished and kept alive that patriotism which we have al-

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ready noticed as having been planted in Ramsay by his boyhood reading and which we shall later find expressing itself in such anti-English writings as Tartana and A Tale of Three Bonnets. It was probably under the patronage of the Easy Club that Ramsay made his bow to the world at large as poet; in any case, it was at the expense of this group that he published A Poem to the Memory of the Famous Archibald Pitcairn, Μ.Ό. in 1713." T w o years later appeared On This Great Eclipse, followed in 1716 by The Battel or Morning Interview. It was in 1718, the year in which several important works such as Christ's Kirk on the Green, Tartana, and Scots Songs appeared, that Ramsay first announced himself as author and publisher. From this year he was busy writing poems or republishing old ones, but it would be useless to follow his activities in detail. T h e year 1720 is, however, important for Patie and Roger, the germ of The Gentle Shepherd, and for the octavo edition of his collected works, which was strangely ignored by all writers previous to Mr. Gibson. In the same year the poet issued proposals for a subscribers' edition.·''· Ramsay hoped that the volume would be ready by the following February, but it was not published until July 27,1721P^ Bound in calf, with a portrait of the author for frontispiece, a list of subscribers that included the most illustrious Scots of the day and such literary figures as Pope, Steele,

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and Arbuthnot, several commendatory poems, and a by-no-means modest preface written in excellent English — so excellent, indeed, that one may be pardoned for suspecting, after reading Ramsay's letters, that some kindly friend had glanced through it — printed on fine paper, this quarto was a volume to make even a more modest poet than Allan Ramsay swell with pride. And even though he expressed regret that the South Sea Bubble had made it hard r e a p i n g , t h e thrifty Scot must have rejoiced at the golden harvest that four hundred copies at one guinea each brought him." The success of the quarto edition of 1721 seems to have spurred the poet to even greater activity. Again we shall mention only major works. In 1722 came the first collection of Fables and "Tales·, there were two editions, the second having in addition to the original twelve fables and two tales three new poems. Two of the additions, Bagpipes No Mustek and Grub-street пае Satyre, Ramsay did not admit into the quarto of 1728 ; they were first admitted to the canon by Chalmers in 1800. The same year (1722) saw the anonymous Tale of Three Bonnets. The usually accepted opinion, which was also given in the MS. Life, that Ramsay never admitted authorship of this violently anti-Union poem is erroneous, as he republished it in the octavo of 1729. There would hardly be need to mention, except that Smeaton dated it erroneously,^® A Masque at

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the Nuptials of James, Duke of Hamilton, of which there were editions in both Edinburgh and London in 1723. The next year is important for Volume I of "The Теа-Ч'аЫе Miscellany and The Ever Green, the latter in two volumes. These works introduced Ramsay as editor." The next year (1725) saw the publication of Ramsay's most ambitious and most popular work, The Gentle Shepherd. When one remembers that we have been naming only the major works, and that at the same time many short occasional pieces were coming from his pen, one is impressed by the poet's productivity. Moreover, he was not devoting all his time to creative work, for he was constantly issuing reprints of earlier writings. In the light of all this activity one wonders what had become of Ramsay's wigmaking. Hitherto, with the exception of Mr. Gibson, who favours the following year, all writers on the subject have agreed that Ramsay abandoned his craft for bookselling in 1718.®" But this date is certainly too early. On June 25,1722 and March 10,1725, Ramsay acted as witness for baptisms. On the earlier occasion he was described as wigmaker, but on the later as bookseller. Obviously, the change of trade was made between these two dates. But we can perhaps limit our period even more closely. In an entry for September 17, 1723, an Alex·· Ramsay, wigmaker, appears as witness.®' But according to

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the Roll of Burgesses there was no wigmaker of that name in Edinburgh during the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Moreover, in the entry the name Alea^ had already occurred twice. What is more probable, especially as the two names begin alike, than that the clerk, intending to write Allan, repeated the name Alex'"i It should be clear, then, that Ramsay, after engaging in both wigmaking and bookselling from 1718, quitted the former occupation to devote all his time to bookselling and literature not earlier than June 25, 1722 (but probably after September 17, 1723) and not later than March 10, 1725.'=· Previous writers have also erred in stating that Ramsay remained at the shop opposite Niddry's Wynd until 1726, when he is said to have removed to a place at the east end of the Luckenbooths. A close study of title-pages and advertisements shows that some time in 1722 the poet removed from opposite Niddry's Wynd to a shop on the High Street "on the South-side of the Cross-well." This description places the new shop between Borthwick's Close and the Old Assembly Close. Here he remained until late 1725 or some time in 1726, when he moved to the east end of the Luckenbooths. At the time of the second removal, or shortly thereafter, he changed his sign from the Mercury to Hawthornden's and Ben Johnson's [j/V] Heads, but apparently he mentioned only rarely his new sign on title-pages.®^

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During the years that we have been noting for Ramsay's work as author and publisher certain minor events occurred that are of some interest. In 1 7 1 6 the Town Council appointed him a constable, and in 1718, lieutenant in the Train Bands/'* In 1 7 1 9 he made a successful appeal to the Town Council against pirates, his ire having been particularly aroused by the printing in London of his elegy on Addison from an extremely bad pirated text.'s Some time before the publication of the quarto of 1721 the poet sought membership in the Whinbush Club, a society of Lanark men resident in Edinburgh; that his request was granted we may infer from the inclusion of the poem in the 1721 volume. In 1722 we find him asking the Duke of Roxburgh to use his influence to secure him a government pension, the plea being that by writing Scots verse he is performing a national service. ^^ (Did the poet publish his notoriously anti-English Ta/e of 'Îhree Bonnets in the same year because his petition had not been granted?) On July 13, 1724, the poet was made an honorary member of, and appointed bard to, the Royal Company of Archers." Several poems show that he took his bardic duties seriously, although strangely enough he omitted these writings from his second quarto. The records of the Town Council show that in 1726 Ramsay was assigned a pew in the Tron Kirk (South-East Parish).'® As the Council was apparently con-

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cerned with re-assignments of sittings, following alterations, we may conclude that Ramsay had been a member of this parish for some time. T h e dearest holding was £ 2 . 1 Scots and the next £ i . 18; as Ramsay's was £1. 2, we may infer that at this time the poet was fairly prosperous. In the same year Ramsay was possibly interested in T o n y Aston's attempt to found a theatre in Edinburgh, but we shall have more to say of that matter in a later chapter. Ramsay is usually said to have started a circulating library about 1725, but the evidence for the year is very slight.®' T h e first reference we have to the institution is in Wodrow's Analecta under the date of 1728: Besides this, profaneness is come to a great hight, all the villainous profane and obscene bookes and playes printed at London by Curie and others, are gote doune from London by Allan Ramsey, and lent out, for an easy price, to young boyes, servant weemen of the better sort, and gentlemen, and vice and obscenity dreadfully propagated. Ramsay has a book in his shope wherein all the names of those that borrou his playes and books, for two pence a night, or some such rate, are sett doun; and by these, wickednes of all kinds are dreadfully propagar among the youth of all sorts. My informer, my Lord Grange, tells me he compleaned to the Magistrates of this, and they scrupled at medling in it, till he moved that his book of borrouers should be inspected, which was done, and they were allarumed at it, and sent some of their number to his shope to look throu some of

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his books; but he had notice an hour before, and had withdrauen a great many of the worst, and nothing was done to purpose. . . . A villanous obscene thing, is no sooner printed at London, than it's spread and communicat at Edinburgh.^'' T h i s venture of R a m s a y ' s is of some historical importance, as it is apparently the earliest known circulating library in Britain. T h o u g h R a m s a y ' s library m a y h a v e merited criticism, his efforts to encourage art were surely beyond cavil. In 1729 a group of painters and lovers of the arts founded the A c a d e m y of St. L u k e " f o r the encouragement of the excellent arts of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, etc., and Improvement of the Students." T h e r e were t w e n t y eight charter members, among w h o m were R a m s a y and his son Allan, then a y o u t h of sixteen.'^ In 1735 w e find the poet asking the provost of Edinburgh to use his influence to secure a government pension of 100 guineas per year for five years to enable A l l a n Junior to study in Italy.»^ A s the y o u t h w e n t abroad the following y e a r , R a m s a y ' s friend evidently played his part well. T h e last of these disconnected events in the poet's life that w e need note here was his re-appointment by the T o w n Council to be one of the constables for 1736,«" the year of the Porteous Riots. L e t us now resume the discussion of R a m s a y ' s publishing activities. T h e second volume of 'The

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Tea-Table Miscellany very probably appeared in 1726, and the third in the following year. Another octavo edition of Poems was published the same year (1727). But by this time the poet's thoughts were turning toward something more ambitious. It was natural that after the success of the quarto of 1721 and the subsequent octavos Ramsay should contemplate a collected edition of the poems written since 1721. On February 11, 1727, he wrote Alexander Brodie, Lord Lyon, who was then in London: I design to have it [the new volume] finished against next winter, and with it to wait on my patrons in London. Hook in as many as ye can for me, and allow one of your servants to note me down their names and designations. . . . By all means, you and my dear Lord Advocate maun get consent from Sir Robert Walpool, that I may mark him on my list. In my next I shall give you a list of such as I would have you to demand consent of.'s T h e volume cannot have appeared so early as the author had hoped, as the Caledonian Mercury of June 6, 1728 mentions it as just published. If we may take the list of subscribers as indicative, Volume II was an even greater success than its forerunner. This volume also sold for a guinea, the poet being sufficient of a business man to require half-payment at the time of placing the subscription.'® T h e next year Ramsay issued an octavo edition at four shillings.

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The year 1730 saw an enlarged edition of Fables and Tales. This was the last volume to be published by Ramsay containing new material. This does not mean, of course, that Ramsay wrote no more verse. On this point certain biographers have been led astray by a casual remark of the poet's. Writing to his friend Smibert on May 10, 1736, he remarks: These six or seven years past I have not wrote a line of poetry; I e'en gave o'er in good time, before the coolness of fancy that attends advanced years should make me risk the reputation I had already acquired."

The correct interpretation of this statement is shown by a passage in the MS. Life·. Although he had no further desire of attracting the notice of the public, he continued to write Epistles, and other occasional pieces of poetry, for the entertainment of his private friends.

The truth of this statement is attested by the large number of unpublished poems dated after 1730. Even though Ramsay ceased publishing his latest compositions, he must have led a busy life. There were numerous reprints of his earlier work to take his attention. In 1736, but pre-dated, appeared A Collection of Scots Proverbs., and in the following year Volume IV of The Tea-Table Miscellany. In 1736, possibly after some years' connection with the theatrical world, Ramsay opened a theatre in Carrubber's Close, only to have

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it closed by authority the following year. Then, too, the circulating library and the bookshop must have demanded much time and thought. Ramsay tried to carry in stock the latest London successes. Even though his business English might not have been impeccable, his eagerness to satisfy individual tastes was beyond cavil: Whoever wants a Collection of the best English Plays may send in a List of such as they incline to have, and they shall be furnished by Mr. Ramsay, at Sixpence the Piece, provided they sign for above a dozen.'' Ramsay sold prints and engravings, tickets for the theatre and the Assembly. He answered inquiries concerning lodgings. He promoted auction sales of "Libraries, Parcels of Books, Pictures, Medals, Watches, any sort of Clock Work, Rings, or Jewels of any kind. Silver Plate, Arms, or whatever is curious." " Y e t in all this hurly-burly he found time for artistic pursuits: I had his Lordship in my closet.. . near two hours making Bas-reliefs, he was much pleasd with my art, lugd out some courious antique Gems which I took molds of, and promised to bring me a Boxfull the next time he came doun.'°° But all this activity was merely a means to an end — in the midst of it, the poet was planning a retirement in keeping with his Horatian philosophy. In 1733 he secured a piece of land on Castle Hill.'" How soon after he began to build

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we cannot say, but the closing of his theatre in 1737 must have interfered to some extent with his plans. B u t by February, 1739, he was able to advertise: The House and Shop in the first Story of Brown's Land, presently possest by Allan Ramsay Bookseller, is to be set against Whitsunday next for one or more Years, as the Possessor and Party shall agree.'" B u t once again R a m s a y ' s desire for an early retirement was apparently thwarted, for on January 23, 1740, he wrote D r . Alexander Cuninghame: I shall take possession of my Castle Bank retirement against Whitsunday next, having sett of my house at Cross, where I design to live as philosophically as I can and engage in as few cares as possible that the evening of my days may set with health and joys."' On July 12 of the same year he again wrote C u n inghame, telling him that his wife enjoyed her health perfectly in the new house."" T h i s refers, of course, to the famous octagonal house, now used as part of a university residence. Because of its peculiar shape, the poet's contemporaries called it the "Goose-pie," which occasioned Lord Elibank's witticism, " I n d e e d , Allan, now that I see you in it, I think the term is very properly applied." T h e question of design aside, R a m s a y deserves praise for his choice of a place for retirement. T h e N e w T o w n not y e t having sprung up, the house commanded an unrivalled view across

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the Firth to the hills of Fife. Stretching down to North Loch and free from neighbouring houses, the grounds suggested a country retreat. Yet the house was within easy reach of the bustling High Street — a feature that must have meant much to the poet, ever a lover, despite his philosophizing, of crowds and the busy life of a city. Did Ramsay, when he moved to the Castle Hill, retire from business? Relying on An Epistle to James Clerk,^"^ biographers have stated that he was still a bookseller in 1755. But surely this is to misinterpret the poet's use of we in reference to merchants. Naturally, in contrasting the condition of country gentlemen and merchants, he would associate himself with the latter class, even though he had not been actively engaged in business for some years. Nor is it necessary to understand "and plan to be Frae shochling trade and danger free" as referring to the future;plan may well mean " i t is my general policy." Certainly, all other evidence points to retirement from active business in 1740. The MS. Life implies that Ramsay gave up bookselling when he moved to Castle Hill."' The advertisement that we have just quoted from the Caledonian Mercury (February i , 1739) mentions both house and shop at the Cross to be let. In the issue of February 7, 1740, of the same journal, intending subscribers for copies of a portrait of the Duke of Argyll by Ramsay Junior are requested to

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leave their orders at Ramsay Senior's, but when the copies were ready (May 22), they were advertised as sold by Gavin Hamilton. Again, although Ramsay advertised fairly often in the Mercury between 1737 and 1740, no advertisement of his can be found after February 14, 1740. Moreover, in the issue of July 17 of that year we find the tenth edition of 'The Tea-Table Miscellany advertised as printed for A . Millar of London and sold by him and " by the Booksellers in Edinburgh." The present writer has never found an earlier advertisement in an Edinburgh newspaper showing the collection for sale by any one other than Ramsay. Would the latter person have permitted this innovation — and Millar was not a pirate, but Ramsay's authorized London publisher — if he had still been in business ? Let us see, too, how the poet expresses himself at this time. On July 12, 1740, he writes his friend Dr. Cuninghame: Be it kend to you О Doctor that here from my quiet retirement and from the sumit of Philosophy I look with pitty down on the mean spirited toild hagridden God forsaken slaves to ambition, luxury and filthy lucre. I assure you I will not accept of the Present of a Sceptre nor of a prime minister's comission.'"»

Once again, on December 17, 1741, Ramsay expresses himself on the same subject to Cuninghame: For me I am ane auld fellow tired with hurry & noise & now wad fain indulge my self in a calm retreat while

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wrapt in my virtue & chearfullness I can survey the vanitys of the vulgar Great with contempt; in a word I am grown a stark staring Philosopher, and believe me whoever can Purchase this same happyness by the arts of good management & living cheap makes one of the best of Bargins."" Are not these the words of a man who has withdrawn himself from all the activities and cares of business ? When we take into account all this evidence, there can be no doubt that when the poet moved to Castle Hill in 1740, he also gave up bookselling. W e can picture the old poet passing the last eighteen years of his life in simple Horatian style in his "Goose-pie." T h e MS. Life tells us that his chief pleasures were the conversation of his friends, a few chosen books, and the cultivation of his little garden. One of his favourite authors was Chaucer, whom he preferred, according to the same authority, to read in black-letter. Life on Castle Hill was varied by occasional visits to the country seats of his friends. Whether to free himself from further responsibilities or in exchange for a fixed income we cannot say, but in December, 1741, Ramsay transfered the title of his property to his son Allan."' Naturally, at intervals clouds drifted across this bright sky. In 1743 the poet's wife died. Chalmers surmised that no elegy was written by him who as the unofficial laureate of Scotland had written so many, because his grief was too

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great. In a letter of February 25, 1744, to Dr. Cuninghame we find a reference to his loss: Make my regards for your Lady acceptable and tell her our grief can neither bring again my dear wife nor her kind sister. This world is freighted with wonders in store, and we were sent to it to think and explore, and when due summons shall call us away, no more's to be said but contented obey.'" In 1745 Prince Charles set up his court at Holyrood. According to Smeaton, he sent for Ramsay to decorate him, but the canny old poet had gone just that day to Penicuik, where on account of a sudden illness he was obliged to remain for several weeks.'" There can be no doubt, however, of the story that the rebels seized his house as a vantage point for firing on the Castle sentries."'· In 1754 workmen digging a new enclosure on the Castle Hill property found a statue of the Virgin, candlesticks, and several old coins."® On M a y 3 , 1 7 5 7 , we find Ramsay writing a business letter."® Clear and firm, the handwriting suggests no infirmity and little of age, but in the following January the aged poet died."' He was buried in Greyfriars' Cemetery on the 9th."^ Chalmers tells us that Ramsay suffered so much from scurvy of the gums that in his later years he lost not only his teeth, but part of the jaw-bone. If such was the case, this disease, and not merely decay as stated in the mortality

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records, was very probably the cause of his death. Chambers knew an old woman who as a girl had assisted in making the death-clothes \ unfortunately, she could recall nothing but roses blooming in the windows."' Some notice must now be taken of Ramsay's children. Although in 1719 the poet boasted in An Epistle to Mr. James Arbuckle : Thus heartily I graze and beau it, And keep my wife ay great wi' poet,™

the parochial registers credit him with a modest family of five: Allan, October 6, 1713; Susanna, October 3, 1714; Niell, October 9, 1715; Robert, November 23, 1716; and Agnes, August 10, 1725.'" But the poet writes his friend Smibert in 1736: I have three daughters, one of seventeen, one of sixteen, and one of twelve years old; and no re-waly'd dragle among them; all fine girls.'" W e may conveniently identify the youngest of these with Agnes, born August 10, 1725. Of the other two the parochial registers of Edinburgh have no trace; the same is true of the registers of the Canongate and St. Cuthbert's. T h e family tree and other sources of information refer to two daughters, Janet and Christian; the two eldest sisters mentioned in the letter can probably be identified with them."^ Our knowledge of these children, except Allan, is

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extremely scant. During the poet's life we hear of a daughter Annie,"'· who is perhaps the Susanna of the official register. She probably died in 1751. There are no traces, not even in the mortality records, of Niell and Robert; the letter to Smibert shows that they had died before 1736. In letters the poet occasionally referred to " С " and Jenny,"' who are very probably to be identified with Christian and Janet. The former died before 1800; Chambers tells of her great affection for all animals."^ Janet died in 1804."^ It was Allan who was destined to shed lustre on the family name. After studying in Edinburgh, London, and Italy, he devoted himself to portrait painting, becoming eventually court painter to George III. In 1754 he founded in Edinburgh the Select Society, membership being restricted to those with literary and philosophical interests. He wrote on questions of public interest, and corresponded with Voltaire and Rousseau. Dying in 1784, he was survived by two daughters and a son, John, who rose to be lieutenant-colonel in the Third Foot Guards. The family is apparently extinct in all its branches."» To return to the poet. Ramsay has left us a description of himself : Imprimis then, for tallness, I A m five foot and four inches high; A black-a-vic'd snod dapper fallow, Nor lean, nor over-laid wi' tallow;

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With phiz of a Morocco cut, Resembling a late man of wit, Auld gabbet Spec, wha was sae cunning T o be a dummie ten years running.^»

This was written in 1719, before the poet had developed the rotundity with which later accounts credit him. As the poem is humorous throughout, we need not be alarmed by the "black-a-vic'd." We have two portraits, an earlier by Smibert and a later by Allan Junior. Both reveal an intelligent, lively, almost impish expression, due in part to the very keen eye. Ramsay's nature is clearly revealed by his poems and letters. Though he flattered himself with a fancied resemblance to "auld gabbet Spec," he most certainly lacked that personage's taciturnity. Letters and poems alike give the impression of a loquacious person; they have in vocabulary and structure an ease and informality that frequently degenerate into vulgarity and formlessness. Ramsay's sunny temperament and ready sympathy are always bursting forth. When Dr. Cuninghame decided in 1736 to elope, he took into his confidence only two people, one of whom was Ramsay. Later, while Cuninghame was living in "exile" in England, he had no more sympathetic friend in Edinburgh than the old poet.''' Mrs. Murray told Chambers about parties she had attended as a girl at Ramsay's house; the host had entered joyously

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into the children's games and had made dolls for his youthful guests.'^^ Doubtless it was this native good humour that made Ramsay so popular with all classes of society. Tradition is very likely right when it makes his shop the gathering place for the wits of his day. No wonder that Gay visited him when in Scotland with the Duchess of Queensberry.'" The poet was a welcome visitor in his later years at the homes of Sir Alexander Dick (the Dr. Cuninghame of earlier days) and Baron Clerk. It would be idle to name the various persons, from the Countess of Eglintoun down, to whom Ramsay wrote letters or poems; while many of these may represent a wholly one-sided correspondence, yet we know several of them evoked kindly responses. Ramsay had much of the "good sense" so characteristic of his century, particularly outside Scotland. This we see in his attitude toward religion. He was a pewholder, and many passages could be culled from his writings to show that he was a faithful, if somewhat conventional, believer. But with any form of "enthusiasm" or bigotry he had no sympathy; he was opposed to that group of fanatics who wished to turn Auld Reekie into a New Jerusalem. Unpublished poems show his contempt for Whitefield, whom he considered a mountebank, and for the Marrow party within the Scottish fold. Feeling that he had the means "the very kirk itself to scowr," he delighted to scourge

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all bigots. His support of attempts to establish a theatre in Edinburgh and his defence of public dancing were part of his war on a drab, narrow conception of religion. Much has been written concerning Ramsay's Jacobitism, the main argument being that, although he pretended to be a Whig, he was at heart a Tory and Jacobite. The truth of the matter is that party lines at that time were very badly drawn. Men who were supporters of the Kirk should have been Whigs, but the very narrowness of certain ministers and members tended to drive them into the other camp, which was credited with a belief in the joys of life. Again, what often passes for loyalty to the Stuart family was really outraged nationalism. There was the danger that the smaller country would be swallowed up by the larger. There was the bitterness of disillusion that followed the Act of Union. Scotland had lost her parliament, and there were often rumours that her courts would be abolished. On the other hand, the promised prosperity had not dawned; indeed, Edinburgh was in a much worse plight than before the Union, for she had sunk to the level of a provincial city. Naturally, Ramsay and many another looked back to the good old days; but he, because he had the knack of versifying and, to some extent, the art of poetry, gave vent to his feelings in permanent form. It is true that in a few poems we have

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undoubted references to the Stuart cause, but if they seem to spring from any deeper or more genuine attachment than we have been sketching, the best comment is to be found in the fact that their author did not take the field in 1715 or 1745.'''' It might be noted that the amount of Scottish in a poem frequently varies with the edition, as if the author's patriotism changed with circumstances. An excellent example of this practice is Ί'ατΙαηα. But Ramsay's patriotism and civic pride did not always show themselves as sentimental Jacobitism. When the fishing industry needed encouragement, Ramsay wrote The Prospect of Plenty — for which, it may be added, he received the sum of £ 1 0 sterling from the Convention of the Royal Burghs.'^« He wrote in praise of the Society for the Improvement of Agriculture. We have already noted that he was a charter member of the Academy of St. Luke. He wrote in praise of the Musick Club, which was doing much to raise the cultural level of the city. In An Address to George Orummond the poet urges many desirable reforms for the city. In 'The City of Edinburgh's Address to the Country he sings the advantages of Edinburgh as a winter resort. Ramsay's sympathies were not restricted to his immediate circle. To him war meant only one thing — suffering for soldiers and their dependents, whether they were friends or foes:

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There must be a Hell . . . if it were only for the punishment of Princes and priests that oblige those who have the ill fate to be their slaves, to ding an anithers horns out, lord help the poor ffrench Body's that are starving amang the German Hills with naithing in them or on them is this a glorious way of Perishing for the honour of their Grand Monarque and their Holy father of Rome. О figh! but mark their end, such shall be accurst their memory shall stink and the Places they inhabit shall be happy when they ken them пае mair.'^« R a m s a y had, of course, defects. Perhaps the most obvious is his v a n i t y . T h e r e is a story t h a t L o r d Elibank once said that if a man told R a m s a y he was as great as Pope, he could get anything from the p o e t . ' " R a m s a y ' s v a n i t y led him in 4'he Ever Green to make his execrable addition to D u n bar's Lament for the Poets. U n d o u b t e d l y , in these lines from an unpublished elegy on G a y he refers to himself: T o Gay and to ae other wight. We awe our thanks Day and Night, Wha did frae rust and rubish dight, Blyth British tunes.4'

T h i s v a n i t y also led R a m s a y to see himself as a philosopher unmoved b y the follies of m a n k i n d ; he w a s never tired of contrasting his content with small wealth and the insane desires of other people for large fortunes. I t was probably v a n i t y , mixed with business acumen — for R a m s a y tended to look upon poetizing as one of his m a n y business

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activities — that led him in 1720 to greet John Law, the rising sun of international finance, with a most fulsome encomium grandly printed in folio. But alas, Law's fall was sudden and unexpected; and Ramsay presumably sought to hide his error of judgment as best he could —• he omitted the poem from his octavo and quarto volumes.'^' The poet had other weaknesses and foibles, but in most instances they were the general possession of the day. We can well afford to pass them by, as they did not spring from a vicious nature.

Chapter II

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•^НЕ canon of Ramsay's writings has never been settled. As we now know from an examination of extant manuscripts, the poet himself did not include in his two quartos all the poems written before 1728. Then, as we have noted in Chapter I, he continued to write after that year; from this later period of his life we have more than one hundred poems in manuscript. When friends urged Ramsay to publish these works, he replied that he wished he could recall many of the poems that he had already published. This we have on the authority of the MS. Lije, which adds that the poet had even formed a project " o f selecting as many of his principal pieces as would fill one Volume, leaving the rest to perish by neglect." Ramsay's editors have not, however, taken a similar position, for they have added to the canon whatever poems they have found.' A definitive edition is greatly to be desired. The MS. Life states that writing cost Ramsay no effort. Further evidence of this ease in composition is found in anecdotes related by Thomas Somerville and Burns.'' Only too often the poems themselves give the reader the painful impression that Ramsay was cursed with a facility in versifying.

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Yet the evidence of the early drafts of 'Îhe Gentle Shepherd and of the composition book {Egerton MSS., 202_f) is all to the contrary; there we find that the poet frequently laboured at his writing, changing words, lines, and even whole stanzas to get a more satisfactory effect. The truth of the matter is very probably that although Ramsay, having a knack for versifying and a rather nimble wit, could on occasion turn off a set of verses quickly, he took great pains to polish any poem that he meant for posterity. From the manuscripts we learn much about Ramsay's methods of composition and of his poetic endowment.' Despite its emphasis on form and correctness, the neo-classic period was apparently careless about rime. Ramsay was no exception; indeed, even after due allowance has been made for influence of dialect, we must admit that he outdid many of his contemporaries in freedom. Some examples are: past-west·, returned~mourned\ blood-good ; own-frown — all of which are from one page. The frequent lists of riming words and changes of final words, as shown by the manuscripts, suggest Ramsay was not the master, but the slave of rime. Sometimes in order to get a rime he was forced to divide a word: In seventeen hundred twenty-four Did Allan Ramsay keenly gather from this book that store Which fills his Ever Green.'·

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On the other hand, Ramsay seems to have enjoyed experimenting with rime; in an unpublished poem he has every line end in -ose. A more interesting poem is I'he Poet's Thanks to the Archers.^ Here the poet uses in all but two lines of a stanza the same vowel sound in rime or assonance, a trick that makes one wonder whether Ramsay had in mind Milton's On the Late Massacre in Piémont. Ramsay's ear sometimes played him false in matters other than rime. His excessive use of alliteration may be partly the result of his reading of Middle Scots poetry, but only a poet with a dull ear would have been guilty of some of his jingles. Again, one is surprised to encounter such expressions as "triennial trials," "from fragrant plains he gains," and " t h i r t y mae may lay."® Wrenched accents sometimes occur in Ramsay's writings. Some of these, it is true, can be avoided by a skilful use of pauses, but so far as the present writer can judge, Ramsay considered a wrenched accent less culpable than a break in his metrical pattern. N o person sensitive to rhythm would have written the following as the opening couplet of a lyric: Tho' for seven years and mair honour should reave me T o fields where cannons rair, thou need na grieve thee.'

W e should not be surprised, then, to find among the poet's drafts this line: 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

II

When ye come to owr house a twell hours a teen,

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which suggests that on occasion Ramsay was reduced to the counting of syllables. On the other hand, three things may be said in Ramsay's favour. Although he never attained to Pope's polish and balance, his couplets are usually readable, and as good as those of most of his contemporaries, Scots or English. Again, Ramsay used run-on lines rather more frequently than did conventional eighteenth-century versifiers. And finally, he has for his age a surprisingly large variety of verse forms. In "The Gentle Shepherd he naturally uses the heroic couplet, and in the fables and tales the swifter octosyllabic couplet. But in his lyrics he employs many, and some unusual, forms. He is fond of a three-line stanza, which he probably took from the seventeenth century. The stanza of 'The Vision is from Montgomery's Cherry and the She. His greatest contribution to Scottish metrics, however, was the popularity he gave standard habby by his use of it in mock elegies and other humorous verse. While it is true that this old verse form had been revived by the Sempills and Hamilton of Gilbertfield, to Ramsay must go the credit of popularizing it. Passing from Ramsay to Fergusson and Burns, it is now considered the most Scottish of all stanzas. Again, Ramsay handled with real skill the rather intricate stanza of Christ's Kirk on the Green in his continuation of that poem, although when he attempted to use it for a more

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dignified theme in "The City of Edinburgh's Salutation to the Marquis of Carnarvon he was not so successful. One of the unpublished poems is interesting for its form. It consists of fourteen lines with a distinct division of thought at the end of the eighth line. The rime scheme of the octave is ababcdcd, but that of the sestet is irregular. Were it not for the fact that the lines have only nine syllables, we might think that Ramsay was here trying his hand at the sonnet. Another unpublished fragment seems to resemble very bad blank verse, but it is best to pass it in silence. Before leaving the matter of metre and verse form, a curious mistake on Ramsay's part might be mentioned: in the 1723 edition, "The Fair Assembly has the sub-title, A Poem in the Royal Stanza. Like his metre, Ramsay's diction is open to criticism. Child of the eighteenth century, he must not be too severely castigated for such expressions as "briny streams" for "tears," and "tender care" for "sheep." His poetic diction is, indeed, neither better nor worse than that of hundreds of poetasters of the day. Although he has many delightful similes drawn from nature and many striking ones from low life, yet he errs badly when he seeks to be impressive. An example or two will make clear our point. We learn that although Spain boasts of her wide empire, " a ' the rest of Europe milk her mines." ^ In another poem we are warned that some people should

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Be shunn'd as serpents that wad stang The hand that gies them food.»

Slips like " t h o u . . . does" can be overlooked as the result of haste or faulty education, but the same excuse cannot be offered for the all too frequent touches of vulgarity and coarseness. T o nickname Jove's cupbearer Gany in a masque is, perhaps, only a slight blemish, but it is indicative of a lack of true decorum. T o describe a woman's breasts as " t h e heaving milky w a y " comes under the same stricture. Again, the gods of Fable X I V are more akin to the villagers of Christ's Kirk on the Green than to the inhabitants of Olympus. Probably to the same source we can trace the poet's belief that the best way to overcome an opponent is to strike a regal attitude and shout the truly dignified command, " S t a n d yont, vile things." " There is a page in the Egerton MSS., 202j that at first sight seems to be from Christian Ross's cookbook rather than from her husband's composition book. It consists of such entries as: ffricassy — fryd in the stove vermecelly — Italian dish. Jole — heads gils &c. smelts — fish marinated — sous'd or pickled, vinegar verjuice lime juice salt pepper cloves chibots B a y leaf fryd with oil w h y t wine yolks of egs.

Now, if the reader turns to Ramsay's Health, he will find that every term explained in the composi-

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tion book is used in describing the diet that can ruin any person's digestive system. Plainly, our poet, not knowing these rare foods at first hand, had consulted a dictionary or had drawn on the experience of some more prosperous friend. Such was the path the spirit of poetry was fain to tread in the eighteenth century. There can be no doubt that Ramsay had a fairly wide acquaintance with English and Scottish literature; we can perhaps consider the description of Patie's reading as autobiographical." The proof of Ramsay's browsing is not so much in the references to authors or in the quotations prefixed to his own writings — a form of evidence not found in modern reprints — as in the echoes that can be found in the poems themselves. Since Chaucer is in one place referred to as "Old Chaucer, bard of vast engine" and since we know from the MS. Life that Ramsay read him even in his latest years, we might possibly trace to him the Scottish poet's frequent avowal that Úvtgowan was his favourite flower. Again, The House of Fame seems to have contributed to this passage: The Pow'r survey'd the troop, and gave command, They should no longer in the entry stand, But be convey'd into Chimera's tow'r. There to attend her pleasure for an hour. Soon as they enter'd, apprehension shook The fabric; fear was fix't on ev'ry look;

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Old age and poverty, disease, disgrace. With horrid grin, star'd full in ev'ry face Which made them, trembling at their unknown fate, Issue in haste out by the postern-gate."

Spenser gave not only the name to "Îhe Gentle Shepherd but also a four-line quotation to the title-page. His Epithalamion very probably suggested the line " A bridal sang that thro' the woods shall ring" in one of Ramsay's marriage odes.'^ Perhaps the same poem suggested the couplet: Tell us, ye gentle shepherds, have you seen E'er one so like an angel tread the green.

Certain occasional poems still in manuscript seem to show the influence of Spenser. It should be remembered, however, that nearly every marriage ode or pastoral after 1600 was reminiscent of Spenser's work; consequently, it may not be necessary to go to the fount itself for Ramsay's indebtedness. There can be no doubt that Shakespeare gave something to " F r a e Dover cliffs with samphire crown'd," but it is not so certain, since the idea is rather common, that Sonnet X X X I I I was the inspiration of : And sweetest dawns, in M a y , with clouds And storm are soon o'ercast."'

T h e source of the epitaph, " O rare M a g g y Johnston," is unmistakaMe, but Jonson seems to have left no trace on Ramsay's work. There are, as we should expect, many Biblical allusions in Ramsay's

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writings. Without exception they refer to the Old Testament — striking evidence of the source of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Presbyterianism. Although the poet tells us that Addison's papers on Milton helped him to appreciate that writer, we find no trace of the grand style in his works except possibly in: Gods, devils, furies, hell, heav'n, blood and wounds,

and Rocks, rivers, meadows, gardens, parks, and woods. "

As this Miltonic trick was becoming common in Ramsay's day, we need not take the indebtedness too seriously. When we come to the writers immediately preceding or contemporary with Ramsay, direct references and prefatory quotations are more abundant. Yet because the poet was, in his English writings, part and parcel of this tradition, the direct influence is more difficult to ascertain. The allusion in "Sic poor Macflecknos" is obvious enough. Garth, Steele, Addision,'' Gay,"" and Congreve are all mentioned by the poet as having inspired him, but undoubtedly the two strongest contemporary influences were Prior and Pope. The former's work served as models for Ramsay's attempts at vers de société-, we need hardly add that the Scot never achieved the polish and urbanity of his master. The influence of "Îhe Rape of the Lock is felt

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everywhere in Ramsay's Morning Interview. There is a reference to the same poem in his On the Marquis oJBowmonfs Cutting of his Hair\possibly, too, Pope's masterpiece gave a hint to these lines: But watching sylphs flew round, To guard dear Madie from all skaith And quickly cur'd the wound."

I t would serve no purpose to attempt to trace all Ramsay's borrowings from, and allusions to, his predecessors and contemporaries. Our reason for glancing at the question was merely to show that Ramsay was not unlettered and that he did not stand apart from English tradition. In his fundamental view of life Ramsay had much in common with Horace. So fond was he of the Roman poet that he tried to make of him a good Scot. His method was not literal translation but free adaptation.^^ Although he usually caught something of the cheeriness, good humour, and good sense of Horace, Ramsay never caught his urbanity and familiarity that does not breed contempt. The vulgarity and prolixity that we have already noted as inherent in Ramsay's work are to be seen in these adaptations. An example or two will make this clear. Ramsay's Ode to the Ph is based on Ode IX, Book I of Horace. Little fault can be found with the first six stanzas of the adaptation; indeed one might praise it for its concreteness and vividness. Horace's

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Dissolve frigus ligna super foco Large reponens; atque benignius, Deprome quadrium Sabina О Thali arche, merum diota

finds admirable, if somewhat colloquial, expression in : Then fling on coals, and ripe the ribs. And beek the house baith but and ben, That mutchkin stoup it hads but dribs. Then let's get in the Tappit hen.

But in the latter part of the poem, where Horace so delightfully suggests the game of love, Ramsay becomes verbose, sentimental, and vulgar. One can understand the Scot's desire to adapt certain of Horace's odes, but why he attempted to translate Ad Ναυετη qua Virgilius is not obvious. The results were truly pathetic. A piece of fine sentiment was turned into buffoonery. Only a man bereft, for the time being, of all taste could have translated: Expertus vacuum Daedalus aëra Pinnis non homini datis: Perrupit Acheronta Herculeus labor. Nil mortalibus arduum est; Caelum ipsum petimus stultitia; neque Per nostrum patimur scelus Iracunda Jovem ponere fulmina.

as Neist Dedalus must contradict Nature forsooth, and feathers stick Upon his back, syne upward Streek, And in at Jove's high winnocks keek; While Hercules, wi's timber-mell. Plays rap upo' the gates of hell.

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ALLAN RAMSAY What is't man winna ettle at? E'en wi' the gods he'll bell the cat! Tho' Jove be very laith to kill. They winna let his bowt lye still.

Ramsay spoke a great truth when he said that he understood Horace but faintly in the original. Ramsay made no mystery of the source of his fables and tales, for he stated in his preface that he had taken some of them from La Fontaine and La Motte. The acknowledgment is, perhaps, a trifle disingenuous, as of the thirty-one poems twenty are from La Motte and three from La Fontaine.^' Ramsay treated the French fabulists in much the same spirit and manner as he had Horace; that is, he adapted, rather than translated, them. In most of his fables he greatly expanded his sources. While Ramsay's versions are usually entertaining and vigorous, we miss from them the polish and wit of the originals. Occasionally, too, the Scottish poet adds a touch of coarseness. In Le Caméléon the quarrel between the travellers is described thus: Dementi; puis injure; alloient venir les coups Lorsqu'il arrive un tiers.

In Ramsay this becomes: "Ye lied." — "And ye're the son of a whore." Frae words there had been cuíF and kick. Had not a third come in the nick.

Or again. La Motte describes a quarrel among the gods with restraint:

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Entre les Dieux jadis survint un incident. Les uns vouloient perdre une Ville, Les autres la sauver; ils s'échaufent la bile; Peu de raisons, grand bruit, et couroux imprudent: On se raille, on s'outrage, et rien ne se décide D é j à , l'un l'autre s'excédant P l u t o branle sa fourche, et Pallas son Aegide, E t Sieur Neptune son trident.

In Ramsay's adaptation we are much doser to the disreputable taverns of Edinburgh than to Olympus or the salons of Paris: T h e gods coost out, as story gaes. Some being friends, some being faes. T o men in a besieged city: T h u s some frae spite, and some frae pity, Stood to their point with canker'd strictness. A n d leftna ither in dog's likeness. Juno ca'd Venus whore and bawd, — Venus ca'd Juno scaulding Jad: E'en cripple Vulcan blew the low, Apollo ran to bend his bow. Dis shook his fork, Pallas her shield, N e p t u n e his grape began to yield.^··

L a Motte's verses bear the hall-mark of a literary tradition that valued discipline and propriety; Ramsay's, though their author had probably quite as much talent as the Frenchman, show nature run wild. W e have complained that Ramsay unwisely laid violent hands on the Ad Navem of Horace; it should be cause for rejoicing that he did not attempt to translate L a Motte's introductory verses to the

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individual fables. As one reads the French fabulist, one is inclined to think that the fables were written for the sake of the lively, witty, polished introductions. For example, Fable X , Book III, begins in this strain: Quelqu'une veulent que la Fable Soit courte: ils ont raison; mais l'excès n'en vaut rien. Qui dit trop peu, ne dit pas bien L'aride n'est point agréable. Esope même étoit trop sec; Je m'en étonne; car tout Grec Est grand parleur: témoin notre divin Homère.

After chatting about the virtues and defects of brevity through twenty-seven lines. La Motte quietly gives us a fable of only eight. With Ramsay's epigram on brevity running in one's head,^' one shudders at the thought of what he might have done with this and similar bits of playfulness. Our knowledge of the sources of Ramsay's tales is not so complete as of his fables, but this should not occasion surprise. The majority of them, especially of the unpublished tales, are extremely broad. Such stories are always floating about in male society; they may be founded on contemporary incident, or they may have come down the ages orally. Perhaps if we could hear the risqué stories that schoolboys are to-day whispering furtively to one another, we — or even our greatgreat-grandfathers, were they alive — should recognize "old acquaintances." One of Ramsay's

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unpublished tales 4^he Miller and his Man, intended as a sequel to The Monk and the Miller's Wife, illustrates this point. It is an excellent example of the double substitution motif found in many French fabliaux and Italian novelle. It has, however, certain peculiarities, notably the business of the pig, that are found in written literature only in an Old French fabliau.^'' Of this fabliau, which was first published in 1833, there is only one extant manuscript preserved in the Bibliothèque royal. Even though Ramsay could read French fluently, it would be absurd to think that he had used this manuscript. There is, of course, the possibility that he took his story from a redaction now lost, but it is more probable that we are here dealing with that most difficult of literary problems, the oral transmission of tales. It should be added that wherever Ramsay got his tale, he matched it nicely to his earlier story, telling it with his customary vigour and broad humour. T h a t Ramsay retold tales in the same way that he translated Horace and the French fabulists can be seen from an examination of two of his stories. T'he Clever Of come, an unpublished tale preserved in the Henry E. Huntington Library, is most probably taken from L a Fontaine's Le Mari Confesseur." T h e Italian wars of Francis I give place to the wars of Louis X I V . The details of the story have been considerably expanded. The tone of the whole has

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been made broader and more colloquial. Subtlety and polish have given place to vigour and directness. The same might be said of "The Monk and the Miller's Wife, which Ramsay drew from the pseudo-Dunbar Freiris of Berwick. For the two monks who surprised the goodwife and the parish priest, Ramsay substituted, probably for the sake of simplicity, a travelling scholar.^® Except for this change, Ramsay follows his original closely so far as plot is concerned, but once again we find him unable to catch the fine flavour of his model. His treatment of the conjuring scene will show our meaning. The Middle Scots poem reads: And than the freyr upraiss And tuik his buik, and to the flure he gayis; And turns our, and reidis on ane space, And in the eist he turnit ewin his face. And made ane croce; and then the freyr cuth lout And in the west he turnit him ewin about; T h a n in the north he turnit; and loutit doun, And tuik his buik and rede ane orisoun And ay his eyne war on the almerie And on the trouche, quhair that freyr John did ly H e set him doun, and kaist abak his hude. H e girnit, he glourit, he gapit as he war wode. And quhylum he sat still in studying. And quhylum on his buik he was reyding And quhylum with bayth his handis he wald clap. And uther quhylis he wald baith glour and gaip. Syne in the south he tournit him about, Weill twyss or thryss than lowly couth he lout Quhen that he come ocht neir the almerye. Thairat our dame had wounder greit envy.

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The possible burlesque of the Roman mass, the mock solemnity of the scene, so admirably imparted by the parallelisms and repetitions, the amazement of the miller — although not mentioned, yet clearly felt by the reader — the "wounder greit e n v y " of his wife, and the element of suspense were presumably lost on Ramsay, who was content with this: James leugh, and bade her naithing dread; Syne to his conjuring went with speed: And first he draws a circle round, Then utters mony a magic sound Of words, part Latin, Greek, and Dutch, Enow to fright a very witch. That done, he says, " N o w , now, 'tis come. And in the boal beside the lum."

Ramsay seems to have been only too willing to write his share of occasional poems. As the pastoral was the favoured form in the eighteenth century for this hackwork, Ramsay essayed it. Although the gods occasionally wander among the Pentland Hills or bathe in Scottish streams, Ramsay succeeded in writing some really charming pastorals. The secret lies in his delightful touches of Scottish scenery, which are in striking contrast with the conventional pseudo-Sicilian landscape of the English pastoral, and the touches of realism that mark his shepherds. One feels that the poet knew and delighted in country people. Then, undoubtedly, Ramsay's pastorals gain by the use of

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the vernacular. Probably his best work in this genre is to be found in Robert^ Richy, and Sandy, an elegy on Prior.3» Every writer on Scottish song has paid some attention to Ramsay. According to Allan Cunningham there is hardly one of his lyrics that is not based on an old popular song. ^^ To understand Ramsay's practice we must remember that his prime purpose was to make the old songs more amenable to contemporary cultivated taste. With the love lyrics the results were deplorable, for the eighteenth century was extremely sentimental in its conception of love — the most common periphrasis of the day, the tender passion, shows plainly the mark of the beast. Moreover, Ramsay had neither fine enough nor deep enough feelings to do the work even creditably; as proof of this statement we might instance his Bessy Bell and Mary Gray and Nanny-O, or, to go slightly further afield in mood, his version of Auld Lang Syne. His only creditable performances in the love song deal with the lighter, gayer note of unruffled youthful love, as in My Peggy is a Young 4'hing. The other half of his task, to bring the frank, broad lyrics of low life into the eighteenth-century drawing-room, was another matter. It demanded not sensitiveness to the deeper things of life, but a sense of humour, a sympathy with, and knowledge of, the lower classes, and a moderate familiarity with social

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decorum. From what we have said of Ramsay's adaptations of Horace and the French fabulists it will be seen that in this task the poet was at home. If we want Ramsay at his best in the lyric, we should read such poems as 4'he Widow can Bake, 4^he Old Man's Best Argument, or Katy's Answer. Here we find neither fine sentiment nor sentimentaHty, but cold practical worldliness in the matter of love. Akin to these last-mentioned lyrics in spirit and quality are Ramsay's mock elegies and satires. They spring from the same keenness of observation and delight in the ordinary or low life of the town. In them we see eighteenth-century Edinburgh in all its coarseness, vulgarity, filth, and humour. (For its finer aspects we should look elsewhere.) If professed students of English literature were not so intent on ransacking the eighteenth century for traces of pre-romanticism, they would have seen what Mr. Forbes Gray has so acutely observed,'^ that, although Ramsay had an interest in external nature and the idyllic dream, his distinctive contribution to literature has less to do with these than with the low life of the city and, to some extent, of the country. In this he stands aside from both the neo-classic school, which preferred to ignore the lower orders of society, and the later romantic school, which tended to idealize them beyond recognition. Yet, to be a literary Hogarth

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requires fire and intensity, and these Ramsay lacked. Interesting and valuable as this distinctive side of his work may be, we must confess that he never wrote anything comparable to T'he Jolly Beggars. Is there any purpose or philosophy underlying Ramsay's work? Dr. Harder thinks he has found one." Although at different periods earlier Scottish poetry had been captured temporarily by a class, it had on the whole, according to Dr. Harder, remained true to the interests of the nation. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, Scotland began to feel those forces, labelled by this German investigator Amerikanismus, that had already destroyed national solidarity in England. A new bürgerlichstädtische poetry arose in Edinburgh under the aegis of Ramsay. The poet had two models before him, English poetry, which exalted the spirit of Gesellschaft, and the older Scottish poetry, which, as we have just seen, had usually remained loyal to the spirit of Gemeinschaft?'^ I t is a pleasure to record that Ramsay did not, at least in his Scottish poems, betray the good old cause. Indeed, Dr. Harder says that Ramsay would not write eulogistic verse of any person who was not faithful to the national spirit and interest. (One can only remark that at no period before or since has Scotland had, if we may judge from Ramsay's

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o u t p u t of occasional verse, so m a n y sterling patriots and noble citizens.) R a m s a y h a d , according t o this same writer, grasped the idea of the c i t y as a l i v i n g o r g a n i s m . " P r e s u m a b l y , there w a s o n l y one g r a v e d e f e c t in R a m s a y ' s political p h i l o s o p h y ; n a m e l y , a l a c k of the religious spirit so c h a r a c t e r istic of t h e m e d i a e v a l ideal of Gemeinschaft?^ ( D o u b t l e s s , if the poet h a d realized t h a t in his indifference to religion l a y the germs of destruction for his beloved Gemeinschajt, he w o u l d h a v e striven to be a more l o y a l son of the K i r k . ) S o great w a s R a m s a y ' s belief in the spirit of Gemeinschaft t h a t he drew from it his doctrine of original genius and his scorn of rules. F r o m these a c a d e m i c lucubrations let us turn to the p o e t ' s o w n s t a t e m e n t of his literary creed: Thus have I pursued these comical characters, having gentlemen's health and pleasure, and the good manners of the vulgar in view: the main design of comedy being to present the follies and mistakes of low life in a just light, making them appear as ridiculous as they really are, that each who is a spectator may avoid being the object of laughter." R a m s a y also tells us t h a t he sings because he likes to do so — and t h a t w i t h o u t a n y interference of rules.3® F r o m another p o e m w e learn t h a t as p o e t r y can m a k e w e l c o m e contributions to the f a m i l y coffer, the poet should choose those p a t r o n s w h o will be practical in their a p p r e c i a t i o n . " W i t h -

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out recourse to a recondite theory of Gemeinschaft can we not say that Ramsay's poetry is very much of a piece because he was a shrewd, gay, vulgar, kindly, thrifty, observant person with a "knack" for versifying ? And though none of his work is of the highest order, and though much is below the line that separates poetry and verse, we could select from it a thin volume that would entertain us on almost any occasion."»®

Chapter III " T H E GENTLE S H E P H E R D " questions concerning 4'he Gentle Shepherd that formerly aroused much discussion have lost point or interest. Did Ramsay or James Thomson write this pastoral? If the latter, was he being shaved or merely having his wig curled when he jestingly proposed that Ramsay should father his latest work ? ' The fact that Ramsay was never a barber should solve the minor problem, and the existence of early drafts of the pastoral in Ramsay's hand should convince even the most ardent Thomsonian of the error of his ways. At the beginning of the nineteenth century a quarrel arose concerning the scene of The Gentle Shepherd·, if the New Hall site has not been universally accepted as the more probable, the question should at least be decently interred." In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries critics debated keenly the nature of pastoral poetry and the relative merits of the chief examples of the genres If we agree with Professor Greg that there are two strands — one native and fresh, the other classical and conventional — in English pastoral poetry we see how meaningless the whole discus-

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sion was. These are some of the questions that need not detain us in our study of The Gentle Shepherd·, let us now turn to those that may merit attention. The germ of Ramsay's pastoral comedy was the eclogue, Patie and Roger, which now forms Act I, Scene i of the drama. Published about the middle of 1720, it had been very probably written during the opening months of the year.'· There were at least three editions that year; to the London edition Josiah Burchet, to whom Ramsay had dedicated the eclogue, contributed an English translation. In 1723 Ramsay published a sequel, Jenny and Meggy, this eclogue now forms Act I, Scene ii of The Gentle Shepherd. It might also be noted that the song, " B y the Delicious Warmness of thy Mouth," (II, iv) was published in the quarto of 1721. There seems to be no reason for accepting the view that from the first Ramsay had in mind the idea of a five-act comedy; = indeed, all the evidence points in the opposite direction. The eclogues had opened with a few lines of narrative, which Ramsay had to convert into prologues when the poems w;ere incorporated into the larger work. Would this have been the case, if the poet had at the beginning conceived of The Gentle Shepherdi In Patie and Roger, Jenny and Peggy are merely neighbours, but in the pastoral comedy they are supposed cousins. Here we have another change

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that suggests that Ramsay had at first no idea of a full-fledged comedy. The writer of the MS. Life was firmly of the opinion that his father had not originally contemplated a five-act work. And, what should be conclusive evidence, the poet himself tells us that he extended the eclogues at the desire of some persons of distinction.' This request on the part of Ramsay's friends may have received support from the attempt of a Mr. Gordon, a singer who had studied in Italy, to establish a pastoral opera in Edinburgh in ιηιι.'' However that may be, the earliest reference we have on the part of the poet is in a letter of April 8, 1724: I am this vacation, going through with a Dramatick Pastoral, which I design to carry the length of five acts, in verse a' the gate, and if I succeed according to my plan, I hope to tope with the authors of Fido and Aminta.' As two early drafts of T'he Gentle Shepherd have been preserved among the Laing MSS., we can trace the development of the work. But it might be well before undertaking such a task to refresh the reader's memory concerning the plot of the pastoral comedy. At the time of the Cromwellian usurpation, Sir William, who had fought in Montrose's forces, was obliged to flee the country. Not wishing to expose his son to the temptations of foreign courts, he left him to be

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brought up as the son of an old shepherd, Symon. A b o u t the same time, Mause, a faithful old nurse in the family of Sir William's sister, saved the life of her infant charge by fleeing with her to the district where Symon lived. Leaving the babe on the doorstep of Glaud, a shepherd who lived with his cross-grained sister Madge, Mause took a nearby cottage so that she might watch over the fortunes of Peggy. Years went by, and the Restoration came. It is at this point that the action of the pastoral begins. Patie is in love with Peggy, and Roger, his friend, with Jenny, who apparently scorns him in favour of Bauldy. Unfortunately, Bauldy, formerly in love with Neps, has recently taken a fancy to Peggy. Patie tells the disconsolate Roger that to ignore Jenny is the surest way to win her. Peggy convinces Jenny that love and marriage are the best things in life. Sir William returns disguised as a spaeman, but soon reveals himself to Symon. When he learns that his son Patrick (or Patie) loves a (supposedly) ordinary shepherdess, he decides to carry him off to France. T h e lovers pledge eternal troth. In the meantime, Bauldy has sought the aid of Mause, reputed to be a witch, to win him the love of Peggy. In the final scene, the real birth of the heroine is revealed, and the curtain falls on the betrothed Peggy and Patie, the betrothed Jenny and Roger, and a wiser Bauldy — wiser because he has received a beating from Mause and Madge, and a reprimand from Sir William.

Now we can take up the discussion of the early drafts. The first sketch of the dramatis personae reads: Patie — soposed Son to old Symon. Roger — a wealthy young Shepherd.

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Symon — ane old Shepherd husband to Elspeth Royalist Bauldy — A Hynd. Glaud — father to Jenny & suposd uncle to Peggy. A widower, whiggioh Sir Colin MacAndre Jenny Peggy —Milkmaids. Neps Madge—an old maiden house keeper to Glaud— a wierd α witch Elspith — wife to Symon. Lucky Runde. There are some interesting differences between this draft and the final dramatis personae. Neps and L u c k y R u n d e do not appear in the pastoral, although the former is mentioned. W e miss from this list Mause, who plays an important part in the comedy; it is perhaps worth noting that her supposed witchcraft was for a time, according to the above list, given to Madge. T h e most interesting change is in the name of the knight. If there is, as some have averred, a historical incident behind Ramsay's pastoral, could the name of the person concerned have been Sir Colin MacAndrew? Or was this a purely fictitious name, which was later dropped because of the association of the Christian name with rustics rather than with gentlemen wandering in Arcadia? In either case, the assertion of Chalmers that Sir William was drawn from Sir

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William Purves, and of the editor of the pastoral in 1808 that he represented Sir David Forbes of New Hall, somewhat changed in name, seem particularly barren in the light of this draft.« Again, the cancelled "whiggish" and " R o y a l i s t " suggest that at one time Ramsay had meant to give the pastoral a slight political colouring. If so, one cannot but commend the later omission of this extraneous touch. In the first draft, the scenes are somewhat strangely numbered, Ramsay occasionally giving a number but no text to a scene, as if he intended later to add material. In minor matters of phrasing this draft differs considerably from the second one, but usually the two drafts agree as against the printed text. The chief difference between the drafts is that the earlier is much shorter, especially in I I I , iii and what is now I I , i; for example, in the latter scene, which in the 1851 edition has l o i lines, the earlier draft has only 63 lines, whereas the second has 97. The second draft is more complete in other ways than the first. It has the whole pastoral except Act I, which, as we have seen, had already appeared in print. Here we learn that the title of the comedy is Gentle Shepherd & Shepherdess or Patte & Pegie, a Dramatic Pastoral. The dramatis personae gives brief characterizations. The knight is still called Sir Colin, but has lost his surname. Peggy is described as "alias Saint C l a r a " ; Mause

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has been added, and L u c k y R u n d e dropped. Curiously enough, there is no mention of Madge in the dramatis personae, although she has a part in the action. There are also differences in the arrangement of act and scenes as compared with the printed version, the chief being the inclusion of the present II, i in Act 1. W e have already noted that Ramsay, who could write carelessly and hastily, was most exacting when he was composing, as he thought, for posterity. There is hardly a line of the printed text that has not undergone some change from the second draft. It can be said that almost every alteration was for the better. But Ramsay altered not merely words and phrases, but the arrangement of whole speeches. A few of the more important may be mentioned here. Roger's speech beginning " I ' v e seen the morning r i s e , " " forms in the second draft the latter part of another speech in the same act." T h e interesting passage in praise of Shakespeare and other writers is lacking in the drafts, although the opening and closing lines of the speech are there. In IV, i, we have only the first stanza of Bauldy's song and that in a very different version from the text of 1725. In V , iii, Ramsay changed the order of the speeches considerably," always for the better. Sir William's request for a song and Peggy's lyric, with which the play closes, are lacking in the draft. None of the prologues occur in the drafts. It would be useless to continue

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this examination; enough has been said to show that R a m s a y spared no effort to make Îhe Gentle Shepherd an artistic success. T h e poet dedicated his masterpiece to Susanna, Countess of Eglintoun, presenting her with a copy in his own hand. A t the close is found this note: " F i n i s h e d the 29th of April 1725, j u s t as eleven o'clock strikes, b y A . R a m s a y . A l l Glory be to God. A m e n ! " T h e comedy was for sale on June 21, 1725."· On the day of publication the author presented a copy to the Earl of Oxford with the following note: After your Lordship has seen our mountains and knows our country I have some reason to hope that the enclosed "Pastoral Comedie" may contribute to your diversions. In gratitude to your Lordship's honouring me with your notice in this place, I shall court every opportunity to show how much I am &c. Postscript — The Tale of "Mess John and the Miller's wife shall wait on your Lordship in a few days.'^ R a m s a y was not the person to let slip a favourable opportunity. A few facts concerning the first edition of The Gentle Shepherd, which is very rare, m a y be set down here. From the title-page we learn that it was for sale in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and London — a sign of Ramsay's widespread popularity. There is only one dedication, that in prose by the author to the Countess of Eglintoun;'® it is dated June,

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1725. Prologues precede the various scenes. There are only four songs: II, iii — "Peggy, now the King's come," by Mause. II, iv — " B y the delicious warmness of thy mouth," by Patie and Peggy. IV, i — " Jocky said to Jenny," by Bauldy. V, iii — "My Patie is a lover gay," by Peggy. Of all the songs of later editions the reader probably misses most the opening song, " M y Peggy is a Young Thing," the best of Ramsay's love lyrics. Despite all the care he had given it, Ramsay was not yet satisfied with 'The Gentle Shepherd. Accordingly, the second edition, which was published in 1726, has two very important changes. From Mause's closing speech in II, iii, ten lines have been deleted, probably because they revealed too much of the plot, and also possibly, because the references to Royal Charles and the Usurper might have been applied to others than Charles II and Cromwell." Again, in IV, i, Bauldy has been deprived of twelve lines of his song; this makes for naturalness in his entry without loss of anything of literary merit. The most important change, however, that ever overtook The Gentle Shepherd was its conversion into a ballad opera by the author himself late in 1728. The pupils of the Haddington Grammar School, who were accustomed to present a play annually, were so delighted with The Beggafs Opera, which had been given in Edinburgh by

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strolling playefs in October of that year, that they requested Ramsay to convert his pastoral comedy into a ballad opera for their use.'® This the genial poet did, and it is in this revised version that we now know Ramsay's pastoral. The MS. Life states that, soon regretting the change, the poet would gladly have retracted the songs, but unable to do so he had to console himself with the thought that "the contagion had not infected his second Volume in quarto." Anyone who has read both the original pastoral comedy and the ballad opera will agree with Ramsay that the change was unfortunate. Artificial and faded as the pastoral may seem at first reading, the ballad opera has the additional taint of theatricality. And lax editorial practice has made the later form even more undesirable. Ramsay had merely turned parts of the dialogue into lyrics, intending in subsequent editions to delete the affected parts of the text. But unfortunately, he did not issue an edition on this plan, and no editor has done so. Consequently, as we read 'The Gentle Shepherd in any but the first two or three editions and that published by Foulis in 1788 we are constantly irritated by redundancy. It is to be hoped that some person will give us a reprint of the text of the first edition. Surprising as it may sound to the modern reader, The Gentle Shepherd has had a lengthy stage his-

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tory. The present writer has traced well over 160 performances during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Scotland, England, and America.'' When we consider how scant are the theatrical records of Scotland during that period, and how difficult it is to trace amateur productions, we may conclude that the total number of performances must have been much greater than the above figure would suggest.^"" Scottish performances fall into four groups: by schoolboys, by amateurs for charitable purposes, by villagers, and by professional troupes. Very probably the first production of Пе Gentle Shepherd was given by schoolboys in Taylor's Hall, Edinburgh, January 22, 1729.^' This may have been the performance by the pupils of Haddington School for which, according to Mr. Lawrence, Ramsay converted his comedy into a ballad opera. In any case we find the boys of that school giving a performance on August 27 of the same year.^'^' The first recorded performances for charity took place in Montrose in February, 1736; there were two, presumably highly s u c c e s s f u l . ^ ^ Much has been made of performances of Ramsay's ballad opera in Edinburgh in 1747 or 1748 for the benefit of a Robert Drummond, a printer under arrest for publishing a defamatory poem. Unfortunately, as the Caledonian Mercury makes no mention of any theatrical performance for the benefit of Drum-

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mond before 1750 — and on that occasion, Ramsay's drama was not on the bill — we cannot accept the story unreservedly. W e find mention in the Mercury of eight charitable performances in 1752,^5 and four in 1754. Frequently, dances and additional songs were introduced into the text or given between the acts. All notices refer to the performances being given by young gentlemen; presumably, at this period it was not considered proper for a young lady, no matter how deserving the charity, to appear on the public stage. Indeed, it would seem that the motives of young gentlemen were at times misunderstood by certain sections of the populace: N . B. The Young Gentlemen make no doubt, but that the censorious Part of the World will blame them for appearing so often on the stage, but as Charity, and Good-will to People in Misfortunes, is the only Motive that induces them to it, they hope that all those Ladies and Gentlemen that wish to see the Wretched at Liberty, will honour them with their Company.'' One is amused to leam that " s o o f t e n " means six times. On another occasion, " t h e two families in distress" for whom a series of performances had been given sent a letter to the Caledonian Mercury expressive of their deepest gratitude and stating that they were entirely unknown to their benefactors.^' One wonders, after reading the notice, whether some malicious persons had suggested that

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the disinterested noble-minded youths were treading the boards for their own vainglory and profit. There is plenty of evidence that "The Gentle Shepherd was popular in rural Scotland, especially in districts near the scene of the pastoral. The young folk of Carlops village used to give the play annually on October 15 — the date not only of Ramsay's birth, but also of the local fair. About the middle of the nineteenth century there was a troupe, composed of men only, which travelled as far as Peebles, although they persistently refused to grace an Edinburgh theatre. Their gala performance was, however, on Hansel Monday in Carlops mill, for which they received a pound from the laird of New Hall. As the weaving industry of Carlops died out, the papermakers of Penecuik took up the duty. Their orchestra was a fiddler, and their scene-painter a deaf-mute. Their last performance was in 1880.^® Sir Archibald Geikie on a trip through the Pentland Hills in 1856 was impressed by the quality of the rural performances, being especially delighted with the full-throated delivery of the vernacular. As late as 1913, Sir Archibald was informed that an occasional performance took place.^» Somehow, "occasional" has the ring of condescension, and we must conclude that another interesting old custom has passed away. The activities of a certain Mr. Mill toward the

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end of the eighteenth century will serve as a bridge from amateur to professional productions. With his family Mill travelled the rural parts of southern Scotland, offering nothing but Пе Gentle Shepherd without scenery and without music. As his children grew up, however, one learned scenepainting and another fiddling, to the enrichment of their father's dramatic venture. Gradually Mill extended his circuit to include the northern counties of England, but here, his audiences soon growing weary of an unvaried diet, he was forced to add other comedies and farces to his repertory. And finally, sad to relate, he dropped 'Îhe Gentle Shepherd completely, so far as his English appearances were concerned.^» Ramsay's drama had its longest professional run in Edinburgh in May, 1758, when, according to Logan, there were seven performances.^' Doubtless this success was a mark of respect to the memory of the author, who had died the previous January. Although the use of the play by amateurs might have discouraged its use by professional troupes to a certain extent, there seems to have been a tradition, well down to the middle of the nineteenth century, of giving at least one performance during a season, usually toward the end. In the playbills of the early nineteenth century, by which time it was always given in an abbreviated form as an after-piece, Пе Gentle Shepherd was described as "the National Pas-

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toral." But the dialect was seemingly an insuperable obstacle to professional actors, most of whom were English. According to Mr. W. J . Lawrence, Mrs. Kirkpatrick used to relate that Edinburgh audiences were wont to go into fits of laughter over the ill pronunciation of players not to the manner born.'^ Evidently the manager of the Edinburgh company in 1758 was aware of the " M r s . Kirkpatricks," for he advertised: Application has been taken to learn the Scots Dialect in this Piece as perfectly as possible that the Beauty of this excellent Pastoral may receive as much Justice, as is in the Performers' Power to give it." Conditions cannot have altered much by the nineteenth century, for we find a critic lamenting in 1824 that Mr. Niçois could not play a Scots character. The same critic took objection to the custom of giving the part of Madge to an actor of gigantic stature.^" The latest, and probably the last, professional production of 'The Gentle Shepherd was in 1923 under the influence of the revival of The Beggar's Opera. The settings were interesting — silhouettes painted on a background of pastel blue draperies — though the critic of the Scotsman felt them rather exotic. The costumes were of the period. The play itself underwent many changes. On this occasion the Gordian knot was cut, the dialogue being anglicized. Three acts of eight scenes replaced the original five. T o avoid solilo-

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quies, a chorus, an interlocutor, and another character were added. One wonders, in the light of these changes, how the dramatic critic of the Scotsman found in the production the rustic simplicity of the original; for our part, we doubt whether Ramsay, had he been permitted to return for the occasion, would have known his own child. Surprising as it may seem, 'The Gentle Shepherd had a fairly successful history on the English stage. At no time between 1730 and 1800, except in the forties, was it long absent from the boards, and even after the turn of the century we find records of a few performances. As it was first produced in London in 1730, we may assume that the vogue of ballad opera was the cause. It trickled down the century to burst out anew in the eighties and nineties; at this time it was even more popular in Bath and Bristol than in London. This revived interest coincides with a demand for opera, and presumably The Gentle Shepherd was deemed a suitable after-piece. Some of the best singing actresses of the day appeared in it. Curiously enough, the rôle of Patie was frequently given to an actress.'® At these professional performances, we need hardly add, an abbreviated and anglicized text was used. But there were also performances of a different nature. For example, in 1732 The Gentle Shepherd was given " a t the Great Room in Villiers-street, York Buildings" on St. Andrew's Day." Again,

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there seems to have been a series of successful performances in the early part of 1752 by a company of Edinburgh amateurs at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket.^* W e can safely assume that such productions as these were intended for Scotsmen resident in the metropolis, and that no emasculated text was used. Indeed, we have evidence that the predilection of Scotsmen in London for 'Îhe Gentle Shepherd was obvious enough to attract the attention of certain Englishmen who resented the invasion from Caledonia. In the North Briton, a j o u r n a i directed against Lord Bute, we find this satiric notice: The managers of both theatres have received orders to lay aside the custom of representing the tragedy of Tamerlane on King Williams birthday and instead thereof to entertain the public on that occasion with Home's Douglas and the Gentle Shepherd?·^ Naturally, this partiality of the Scots for "The Gentle Shepherd did not escape the eye of the English Aristophanes; consequently, we find this remark in ñe Maid of Bath (1771): Lady Cath. Coldstream: Look'e, Mess, I will cut matters short: you ken well enow, the first notice that e'er I took of you was on your acting in Allan Ramsay's play of Patie and Roger; ere sin I hae been your fast friend. B u t allusions are two-edged. Such as these show not only that 'Îhe Gentle Shepherd was liked by

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London Scots, but that it was known, at least byname, to Englishmen—^otherwise, the " h i t " would not have come off. The theatres in America during the latter part of the eighteenth century reflected the fashions prevailing in England; consequently, there are traces of performances of T'he Gentle Shepherd at this time across the Atlantic. Over them, however, we need not linger. The same traditions held as in England : the use of adaptations, the introduction of additional songs and dances, and the assigning of the rôle of Patie to an actress. In our discussion of the stage history of "Îhe Gentle Shepherd, we have made occasional reference to adaptations of the work. It must not be inferred, however, that all adaptations were made for acting purposes; some were merely to make the pastoral available to readers ignorant of Scottish. As early as 1720, Josiah Burchet rendered the eclogue, Patie and Roger, into English.'·'' The first adaptation of the ballad opera for acting was made in 1730 by Theophilus Cibber. It was entitled Patie and Peggy or 'The Fair Foundling. Frankly acknowledging his source in his preface, Cibber defends translation on the ground that without it the piece would be unintelligible to English audiences. The result of his effort was one long act, from which the characters of Bauldy and Madge had disap-

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peared. There is nothing of literary value in it; yet it went through two editions in two years. About the middle of the century, Digges, an actor in Edinburgh, made a reduced stage version, which was subsequently published. In this adaptation the vernacular was retained. Toward the end of the century, when there was a renewed demand for ^he Gentle Shepherd as an after-piece, several translations appeared. In 1777 Vanderstop published a version in five acts. The editor of the Monthly Review, who was hostile to the principle of translation, remarked that Ramsay's poem had not been done, but undone into English.··' This translation also gave rise to an epigram: Vander! Vander! whither dost thou wander? Gentle Shepherd! Pry thee stop! Vander! Vander! whither dost thou wander? О Cornelius Vander — stop!

The version made by Richard Tickell, and first performed in 1781, became the most popular for stage use. Linley wrote new music for it. We cannot pass judgment on its literary qualities, as only the songs from it were published (1781) ; but these were frowned upon by the Monthly Review^^ In 1785 W. Ward made another translation; we need hardly add that the critic of the Monthly Review was still dissatisfied. Five years later, Margaret Turner published her translation with the original on opposite pages. It was dedicated to the Prince of

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Wales, and was honoured with an impressive list of subscribers. The dour critic of the Monthly Review — for it turns out that the same Scot had been writing all the reviews — greeted this translation with mixed feelings, mainly because of the sex of the author."'S He praised the judicious toning down of certain speeches to conform to the more refined taste of the day, but he disagreed with the principle of translation as destroying the peculiar spirit of the original. In 1798 Lieutenant Adam Allan, stationed in the wilds of New Brunswick, englished Ramsay's pastoral. In his preface, Allan stated that his purpose was to make the poem intelligible to non-Scots, but admitted that any person who could understand Scottish should not read a translation. His alterations, for a mere translation, were rather extensive. He cut several speeches — a practice that can hardly be defended, as the translation was not intended for stage use — and altered the order of the songs, even omitting some that presumably did not meet his standards. His greatest change, however, was in the addition of a scene that he felt lacking in the original. Readers of Ramsay's comedy will recall that the revenge of Madge and Mause on Bauldy is merely reported. Allan added a farcical scene covering this incident. In 1811 Archibald Maclaren, a hack dramatist, reduced The Gentle Shepherd to two acts in prose. In a prelude, which

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takes the form of a dialogue between a critic and an actor, he gives the usual reason for having attempted a translation. In this version the art of translating T'he Gentle Shepherd, never very high, reached its nadir. In 1817 Bethune's translation, which compressed the original into three acts, was published; the same year it was produced three times at Drury Lane. From this brief consideration it can be seen that all attempts to translate T'he Gentle Shepherd have been failures. This should occasion no surprise. Ramsay's pastoral comedy shows no great penetration of thought; neither does it stir our deeper emotions. Its undeniable charm comes from its freshness, simplicity, and touches of naturalness. We cannot ignore the fact that its being in dialect adds greatly to its appeal. Had The Gentle Shepherd either of those qualities that we have denied it — thought and depth of emotion — a good translator might bring us something by his work. As the poem stands, however, translation must destroy, without giving anything in their place, those very qualities that have brought several generations of readers to The Gentle Shepherd. Even though we have brushed aside the suggestion that Gay was influenced by Ramsay in The Beggar's Opera, it is evident that The Gentle Shepherd was not without influence in the eighteenth cen-

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tury. In 1768 Alexander Ross published his Helenore at Aberdeen. In the opening section he admitted freely his indebtedness to Ramsay, for whose work he had profound admiration. FeeUng, however, that he could not equal the earlier poet on his own ground, Ross preferred to tell his story in narrative form. A much closer imitation, published at Aberdeen in 1787, is Andrew Shirrefs's Jamie and Bess, or "The Laird in Disguise, A Scots Pastoral Comedy, In Imitation of 'The Gentle Shepherd. Besides the acknowledgment on the titlepage, there is an invocation to Ramsay in the introduction (pp. viii-x). The theme is the love of a youth and a maiden, both of noble birth but brought up as simple shepherd folk. Everywhere the influence of The Gentle Shepherd is seen in the handling of the theme.'·® Shirrefs observed the unity of time even more closely than Ramsay, reducing his action to twelve hours. Jamie and Bess is not, however, so successful as The Gentle Shepherd. There is too much intrigue. The author resorts too often to reported action. We miss the freshness of the love scenes between Patie and Peggy. Again, the touches of nature, which Ramsay so wisely scattered throughout his dialogue, are here restricted to the prologues. It might be mentioned here that Shirrefs's play was produced in Aberdeen, Elgin, and Inverness. In 1783 a musical interlude. The Gentle Laird, or

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A Sequel to Îhe Gentle Shepherd, was given at the Theatre-Royal, Bath. From the playbills we learn that it had the same characters as its model. Baker says that it was the work of Charles Bonnor, and that it dealt with the married lives of the lovers."' It seems never to have been printed. In 1806 "Îhe Falls of Clyde . . . A Scottish Dramatic Pastoral was published anonymously at Edinburgh. In the introduction the dramatist praises Ramsay's pastoral very highly, both for its intrinsic worth and for its being in Scots, which, if cultivated, might become the Doric to the Attic English. The author assures us that he has written his play in rime in imitation of 4'he Gentle Shepherd. That would seem to have been the extent of Ramsay's influence; indeed, the presence of fairies with such names as Mab and Titania points to another source of inspiration. The play was performed in Edinburgh during the first years of the nineteenth century. Young, the editor of the Memoirs of Mrs. Crouch professed to see some influence of 4^he Gentle Shepherd on O'Keefe's Highland Reel,'^^ which was popular as an after-piece in the latter part of the eighteenth century. But no two plots could be less alike. The only connection between the two plays is the wish of one of O'Keefe's characters that he might have "Ramsay's art to sing my passion tender." Professor Marks finds much in Learmont's

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Unequal Rivals to remind her of "Îhe Gentle Shepherd, especially in the use of the Scots dialect, the homely moralizing, and the noble birth dénouementJ^^ But a careful reading of Learmont's play, so different in the conception of character and in the foolish intrigue, makes one think that Miss Marks, when she sees an influence of Îhe Gentle Shepherd therein, has been misled by the presence of "salmons in both of them." There is no need to repeat all the pleasant things that have been said about 'the Gentle Shepherd·^ that task has been done well enough elsewhere.^" Nor shall we attempt to defend or discredit the comedy. Men of letters of the eighteenth century found in it pleasure; certain of the Romantic poets, noticeably Leigh Hunt, found in it a freshness and charm that they denied to the other writings of the preceding century. The large number of cheap editions through which it passed attests its popularity among the humble classes of Scotland. To most people to-day it will, however, seem artificial and faded. But to those who like to escape into another world for relief from both modern life and modern literature, this pastoral comedy still offers a way.

Chapter IV R A M S A Y AS

EDITOR

T H E TEA-TABLE MISCELLANY, T H E EVER AND

THE

GREEN,

PROVERBS

EFORE discussing Ramsay's work as an editor, we should pay some attention to certain bibliographical questions. Volume I of 4'he Tea'Table Miscellany, of which there is a unique copy in the Henry E. Huntington Library, was published in 1724, very probably in January or early in February.' Our dating of the other three volumes must be conjectural, as no copies of the first editions are extant. On June 6, 1726, Curii advertised The Ч'еа-'ТаЫе Miscellany'm the London Daily Post at IS. 6d., plainly referring to only one volume. A trade advertisement in Cadenus and Vanessa (n. p., 1726) gives first place to Volume II of 'Îhe I'ea-'Table Miscellany as just published at two shillings. W e can assume, then, that this volume was published in the latter half of 1726. Volume I I I can hardly have been in print before 1727, or even early in that year, as A New Miscellany of Scots Sangs (London, 1727) was based on only Volumes I and II of Ramsay's collection. On the

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other hand, it was for sale some time before June 6, 1728, on which date it was listed in the Caledonian Mercury among books regularly carried in stock by Ramsay. As the poet must have been busy with his second quarto during the first half of 1728 —• it was published on June 6 — we can reasonably assume that Volume III was published in the latter part of 1727 or very early in 1728. Volume IV was advertised as "just published" in the Caledonian Mercury for December 15, 1737; if a copy is ever found, it may, however, be pre-dated 1738. Volume I was merely described on the title-page as ΤΉε 'Tea-Table Miscellany, Volume II had, according to the trade advertisement in Cadenus and Vanessa, the alternative title of "Collection of Scots Songs"; but the sub-title of Volume III, according to the fly title-page in the Dublin edition of 1729, was " A Collection of Celebrated Songs." This change of designation reflects a change in editorial policy: Volume I I I contains no Scottish songs, no tunes are indicated, and, instead of names, most of the songs are merely numbered. These peculiarities might suggest that this third volume was not the work of Ramsay, but we have convincing evidence of his connection with the work. On July 13, 1732, Ramsay authorized Andrew Millar of London to print the three volumes in return for five pounds sterling.^ Again, in the London edition of 1733, the list of errata is preceded by

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a note: " T h e Reader is desir'd to correct the following Errors, occasion'd by the Distance of the Authors from the Press." Nor is there any reason for accepting, as all recent writers have done, Chalmers's suggestion that Ramsay was not the collector of Volume IV. The work has all the characteristics of the first and second volumes — a high proportion of Scottish songs, titles for all of them, and tunes for most. It was advertised in the Caledonian Mercury by Ramsay. Moreover, ten years had elapsed since the publication of Volume III, and now a new volume appeared just after the debacle of Ramsay's theatre — in other words, just at a time when financial difficulties would compel Ramsay to augment his income by such literary work. There are many other problems in connection with 'Îhe Ч'еа-ТаЫе Miscellany—the sources of certain songs, the relation of this collection to others of the same period, additions that Ramsay subsequently made to the first two volumes, and the interrelations of the various editions, of which there were at least twenty-eight — but, as these problems are of interest only to the special student, we shall not linger over them. Fortunately, 'The Ever Green presents no such problems as The Tea-Table Miscellany. In the preface Ramsay informs us that he drew most of the contents from the Bannatyne MS. ; even had he not made this acknowledgment, we should have had a

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key in the verses he penned in the manuscript itself. There are, indeed, only thirteen poems in 'Îhe Ever Green not taken from that collection. Of these, 'The Vision and The Eagle and the Robin Redbreast can with the greatest probability be ascribed to Ramsay himself. Lady Wardlaw's Hardyknute had been published in 1719, but Ramsay added about one-half again to it. Hay Trix, On the Mes, and On Purgatorie are from The Gude and Godlie Ballatis. Of Johnie Armstrong Ramsay says that he had it from a descendant of the hero, and of The Cherry and the Slae that he took it from editions of 1597 and 1615. His text of the latter poem, however, differs so little except in spelling from that published in Watson's Choice Collection of Comic and Serious Scots Poems (Edinburgh, 1706 and later) that we may well be skeptical of Ramsay's having collated two rare editions to get a scholarly text. Of the other five poems, all of which are short, we can say nothing.^ T h e matter of editions is even less complicated. The work was advertised as just published in the Caledonian Mercury, November 30, 1724. T h a t Ramsay intended bringing out two more volumes is obvious from the preface: I t was intended that an Account of the Authors of the following Collection should be given; but not being furnished with such distinct Information as could be wished for that End at present, the Design is delayed, until the publishing of a Third or Fourth succeeding Volume.

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Probably, then, Ramsay's transcripts of Sir David Lindsay's plays made in 1724 and 1743 " were intended for the later volumes which were never compiled— most likely because 'Îhe Ever Green, unlike The Tea-Table Miscellany, was not a success with the public. Indeed, we find only four reprints of this work — in 1761, 1824, 1874, and 1875. As all of them are careful copies of the first editions, no bibliographical problems have arisen. A Collection of Scots Proverbs was advertised as just published in the Caledonian Mercury, November 25, 1736, and again as lately published in the issue of December 15, 1737. The earliest extant edition has //j»/ on the title-page, but as the work was published so late in 1736, this is probably a matter of pre-dating. The first edition has 2503 proverbs; this number Ramsay hoped later to increase, as he requested readers to send in other proverbs to be subjoined to later editions in an appendix. But in this matter the editor was to be disappointed, for most subsequent editions have less than 1000 proverbs. The work seems, however, to have been popular, especially at the turn of the century, in chapbook form. Ramsay has been severely criticized for his editorial practice. The main charges are that through his setting new and valueless words to old tunes in The Tea-Table Miscellany posterity has lost many

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old, full-flavoured songs, and that in ΤΉε Ever Green he tampered unnecessarily and ignorantly with his sources. Our first concern will be to examine Ramsay's textual changes in 4'he Ever Green to see if we can explain them. There are some that are in all probability merely scribal errors. (Even Lord Hailes, who said it was the many and obvious inaccuracies of 'The Ever Green that suggested to him a new collection, made slight errors in his edition.) As an example of this kind of change, we might instance: Gold and silver that I might gett Brochis, beisandis, robbis, and ringis,

which became in The Ever Green: Silver and gold that I micht get Beisands, Brotchis, robes and rings.

Such transpositions are easily made. Next we might suggest changes made because Ramsay did not understand his text. Lord Hailes gave a list of words that he did not understand. That is the duty of a conscientious editor preparing a scholarly text. But Ramsay was not engaged in such a task; he enjoyed these old Scottish poems and he wished to make them accessible to fellow patriots. Consequently, if a passage meant little or nothing to him as it stood, he altered it until it had a show of sense to him — and to his readers. In Alexander Scott's New Year's Gift to ^ueen Mary we find this stanza:

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Smalli sweit smaragde, smelling bot smit of smot Noblest natour, nurice to nurtour not This dull indyte, dulce, dowble dasy deir, Send by thy sempill servand Sanderis Scott Greting grit God to grant thy grace gude yeir.

Lord Halles admitted candidly that there were many words in this poem that he could not understand; but Ramsay, knowing that his readers like himself were not interested in aureate diction, solved the difficulties by a free translation : Sweit smyling Sovraign shining bot a Spot Blest, beautyful, benygn and best begot, T o this I n d y t e please to inclyn thine Eir Sent b y thy simple servant Sanders Scot, Greiting great G o d to grant thy Grace gude Zeir.

In the glossary to T'he Ever Green we have proof of Ramsay's ignorance. H e glosses antetewme as example, whereas, according to the editor of the Bannatyne MS. for the Hunterian Club, the word means responses in church music. Glossing threfe (= wheaten) as " i n Corn, twenty-four Sheaves; applied to other Things it means a great deal " — which is a good explanation of thraif, another word — he was forced to alter Henryson's Threfe caikis I trow scho sparit nocht Haboundantly about hir for to deill

to A threfe of Caiks, I trow scho spairt them nocht, Abundantlie about her did scho deill.

Although such errors, taken by and large, are not important, they are useful as showing the handicap

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under which Ramsay laboured — a handicap of which the poet seems, however, to have been blissfully unconscious. Changes in pronunciation that had arisen since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries caused Ramsay considerable trouble. Loss of final syllables, and the shifting backward of the accent in French loan-words gave rise to breaches of metrical regularity that Ramsay patiently "ironed" out, as Dryden had done to Chaucer. Examples of the former are: "They that clymis up most he," which became "They that wrestle up maist hie"; "has kepit thee," which Ramsay changed to "has kept thee weel"; and "Strangmen of armes and of micht," which became "Strangmen of arms and meikle micht." Examples of changes to avoid "wrenched accents" are: "Came dame Bewty" to "Came Bewty's Dame"; "Nocht thou, Homeir" to "Nocht Homer, thou," and "New acquaintance" to "Acquaintance new." Exigencies of metre caused other changes akin to these. The Middle Scots poets, with a fine ear for music, had not hesitated to vary the metrical pattern by the addition or dropping of a syllable, but Ramsay was too good a neoclassicist to tolerate such irregularities. So the musical line, "Whatevir he hard, whatever he saw" was reduced to "Quhat eir he heard, what eir he saw." Henryson's Lyon and the Mous must have irritated Ramsay greatly, as the

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author, intent on delicate musical effects, had varied his decasyllabic pattern with numerous lines of nine or eleven syllables. Faithful to his plan of improvement, Ramsay carefully added or deducted syllables as the pattern demanded. Two rather contrary tendencies caused Ramsay to make verbal changes: namely, a love of neoclassic diction, and a desire to replace ordinary English words by Scottish. An example of the first tendency is the substitution of "wing-minstrells" for "fowlis"; and of the latter, " i l k a " for "every," or " t o d " for " f o x . " Fortunately, Ramsay's common sense was usually sufficiently assertive to prevent many changes of the first kind. Readers of The Dying Words of Lucky Speme or of some of the unpublished poems will be surprised to learn that Ramsay in his editorial work set his face sternly against obscenity and blasphemy. Into 'Îhe Ever Green he admitted some exceedingly frank poems; for example, "The Fly ting of Dunbar and Kennedy, but his practice in general was to tone down the stronger expressions. It is very probable that while playing the censor, Ramsay kept his tongue in his cheek. If the cause of morality demanded the excision of a vile word, Ramsay unhesitatingly applied the pruning knife — but left the corresponding rime word so that the reader might, without unduly straining his imagination, supply the missing phrase. To one such omission

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Ramsay humorously appended the footnote: " I n such places as are so sullied or torn in our old copies, that they cannot be read, we chuse rather to leave a blank than fill them up, tho' they might be supplied with small difficulty." Need we add that the lacuna is a figment of the editor's imagination? Of another excision Ramsay gravely remarks: "'Tis not impossible but a complete copy of this old Ballad may be found to supply these few blanks." Here we see the real Allan Ramsay who would keep "popping out" even in the midst of the poet's most serious works. Blasphemy was even more loathsome to this editor than bawdry. Only once or twice did he fail to censor any improper use of the Deity. " B y Chryst " became " By Claude," and "Christ's blude" gave way to "the blude." Even Satan shared in this protection of holy things, for Ramsay scrupulously replaced "Devil" with "Deill" — as does many a pious soul to this day. So far the tamperings have been venial, but the same cannot be said of Ramsay's habit of lopping off lines or stanzas, of adding an occasional stanza, and even of altering the stanzaic form of a poem. Alexander Scott's Justing and Debate has an intricate stanza, and this Ramsay mangled. In Balnevis's Of Heidstrand Zouth this editorial Procrustes ran two four-line stanzas together, and printed the last four lines as two, presumably to finish the poem with the page. Probably for the

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same reason, he omitted the final stanza of Alexander Scott's Love a Leveller. As Donald Owyr's Epitaph by Dunbar had internal rime, Ramsay chopped the lines in two. Into the midst of Scott's Ψο his Heart, a simple love lament without any classical allusions, Ramsay inserted this stanza: Remember how that Medea Wyld for a sieht of Jason zeid, Remember how that Cressida Left Troilus for Diomede. Remember Helen, as we reid, Brocht Îroy from bliss unto bare waws; Then let her gae quhair scho may speid For Feynd a Crumb of thee scho faws.

His two additional stanzas to Dunbar's 4'ydings frae the Sessioun might be praised as an attempt to bring the poem into touch with contemporary affairs, if such freedom were part of an editor's privilege. Nothing can be said, however, in defence of his addition to the same poet's Lament for the Loss of the Poets. Here Dunbar, comforted by the prophecy that after two centuries a lad, namely Allan Ramsay, would revive the fame of the early poets, changed his haunting refrain to " T i m o r mortis non turbat me." One wonders how even Ramsay's egregious vanity combined with his lack of sensitiveness to really great lyric poetry could lead to this sacrilege. These last examples bring us to the matter of the insertion of two complete poems, 'The Vision and

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'Îhe Eagle and the Robin Redbreast, which are undoubtedly by Ramsay, with the signature "Ar. Scot" and misleading footnotes. Has Ramsay here passed from editorial incompetence to forgery ? At first glance it would seem so, but there are extenuating circumstances. One of Ramsay's motives in publishing T'AI? Ever Green was to arouse the Scottish people to a realization not only of their past greatness, but also of their present real or imaginary wrongs. Yet, as only nine years had passed since the Jacobite Rebellion, it would have been dangerous to express these burning thoughts directly. Moreover, these sentiments would very probably make a stronger appeal thrown into an ancient setting. For both these reasons Ramsay probably adopted this indirect method of publication. It is also dubious whether Ramsay really expected to deceive his contemporaries. To his own friends, aware of his feelings about Scotland's plight, the signature must have been a very thin disguise, and as for those beyond his immediate circle, James Beattie was very probably not the first to guess the authorship of the poems. We may now sum up the results of this examination of 4^he Ever Green. Ramsay had not the requisite training for his task, but there was probably no other person of the day who had. He was merely following the editorial practice of the day; Watson's Choice Collection represents even more ad-

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vanced theories of modernization than does 'The Ever Green, and only two years before Ramsay's venture, Hamilton of Gilbertfield published an edition of Blind Harry's Wallace "in modern dress." Ramsay's aim was not to produce a scholarly text but, at a time when poetry was just reviving in Scotland and was in great danger of turning wholly to English models, to arouse interest in the older vernacular poetry — partly for literary reasons, but mainly, so it seems to the present writer, for national and patriotic reasons. Т1\е success of The Ever Green was not great, but there is no reason to think that it would have been greater had Ramsay been a more accurate or, as some might in their wrath prefer to put it, a more scrupulous editor. Thanks to the untiring efforts of certain societies, we have to-day reliable texts of the early writers, but it is doubtful if the layman is any better acquainted with their poetry than he was in the eighteenth century. As much cannot be said for The Tea-Table Miscellany. Undoubtedly, Ramsay ruined many a fine old song by his bad taste and sentimentality. But it must be remembered that his contemporaries saw nothing wrong with his version of Bessy Bell and Mary Gray or of Auld Lang Syne.^ There is a difference between the results of tampering with texts for The Ever Green and The Τеа-ТаЫе Miscellany : in the former case, the poems that Ramsay

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ALLAN RAMSAY

manhandled were not irrecoverably lost, as scholars have had access to the same sources; but when the words of an unwritten song have once been lost, as was the danger with songs incorporated into 'Îhe ^Tea-Table Miscellany, they can hardly be recovered again. Yet too much blame may be laid at Ramsay's door, for if the old words were so easily replaced by his vapid substitutes, it is doubtful if they would have lingered much longer, even though Ramsay had not struck his blow. To lament that Ramsay did not go about collecting folk songs is perfectly legitimate —• provided we remember that it is a human failing not to be a century ahead of one's time. And something can be said in behalf of 'Îhe Tea-'Ïable Miscellany. Sir Walter Scott wrote on the fly-leaf of his copy: This book belonged to my grandfather, Robert Scott, and out of it I was taught Hardiknute by heart before I could read the ballad myself. It was the first poem I ever learnt — the last I shall ever forget.^ Then, Child admitted into his collection of ballads five from 'The Tea-Table Miscellany and one from The Ever Green? Of these, Ramsay's versions of Sweet William's Ghost, Bonny Barbara Allan, and Johnny Faa, the Gypsy Laddie are the equal of any other. In the case of the second and third Ramsay's text is perhaps the best extant, and his version of The Bonny Earl of Murray, although not perfection itself, strengthens our only other bit of evidence for the existence of the ballad.

Chapter V RAMSAY AND THE

THEATRE

HE records of the early drama in Scotland show that the conditions there were similar to those in England, except that the puritans gained control in Scotland at an earlier date. In 1555 an act was passed on religious grounds against the Abbot and Prior of Bonaccord, Robin Hood, Little John, and the Queen of May. The heads of the reformed church, although they were not averse from using the higher forms of drama to spread their religious opinions, continued and extended this opposition to the folk drama; for example, they opposed performances of any kind on feast days or on the Sabbath. Intolerance of any kind of drama was the product of the seventeenth century; the movement probably gained headway through the removal of the court to London. With the arrival of James, Duke of York, in Edinburgh in 1679, there were prospects of a revival of the drama, but on his departure after a short residence the forces of opposition once again held the field. But the innate love of spectacles and amusements found some satisfaction through the efforts of occasional strolHng players, tumblers, and quacks who found

T

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entertainments a good means of attracting crowds to the sale of their wares. In 1715 we find the first newspaper reference to a theatrical performance.' W e might well date from that year the struggle for the establishment of a stage in Edinburgh — a struggle that ended only with the licensing of a theatre in 1767. There were, of course, periods of quiescence, when either party had gained a temporary victory, and again there were periods, as in 1726-28, 1737-39, and 1755, when the quarrel waxed exceedingly violent. In the first two of these times of storm Ramsay seems to have been concerned. As Ramsay was a lover of gaiety, unwilUng that the puritanic blight should rest on the land, it was natural for him to favour the theatre. In a Prologue, delivered in 1719, the poet defends legitimate drama by an interesting parallel: Because a Rump cut ofF a royal head. Must not anither parli'ment succeed? Thus tho' the drama's aft debauch'd and rude Must we, for some are bad, refuse the good?

In a Prologue to Aurengzebe (1727), Ramsay states that the aim of drama is " t o paint fair virtue, humours, and mistakes"; this it can do better than other forms of literature because it appeals by direct representation. These views form the theme of nearly all Ramsay's prologues. This tendency to consider the drama as a pleasing medium for re-

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forming society — not, of course, a new idea with Ramsay —· is reflected in a curious way in the poet's composition book {Egerton MSS., 202j). There we find several synopses and criticisms of contemporary plays, almost all of which are comedies of manners. If we may judge by the comments, the poet was attracted to this genre because of its satire on current foibles. Ramsay's connection with the stage was of a threefold nature: he wrote prologues and similar pleas for drama; he wrote or adapted plays for presentation; and, finally, he managed a theatre or had an interest in a company of actors. His first prologue was very probably written for a performance of The Orphan and The Cheats oj Scapin by some young gentlemen in 1719. He wrote an epilogue to The Drummer, but there is no way of dating this. In 1726 Tony Aston, an English comedian who had apparently been in Edinburgh the previous year, returned to the city with his troupe. For his first appearance Ramsay wrote a prologue in which Tony informed the audience that south of the Tweed he had been ridiculed for thinking that he should be received hospitably in Scotland. This appeal to national pride is, of course, typical of Ramsay. Aston's stay, which seemingly lasted about two years, was checkered; at first, the magistrates supported him against the clergy, but finally, after a change of magistrates, the comedian

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was forced to leave the city. Although we have no proof that Ramsay was directly interested in Aston's attempt to give plays in Edinburgh/ there is plenty of evidence that he was keenly interested in the general theatrical situation. In An Address to George Drummond, 'Îhe Lord Provost, which was written about this time, Ramsay mentions a theatre as one of the desired improvements for the city. In 1727 — or possibly in 1726, for there is some uncertainty about the date — there was published anonymously in Edinburgh Some Few Hints in Defence of Dramatic Entertainmentsa reply to Law's Absolute Unlawfulness of the Stage Entertainment. There can be little doubt that the ascription of this pamphlet to Ramsay is correct. The style is suggestive of his; there is an intimate knowledge of theatrical conditions suggestive of him; and, what is almost conclusive evidence, the writer of the pamphlet states that he has recently read and intends publishing Lindsay's interludes.' We have already referred to the prologue to Aurengzebe, in which Ramsay defends drama as a social force, and which was written in 1727. In view of these facts it is unfortunate that Chambers implied that Ramsay in 1727 was interested in suppressing Aston's attempts to found a theatre."· Ramsay, to return from this digression to the matter of prologues and epilogues, continued to write such occasional verse, but none of his efforts contains new ideas on the

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function of drama. An unpublished prologue,^ written in 1732, is interesting because of the poet's appeal to the Royal Company of Archers to patronize the drama. Ramsay's original contributions to the drama were not extensive. In 1723 he composed the Nuptials, a masque for the marriage of the Duke of Hamilton; but even though it was performed at the marriage festivities, as we learn from a copy among the Laing MSS., we can hardly consider it a contribution to the stage. Nor need we concern ourselves with Bocchi's opera, A Scots Cantata, for which Ramsay composed the words, since the "libretto" consisted, so far as we know, of only twenty-four lines. But 'Îhe Gentle Shepherd had a long stage history. Amateur productions of this pastoral comedy probably did much to break down prejudice in Scotland against the drama; for with friends treading the boards, even though it be for charity, one must lose something of one's prejudice against professional performances and performers. In 1733, a version of the ballad opera 'Îhe Devil of a Duke or 'Trappolin's Vagaries, which was based on Aston Cokain's Trappolin Creduto Principe, was published in Edinburgh as sold at Allan Ramsay's shop. Although the title-page announced that the text was that used in the theatres of London and Edinburgh, it differs materially from the London edition of the same year. There is an additional

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scene, and sixteen new songs all to Scottish tunes. Now as thirteen of these are to be found in Ramsay's composition book {Egerton MSS., 202_fj, the inference is clear that Ramsay was responsible for this version for the Edinburgh theatre.® In this same manuscript we have notes for a school play by Ramsay. It is called 'The Court, but unfortunately the draft does not extend beyond the dramatis personae and the argument. About the latter there is nothing very novel or profound — it is the sort of thing that would be appreciated by schoolmasters and parents. In the idea of a royal child's being brought up by a nobleman who dare not reveal the former's identity, there is, perhaps, an echo from Cymbeline — but we hasten to add that this is the extent of the resemblance. One touch must not be passed over in silence, as it shows Ramsay's knowledge of parents; after enumerating a lengthy cast, Ramsay adds the note: "All the rest of the school may be Imployd in Guards & pages." Whether the sketch was ever completed, and if so, whether it was performed cannot now be said, but there is no reason for doubting either possibility, for Ramsay had a facile pen, and Scotland was, curiously enough, fairly tolerant, at this period, of school dramatics. Ramsay served the cause of drama in his capacity of bookseller, for he showed great enthusiasm in stocking and ordering plays.' Smeaton says that

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in 1736 Ramsay imported a large number of translations of French plays,® but for this statement, as for so many more by the same writer, there is no proof. But this activity is insignificant in comparison with Ramsay's direct relations with the theatre in Edinburgh. We have already noted that while there is no proof that Ramsay was directly connected with Aston's ventures of 1726-28, circumstantial evidence makes it seem probable. Nor have we clear proof that he was financially interested in the Edinburgh Company of Players, which was active between 1733 and 1735,' but since the tickets were for sale at his shop, it is possible that he was to some extent involved in the fortunes of the company. Be that as it may, there can be no doubt that Ramsay was managing a company in a new theatre, or in the New Theatre, in Carrubber's Close during the season that opened on November 8, 1 7 3 6 . " Let us hope that the season was a prosperous one, for storm-clouds were gathering over Ramsay's venture. The Licensing Act, whereby no theatrical performances could be given outside London and Westminster unless the sovereign was in residence, was passed early in 1737, to become effective June 24. Although the act was designed to stop the use of the stage for attacks on Walpole, it had possibilities far beyond party politics that the opponents of the theatre in Scotland were not slow to see. B y June 28, Ramsay had an inkling of

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what was in store, for on that date he wrote his friend Dr. Cuninghame, who was in London: I am particularly attacked by a certain act against our public Theatres having a set of players under my management. I should be scry to see them driven to Beggary now, when I had last year got a braw new House for them Soon as this comes to hand get the act if printed or an exact copy of it in manuscript and send it to me with a short hint of the general opinion about it if a license from the L[or]d Chamberlane can be had and the method of procuring it, or if the act puts it out of his power to grant one; there is likewise a new Play called the Projectors please if it be not too troublesome, to get two covers from some parliament man, to case it in and send it to me." The last sentence would suggest that Ramsay hoped by some means to circumvent the act, but he was doomed to disappointment, his theatre being closed during the summer or early autumn. The whole affair is shrouded in mystery, as there seem to be no records of official action; " probably Ramsay was merely given a warning that if he continued to operate his theatre, he would be guilty of a crime. That he did not take the blow lying down is shown by his poem. Petition to the Honourable Duncan Forbes, Lord President of the Session, which was reprinted in the August number of the Gentleman s Magazine. After pointing out the great value of the stage in reforming manners,

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Ramsay asks that, even though his theatre must be closed, he be permitted to operate it until he has paid off the debts incurred in its construction. N o attention seems to have been paid to this plea. Dibdin considers that this petition was the only action taken by Ramsay, but Chalmers suggests, and Smeaton states, that the poet appealed to the law only to learn that he had been injured without being dam a g e d . I n his unpublished Epistle to Mr. H. S., which is dated November, 1738, Ramsay gave vent to his feelings in much freer language than he had in the Petition : Thus whore, & Bawd, Doctor, & pox, The tavern & a large white Ox, are the whole Sum for Lord or clown of the Diversions of our Town, Since by a late Sour-snouted law which makes great Heroes stand in awe the morali Teachers of broad Truths have golden padlocks on their mouths fierce Bajazet, and bold Macbeth, Othello, Cato, & Macheath Now dumb, and of their Buskins stript. Our stage is in its blossom nipt, which spreads ane universali frown to see a Theater pull'd down, which for seven years, at small expence, had pleas'd, without the least offence, advanc'd a great way to remove that Scarcrow of all social Love Enthousiastick vile delusion which glorys in Stift-rumpt confusion, gives Sanction to Rebellious plots, and finds cut grace in cutting Throats,

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RAMSAY

which, in the reigns of James & Charles, prompted these covenanted Quarles and heezd the Leaguers up the Ladders to Swing aloft in hempen Tedders, now since the Softner of this rage the mannerley reforming Stage, is tane away, 'tis justly dreaded, 'twill be by Biggotry Succeeded, Divisions from divisions Spring, and partys Spiteful dart the sting.'^

Doubtless, the more Ramsay raged in vain the more his enemies rejoiced at their victory, but that such poems as 'Îhe Flight of Religious Piety from Scotland upon the Account of Ramsay's Lewd Books Ç^c and the Hell-bred Play-House Comedians who debauch all the Faculties of the Souls of our Rising Generation — to get the flavour we must have the title in full — and A Looking Glass for Allan Ramsay and Îhe Oying Words of Allan Ramsay were written to express that delight, as Chambers suggested,'5 is certainly not a fact. T h e poems are full of denunciations of Ramsay's books and theatrical entertainments, but never is there a reference to the theatre's having been closed. Indeed, it is Ramsay's success that bothers his critics, causing the writer of 'The Flight of Religious Piety to cry out: Y e Magistrates beat up your Drums, 'Gainst Ramsay's Play-house make red war.

In 1739 an attempt was made to get a license from Parliament for a theatre in Edinburgh; both

RAMSAY AND THE THEATRE

121

sides circulated petitions in the town to be presented to Parliament. In this connection R a m s a y wrote a letter on April 5 , 1 7 3 9 , to the Hon. Patrick Lindsay, M . P . , then in London. As it is so revealing of R a m s a y ' s bitter attitude in the matter, it would seem well to quote it here: Sir: I am Sory that you may be in some manner obliged sometimes by your Situation to have offices put in your hand that cannot be agreeable, particularly before this reaches you you'll have a petition or two, to desire your assistance towards the improverishing and stupyfieng the Good Town by geting every thing that tends towards politness or Good humour Banished that antichristian-Preistcraft & Gloomy Enthusiasm & Contention may prevail — who require it ? You know them well enough, the Least & Meanest of the place are the most bulky, does some of better thinking Joyn them? 'tis all grimace, some of the now Leaders against the Play house within these three years had their annuali Tickets, f y for shame will mankind never with one accord Learn to rise Above the arogant pride of priestcraft, it is certain we can never be happy & social till this period — Sir you are not to esteem an adress from a few to be from the Town Councel for many would not concur & sign, particularly the Conveener the comandant Captain and Treasurer, as I am Told, with many others — However I hope the Parliament, will have more regard to the generali desire of the Best in our Nation who frequent our city, & to the Inclinations of most of the Citizens, than to refuse his Majesty the power of obliging them — as for my private share, in a case of this consequence, that can bear little wieght tho

122

ALLAN RAMSAY

some weak heads here are foolish enough to say that this Parliamentary affair is raisd about me, I thank them for complamenting me so far I never Imagined my self before to be of the hundreth part so much Note however so far as lyes in my small power I am willing to serve my King & country and in so far as I have been one of the agents in this affair of our Play house I think I have been in my duty & endeavouring to serve the city wher I live — better than that violent most Learned Regent Ro. Stuart who is at the Botom of all this Sputter, about a bit school that they nickname a Coledge but it is my opinion that we had better want the same shadow of a university, as to turn our Town into a Sour dui hole — you would have been diverted to have seen Howel [ ?] the С : Guild officer and some such like runing about to all the Litle people to get them to sign the petition against the graceles playhouse, — I supd with Baron Clerk this night he is clear for the Playhouse said he wrote you by this post wherin he hinted to you somthing in its favour you may make what use of this Leter you please — but whether in favour or against my side of the Question I shall ever men tain for you in my heart the Esteem your ffriendship in other Maters ever demanded from Sir your most humble servt Allan Ramsay."· Meanwhile, the Lord Provost was writing for the opposing party to the sitting Member. In a letter of April 5, he says, "I am told Allan Ramsay & some others are endeavouring a Subscription in favours of the bill you may easily guess what sort of hands will be got to it." Presumably he had

R A M S A Y A N D THE T H E A T R E

123

underestimated Ramsay's influence, for on April 14, he changed his opinion somewhat: " A l l a n Ramsay got a Petition in favours of the bill signed by a good number of Gentlemen & Ladys & I hear got a great number of names added to it in an od w a y . " ' ' Ramsay's enemies, however, once again carried the day, and the poet seemingly retired from the fray, striving to make good his losses, as we learn from the columns of the Caledonian Mercury, by holding public dances and legal concerts in his erstwhile theatre. From 1741 to 1767 the Licensing A c t was regularly circumvented in Edinburgh by charging admission to a concert to be followed by a free play. Ramsay may have rejoiced at this reversal of the situation, but as he had retired from active business the year before, there was no opportunity for him to try the same device.

Chapter VI THE REPUTATION AND THE INFLUENCE OF R A M S A Y

1

ЛНЕКЕ is no reason for thinking that before 1719 Ramsay was known beyond the city of Edinburgh. But in that year we have his correspondence with Hamilton of Gilbertfield, the englishing of Richy and Sandy by Josiah Burchet, and the exchange of riming epistles with the Irishman, James Arbuckle. From this time Ramsay's fame spread rapidly beyond the walls of the Good Ί'οίνη, not without the help of his friends. Before Steele went to Edinburgh on government business in ιηΐο, he instructed James Anderson to find him lodgings. The latter in reporting to his superior concluded his letter thus: " I enclose you a poem of Mr. Ramsay's, whose performances, I presume, you are not a stranger to." ^ This specimen must have found favour with the Englishman, for he subsequently subscribed for two copies of the quarto of 1721. About a year later. Sir William Bennet of Grübet wrote the Countess Dowager of Roxburghe: " I send your ladyship Allan Ramsay's essay one [jíV] the cutting of my Lord Bowmont's hair." * Whatever we may think of the tradition

REPUTATION OF R A M S A Y

125

that the housewives of Edinburgh were in the habit of sending their children to buy Allan Ramsay's latest piece to be read over a dish of tea, we must grant, in the light of these letters, that the citizens of Edinburgh looked upon a new poem by him as somewhat of an event to be communicated to friends abroad. T h e congratulatory verses and the list of subscribers published in Poems (1721) — at least one copy went to New England — gives the same impression of an ever-growing and widening popularity. Indeed, one feels that during his life Ramsay must have received homage in verse from every poetaster in Scotland and many of those in England. Dublin had an edition of his works in 1724, seven years before London; and when in 1727 a rumour spread through the Irish capital that Ramsay had died, a broadside elegy of the usual quality was hawked in the streets. In 1726 Ramsay subscribed for thirty copies of a new edition of Hudibras with illustrations by Hogarth. When the artist shortly afterwards republished twelve of the plates, he dedicated the edition jointly to William Ward of Great Houghton and Allan Ramsay of Edinburgh. Gratitude may have induced Hogarth's action — or, possibly, a feeling of kinship with the satiric observer of Edinburgh low-life. There is a tradition that Ramsay's shop, admirably situated as it was on the High Street near

12б

ALLAN RAMSAY

the Cross, was the rendezvous for the wits of the city. Southerners seem to have found it a pleasant place to while away the time. William Tytler remembered having seen Gay there. We have already noted that the Earl of Oxford visited Ramsay while in Edinburgh. There can be little doubt, in view of the above quotation, that Steele found his way to Ramsay's shop when he was in the north. But it is uncertain that Tom D'Urfey and Ramsay met, for when D'Urfey was young enough to make the long journey to Edinburgh, Ramsay had not yet become so prominent.^ Englishmen did not need, however, to travel to Edinburgh to hear of Ramsay, for his works were in the London bookshops, and his name in the journals. The British Journal for March 9, 1723, published a translation of a short passage in Vergil purported to have been made by the Scottish poet Allan Ramsay for which the translator had received the sum of twenty marks. In the issues of October 3 and 24, 1724, the same journal had a version of Ramsay's elegy on the Duchess of Hamilton, contributed by an ardent admirer; but the text being abbreviated and debased, Ramsay sent the editor a true copy with a letter, both of which were published in the issue of November 14. About the same time (November 2, 1724), the Plain Dealer had a letter in defence of Scottish as a poetic medium; the writer thought "Our Allan Ramsay, a living Versifier in Old-Style,

REPUTATION OF RAMSAY

127

uses few words that are not to be met with in Shakespear, Spencer, &c . . . except, when he coins Words, by virtue of his extra-judicial Poetick Privileges, that never were, and never will be, used by any Mortal, besides Himself." But if Ramsay's friends were doing their best to keep his name before the London reader, his critics also had their turn. In the Weekly Journal or Saturday s Post for September 14, 1723, appeared what seems to be a covert attack on the poet. The writer of an essay on Fortune, bemoaning the human failing of deserting a tried and proved trade for one less suitable, remarks that he has known " a good Taylor turn an ignorant Chymist and an expert Barber become a miserable Poet." Then under the guise of friendliness he delivers his blow: I do not say this in the least to reflect upon Mr. Allen Ramsey of Edinburgh, whose Works I have read with Pleasure; I understand he uses Poetry like a Gentleman, that is, only plays with it at leisure Hours, when the more important Business of his Trade is over, he smooths a Verse and a Chin with the same Facility; I have seen of his Work in both Capacities, and confess I can't help thinking his Perriwigs and his Poetry both very good. Incidentally, we have here for the first time the mistaken idea, which was to have such a long history, that Ramsay was a barber. As late as 1745 we find Ramsay's name dragged into an attack on

128

ALLAN RAMSAY

Curii in a pamphlet, Remarks on ^Squire Ayre's Memoirs о/ the Life and Writings of Mr. Pope. In a Letter to Mr. Edmund Curl, Bookseller, etc. Perhaps a quotation will be pardoned, as it shows the eighteenth-century method of carrying on literary quarrels: Allen Ramsay, the Scotch Poet, whose Works you have, with your usual Propriety, forc'd in, to the great Assistance and Amplification of your own, you treat in another manner. No malicious Critic's Censure, no witty Sneer, nor boisterous Mirth will you permit to keep down his rising Honours, but all is Praise, all Fame, all Glory, and Allen Ramsay, any one must think, who would be taught to judge from you, has more Merit, and deserves more Fame than Pope, or Gay, than 'Îasso or Guarini. . . . Why do you praise? For what peculiar Beauties is it he has run away with such a double Portion of your Encomiums? Why, for no peculiar Beauties at all, (except indeed those of the Binding) but for a Reason worth a Million such, because you have forty Sets of them (a dead Stock) upon your Hands, and would be very glad, by a worse Means than this Puff, as it is call'd, to sell some of them. T h i s use of R a m s a y as a means of attacking some other person we have already seen in connection with the North Briton's campaign against L o r d Bute. B u t the criticism of R a m s a y in London was naught compared with the vituperation poured on him by enemies at home. W e have noticed W o d row's attack on his library as corrupting the youth

R E P U T A T I O N OF R A M S A Y

129

and servant women of the city. T h e author of

The

Flight of Religious Piety from Scotland, to which we referred in Chapter V , has P i e t y describe

Ram-

s a y ' s influence in these terms: The Pulpits there did represent T h e Glories of the Lord of Hosts Until the Devil sow'd the Seed Of Poetry in Ramsay's Brain, Who never for God's Glory stood, But only for his private Gain. I strove in vain to gain the Youth Whose Reason Ramsay hath debauch'd. Indeed, the poet's critics never could forget that he, a mere wigmaker, had become wealthy.

In the

same poem the devil addresses R a m s a y thus: Now Ramsay my brave Adjutant, Which I once took from picking Hair, I told thee, that thou shouldst not want, If thou but with me wouldst take Fare. Have I once fail'd, at thy Request, To grant more than thy Heart could wish? Herrings and Fardles did please thy Taste; Now thou canst get a dainty Dish: Thou heldst an House then but for Hire, And glad to poll a Teat of Hare; To face the Cross, thy Nest and Fire, T h y House I have procur'd thee there; T h y piss-brown Wig, thou us'd to wear I have turn'd to a three-tail'd Buckle; I have procur'd thee all thy Gear, T h y Block-Head then to me must truckle. A

cleverer method of attack w a s used b y

anonymous

author of Allan

Ramsay

the

Metamor-

130

ALLAN R A M S A Y

phased to a Heather-Bloter Poet in a Pastoral between Aegon and Melibae·. one character praises Ramsay on various accounts only that the other may turn the seeming eulogy to censure. Aegon finds that Ramsay uses the vernacular because he was bred in either the Braid or the Pentland Hills; he criticizes the poet's choice of themes and his writings for the stage. His closing lines have a familiar ring: Then Melibae, If you praise his Deeds, Provide a Block unto his high flowing Wigs.

T h e criticism of Ramsay's use of the vernacular in the last writer is interesting, for as the century moves along, we find that it is this characteristic of Ramsay's work that wins most praise. In 1746 there was published in London a poem entitled 'Îhe Saddle put on the right Horse . . . A Poem in the Stile of Allan Ramsay's Poetical Works. T h e author of the poem, which is in Scots, says that he has been induced to pubHsh it because his friends have pronounced it the equal of Ramsay's. In 1750 " O r e s t e s " contributed a poem to the Scots Magazine, entitled " T o a Gentleman, upon saying he had in vain attempted to answer a few lines sent him in Scots verse; and that he feared, either that Allan was dead, or that I had borrowed his muse." The poet tells of a talk with the Scottish muse ("landart lass"), who says she has well nigh lost her strength since Allan sits at home and writes no

REPUTATION OF R A M S A Y

131

more verse. " O r e s t e s " tries to cheer her with the hope that Ramsay will again turn to poetry. This poem, like so many others addressed to Ramsay, is in Scots, and herein lies its significance. T o those who were interested in the vernacular at a time when the more ambitious were painfully trying to drop all Scotticisms from their speech Ramsay seemed a pillar of strength. Ramsay's death in 1758 produced, despite statements to the contrary, a number of tributes. T h e Scots Magazine published an elegy, " T o the Memory of Mr. Allan R a m s a y . " Another appeared in the columns of the Caledonian Mercury., and a broadside was published in Dublin. W e have also noticed that in 1758 several performances of l^he Gentle Shef herd were given. In other words, by the time of his death Ramsay had become a minor national figure, especially to those who were proud of the native dialect. When Smollet wished to exalt Scottish humorous verse in Humphrey Clinker (1771), he had a Scot vaunt of Ramsay's Ever Green. It became the fashion to mention Ramsay in praising a new poet. So we find " Geordie Buck " writing " C l a u d e r o " : W h e n Allan dy'd, the muses then Did mourn aloud baith butt and ben; Apollo sigh'd! but spoke up then, I ' v e still a hero In Caledon — Syne took his pen, A n d wrote Claudero.

132

ALLAN RAMSAY

To this the recipient answered: But thou has screw'd my muse so high. Like Daedalus, in air to fly. She dreads his fate, and must implore, Beneath fam'd Allan's wings to soar.··

In the latter part of the century Ramsay's and Fergusson's names were linked together. John Learmont wrote An Encomium on Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson, without, however, trying to decide their relative merits.' On April 14, 1791, a debate took place at the Pantheon, a literary club in Edinburgh, to decide which of the two poets had done the more for Scottish poetry. R. Cummings and E. Picken read poems in Ramsay's praise. The former devoted his time to ΊΊιε Gentle Shepherd, while the latter stressed Ramsay's work in reviving the vernacular, and the naturalness and simplicity of his style. A. Wilson, who upheld Fergusson's claims, maintained his superiority in virtue of his greater realism; with his conclusion we cannot but agree: It's my opinion, John, that this young fallow, Excels them a', an' beats auld Allan hallow. An' shews, at twenty-twa, as great a giftie For painting just, as Allan did at fifty.

With the advent of Burns ® we have his name linked with his predecessors by all aspirants to poetic fame. One of many examples is :

REPUTATION OF R A M S A Y

133

О cou'd I sing as Ramsay sung And far-fam'd Fergesson Or if my lyre it were but strung Like Rab's the Mauchline clown.' Such

allusions to the Scottish

trinity

continue

through the first decade of the nineteenth century, but after that they become rare, the cause of the change being most probably a just realization of the superiority of Burns. A t the same time a new form of respect was paid Ramsay.

T h e events of

his life began to attract attention, the first biography being published in 1797.

T h e n arose the

celebrated dispute about the site of "Îhe Shepherd.

It was inevitable

that

Gentle

a monument

should be suggested, but whether it should be erected in Edinburgh or on the site of Ramsay's pastoral

was

not

easily

decided.*

Some

years

passed, and in 1820 a tablet was placed on the south wall of Grey friars Church.

About 1850 a

proposal was advanced to build a great stone terrace in front of Ramsay Gardens with a statue of Ramsay

thereon.

Although

there was

adverse

criticism, the work proceeded until it fissured and collapsed.»

In

1865, through the generosity of

Lord Murray, the present handsome monument in Princes Street Gardens was erected. the

Throughout

century writers on romantic old Edinburgh

busied themselves in collecting or making anecdotes about Ramsay, and the Society of Antiquar-

134

ALLAN

RAMSAY

ians of Scotland began to collect relics. The "Goose-Pie" became a university residence. By all these tokens Ramsay had become a classic, and the time for reading and enjoying him had passed. Little need be said here about Ramsay's influence. Gentle Shepherd^ as we have seen, did much to break down the prejudice against the stage, and it also served as a model for certain writers. We have noted Ramsay's service to the vernacular by his use of it at a time when it was rapidly passing out of favour. Poets and poetasters of the century were inspired by his example to write in Scots. We need not attempt to trace the influence of Ramsay on Burns, as that has been done adequately elsewhere." To show his influence on minor writers of the period we shall mention two instances. The following passage from Thomas Blair's Gibbie and Wattie should be compared with Ramsay's Robert, Richy, and Sandy : He held out his snout forgainst the peat-stack 'now, Wi' mony a lengsome elrich wough, wough, wow, I ran to chase him but a' was in vain. He fletted frae his seat, and yowld again. I cry'd 'isk 'isk poor Batie, hae tak a piece, but the grumbling tyke Ran farther off and yowl'd at the fauld dyke."

David Bruce, a political writer in Pennsylvania in the last decade of the eighteenth century, imitated Ramsay in both diction and stanza. His oppo-

REPUTATION OF RAMSAY

135

nents, who soon saw the source of his inspiration, called him "Allan Ramsay degenerated into a rough, dull, shrill, reminiscence of his former greatness." " It is a far cry from the streets of Edinburgh to the frontiers of Pennsylvania, but the voice of Allan Ramsay was heard in both places.

NOTES

NOTES CHAPTER I 1. Ramsay, Poems, ed. 1800,1, v. 2. " T o the Earl of Dalhousie," Works, III, 55. 3. See the frontispiece. It should be noted that Chalmers was wrong concerning the name of the poet's father; his error has been repeated by his successors. 4. Appendix B. 5. Some support is given this latter conjecture by the highly impersonal tone of the MS. Life, and by the fact that the passage concerning the poet's quondam wigmaking has been deleted from one version and a more innocuous account substituted. 6. Appendix A , Item V I ; also Item II. 7. The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, Third Series (Edinburgh, 1908 and later), V, 261-262. 8. 1Ш., X, 288-289. 9. Appendix A, Item I. 10. Mr. Andrew Gibson (New Light on Allan Ramsay [Edinburgh, 1927], p. 7) gives, without stating his reasons, about 1682. 11. Appendix A, Item II. 12. The above transcription was made by the present writer in 1928. The inscription is misquoted by J. Moir Porteous {God's Treasure House in Scotland [London, 1876], p. 221). 13. The anonymous author of Tales and Sketches of the Covenanters (London, Walter Scott, 1880, pp. 359-367) relates a story that although palpably inacceptable in its present form may contain a germ of truth. During the killing times the soldiers of Claverhouse burnt the house of Marion Morison, widow of David Douglas, a miner of Leadhills, because she had given shelter to a Covenanter. Robert Ramsay, manager

140

NOTES

of the mines, gave shelter to her and her daughter. May Douglas. Later he married the daughter, and the child of this union was Allan Ramsay. The story is not to be doubted because of the mistake, a common one, in the Christian name of the poet's father, but because we have indubitable proof that the poet's mother was Alison Bower. We can hardly attach the story — at least in its present form — to the grandfather of Allan Ramsay, because Claverhouse was not in the Scottish service before 1678. Badly mangled as it is, the story may, however, have something of truth in it, and for that reason I repeat it. 14. For Chalmers, see Ramsay, Poems, ed. 1800, I, vi; for Smeaton, Allan Ramsay (Edinburgh and London, 1896), p. 16. 15. Works,l,ιη2. 16. Appendix A, Item L 17. Although Chalmers (Ramsay, Poems, ed. 1800,1, v-vi) does not state explicitly that Alice Bower was the daughter of Janet Douglas of Muthill, he leaves the reader with that impression. The writer on Ramsay in The Dictionary of National Biography states it, however, as fact. 18. Works,\,\ηη. 19. Works, III, ιοζ. 20. Reproduced in facsimile by Mrs. Athol Forbes {Curiosities of a Scots Charta Chest [Edinburgh, 1897], facing p. 168). A copy is also to be found among the Laing MSS., University of Edinburgh. 21. So, for practical purposes; but it should be remembered that there may have been other children who died before the poet constructed his tree. 22. Smeaton, Allan Ramsay, p. 17. Mr. Gibson {New Light, p. 12) is unduly concerned over the difference in spelling by Chalmers and Smeaton; the name is spelled in various ways in documents of the day. 23. Appendix A, Item III. 24. Appendix A, Item I. But as the greater part of the debt was owed to Allan Bower, the financial status was not, perhaps, so bad as the testament dative would at first suggest. 25. "Seven Familiar Epistles," Works, I I I , 37.

NOTES

141

26. Works, 1 , 1 9 g . 27. 28. Ibid., I I , 174. 29. " O d e to M r . F , " Works, I I , 207. 30. The Gentle Shepherd, I I , ii and iii. 3 1 . " O n the Eclipse of the Sun," Works, 1, 172. 32. Forbes, Curiosities, p. 142. 33. On the authority of the MS. Life and the poems, I have assumed t h a t young R a m s a y was brought u p in the country. B u t John Ramsay of Ochtertyre {Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century, 2 vols. [Edinburgh and London, 1888], I, 10) says t h a t Stirling of Carden told him t h a t АЦап R a m s a y was a thresher of lead at Leadhills till he was twelve. If necessary, we could reconcile this statement with our view by supposing t h a t in slack times on the farm the boy was sent to work in the mines — provided t h a t Crichton's farm, the exact situation of which is unknown, was fairly close to the village. On the other hand, traditions of this kind are born so frequently after the event t h a t I doubt whether we need be concerned unduly about a reconciliation. 34. Lives oj the Scottish Poets, 3 vols. (London, 1822), I, 7 1 . 35. SmeaXon, Allan Ramsay, ψ. 36. Ramsay, Poems (Edinburgh, 1 7 2 1 ) , p. vi. 37. Alexander Wright, History of Education and of the Old Parish Schools of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1898), pp. 103-107. 38. I t m a y be objected t h a t in some rural parishes to-day children go even greater distances. W e should remember, however, t h a t in the seventeenth century roads were much worse, the hour of opening school much earlier, and the machinery for compelling attendance much poorer, than they are to-day. 39. John Robertson, ed., Selections from the Registers of the Presbytery of Lanark. Printed for the Abbotsford Club (Edinburgh, 1839), p. 1 3 1 . T h e conditions seem to have been average. 40. MS. Records of the Proceedings of the General Assembly, under date of M a y 19,1738. 4 1 . Ibid.

142

NOTES

42. John Sinclair, The Statistical Account of Scotland . . 21 vols. (Edinburgh, 1791-99), I V , 514. There is no mention in the article from which I quote of the custom of employing resident teachers; the practice is referred to, however, in the i^ew Statistical Account o( 1845 (VI, З38-339).

43.

Works,Hl,ii^.

44. George Neilson, " A Bundle of Ballads," Essays and Studies by Members oj the English Association, V I I (1921), 135. 45. Appendix A , Item I I I . 46. I t is possible that we are dealing with two Andrew Crichtons, as the names Marie and Marion are v e r y similar, and the male infants born in 1699 and 1705 were both baptized William. On the other hand, the older children m a y have died, and the later been given the same names — as in the Ross family. (See Appendix A , Item IV.) 47. " P e t i t i o n to the Whinbush C l u b , " Works, I, 178. 48. Gibson, New Light, p. 17. Rejecting the poet's statement and that of the M S . Life as written long afterwards, M r . Gibson insists that the youth remained in his home district because the first documentary proof of his being in Edinburgh is from 1704 — surely an undue faith in negative evidence. 49. Appendix A , Item II. 50. A t this time, by the act of 1606, re-enacted in 1661, coal-miners and salt-workers were not permitted to change their occupations without their masters' consent. (Mackintosh, History of Civilization in Scotland, 4 vols. [Paisley and London, 1892-96], I I I , 291). Whether the act applied also to lead-miners I cannot say, but we need not expect much better conditions. 51. Sinclair, Statistical Account, X X I , 98-99. R a m s a y of Ochtertyre {Scotland and Scotsmen, I I , 317-318) gives a similar account. 52. Certain R a m s a y manuscripts in the British Museum and in the University of Edinburgh have sketches of heads scattered on the covers and pages, but there is no proof that these decorations are the work of the poet. Again, he was one of the founders of the A c a d e m y of St. L u k e , but he m a y well have been actuated b y interest in his son's future. Later in the

NOTES

143

present chapter I quote from one of the poet's letters concerning his work in bas-relief, but it would be a far cry to make this proof of unkind treatment by his stepfather. 53. It should be remembered that we have documentary evidence for only two children of Andrew Crichton and Alison Bower and some reasons for thinking that one or both of these died young. On the other hand, the parochial registers of the period are by no means complete. 54. Ramsay of Ochtertyre {Scotland and Scotsmen) seemingly knew nothing about it. Although mentioning Ramsay and the library in the same sentence, the writer of an article, "News of an Old Place" (Household Words, V [i 852], pp. 537542) did not connect the poet with the founding of the institution. 55. Robert Chambers, The Picture of Scotland, 1 vols., 2nd ed. (Edinburgh, 1828), I, 325. Later in the century Dr. John Brown also had the ruins pointed out to him {Horae Subsecivae, Third Series, Edinburgh, 1882, p. 345). Of course, it is not our concern whether the ruins were genuine or not. 56. Household Words, V (1852), 541. 57. Appendix A, Item VI. 58. There is no entry in the Guild Register of his having become a burgess. That he had not been a renegade apprentice is fairly proved by Allan's being apprenticed to the same master. That he did not die young is shown by the poet's tree, where he is credited with two children. That he may even have attained that height of felicity held before apprentices — marriage with the master's daughter — is suggested by his second child's being called Jerome, the Christian name of the master wigmaker. 59. Appendix A, Item V I I . 60. Smeaton, Allan Ramsay, p. 36. But Mr. Gibson {New Light, p. 18) considers the letter spurious — one of those concocted by Alexander Howland Smith. For his suspicions Mr. Gibson has no grounds except Smeaton's general carelessness and incompetence, his failure to state the whereabouts of the letter, and the fact that Mr. Gibson proves {ibid., p. 44) another letter quoted by Smeaton a forgery.

144

NOTES

61. Logie Robertson (ed., Poems [London, 1887],xxii), who was the first to mention it, called it doubtful. Smeaton {Allan Ramsay, p. 27) accepted and embellished it. 62. For these entries, see Appendix A , Items V I I I and I X . 63. Gibson, JViw Light, p. 32. 64. Ramsay, Poems, ed. 1800,1, vii-viii. 65. "Revival and Progress of National Literature in Scotland," Hogg's Weekly Instructor, December 5, 1846. (This single issue was wrongly dated 1845, and is so referred to in Works. III, i i f . ) The writer of the article was plainly enjoying himself— a fact that apparently eluded Smeaton, if he went beyond Works (III, 215-216) for his information. 66. Appendix A, Items IV, V , and VIII. In his later years the poet traced the ancestry of his wife {Egerton MSS., 202j, British Museum). 67. The exceedingly brief widowerhood entailed by the suggestion could be accounted for by the fact that Ross had eight children, the eldest of whom was not fourteen. 68. Gibson, pp. 35-63. M y quotations from the Minutes are from Mr. Gibson, and not directly from the Journal. 69. A week later (August 15) " George Buchanan " wrote to the Spectator a description of the club; the letter has been published by the Historical MSS. Commission {Report of the LaingMSS., II [1925], 163-164). 70. In Poems (1721, p. 310) Ramsay has a footnote to The Gentleman's Qualifications: " E a s y Club. A juvenile Society, of which I am a fellow." The use of the present tense is curious. It may, of course, be that the printer was using an earlier non-extant copy, or that & e poet wished to appear before the world as a clubman. 71. Gibson, New Light, pp. 41, 49, and 99. 72. From a letter by " George Buchanan," Secretary of the Easy Club; printed in Report of the Laing MSS. (II, 175). 73. There is a possibility that the Elegy on Maggy Johnston was in print earlier, as a note on a manuscript copy in the University of Edinburgh reads " 2d Edition Enlarged and Cor-

NOTES

145

rected By Y e Author, July 30, 1 7 1 3 . " The term "edition" may, however, have been used in jest. 74. Caledonian Mircary, August 1 1 , 1720. 75. An advertisement in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of that date informs subscribers that they may call for their copies at Ramsay's shop. 76. " T h e Rise and Fall of Stocks," Works, I I , 327. 77. One small matter in connection with this quarto may be mentioned. Lord Woodhouselee (Ramsay, Poems, ed. 1800,1, Ixx) thought, because he could see no other plan, that the poems had been arranged chronologically. But a glance at the dated poems (pp. 275-286, 289-298, and 307-310) will show how untenable is this theory. 78. Smeaton, Allan Ramsay, p. 95. 79. It is sometimes stated that Scots Songs (1718 and 1720) was Ramsay's first editorial work, but this view is wrong, as the poems in the two volumes were original. 80. Two facts led them to this conclusion: {a) in 1716 Ramsay was described in the baptismal records as wigmaker, but in 1725 as bookseller; and {b) in 1718 he announced himself for the first time as publisher. Mr. Gibson {New Light, p. 71) favours 1719 because of a reference in "To Mr. James Arbuckle, which is dated January, 1719 (JVorks, I I I , 54); he fails, however, to state his reasons for assigning the change to July of that year. 81. For these entries see Appendix A, Item X . 82. There is, of course, no evidence to support Smeaton's statement {Allan Ramsay, p. 58) that before making the change Ramsay sought the advice of Ruddiman. 83. The evidence for the above is briefly this. All titlepages between 1718 and 1721 inclusive, with the exception of the quarto of 1721, which makes no designation, place the shop at the Mercury opposite to Niddry's Wynd. The first edition of Fables and Tales in 1722 gives the same situation, but all other publications of that year and of subsequent years to 1726, with two exceptions, when they designate the site of the shop, give it as " at the Mercury opposite the Cross-Well." The exceptions are The Ever Green (1724) and The Gentle Shep-

146

NOTES

herd (1725), both of which describe the shop as "near the Cross." But that this means the same as the other phrase is shown by advertisements for these works in the Caledonian Mercury (November 30, 1724, and June 11 and 22, 1725), where the shop is placed "on the South-side of the CrossWell." Because it is a mere reprint from Health (1724), no reliance can be placed in the trade advertisement in the 1726 edition of Îhe Gentle Shepherd, which would have Ramsaystill on the south side of the High Street. An edition of Swift's Cadenus and Vanessa published in 1726 places the shop at "the: East End of the Luckenbooths." In 1727 the fourth edition of Poems was " sold by the Author at Havithornden's and Ben Johnson's Heads." For placing the shop between Borthwick's and Old Assembly Closes, see the map in Maitland's History of Edinburgh·, Maitland's position of the Crosswell can be checked by advertisements in the Caledonian Mercury (July 21, 1737; May 5, 1747; February 16, 1748; and October 1 1 , 1 7 4 8 ) . 84. See below. Appendix A, Item X I V . 85. Appendix A, Item X I I , and " T h e Author's Address to the Town-Council" {Works, I, 175 fF.). 86. " T o his Grace John Düke of Roxburgh, the Address of Allan Ramsay S[cots] P[oet]," Additional MSS., 12115 (British Museum). The poem was contributed to the Edinburgh Weekly Scotsman (June 29, 1929) by Mr. Davidson Cook. 87. James B. Paul, The History of the Royal Company of Archers (Edinburgh and London, 1875) PP· ^^ ^^^ · 88. Appendix A, Item X I I I . Ramsay was not, however, a member of the parish in 1745 according to the list of pewholders published by D. Butler {^he Tron Kirk of Edinburgh [Edinburgh and London, 1906], pp. 171-182), probably because of his removal to the Castle Hill property. 89. The bookplate of the Edinburgh Circulating Library, owned by Mackay in the early nineteenth century, states that the library was instituted by " the Celebrated Allan Ramsay in 1725." (There is a specimen in a copy of Ramsay's tale of Three Bonnets, 1722, in the National Library of Scotland.) This raises the question of the fate of Ramsay's undertaking.

NOTES

147

A writer in the Scots Magazine ( L X X V I I [1815], 686) traces it from Ramsay to James MacEwen, to Alexander Kincaid, and to William Creech. But according to the Lives of the Scottish Poets (I, 98) it descended to Sibbald, and thence to Mackay. The bookplate supports the latter account. 90. Robert Wodrow, Analecta or Materials for a History of Remarkable Providences, 4 vols., Printed for the Maitland Club, (Edinburgh, 1842-43) I I I , 515-516. I have found no mention of this raid i^i the records of the Town Council. 91. The Library (VII [1895], p. 96; and N. S. I, 1899-1900, pp. 274-289). The writers, while admitting Ramsay's priority, are not agreed whether the first London venture in 1740 was inspired by his success or not. In the Caledonian Mercury (August 12, 1758) Mrs. Yair advertised that "the Circulating Library, or the lending of Books, a Branch of Business which was first introduced here by Mr. Yair is likewise kept up by her," but there is apparently no other evidence of her husband's priority in the field. We can assume, then, that Ramsay's laurels are unfaded. 92. The constitution of the Academy was published in the Edinburgh Annual Register (Edinburgh, 1816, cccclxxiii). 93. The letter is preserved among the Eaglescarnie MSS., National Library of Scotland; it was printed in the Historical MSS. Commission's Eighth Report (London, 1881, p. 312). 94. Appendix A, Item X I V . 95. The letter, with its provenance, is given in Works (III, 243 and 246). Since Sir Robert's name does not appear on the list of subscribers to the volume, he must have resisted all appeals. 96. One of Ramsay's receipts is extant. {Notes and Queries, Second Series, X I I , 1861, p. 432.) 97. Gentleman's Magazine (LIV, 1784, p. 672); reprinted in JVorks (III, 247-248). 98. Caledonian Mercury, April 10, 1735. 99. Ibid., November 25,1736. 100. From a letter dated April 5, 1735, preserved among the Eaglescarnie MSS., National Library of Scotland; see Historical MSS. Commission's Eighth Report, p. 312.

148

NOTES

ΙΟΙ. Appendix A, Item X V . I fear this document destroys Sir Danie Wilson's delightful story {Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden l'ime, 1 vols., 2nd ed. [Edinburgh and London, 1891], I, 185) that Ramsay had asked the Crown for enough land to build a cage for his burd, meaning his wife. 102. Caledonian Mercury, February i , 1739. 103. Forbes, Curiosities, p. 137. 104. Ibid., p. 143. 105. Ramsay, Poems, ed. 1800, I , xlviii. 106. Works, 111, 102 S. 107. "Having acquired by business what he reckoned a sufficient fortune; that is an independent subsistence of the plainest kind, he retired, about the year 1738 to a small house he had built in the midst of a garden on the north side of the Castle hill of Edinburgh. There he passed the last twenty years of his life." — MS. Life. The error of 1738 for 1740 does not invalidate the evidence — a mistake of two years is better than one of twenty. 108. See Ramsay's letter to Millar, July 13, 1732 {(Gentleman's Magazine, N . S., X X X I X , 1853, p. 370). 109. Forbes, Curiosities, p. 142. 1 1 0 . From an unpublished letter in the National Library of Scotland. 1 1 1 . Appendix A, Item X V . 1 1 2 . ¥orhts, Curiosities, ψ. 149. 1 1 3 . Smeaton, Allan Ramsay, pp. 1 1 5 - 1 1 6 . 1 1 4 . London Evening Post, October 10, 1745; quoted by Mrs. Forbes {Curiosities, p. 149). 1 1 5 . Caledonian Mercury, June 20, 1754. 1 1 6 . Preserved among the Laing MSS. 1 1 7 . There is some uncertainty concerning the date. The Edinburgh Courant implies the 7th; the Caledonian Mercury gives the 9th; the Gentleman's Magazine ( X X V I I I , 46), the 5th; and the London Magazine ( X X V I I , 51), the 6th. The London Chronicle, which gives the 7th, has no Independent value, as the notice is obviously a mere reprint from the Edinburgh Courant. 1 1 8 . Appendix A , Item X I .

NOTES

149

119. Robert Chambers, Traditions of Edinburgh, New Edition (London and Edinburgh, 1868, p. 26). 120. Works, III, 121. For the complete entries, see Appendix A, Item I X . 122. Gentleman's Magazine, (LIV 1784, p. 672); quoted in Works (III, 248). 123. On the tree Ramsay has both Ja and JanK There is apparently no child to correspond with the first entry. Can the poet have carelessly noted Janet twice? 124. Forbes, C«noJíVíw, pp. 141-142. 125. Forbes, Curiosities, pp. 141 and 165. 126. Ramsay, Poems, ed. 1800, I, Iii. 127. Chambers, Traditions, pp. 26-27. 128. Appendix A, Item X I , and Scots Magazine (LXVI, 80). 129. For Allan Ramsay the Painter, see: Cunningham, Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, 6 vols. (London, 1829-33), V, 34-45; Ramsay, Poems, ed. 1800,1, lii-liii; and Forbes, Curiosities, which contains several of his letters. No reliance can be put in the note in Notes and Queries (Seventh Series, V I I [1889], 188); the Army Lists show that the writer was wrong in the Christian name, and that his punctuation is decidedly misleading. 130. " T o Mr. James Arbuckle," Works, I I I , 52-53. 1 3 1 . Forbes, Curiosities, p. 90 and 147. 132. Chambers, Traditions, pp. 25-26. 133. William Tytler remembered Gay's having been in the shop. {Works, I, 33.) 134. The following remarks in the MS. Life concerning the anonymity of The Vision substantiate the above point of view: "What were his motives for writing so long a poem, without reaping any fame from it, is not so easy to guess. . . . Perhaps some political ideas, not very orthodox, had their share in concealment. . . . His notions about the independency of Scotland had made him, for some time, consider the Union of the two Crowns as a hardship; an opinion which he held in common with many worthy men, and sincere friends of their country, in those days; and there is a Poem of his in print called The Tale of the three bonnets, in which the manner

150

NOTES

of bringing about that Treaty is handled with a good deal of satirical humour. But his good sense and observation getting, at length, the better of his early prejudices, this Poem never obtained a place in any of his two Volumes." (I have shown above that the poem was admitted into the octavo of 1729.) 135. Records of the Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1866 and later), V, 283 and 318. 136. Forbes, Curiosities, p. 146. 137. Smeaton, Allan Ramsay, p. 57. 138. Egerton MSS; 2023, British Museum. 13g. Only two copies of this poem are extant. It was reproduced in facsimile in 1925 from the copy in Worcester College, Oxford. The text with a discussion of the incident can also be found in John Fairley's Lauriston Castle (Edinburgh, 1925, pp. 144-150). CHAPTER II 1. The edition of 1851 includes two poems that seem of doubtful authorship. The first is The Thimble. I have never found it in a Ramsay manuscript. It was first published, as a four-page pamphlet, in the early nineteenth century. The only suggestion of authorship is in the closing couplet, which would seem to be an addition to the poem. The other poem of which I am dubious is An Epistle to John Wardlaw. It was first published in 1797 in the Scots Magazine ( L I X , 6 1 1 ) in connection with a dispute concerning the merits of Ramsay's verse; the circumstances are not, therefore, reassuring. The poem is dated from Ramsay's house on Castle Hill June 5, 1736. It is certainly strange that Ramsay thus dated it more than three years before he moved there. 2. Thomas Somerville {My Own Life and Times, 1У411814, Edinburgh, n. d., pp. 29-30) tells that Ramsay wrote his rimed answer to William Somerville's epistle while the latter was still in the room. Burns (quoted in Works, II, 215) gives the story of the composition of The Lass of Patte's Mill. 3. The student of Scottish pronunciation in the eighteenth century would be rewarded by a study of these manuscripts.

NOTES

151

as Ramsay apparently spelled more or less phonetically. When the late Sir James Wilson (She Dialects of Central Scotland [London, 1926], pp. 194-203) held Ramsay largely responsible for the anglicizing of the older Scottish orthography, he ignored the fact that Ramsay's printed texts were very probably strongly influenced by the ideas of Ruddiman, his principal publisher. Certainly there is a great difference between the orthography of the manuscripts and the published versions. 4. "Verses,on the Bannatyne MS.," Works, I I I , 17. 5. Ibid.,l,ng. 6. Ibid., I, 174 and 193; III, 105. 7. " I ' l l Never Leave Thee," Works, I I , 231. 8. "On the Prospect of Plenty," Works, I, 164. 9. "On the Royal Archers," Works, I, 213. 10. In two unpublished poems. 11. The Gentle Shepherd, 111, w. 12. "Content," Works, I, 158. 13. " An Oàt," Works, II, 19,214. " T o Mrs. A. C.," Works, II, 286. 15. " T o Mr. Gay," Works, I I I , 76. 16. " A n Elegy on Lord Carnegie," Works, I, 257. 17. "Content," Works, I, 147 and 149. 18. "Reasons for not Answering," Works, II, 334. 19. The Vision of Mirza may have suggested the opening lines of Content {Works, I, 145). 20. Gay did not, of course, suggest the idea of the Fables, as Ramsay's collection was published five years before Gay's. 21. " A n Ode," Works, I, 238. 22. The poems of Horace translated by Ramsay are: Epistles·. I, 20 (Ramsay, I I I , 206); Odes·. I, i (Ramsay, III, 55); I, 3 (Ramsay, II, 206); I, 4 (Ramsay, II, 207); I, 9 (Ramsay, I I , 208); and 1 , 3 1 (Ramsay, 1 , 1 8 5 ) . There are, of course, echoes in other poems. 23. The question of sources has been discussed by Professor M. E . Smith {Modern Language Notes, X X X I , 1916, pp. 206216) and Dr. Benedikt Uhlemayr {Oer Einfluss Lafontaine'! auf die englische Fabeldichtung des 18 Jahrhunderts, Nürnberg,

152

NOTES

1900, p. 16). As my count does not agree with that of either writer, I tabulate my findings: From La Fontaine: 1. The Ape and the Leopard. (La Fontaine, I X , 3.) 2. The Man with Two Wives. (I, 17.) 3. The Fable of the Condemned Ass. (VII, i.) From La Motte: 1. The Lovely Lass and the Mirror. (In La Motte this is part of the dedication to the king.) 2. The Parrot. (1,3.) 3. To the Critic. (I, 6.) This borrowing was overlooked by Professor Smith and Dr.Uhlemayr, presumably because in modern editions it is separated from the rest of the fables. 4. The Horse's Complaint. (I, 7.) This borrowing was also overlooked, presumably because Ramsay had metamorphosed the ass of La Motte into a horse. 5. The Twa Lizards. (I, 12.) 6. Jupiter's Lottery. (I, 14.) 7. The Gods of Egypt. (1,18.) 8. The Miser and Minos. (I, 19.) 9. The Boy and the Pig. (II, 3.) 10. The Chameleon. (II, 9.) 1 1 . The Twa Cats and the Cheese. (II, 11.) 12. The Eclipse. (II, 12.) 13. The Clock and the Dial. (Ill, 2.) 14. The Spectacles. (Ill, 3.) 15. The Caterpillar and the Ant. (111,8.) 16. The Fox and the Rat. (Ill, 11.) 17. The Twa Books. (IV, 9.) 18. Mercury in Quest of Peace. (IV, 16.) 19. The Phoenijc and the Owl. (V, i.) 20. The Fox Turned Preacher. (V, 3.) Professor Smith claims a source in La Fontaine for Ramsay's 4!he Bee and the Fly, but I have not discovered it. 24. "Mercury in Quest of Peace," Works, III, 141. 25. Thip unpublished epigram is found in Egerton MSS., 202j (British Museum):

NOTES

153

To a Gentleman who would have me always to write Epigrams. That's your advice; I thank you for't, But my muse better braid is. For, tho ye like a Thing that's short, Sae disna a' the ladys. 26. Roman du meunier d'Arleux, en vers du XIII' siècle par Enquerrand d'Oisy. For my information concerning this analogue I am indebted to Dr. E. J . Simmons of Harvard University, who has made an extensive study of the double substitution motif m an unpublished Harvard doctoral dissertation. 27. La Fontaine took the tale from Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles (Conte L X X V I I I ) . That Ramsay did not go further than La Fontaine for his version is shown by the fact that where La Fontaine's conte differs from its source so does Ramsay's. 28. As the pseudo-Dunbar version is found in the Bannatyne MS., to which Ramsay was indebted for most of "The Ever Green, it is unnecessary to suppose, merely to account for this variation, that Ramsay used a different source. 29. ^ o r b . I l l , 167. 30. Works, II, 173 ff. 3 1 . Allan Cunningham, The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern, 4 vols. (London, 1825). See the notes to the individual songs. This statement does not apply, of course, to the lyrics in The Gentle Shepherd. 32. W. Forbes Gray, An Edinburgh Miscellany (Edinburgh, 1925), p. 13. 33. Herman Harder, Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns in ihrer Stellung zu Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, Unpublished Inaugural Dissertation, Freiburg University, 1922. 34. These two words are almost beyond translation. Gesellschaft is that spirit that seeks the good of the individual or of a class without regard to the welfare of the community as a whole; Gemeinschaft is, of course, its opposite. A mediaeval monastery, at least as Carlyle imagined it, would bean excellent example of a society inspired by Gemeinschaft.

154

NOTES

35. "Der Gedanke der Stadt als eines lebendigen Organismus, bei den alle Glieder zusammenwirken, ist Ramsay gegenwärtig, und in dem angeführten Bilde hat er das Wesen des Bürgertums auf die ideelle Formal gebracht." — Harder, Allan Ramsay, p. 26. 36. " I n dieser Formal fiehlt die stärkste, die religiöse Bindung, die im Mittelalter die Glieder der Stadt zur Einheit zusammenschlosz." — Ibid., p. 29. 37. Footnote to "Christ's Kirk on the Green," Works, I, 333· This paragraph smacks dangerously of a very snobbish Ge sells chaß\ 38. "An Epistle to Somerville," Works, III, 94. 39. "An Answer," Works, III, 107-108. We might here note that Joseph Mitchell in decrying the bad taste prevailing in Edinburgh wrote {Poems on Several Occasions [London, 1729], I, 308-309): "Ev'n Poet Ramsay, in Parnassus fam'd, The common Gutherum of the Muses nam'd! (Tho' Ramsay cou'd assert the true Sublime,) Intent on Cash, pursues the vulgar Rhime. 'Twou'd break his Stock o'er common Vogue to rise!" 40. I have seen no reason to discuss the old story that not Ramsay but students in Edinburgh University wrote the verse that passes as his. (See London Magazine, XLIII [1774], p. 259.) College men may have strange ideas of humour, but this, with its utter indifference to the profits Ramsay acquired, is quite beyond credence. Moreover, Egerton MSS., 2023 proclaims Ramsay by all the pangs of labour the only parent of these poems. CHAPTER I I I I. The curious reader, desirous of seeing how widespread and long-lived an absurd anecdote can be, is referred to the following: William Tytler, ed.. Poetical Remains of James the First (Edinburgh, 1783), pp. 189-191; Francis Garden, Lord Gardenstone, Miscellanies in Prose and Virse, 2nd ed. (Edin-

NOTES

155

burgh, 1792), pp. 61-62; Gentleman 5 Magazine, X C I (1821), P t . II, 351; James Thomson, Poetical Works, ed. Nicolas, 2 vols. (London, 1847), I, cxi; Leigh Hunt, Men, Women, and Books, 1 vols. (New York, 1847), !> 55; Thomas Somerville, My Own Life and Times, 1У41-1814 (Edinburgh, n. d., pp. 2 9 32; Edmund H. Barker, Literary Anecdotes, and Contemporary Reminiscences, 2 vols. (London, 1852), II, 16; and finally, that home of lost causes. Notes and Queries, Ninth Series, X (1902), 245; Tenth Series, I I (1904), 386; Twelfth Series, II (1916), 29 and 72. 2. The main arguments in the question can be found in the introduction to The Gentle Shepherd (2 vols. [Edinburgh, 1808]). 3. The best account for the student of Ramsay is to be found in the 1800 edition of Poems or in the 1808 (2 vols.) edition of The Gentle Shepherd. I cannot, however, omit this gem from Nathan Drake's Literary Hours; or Sketches, Critical, Narrative, and Poetical (3 vols. [London, 1804], I, 344-346). After deciding that originality is the true criterion of a pastoral's greatness, Drake says: " I f what has been now observed, should induce the unprejudiced reader to reperuse the authors alluded to, he will probably be inclined to admit that, in pastoral poetry, Virgil, Spenser, Pope, Gay, and Phillips, must yield the palm to Tasso, Warner, Drayton, and the two Fletchers, to Rowe, Ramsay, Shenstone, Gesner, and Collins. . . . Not servilely treading in the footsteps of Theocritus and Virgil, they have chalked out and embellished with the most beautiful simplicity, paths of their own; their flowers are congenial to the soil, and display their tints with a brilliancy and fragrance which no sickly exotic can ever hope to emulate." Comment would be otiose. 4. Gibson, New Light, pp. 69-70 and 1 3 1 - 1 3 4 ; and the present writer's bibliography of Ramsay (Glasgow Bibliographical Society, Vol. X). 5. The best statement of this older view is in the 1808 (2 vol.) edition of The Gentle Shepherd (I, 57-59 and 80). There are three main arguments: (a) Ramsay had the plot of the pastoral comedy from Dr. Pennecuik in 1716. But this rests on

156

NOTES

the mistaken idea that the eclogue, Patte and Roger, had been written before 1720, and on the statement of the editor of Ancient Scottish Poems (1786) that Ramsay had the plot from Pennecuik, a remark that finds no substantiation, ib) References in the eclogues to Bauldy and Madge look forward to their appearance in the later acts of the comedy. But rival lovers and cross-grained relatives are the usual machinery of eclogues; moreover, one might as plausibly argue that it was the fortuitous presence of these references that determined the course of the pastoral, when Ramsay at some later date decided to write a five-act drama, (c) The fact that the first eclogue takes place before breakfast and the second immediately thereafter shows that Ramsay intended writing other scenes to take place before night. But the action of The Gentle Shepherd does not finish until the next morning. Again, at what time of day should good shepherd lads feed their flocks, and Scottish lassies do the family wash.? It is strange that no scholar has called attention to the stark realism and fidelity to national character that Ramsay has shown in causing Jenny's conscience to trouble her so early in the morning because she has been gossiping and has " n o yet begun to freath the graith." Here, surely, we have the elusive roots of romanticism; no mere Southron before Wordsworth could have added that touch of humble life! 6. P o f m (1728), p. 318. 7. Robert Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland from the Revolution to the Rebellion of 1745 (Edinburgh and London, 1861), p. 433. I am aware that the original Gentle Shepherdh-zá only four songs, but all of these occur after the first act. 8. The complete letter is given by Chambers {A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen, 4 vols. [Glasgow and London, 1835], I V , 1 3 0 - 1 3 1 . Chambers does not give the source of his text, but see Works, I I I , 243. 9. For a revival of the latter theory see the report (Edinburgh Scotsman, June 2 1 , 1924) of a paper read at New Hall before the Old Edinburgh Club. The name Worthy is suggested as coming from The Worthies, a club to which Ramsay

NOTES

157

is said to have belonged and to which he read his pastoral during the period of composition. 10. WorkSyll, 100. Although my collations were with the editto princeps, I give references to the edition of 1851 because of the rarity of the first. 1 1 . Beginning " M y faulds contain twice," Works, II, loa103. 12. J, I I , 142-143. Patip's speech at the top of p. 142 originally followed Peggy's first speech on p. 143. Sir William's first speech followed Patie's second, which with the preceding one by Peggy falls after the first speech; this was transferred, as I have said, to a later place. 13. For a description of this manuscript, see Robert Cochrane, Pentland Walks with their Literary and Historical Associations (Edinburgh, 1920), p. loi. 14. Caledonian Mercury, June 21, 1725. 15. Historical MSS. Commission, Report on the Manuscripts of His Grace the Ouke of Portland (London, 1901), VI, 9. 16. Hamilton's poetical dedication appears first in the second edition (1726), where it is unsigned. In Poems (1728) it has the initials W. H. 17. The deleted lines are: " N o w since the Royal Charles, and Right's restor'd, A Shepherdess is Daughter to a Lord. The bony Fundling that's brought up by Glaud, Wha has an Uncle's Care on her bestow'd. Her Infant Life I sav'd, when a false Friend Bow'd to the Usurper, and her Death design'd; To establish him and his in all these Plains That by right Heritage to her pertains. She's now in her sweet Bloom, has Blood and Charms Of too much Value for a Shepherd's Arms." 18. W. J . Lawrence, "Reviving 4'he Gentle Shepherd" (London Graphic, September i , 1923). Mr. Lawrence does not, because of the popular nature of his article, give his authority, but his account fits well with other evidence. Ramsay's second quarto appeared in June, 1728; there 'Îhe Gentle Shep-

158

NOTES

herd is still a pastoral comedy. An edition of the pastoral published by Ruddiman in 172g uses the same text, but indicates where the songs are to be inserted. We also know that 'fhe Gentle Shepherd was performed in Taylor's Hall on January 22, 1729 by schoolboys. It must have been late in 1728, then, that the change was made. It should also be perfectly clear that the influence was from Gay on Ramsay, and not vice versa, as is sometimes stated. 19. Appendix C. 20. For example, I have no record of an amateur performance in the United States, yet in Harvard College Library there is a copy of the play cut for acting purposes. 21. " A n Epilogue," Works, I, 339, and Теа-'ТаЫе Miscellany (London, 1730), p. 189. We can reject Smeaton's suggestion {Allan Ramsay, p. 86) of a performance in 1726 as lacking corroborative evidence. 22. An unpublished prologue by Ramsay, Egerton MSS., 2023. 23. Caledonian Mercury, February 17, 1736. 24. Caledonian Mercury, February 15, 1750. Too much reliance should not, however, be put in negative evidence, as the newspapers of the period are more remarkable for omissions than for news. The story of performances of "The Gentle Shepherd for Drummond first occurs in Hugo Arnot's History of Edinburghfrom the Earliest Accounts to the Present Time (Edinburgh, 1788, p. 368). Later writers vary the details, but all accounts agree that, public feeling being with the prisoner, the performances were extremely successful. 25. James Dibdin {Annals of the Edinburgh Stage, Edinburgh, 1888, p. 69) seems to be in error when he refers to performances in the spring of 1751. The Mercury records none for that year; moreover, all Dibdin's statements agree with notices for performances between April 23 and May 7 of the following year. 26. Caledonian Mercury, August 1 3 , 1 7 5 2 . 27. Caledonian Mercury, May 26, 1752. 28. Edinburgh Evening News, September 17, 1923. The article is based on two letters that take us back to 1840.

NOTES

159

29. Sir Archibald Geikie, A Long Lijes Work (London, 1924), p. 55. 30. The Life of Thomas Holcroft, ed. Colby, 2 vols. (London, 1925),!, 169-170. 3 1 . W. H. Logan, ed.. Fragmenta Scoto-Dramatìca, IJ15-58, (Edinburgh, 1835), pp. 28-29. Logan presumably had playbills for that season. Only one advertisement appeared in the Caledonian Mercury (May 2, 1758); it was for the second night. 32. Lawrence, " Reviving The Gentle Shepherd." 33. Caledonian Mercury, May 2, 1758. 34. Edinburgh Dramatic Review, I X (1824), 102 (June 5). 35. Edinburgh Scotsman, September 1 1 , 1923. The Glasgow and Edinburgh performances were intended as " t r y outs" for a London opening, which, however, did not take place. 36. For an unfavourable, but probably not entirely unbiassed, account of Mrs. Cargill's playing of Patie, see Memoirs of Mrs. Crouch (ed. M. J . Young, 2 vols., London, i8o6), I, 120-122. 37. Daily Post, November 28, 1732. 38. Mr. Lawrence, who is responsible for the account ("Reviving The Gentle Shepherd") gives the year 1754. But the facts fit 1752 much better; see Appendix C. 39. North Briton, V n , July 17, 1762. In the same issue we find this squib: " M r . MacPherson's fifteenth Course of Lectures on Oratory begaun yesternight, and will be continued timeously every evening, the Sabbath only excepted. Selected passages out of Allan Ramsay, and other celebrated writers, will be read for the better illustration of the precepts." Another choice " h i t " can be found in the issue of November 27,1762. 40. In the previous year he had translated Richy and Sandy, Ramsay's elegy on Addision. 41. Monthly Review, L V I I (1777), 82. 42. Notes and Queries, Sixth Series, I (1880), 35.

i6o

NOTES

43. Monthly (1781), 470. On the other hand, Mrs. Siddons {Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons, ed. Boaden [London, 1896], pp. 149-150) thought that the simple beauties of the original were to be seen in Tickell's translation. 44. Monthly Review, L X X V I (1787), 80. 45. Monthly Review, New Series, V I (1791), 170-172. 46. Some of the points of resemblance may be summarized (i) A knight who is very moral and kindly solves all the difficulties. (2) There is an underplot of Simon and Kattie similar to that of Roger and Jenny. (3) Two rogues correspond to Bauldy. (4) Bess and Jamie are found not only to be of gentle birth, but, like Peggy and Patie, to be cousins. (5) The peasant belief in witchcraft is ridiculed. (6) There is praise of learning and literature. (7) Helen, while spinning and singing, forecasts that Bess will be found of noble birth. (8) Bess in speaking against marriage advances the same arguments as Jenny, and like her is vanquished. (9) There are denunciations of drunkenness and immorality among the upper classes. (10) There are prologues to the scenes, and there are numerous songs. 47. David E . Baker, Biographia Oramatica, 3 vols. (London, 181a), I I I , 456. 48. Memoirs of Mrs. Crouch, 11, 49. Jeanette Marks, English Pastoral Drama from the Restoration to the Date of the "Lyrical Ballads" (London, 1908), p. 122. 50. Works, I I I , 251 ff. C H A P T E R IV 1. The year is from the title-page. The preface is dated January i . Volume I I of the Hive, which borrowed about sixteen songs from The Îea-Table Miscellany, was for sale on February 29, 1723/24 {British Journal of that date). 2. Gentleman's Magazine, N. S., X X X I X (1853), 370. 3. They are: On Conscience, On King James I his 'Three Mistresses, the Luvers Mane, The Floure of Womankind, and Comparison.

NOTES

i6i

4. See above, pp. 18-19. 5. In support of this statement, I quote from an unpublished poem to Ramsay by Anne Crossfield dated 1750: See how the Lads and Lasses thrang. Attentive to the Blithsome sang! When Dorty Bell begins to mane, What Wooer wad na turn again ? Or wha but hings his Lugs to hear. Of Scornfu' Nancy's flouting Leer? While Bessy Bell and Mary Gray Split a' the Laddies Hearts in Twa. (The poem is preserved among the Laing MSS.) From a mock elegy, yin Hobby ас on the Death of Allan Ramsay, written very probably before 1725, and preserved in the Library of the Writers to the Signet, I also quote: Now, wha'll lick o'er your auld Scots Tunes, Your Bessy Bells, and bonny Jeans, And a' your ither wanton Queans? And gar the young Fouck A Girn, an GafF, and Clap at Anes To hear the auld Gouk.

6. John Gibson Lockhart, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., 7 vols. [Edinburgh and London (1837-38)], I, 83. 7. Francis J . Child, ed.. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 5 vols. (Boston and New York, 1882-98). The ballads accepted by Child are: Sweet William's Ghost, Bonny Barbara Allan, Johnnie Armstrong, Bonny Earl of Murray, "Johnny Faa the Gypsy Laddie, and The Gaberlun CHAPTER V 1. Dibdin, Annals, p. 34. 2. From the Court of Session papers for December 1 4 , 1 7 2 7 , we learn that Aston was under the patronage of the Earl of Lauderdale, I.ord Somerville, and I.ord Belhaven. Ramsay's name does not appear in the case. 3. See above, pp. 18-19.

102

NOTES

4. Chambers, traditions, p. 365. R a m s a y was not at this time a member of the Society of High Constables, with whose actions Chambers is concerned. 5. Egerton MSS; 202J. 6. See the writer's letter to the London fimes Literary •Sa/i^/mi«/, November 14,1929. 7. See above, p. 37. 8. Smeaton, Ζ,ΐ/ί, p. 106. 9. R o b b Lawson Story oj the Scots Stage, Paisley, 1917, p. 157) says, without stating an authority, that R a m s a y was responsible for the company's visit to Dundee in 1734. 10. In the Caledonian Mercury for February 5,1736, we read of performances b y Signora Violante, a slack-rope walker, " at the N e w T h e a t r e in Carrubber's Close." Y e t an advertisement in the same journal for September 16 in calling for subscriptions for annual tickets refers to " t h e N e w Theatre in Carrubber's Close being in great Forewardness," and a notice of the opening in the issue of November 15 s a y s the new T h e a t r e is " t h o u g h t b y all Judges to be as complete, and finished with as good a T a s t e as any one of its Size in the three K i n g d o m s . " (Very little should be inferred from the use or none-use of a capital in the word new, for eighteenth-century printers had little respect for rules of capitalization.) T h e prologue read at the opening on November 8 suggests that the building was either new or thoroughly renovated. W e cannot deduce from the evidence with any certainty whether R a m s a y was in control in the season of 1735-36, or had taken it over during the following summer. 11. Vothcs, Curiosities, ψ. 122,. 11. I have examined without success the records of the T o w n Council, of the Edinburgh Presbytery, and of the General Assembly. 13. Dibdin, Annals, p. 49; Chalmers, ed.. Poems, I, xli; and Smeaton, Ζ,ζ/ί, p. 109. 14. From the holograph in the Henry E . Huntington Library. 15. Chambers, Biographical Dictionary, I V , 132.

NOTES

163

16. The original is in the National Library of Scotland. See also Historical MSS. Commission, Eighth Report (p. 313). 17. The original letters are in the National Library of Scotland. C H A P T E R VI 1. [James Maidment], Analecta Scotica, Series I (Edinburgh, 1834), p. 18. 2. Historical MSS. Commission, Fourteenth Report, The MSS. of the Duke of Roxburghe (London, 1894), Appendix, Pt. I l l , 54. 3. But see Notes and Queries, Eleventh Series, I I I (1911), 467-468, and IV (1911), 58 and 94. 4. Claudero [i. е., James Wilson], Miscellanies in Prose and Verse on Several Occasions (Edinburgh, 1766), pp. 66-67. 5. John Learmont, Poems, Pastoral, Satirical, Tragic, and Comic (Edinburgh, 1791), pp. 399-401. 6. It might be mentioned here that Ramsay was occasionally held up to Burns as a model. Henry Mackenzie wished him to imitate The Gentle Shepherd (H. W. Thompson, ed., Anecdotes and Egotisms oj Henry Mackenzie [London, 1927], p. 168). Troubled lest Burns should depend for his living on poetry, James Mylne {Poems Consisting of Miscellaneous Pieces and Two Tragedies [Edinburgh, 1790], p. 40) reminded him that Ramsay, at first petted and courted but later neglected, had had nothing to fear, because he had saved sufficient from his days of popularity. 7. George Galloway, Poems on Various Subjects, Scotch and English, Τ0 Which Are Added Songs and Jests (Edinburgh, 1792), p. 20. 8. Scots Magazine, L X X I I (1810), 419-421, 509-510, and 659. 9. J . H. A. Macdonald, Life Jottings of an Old Edinburgh Citizen (London, 1915), pp. 403-404. 10. Max Meyerfeld, Robert Burns, Studien zu seiner dichterischen Entwicklung (Berlin, 1899).

164

NOTES

11. Thomas Blair, Gìbbie and Wattie, A Pastoral on the Death of Alexander Maben Organmaker in Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1749). 12. Harry R. Warfel, Oavid Bruce Federalist Poet of Western Pennsylvania, Reprinted from the Western Pennsylvania Historical Review, Vol. V I I I , Nos. 3 and 4 (Pittsburgh, 1925),

p. 12.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS R E L A T I N G

TO

ALLAN R A M S A Y I Dative of the Deceased John Ramsay of Leadhills. From the Commissariot Record oj Lanark (XII, 145), Register House, Edinburgh. TESTAMENT

T h e testament dative and inventar of the goods geir sumis of money & debts q[ui]lk p[er]tained to umq[uhi]le John R a m say in Leidhills within the parochim of Crawfoord shereffdome of Lanark the t y m e of his decease wha deceast in the moneth of may Last by past faithfullie made and given up [be] Alison boar relict and exec[utr]ix dative Surrogat to the s[ai]d defunct in place of the proc[urator] Fiscali and office of exec[utr]ie dative B y dec[ree]t of surrogation of W m Wilkie of provansyde Com[missar] of Lanark as the samem of the date at L a n a r k the elevinth day of august 1685 years Bears In the First the s[ai]d defunct had the sums of money underwr[itte]n adebtit to him be the p[e]rsons efter sp[eci]eit as in efterment[ioned] viz Be T h o m a s Ross in Leidhills xlii lib princ[ipal] w[i]t[h] vii lib χ sh of bygaine @ [ = annual] rent preceding the defuncts decease Be James W h y t e wryter in douglas xxxvi lib with vi lib χ sh preceding the defuncts decease Be david telfer in neutoun of wigtoun xl lib Be M a t h e w bailzie in Crawfoord xiii lib Suma of the Inventar i i i i " xvi [ = 96] hb Followes the debt awand be the dead Item to Allan boar in Leidhill j'^l [ = 150] lib. Item to W m Lockup indum lanark iiii^^ [ = 80] lib Suma of the debt awand be the dead ij" xxx [ = 230] lib Sua the debt exceeds the goods

168

APPENDICES

I William Wilkie of provansyde Com[missar] of Lanark spe[ci]all[ie] constituí for confirmation of testa[men]ts understanding y* efter deu su[mmon]ding & Law[fu]ll w[ar]ning made befor me of edict of y® exe[cuto]rs & intra[mitte]rs w* y " goods & geir of the s[ai]d umq[uhi]le John R a m s a y and all others & c to have Compeired & c or else & c and that non[e] Compeired m y Fiscali wes decerned &c Thereft[er] at the earnest requeist & desyre of the s[ai]d Alison boar I have reponed & put her in m y s[ai]d Fiscali his place & office of exe[cutojrie dative as m y dec[ree]t of surrogation given Yropon bears Conforme to the qu[i]lk I make constitute ordaine & confirme the s[ai]d Alison boar in executrix dative in and to the s[ai]d defuncts goods & geir with power to her to intromett with &c. and yrwith &c P r o v y d i n g A l w y s e & c , and G[e]n[er] allie & c w h a being suorne made faith & c hes fund safficient Cau[tio]n as ane act made Y r u p o n Bears A t Lanark eleventh august 1685 ye^rs in p[rese]nce of W m Wilkie of provansyde Com[missa]r of L a n a r k sittand in judgement Compeired p[er]sonallie Y® s[ai]d Alison boar & gave in Y ° Invent[ar] above wr[itten]e w h a being suorne made faith the said Invent[ar] is leillie & trewlie given up nothing ommittit furth yrof and the goods & geir is sett to the j u s t availls and pryces therintill and fand Allan Boar in Leidhill Cau[tio]n that the goods and geir above wr[itten]e shall be made furthcomeand to all parties haveand interest thereto as law will w h a being p[er]sonallie p[rese]nt acts him his aires and exe[cutojrs w y t h effect and the s[ai]d executrix acts her her aires & exe[cuto]rs to warrand freith [ = free] relieve & skaithles keep her s[ai]d Cau[tione]r & his fors[ai]ds of y e s[ai]d C a u [tion]rie and of all coast skaith or damnage he or they can sustain yr[e]throw in any sort y[e]r[e] vpon ayr of y m hinc inde rexive [ = respective] asked acts sic sub[scrib]itur Allen Bower Alles Bower

II Apprenticeship of Robert Ramsay, brother of Allan Ramsay. From the Guild Register, Office of the Town Clerk, Edinburgh.

APPENDICES

169

'January i6, i6g¿. Robert Ramsay sone to the deceast Joh Ramsay late servant to the Lady Hopetoun entered prentice to Jerome Robertson parriwigmaker of this brugh for sex years.

III Baptisms of the Children of Andrew Crighton. From the Parochial Registers of Crawjordjohn and Crawford, County of Lanark, Register House, Edinburgh. IÇ March, i6ç6. Andrew Chreightone & Else Booar had a child baptized marie. гд April, i6çç. The same day by the same minister was baptized William Crightoun son lawfull to Andrew Crighton and Alison Boor. June 2.., 170J. Marion Crightoun daughter to Andrew Crightoun Grissell Colhart (?) was baptized by Mr. James Hepburn. March 15 (or between then and June 15), 1705. William . . . right . . . son to Andr[ew] Crightoun and Grissell Colhart was baptized by Mr. James Hepburn minister at Crawford.

IV Abstract of the Entries of the Baptisms of the Children of Robert Ross, Writer in Edinburgh, and Elizabeth Archibald. From the Parochial Registers of Edinburgh, Register House, Edinburgh. Chrystine James Andrew F.lizabeth Robert James Beatrice Andrew

Nov. Apr. July July March Apr. Nov. Feb.

27, 1683 2, 1685 20, 1686 29,1687 22, 1689 28, 1693 2, 1694 7, 1696

I70

APPENDICES

Burial of Robert Ross, Writer in Edinburgh. From the Record of Interments in Greyfriars Burying-Ground, Edinburgh, Register House, Edinburgh. JO March, 1703. Robert Ross wry ter in E d b ' aged 43 years, dyed of a decay upon Y e 29th & buried 30th by Y e mid south ailley.' VI

Apprenticeship of Allan Ramsay. From the Register, Office of the Town Clerk, Edinburgh.

Guild

ιγ March, 1704. Allan Ramsay sone Law[fu]ll to the deceased John Ramsay overseer to the Lady Hopetouns lead works enters prentice to Jerom Robertsone pirriwickmaker burges of E d ' for fyve yeares.

VII Burgesship of Allan Ramsay. From the Guild Register, Office of the Town Clerk, Edinburgh. IÇ Jully, 1710. Allan Ramsay perriwigemaker compeiring is made burges of this brugh as prentice to Jerome Robertsone perriwigemaker burges Y[e]r[e] of and gave his oath &c and payed to the Dean of Gild for his deues fyve pound & watch 24 B [ = shillings].

VIII The Marriage of Allan Ramsay. From the Register of Marriages . . . within the City of Edinburgh, Register House, Edinburgh. 14 Oecember, 1712. Allan Ramsay Wigemaker burgess in N. K . paroch and Christian Ross Daughter to the deceast Robert Rosse wry ter in S.S.E. paroch i6th November 14th December [1712]. ' Another Robert Ross, writer, was buried on April 2,1699.

APPENDICES

171

IX Baptism of the Children of Allan Ramsay. From the Parochial Registers of Edinburgh, Register House, Edinburgh. 6 October, 1713. Allan R a m s a y , piriwigmaker and Christian Ross his Spouse a: s[on]: n[amed]: Allan Witnesses]: John Symmor, William Mitchell and Robert Mein M e r t s burgesses and William Mitchell Baxter. N . K . [Parish]. j> October^ 17^4· Allane R a m s a y Weegmaker burgess and Christian Ross his Spouse a: d[aughter] n[amed]: Susanna Witnesses]. John Symers merchant and John Morison merchant the Child was born on the i s t Instant N . E . ρ October, 1715. Allan R a m s a y , weegmaker and Christian Ross his Spouse a: s: n: Niell W . Walter Boswall Sadler & John Symer M e r t . N . E . p j November, 1716. Allane R a m s a y weegmaker and Christian Ross his Spouse a: s: n: Robert W . John Symers M e r chant and Walter Boswell Saidler the Child was born on the l o t h Instant N . E . 10 August, 1725. Allan R a m s a y Bookseller & Christian Ross his Spouse a: d: n: Agnes W . James Norie Painter & Geo. Y o u n g C h y ' . born 9 Inst.

X Allan Ramsay as Witness to Baptisms. From the Parochial Registers of Edinburgh, Register House, Edinburgh. 25 June, 1722. George Y o u n g Chirurgeon and Janet Ross his Spouse a: s: n: George W . Robert Y o u n g Brewer in the W a t e r of Leith Alex'. Wilson Brewer in Edin. Allan R a m s a y Wigmaker there Born Y e 9th inst. [/7 September, 1723. A l e x ' Steven, wigmaker & Elizabeth Leslie his spouse, a: s: n: John W . M r . A l e x ' Laing of Y e a r heads & M r . A l e x ' R a m s a y , wigmaker.] JO March, 1725. George Y o u n g C h y ' Apoth'^ & Janet Ross his Spouse, a: s: n: T h o m a s W . A l e x ' Wilson L a t e Bailie & Allan Ramsie Bookseller Born i Inst.

172

APPENDICES XI

B u r i a l o f M e m b e r s of the F a m i l y of A l l a n R a m s a y . F r o m the Record of Interments in Greyfriars BuryingGround, Edinburgh, Register H o u s e , E d i n b u r g h . Christian Ross sp. to Allan Ramsay merch' . . . Decay. aSth of Mar. 1743. A child of Mr. Allan Ramsay Painter — 23 Apr. 1748. Ann Ramsay, Dec. 16, 1751.^ Miss Ann Ramsay, da. to Mr. Allan Ramsay Painter, Dec. 30. 1751· Mr. Allan Ramsay, L. 5 Dp. S. W. the blew ston a poete, old age, Jan. 9, 1758. Miss Ramsay, Daughter of the late Allan Ramsay Poet, Jan. 16, 1804. 3 D Ρ N Arch'^ McDonalds Headstone. XII T h e A c t i o n o f the T o w n C o u n c i l on R a m s a y ' s C o m plaint against L i t e r a r y P i r a c y . F r o m the Records of the "Town Council, Office of the T o w n C l e r k , E d i n b u r g h . 26 August, lyiç. The Same D a y , the Councill Upon ane Address from Allan Ramsay Representing that he was prejudged in his Interest and Reputation and that the Leidges are abused by some Printers Ballad Cryers and others by Printing and Causing to be Printed Poems of his Composure without his notice or allowance upon False and Uncorrect Coppies, As also that the Ballad Cryers refuse to Vend and Publish his papers Unless he give them at Rates below what really they can be printed for They Doe Therefore Discharge all Printers or Paper Cryers within this Citie or Suburbs to Print or Vend any Poems or Papers of his Composure without his Licence. And Ordains the said Paper Cryers to publish and Vend the » This is not the entry but merely the mention in the index, as the page is missing from the volume.

APPENDICES

173

said Allan Ramsay's Papers he allowing them one third of the Selling Price as their Profite Under the penaltie of twenty pounds Scots money and Confiscation of the Paper so vended and Printed, Besides forfeiture of the Paper Cryers their Priviledge of Publishing or Vending papers anent all which shall be a warrantt Ext. XIII Allan Ramsay as a Church Member. From the Records oj the Τown Council, Office of the Town Clerk, Edinburgh. 7 September, 1уг6. The Same Day Bailly John Bell Reported from the Committee appointed to visit the Troan Church that they having visited the Seats in the Kirk (new repaired) and Considered the Situation of the Sundry Families as they were before accomodated in the Same Space had Rentaled & appropriat the Seats as follows viz No. 9

Rent Allan Ramsay

i

α

XIV The Appointments of Allan Ramsay as Constable and Lieutenant of the Train Bands. From the Records oJ the 1"own Council, Office of the Town Clerk, Edinburgh. 4 January, IJ16. The same day the Councel Elected the persons after-named to be Constables for this present year viz Allan Ramsay Wigmaker. Ç May, IJ18. The same Day the Councill Nominate & Elected . . . Allan Ramsay mert to be Lieut to the Orange and green collours . . . who hereafter Compeared & Accepted their Offices and made Faith De fideli Administratione.

174

APPENDICES

IO March, 1736. The Council Elected the persons after named to be Constables of this City for the year ensuing, and Did Recomend to the Magistrats to Receive them viz Allan Ramsay merch[an]t.3 ' The constables elect were received, admitted, and qualified on January 6 , 1 7 1 6 and March 17,1736, respectively; I do not give the entry. XV

Allan Ramsay and the Castle Hill Property. From the Burgh

Register

of Sasines,

Office of the T o w n

Clerk,

Edinburgh. 28 April, IJ42. Pro Allano Ramsay filio Allani Ramsay Bibliophile et mercatoris in Edinburgho. In Dei Nomine Amen per hoc praesens publicum Instrumentum Cunctis pateat Evidenter et sit notum quod anno Incarnationis Domini Millesimo Septingentésimo Quadragesimo Secundo Mensis vero Aprilis die vigésimo octavo. E t Regni S: D : N : Georgii Secundi Dei Gratia Magnae Britanniae Franciae et Hiberniae Regis fideique Defensoris anno Decimo quinto In mei notarii publici Testiumque subscribentium presentia personaliter Accessit Honorabilis vir Marcus Sandilands unus Balivorum Burgi de Edinburgh Ad illam petiam fundi subscriptum lacentem et Designatum modo postea mentionatum E t Ibidem Jacobus Grindlay Scriba in Edinburgo procurator rite et legitime constitutus ас nomine quondam Domini Alexandri Ogilivie de Herglen unius Senatorum Collegie Justiciae ut mihi notario publice subscripto per ipsius procurationis literas contentas in quibusdam venditionis et alienationis Literis per ipsum Roberto Hope Chirurgo in Edinburgo ejusque heredibus et assignatis quibuscunque factis et concessis Ac super fundum petiae terrae Subscriptae productas et perlectas De data decimo quarto die mensis Martii anno Domini millesimo septingentésimo vicésimo séptimo Registratas in Libris Curiae dicti Burgi de Edinburgh

APPENDICES

175

primo die mensis Aprilis Instantis lucide constabat In et Ad quasquidem venditionis et alienationis Literas et procuratoriam Resignationis inibi contentam praefatus Robertus Hope per ipsius assignationis et Dispositionis Literas De data Decimo ocravo die mensis Septembris anno Domini Millesimo Septingentésimo Trigesimo tertio (pro causis onerosis inibi specificatis) fecit et constituit Allanum Ramsay Bibliophilan in Edinburgo in vitali reditu duranti omnibus suae vitae Diebus E t Allanum Ramsay ejus unicum Legitimum filium in feodo ejusque heredibus et assignatis quibuscunque dictus Robertus Hope ejus indubitatos cessionaries et assignatos prout in dictis Assignationis et Dispositionis Literis de data antedicta Etiam super fundum petiae terrae subscriptum productis et perlectis Latius continetur Per quamquidem Dispositionem potestatem specialiter reservatur dicto Allano Ramsay Seniori Disponete dictam petiam fundi ut liberet ullo tempore suae vitae consensu dicti Allani Ramsay junioris prout feodum ejusdem directe prorsum esset dicto Allano Ramsay seniori seipso In et Ad quasquidem venditionis et alienationis Literas et procuratoriam Resignationis inibi contentam et dictas Dispositionis et assignationis Literas immediate supra narratas dictus Allanus Ramsay senior per ipsius Jus et Dispositionem de data decimo die mensis Decembris ultimo elapsi fecit et constituit dictum Allanum Ramsay juniorem ejus filium ejusque heredes et assignatos quoscunque ejus indubitatos cessionarios et assignatos prout dictos Jus et Dispositio de data antedicta Etiam super fundum petiee terree subscriptum productos et perlectos latius proportat E t Ibidem (inquam) prefatus Jacobus Grindlay procurator prescriptus T O T A M E T I N T E G R A M illam petiam fundi adjacentem domui fusoriae he [hoc est] founding house ad communitatem Burgi de Edinburgh pertinenti prope montem Castri et ex boreali latere viae Regiae ducentis ad eundem quaequidem petiee fundi jacet fere ad occidentalem et partem ad borealem dictus domus fusoriee et consistit plus minus centum et octoginta pedes fundi ab orientem ad occidentem E t centum pedes ab austro ad boream E t quaequidem petia fundi magna ex parte antea erat hortus et pro presenti circundatur cum lapidéis mûris et dicto domo

176

APPENDICES

fusoriae ex occidenti australi et orienti partibus E t cujus confinia he boundary ex boreali est residuum antiquee fossee cespitie he faildyke currentam ab australi ulmo crescenti intra lapideum murum ex orientali ad australes ulmos crescentes intra lapideum murum ex occidenti E t quaequidem petia fundi antementionata est australis pars horti domorum ruinatorum vastae terrae septorum he parks and inclosures et pertinentium quae acquisi tae fuere per Dominum Samuelen McLellan nuper prepositum Edinburgi a communitate dicti burgi E t bondatae modo mentionato in A c t o Concilii dicti Burgi in favorem dicti Domini Samuelis McLellan D e data . . . die mensis M a i j anno Domini Millesimo sescentesimo nonagésimo octavo et dispositae fuerunt per illum dicto Domino Alexandro Ogilvie per dictum Robertum Hope a prefato Domino Alexandro Ogilvie acquisitae E t quaequidem petia fundi dictus Allanus R a m s a y senior inclosit et super eandem aedificavit D o m u m cum officinis et fecit Hortum partis ejusdem una cum omni jure titulo interesse juris clamio proprietate et possessione quae prefatae personae eorumque praedicessores et authores habuerunt habent seu quovis modo clamare aut pretendere poterint ad dictam petiam fundi ante mentionatam fustis et baculi ut mons est per Deliberationem in manibus dicti Balivi sursum reddidit pure et simpliciter Resignavit in favorem proque novo Infeofamento ejusdem praefato Allano R a m s a y juniori ejusque predictis tanquam j u s habentem modo antedicto Dandi et concedendi qua Resignatione sic rite et legitime facta et admissa dictus Balivus virtute et vigore sui officii et de speciale rogatu dicti procuratoris resignantis et Transmissionum dicti procuratoris statum possessionem corporalem actualem realem pariter et sasinam haereditariam Totius et integrae prefatae petiae terrae iacentis et bondatae et descriptae modo antementiato praefato Aliano R a m s a y juniori tanquam j u s habenti modo antedicto per terrae et lapidis fundi dictae petiae terrae Deliberationem Andree Clinton Scribae in Edinburgo tanquam actornato ac nomine dicto Allano R a m s a y centulit exhibuit et secundum Tenorem dictarum venditionis et alienationis L i t erarum et praefatum Transmissionum dedit pariter et deliberavit salvo j u r e cujuslibet super quibus omnibus et singulis

APPENDICES

177

praemissis praefatus Andreas Clinton T a n q u a m actornatus antedictus ac nomine praefati Allani R a m s a y junioris a me notario publico subscripto sibi fieri potest hoc presens publicam instrumentum seu plura publica instrumenta A c t a erant haec super fundi dictae petiae terrae Horas inter undecimam et duodecimam ante meridiem sub anno die mensi et R e g n o Regis quibus supra praesentibus ibidem Gulielmo Fisher D a v i d e H o g g et Alexandre Inglis serjandis dicti Burgi Testibus ad praemissa vocatis et requisites sic subtus E t ego vero Georgius H o m e etc William Fisher witnes Alexander Inglis witnes

APPENDIX В A NOTE CONCERNING BIOGRAPHICAL AIXAN

BIOGRAPHIES NOTICES

AND

OF

RAMSAY

AMONG the Laing M S S . in the University of Edinburgh there is preserved in two slightly different versions a short biography of Allan Ramsay. Although neither copy is signed and although the writer maintained a scrupulous aloofness of tone — even to the point of saying that he had this or that anecdote from the poet's son — there can be no doubt that both copies are in the hand of Allan Ramsay the Painter. There are slight inaccuracies in dates, but the document is of great value, coming as it does from one so close to the poet. It has been, with one or two exceptions, curiously overlooked b y biographers and editors of Ramsay. When we come to printed notices of the poet we find little before the 1790's. In 1783, John Pinkerton took occasion in his Select Scottish Ballads to sneer at Ramsay's trade and his bottle companions; in the same year, however, W m . T y t l e r made a few complimentary remarks in his edition of the works of James I. In 1784 Ramsay's letter to Smibert (1736) was published in the Gentleman's Magazine, but the motive was not to contribute information about the poet, but about his son, who had just died. In 1792 a story without foundation, to the effect that Ramsay had died a bankrupt, leaving his debts to be paid by his son, was inserted in the second edition of Lord Gardenstone's Miscellanies in

APPENDICES

179

Prose and Verse. But these notices were mere chance allusions; the first attempts at biographical studies were in 1797. In that year "Philo-Scoticus" contributed Memoirs oj the Lije of Mr. Allan Ramsay^ a worthless article based apparently on gossip, to the Scots Magazine. In the same year a short biography was prefixed to a Glasgow edition of Ramsay's Poems, and of llie Gentle Shepherd·, the writer, although guilty of some mistakes, took pains to get at facts. But the study of Ramsay's life may be said to start with Chalmers and Woodhouselee's edition of his poems in 1800. Although they were aware of the existence of a biography by Ramsay the Painter, these editors preferred to write the life anew. (Mr. Gibson thinks they took certain information from the MS. Life.) Conscientiously they interviewed the poet's daughter and people who remembered him; they examined official records, and they consulted newspapers and magazines. It is safe to say that every subsequent editor of Ramsay, with one or two exceptions, has been indebted to them. Neither Irving {Lives of the Scottish Poets, Edinburgh, 1804) nor the editor of The Gentle Shepherd in 1808, though they were highly critical of Chalmers and Woodhouselee, contributed new material. In 1816 Alexander Chalmers reprinted, with a few changes for the worse, the MS. Life in the General Biographical Dictionary. Tennant, who edited Ramsay in 1819, seems to have drawn in part on this source. " T . T . , " the writer of the article on Ramsay in the Lives of the Scottish Poets (London, 1822), and Robert Chambers {Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen, Glasgow, 1835) followed closely in the steps of Chalmers and Woodhouselee, although they interpreted certain facts differently and Chambers added one or two documents.

i8o

APPENDICES

It was an anonymous writer in Hogg's Weekly Instructor (1846, misnumbered 1845) who made the next great contribution to the biography of Ramsay. Unfortunately, he drew on his imagination rather than on sober fact — his account of Ramsay's courtship is an excellent example — so that no reliance can be put in his work. This would not matter, however, if Smeaton {Allan Ramsay, [1896]) had not accepted the effusion at full value; consequently, the only complete study of Ramsay that has yet appeared is marked by such gross inaccuracy and incompetence that it can hardly be said to be worth the paper it is printed on. It is a pleasure to turn from it to the work of Mr. Andrew Gibson, New Light on Allan Ramsay (1927). This investigator, doing patient research in a limited field (to 1720) was amply rewarded. At times, however, in his healthy reaction from the carelessness of his immediate predecessor, he overstated his case; moreover, certain documents apparently eluded even his careful eye.

APPENDIX С PERFORMANCES

OF " T H E

GENTLE

SHEPHERD" T H I S list is n o t m e a n t t o be complete; nevertheless, it

m a y be of use and interest. T h e chief sources are newspapers and magazines of the d a y , playbills in H a r v a r d College L i b r a r y and the L i b r a r y o f the W r i t e r s to the Signet, and such books as G e n e s t , D i b d i n , Seilhamer, and A l l a r d y c e Nicoli. L

SCOTTISH

PERFORMANCES

January 22, 1729. A school-play in Taylor's Hall, Edinburgh. August 27, 1729. Haddington Grammar School. February 4 and 5, 1736. Montrose; by amateurs for charity. April 17, 24, M a y 12, June 22, July 7, August 13, 18, and September i , 1752. Edinburgh. August 7, August 28, September 11, 1754. Edinburgh. November 23, 1756. Edinburgh, " b y desire." April 29, M a y 2, 4, 6, II, 16, and 20, December 30, 1758. Edinburgh; professional. March 4, 14, and M a y 10, 1763. Edinburgh. January 17, 1764. Edinburgh. March 13, 1765. Edinburgh. July 9, 1808. Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. M a y 10, 1809. Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. April 30, 1810. Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. April 24, 1811. Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. January 19, 1813. Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. M a y 16,1814. Theatre Royal, Edinburgh.

I82

APPENDICES

September 26,1818. Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. June 4,1824. Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. May 22, June 7,1826. Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. May 9, 1827. Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. March 18, May 17, 1828. Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. May 28, June 4, 1829. Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. September lo, 1833. Adelphi Theatre, Edinburgh. April 28, May 20, 1836. Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. March I, 1841. Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. April 12, 1842. Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. October 20, 1851. Adelphi Theatre, Edinburgh. March 17, 1852. Adelphi Theatre, Edinburgh. March 14, 1853. Adelphi Theatre, Edinburgh. November 13, 1876. Gaiety Theatre, Glasgow. September 3, week of, 1923. Theatre Royal, Glasgow. September 10, week of, 1923. King's Theatre, Edinburgh. II.

ENGLISH

PERFORMANCES

(London, unless otherwise noted.) April (?), November 25, 26, 30, December 2, 1730. Drury Lane. April 23, May 3 1 , 1731. Drury Lane. November 30, 1732. St. Andrew's Day; York Buildings. January 10, 27, February 5, 1 1 , March 3, 7, 14, 19 (or 20), April 2, 15, 1752. Haymarket. June 30, 1753. Haymarket. June 3, 1756. Haymarket. April 22, 1757. Haymarket. January 25, March 13, June 8, 1758. Haymarket. February 21, March 13, April 18, 1759. Haymarket. December i , 1759 ("12th and last time"). Newcastle. May 2, September i , December 19, 1760. Haymarket. July 25, August 4, 1760. Durham. September 1 1 , 18, 25, October 2, 9, 1 1 , 1 6 , 23, and one other 1760. Newcastle. May II, June 2 , 1 7 6 1 . Haymarket. October 12, 20, 29, 1761. Newcastle.

APPENDICES

183

July 28,1762. Haymarket. March 8, September 15, 1763. Haymarket. July 26, 1763. Newcastle. January 24, April 9, September 16, 1764. Haymarket. July 21, December 18, 1764. Newcastle. M a y 16, 1765. Haymarket. April 22, M a y 29, 1766. Drury Lane and Haymarket. March 17, 1766. Newcastle. July 6, 1767. Newcastle. February 22, 1768. Haymarket. February 27, 1769. Haymarket. September 21, 1772. Haymarket. M a y 9, 1774. Drury Lane. February 20, November 20, 1775. Haymarket. September 17, 1778. Haymarket. October 29, 1781. Drury Lane. January 15, February 2, September 18, 28, November 23, December 14, 1782. Bath. October 2 and 9, 1782. Bristol. January 9, 18, M a y 17, 1783. Bath. July II, 1783. Bristol. October 19, 1786. Drury Lane. March 12, 1787. Drury Lane. December 22 and 26, 1787. Bath. June 28, July 2, 1788. Bath. M a y 27, 1789. Drury Lane. February 17, M a y 21, 1789. Bath. June I, 1789. Bristol. November 20, 1790. Bath. February 3, 1791. Bath. January 3, 1791. Bristol. August 3, 1792. Bristol. M a y 23, 1794. Covent Garden. February 6, 1796. Bath. June 8, 1802. Drury Lane. June 27, July 3 and 8, 1817. Covent Garden.

184

APPENDICES I I I . AMERICAN PERFORMANCES

June 7, 1786. New York. February 4, 1791. Philadelphia. June 5, 1795. New York. April 30, 1796. Charleston, S. C. April 30,1798. New York.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY A l l newspapers, magazines, and learned journals are listed under Newspapers, all collections of M S S . under Manuscripts.

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188

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ARNOT, HUGO.

Patie and Peggy: Or The Fair Foundling. A Scotch Ballad Opera. As it is Acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane. With the Musick prefix'd to each Song. London, 1730.

C I B B E R , THEOPHILUS.

[ J A M E S W I L S O N ] . Miscellanies in Prose and Verse on Several Occasions. Edinburgh, 1766.

"CLAUDERO,"

Pentland Walks with their Literary and Historical Associations. Edinburgh, 1920.

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CROUCH,

2

vols. London,

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189

Essay on the Question "Whether have the exertions of Allan Ramsay or Robert Fergusson done most honour to Scottish poetry"; Wilhe and Jamie, an eclogue in the Scottish dialect. Edinburgh, 1791. C U N N I N G H A M , A L L A N . Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters and Sculptors and Architects. 6 vols. London, 1829-33. The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern; With an Introduction and Notes. 4 vols. London, 1825. D I B D I N , J A M E S . Annals of the Edinburgh Stage. Edinburgh, 1888. Dictionary of National Biography Founded in 1882 by George Smith, edd. Stephen and Lee. 22 vols. London, n. d. GUMMING, R O B E R T .

Literary Hours; or Sketches, Critical, Narrative, and Poetical. 3 vols. London, 1804. English Association. See Neilson. F A I R L E Y , JOHN. Lauriston Castle. Edinburgh, 1925. DRAKE, NATHAN.

FOOTE, SAMUEL. FORBES,

THE

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HON.

MRS.

ATHOL.

London, 1771. Curiosities of a Scots

Charta Chest.

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GALLOWAY, GEORGE.

GARDEN,

FRANCIS,

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LORD

G E I K I E , SIR ARCHIBALD.

A

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2nd ed.

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New Light on Allan Ramsay. Edinburgh and Belfast, 1927.

GIBSON, ANDREW.

GRAY, W .

FORBES.

An Edinburgh Miscellany.

Edinburgh,

[1925]. Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns in ihrer Stellung zu Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, Unpublished Inaugural Dissertation. Freiburg University, Germany.

HARDER, HERMAN.

Ipo

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Historical Manuscripts Commission. Eighth Report. London, 1881. Fourteenth Report. The Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Roxburgh. London, 1894. Report on the Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Portland, K. G., Preserved at Welbeck Abbey. 9 vols. London, 1901. Report of the Laing Manuscripts. Preserved in the University of Edinburgh. 2 vols. London, 1914 and 1925. HOLCROFT, Life of Thomas . . ed. Colby. 1 vols. London, 1925. H U N T , L E I G H . Men, Women, and Books. 2 vols. New York, 1847. J A M E S T H E F I R S T . King of Scotland. See Tytler. LANARK. See Manuscripts and Robertson. LAWRENCE, WILLIAM J . "Reviving The Gentle Shepherd." London Graphic, September, 1923. LAWSON,

RoBB. The Story of the Scots Stage. Paisley, 1917.

Poems, Pastoral, Satirical, Tragic and Edinburgh, 1791. L O C K H A R T , J O H N G I B S O N . Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. 7 vols. Edinburgh and London, 1837. LEARMONT,

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[LOGAN, W . H . ,

History of Civilization in Scotland. 4 Paisley and London, 1896.

MACKINTOSH, JOHN.

vols.

Spite and Malice; Or, A Laughable Accident, A Dramatic Sketch. To which is Added An Humble Attempt to Convert The Gentle Shepherd Into English Prose. In Two Acts. London, 1 8 1 1 .

MACLAREN, ARCHIBALD.

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[MAIDMENT, JAMES], Analecta Scotica. Series I. Edinburgh, 1834. MAITLAND, WILLIAM. T h e History of Edinburgh from its Foundation to the Present Time. Edinburgh, 1753. Manuscripts and Manuscript Material. British Museum: Egerton MSB., 2023; Additional Manuscripts, 1 2 1 1 5 . Church of Scotland, Manuscript Records of the Proceedings of the General Assembly of . . . City of Edinburgh: Parochial Registers of Baptisms; Parochial Registers of Marriages; Record of Interments in Greyfriars Churchyard; Guild Registers; Burgh Register of Sasines; and Records of the Town Council. Henry E . Huntington Library, California, Poems of R a m say. Lanarkshire; Parochial Records of Baptisms; Commissariot Records. National Library of Scotland. Eaglescarnie M S S . University of Edinburgh. Laing M S S . MARKS, JEANETTE. English Pastoral Drama from the Restoration to the Date of the " L y r i c a l Ballads." London. [19083. MAX. Robert Burns, Studien zu seiner dichterischen Entwickelung. Berlin, 1899. . MITCHELL, JOSEPH. Poems on Several Occasions. 2 vols. London, 1729. MEYERFELD,

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192

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Prefixed an Authentic Life of Allan Ramsay, and an Inquiry into the Origin of Pastoral Poetry; The Propriety of the Rules Prescribed for it; and the Practice of Ramsay. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1808. Poems. Edinburgh, 1721. Poems. 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. 2 vols. London, 18СЮ. Poems. Selected and Arranged with a Biographical Sketch of the Poet. By J . Logie Robertson, London and Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1887. The Tea-Table Miscellany: Or, Allan Ramsay's Collection of Scots Sangs. London, 1730. The Works of . . . With Life of the Author by George Chalmers and an Essay on his Genius and Writings by Lord Woodhouselee. 3 vols. London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, 1851. R A M S A Y OF O C H T E R T Y R E , J O H N . Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century from the Manuscripts o f . . ., ed. Allardyce. 2 vols. Edinburgh and London. 1888. Records of the Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland. 5 vols. Edinburgh, 1866-85. Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, Third Series. 1 1 vols. Edinburgh, 1908 and later. R O B E R T S O N , J O H N , ed. Selections from the Registers of the Presbytery of Lanark, Published for the Abbotsford Club. Edinburgh, 1839. Ross, A L E X A N D E R . Helenore or The Fortunate Shepherdess, a Poem in the broad Scotch dialect. Aberdeen, 1768. Royal Burghs of Scotland. Records of the Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland With extracts from other Records. 5 vols. Edinburgh, 1866-85. S H I R R E F S , A N D R E W . Jamie and Bess, or The Laird in Disguise, A Scots Pastoral Comedy in Imitation of the Gentle Shepherd. Aberdeen, 1787.

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INDEX

INDEX Absolute Unlawfulness oj the Stage Entertainment, 114 Academy of St. Luke, 34 Addison, Joseph, 59, 151, n. 19 Address to George Orummond, An, 114 Allan, Lieut. Adam, 92 Allan Ramsay Metamorphosed . . 129-130 Arbuckle, James, 124 Arbuthnot, John, 29 Archers, Royal Company of, 32, "5 Archibald, Elizabeth, 24 Aston, " T o n y , " 33, 113-114, " 7 Auld Lang Syne, 68, 109 Bagpipes No Musick, 29 Balnevis, Henry, 106 Battel, The. See The Morning Interview Beggar's Opera, The, 81, 87, 93 Bennet, Sir William, 124 Bessy Bell and Mary Gray, 68, 109 Bethune, G., 93 Blair, Thomas, 134 "Blind H a r r y , " 109 Bonnor, Charles, 95 Bower, Alison (Alice), 8, 11, 19, 168, 169, 170 Bower, Allan, 8, 168, 169 British Journal, The, 126 Brodi e, Alexander, Lord Lyon, 35 Brown, John, 143 Bruce, David, 134

" B u c k , Geordie," 131 Burchet, Josiah, 74, 90, 124 Burns, Robert, 51, 54, 13Ì-133. 134,150,163 Bute, Lord, 89 Cadenus and Vanessa, 97 Caledonian Mercury, 35, 83, 84, 98, 99, 100, 123, 131 Carlops, 85 Castle Hill (Castle Bank), Edinburgh,37-39,175-178 Chalmers, Alexander, 180 Chalmers, George, 3, 7, 22, 41, 42, 77.119,139.180 Chambers, Robert, 21, 45, 114, 120, 180 Charles, Prince, 42 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 41, 57,104 Child, Francis J., 110 Choice Collection ..., A (Watson's), 100 Christ's Kirk on the Green, 28, 54 Cibber, Theophilus, 90 " C l a u d e r o , " 131-132 Clever Of come. The, 65-66 Cockain, Sir Aston, 115 Congreve, WiUiam, 59 Court, The, WÇ, Crawford (moor), 8, 16 Crichton Andrew, II, 1 9 , 1 4 2 , 1 4 3 , 170 Crossfield, Anne, 161 Crouch, Memoirs oj Mrs., 95 Cummings, R . , 132

200

INDEX

Cuninghame, Dr. Alexander (later. Sir Alexander Dick), 9, 38, 40741,42,45. Curii, Edmund, 97,128 Dalhousie, earls of, 3 Devil of a Duke, the, 115-116 Dibdin, James, 119 Dick, Sir Alexander. See Cuninghame Digges, West, 91 Douglas, Janet, of Muthill, 7 Drake, Nathan, 155 Drummond, Robert, 83-84 Dryden, John,104 Dunbar, William, 49, 107 D ' U r f e y , Thomas, 126 Eagle and the Robin Redbreast, the, 108 Easy Club, T h e , 25-28 Edinburgh Burgh Register of Sasines, 175178 Greyfriars Church, 133 Guild Register, 4, 22, 169, 170, 171 Parochial Registers, 170, 172 Princes Street Gardens, 133 Ramsay Gardens, 133 Records of Greyfriars Burying Ground, 171, 173 Records of the town Council, 173-175 Register of Births, 6 Register of Marriages, 171 Taylor's Hall, 83 Edinburgh Company of Players, 117 Eglintoun, Countess of, 80 Elibank, Lord, 38, 49

Epistle to John Wardlaw, 150 Epistle to Mr. Я . i . , 119 Ever Green, the, 30; sources, 99100; date, 100; more volumes intended, l o o - i o i ; editions, 101 ; Ramsay's editorial practices, 102-109 Fables and tales, 29, 36 Falls of Clyde, the, 95 Fergusson, Robert, 54, 132 Flight of Religious Piety ..., the, 120, 129 Forbes, Sir David, 78 Freiris of Berwick, the, 66-6η Gardenstone, Lord, 179 Garth, Samuel, 59 G a y , John, 49, 59, 151. See also the Beggar's Opera Geikie, Sir Archibald, 85 Gentle Laird, the, 94-95 Gentleman's Magazine, 118 Gentle Shepherd, the, 30, 54; authorship, 73; site, 73, 133; origin and development, 7 4 75, summary of plot, 75-76; early drafts, 76-80; first edition, 80-81; changes in text, 81-82; stage history, 82-go, 182-185; adaptations, 90-93; influence, 93-96; popularity, 96 Gibson, Andrew, 19, 23, 25, 139, 142,143,181 Glasgow Bibliographical Society, T h e , 155 "Goose-Pie," T h e , 3 8 , 4 1 , 1 3 4 G r a y , Forbes, 69 Great Eclipse, On this, 28 Grub-street пае Satyre, 29

INDEX Habbyac on Allan Ramsay, An, i6i Haddington Grammar School, 8i, 83 Halles, Lord, 102, 103 Hamilton of Gilbertfield, William, 54, 109,124 Harderm Herman, 70-71 Hardyknute, 100 Helenore, 94 Henryson, Robert, 104-105 Hudibras, 125 Hunt, Leigh, 96 Highland Reel, The, 95 Hogarth, William, 125 Hogg's Weekly Instructor, 24,181 Horace, 14, 15, 60-62, 63 Irving, David, 180 Jamie and Bess, 94, 160 Jenny and Meggy, 74 Jolly Beggars, The, 70 Jonson, Ben, 58 Katy's Answer, 69 La Fontaine, Jean de, 62, 6 5 , 1 5 1 152 Lamentation, The, 26, 27 La Motte, Houdar de, 6 2 - 6 4 , 1 5 1 152 Lanark, County of Commissariat Record, 168-169 Parochial Records, 170 Law, John, 50 Law, William, 114 Lawrence, W. J . , 83, 87 Leadhills, 5, 17, 20, 21 Learmont, John, 95-96, 132 Licensing Act, The, 1 1 7 , 123 Lindsay, Hon. Patrick, 1 2 1 - 1 2 2

20I

Lindsay, Sir David, 18-19, l o i , 114 Linley, Thomas, 91 Lives of the Scottish Poets, The, 13 Logan, W. H., 86 Mackenzie, Henry, 163 Maclaren, Archibald, 92-93 Maid of Bath, The, 89 Marks, Jeanette, 95-96 Mill, an actor, 85-86 Millar, Andrew, 98 Miller and his Man, The, 65 Milton, John, 53, 59 Mitchell, Joseph, 154 Monk and the Miller s Wife, The, 65,66-67 Morning Interview, The, 28 Montgomery, Alexander, 54 Monthly Review, 91-92 Montrose, 83 MS. Life (of Ramsay), 4, 8, 9 , 1 5 , 5 1 . 5 7 . 7 5 . 8 2 . 139. 148.179 Murray, Lord, 133 Mylne, James, 163 My Peggy is a Young Thing, 68 Nanny-0, 68 New England, 125 New Miscellany . . . , A, γι North Briton, 89,159 Nuptials, The, 30, 1 1 5 O'Keefe, John, 95 Old Man's Best Argument, The, 69 Old Testament, The, 59 "Orestes," 130-131 Oxford, Earl o f , 80 Patie and Peggy, 90 Patie and Roger, 28, 74 Pennsylvania, 134

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INDEX

Petition to . . . Ouncan Forbes, A, ii8 "Philo-Scoticus," 180 Pickens, E., 132 Pinkerton, John, 179 Plain Dealer, 126-127 Poem to the Memory of.. . Pitcairn, A, 28 Poems (Ramsay), 7720, 28; 772/, 28-29; 1727, 35; 1728,35 Pope, Alexander, 28, 59-60 Prior, Matthew, 59, 68 Privy Council of Scotland, The Register of the, 4 Prologue, A, 111 Prologue to Aurengzebe, A, 111 Proverbs, A Collection of Scots, loi Purves, Sir William, 78 Ramsay, Allan: ancestry, 3-8, 10; place of birth, 8; date of birth, 8-10; boyhood, 12; education, 13-18; early reading, 18-19; death of mother, 19; leaves Leadhills, 19; supposed desire to be a painter, 19-21 ; apprentice and burgess, 22, 171 ; places of business, 23, 31; names of his signs, 23, 31; marriage, 24, 171; Easy Club, 25-28; major publications, 28-30,34-36; change of trade 30-31; lieutenant of the Train Bands, 32, 174; seeks a pension, 32; trouble with pirates, 32, 173-174; elected to the Archers, 32; a constable, 32, 34, 174-175; his circulating library, 33-34, 146, 147; a pew holder, 32-33, 174; seeks a pension for his son, 34; opens a theatre, 36, 117-123; con-

tinues writing, 36; various activities, 37; plans for a house, 37-39; date of retirement, 3941, 175-178; last days, 41-43; his children, 43-44, 172; appearance, 45; character, 4550; Jacobitism, 47-48; attitude toward poetry, 70-72; bibliographies of his works, 155; as a witness, 172; burials in his family, 173; supposed bankruptcy, 179; not a barber, 24, 127 Ramsay, Allan, the Painter (son of the poet), 4,34,44,45,179. See also MS. Life Ramsay, Captain John, 7 Ramsay, John (father of the poet), 3.4,5.6,7,11,168-169 Ramsay, John (great grandfather of the poet), 3, 7 Ramsay of Ochtertyre, John, 141 Ramsay, Robert (brother of the poet), 6, 22, 143, n. 58, 169170 Ramsay, Robert (grandfather of the poet), 3, 5, 6 Ramsaysof Cockpen, 3, 4 Robert, Richy, and Sandy, 68 Robertson, John, 17 Ross, Alexander, 94 Ross, Christian, 24,25,56,170,173 Ross, Robert, 24, 25,170,171 Roxburghe, Countess Dowager of, 124 Royal Burghs, Convention of, 48 Saddle . .., the, 130 "Scot, Ar.," 108 Scots Cantata, Α., 11 ζ Scots Magazine, 130, 131, 150, 180 Scotsman, The, 87, 156

INDEX Scots Songs, 28, 145 Scott, Alexander, 1 0 2 - 1 0 3 , 1 0 6 , 1 0 7 Scott, Sir Walter, 1 1 0 Sempills, The, 54 Shakespeare, William, 58 Shirrefs, Andrew, 94 Simmons, E. J . , 153 Smeaton, Oliphant, 7, 1 1 , 1 3 - Ч , 24, 29, 1 1 6 - 1 1 7 , 1 1 9 , 181 Smibert, John, 36, 45 Smith, Alexander Howland, 143 Smith, M. E . , 1 5 1 - 1 5 2 Smollett, Tobias, 131 Some Few Hints . . 114 Somerville, Thomas, 5 1 , 1 5 0 Spenser, Edmund, 58 Statistical Account. . 20 Steele, Sir Richard, 28,59,124 Tale of Three Bonnets, A, 28, 29,32 Tales and Sketches 139-140 Tartana, 28 Tea-Table Miscellany, the, 30, 35, 36; problems in dating, 97-98; sub-titles, 98; editorship of Vol. I V , 99; Ramsay's editorial practices, 109-110 Thimble, The, 150

Thomson, James, 73 Tickell, Richard, 91 Turner, Margaret, 91-92 Tytler, William, 1 2 6 , 1 7 9 Uhlemayr, Benedikt, 1 5 1 - 1 5 2 Union, Act of, 22 Vanderstop, Cornelius, 91 Violante, Signora, 162 Fisión, The, 107-108, 149 Ward, W., 91 Wardlaw, Lady, 100 Watson, James, 100 PFeeily Journal, 127 Whinbush Club, The, 2 1 , 32 Whitefield, George, 46 Widovi Can Bake, The, 69 Wilson, Α., 132 Wilson, Sir Daniel, 148 Wilson, Sir James, 151 Wodrow, Robert, 33-34 Woodhouselee, Lord, 180 Worthies, The, 156 Yair, Mrs., 147

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