Part 2 (1/2)

Fro the dreary depression of the ti the Union, when Scotsht surcease fro into studies of various kinds, but principally of English poetry In a letter, hitherto unpublished, addressed to his friend Andrew Gibb, who appears to have resided at or near West Linton, he rerieving o'er what cannot be mended now,--the sale o' our unhappy country to the Southron alliance by a wheen traitors, who thought hts In Willie Shakspeare's et the dark days for trade, and in auld Chaucer's Tales, and Spenser's 'Queen,' in John Milton's majestic flow, in Giles and Phineas Fletcher, in rare Ben and our ain Drulories o' the days that are past'

That we may accept Ramsay's account of the studies of Patie, the Gentle Shepherd, as a type of his own is warranted by so more than tradition The internal evidence of his works throws a strong colour of probability over the theory When Sir William Worthy, who as a Royalist had been co the times of the Commonwealth, inquires ere the books his son, whom he had committed to the care of Symon, his shepherd, to be reared as his own child, was in the habit of reading, the honest old servant replies--

'When'er he drives our sheep to Edinburgh port, He buys sos, or sport; Nor does he want o' them a rowth at will, And carries aye a poochfu' to the hill

Aboot ane Shakspeare--an' a famous Ben, He aften speaks, an' ca's the, An' ane ca'd Cowley, loyal to his king, He kens fu' weel, an' gars their verses ring

I soreat a phrase About fine poems, histories, and plays

When I reproved his, ”Wi' this,” quoth he, ”on braes I crack wi' kings”'

By the side-light thrown on Raain soermination To the poetsin the current literary medium of the day or in the vernacular of the country; to Robert Sempill's _Life and Death of the Piper of Kilbarchan_; to Williahland Host_--in addition to Drue quoted above; to Willia Words of Bonnie Heck_, and to others of less note, he seems to have devoted keen and enthusiastic attention

Lieutenant Hamilton it was (as Ramsay admits in the poetical correspondence maintained between them) who first awakened within him the desire to write in the dialect of his country--

'When I begoud first to cun verse, And could your ”Ardry Whins” rehearse, Where Bonny Heck ran fast and fierce, It warm'd my breast; Then emulation did me pierce, Whilk since ne'er ceast'

There was, however, another influence at work, quite as potent, sti his poetic fancy Amid the beauties of the 'Queen of Cities'

he lived, and the chars sank deep into his impressionable nature In whatever direction he looked, frolorious natural picture leam of the silvery estuary of the Forth, with fertile reaches of green pasture-land intervening, and the little villages of Picardy, Broughton, and Canone, while beyond the silver streak, beautified by the azure enchantlowed in the sunshi+ne the heath-clad Lomonds and the yelloealth of the fields of Fife Did the youthful poet turn eastward, froe of his on Arthur Seat, the mouth of the noble Firth, dotted with sail, was full in vieith the shadowy outlines of the May Island, peeping out like a spirit from the depth of distance, and nearer, the conical elevation of North Berwick Law and the black-topped precipitous , in conificent see of ashed villages glea pearls, behind which stretched the fertile carse of East Lothian, rolling in gently undulating uplands back to the green Laazed southward, did his eye not catch the fair expanse of Midlothian, as richly cultivated as it was richly wooded, extending before him like a es, past Dalkeith--'which all the virtues love,' past Lasswade, past Roslin's castled rock, past Dryden's groves of oak, past caverned Hawthornden, until earth and sky seemed to meet in the misty horizon line of the Moorfoots? And ard, was not the eye guided by the grassy grandeur of the Pentland Range, until beauty waslike a painted scroll froow?

Fairer scene never nurtured poet in 'the fine frenzy of his art'; and in long excursions during his spare hours, ahs_ of the Pentlands, a the banks of both the Esks, by Al waters of the Water of Leith, our Caledonian Theocritus fed his gerenius on food that was destined to render hireatest and the most breezily objective of British pastoral poets

From 1707 to 1711 thus did Allan Ramsay 'live and learn,'--a youth whose nature, fired by the one by, already longed to add so of value to the cairn of his country's literature Such, too, were the facts of which, at his request, the worthy lawyer, Mr James Ross, was placed in possession when he was called on to decide whether his friend, the 'poetically-rata_ from the point of view of a prospective son-in-law That the 'pedigree' of the young aspirant was accepted as satisfactory e of Allan Ra the New Year festivities of 1712 A woman, at once of considerable personal attractions, sound coe of the world, a capital houseithal, and though not devoid of a certain modicu, such, in brief, was the lady who for thirty years was to be the faithful partner of Ra with hi lines wherein he described her The song of 'Bonny Chirsty'

ritten after nearly seven years of wedded life The sentiments therein expressed speak better than coe One verse of it reen!

Sweet taste the peach and cherry; Painting and order please our een, And claret makes us merry: But finest colours, fruits, and flowers, And wine, though I be thirsty, Lose a' their charms and weaker powers, Compared wi' those of Chirsty'

About a year before his e, Ramsay had left the shop in the Grassmarket, where he had commenced business in 1707, and had established hih Street in premises already described, and which exist to this day There, under his sign of the 'Flying Mercury,' he toiled and sang, and chatted and cracked jokes with all and sundry, from sunrise to sunset, his wit and his hu many customers to his shop

Verily, a sunny-souled uish his cheery _bonhomie_ and self-confidence

CHAPTER IV

THE EASY CLUB; EARLY POEMS; EDINBURGH OF LAST CENTURY--1712-16

Ra-point of his career To him, as to every ations he assu a wohter than ever before, the responsibilities of his new relation crystallised into the ies hitherto diffused throughout numberless diverse channels Seldom has the philosophy of wedded bliss been more felicitously stated than in his _Advice to Mr ---- on his Marriage_ He re on the fund of his own experience--

'Alake! poor mortals are not Gods, And therefore often fall at odds; But little quarrels now and then, Are nae great faults 'tife and , and her love

If e'er she take the pet, or fret, Be cal ca' her little foolie, Syne wi' a kiss evite a tulzie

This ht the braver Than either cuffs or _clish-ma-claver_

It shows a spirit low an' common That wi' ill-nature treats a woman

They're of a ed wi' soarded, prove the devil'