Part 4 (1/2)

At this time, also, Sir William Scott of Thirlestane, Bart, a contemporary Latin poet, as Chalmers records, of no inconsiderable powers, hailed Raes adorned the temple of Apollo In the 'Poe with the 'Selecta Poeh, 1727), the following lines occur--

'_Effigies Allani Raines in Templo Apollinis suspensa_:

Ductaiem, favente Phoebo, Qui Scotos nuuam

Hanc Phoebus tabulam, hanc novem sorores Suspendunt lepidis jocis dicatam: Gaudete, O Veneres, Cupidinesque, Omnes illecebrae, facetiaeque, Plausus edite; nunc in aede Phoebi Splendet conspicuo decore, vestri Allani referens tabella vultus'

As much as any other, this testimony evinces how rapidly our poet's reputation had increased

At last, in the spring of 1720, Allan Raed it to endorse its favourable esti to a volume of his collected poems, 'with some new, not heretofore printed' As Chambers remarks: 'The estimation in which the poet was now held was clearly de up of a list of subscribers, containing the nanity in Scotland' The volume, a handsome quarto, printed by Ruddiman, and ornamented by a portrait of the author, from the pencil of his friend S year, and the fortunate poet realised four hundred guineas by the speculation Pope, Steele, Arbuthnot, and Gay were alish subscribers

The quarto of 1721 may be said to have closed the youthful period in the developenius Slow, indeed, was that develope, and while he had produced many excellent pieces calculated to have iven the world nothing that could be classed as a work of genius His sketches of hu the lower classes in Edinburgh and the rustics in the country, had pleased a wide _clientele_ of readers, because they depicted with rare truth and hu in the everyday life of the tile instance, up to this date, had he produced a work that would live in the minds of the people as expressive of those deep, and, by theo to the composition of class differences

As a literary artist, Raenre_ painter of unsurpassed fidelity to nature As yet, however, that which was to be the distinctive characteristic of his pictures had not dawned upon hisAlready the first glis of apprehension are to be detected in his tentative endeavours to realise his _er_ republished in his volume

The quarto of 1721 contained, moreover, several pieces that had not been previously printed These ill at present onlycritical analysis for our closing chapters Not the least noticeable of the poems in the voluth,--the 'blythe braid Scots,' or vernacular,--and challenges criticislish poe hitherto attempted by the Scottish tityrus To the study of Dryden, Cowley, Swift, Pope, and Arbuthnot, he had devoted himself,--particularly to Pope's translation of Homer's _Iliad_, and to the collected edition of the works of the great author of the _Rape of the Lock_, issued in 1717 He had been in correspondence for solish poets of the day, and with other individuals well known both in politics and London society, such as Josiah Burchet, hen he died in 1746, had been Secretary to the Admiralty for forty-five years, and had sat in six successive Parliaments This was the friend whose admiration for Ramsay was so excessive as to prompt him to send (as was the custom of the time) certain recommendatory verses for insertion in the quarto, wherein he hailed honest Allan in the following terms--

'Go on, famed bard, the wonder of our days, And crown thy head with never-fading bays; While grateful Britons do thy lines revere, And value as they ought their Virgil here'

Small wonder is it that, stimulated by such flattery, Allan should have desired to evince to his friends by the Thames, that the notes of their northern brother of the lyre were not confined to the humble strains of his own rustic reed

In the quarto, therefore, we have a poem, _Tartana, or The Plaid_, written in heroic couplets, with the avowed desire to reinstate in popular favour the silken plaid, which, from time immemorial, had been the favourite attire of Scots ladies, but, since the Rebellion of 1715, had been soish prejudices that it was a badge of disloyalty to the reigning house Then we have _Content_, a long piece ofInterview_, a poem written under the spell of Pope's _Rape of the Lock_, wherein the very lish satire Nor is the 'South Sea Bubble,' which ran its brief course froallows), and two shorter poera with one or two of his famous poetical _Epistles_, enial _bonhoood-humoured epicureanism In this volume, also, we have additional evidence afforded how fondly he had becoh and its environs Scarce a poem is there in the book that lacks some reference to well-known features in the local landscape, showing that he still retained the love of wandering, in his spare hours, alens and by fair Eskside

Only with one extract will the reader's patience be taxed here It is from his _Ode to the Ph--_, and is obviously an ilow of the great Roenius seems reflected in this revival of his sentih three hundred and fifty _lustra_ afterwards The lines cleave to the memory with a persistence that speaks voluhts--

'Look up to Pentland's tow'ring tap, Buried beneath big wreaths o' snaw, O'er ilka cleugh, ilk scaur, and slap, As high as ony Ro their ba's frae whins or tee, There's no ae gowfer to be seen; Nor doucer fouk, wysing a-jee The biassed bowls on Ta on coals, and ripe the ribs, And beek the house baith butt and ben; That et in the tappit hen

Guid claret best keeps out the cauld, An' drives awa' the winter soon: It ash and bauld, An' heaves his saul ayont the moon

Leave to the Gods your ilka care; If that they think us worth their while, They can a rowth o' blessings spare, Which will our fashous fears beguile'

CHAPTER VI

RAMSAY AS AN EDITOR; THE 'TEA-TABLE MISCELLANY' AND THE 'EVERGREEN'--1721-25

The popularity accruing to Rareat that his fame was colish contemporaries, Pope, Swift and Addison

No better evidence of the unfitness of contee the real and ultienius could be cited than the case now before us The critical perspective is egregiously untrue The effect of personality and of social qualities is periven on the attribute of intellectual excellence alone Only through the lapse of time is the personal equation eliminated froregate of his country's genius

Nor were his countryance of their estimate when such a man as Ruddiman styled him 'the Horace of our days,' and when Starrat, in a poetical epistle, apostrophises him in terms like these--

'Ra, sic life-like pictures drew?

Not he hilo the Theban wa'; Nor he (shame fa's fool head!) as stories tell, Could whistle back an auld dead wife frae hell'