Part 6 (1/2)

CHAPTER VIII

RESTING ON HIS LAURELS; BUILDS HIS THEATRE; HIS BOOK OF 'SCOTS PROVERBS'--1730-40

Ramsay had now reached the pinnacle of his fae, prosperous in business, enjoying a reputation not alone confined to Great Britain, but which had extended to France, to Holland, and to Italy His great pastoral was lauded in ter by critics everywhere as the most perfect example of the pure idyll that had appeared since the days of Theocritus The proudest of the nobility were not ashah Street, or to spend an hour cracking jokes and discussing literature with hin of Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden

What Chambers says in his _E facts, is strictly accurate: 'Rah respectability, nu his familiar friends the best and the wisest reater part of the Scottish nobility he was caressed, and at the houses of souished of them, Hamilton Palace, Loudoun Castle, etc, was a frequent visitor' With Duncan Forbes, Lord Advocate (and before many years to be Lord President), with Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, Sir William Bennet of Marlefield, Sir Alexander dick of Prestonfield, near Edinburgh, he lived in the habit of daily, familiar, and friendly intercourse With contemporary poets his relations were likewise of the our and Gilbertfield, were his constant associates To Pope, to Gay, and to Somerville; to Meston, to Mitchell, and to Mallet, he addressed poetical greetings, and several of theland, too, came another and a different proof of his popularity, in the fact that, when in 1726 Hogarth published his 'Illustrations of Hudibras' in twelve plates, these were dedicated to 'Williahton, Northah itself was proud of her poet, and was not averse toopportunity offered He was a frequent visitor at the University, and Dugald Stewart relates that an old friend of his father informed him, the students of the fourth and fifth decades of last century used to point out a squat, dapper, keen-eyed little man, ont to walk up and down the space in front of their classrooreat poet, Allan Ramsay'

The narrator also added, he felt a secret disappoint for the first ti that he differed neither in dress northe classics, and froil, he had been led to ienus poet always pera robes, their forehead bound with a chaplet, and carrying with the lyre!

The year 1728 had witnessed, as we have seen, the publication of Allan Rainal work Thereafter he was content to rest on his laurels, to revise new editions of his various poes_ Perhaps he ination at life's iven place to those soberer tints that rise athwart the mental horizon, when the Rubicon of the forties has been crossed In 1737, riting to his friend Smibert, the painter (then in Boston, Arated), Ramsay states, with reference to his relinquishment of poetry: 'These six or seven years past I have not written a line of poetry; I e'en gave over in good time, before the coolness of fancy that attends advanced years should make me risk the reputation I had acquired' He then adds in the letter the following lines of poetry, froather, further, that his deterrin, but of reasoned resolve--

'Frae twenty-five to five-and-forty, My asus would break his tether, E'en at the shaking of a feather, And through ideas scour like drift, Straking his wings up to the lift

Then, then art in to say, Let be your sangs and learn to pray_'

By 1730, then, Rainal kind at least, was over In that year, however, he published another short volume of metrical fables, under the title, _A Collection of Thirty Fables_ Ahtful of all our poet's work in this vein

_Mercury in Quest of Peace_, _The Twa Lizards_, _The Caterpillar and the Ant_, and _The Twa Cats and the Cheese_, possess, as Chalmers truly says, 'all the _navete_ of Phaedrus and La Fontaine, with the wit and ease of Gay'

And thus Rah two decades of incessant intellectual activity Begun, as Professor Masson says, 'in the last years of the reign of Queen Anne, and continued through the whole of the reign of George I, it had just touched the beginning of that of George II when it suddenly ceased Twice or thrice afterwards, at long intervals, he did scribble a copy of verses; but in the main, from his forty-fifth year onwards, he rested on his laurels

Henceforward he contented hi library, and the superintendence of the numerous editions of his _Collected Poems_, his _Gentle Shepherd_, and his _Tea-Table Miscellany_'

In pursuance of this determination, Ramsay, in 1731, at the request of a number of London booksellers, edited a complete edition of his works, wherein all the poems published in the quartos of 1721 and 1728 were included, in addition to _The Gentle Shepherd_ The success attending this venture was so great that, in 1733, a Dublin edition had to be prepared, which also handsomely remunerated both author and publishers

Froreat popularity of Ra the inhabitants of the towns and the settlers in the hty forests Of the latter, many were Scotsmen, and to them the vividly realistic scenes and felicitous character-drawing of _The Gentle Shepherd_ touched, with a power and a pathos al, the subtlest fibres of that love for 'Caledonia, stern and wild,' which, deepened by distance as it is, and strengthened by absence, seems so inwoven with the very warp and woof of the nature of her children that, go where they will, it can never be eradicated, until the last great consummation overtakes them, when earth returns to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust

Our poet now had more time on his hands for those social duties and convivial pleasures wherein he took such delight His new pre doards, and therefore cohfare of the High Street, were ional-shaped Cross of Edinburgh, where all official proclamations were made The vicinity of the Cross was, on favourable afternoons, the fashi+onable rendezvous of the period

No sooner was the allants of the town--the former in the wide hoops, the jewelled storaces_ (hoods), and high head-dresses of the day; the latter in the long, es, and buckled shoes, tye-wigs, and three-cornered hats peculiar to the fourth decade of last century--issued froy turnpike stairs in the equally darksoe, as best pleased them, in the open space around the Cross Here were to be met all sorts and conditions ofwherein Allan Ramsay's shop was situated, the scene ly aniraphic power of literary scene-painting he possessed in measure so rich, represented the picture, in his _Traditions of Edinburgh_, in colours so vivid, and with a , that subsequent descriptions have been little e of his ad in any important details he may have omitted

The jostleentlerave Lords of Session, and leading legal lunet and their attendant clerks, were all there Tradesroups, often bareheaded, at their shop doors; _caddies_ whisked about, bearing ers; children darted about in noisy sport; corduroyed carters fro 'coals'

and 'yellow sand'; fishwives are crying their 'caller haddies' fro about, each with his or her crowd of toruardsmen in rusty uniform, and with their ancient Lochaber axes; water-carriers with their dripping barrels; Highland drovers in philabeg, sporran, and cap; Liddesdale farmers with their blue Lowland bonnets; sedan chairmen, with here and there a red uniform from the castle--such was the scene upon which, in the early months of the year 1732,--alas! his last on earth,--the celebrated London poet, John Gay, gazed from the s of Allan Ramsay's shop Beside hi out to hies in the motley crowd, and every now and then called upon to explain soes in _The Gentle Shepherd_ that Pope had desired hiet explained from the author himself And worthy Allan is flattered yet flustered withal with the honour, for beside them stand the famous duchess of Queensberry--better known as Prior's 'Kitty,' otherwise Lady Catherine Hyde, daughter of the Earl of Clarendon--and her miser husband, who only opened his close fist to build such palatial piles as Queensberry House, in the Edinburgh Canongate, and Druht Gay up north with the his play--_Polly_, the continuation of the _Beggars' Opera_--refused sanction for representation by the Duke of Grafton, then Lord Chamberlain Ah! how honest Allan smirks and smiles, and becks and boith a backbone that will never be as supple in _kotowing_ to anyone else For does he not, like ine the sun to rise and set in the mere enjoyment of the ducal smile?

A pleasant visit was that paid by Gay to Scotland in 1732, before he returned to London to die, in the December of the same year He spent many of his spare hours in the company of Ramsay, and that of the two friends in whose society much of the latter's time was now to be passed--Sir John Clerk of Penicuik and Sir Alexander dick of Prestonfield By all three, Gay was deeply regretted,--by Clerk and dick chiefly, because he had so enial friend, Allan Ramsay

In 1736 our poet published a collection of _Scots Proverbs_, which, for some reason or another, has never been printed with his poems in those editions that are professedly complete Only in Oliver's pocket edition is this excellent thesaurus of pithy and forcible Scottish apophthegms presented with his other works That it is one of the best repertories of our proverbial current coin that exists, particularly with regard to the crystallised shrewdness and keen observation embodied in them, must be apparent to any reader, even the usson and Kelly was the reason why Raather up the wealth of aphoristic wisdoht be expected, it is richest in the sayings coh the Lowlands, as a whole, are well represented Of Gaelic proverbs there is scarce a trace, showing how faintly, despite his Jacobitism, his sympathies were aroused by Celtic tradition or Celtic poetry Many of the sayings were undoubtedly coined in Rah the ideasthe people of his day But how close the union between the ideas and their expression in this collection! Of looseness of phrase there is scarce a trace How apt the stereotyping of current idioets as--'Ne'er tell your fae when your foot sleeps,' 'Nature passes nurture,' 'Muckledom is nae virtue,' 'Happy the wife that's ar lairds laugh'

Ramsay's dedication of his volume of _Scots Proverbs_ to 'The Tenantry of Scotland, Farmers of the Dales and Storemasters of the Hills,' shows the value he attached to this kind of literature He writes in the colloquial Scots, and his words are valuable as presenting us with a reliable example of the Scots vernacular as spoken in educated circles early last century 'The following hoard of _Wise Sayings_ and observations of our forefathers,' he rees, I have collected with great care, and restored to their proper sense, which had been frequently _tint_ [lost] by publishers that did not understand our landwart [inland] language As naething helps our happiness ht principles, I desire you, for the thriving and pleasure of you and yours, to use your een and lend your lugs to these guid auld says, that shi+ne ailed sense and will as lang as the warld wags Gar your bairns get the your fah the country be without them On a spare hour, when the day is clear, behind a rick, or on the green howm, draw the treasure frae your pooch and enjoy the pleasant co on the flowery braes, ye may eithly mak yoursels masters of the holy ware'

Hitherto the sky of Rah cloudless

Misfortune and failure had never shrivelled his hopes or his enterprises with the frost of disappoint more serious than an envious scribbler's splenetic effusions had ever assailed hi of mortification and the pinch of financial loss

We have already adverted to the glooy of this period To the that savoured of jollity and amusement was specially inspired by the Evil One, for the hindrance of their ministerial labours The references to this h no one had a deeper respect for vital piety than he, no one more bitterly reprobated that puritanic fanaticis in innocent recreation and relaxation Against Ramsay the ecclesiastical thunder had co to Wodrohen he started his circulating library That the works of Shakespeare, Beauer, Dryden, Waller, and the romances of chivalry, should be placed in the hands of the youth of Edinburgh, was accounted a sin so grave as to st as the infae, atteis_ of the redoubtable Dr Webster had been thrown over him, and the pother in time died away It appears, however, that Rae stock of translations of the most celebrated French plays of the day, and had added them to his library Sufficient was this to blow into a blaze the snation Froave the sn that he cared one jot for all their denunciations He attended to his shop and his library, and quaffed his claret at the _Isle of Man Arms_, at Luckie Dunbar's in Forrester's Wynd, or at the famous John's Coffee House, with the cynical response that 'they ate'

But just at this precise ti a theatre-proprietor, and thus benefiting the worthy burgesses of Auld Reekie by erecting a house where standard draht be perfornation in clerical circles, against which even Dr Webster and his friends were powerless Hitherto the opposition of the Presbyterian ministers had prevented the erection of any theatre in the town The coht chance to visit the town from time to time, were compelled to hire a hall or a booth for their performances Prior to the Coh But from 1650 to the Union, fanaticism became paramount and sternly repressed them One of the earliest mentions of draain in 1715, when a regular co Gallery and in the Tennis Court at Holyrood-house In the subsequent winter, as we learn from the _Scots Courant_ of Deceazine-house at the back of the foot of the Canongate, on which occasion, said the notice, 'the several parts would be perforland'

On the last night of the year 1719 Raue for the performance of Otway's play, 'The Orphan,' and 'The Cheats' of Scapin, 'by soentlemen,' wherein he remarked--