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His 'Lochaber no More' is a strain of manly feeling and unaffected pathos. The poetical epistles of Ramsay were undoubtedly the prototypes of those by Burns, and many of the stanzas may challenge comparison with them. He makes frequent classical allusions, especially to the works of Horace, with which he seems to have been well acquainted, and whose gay and easy turn of mind harmonised with his own. In an epistle to Mr. James Arbuckle, the poet gives a characteristic and minute painting of himself:

Imprimis, then, for tallness, I
Am five foot and four inches high;
A black-a-viced (1) snod dapper fellow,
Nor lean, nor overlaid wi' tallow;
With phiz of a morocco cut,
Resembling a late man of wit,

Auld gabbet Spec, (2) who was so cun-
ning

To be a dummie ten years running.
Then for the fabric of my mind,

'Tis mair to mirth than grief inclined:
I rather choose to laugh at folly,
Than shew dislike by melancholy;

Well judging a sour heavy face
Is not the truest mark of grace.
I hate a drunkard or a giution,
Yet I'm pae fae to wine and mutton:
Great tables ne'er engaged my wishes
When crowded with o'er mony dishes;
A healthfu' stomach, sharply set,
Prefers a back-sey (3) piping het.
I never could imagine 't vicious
Of a fair fame to be ambitious:
Proud to be thought a comic poet,
And let a judge of numbers know it,
I court occasion thus to shew it.

Ramsay addressed epistles to Gay and Somerville, and the latter paid him in kind, in very flattering verses.

In one of Allan's answers is

the following picturesque sketch, in illustration of his own contempt for the stated rules of art:

I love the garden wild and wide,
Where oaks have plum-trees by their side;
Where woodbines and the twisting vine
Clip round the pear-tree and the pine;
Where mixed jonquils and gowans grow.
And roses 'midst rank clover blow
Upon a bank of a clear strand,
In wimplings led by nature's hand;
Though docks and brambles here and
there

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May sometimes cheat the gardener's care,
Yet this to me's a paradise
Compared with prime cut plots and nice,
Where nature has to art resigned,
Till all looks mean, stiff, and confined.

Heaven Homer taught the critic draws
Only from him and such their laws:
The native bards first plunge the deep
Before the artful dare to leap.

The Gentle Shepherd' is the greatest of Ramsay's works, and perhaps the finest pastoral drama in the world. It possesses that air of primitive simplicity and seclusion which seems indispensable in compositions of this class, at the same time that its landscapes are filled with lifelike beings, who interest us from their character, situa tion, and circumstances. It has none of that studied pruriency and unnatural artifice which are intruded into the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher, and is equally free from the tedious allegory and forced conceits of most pastoral poems. It is a genuine picture of Scottish life, but of life passed in simple rural employments, apart from the guilt and fever of large towns, and reflecting only the pure and un

1 Dark complexioned. From black and Fr. vis, the visage. 2 The Specutor, No. 1, by Addison.

3 A Sirloin.

sophisticated emotions of our nature. The affected sensibilities and feigned distresses of the 'Corydons' and 'Delias' find no place in Ramsay's clear and manly page. He drew his shepherds from the. life, placed them in scenes which he actually saw, and made them speak the language which he every day heard-the free idiomatic speech of his native vales. His art lay in the beautiful selection of his materials--in the grouping of his well-defined characters-the invention of a plot, romantic, yet natural--the delightful appropriateness of every speech and auxiliary incident—and in the tone of generous sentiment and true feeling which sanctifies this scene of humble virtue and happiness. The love of his 'gentle' rustics is at first artless and confiding, though partly disguised by maiden coyness and arch humour; and it is expressed in language and incidents alternately amusing and impassioned. At length the hero is elevated in station above his mistress, and their affection assumes a deeper character from the threatened dangers of a separation. Mutual distress and tenderness break down reserve. The simple heroine, without forgetting her natural dignity and modesty, lets out her whole soul to her early companion, and when assured of his unalterable attachment, she not only, like Miranda, 'weeps at what she is glad of,' but, with the true pride of a Scottish maiden, she resolves to study gentler charms,' and to educate herself to be worthy of her lover. Poetical justice is done to this faithful attachment, by both the characters being found equal in birth and station. The poet's taste and judgment are evinced in the superiority which he gives his hero and heroine, without debasing their associates below their proper level; while a ludicrous contrast to both is supplied by the underplot of Bauldy and his courtships. The elder characters in the piece afford a fine relief to the youthful pairs, besides completing the rustic picture. While one scene discloses the young shepherds by craigy bields' and crystal springs,' or presents Peggy and Jenny on the bleaching. green

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A trotting burnie wimpling through the ground

another shews us the snug thatched cottage with its barn and peatstack, or the interior of the house, with a clear ingle glancing on the floor, and its inmates happy with innocent mirth and rustic plenty. The drama altogether makes one proud of peasant-life and the virtues of a Scottish cottage. In imitation of Gay in his 'Beggar's Opera,' Ramsay interspersed songs throughout the Gentle Shepherd,' which tend to interrupt the action of the piece, and too often merely repeat, in a diluted form, the sentiments of the dialogue. These songs in themselves, however, are simple and touching lyrics, and added greatly to the effect of the drama on the stage. In reading it, the songs may be advantageously passed over, leaving undisturbed the most perfect delineation of rural life and manners, without vulgar humility or affectation, that was ever drawn.

Ode from Horace.

Look up to Pentland's towering tap,
Buried beneath great wreaths of snaw,
O'er ilka cleugh, ilk scaur, and slap, (1)
As high as ony Roman wa'.

Driving their ba's frae whims or tee,
There's no ae gowfer to be seen,
Nor douser fouk wysing ajee

The biassed bowls ou Tamson's green.

Then fling on coals, and ripe the ribs,
And beek the house baith but and ben;
That mutchkin-stoup it hauds but dribs,
Then let's get in the tappit hen. (2)

Good claret best keeps out the cauld,
And drives away the winter soon;
It makes a man baith gash and bauld,
And heaves his saul beyond the moon.

Leave to the gods your ilka care,

If that they think us worth their while; They can a rowth of blessings spare, Which will our fashous fears beguile.

For what they have a mind to do,

That will they do. should we gang wud; If they command the storms to blaw, Then upo' sight the hailstanes thud.

But soon as e'er they cry, Be quiet,'
The blattering winds dare nae mair

move,

But cour into their caves, and wait

The high command of supreme Jove.

Let neist day come as it thinks fit,
The present minute 's only ours;

On pleasure let's employ our wit,
And laugh at fortune's feckless powers.

Be sure ye dinna quat the grip
Of ilka joy when ye are young,
Before auld age your vitals nip,

And lay ye twafald o'er a rung.

Sweet youth's a blithe and heartsome time;

Then lads and lasses, while it's May,
Gae pu' the gowan in its prime,
Before it wither and decay.

Watch the saft minutes of delight,
When Jenny speaks beneath her breath;
And kisses, laying a' the wyte

On you, if she kep ony skaith.

'Haith, ye 're ill-bred,' she 'll smiling say; 'Ye'll worry me, you greedy rook ;' Syne frae your arms she 'll rin away,

And hide hersell in some dark nook.

Her laugh will lead you to the place, Where lies the happiness you want, And plainly tells you to your face,

Nineteen naysays are half a grant.

Now to her heaving bosom cling,
And sweetly toolie for a kiss,
Frae her fair finger whup a ring,
As token of a future bliss.

These benisons, I'm very sure,

Are of the gods' indulgent grant; Thenly carles, whisht, forbear To p. gue us with your whining cant.

In this instance, the felicitous manner in which Ramsay has preserved the Horatian ease and spirit, and at the same time clothed the whole in a true Scottish garb, renders his version superior even to Dryden's English one. For comparison two stanzas of the latter are subjoined:

Secure those golden early joys,

That youth unsoured with sorrow bears,

Ere withering time the taste destroys
With sickness and unwieldy years.
For active sports, for pleasing rest,
This is the time to be possest;
The best is but in season best.

The appointed hour of promised bliss,
The pleasing whisper in the dark,
The half-unwilling willing kiss,

The laugh that guides thee to the mark, When the kind nymph would coyness

feign,

And hides but to be found again;

These, these are joys the gods for youth ordain.

1 Cleugh, a hollow between hills; scaur, a bare hill-side: slap, a narrow pass be tween two hills.

2 A large bottle of claret holding three magnums or Scots pints.

Song.-Tune, 'Bush Aboon Traquair.'

At setting day and rising morn,

With soul that still shall love thee,
I'll ask of Heaven thy safe return,
With all that can improve thee.
I'll visit aft the birken bush,

Where first thou kindly told me
Sweet tales of love, and hid thy blush,
Whilst round thou didst enfold me.

To all our haunts I will repair,
By greenwood shaw or fountain;
Or where the summer day I'd share
With thee upon you mountain:
There will I tell the trees and flowers,
From thoughts unfeigned and tender;
By vows you're mine, by love is yours
A heart that cannot wander.

Lochaber ro More.

Farewell to Lochaber, and farewell my Jean,
Where heartsome with thee I've mony day been;
For Lochaber no more, Lochaber no more,
We'll maybe return to Lochaber no more.
These tears that I shed, they are a' for my dear,
And no for the dangers attending on weir;
Though borne on rough seas to a far bloody shore,
Maybe to return to Lochaber no more.

Though hurricanes rise, and rise every wind,
They'll ne'er mak a tempest like that in my mind;
Though loudest o' thunder on louder waves roar,
That's naething like leaving my love on the shore.
To leave thee behind me my heart is sair pained;
By ease that's inglorious no fame can be gained;
And beauty and love 's the reward of the brave,
And I must deserve it before I can crave.

Then glory, my Jeanie, maun plead my excuse;
Since honour commands me, how can I refuse?
Without it I ne'er can have merit for thee,
And without thy favour I'd better not be.
I gae then, my lass, to win honour and fame,
And if I should luck to come gloriously hame,
I'll bring a heart to thee with love ruuning o'er,
And then I'll leave thee and Lochaber no more.

Rustic Courtship -From the 'Gentle Shepherd.'-Act I.

Hear how I served my lass I lo'e as weel
As ye do Jenny, and wi' heart as leal.
Last morning I was gye and early out,
Upon a dike I leaned, glow'ring about;
I saw my Meg come linkin' o'er the lea;
I saw my Meg, but Meggy saw na me;

For yet the sun was wading through the mist,

And she was close upon me ere she wist;
Her coats were kiltit, and did sweetly shaw

Her straight bare legs, that whiter were than snaw.
Her cockernony snooded up fu' sleek,

Her haffet locks hang waving on her cheek;
Her cheeks sae ruddy, and her een sae clear;
And oh her month 's like ony hinny pear.
Neat, neat she was, in bustine waistcoat clean,
As she came skiffing o'er the dewy green.
Blithsome, I cried: My bonny Meg, come here,
I ferly wherefore ye 're so soon asteer;
But I can guess; ye 're gaun to gather dew.'
She scoured away, and said: What's that to you
"Then, fare-ye-well, Meg Dorts, and e'en 's ye like,'

I careless cried, and lap in o'er the dike.
I trow, when that she saw, within a crack,
She came with a right thieveless errand back.
Misca'd me first; then bade me hound my dog,
To wear up three waff ewes strayed on the bog.
I leugh; and sac did she; then wi' great haste
I clasped my arms about her neck and waist;
About her yielding waist, and took a fourh
O' sweetest kisses fia her glowing mouth.
While hard and fast I held her in my grips,
My very saul came louping to my lips.
Sair, sair she flet wi' me 'tween ilka smack,
But weel I kend she meant nae as she spak.
Dear Roger, when your jo puts on her gloom,
Do ye sae too, and never fash your thumb.
Seem to forsake her, soon she 'll change her mood;
Gae woo anither, and she 'll gang clean wud.

Dialogue on Marriage.

PEGGY and JENNY.

JENNY. Come, Meg, let's fa' to wark upon this green, This shining day will bleach our linen clean; The water clear, the lift unclouded blue,

Will mak them like a lily wet wi' dew.

PEGGY. Gae far'er up the burn to Habbie's How,
There a' the sweets o' spring and summer grow:
There 'tween twa birks, oubower a little linn,
The water fa's and maks a singin' din;

A pool breast-deep, beneath as clear a glass,
Kisses wi' easy whirls the bordering grass.
We're far frae ony road, and out o' sight;
The lads they're feeding far beyont the height.
But tell me, now, dear Jenny, we 're our lane,
What gars ye plague your wooer wi' disdain ?
The neebours a' tent this as weel as I,
That Roger lo'es ye, yet ye carena by,

What ails ye at him? Troth, between us twa,
He's worthy you the best day e'er ye saw.

JENNY. I dinna like him, Peggy, there's an end;

A herd ma sheepish yet I never kend.

He kame: his hair, indeed, and gaes right snug,
Wi' ribbon knots at his blue bannet lug,
Whilk ensily he wears a thought a-jee,

And spreads his gartens diced beneath his knee

He falds his o'erlay down his breast wi' care,
And few gang trigger to the kirk or fair:
For a' that, he can neither sing nor say,

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Except, How d' ye ?'-or, There's a bonny day.' PEGGY. Ye dash the lad wi' constant slighting pride, Hatred for love is unco sair to ide:

But ye'll repent ye, if his love grow cauld—

What likes 's a dorty maiden when she 's auld? ...
JENNY. I never thought a single life a crime.
PEGGY. Nor I: but love in whispers let's us ken,
That men were made for us, and we for men. . . .
Yes, it's a heartsome thing to be a wife,

When round the ingle-edge young sprouts are rife.
Gif I'm sae happy, I shall hae delight

To hear their little plaints, and keep them right.
Wow! Jenny, can there greater pleasure be,
Than see sic wee tots toolying at your knee;

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