being continually at the acting of some new farce, for I'm grown, I know not how, so very wise, or at least think so (which is much about one), that the mob of mankind afford me a continual diversion; and this place, tho' little, is crowded with merry-andrews, fools, and fops, of all sizes, [who] intermix'd with a few that can think, compose the comical medley of actors.

"Receive a sang made on the marriage of my young chief—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 Pastor Fido and Aminta.

"God take care of you and yours, is the constant prayer of, sir, your faithful humble servant,

"ALLAN RAMSAY.”

The poem was published in 1725, under the title of the Gentle Shepherd, and met with instant and triumphant success. A second edition was printed by Ruddiman for the author, who still resided at his shop opposite Niddry's Wynd; but the same year he removed from this his original dwelling to a house in the east end of the Luckenbooths, which had formerly been the London Coffee house. Here, in place of Mercury, he adopted the heads of Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden, and in addition to his business as a bookseller, he commenced that of a circulating library. Ramsay was the first to establish such a business in Scotland, and it appears that he did so, not without some opposition from the more serious part of the community, who found fault with him for lending the loose plays of that age to persons whose morals were liable to be tainted by them. In this shop the wits of Edinburgh continued daily to meet for information and amusement during the days of Ramsay and his successors in trade. In the year 1728, he published by subscription the second volume of his poems in quarto, (including the Gentle Shepherd,} which was equally successful with the first. Of this volume a second edition was printed in octavo in the succeeding year. In 1730, Ramsay published a collection of thirty fables, after which, though he wrote several copies of verses for the amusement of his friends, he gave nothing more to the public. His fame was now at the full, and though he had continued to issue a number of volumes every year, all equally good as those that preceded them, it could have received no real addition. Over all the three kingdoms, and over all their dependencies, the works of Ramsay were widely diffused, and warmly admired. The whole were republished by the London booksellers in the year 1731, and by the Dublin booksellers in 1733, all sterling proofs of extended popularity, to which the poet himself failed not on proper occasions to allude. Ramsay had now risen to wealth and to high respectability, numbering among his familiar friends the best and the wisest men in the nation. By the greater part of the Scottish nobility he was caressed, and at the houses of some of the most distinguished of them, Hamilton palace, Loudoun castle, &c., was a frequent visitor. With Duncan Forbes, lord advocate, afterwards lord president, and the first of Scottish patriots, Sir John Clerk, Sir William Bennet, and Sir Alexander Dick, he lived in the habit of daily and familiar, and friendly intercourse. With contemporary poets his intercourse was extensive and of the most friendly kind. The two Hamiltons, of Bangour and Gilbertfield, were his most intimate friends. He addressed verses to Pope, to Gay, and to Somerville, the last of whom returned his poetical salutations in kind. Mitchell and Mallet shared also in his friendly greetings. Meston addressed to him verses highly complimentary, and William Scott of Thirlstane wrote Latin hexameters to his praise. Under so much good fortune he could not escape the malignant

glances of envious and disappointed poetasters, and of morose and stern moralists. By the first he was annoyed with a "Block for Allan Ramsay's wig, or the Poet fallen in a trance;" by the latter, "Allan Ramsay metamorphosed to a Heather-bloter poet, in a pastoral between Algon and Melibea," with “The flight of religious piety from Scotland upon the account of Ramsay's lewd books and the hell-bred playhouse comedians, who debauch all the faculties of the souls of the rising generation," "A Looking-glass for Allan Ramsay," "The Dying Words of Allan Ramsay," &c. The three last of these pieces were occasioned by a speculation which he entered into for the encouragement of the drama, to which he appears to have been strongly attached. For this purpose, about the year 1736, he built a playhouse in Carrubber's close at vast expense, which, if it was ever opened, was immediately shut up by the act for licensing the stage, which was passed in the year 1737. Ramsay on this occasion addressed a rhyming complaint to the court of session, which was first printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, and since in all the editions that have been given of his works. It does not, however, appear that he obtained any redress, and the pecuniary loss which he must have suffered probably affected him more than the lampoons to which we have alluded. He had previously to this published his "Reasons for not answering the Hackney Scribblers," which are sufficiently biting, and with which he seems to have remained satisfied through life. He has described himself in one of his epis

tles as a

"Little man that lo'ed his ease,

And never thol'd these passions lang
That rudely meant to do him wrang ;"

which we think the following letter to his old friend Smibert, the painter, who had by this time emigrated to the western world, will abundantly confirm :-" My dear old friend, your health and happiness are ever ane addition to my satisfaction. God make your life easy and pleasant. Half a century of years have now rowed o'er my pow, that begins to be lyart; yet thanks to my author I eat, drink, and sleep as sound as I did twenty years syne, yea I laugh, heartily too, and find as many subjects to employ that faculty upon as ever; fools, fops, and knaves grow as rank as formerly, yet here and there are to be found good and worthy men who are ane honour to human life. We have small hopes of seeing you again in our old world; then let us be virtuous and hope to meet in heaven. My good auld wife is still my bedfellow. My son Allan has been pursuing your science since he was a dozen years auld; was with Mr Hyffidg at London for some time about two years ago; has been since at home, painting here like a Raphael; sets out for the seat of the beast beyond the Alps within a month hence, to be away about two years. I'm sweer to part with him, but canna stem the current which flows from the advice of his patrons and his own inclination. I have three daughters, one of seventeen, one of sixteen, and one of twelve years old, and no ae wally dragle among them—all fine girls. These six or seven years past I have not written a line of poetry; I can give over in good time, before the coolness of fancy that attends advanced years should make me risk the reputation I had acquired.

"Frae twenty-five to five and forty,

My muse was neither sweer nor dorty,
My Pegasus would break his tether,
E'en at the shaking of a feather;
And through ideas scour like drift,
Streking his wings up to the lift;

Then, then my soul was in a low,
That gart my numbers safely row;
But eild and judgment gin to say,

Let be your sangs, and learn to pray."

It is scarcely possible to conceive a more pleasing picture of ease and satisfaction than is exhibited in the above sketch; and, the affair of the theatre in Carrubber's close excepted, Ramsay seems to have filled it up to the last. He lost his wife, Christian Ross, in the year 1743; but his three daughters, grown up to womanhood, in some measure supplied the want of her society, and much of his time in his latter years seems to have been spent with his friends in the country. It appears to have been about this period, and with the view of relinquishing his shop, the business of which still went on prosperously, that he erected a house on the north side of the Castle Hill, where he might spend the remainder of his days in dignified retirement. The site of this house was selected with the taste of a poet and the judgment of a painter. It commanded a reach of scenery probably not surpassed in Europe, extending from the mouth of the Forth on the east to the Grampians on the west, and stretching far across the green hills of Fife to the north; embracing in the including space every variety of beauty, of elegance, and of grandeur. The design for the building, however, which the poet adopted, was paltry in the extreme, and by the wags of the city was compared to a goose pye, of which complaining one day to lord Elibank, his lordship gayly remarked, that now seeing him in it he thought it an exceedingly apt comparison. Fantastic though the house was, Ramsay spent the last twelve years of his life in it, except when he was abroad with his friends, in a state of philosophic ease, which few literary men are able to attain. In the year 1755, he is supposed to have relinquished business. An Epistle which he wrote this year to James Clerk, Esq. of Pennycuick, "full of wise saws and modern instances," gives his determination on the subject, and a picture of himself more graphic than could be drawn by any other person:

"Tho' born to no ae inch of ground,

I keep my conscience white and sound;
And though I ne'er was a rich keeper,
To make that up I live the cheaper;
By this ae knack I've made a shift

To drive ambitious care adrift;

And now in years and sense grown auld,
In ease I like my limbs to fauld.

Debts I abhor, and plan to be

From shackling trade and dangers free;
That I may, loosed frae care and strife,
With calmness view the edge of life;
And when a full ripe age shall crave
Slide easily into my grave;

Now seventy years are o'er my head,
And thirty more may lay me dead.”

While he was thus planning schemes of ease and security, Ramsay seems to have forgotten the bitter irony of a line in one of his elegies,

The wily carl, he gathered gear,

But ah! he's dead."

At the very time he was thus writing, he was deeply afflicted with the scurvy in his gums, by which he eventually lost all his teeth, and even a portion of

one of his jaw bones. He died at Edinburgh on the 7th of January, 1757, in the 73rd year of his age. He was buried on the 9th of the month, without any particular honours, and with him for a time was buried Scottish poetry, there not being so much as one poet found in Scotland to sing a requiem over his grave. His wife, Christian Ross, seems to have brought him seven children, three sons and four daughters; of these Allan, the eldest, and two daughters survived him. Of the character of Ramsay, the outlines we presume may be drawn from the comprehensive sketch which we have exhibited of the events of his life. Prudent self-control seems to have been his leading characteristic, and the acquisition of a competency the great object of his life. He was one of the few poets to whom, in a pecuniary point of view, poetry has been really a blessing, and who could combine poetic pursuits with those of ordinary business.

RAMSAY, ALLAN, an eminent portrait-painter, was the eldest son of the subject of the preceding article, and was born in Edinburgh in the year 1713. He received a liberal education, and displayed in boyhood a taste for the art which he afterwards successfully cultivated. His father, writing to his friend Smibert in 1736, says: "My son Allan has been pursuing your science since he was a dozen years auld; was with Mr Hyfidg in London for some time, about two years ago; has since been painting here like a Raphael: sets out for the seat of the beast beyond the Alps within a month hence, to be away two years. I'm sweer [loath] to part with him, but canna stem the current which flows from the advice of his patrons and his own inclination." It is to be supposed that the father would be the less inclined to control his son in this matter, as he was himself, in early life, anxious to be brought up as a painter. In Italy young Ramsay studied three years under Solimano and Imperiali, two artists of celebrity. He then returned to his native country, and commenced business, painting, amongst others, his father's friend, president Forbes, and his own sister, Janet Ramsay, whose portraits are preserved in Newhall house, and an excellent full-length of Archibald duke of Argyle, in his robes as an extraordinary lord of session, now in the Town Hall, Glasgow. The name of Allan Ramsay junior, is found in the list of the members of the Academy of St Luke, an association of painters and lovers of painting, instituted at Edinburgh in 1729, but which does not appear to have done anything worthy of record.' It would also appear that he employed part of his time in giving private instructions in drawing, for it was while thus engaged in the family of Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick, that he gained the heart and hand of the baronet's eldest daughter, Margaret—a niece of the illustrious Mansfield— by whom he had three children. In 1754, he became the founder of the Select Society, which comprised all the eminent learned characters then living in the Scottish capital, and which he was well qualified to adorn, as he was an excellent classical scholar, knew French and Italian perfectly, and had all the polish and liberal feeling of a highly instructed man.

Previously to this period he had made London his habitual residence, though he occasionally visited both Rome and Edinburgh. In Bouquet's pamphlet on "the Present State of the Fine Arts in England," published in 1755, he is spoken of as "an able painter, who, acknowledging no other guide than nature, brought a rational taste of resemblance with him from Italy. Even in his portraits," says this writer, "he shows that just steady spirit, which he so agreeably displays in his conversation." He found in the earl of Bridgewater, one of

1 The rules of this obscure institution, with the signatures, were published by Mr Patrick Gibson, in his " View of the Arts of Design in Britain," in the Edinburgh Annual Regis

ter for 1816.

his earliest English patrons. He was also introduced by the earl of Bute to the prince of Wales, afterwards George III., of whom he painted portraits, both in full length and in profile, which were engraved, the one by Ryland, the other by Woollett. He practised portrait-painting for several years with distinguished success, being deficient, according to Walpole, rather in subjects than in genius. His portraits are distinguished by a calm unaffected representation of nature; and he is universally allowed to have contributed, with Reynolds, to raise this branch of art in Britain. He had not long been in practice before he acquired considerable wealth, which, it appears, he used in a liberal spirit. When his father died in 1757, in somewhat embarrassed circumstances, he paid his debts, settling, at the same time, a pension on his unmarried sister, Janet Ramsay, who survived till 1804.

In 1767, Ramsay was appointed portrait-painter to the king and queen, which brought him an immense increase of employment, as portraits of their majesties were perpetually in demand for foreign courts, ambassadors, and public bodies at home. He was, therefore, obliged to engage no fewer than five assistants to forward his pictures, among whom was David Martin, the predecessor of Raeburn. In consequence of his enlightened and amusing conversation, he became a great favourite with their majesties, the queen being particularly pleased with him on account of his ability to converse in German, in which he had not a rival at court, save amongst her own domestics. The state nobles, and other public leaders of that time, were also fond of the conversation of Ramsay, who is said to have taken more pleasure in politics and literature than in his art, and wrote many pieces on controverted subjects, with the signature, "Investigator," which were ultimately collected into a volume. He corresponded, too, with Voltaire and Rousseau, both of whom he visited when abroad; and his letters are said to have been elegant and witty. "Ramsay, in short," says Mr A. Cunningham, "led the life of an elegant accomplished man of the world, and public favourite." He was frequently of Dr Johnson's parties, who said of him, "You will not find a man in whose conversation there is more instruction, more information, and elegance, than in Ramsay's." He was noted in his own country for having, after the battle of Prestonpans, written an imitation of the song of Deborah in scripture, which he put into the mouth of a jacobite young lady of family, and which displayed considerable powers of satire; and in the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1813, will be found a burlesque on Horace's" Integer Vitæ," which shows such a dexterous union of the Latin rhythm with the English rhyme, as none but a man of a singular kind of genius could have effected.1

In consequence of an accident which injured his arm, Ramsay retired from business about the year 1775. He then lived several years in Italy, amusing himself chiefly with literary pursuits. His health gradually sinking, he formed the wish to return to his native land; but the motion of the carriage brought on a slow fever by the way, and he died at Dover, August 10, 1784, in the seventy-first year of his age.

John Ramsay, the son of the painter, entered the army, and rose to the rank of major-general. His two daughters, Amelia and Charlotte, were respectively married to Sir Archibald Campbell of Inverness, and colonel Malcolm of Ford farm, Surrey.

1 The following portraits, by Mr Ramsay, have, amongst others, been engraved :-King George III. Queen Charlotte. Frederick, prince of Wales. Lord chancellor Hardwicke. The earl of Bute. John, duke of Argyle. The earl of Bath. Sir Charles Pratt (lord Cambden). Thomas Burnet, judge of common pleas. Hugh Dalrymple (lord Drummore). Dr Alexander Monro, primus. David Hume. Archibald, duke of Argyle. President Forbes. Provost Coutts. Lady George Lennox. Lady Erskine. Allan Ramsay, the poet.