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The Poets and Poetry of Scotland from the Earliest to the Present Time

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The Poets and Poetry of Scotland from the Earliest to the Present Time ALLAN EAMSAY. 101 " Harmonious pipe, how I envye thy bliss, worth." During the poet's latter years much When to with kiss! press'd Sylphia's lips gentle of his time was spent at Pennycuik House, and And when her tender fingers round thee move at his death its master erected at his beautiful In soft embrace, I listen and approve seat an obelisk to Those melting notes, which soothe my soul to love. family Ramsay's memory. Embalm'd with odours from her breath that flow, Sir John by his second wife had seven sons Fou music when she's to yield your pleased blow; and six daughters. One of the former was And thus at once the fair charming lovely the author of the well-known work on Naval Delights with sounds, with sweets perfumes the air. Tactics, and father of the eccentric Lord Go, happy pipe, and ever mindful be Eldin, To court the charming Sylphia for me; one of Scotland's most eminent lawyers. Sir Tell all I feel you cannot tell too much John died at Pennycuik, October 4, 1755. Repeat my love at each soft melting touch; His extremely humorous and popular song of Since I to her my liberty resign, Take thou the care to tune her heart to mine." "The Miller" first appeared in the second volume of Yair's Charmer, published at Edin- It was to this lady that Allan Ramsay, in burgh four years before Sir John's death; and " 1726, dedicated his Gentle Shepherd." The since that date it has been included in almost baronet was one of Ramsay's warmest friends, all collections of Scottish song. The first verse " who admired his genius and knew his belongs to an older and an anonymous hand. THE MILLER. Merry may the maid be A good fat sow, a sleeky cow That marries the miller, Was standin' in the byre; For foul day and fair day While lazy puss with mealy mou' He's till her fire. aye bringing ; Was playing at the Has aye a penny in his purse Good are mither For dinner and for supper; signs these, my says, And bids me tak' the miller, And gin she please, a good fat cheese, For foul and fair And lumps of yellow butter. day day till her He's aye bringing ; When Jamie first did woo me, For meal and malt she does na want, I speir'd what was his calling; Nor anything that's dainty; Fair maid, says he, come and see, And noo and then a keckling hen Ye're welcome to my dwalling: To lay her eggs in plenty. Though I was shy, yet I cou'd spy In winter when the wind and rain The truth of what he told me, Blaws o'er the house and And that his house was warm and couth, byre, sits beside a clean hearth stane And room in it to hold me. He Before a rousing fire, Behind the door a bag of meal, With nut-brown ale he lilts his tale, And in the kist was plenty Which rows him o'er fu' happy: Of good hard cakes his mither bakes, Who'd be a king a petty thing, And bannocks were na scanty; When a miller lives so happy] ALLAN EAMSAY. BORN 1686 DIED 1757. ALLAN RAMSAY, the restorer of Scottish by the father's side from the Ramsays of Dal- poetry, was born Oct. 15, 1686, in the village housie, a genealogy of which he speaks in one Leadhills, Lanarkshire. He was descended of his pieces with conscious pride: 102 ALLAN KAMSAY. " Dalhousie, of an auld descent were in which found " they composed, shape they My chief, my stouj>e, and ornament ! a ready sale, the citizens being in the habit His father, John Ramsay, was superintendent of sending their children with a penny for of Lord Hopetoun's mines at Leadhills; and "Allan Ramsay's last piece." In 1720 he his mother, Alice Bowel's, was the daughter opened a subscription for a collection of his of a gentleman of Derbyshire, who had been poems in a quarto volume, and the liberal invited to Leadhills to assist by his skill in manner in which it was immediately filled up the introduction of some improvements in the by "all who were either eminent or fair in art of mining. Allan, while yet an infant, Scotland" affords a striking proof of the esteem lost his fathei; who died at the early age of in which the whilom wig-maker was now held. twenty-five. His mother soon after married The volume, which cleared him 400 guineas, a Mr. Crichton, a small landholder in Lanark- closed with an address by the author to his shire. He was sent to the village school, book after the manner of Horace, in which he where he acquired learning enough, as he tells thus boldly speaks of his hopes: us, to read Horace "faintly in the original." ' ' Gae spread my fame, In the year 1700 he lost his mother, and his And fix me an immortal name ; was not in that step-father long discovering Ages to come shall thee revive, he was old enough to take care of himself. And gar thee with new honours live. The future I He took Allan to Edinburgh, and apprenticed critics, foresee, Shall have their notes on notes on thee him to a an which ; wig-maker, occupation The wits unborn shall beauties find most of his are anxious to biographers very That never entered in my mind." distinguish from a barber. The vocation of a " skull-thacker," as Ramsay humorously calls In 1724 the poet published the first volume collection of it, would appear not to have been so uncon- of the Tea-table Miscellany, a genial as his biographers would have us songs Scottish and English, which was speedily believe, as it is certain that he did not abandon followed by a second; a third volume appeared it when his apprenticeship ceased, but followed in 1727, and a fourth after another interval. it for many years after. In the parish registers This publication acquired him more profit he is called a wig-maker down to 1716. Four than lasting fame, passing through no less years previous to this he married Christian than twelve editions in a few years. This was Ross, a writer's daughter, with whom he lived followed by "The Evergreen : being a Collection most happily for a period of thirty years. of Scots Poems, wrote by the Ingenious before The earliest of his poems which can now be 1600," in two volumes. This work did him " traced is an epistle addressed in 1712 To the even less credit as an editor than the Tea- Most Happy Members of the Easy Club," a table Miscellany had done. Lord Hailes says convivial society, of which in 1715 he was with truth that he took great liberty with appointed poet-laureate; but it was soon after the originals, omitting some stanzas and add- others at the same time broken up by the Rebellion. In 1716 Ramsay ing ; modernizing published an edition of James I.'s poem of the versification, and varying the ancient "Christ's Kirk on the Green," with a second manner of spelling. Ramsay availed himself canto by himself, to which, two years after, of the opportunity of concealment afforded by he added a third. The wit, fancy, and perfect this publication to give expression in a poem mastery of the Scottish language which his of pretended antiquity, and with a feigned additions to the king's poem displayed, greatly signature, to those Jacobite feelings which extended his reputation as a poet. Abandon- prudence led him to conceal. It was called ing his original occupation, he entered upon "The Vision," and said to be "compylit in the more congenial business of bookselling. Latin be a most lernit clerk in tyme of our His first shop was "at the sign of the Mercury, hairship and opression, anno 1300, and trans- " opposite to Niddry's Wynd, Edinburgh. Here latit in 1524." The pretended subject was the he appears to have represented the threefold "history of the Scots' sufferings by the character of author, editor, and bookseller. unworthy condescension of Baliol to Edward I. His poems were printed on single sheets as of England till they recovered their indepen- DRAM SAY* ALLAN KAMSAY. 103 dence by the conduct and valour of the Great Chronicle of Scottish Poetry, by whose exe- Bruce." For the period of Edward I. substi- cutors it was sold in 1806, and has since that tute that of George I., and for "the Great time been broken up and disposed of by auction. " Bruce" the Pretender, and the object of the Here," says one of Ramsay's biographers, " poem will stand revealed. "The Vision" is he sold and lent books to a late period of a production of great power; in it the genius his life; here the wits of Edinburgh used to of Scotland is drawn with a touch of the old meet for their amusement and for information; heroic muse: and here Gay, a congenial poet ("a little man with a Mr. "Great daring darted frae his e'e, pleasant tye wig," says Tytler), A braidsword shogled at his thie, was wont to look out upon the Exchange in Ou his left arm a ; targe Edinburgh, to know persons and ascertain A filled his shining spear right hand, characters." Allan was now a famous and In stalwart make in bane and bravvnd, prosperous man.
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