A neat edition, containing exactly the same poems as that of 1721–28.
*Poems:—Phorson; cheap edition; 2 vols. 12mo. Berwick, 1793.
*Poems:—Cadell and Davies; 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1800.
This edition is well printed, on good paper: it is commonly called the "best edition;" but, so far as the "Gentle Shepherd" is concerned, it is not so.
Poems and Proverbs:—Oliver and Co.; 3 vols. 18mo. Edinburgh, no date.
Neat edition, with plates, and music to the Songs in the "Gentle Shepherd."
Poems and Proverbs:—Chapman; 2 vols. 8vo. Philadelphia, 1813.
Poems:—Fairbairn and Anderson; 1 vol. 24mo. Edinburgh, 1819.
Neat but abridged edition; with Life of Ramsay by Wm. Tennant, author of "Anster fair."
*Poems:—Fullarton and Co.; 3 vols. 12mo. London, 1850.
A very neat edition; a reprint of that of 1800, with additions; appendix, &c.
Gentle Shepherd:—Printed by A. Foulis; 4to. Glasgow, 1788.
An elegant and correct edition, with David Allan's plates, and the songs set to music.
Gentle Shepherd:—Geo. Reid and Co.; 8vo. Edinburgh, 1798.
A very accurate edition, with 5 plates.
Gentle Shepherd:—A. Constable and Co., and others: printed by Abernethy and Walker; 2 vols. roy. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1808.
One of the best editions, with many plates and an elaborate dissertation on the scenery, &c. Understood to have been edited by Robert Brown, Esq., advocate.
Gentle Shepherd:—Watt and Baillie, Leith: Printed by Jas. Ballantyne and Co.; Edinburgh. roy. 4to. 1808.
A good edition, (with copies of David Allan's plates,) but the orthography much changed.
Gentle Shepherd:—Griffin and Co.; 32mo. Glasgow, 1828.
In all the above editions, with the exception of those of 1788 and 1798, the orthography of the "Gentle Shepherd" is more or less changed from that of the original quarto of 1728.
The editions marked thus (*) follow a different text of the "Gentle Shepherd" from that of the present edition. See the Notes.
THE LIFE
OF
ALLAN RAMSAY.
Born 1686.—Died 1758.
Allan Ramsay, the restorer of Scottish Poetry, was born on the 15th day of October, 1686, at Leadhills, in the parish of Crawfordmoor, in Lanarkshire. His father, John Ramsay, superintended Lord Hopetoun's lead mines at that place; and his grandfather, Robert Ramsay, a writer or attorney in Edinburgh, had possessed the same appointment: his great-grandfather, Captain John Ramsay, was the son of Ramsay of Cockpen in Mid-Lothian, who was brother of Ramsay of Dalhousie. His mother, Alice Bower, was daughter of Allan Bower, a gentleman of Derbyshire, whom Lord Hopetoun had brought to Scotland to instruct and superintend his miners. His grandmother, Janet Douglas, was daughter of Douglas of Muthil. In his lineage, therefore, our Poet had something to boast of, and, though born to nae lairdship, he fails not to congratulate himself on being sprung from the loins of a Douglas. He did not long enjoy the blessing of paternal care and instruction; for, shortly after his birth, his father died, leaving the widow and family in a condition rather destitute. His mother soon after married a Mr. Crichton, a petty landholder of the same county, by whom she had several children. Under these unfortunate circumstances, young Allan entered upon the career of life; and, for fourteen years he remained in the house of his stepfather, with no other education than was supplied by the school of the parish. Here, surrounded by wild and mountainous scenery, and amid an artless and secluded people, whose manners and language were of patriarchal simplicity, his childhood received those pastoral and Arcadian impressions, which were too lively to be effaced by future habits, however uncongenial, and of which he in his manhood, amid all the artificial life of the city, made so lively and fascinating a transcription.
Of his progress and attainments at school, we have no record. It does not appear that he read much poetry prior to his twentieth year; and his emulation, and ambitious thoughts, of which he says he had some, seem to have slumbered in inactivity, till they were awakened to unceasing exercise by the society and the excitements of Edinburgh.
To Edinburgh he was sent in his fifteenth year, when the felicity of his boyhood had been broken by the death of his mother. We have the assurance of undoubted testimony, that at that early age, when his mind was beginning to search about for the choice of a profession, his wishes were to be a painter; a circumstance too little known, and too little noticed by his biographers, but strongly indicative, in our opinion, of the aspirations of his youthful disposition. While yet in the country, he had been in the practice of amusing himself with copying such prints as he found in the books of his mother's house. This early predilection for an art kindred to that wherein he afterwards excelled, very likely followed bins through life, and led him to devote his son to that favourite study, from which he himself was so harshly precluded. For his stepfather, little consulting the inclination of young Allan, and wishing as soon as possible, and at any rate, to disencumber himself of the charge of his support, bound this nursling of the Muses apprentice to a wig-maker. Lowly as this profession is, it has been vindicated by one of Ramsay's biographers into comparative dignity, by separating it from the kindred business of barber, with which it is vulgarly, and too frequently confounded. Ramsay was never, it seems, a barber; his enemies never blotted him with that ignominy; his calling of "scull-thacker," as he himself ludicrously terms it, was too dignified to be let down into an equality with the men of the razor.
Thus from the beginning his business was with the heads of men. We know not on what authority it is asserted by some of his biographers, that he abandoned this profession on finishing his apprenticeship: he is called wig-maker in the parish record down to the year 1716; and we suspect he continued so till the year 1718, or 1719, for in one of Hamilton's letters to him, dated 24th of July, 1719, mention is made of his "new profession."
He was in 1712 induced, as one of his biographers observes, by the example of other citizens, to enter into the state of marriage. His wife's name was Christian Ross, daughter of a writer in Edinburgh, who brought him, year after year, a numerous family of three sons and five daughters. Of this family, Allan, the eldest, and the only son who survived him, inherited the genius of his father, and, having received a liberal education, became afterwards conspicuous as a scholar, and a painter.[3]
About the year 1711 or 1712 our Poet seems first to have ventured into the regions of rhyme. The clubs and societies of Edinburgh had provoked in him this new passion, and his earliest effort, so far as is known, is an Address, supplicatory of admission, "To the most happy members of the Easy Club," a production bearing every mark of unskilfulness and juvenility. Of this club he was afterwards appointed poet-laureate, in which capacity he was wont to recite to that jolly fraternity his successive productions, for their criticisms and their applause.
Many of these poems were published in a detached form at a penny a-piece, and his name became by this means celebrated in the city. About the year 1716, and ere he relinquished his avocation of wig-maker, he published an edition of the excellent old poem of "Christ's Kirk on the Green," with a second canto by himself. Having thus associated himself in the walks of humour with the King of Scotland, he was induced, by the approbation which he gained, and the rapid sale of the book, to "keep a little more company with these comical characters," and to complete the story, by adding afterwards a third canto. This attempt was crowned with all the success he anticipated, and numerous editions of the work afforded him satisfactory proof, that, in the public opinion, he had not unworthily put himself into partnership with the royal humourist.[4]
Elevated by the distinction his productions had now procured him, and losing at last all liking to a business which was at utter variance with his ambition and darling amusements; he commenced bookseller, most probably in the year 1718, when he was in the thirty-second year of his