HONEST ALLAN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2231, 3 December 1896, Page 47

HONEST ALLAN.

Allan Ramsay's life covers more tban three I score years and ten, and it fell within a period [ which was full of dramatic change. He was born in the reign of Jameß II and died when that of George II was drawing rapidly to an end. He lived throughout the Ravolution.in England, and witnessed the baffled revolutions in Scotland associated with the Jacobite risings under both the Old Pretender and the Young. Ramsay's career terminated just befoto that of Burns began, and we have Sir Walter Scott's authority for the statement that it was at the "lamp of honest Allan" that i THE AYRSHIRE PLOUGHMAN kindled his " brilliant toroh." | At tbe age of 14 Allan Ramsay, resourceful but quite unendowed, found his way to i Edinburgh, and was quickly ensconced in, a wig-maker's shop as an articled apprentice. | The Scottish capital even in thoße days was in tolerably close touch with France, and Louis XIV had unconsciously made himself the patron-saint of the hair-dressing craft by his laughable attempts to oonceal, under as imposing periwig, not only the curious Bmallnees of his head, but the ravages which time had made upon it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and wig-making in consequence, since it met the fashionable craze, grew at once into a trade which was brisk and profitable. In due course Ranmy kept A SHOP OP HIS OWN in Edinburgh, and luckily It returned the compliment by keeping him in happy freedom from pecuniary care. He was, in fact, able to cultivate literature on more tban tbe proverbial oatmeal ; and when he published in 1721 a quarto volume of his poems he was already a sleek and prosperous personage, with dreams — which he lived to realise— of a villa in the country. His position in Edinburgh sooiety was greatly improved by the success of the volume. The magnates of "Auld Reekie," who still clung to the capital their forefathers had loved— the legal luminaries of bench and bar, professors of the university, the great medicoes of the town — all were proud to know the one man who was redeeming the Scottish poetry of that age from the charge cf utter sterility. Four years later " The Gentle Shepherd" made its appearance, and the beauty and fidelity of the pastoral as A PIOTOBE OF SCOTTISH ZtffE ASD OHABAOTEB wa« at once recognised by all olaoseft of the people. Pope and Swjffc— great atarpin the literary firmament) inst then, an& to method and

mode of life, citizens, it might almost be added, of another planet— were not slow" In kindly recognition ; but Dr Johnson, whose prejudiced wero as adamant whenever an appeal came from north of the Tweeo, siurdiiy refused to fee drawn to the boob, in spite of Boawell'B deferential pleadings and ecstatic enthusiasm. "No, sir; I wo'p'b learn it I You shall regain your superiority by my not knowing it," waa the characteristic retort. The great charm of " The Gentle Shepherd 1 -' lies in the skilfully balanced antitheses of its contrasts, and in the reflected interest each type caste on its opposite. Ramsay knew the homely life which he described, and the peasants of HI3 NATVIK OOUNTBY were the first to recognise that he had held the mirror up to the mone idyllic aspects ofrural life. If the truth must be epoken, Allan Ramsay had a remarkably good oonpeit of himself ; and it is odd to think that it was once proposed that he ebould be poet laureate because he possessed the three shining qualifications of genius, loyalty, "respectability." His range was narrow, and his rauk, when all is said and done, is high. He was an estimable man, however, and paid his own I way iv life, which is mors than oan bo said for most of the poetic brotherhood.— Speaker."