RAMSAY, ALLAN, a Scottish poet, was born at Leadhills in Lanarkshire, in October 1686. His father was employed in the management of Lord Hopeton's mines at that place; but died while the poet was yet in his infancy, in consequence of which and the marriage of his mother soon after his father's death, it seems probable that during the earlier part of his life he continued in rather a destitute situation. He remained at Leadhills till he reached his fifteenth year, and as we have been assured by the relations of some very old persons who were the contemporaries of Ramsay, and who died not many years ago, he was employed in washing, preparing the lead ore for smelting, and other operations about the works in which the children of miners and young persons are usually occupied. The period of his residence on his native spot is fixed by himself in the following descriptive verses which are part of a petition addressed to a Club in Edinburgh to be admitted a member.
Of Crawford Moor, born in Leadhill,
Where mineral springs Glengower fill,
Which joins sweet-flowing Clyde.
Native of Clydesdale's upper ward,
Bred fifteen summers there.
The extent of Ramsay's education, it may well be presumed, did not exceed what he could derive from the parish schoolmaster; and even the acquisition of what little could thus be obtained, from the circumstances that attended his early life, must have been often and greatly interrupted.
In 1701, when he was in his 15th year, he was bound apprentice to a wigmaker in Edinburgh, and it appears from the record of his children's birth in the parish register that he continued in the same humble profession till the year 1716: for in that register his designation is wigmaker. One of the earliest of Ramsay's productions now known, an address to the most happy members of the Ealy Club, appeared in 1712, when he was 26 years of age, and three years after he was humorously appointed their poet laureat. Many of his poems about this time were published in the form of separate pamphlets. When he had followed the occupation of a wigmaker for a considerable time, he at last abandoned it for that of a bookseller, as being more congenial to the literary turn of his mind. His detached pamphlets were afterwards published by him in the year 1721, in one volume 4to, which was encouraged by a very liberal subscription. It was advertised as follows in the Edinburgh Evening Courant. "The Poems of Allan Ramsay, in a large quarto volume; fairly printed, with notes, and a complete glossary, (as promised to the subscribers) being now finished; all who have generously contributed to carrying on of the design, may call for their copies as soon as they please, from the author, at the Mercury, opposite to Niddry's wynd, Edinburgh." The first volume of his well known collection, "The Tea-table Miscellany," was published in 1724, after which a second volume soon made its appearance; a third in 1727, and a fourth after another interval of time. He soon after published what is called the Evergreen, being a collection of Scots poems written by the ingenious prior to the year 1600. In 1725 appeared his Gentle Shepherd, part of which, called Patie and Roger, was printed in 1721, and Jenny and Meggy in 1723, the great success of
Ramsay of which induced him to form them afterwards into a regular drama.
In the year 1728, he published a second volume of his poems, which was afterwards reprinted in 8vo. These performances so rapidly enlarged the circle of his fame and reputation, that in 1731, an edition of his poetical works was published by the booksellers of London, and two years after they appeared at Dublin. He held an extensive correspondence with cotemporary poets, among whom we find the facetious Hamilton of Gilbertfield, and the celebrated author of the Chace sent him two epistles. From his shop opposite to Niddry street, he removed to one at the east end of the Luckenbooths. In this shop he continued to sell and lend out books till he was far advanced in years; and we are informed that he was the first person who established a circulating library in Scotland. His collection of Fables appeared in 1730, after which period he may be said to have almost discontinued the occupation of an author.
Such, however, was his enterprising spirit, that he built at his own expence, the first theatre for dramatical performances ever known in Edinburgh, which took place in what is called Carubber's close, in the year 1736; but he did not long enjoy his character of manager, for the magistrates of Edinburgh required him to shut it up, as an act of parliament prohibited all such amusements without a special licence and his Majesty's letters patent. It is generally understood that he relinquished the trade of a bookseller about the year 1755, being then 69 years of age, and lived the remainder of his days in a small house erected by himself on the north side of the Castle-hill. A febriculous complaint attended with excruciating pain, deprived him of his teeth, and after corroding one of his jaw bones, put a period to his existence on the 7th of June 1758, in the 71st year of his age.
Ramsay possessed a considerable share of poetical genius: Of this his Gentle Shepherd, which will continue to be admired as long as the language in which it is written shall be understood, and especially by the natives of North Britain, to whom only the peculiarities of dialect by which it is distinguished can be familiar, affords the best proof. Some of his songs may contain far-fetched allusions and childish conceits; but many of them are equal, if not superior for their pastoral simplicity, to productions of a similar nature in any other language. Some of the imitations of the ancients by this poet are extremely happy, in particular Horace's Ode Vides ut ultra flet nive &c.; and some of his tales have all the excellencies of that species of composition. But of a great proportion of his other productions, it may be pronounced with truth that they are mere prosaic compositions filled with the most common place observations, and destitute even of the ornament of smooth versification and correct rhymes.