RAMSAY, ALLAN, a Scottish poet, was born at Leadhills in Lanarkshire, in October 1686. His father was employed in the management of Lord Hopetoun's mines at that place; but died whilst 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 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 employed.
In 1701, when in his fifteenth 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 until the year 1716. One of the earliest of Ramsay's productions now known, an address to the members of the Easy Club, appeared in 1712, when he was twenty-six years of age; and three years afterwards he was humorously appointed their poet laureat. Many of his poems written about this time were published in the form of separate pamphlets. When he had followed the occupation of wigmaker for a considerable time, he at last abandoned it for that of 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. 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 came forth in 1727, and a fourth after another interval of time. He soon afterwards published what is called the Evergreen, being a collection of Scotch poems written by ingenious poets 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 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 afterwards they appeared at Dublin. 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 until he was far advanced in years; and we have reason to believe 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 author.
Such, however, was his enterprising spirit, that he built, at his own expense, the first theatre for dramatical performances ever known in Edinburgh, which took place in what is called Carrubber'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 license and his majesty's letters patent. It is generally understood that he relinquished the trade of bookseller about the year 1755, being then sixty-nine 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 scorbutic 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 seventy-first year of his age.
Ramsay possessed a very 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, in 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; and several of his tales have all the excellencies that belong to 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 commonplace observations, and destitute even of the ornament of smooth versification and correct rhymes. A complete edition of his works, with a Life, written by the late Mr George Chalmers, was published in two volumes 8vo.