Our survey is now drawing to a close. To say a word upon those miscellaneous poems that do not fall naturally into any convenient category for classification is all that remains to be done.

Already attention has been called to the poem on Content, when its purpose was sketched. Though containing many passages of no little power and beauty, yet as a whole it is heavy and uninteresting. Written during the time when the glamour of Pope's influence was upon Ramsay, it exhibits many of Pope's faults without his redeeming features. True, the characters are drawn with great vigour and distinctive individuality, but the trail of dulness lies over it, and Content slumbers, with James Thomson's chef d'oeuvre on Liberty, on the top shelf amongst the spiders. The description of the palace of the goddess Content has, however, often been praised for its vigorous scene-painting—

The Prospect of Plenty is another poem wherein Ramsay allows his reasoning powers to run away with him. As Chalmers remarks: 'To the chimerical hopes of inexhaustible riches from the project of the South Sea bubble, the poet now opposes the certain prospect of national wealth from the prosecution of the fisheries in the North Sea—thus judiciously pointing the attention of his countrymen to the solid fruits of patient industry, and contrasting these with the airy projects of idle speculation.' The poem points out that of industry the certain consequence is plenty, a gradual enlargement of all the comforts of society, the advancement of the useful, and the encouragement of the elegant arts, the cultivation of talents, the refinement of manners, the increase of population—all that contributes either to national prosperity or to the rational enjoyments of life. The composition and structure of the poem are less deserving of encomium than the wisdom of its precepts. Like Content, it is tedious and dull, yet there is one vigorous passage in it, beginning: 'A slothful pride! a kingdom's greatest curse,' and dealing with the evils arising from the separation of the classes, which has often been quoted. Nor must we forget The Vision, which in the opinion of many must rank amongst the best of Ramsay's productions. Published originally in the Evergreen, over the initials 'A. R. Scot,' for some time it was believed to be the work of a Scots poet, Alexander Scott, who lived in the reign of Queen Mary. But Janet Ramsay put the matter beyond a doubt before her death by declaring the poem to have been written by her father. The merits of The Vision are considerable. The language is majestic and dignified, the ideas lofty, and the characters drawn with vigour and precision. Had the spelling not been so archaic, the poem would have been much more popular than it is.

For Horace, Ramsay always professed a deep admiration. Upon the style of the great Roman satirist he sought to model his 'Epistles,' which undoubtedly deserve something more than mere passing mention. In them Ramsay endeavours to give the friend, whom at the moment he addresses, a glimpse into the pursuits with which, for the time being, he was occupying himself. Taking this for his text, he digresses into apt and amusing dissertations on any subject of public, municipal, or social interest that might be engrossing the attention of the town. His epistles to Hamilton of Gilbertfield, to James Arbuckle, to the Earl of Dalhousie, to Mr. Aikman, to Sir W. Bennet, to William Starrat, to Joseph Burchet, to Somerville the poet, to Gay, to Clerk of Penicuik, and others, are altogether delightful—happy, cheery, humorous, gossipy productions, neither too full of fun to be frivolous, nor too didactic to be tiresome. Take, for example, his epistle to Robert Yarde of Devonshire,—how apt are his allusions, how racy his tit-bits of local news! He addresses the epistle

and he asks his correspondent how, under these conditions,

—this being a humorous allusion to the prevalent idea in England at the time, that the Scots were only a little better off than the savages of the South Seas.

Finally, in his translations, or rather paraphrases, from Horace, Ramsay was exceedingly happy. He made no pretensions to accuracy in his rendering of the precise words of the text. While preserving an approximation to the ideas of his original, he changes the local atmosphere and scene, and applies Horace's lines to the district around Edinburgh, wherewith he was so familiar. With rare skill this is achieved; and while any lover of Horace can easily follow the ideas of the original, the non-classical reader is brought face to face with associations drawn from his own land as illustrative, by comparison and contrast, of the text of the great Roman. Few could have executed the task with greater truth; fewer still with more felicity. Already I have cited a portion of Ramsay's rendering of Horace's famous Ode, Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte. There are two other stanzas well worthy of quotation. Ramsay's rendering of the famous Carpe diem, etc., passage is all I have space for—

Reference has also been made to his apt translation of the ideas contained in Horace's 1st Ode to Maecenas, by making them express his own feelings towards Lord Dalhousie. Two of his aptest renderings of the original, however, were those of Horace's 18th Ode to Quintilius Varus (Nullam, Vare, sacra vite prius severis arborem), which our poet renders—

The 31st Ode (B. 1.) to Apollo is thus felicitously rendered—

Ramsay had the misfortune never to have studied the technique of his art, so that in no respect is he a master of rhythm. The majority of his longer poems, including The Gentle Shepherd, are written in the ordinary heroic measure, so popular last century because so easily manipulated. His songs for the most part are written in familiar metres, not calculated to puzzle any bonny singing Bess as she danced and lilted on the village green. As a metrist, therefore, Ramsay can claim little or no attention. His poetry was the spontaneous ebullition of his own feelings, and for their expression he seized upon the first measure that came to hand.

Such, then, is Ramsay! In his matchless pastoral he will ever live in the hearts of Scotsmen; and were proof needed, it would be found in the increasing numbers of pilgrims who year by year journey to Carlops to visit the scenes amongst which Peggy lived and loved. To any one save the historian and the antiquarian, the remainder of his poetry may now be of little value,—probably of none,—amidst the multifarious publications which day by day issue from the press. But by Scotsmen the memory of the gentle, genial, lovable Allan will ever be prized as that of one who, at a critical time, did more to prevent Scottish national poetry from being wholly absorbed by the mightier stream of English song than any other man save Scott. Worthy of such veneration, then, is he, both as a poet and as a man; and though the extravagant admiration wherewith he was regarded in his own day, has given place to a soberer estimate of his rank in the hierarchy of letters, yet Allan Ramsay can never be held as other than one of the most delightful, if he can no longer be rated as one of the greatest, of Scottish poets. That his immortal pastoral can ever be consigned to the limbo of oblivion is as improbable as that our posterity will forget Tam o' Shanter and the Cotter's Saturday Night. The opinion of Robert Burns regarding the permanence of his 'poetical forebear's' fame will be cordially endorsed by every leal-hearted Scot, in whose memory the sturdy manliness of Patie and the winning beauty of Peggy are everlastingly enshrined—

THE END.