time some stanzas, entitled 'A Block for Allan Ramsay's Wigs; or, the famous Poet fallen in a trance.' There were also printed some verses, called, 'Allan Ramsay metamorphosed to a Heatherbloter Poet; in a pastoral between Ægon and Melibiæ.' Ramsay was thus induced to give his 'Reasons for not answering the Hackney scribblers: '

'These to my blyth indulgent friends:

Dull foes nought at my hands deserve;
To pump an answer 's a' their ends;

But, not a line, if they should starve!"

By the attacks of such scribblers Ramsay seems not to have been much moved. He continued to please his numerous readers, by publishing successively popular poems. He printed his 'Fables and Tales,' in 1722; his 'Tale of Three Bonnets,' in the same year; 'The Fair Assembly,' in 1723; his poem on 'Health,' which he addressed to the celebrated Earl of Stair [* in 1724]. And he was thus enabled to publish, in 1728, a second volume of his poems, in quarto, including 'The Gentle Shepherd,' and his 'Masque on the Nuptials of the Duke of Hamilton,' which brings to our recollection the similar madrigals of Ben Jonson. Of this quarto, an octavo edition was published in 1729. Both the volumes were republished, at London, for the booksellers, during the year 1731. The poetry of Ramsay met with a flattering welcome, not only in Scotland and in England, but also in the colonies, and in Ireland; and there was published, at Dublin, an edition of his poems in 1733. Of this universality of reception, our bard delighted to sing in grateful strains, both as a poet and a bookseller.

In 1730, Ramsay published 'A Collection of thirty Fables.' In this species of poetry he appears to have greatly indulged; because what he easily found, he read

ily delivered. Yet, about this time, he seems to have ceased writing for the public, at the age of forty-five; having diligently tried, during twenty years, to please his countrymen and benefit himself. In his letter to Smibert, he says, in 1736, "these six or seven years past I have not written a line of poetry. I e'en gave over in good time, before the coolness of fancy that attends advanced years should make me risk the reputation I had acquired."(1) Ramsay had now obtained, by his poetry, all the fame which was to be had; and he was incited, by his love of profit, to busy himself, not in writing, but in selling and circulating books. In 1726, he removed from his original dwelling, at the Mercury, opposite the Cross-well, to a house which had been the London coffeehouse, in the east end of the Luckenbooths. (2) With this change of situation, he altered his sign; and instead of the original Mercury, he now adopted the heads of two poets,-Drummond of Hawthornden, and Ben Jonson. Here he sold and lent books till a late period of his life; here the wits of Edinburgh used to meet for amusement and for information. From this commodious situation, Gay, a congenial poet, was wont to look out upon the Exchange of Edinburgh, in order to know persons and to ascertain characters. (3)

(1) This curious letter, which is dated the 10th of May 1736, was first published in the Gent. Mag. September, 1784, p. 672; and was thence copied into other miscellanies.

(2) [* Mr. R. Chambers says that the shop to which Ramsay now removed was "one in the second floor of a building also in the High-street, but which stood upon the line of the street alongside of St. Giles's church, where he had some windows which commanded a view of the place around the cross, then the resort of perhaps the most gay and the most dignified part of the population of Scotland."}

(3) The late William Tytler, Esq. recollected Gay, in his shop, desiring Ramsay to explain to him many of the Scottish expressions of 'The Gentle Shepherd,' which Gay said he would communicate to Pope, who was a great admirer of that pastoral." Gay used to accompany the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry to Scotland. Gay was described by Mr. Tytler, as "a little pleasant-looking man, with a tye-wig."

It was in this society, and in that station, that Ramsay's passion for the drama returned on him. In 1736, at the age of fifty, he undertook to build “a playhouse new, at vast expence:" this house, he built in Carrubber's close. He boasts of having

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kept our troop, by pith of reason, Frae bawdy, atheism, and treason."

In vain did Ramsay, and his troop,

Only preach, frae moral fable,
The best instruction they were able."

The act for licensing the stage, which was passed in 1737, crushed the poet's hopes of conveying "the best instruction," and calmed the scrupulosity of those who feared that amusement and religion could not exist together.

At Edinburgh, the magistrate had not yet considered -like the ministers of Elizabeth-that, in well-regulated society, public amusements may produce advantages without any other evils than can be easily corrected. The rulers of Edinburgh, thinking very differently from our dramatist, as to the mode and the matter of the instruction which was thus given to the citizens who were intrusted to their care, shut up his playhouse; leaving the undertaker without relief for what the law considered as a damage without an injury. (1) Our dramatist

(1) There is happily preserved in the Gentlemen's Mag. 1737, p. 507, a poetical address from Ramsay to the Honourable Duncan Forbes, the Lord-president of the Session, and the other judges. This illustrious president was appointed to that high trust, on the 21st of June 1737,—a fact which would ascertain the dates of this whole transaction, if the licensing act (10 Geo. II. ch. 28.) were not mentioned. The address of Ramsay, which is at once a specimen of his poetry, and a history of his playhouse, is subjoined:

To the Honourable Duncan Forbes of Culloden, Lord-president of the Session, and all our other judges, who are careful of the honour of the government, and the property of the subject:

had on this occasion other mortifications to suffer. There was soon published a poetical pamphlet containing 'The Flight of Religious Piety from Scotland, upon the ac

And ken them well whase fair behaviour
Deserve reward and royal favour,
As like you do, these stonkerd fellows,
Wha merit naithing but the gallows ;-
To you, with humble bow, your bard,
Whase greatest brag is your regard,
Begs leave to lay his case before ye,
And for an outgate to implore ye.

Last year, my Lords, nae farrer gane,
A costly wark was undertane
By me, wha had not the least dread
An act wad knock it on the head:
A playhouse new, at vast expence,
To be a large, yet bein defence,
In winter nights, 'gainst wind and weet,
To ward frae cauld the lasses sweet,
While they with bonny smiles attended,
To have their little failures mended;
Where satire, striving still to free them,
Hads out his glass to let them see them.
Here, under rules of right decorum,
By placing consequenee before 'em,
I kept our troop, by pith of reason,
Frae bawdy, atheism, and treason;
And only preach'd, frae moral fable,
The best instruction they were able;
While they by doctrine linsy-woolsy,
Set aff the utile with dulce.

And shall the man to whom this task falls,

Suffer amang confounded rascals,

That, like vile adders, dart their stings,

And fear nae God, nor honour kings?

Shall I, wha for a tract of years

Have sung to commons and to peers,
And got the general approbation
Of all within the British nation,
At last be tin'd of all my hopes

count of Ramsay's lewd books, and the hell-bred playhouse comedians, who debauch all the faculties of the soul of our rising generation.'-—There also appeared 'A Looking-glass for Allan Ramsay;'—'The dying words of Allan Ramsay. The lampooners left intimations of what

Be made a loser, and engage

With troubles in declining age;

While wights, to whom my credit stands

For sums, make sour and thrawin demands?
Shall London have its houses twa,
And we be doom'd to 've nane ava?
Is our metrop'lis, anes the place,
Where longsine dwelt the royal race
Of Fergus, this gate dwindled down
T'a level with ilk clachan town,
While thus she suffers the subversion
Of her maist rational diversion?

When ice and snaw o'ercleads the isle,
Wha now will think it worth their while
To leave their gowsty country bowers,
For the anes blythsome Edinburgh's towers,
Where there's no glee to give delight,
And ward frae spleen the langsome night?
For which they'll now have nae relief,
But sonk at hame, and cleck mischief.
Is there ought better than the stage
To mend the follies of the age,
If manag'd as it ought to be,
Frae ilka vice and blaidry free?

Which may be done with perfect ease,
And nought be heard that shall displease,
Or give the least offence or pain,

If we can hae 't restor❜d again.

Wherefore, my Lords, I humbly pray
Our lads may be allow'd to play,

At least till new-house debts be paid off,
The cause that I'm the maist afraid of;
Which laide lyes on my single back,
And I man pay it ilka plack.

Now, it's but just the legislature
Should either say that I'm a faulter,
Or thole me to employ my bigging,
Or of the burthen ease my rigging,
By ordering, frae the public fund,
A sum to pay for what I'm bound;
Syne, for amends for what I've lost,
Edge me into some canny post,
With the good liking of our king,
And your petitioner shall-sing.

A. R.