HIS APPRENTICESHIP; A BURGESS OF THE TOWN--1701-7
As much, perhaps, to obtain release from employment so laborious as that
on the farm, as from a desire to be independent, young Ramsay consented
to his stepfather's proposal that he should be apprenticed to a wigmaker
in Edinburgh.
It has been urged, in proof of Crichton's harshness to his stepson, that
Ramsay, after he left Leadhills in 1700, never seems to have had any
further intercourse with them. Not so much as a chance reference in a
letter reveals that he ever had any future dealings with the Crichton
family. But this is not to be wondered at. The fact of the death of his
mother in 1700 does not wholly explain the matter, I admit. But we need
only recall the exclusive character previously attributed to the people
of Leadhills, their antipathy to any intrusion upon them by strangers of
any kind, to understand the case. They were a type of Scottish Essenes,
a close community, akin to the fisher-communities of Newhaven and
Fisherrow, with their distinctive customs, traditions, and prejudices.
For a gay young Edinburgh spark such as Ramsay, fond of fine clothes,
with a strong spice of vanity and egotism in his nature, to sojourn
amongst the _dour_, stolid, phlegmatic miners, would have been to foster
the development of asperities on both sides, calculated to break off all
further intercourse. Met they may have, and parted on the terms we
surmise, but of such meeting no hint was ever dropped, and a veil of
separation drops between the household at Crawfordmuir and the young
Jacob who thus was sent forth, from the shadow of what was to him the
paternal roof, to war with the world at his own charges. That David
Crichton had done his duty nobly by the lad was evident; but other
children were shooting up to youth's estate, and when the elder bird was
full fledged, it must e'en take its flight from the parent nest to make
room for others.
There is another view of the case not so creditable to the future poet,
but still within the range of possibility--that the scion of the house
of Ramsay, whose anxiety to let the world know he was of gentle lineage
was so chronic, may have felt himself a cut above the children of the
bonnet-lairdie. Ramsay's nature was not one wherein the finer sympathies
and delicate regard for the feelings of others were mortised into a
sturdy independence and a desire to carve his fortunes out of the block
of favouring opportunity. From start to finish of his career a subtle
egoism, born of his lonely situation in life and fostered by his
inordinate vanity, was his distinguishing trait. Generous acts he did,
benevolent and kindly on numerous occasions he undoubtedly was, but his
charity was not altruism. He was not the man to deny himself for the
good of others.
Henceforth Edinburgh was to be Ramsay's life's home. He was enrolled as
an apprentice early in January 1701. Although, as an apprentice, he was
obliged to undertake duties distinctly domestic and menial,--for, in
those days of strict social and ecclesiastical discipline, a master was
expected to discharge towards those indentured to him much that
appertains solely to the province of the parent,--still, there would be
many spare hours wherein he would be free to devote himself to such
pursuits as his taste led him.
What induced him to select wig-making as his life's _metier_ is unknown.
Perhaps his stepfather may have had some friend in that line of business
who for 'auld lang syne' was willing to take the boy and teach him his
trade. There is, of course, the other side of the question to be taken
into account, that the work did not demand much bodily strength for its
successful prosecution, and that it was cleanly, neat, and artistic. The
recent development of the art of the _coiffeur_ in France, in
consequence of the attempts of Louis XIV. to conceal his natural defects
of diminutive stature and a phenomenally small head,--defects impairing
the effect of that majestic mien which the pupil of Mazarin so
persistently cultivated,--had spread into England, and thence into
Scotland. The enormous periwigs rendered fashionable by _Le Grand
Monarque_ admitted of a variety of artistic treatment. The heyday of
wig-making may therefore be said to have extended over at least the
greater part of Ramsay's career in this branch of trade, and in his day
the poet was reckoned the most ingenious of Edinburgh _perruquiers_.
Another consideration probably influenced him in his choice to proceed
to Edinburgh. The change to lighter labour would enable him to filch
from hours allocated to sleep precious moments for private reading,
which the arduous nature of his employment at Crawfordmuir had
prevented. Besides, he was in a 'city of books'--books only waiting to
be utilised. That he did take advantage of his opportunities during his
apprenticeship, and that it was at this period that the poetic instinct
in him took fire, on coming in contact with the electric genius of
Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, and other master-minds of English
literature, is a fact to which he refers more than once in his poems.
From 1701-7,--in other words, from his fifteenth to his twenty-first
year,--while he was serving his apprenticeship, there is a gap in the
continuity of the records we have of the poet; a _lacuna_ all the more
regrettable as these were the true germing years of his genius. Of the
name of his trade-master, of the spot where the shop of the latter was
situated, of his friends at that time, of his pursuits, his amusements,
his studies, we know little, save what can be gathered from chance
references in after-life. That they were busy years as regards his trade
is certain from the success he achieved in it; and that Ramsay was
neither a lazy, thriftless, shiftless, or vicious apprentice his after
career effectually proves. That they were happy years, if busy, may, I
think, be accepted as tolerably certain, for the native gaiety and
hilarity of his temperament underwent no abatement. Whether or not his
fashionable Edinburgh relatives took any notice of him, whether he was a
guest at his grandfather, the lawyer's house, or whether the latter and
his family, hidebound by Edinburgh social restrictions, found it
necessary to ignore a Ramsay who soiled his fingers with trade, is
unknown. Probably not, for it is matter of tradition that it was the
fact of his family connections which weighed with Writer Ross in
consenting to the union of his daughter with a tradesman.
In the spring of 1707 Allan Ramsay received back his indentures, signed
and sealed, with the intimation from the ancient and honourable
'Incorporation of Wigmakers' that he was free of the craft. He appears
almost immediately thereafter to have commenced business on his own
account in the Grassmarket, being admitted at the same time, in virtue
of being a craftsman of the town, a burgess of the City of Edinburgh.
Though no trace can be found that the wigmakers ranked amongst the
forty-two incorporated Societies or Guilds of the city (for their name
does not appear), that they must have enjoyed the same privileges as the
other trades, is evident from the fact of Ramsay being enrolled as a
burgess, the moment he had completed his apprenticeship.