THE FAVOURITE AT THE 'FOUR-OORS'; FROM WIGMAKER TO BOOKSELLER; THE
QUARTO OF 1721--1717-21
Ramsay's fame as a poet, writing in the Scots vernacular, was now
thoroughly established. Though the patronage of the Easy Club could no
longer be extended to him, as the Government of the Elector of
Hanover--lately crowned King of England under the title of George
I.--had directed its suppression, the members of it, while in a position
to benefit him, had laid the basis of his reputation so broad and deep
that virtually he had now only to build on their foundation.
He was distinctly the favourite of the 'auld wives' of the town. In
quarto sheets, familiarly known as _broadsides_, and similar to what had
been hawked about the country in his youth, his poems had hitherto been
issued. It became the fashion, when four o'clock arrived, to send out
their children, or their 'serving-lass,' with a penny to procure Allan
Ramsay's latest piece, in order to increase the relish of their
'four-oors' Bohea' with the broad humour of _John Cowper_, or _The Elegy
upon Lucky Wood_, or _The Great Eclipse_.
During the year or two immediately preceding the publication of the
quarto of 1721 this custom greatly increased. Of course, a supply had
to be forthcoming to meet such a demand, but of these, numberless
pieces, on topics of political or merely ephemeral interest, were never
republished after their appearance in _broadside_ form. By an eminent
collector of this species of literature the fact is stated, that there
are considerably over two score of poems by Ramsay which have thus been
allowed to slip into oblivion. Not that such a fate was undeserved. In
many cases their indelicacy would debar their admission into any edition
nowadays; in others, their lack of permanent general interest. Such
subjects as _The Flytin' of Luckie Duff and Luckie Brown_, _A Dookin' in
the Nor' Loch_, and _A Whiggish Lament_, were not the kind of themes his
calmer and maturer judgment would care to contemplate being handed down
to posterity as specimens of his work.
In 1719 Ramsay appears to have concluded, from the extensive sale his
poems enjoyed even in _broadside_ form, that the trade of a bookseller
would not only be more remunerative than a wigmaker's, but would also be
more in accord with his literary tastes and aspirations. For some months
he had virtually carried on the two trades concurrently, his reputation
undoubtedly attracting a large number of customers to his shop to have
their wigs dressed by the popular poet of the day. But as his fame
increased, so did his vanity. Of praise he was inordinately fond. 'Tell
Allan he's as great a poet as Pope, and ye may get what ye like from
him,' said the witty and outspoken Lord Elibank to a friend. The charge
had more than a grain of truth in it. That man did not lack more than
his share of self-complacent vanity who could write, as the vicegerent
of great Apollo, as he informs us in _The Scribblers Lashed_, such lines
as these--
'Wherefore pursue some craft for bread,
Where hands may better serve than head;
Nor ever hope in verse to shine,
Or share in Homer's fate or----'
Alas! Allan, 'backwardness in coming forward' was never one of thy
failings!
To Allan, _digito monstrari_ was a condition of things equivalent to the
seventh heaven of felicity; but he felt it would be more to his
advantage to be pointed out as a bookseller than as a wigmaker, when his
reputation as a poet would cause his social status to be keenly
examined. We learn that he consulted his friend Ruddiman on the step,
who spoke strongly in its favour, and gave him good sound advice as to
the kind of stock most likely to sell readily. The 'Flying Mercury,'
therefore, which up to this date had presided over the 'theeking' of the
_outside_ of the 'pashes' (heads) of the worthy burgesses of Auld
Reekie, was thereafter to preside, with even increased lustre, over the
provision of material for lining the _inside_ with learning and culture.
That the time was an anxious one for the poet there can be little doubt.
He was virtually beginning the battle of life anew; and though he did so
with many advantageous circumstances in his favour, none the less was
the step one to be undertaken only after the gravest consideration and
calculation of probabilities. But by its results the change is shown to
have been a wise one. From the outset the bookselling business proved a
lucrative venture. The issue of his own _broadsides_, week by week, was
of itself a considerable source of profit. These, in addition to being
sold at his shop and hawked about the country, were disposed of on the
streets of Edinburgh by itinerant stallkeepers, who were wont to regard
the fact as one of great moment to themselves when they could cry, 'Ane
o' Maister Ramsay's new poems--price a penny.' In this manner his famous
piece, _The City of Edinburgh's Address to the Country_, was sown
broadcast over the county.
Meantime, while Ramsay's literary and commercial prosperity was being
established on so firm a basis, he was becoming quite a family man. The
little house opposite Niddry's Wynd was gradually getting small enough
for his increasing _menage_. Since his marriage in 1712, happiness
almost idyllic, as he records, had been his lot in his domestic
relations. He had experienced the pure joy that thrills through a
parent's heart on hearing little toddling feet pattering through his
house, and sweet childish voices lisping the name 'father.' The
following entries in the Register of Births and Baptisms for the City of
Edinburgh speak for themselves:--
'At Edinburgh, 6th October 1713.
'Registrate to Allan Ramsay, periwige-maker, and Christian Ross, his
spouse, New Kirk Parish--a son, Allan. Witnesses, John Symer, William
Mitchell, and Robert Mein, merchant, burgesses; and William Baxter.
'Registrate to Allan Ramsay, weegmaker, burges, and Christian Ross, his
spouse, North East (College Kirk) Parish--a daughter named Susanna.
Witnesses, John Symers, merchant, and John Morison, merchant. The child
was born on the 1st instant. 3rd October 1714.
'Registrate to Allan Ramsay, weegmaker, and Christian Ross, his spouse,
North East Parish--a son, Niell. Witnesses, Walter Boswell, sadler, and
John Symer, merchant. 9th October 1715.
'Registrate to Allan Ramsay, weegmaker, and Christian Ross, his spouse,
North East Parish--a son, Robert. Witnesses, John Symer, merchant, and
Walter Boswell, sadler. The child was born on the 10th instant. 23rd
November 1716.
'Registrate to Allan Ramsay, bookseller, and Christian Ross, his
spouse--a daughter named Agnes. Witnesses, James Norie, painter, and
George Young, chyrurgeon. Born the 9th instant. 10th August 1725.'
Besides these named above, Chalmers states that Christian Ross brought
Allan Ramsay three other daughters, who were not recorded in the
Register,--one born in 1719, one in 1720, and one in 1724,--who are
mentioned in his letter to Smibert as 'fine girls, no ae wally-draigle
among them all.'
In 1719 our poet published his first edition of 'Scots Songs,'--some
original, others collected from all sources, and comprising many of the
gems of Scottish lyrical poetry. The success attending the volume was
instant and gratifying, and led, as we will see further on, to other
publications of a cognate but more ambitious character. Almost
contemporaneously was published, in a single sheet or _broadside_, what
proved to be the germ of the _Gentle Shepherd_--to wit, a _Pastoral
Dialogue between Patie and Roger_. The dialogue was reprinted in the
quarto of 1721, and was much admired by all the lovers of poetry of the
period.
A reliable gauge of the estimation wherein Ramsay was now held, as
Scotland's great vernacular poet, is afforded in the metrical epistles
sent to him during the closing months of 1719 by Lieutenant William
Hamilton of Gilbertfield, to which Allan returned replies in similar
terms. This was not a poetical tourney like the famous 'flyting' between
Dunbar and Kennedy, two hundred and thirty years before. In the latter,
the two tilters sought to say the hardest and the bitterest things of
each other, though they professed to joust with pointless spears; in the
former, Hamilton and Ramsay, on the contrary, vied each with the other
in paying the pleasantest compliments. Gilbertfield contributed a
luscious sop to his correspondent's vanity when he saluted him, in a
stanza alluded to by Burns in his own familiar tribute, as--
'O fam'd and celebrated Allan!
Renowned Ramsay! canty callan!
There's nowther Highland-man nor Lawlan,
In poetrie,
But may as soon ding down Tantallan,
As match wi' thee.'
Then he proceeds to inform honest Allan that of 'poetry, the hail
quintescence, thou hast suck'd up,' and affirms that--
'Tho' Ben and Dryden of renown
Were yet alive in London town,
Like kings contending for a crown,
'Twad be a pingle,
Whilk o' you three wad gar words sound
And best to jingle.'
After such a glowing tribute, Allan could do no less than dip deep into
his cask of compliments also, and assure Gilbertfield that he felt
taller already by this commendation--
'When Hamilton the bauld and gay
Lends me a heezy,
In verse that slides sae smooth away,
Well tell'd and easy.'
Then he proceeds to shower on his correspondent his return compliments
as follows--
'When I begoud first to cun verse,
And could your "Ardry Whins" rehearse,
Where Bonny Heck ran fast and fierce,
It warmed my breast;
Then emulation did me pierce,
Whilk since ne'er ceast.'
Three epistles were exchanged on either side, bristling with flattery,
and with a little poetic criticism scattered here and there. In Ramsay's
second letter his irrepressible vanity takes the bit in its teeth and
runs away with him. He appends a note with reference to his change of
occupation, as though he dreaded the world might not know of it. 'The
muse,' he says, 'not unreasonably angry, puts me here in mind of the
favours she had done by bringing me from stalking over bogs or wild
marshes, to lift my head a little brisker among the polite world, which
could never have been acquired by the low movements of a mechanic.' He
was a bookseller now, of course, and could afford to look down on
wigmakers as base mechanics! His lovableness and generosity
notwithstanding, Ramsay's vanity and self-complacency meets us at every
turn. To omit mentioning it would be to present an unfaithful portrait
of the honest poet. On the other hand, justice compels one to state
that, if vain, he was neither jealous nor ungenerous. He was always
ready to recognise the merits of others, and his egoism was not
selfishness. Though he might not care to deny himself to his own despite
for the good of others, he was perfectly ready to assist his neighbour
when his own and his family's needs had been satisfied.
At this time, also, Sir William Scott of Thirlestane, Bart., a
contemporary Latin poet, as Chalmers records, of no inconsiderable
powers, hailed Ramsay as one of the genuine poets whose images adorned
the temple of Apollo. In the 'Poemata D. Gulielmi Scoti de Thirlestane,'
printed along with the 'Selecta Poemata Archibaldi Pitcarnii'
(Edinburgh, 1727), the following lines occur--
'_Effigies Allani Ramsaei, Poetae Scoti, inter caeteras Poetarum
Imagines in Templo Apollinis suspensa_:
Ductam Parrhasia videtis arte
Allani effigiem, favente Phoebo,
Qui Scotos numeros suos, novoque
Priscam restituit vigore linguam.
Hanc Phoebus tabulam, hanc novem sorores
Suspendunt lepidis jocis dicatam:
Gaudete, O Veneres, Cupidinesque,
Omnes illecebrae, facetiaeque,
Plausus edite; nunc in aede Phoebi
Splendet conspicuo decore, vestri
Allani referens tabella vultus.'
As much as any other, this testimony evinces how rapidly our poet's
reputation had increased.
At last, in the spring of 1720, Allan Ramsay came before the public, and
challenged it to endorse its favourable estimate of his fugitive pieces
by subscribing to a volume of his collected poems, 'with some new, not
heretofore printed.' As Chambers remarks: 'The estimation in which the
poet was now held was clearly demonstrated by the rapid filling up of a
list of subscribers, containing the names of all that were eminent for
talents, learning, or dignity in Scotland.' The volume, a handsome
quarto, printed by Ruddiman, and ornamented by a portrait of the author,
from the pencil of his friend Smibert, was published in the succeeding
year, and the fortunate poet realised four hundred guineas by the
speculation. Pope, Steele, Arbuthnot, and Gay were amongst his English
subscribers.
The quarto of 1721 may be said to have closed the youthful period in the
development of Ramsay's genius. Slow, indeed, was that development. He
was now thirty-five years of age, and while he had produced many
excellent pieces calculated to have made the name of any mediocre
writer, he had, as yet, given the world nothing that could be classed as
a work of genius. His sketches of humble life and of ludicrous episodes
occurring among the lower classes in Edinburgh and the rustics in the
country, had pleased a wide _clientele_ of readers, because they
depicted with rare truth and humour, scenes happening in the everyday
life of the time. But in no single instance, up to this date, had he
produced a work that would live in the minds of the people as expressive
of those deep, and, by them, incommunicable feelings that go to the
composition of class differences.
As a literary artist, Ramsay was destined to develop into a _genre_
painter of unsurpassed fidelity to nature. As yet, however, that which
was to be the distinctive characteristic of his pictures had not dawned
upon his mind. But the time was rapidly approaching. Already the first
glimmerings of apprehension are to be detected in his tentative
endeavours to realise his _metier_ in the pastoral dialogue of _Patie
and Roger_ republished in his volume.
The quarto of 1721 contained, moreover, several pieces that had not been
previously printed. These we will at present only mention _en passant_,
reserving critical analysis for our closing chapters. Not the least
noticeable of the poems in the volume are those wherein he lays aside
his panoply of strength,--the 'blythe braid Scots,' or vernacular,--and
challenges criticism on what he terms 'his English poems.' These were
undoubtedly the most ambitious flights in song hitherto attempted by the
Scottish Tityrus. To the study of Dryden, Cowley, Swift, Pope, and
Arbuthnot, he had devoted himself,--particularly to Pope's translation
of Homer's _Iliad_, and to the collected edition of the works of the
great author of the _Rape of the Lock_, issued in 1717. He had been in
correspondence for some years previous with several of the leading
English poets of the day, and with other individuals well known both in
politics and London society, such as Josiah Burchet, who, when he died
in 1746, had been Secretary to the Admiralty for forty-five years, and
had sat in six successive Parliaments. This was the friend whose
admiration for Ramsay was so excessive as to prompt him to send (as was
the custom of the time) certain recommendatory verses for insertion in
the quarto, wherein he hailed honest Allan in the following terms--
'Go on, famed bard, the wonder of our days,
And crown thy head with never-fading bays;
While grateful Britons do thy lines revere,
And value as they ought their Virgil here.'
Small wonder is it that, stimulated by such flattery, Allan should have
desired to evince to his friends by the Thames, that the notes of their
northern brother of the lyre were not confined to the humble strains of
his own rustic reed.
In the quarto, therefore, we have a poem, _Tartana, or The Plaid_,
written in heroic couplets, with the avowed desire to reinstate in
popular favour the silken plaid, which, from time immemorial, had been
the favourite attire of Scots ladies, but, since the Rebellion of 1715,
had been somewhat discarded, in consequence of Whiggish prejudices that
it was a badge of disloyalty to the reigning house. Then we have
_Content_, a long piece of moral philosophy in verse, and the _Morning
Interview_, a poem written under the spell of Pope's _Rape of the Lock_,
wherein the very machinery of the sylphs is copied from the great
English satire. Nor is the 'South Sea Bubble,' which ran its brief
course from 1718 to 1720, forgotten in _Wealth, or The Woody_ (gallows),
and two shorter poems illustrative of the prevailing madness. Epigrams,
Addresses, Elegies, and Odes are also included, along with one or two of
his famous poetical _Epistles_, modelled on those of Horace, and
brimming over with genial _bonhomie_ and good-humoured epicureanism. In
this volume, also, we have additional evidence afforded how fondly he
had become attached to Edinburgh and its environs. Scarce a poem is
there in the book that lacks some reference to well-known features in
the local landscape, showing that he still retained the love of
wandering, in his spare hours, amid Pentland glens and by fair Eskside.
Only with one extract will the reader's patience be taxed here. It is
from his _Ode to the Ph--_, and is obviously an imitation of Horace's
Ode to Thaliarchus. All the sunny glow of the great Roman's genius seems
reflected in this revival of his sentiments, albeit under varying
physical conditions, well-nigh three hundred and fifty _lustra_
afterwards. The lines cleave to the memory with a persistence that
speaks volumes for the catholicity and appropriateness of the thoughts--
'Look up to Pentland's tow'ring tap,
Buried beneath big wreaths o' snaw,
O'er ilka cleugh, ilk scaur, and slap,
As high as ony Roman wa'.
Driving their ba's frae whins or tee,
There's no ae gowfer to be seen;
Nor doucer fouk, wysing a-jee
The biassed bowls on Tamson's green.
Then fling on coals, and ripe the ribs,
And beek the house baith butt and ben;
That mutchkin stoup it hauds but dribs,
Then let's get in the tappit hen.
Guid claret best keeps out the cauld,
An' drives awa' the winter soon:
It makes a man baith gash and bauld,
An' heaves his saul ayont the moon.
Leave to the gods your ilka care;
If that they think us worth their while,
They can a rowth o' blessings spare,
Which will our fashous fears beguile.'