RAMSAY'S MISCELLANEOUS POEMS; CONCLUSION
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--
'Amidst the glade the sacred palace stood,
The architecture not so fine as good;
Nor scrimp, nor gousty, regular and plain,
Plain were the columns which the roof sustain;
An easy greatness in the whole was found,
Where all that nature wanted did abound:
But here no beds are screen'd with rich brocade,
Nor fuel logs in silver grates are laid;
Nor broken China bowls disturb the joy
Of waiting handmaid, or the running boy;
Nor in the cupboard heaps of plate are rang'd,
To be with each splenetic fashion changed.'
_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
'Frae northern mountains clad with snaw,
Where whistling winds incessant blaw,
In time now when the curling-stane,
Slides murm'ring o'er the icy plain';
and he asks his correspondent how, under these conditions,
'What sprightly tale in verse can Yarde
Expect frae a cauld Scottish bard,
With brose and bannocks poorly fed,
In hodden gray right hashly clad,
Skelping o'er frozen hags with pingle,
Picking up peats to beet his ingle,
While sleet that freezes as it fa's,
Theeks as with glass the divot wa's
Of a laigh hut, where sax thegither
Lie heads and thraws on craps of heather?'
--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--
'Let neist day come as it thinks fit,
The present minute's only ours;
On pleasure let's employ our wit,
And laugh at fortune's feckless powers.'
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--
'O Binny, cou'd thae fields o' thine
Bear, as in Gaul, the juicy vine,
How sweet the bonny grape wad shine
On wa's where now
Your apricock and peaches fine
Their branches bow.
Since human life is but a blink,
Then why should we its short joys sink;
He disna live that canna link
The glass about;
Whan warm'd wi' wine, like men we think,
An' grow mair stout.'
The 31st Ode (B. 1.) to Apollo is thus felicitously rendered--
'Frae great Apollo, poets say,
What would'st thou wish, what wadst thou hae
Whan thou bows at his shrine?
Not Carse o' Gowrie's fertile field,
Nor a' the flocks the Grampians yield
That are baith sleek and fine;
Not costly things, brocht frae afar,
As iv'ry, pearl and gems;
Nor those fair straths that watered are
Wi' Tay an' Tweed's smooth streams.
Which gentily and daintily
Eat down the flow'ry braes,
As greatly and quietly
They wimple to the seas.'
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--
'Yes! there is ane: a Scottish callan,
There's ane; come forrit, honest Allan,
Thou needna jouk behint the hallan,
A chiel' sae clever:
The teeth o' time may gnaw Tantallan,
But thou's for ever!'