the human heart, and the simple and genuine language of nature, our
emotions of pleasure are soon checked by some frivolous stroke of
refinement, or some cold conceit. In the _Pastor Fido_, the latter
impression is entirely predominant, and we are seldom gratified with
any thing like a natural or simple sentiment. The character of
_Silvio_, utterly insensible to the charms of beauty or of female
excellence, and who repays an ardent passion with insolence and
hatred, if it exists at all in nature, is fitted only to excite
contempt and detestation. _Dorinda's_ courtship of _Silvio_ is equally
nauseous, and the stratagem she employs to gain his love is alike
unnatural. She steals and hides his favourite dog _Melampo_, and then
throwing herself in his way while he is whooping after him through the
forest, tells him she has found both the dog and a wounded doe, and
claims her reward for the discovery. "What shall that be?" says
_Silvio_.--"Only," replies the nymph, "one of those things that your
mother so often gives you."--"What," says he, "a box o' the
ear?"--"Nay, nay, but," says Dorinda, "does she never give thee a
kiss?"--"She neither kisses me, nor wants that others should kiss
me."--The dog is produced, and _Silvio_ asks, "Where is the
doe?"--"That poor doe," says she, "am I." A petulance which, though
rudely, we cannot say is unjustly punished, by Silvio giving a
thousand kisses to his dear dog, and leaving the forward nymph, with a
flat assurance of his hatred, to ruminate on his scorn, and her own
indelicacy. If this is nature, it is at least not _la belle nature_.
But the circumstance, on which turns the conversion of the obdurate
Silvio, bids defiance even to possibility. Hunting in the forest, he
holds a long discourse with an echo, and is half persuaded, by the
reflected sounds of his own voice, that there is some real pleasure in
love, and that he himself must one day yield to its influence. Dorinda
clothes herself in the skin of a wolf, and is shot by him with an
arrow, mistaking her for that animal. Then all at once he becomes her
most passionate lover, sucks out the barb of the arrow with a plaister
of green herbs, and swears to marry her on her recovery, which, by the
favour of the gods, is fortunately accomplished in an instant.
Equally unnatural with the fable are the sentiments of this pastoral.
_Amaryllis_, passionately adored by _Mirtillo_, and secretly loving
him, employs a long and refined metaphysical argument to persuade him,
that if he really loves her, he ought to love her virtue; and that
man's true glory lies in curbing his appetites. The _moral_ chorus
seems to have notions of love much more consonant to human nature, who
discourses for a quarter of an hour on the different kinds of kisses,
and the supreme pleasure felt, when they are the expression of a
mutual passion. But we need no chorus to elucidate _arcana_ of this
nature.
True it is that in this drama, as in the _Aminta_, there are passages
of such transcendent beauty, of such high poetic merit, that we cannot
wonder if, to many readers, they should veil every absurdity of fable,
or of the general strain of sentiment: for who is there that can read
the apostrophe of _Amaryllis_ to the groves and woods, the eulogy of
rural
Care selve beate, &c.;
the charming address of _Mirtillo_ to the spring--
O primavera gioventi del anno, &c.;
or the fanciful, but inspired description of the age of gold--
O bella età de l'oro! &c.;
who is there that can read these passages without the highest
admiration and delight? but it must at the same time be owned, that
the merit of these Italian poets lies in those highly finished, but
thinly sown passages of splendour; and not in the structure of their
fables, or the consonance of their general sentiments to truth and
nature.
The principal difficulty in pastoral poetry, when it attempts an
actual delineation of nature, (which we have seen is too seldom its
object,) lies in the association of delicate and affecting sentiments
with the genuine manners of rustic life; an union so difficult to be
accomplished, that the chief pastoral poets, both ancient and modern,
have either entirely abandoned the attempt, by choosing to paint a
fabulous and chimerical state of society; or have failed in their
endeavour, either by indulging in such refinement of sentiment as is
utterly inconsistent with rustic nature, or by endowing their
characters with such a rudeness and vulgarity of manners as is hostile
to every idea of delicacy. It appears to me that _Ramsay_ has most
happily avoided these extremes; and this he could the better do, from
the singularly fortunate choice of his subject. The principal persons
of the drama, though trained from infancy in the manners of rustic
life, are of generous birth; to whom therefore we may allow, from
nature and the influence of blood, an elevation of sentiment, and a
nobler mode of thinking, than to ordinary peasants. To these
characters the poet has therefore, with perfect propriety and
knowledge of human nature, given the generous sentiments that accord
with their condition, though veiled a little by the manners, and
conveyed in the language which suits their accidental situation. The
other characters, who are truly peasants, are painted with fidelity
from nature; but even of these, the situation chosen by the poet was
favourable for avoiding that extreme vulgarity and coarseness of
manners which would have offended a good taste. The peasantry of the
_Pentland hills_, within six or seven miles of the metropolis, with
which of course they have frequent communication, cannot be supposed
to exhibit the same rudeness of manners which distinguishes those of
the remote part of the country. As the models, therefore, from which
the poet drew were cast in a finer mould than mere provincial rustics,
so their copies, as drawn by him, do not offend by their vulgarity,
nor is there any greater degree of rusticity than what merely
distinguishes their mode of life and occupations.
In what I have said of the manners of the characters in the _Gentle
Shepherd_, I know that I encounter the prejudices of some _Scotish
critics_, who allowing otherwise the very high merits of Ramsay as a
poet, and giving him credit in particular for his knowledge of human
nature, and skill to touch the passions, quarrel with him only on the
score of his language; as they seem to annex inseparably the idea of
coarseness and vulgarity to every thing that is written in the native
dialect of their country: but of this I have said enough before. To
every Englishman, and, I trust, to every Scotsman not of fastidious
refinement, the dialect of the _Gentle Shepherd_ will appear to be
most perfectly consonant to the characters of the speakers, and the
times in which the action is laid. To this latter circumstance the
critics I have just mentioned seem not to have been sufficiently
attentive. The language of this pastoral is not precisely the Scotish
language of the present day: the poet himself spoke the language of
the beginning of the century, and his persons were of the age
preceding that period. To us their dialect is an antiquated tongue,
and as such it carries with it a Doric simplicity. But when we
consider both the characters and the times, it has an indispensable
propriety; and to have given the speakers in the _Gentle Shepherd_ a
more refined and pollished dialect, or more modern tone of
conversation, would have been a gross violation of truth and nature.
In the faithful painting of rustic life, _Ramsay_ seems to have been
indebted to his own situation and early habits, as well as to the want
of a learned education. He was familiarly acquainted with rural nature
from actual observation; and his own impressions were not weakened or
altered by much acquaintance with the classical common-places, or with
those artificial pictures which are presented by the poets.[44] It is
not therefore the general characters of the country, which one poet
can easily draw from the works of others, that we find in his
pastoral; it was the country in which he lived, the genuine manners of
its inhabitants, the actual scenes with which he was conversant, that
fixed his observation, and guided his imitative pencil. The character
which, in the preface to his Evergreen, he assigns to the Scotish
poetry in general, is in the most peculiar manner assignable to his
own: "The morning rises in the poet's description, as she does in the
Scotish horizon: we are not carried to Greece and Italy for a shade, a
stream, or a breeze; the groves rise in our own valleys, the rivers
flow from our own fountains, and the winds blow upon our own hills."
Ramsay's landscapes are drawn with the most characteristic precision:
we view the scene before us, as in the paintings of a _Claude_ or a
_Waterloo_; and the hinds and shepherds of the Pentland hills, to all
of whom this delightful pastoral is as familiar as their catechism,
can trace the whole of its scenery in nature, and are eager to point
out to the inquiring stranger--the waterfall of _Habbie's how_--the
cottages of _Glaud_ and _Symon_--_Sir William's ancient tower_,
ruinated in the civil wars, but since rebuilt--the _auld avenue_ and
_shady groves_, still remaining in defiance of the modern taste for
naked, shadeless lawns. And here let it be remarked, as perhaps the
surest criterion of the merit of this pastoral as a _true delineation
of nature_, that it is universally relished and admired by that class
of people whose habits of life and manners are there described. Its
sentiments and descriptions are in unison with their feelings. It is
recited, with congenial animation and delight, at the fireside of the
farmer, when in the evening the lads and lasses assemble to solace
themselves after the labours of the day, and share the rustic meal.
There is not a milk-maid, a plough-boy, or a shepherd, of the Lowlands
of Scotland, who has not by heart its favourite passages, and can
rehearse its entire scenes. There are many of its couplets that, like
the verses of Homer, are become proverbial, and have the force of an
adage, when introduced in familiar writing, or in ordinary
conversation.
[Footnote 44: So little has Ramsay borrowed from the ordinary language
of pastoral, which is generally a tame imitation of the dialogue of
Virgil and. Theocritus, that in the whole of the Scotish poem there
are (I think) only _three_ passages that bring to mind those
common-places which, in the eclogues of Pope, we find almost in every
line:
The bees shall loath the flower, and quit the hive,
The saughs on boggie-ground shall cease to thrive,
Ere scornful queans, &c. ACT 1, SCENE 1.
I've seen with shining fair the morning rise,
And soon the sleety clouds mirk a' the skies.
I've seen the silver spring a while rin clear,
And soon in mossy puddles disappear.
The bridegroom may rejoice, &c. _Act 3, Scene 3._
See yon twa elms that grow up side by side,
Suppose them, some years syne, bridegroom and bride; &c.
_Act 1, Scene 2._]
* * * * *
OPINIONS AND REMARKS
ON
"THE GENTLE SHEPHERD,"
_BY VARIOUS AUTHORS_.
JOHN AIKIN, LL.D. 1772.
"No attempt to naturalize _pastoral poetry_, appears to have succeeded
better than Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd: it has a considerable air of
reality, and the descriptive parts, in general, are in the genuine
taste of beautiful simplicity."[45]
[Footnote 45: Aikin's Essays on Song-Writing, p. 33.]
JAMES BEATTIE, LL.D. 1776.
"The sentiments of [the 'Gentle Shepherd'], are natural, the
circumstances interesting; the characters well drawn, well
distinguished, and well contrasted; and the fable has more probability
than any other pastoral drama I am acquainted with. To an Englishman
who has never conversed with the common people of Scotland, the
language would appear only antiquated, obscure, or unintelligible; but
to a Scotchman who thoroughly understands it, and is aware of its
vulgarity, it appears _ludicrous_; from the contrast between
_meanness_ of phrase and _dignity_ or _seriousness_ of sentiment.
This gives a farcical air even to the most affecting part of the
_poem_; and occasions an impropriety of a peculiar kind, which is very
observable in the representation. And accordingly, this play, with all
its merit, and with a strong national partiality in its favour, has
never given general satisfaction upon the stage."[46]
[Footnote 46: Beattie's Essays, p. 652. Ed. 1776.]
WILLIAM TYTLER. 1783.
"_Ramsay_ was a man of strong natural, though few acquired parts,
possessed of much humour, and native poetic fancy. Born in a pastoral
country, he had strongly imbibed the manners and humours of that life.
As I knew him well, an honest man, and of great pleasantry, it is with
peculiar satisfaction I seize this opportunity of doing justice to his
memory, in giving testimony to his being the author of the _Gentle
Shepherd_, which, for the natural ease of the dialogue, the propriety
of the characters, perfectly similar to the pastoral life in Scotland,
the picturesque scenery, and, above all, the simplicity and beauty of
the fable, may justly rank amongst the most eminent pastoral dramas
that our own or any other nation can boast of. Merit will ever be
followed by detraction. The envious tale, that the _Gentle Shepherd_
was the joint composition of some wits with whom _Ramsay_ conversed,
is without truth. It might be sufficient to say, that none of these
gentlemen have left the smallest fragment behind them that can give
countenance to such a claim. While I passed my infancy at _Newhall_,
near _Pentland hills_, where the scenes of this pastoral poem are
laid, the seat of Mr. _Forbes_, and the resort of many of the
_literati_ at that time, I well remember to have heard _Ramsay_
recite, as his own production, different scenes of the _Gentle
Shepherd_, particularly the first two, before it was printed. I
believe my honourable friend Sir _James Clerk of Pennycuik_, where
_Ramsay_ frequently resided, and who I know is possessed of several
original poems composed by him, can give the same testimony."
"_P.S._ The above note was shewn to Sir _James Clerk_, and had his
approbation."[47]
[Footnote 47: Poetical Remains of James 1st of Scotland; p. 189.]
HUGH BLAIR, D.D. 1783.
"I must not omit the mention of another _pastoral drama_, which will
bear being brought into comparison with any composition of this kind,
in any language; that is, Allan Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd. It is a
great disadvantage to this beautiful poem, that it is written in the
old rustic dialect of Scotland, which, in a short time, will probably
be entirely obsolete, and not intelligible; and it is a farther
disadvantage that it is so entirely formed on the rural manners of
Scotland, that none but a native of that country can thoroughly
understand or relish it. But, though subject to these local
disadvantages, which confine its reputation within narrow limits, it
is full of so much natural description, and tender sentiment, as would
do honour to any poet. The characters are well drawn, the incidents
affecting; the scenery and manners lively and just. It affords a
strong proof, both of the power which nature and simplicity possess,
to reach the heart in every sort of writing; and of the variety of
pleasing characters and subjects with which _pastoral poetry_, when
properly managed, is capable of being enlivened."[48]
[Footnote 48: Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric, vol. iii. p. 126.]
JOHN PINKERTON. 1786.
"ALLAN RAMSAY. The convivial buffoonery of this writer has acquired
him a sort of reputation, which his poetry by no means warrants; being
far beneath the middling, and showing no spark of genius. Even his
buffoonery is not that of a tavern, but that of an ale-house.
"The _Gentle Shepherd_ all now allow the sole foundation of his fame.
Let us put it in the furnace a little; for, if it be gold, it will
come out the purer. Dr. Beattie, in his Essay on Laughter and
Ludicrous Composition, observes, that the effect of the Gentle
Shepherd is ludicrous from the contrast between meanness of phrase,
and dignity or seriousness of sentiment. This is not owing to its
being written in the Scotish dialect, now left to the peasantry, as
that ingenious writer thinks; for the first part of Hardyknute,
written in that very dialect, strikes every English reader as sublime
and pathetic to the highest degree. In fact this glaring defect
proceeds from Allan Ramsay's own character as a buffoon, so evident
from all his poems, and which we all know he bore in private life; and
from Allan's total ignorance of the Scotish tongue, save that spoken
by the mob of Mid Lothian. It is well known that a comic actor of the
Shuter or Edwin class, though highly meritorious in his line, yet,
were he to appear in any save _queer_ characters, the effect would
even be more ludicrous than when he was in his proper parts, from the
contrast of the man with his assumed character. This applies also to
authors; for Sterne's sermons made us laugh, though there was nothing
laughable in them: and, had Rabelais, or Sterne, written a pastoral
opera, though the reader had been ignorant of their characters, still
a something, a je ne sçai quoi, in the phraseology, would have ever
provoked laughter. But this effect Ramsay has even pushed further;
for, by his entire ignorance of the Scotish tongue, save that spoken
by the mob around him, he was forced to use the very phraseology of
the merest vulgar, rendered yet more ridiculous by his own turn to low
humour; being himself indeed one of the mob, both in education and in
mind. So that putting such _queer_ language into the mouth of
respectable characters--nay, pretending to clothe sentiments, pathos,
and all that, with such phraseology--his whole Gentle Shepherd has the
same effect as a gentleman would have who chose to drive sheep on the
highway with a harlequin's coat on. This radical defect at once throws
the piece quite out of the class of good compositions.
* * * * *
"Allan was indeed so much a _poet_, that in his _Evergreen_ he even
puts rhyming titles to the old poems he publishes; and by this silly
idea, and his own low character, has stamped a kind of ludicrous hue
on the old Scotish poetry, of which he pretended to be a publisher,
that even now is hardly eradicated, though many editors of great
learning and high respectability have arisen.
* * * * *
"I have been the fuller on this subject, because, to the great
discredit of taste in Scotland, while we admire the effusions of this
scribbler, we utterly neglect our really great poets, such as Barbour,
Dunbar, Drummond, &c. There is even a sort of national prejudice in
favour of the Gentle Shepherd, because it is our only drama in the
Scotish language; yet we ought to be ashamed to hold prejudices so
ridiculous to other nations, and so obnoxious to taste, and just
criticism. I glory in Scotland as my native country; and, while I try
to root up all other prejudices out of my mind, shall ever nourish my
partiality to my country; as, if that be a prejudice, it has been
esteemed an honest and a laudable one in all ages; and is, indeed, the
only prejudice perfectly consonant to reason, and vindicable by truth.
But Scotland has no occasion to recur to false history, false taste,
false science, or false honours of any kind. In the severest light of
truth she will stand very conspicuous. Her sons, in trying to adorn
her, have shown remarkable defects of judgment. The ancient history of
the Picts, so splendid in the page of Tacitus, is lost in our own
fables. We neglect all our great poets, and are in raptures with Allan
Ramsay. Our prejudices are as pitiful as strong; and we know not that
the truth would make us far more illustrious, than all our dreams of
prejudice, if _realized_, to use an expression of impossibility. Good
sense in antiquities, and good taste in poetry, are astonishingly
wanting in Scotland to this hour."[49]
[Footnote 49: Ancient Scotish Poems. Vol. I. London, 1786.]
JOSEPH RITSON. 1794.
"Ramsay was a man of strong natural parts, and a fine poetical genius,
of which his celebrated _pastoral_ The Gentle Shepherd will ever
remain a substantial monument; and though some of his songs may be
deformed by far-fetched allusions and pitiful conceits, _The Lass of
Patie's Mill_, _The Yellow-hair'd Laddie_, _Farewell to Lochaber_, and
some others, must be allowed equal to any, and even superior, in point
of pastoral simplicity, to most lyric productions, either in the
Scotish or any other language."[50]
[Footnote 50: Ritson's Hist. Essay on Scotish Song, p. lxiii.]
WILLIAM ROSCOE. 1795.
"Whether the dialect of Scotland be more favourable to attempts of
this nature, or whether we are to seek for the fact in the character
of the people, or the peculiar talents of the writers, certain it is,
that the idiom of that country has been much more successfully
employed in poetical composition, than that of any other part of these
kingdoms, and that this practice may here be traced to a very early
period. In later times the beautiful _dramatic poem_ of The Gentle
Shepherd has exhibited rusticity without vulgarity, and elegant
sentiment without affectation. Like the heroes of Homer, the
characters of this piece can engage in the humblest occupations
without degradation."[51]
[Footnote 51: Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, vol. i. p. 296.]
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 1819.
"The admirers of the Gentle Shepherd, must perhaps be contented to
share some suspicion of national partiality, while they do justice to
their own feeling of its merit. Yet as this drama is a picture of
rustic Scotland, it would perhaps be saying little for its fidelity,
if it yielded no more agreeableness to the breast of a native than he
could expound to a stranger by the strict letter of criticism. We
should think the painter had finished the likeness of a mother very
indifferently, if it did not bring home to her children traits of
undefinable expression which had escaped every eye but that of
familiar affection. Ramsay had not the force of Burns; but, neither,
in just proportion to his merits, is he likely to be felt by an
English reader. The fire of Burns' wit and passion glows through an
obscure dialect by its confinement to short and concentrated bursts.
The interest which Ramsay excites is spread over a long poem,
delineating manners more than passions; and the mind must be at home
both in the language and manners, to appreciate the skill and comic
archness with which he has heightened the display of rustic character
without giving it vulgarity, and refined the view of peasant life by
situations of sweetness and tenderness, without departing in the
least degree from its simplicity. The Gentle Shepherd stands quite
apart from the general pastoral poetry of modern Europe. It has no
satyrs, nor featureless simpletons, nor drowsy and still landscapes of
nature, but distinct characters and amusing incidents. The principal
shepherd never speaks out of consistency with the habits of a peasant,
but he moves in that sphere with such a manly spirit, with so much
cheerful sensibility to its humble joys, with maxims of life so
rational and independent, and with an ascendency over his fellow
swains so well maintained by his force of character, that if we could
suppose the pacific scenes of the drama to be suddenly changed into
situations of trouble and danger, we should, in exact consistency with
our former idea of him, expect him to become the leader of the
peasants, and the Tell of his native hamlet. Nor is the character of
his mistress less beautifully conceived. She is represented, like
himself, as elevated, by a fortunate discovery, from obscure to
opulent life, yet as equally capable of being the ornament of either.
A Richardson or a D'Arblay, had they continued her history, might have
heightened the portrait, but they would not have altered its outline.
Like the poetry of Tasso and Ariosto, that of the Gentle Shepherd is
engraven on the memory of its native country. Its verses have passed
into proverbs and it continues to be the delight and solace of the
peasantry whom it describes."[52]
[Footnote 52: Campbell's British Poetry, vol. v. pp. 344-346.]
LEIGH HUNT. 1848.
"Poetical expression in humble life is to be found all over the south.
In the instances of Burns, Ramsay, and others, the north also has seen
it. Indeed, it is not a little remarkable, that Scotland, which is
more northern than England, and possesses not even a nightingale, has
had more of it than its southern neighbour."