afterward, the mob of Glasgow demolished the first playhouse that was erected in their city; and though the work of destruction was accomplished in daylight by many hundreds, it was reckoned so godly, that no reward could bribe any witness to appear or inform against the rioters. Ten years from the date of this disappointment, Ramsay had the satisfaction of seeing dramatic entertainments freely enjoyed by his fellow-citizens; but in the mean time he was not only left without legal relief for his own loss in the speculation (having suffered what the Scotch law denominated a "damnum sine injuria,") but he was assailed with libels on his moral character, for having endeavoured to introduce the “hellbred playhouse comedians."

He spent some of the last years of his life in a house of whimsical construction, on the north side of the Castle-hill of Edinburgh, where the place of his residence is still distinguished by the name of Ramsay garden.

A scurvy in his gums put a period to his life in his seventy-second year. He died at Edinburgh, and was interred in Grey Friars church-yard. Ramsay was small in stature, with dark but expressive and pleasant features. He seems to have possessed the constitutional philosophy of good-humour. His genius gave him access to the society of those who were most distinguished for rank and talents in his native country; but his intercourse with them was marked by no servility, and never seduced him from the quiet attention to trade by which he ultimately secured a moderate independence. His vanity in speaking of himself is often excessive, but it is always gay and good-natured. On one occasion he modestly takes precedence of Peter the Great, in estimating their comparative importance with the public." But ha'd,* proud Czar (he says) I wad no niffert fame." Much of his poetry breathes the subdued aspirations of Jacobitism. He was one of those Scotsmen who for a long time would not extend their patriotism to the empire in which their country was merged, and who hated the cause of the Whigs in Scotland, from remembering its ancient connection with the leaven of fanaticism. The Tory cause had also found its way to their enthusiasm by being associated with the pathos and romance of the lost independence of their country. The business of Darien was still "alta mente repostum." Fletcher's eloquence on the subject of the Union was not forgotten, nor that of Belhaven, who had apostrophised the Genius of Caledonia in the last meeting of her senate, and who died of grief at the supposed degradation of his country. Visionary as the idea of Scotland's independence as a kingdom might be, we must most of all excuse it in a poet whose fancy was expressed, and whose reputation was bound up, in a dialect from which the Union took away the last chance of perpetuity.

Our poets miscellaneous pieces, though some of them are very ingenious,‡ are upon the whole of a much coarser grain than his pastoral drama. 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 indefinable 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 ascendancy 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.

Particularly the tale of the Monk and the Miller's Wife. This story is, unhappily, unfit for a popular collection like the present, but it is well told. It is borrowed from an old poem attributed to Dunbar.

FROM "THE GENTLE SHEPHERD."

ACT I. SCENE II.

PROLOGUE.

A flowrie howmd between twa verdant braes,
Where lasses use to wash and spread their claiths,
A trotting burnie wimpling throw the ground,
Its channel peebles shining smooth and round:
Here view twa barefoot beauties clean and clear;
First please your eye, then gratify your ear;
While Jenny what she wishes discommends,
And Meg with better sense true love defends.
PEGGY and JENNY.

Jenny. COME, Meg, let 's fa' to work upon this green,

This shining day will bleach our linen clean;
The water 's clear, the lift unclouded blue,
Will make them like a lily wet with dew.

Peggy. Gae farrer up the burn to Habbie's How,
Where a'that's sweet in spring and simmer grow:
Between twa birks out o'er a little linn,
The water fa's, and makes a singin' din:
A pool breast-deep, beneath as clear as glass,
Kisses with easy whirls the bord'ring grass.
We'll end our washing while the morning's cool,
And when the day grows het we'll to the pool,
There wash oursells; 'tis healthfu' now in May,
And sweetly caller on sae warm a day.

Jenny. Daft lassie, when we're naked, what'll

we say,

Giff our twa herds come brattling down the brae, And see us sae ?-that jeering fellow, Pate, Wad taunting say, "Haith, lasses, ye're no blate."

Peggy. We're far frae ony road, and out of
sight;

The lads they're feeding far beyont the hight;
But tell me now, dear Jenny, we're our lane,
What gars ye plague your wooer with disdain?
The neighbours a' tent this as well as I;
That Roger lo'es ye, yet ye care na by.
What ails ye at him? Troth, between us twa,
He's wordy you the best day e'er ye saw.

Jenny. I dinna like him, Peggy, there's an end;
A herd mair sheepish yet I never ken'd.
He kames his hair, indeed, and gaes right snug,
With ribbon-knots at his blue bonnet lug;
Whilk pensylie' he wears a thought a-jee,
And spreads his garters diced beneath his knee,
He falds his owrelay down his breast with care,
And few gangs trigger to the kirk or fair;
For a' that, he can neither sing nor say,
Except, "How d'ye?" or, "There's a bonny
day."

Peggy. Ye dash the lad with constant slighting
pride,

Hatred for love is unco sair to bide:
But ye'll repent ye, if his love grow cauld,
Wha likes a dorty' maiden when she's auld?
Like dawted wean that rarrows at its meat,"
That for some feckless whim will orp" and
greet:

The level low ground on the banks of a stream.Clothes-Sky.-A pool beneath a waterfall. Modest.iSprucely. To one side.- Cravat.- Pettish.-m Spoilt child.-n Pettishly refuses its food.-0 Silly.- Fret.

The lave laugh at it till the dinner's past,
And syne the fool thing is obliged to fast,
Or scart anither's leavings at the last.
Fy, Jenny! think, and dinna sit your time.

Jenny. I never thought a single life a crime. Peggy. Nor I: but love in whispers lets us ken That men were made for us, and we for men. Jenny. If Roger is my jo, he kens himsell, For sic a tale I never heard him tell. He glowrs and sighs, and I can guess the cause: But wha's obliged to spell his hums and haws? Whene'er he likes to tell his mind mair plain, I'se tell him frankly ne'er to do't again. They're fools that slav'ry like, and may be free; The chiels may a' knit up themselves for me. Peggy. Be doing your ways: for me, I have a mind

To be as yielding as my Patie's kind.

Jenny. Heh! lass, how can ye lo'e that rattle-
skull?

A very deil, that ay maun have his will!
We soon will hear what a poor feightan life
You twa will lead, sae soon's ye're man and wife.
Peggy. I'll rin the risk; nor have I ony fear,
But rather think ilk langsome day a year,
"Till I with pleasure mount my bridal-bed,
Where on my Patie's breast I'll lay my head.
There he may kiss as lang as kissing 's good,
And what we do there's none dare call it rude.
He's get his will; why no? 'tis good my part
To give him that, and he'll give me his heart.

Jenny. He may indeed for ten or fifteen days
Mak meikle o' ye, with an unco fraise,
And daut ye baith afore fowk and your lane:
But soon as your newfangleness is gane,
He'll look upon you as his tether-stake,
And think he's tint his freedom for your sake,
Instead then of lang days of sweet delyte,
Ae day be dumb, and a' the neist he'll flyte:
And may be in his barchoods," ne'er stick
To lend his loving wife a loundering lick.
Peggy. Sic coarse-spun thoughts as that want
pith to move

My settled mind; I'm o'er far gane in love.
Patie to me is dearer than my breath.
But want of him I dread nae other skaith."
There's nane af a' the herds that tread the green
Has sic a smile, or sic twa glancing een.
And then he speaks with sic a taking art,
His words they thirle like music through my heart.
How blythly can he sport, and gentle rave,
And jest at little fears that fright the lave.
Ilk day that he's alane upon the hill,

He reads feil' books that teach him meikle skill;
He is but what need I say that or this,
I'd spend a month to tell you what he is!
In a' he says or does there's sic a gate,
The rest seem coos compared with my dear Pate:
His better sense will lang his love secure:
Ill-nature hefts in sauls are weak and poor.
Jenny. Hey, "bonny lass of Branksome!" or
't be lang,

Your witty Pate will put you in a sang.

9 Stares.-7 Cross-moods.- Harm.- Many.

ODE.

TO A GREAT NUMBER OF GREAT MEN, NEWLY MADE.

SEE, a new progeny descends
From Heaven, of Britain's truest friends:

O Muse! attend my call!

To one of these direct thy flight,
Or, to be sure that we are right,
Direct it to them all.

O Clio! these are golden times!
I shall get money for my rhymes;

And thou no more go tatter'd : Make haste then, lead the way, begin, For here are people just come in,

Who never yet were flatter'd.

But first to Carteret fain you'd sing; Indeed he's nearest to the King,

Yet careless how you use him; Give him, I beg, no labour'd lays; He will but promise if you praise, And laugh if you abuse him.

Then (but there's a vast space betwixt)
The new-made Earl of Bath comes next,
Stiff in his popular pride:

His step, his gait, describes the man ;
They paint him better than I can,

Waddling from side to side.

Each hour a different face he wears, Now in a fury, now in tears,

[Since this was written, an edition of Sir Charles H. Williams's works, in 3 vols. 8vo, has been printed, of which a properly bitter critique appeared in the 55th number of the Quarterly Review,-it is said from the pen of Mr. Croker.]

Now laughing, now in sorrow; Now he'll command, and now obey, Bellows for liberty to-day,

And roars for power to-morrow.

At noon the Tories had him tight,
With staunchest Whigs he supp'd at night,
Each party tried to 'ave won him;
But he himself did so divide,
Shuffled and cut from side to side,

That now both parties shun him.

See yon old, dull, important Lord,
Who at the long'd-for money-board
Sits first, but does not lead:
His younger brethren all things make;
So that the Treasury's like a snake,
And the tail moves the head.

Why did you cross God's good intent?
He made you for a President;

Back to that station go;

Nor longer act this farce of power,
We know you miss'd the thing before,
And have not got it now.

See valiant Cobham, valorous Stair,
Britain's two thunderbolts of war,

Now strike my ravish'd eye:
But oh! their strength and spirits flown,
They, like their conquering swords, are grown
Rusty with lying by.

Dear Bat, I'm glad you've got a place,

And since things thus have changed their face. You'll give opposing o'er:

"Tis comfortable to be in,

And think what a damn'd while you've been, Like Peter, at the door.

[*This is sorry stuff, but Williams did not always write this way. Witness his famous quatrain on Pulteney: When you touch on his Lordship, &c. Leave a blank here and there in each page, To enrol the fair deeds of his youth!

When you mention the acts of his age

Leave a blank for his honour and truth!] Browne was an entertaining companion when he had drunk his bottle, but not before; this proved a snare to him, and he would sometimes drink too much; but I know

RECITATIVO.

Like Neptune, Cæsar guards Virginian fleets,
Fraught with Tobacco's balmy sweets;
Old Ocean trembles at Britannia's power,
And Boreas is afraid to roar.

AIR.

Happy mortal! he who knows Pleasures which a Pipe bestows; Curling eddies climb the room, Wafting round a mild perfume.

RECITATIVO.

Let foreign climes the wine and orange boast,
While wastes of war deform the teeming coast;
Britannia, distant from each hostile sound,
Enjoys a Pipe, with ease and freedom crown'd:
E'en restless faction finds itself most free,
Or if a slave, a slave to liberty.

not that he was chargeable with any other irregularities. He had those among his intimates, who would not have been such had he been otherwise viciously inclined;-the Duncombes, in particular, father and son, who were of unblemished morals.-COWPER, Letter to Rose, 20 May, 1789.] [Mr. Hawkins Browne, the author of these, had no good original manner of his own, yet we see how well he succeeds when he turns an imitator; for the following are rather imitations, than ridiculous parodies.-GOLDSMITH.]