representative of classes. From spite and malevolence Ramsay is free.

It is however where the satire is strongly spiced with humour or in pieces purely humorous that Ramsay is at his best. The elegy on John Cowper, the Kirktreasurer's man, is just such a subject as suits him. The Kirk-treasurer's man played the part of police in the enforcement of that extraordinary ecclesiastical discipline which, from its institution till the change of manners first modified and afterwards abolished it, had to be reckoned with by evil-doers. They found it a most disagreeable reality; but at all times it was a reality which lent itself easily to jest and ridicule; and perhaps there were balm to the smart in turning the laugh against the executioner. If Ramsay had no personal quarrel with Kirk Sessions, as Burns had in after times, he was the mouthpiece of many a one who had. The elegies on Maggie Johnstoun and Lucky Wood are pitched to a similar key. They are full of references to convivial customs which bring clearly before the mind the image of a society in which drunkenness was respectable in all and normal in many. The game of hy-jinks, which regulated a man's drinking by the throw of the dice, and the club of "facers," who pledged themselves to throw in their own faces all they left in the glass, could only have thriven in such a society. The cantos in which Ramsay continued Christ's Kirk on the Green gave him the opportunity of displaying the same merits on a wider field. The old poet having depicted a rustic fight, Ramsay carries a like spirit into rustic revelry and mirth; and it is no mean praise to say that the continuation is not un

worthy of the original. For broad riotous fun it has rarely been surpassed. But Ramsay's work is coarser than the old poem, and there is evident in it an element of vulgarity not to be found in the model, though the latter deals with the same class of people and handles them as fearlessly and apparently with as full knowledge. The Monk and the Miller's Wife would claim notice in this context; but, as it is simply the old tale of the Freiris of Berwick modernised, its high merits should be ascribed, not to Ramsay, but to the author of that tale.

In the songs there may be seen once and again evidences of similar powers under similar limitations. Though in his influence upon Scottish song Ramsay is second only to Burns, he owes this influence to circumstances more than to the quality of his verse. Many have written better than he. The man who cannot compose twenty lines of heroic sentiment without ruining them, whether of purpose or unwittingly, with mean images or vulgar description, can never be a great lyrist; for however admirable a humorous lyric may be, it remains true that "our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought." Occasionally Ramsay does well; but not once is he able to tune his heart to the noblest and clearest notes of passion. An thou wert my ain thing is a favourable specimen; but it is clear that the author never lost himself in his subject. The Young Laird and Edinburgh Katy is excellent. It breathes a strong sense of the beauties of nature:

"O Katy! wiltu gang wi' me,

And leave the dinsome town a while?

The blossom's sprouting frae the tree,
And a' the simmer's gaun to smile;
The mavis, nightingale, and lark,

The bleating lambs and whistling hynd,
In ilka dale, green, shaw, and park,

Will nourish health, and glad ye'r mind.

"There's up into a pleasant glen,

A wee piece frae my father's tower,
A canny, saft, and flow'ry den,

Which circling birks has form'd a bower:
Whene'er the sun grows high and warm,

We'll to the cawler shade remove;

There will I lock thee in mine arm,

And love and kiss, and kiss and love."

Even this beautiful song however is spoilt by a hatefully affective phrase, "the clear goodman of day."

Ramsay's mind is better illustrated in Bessy Bell and Mary Gray than in the foregoing lines. The manner in which he has treated their story is most instructive. The old ballad was tragic; Ramsay turns it into comedy-comedy which is both clever and amusing, but not poetical. The idea of a lover at a loss to determine between two equally attractive beauties may be expressed at least as well in prose as in verse, and was expressed many centuries ago, in generalised shape, in fable. It is a favourite with Ramsay. He repeats it, and manages it with equal success, in Genty Tibby and Sonsy Nelly. But perhaps the best of his lighter songs is one in praise of drinking, Up in the Air:

"Now the sun's gane out o' sight,
Beet the ingle, and snuff the light;
In glens the fairies skip and dance,
And witches wallop o'er to France;

Hae wi' ye, hae wi' ye, and hae wi' ye, lads, yet.

Up in the air, etc.

"Steek the doors, keep out the frost,

Come, Willy, gie's about ye'r toast;

Tilt it, lads, and lilt it out,

And let's hae a blythsome bowt;

Up wi't there, there,

Dinna cheat, but drink fair;

Huzza, huzza, and huzza! lads, yet.
Up wi't there, etc."

Ramsay is master of another note which is perhaps his best. When his rollicking conviviality is tempered by a spirit of seriousness betraying the shrewd man of the world and the successful man of business, he develops an Epicurean philosophy not unlike that of Horace. sound instinct sent him to Horace as his exemplar. He

A

himself was not artist enough to blend grave and gay harmoniously together, and to cause deep conviction and the practical wisdom resulting from ripe experience to manifest themselves beneath the guise of careless gaiety; but he found in the Roman poet the guidance which he needed, and he used him with remarkable skill, keeping him, as he has himself explained, or dropping him as he pleased. His best performance in this mood is an ode in which he paraphrases and expands Horace, Od. I. 9; and it is in this and a few similar pieces that the real Ramsay stands revealed :

"Look up to Pentland's towering tap,

Buried beneath great wreaths of snaw,
O'er ilka cleugh, ilk scar, and slap,
As high as ony Roman wa'.

"Driving their baws frae whins to tee,
There's no nae gowfer to be seen,
Nor dousser fowk wysing a-jee,

The byast bouls on Tamson's green.

"Then fling on coals, and ripe the ribs,

And beik the house baith but and ben,
That mutchkin stoup it hads but dribs,
Then let's get in the tappit hen.

"Good claret best keeps out the cauld,
And drives away the winter soon;
It makes a man baith gash and bauld,
And heaves his saul beyond the moon.

"Leave to the gods your ilka care,

If that they think us worth their while,
They can a' rowth of blessings spare,
Which will our fasheous fears beguile.

"For what they hae a mind to do,

. That will they do, should we gang wud;