If they command the storms to blaw, "But soon as e'er they cry, 'Be quiet,' The blatt'ring winds dare nae mair move, But cour into their caves and wait The high command of supreme Jove. "Let neist day come as it thinks fit, The present minute's only ours; "Be sure ye dinna quat the grip Of ilka joy when ye are young, Before auld age your vitals nip, "Sweet youth's a blyth and heartsome time; Then, lads and lasses, while it's May, Gae pou the gowan in its prime, "Watch the saft minutes o' delyte When Jenny speaks beneath her breath, And kisses, laying a' the wyte On you, if she kep ony skaith. "Haith, ye're ill-bred'; she'll smiling say, "Her laugh will lead you to the place Where lies the happiness you want, And plainly tells you to your face, Nineteen nay says are half a grant. "Now to her heaving bosom cling, "These benisons, I'm very sure, Are of the gods' indulgent grant, To plague us with your whining cant." Such was the man who holds the position of leader in the Scottish poetical revival of the eighteenth century. He had predecessors, indeed he was so little of an original genius that he would probably never have written had there not been a popular demand for the kind of verse he supplied. The language of political economy is well applied to it, for there never was a clearer case in literature of the operation of economic laws. But except Ramsay, there was no one who displayed any sustained capacity to furnish what was wanted. There were numbers who could write an occasional piece tolerably well, but few who could be trusted to succeed in numerous efforts. Among the living contributors to Watson's Choice Collection there was none of higher merit than William Hamilton of Gilbertfield, who simply did what numbers have done since and are doing now unnoticed—he wrote two or three fugitive pieces, vigorously expressed and enlivened by a certain gift of humour, genuine but not very deep. The facts of Hamilton's life are, as is the case with so many Scottish poets, but obscurely known. He died in 1751 at a great age, but the exact date of his birth has not been discovered. He had been a soldier, but abandoned his profession while still young, and subsequently lived the leisurely life of a country gentleman, amusing himself from time to time by writing verses. Commonplace as he is, in the "dearth of fame" Hamilton deserves to be commemorated, He cannot be called Ramsay's disciple, inasmuch as he had written his best verses before the other had done more than dream of a literary career, if his practical mind ever indulged in dreams on the subject. Nevertheless, he owes to the younger poet the greater part of such reputation as he possesses, both because it was the reflection of Ramsay's fame which gave significance to the contemporary contributions to Watson, and more directly because Hamilton and Ramsay entered into a poetical correspondence through which the verses of the former, which are printed along with Ramsay's works, have become known to a wider audience than he ever addressed on his own account. The correspondence is further noteworthy because it became a model for the familiar epistles of Burns. It has been affirmed that Hamilton's share in it is at least equal in quality to Ramsay's, a compliment which, as the contributions of the more famous poet are very ordinary, is not in itself extravagant, but which nevertheless goes beyond the truth. Hamilton's epistles are even less than fair specimens of a style of poetry which never, except in the hands of Burns, rises much above the commonplace. In the same measure, and in a similar tone of familiar, humorous, vernacular verse, was written Hamilton's best piece, The Last Dying Words of Bonny Heck, the lament of a famous greyhound, which was printed in the Choice Collection. It has considerable force and is not without humour; but the degree of attention it attracted is only explicable by reference to the scarcity of genuine native poetry at the time of its appearance. Ramsay affected to class it with The Piper of Kilbarchan, "standart Habby," as the model on which he based his own attempts in that measure; but there is a power and freedom in the older piece which Hamilton could never approach. It would have been well had Hamilton confined himself to original efforts, which were generally meritorious and at worst harmless. Unfortunately, three years after his correspondence with Ramsay (which occurred in 1719), he appeared in a new character, as the editor of an ill-executed and discreditable modernised version of Blind Harry's Wallace. The popularity which this version attained was due, not to its merits, but to the irresistible attractions of the subject for the Scottish peasantry. Another Hamilton, William Hamilton of Bangour-sometimes confounded with Hamilton of Gilbertfield, to whom he was junior by a whole generation-rose into prominence soon after this, and must be noticed in his place; but although he has been ranked 1 as a scholar of Ramsay, his true affinities are with the English school. In fact, Ramsay had no immediate followers of note. There were many who were ready to contribute an occasional song to The Tea Table Miscellany, men of talent with literary proclivities but with no purpose of devoting themselves to literature, and with too much ambition to confine themselves, had they done so, to the scanty audience supplied by Scotland itself. The clubs, which formed one of the most remarkable features of the age, were inimical in spirit to the vernacular. Ready though they were to welcome and applaud the occasional verses of Ramsay, they were too directly imitations of the 1 By Mr. Gosse, Eighteenth Century Literature, p. 338. literary societies of the English capital to escape being Anglicised. Their members therefore neither wrote much in Scotch nor were careful to claim property in what they did write. Their identity is generally but half revealed through initials; and though in most cases the disguise may be penetrated, the quantity of matter associated with any single name is so small that it becomes necessary to treat their work en bloc. Further, it must be remembered that, large as is the collection called by Ramsay The Tea Table Miscellany, it is "a collection of choice songs Scots and English"; and the word "English" here must be understood in a double sense. The element which is English in origin as well as in language is much more considerable than is generally supposed; its extent can only be realised after a careful examination of the contents by one tolerably familiar with both English and Scotch lyric poetry, not of that age only, but for a generation or two previous. Again, many of those songs which are the genuine work of Scottish authors, many even of those which are also set to native airs, are influenced by English models. Damon, Strephon, Celia, Phillis, and Chloe are no maids and swains of Scottish growth; nor did those who sang of them north of the Tweed follow native example. Even when the theme and all its associations are distinctively Scotch, it is comparatively rare among the new songs in that collection to find the vernacular employed by anyone except Ramsay himself. In The Bush aboon Traquair, in his much over-praised Tweedside, in Allan Water, in the Rose in Yarrow, and even in Down the Burn, Davie, Robert Crawford, one of the most trusty of Ramsay's associates, |