In 1759 an elegant obelisk was erected to the memory of Ramsay, by Sir James Clerk, at his family-seat of Pennycuik, containing the following inscription:
Allano Ramsay, Poetae egregio,
Qui Fatis concessit VII. Jan. MDCCLVIII.
Amico paterno et suo,
Monumentum inscribi jussit
D. Jacobus Clerk.
Anno MDCCLIX.
At Woodhouselee, near the [supposed] scene of the Gentle Shepherd,[18] a rustic temple was dedicated, by the late learned and accomplished Lord Woodhouselee, with the Inscription
Allano Ramsay, et Genio Loci.
REMARKS ON THE WRITINGS OF ALLAN RAMSAY.
BY W. TENNANT.
Of Ramsay's Poems, the largest, and that on which his fame chiefly rests, is his Gentle Shepherd. Though some of his mediumer poems contain passages of greater smartness, yet its more general interest as a whole, and the uniformity of talent visible in its scenes, render it one of the finest specimens of his genius. We have no hesitation in asserting, that it is one of the best pastoral dramas in the wide circle of European literature; an excellent production in a department of writing in which the English language has as yet nothing to boast of. While other modern tongues have been enriching themselves with pastoral, the English, copious in all other kinds, continues, in this, barren and deficient. No English production, therefore, can enter into competition with the Gentle Shepherd. We must look to the south of Europe for similar and rival productions, with which it can be compared. The shepherd plays of Tasso, and Guarini, and Bonarelli, contain more invention, and splendour, and variety of incident and of dialogue, than our Scottish drama; but they have also more conceit and flimsiness of sentiment, more artifice of language, more unnatural and discordant contrivance of fable. In its plot, the Gentle Shepherd is simple and natural, founded on a story whose circumstances, if they did not really happen, are at least far within the compass of verisimilitude. Its development is completed by means interesting but probable, without the intervention of gods, or satyrs, or oracles, or such heathenish and preposterous machinery. The characters of the Gentle Shepherd are all framed by the hand of one evidently well acquainted with rural life and manners. They are not the puling, sickly, and unimpressive phantoms that people the bowers of Italian pastoral; they are lively, stirring creatures, bearing in their countenances the hardy lineaments of the country, and expressing themselves with a plainness, and downright sincerity, with which every mind sympathizes. They are rustics, it is true, but they are polished, not only by their proximity to the metropolis, but by the influence of the principal shepherd, who, besides the gentility of blood that operates in his veins,