"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 mediumest 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]
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]
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.