Most of what's hid from vulgar eye,
Even from earth's centre to the sky,
Your brighter thoughts do clearly spy,
Which makes you wise and easy.
Were I but, etc.
All faction in the Church or State,
With greater wisdom still you hate,
And leave learn'd fools there to debate,—
Like rocks in seas you're easy.
Were I but, etc.
I love ye well—O let me be
One of your blythe Society;
And like yourselves I'll strive to be
Aye humorous and easy.
Were I but, etc.
The benefits received by the self-confident young poet were not alone of an intangible character. Praise is an excellent thing of itself, but a modicum of pudding along with it is infinitely better. To Ramsay the Easy Club was the means of securing both. The rôle of his literary patrons was at once assumed by its members. They printed and published his Address at their own expense, appointed him, within a few months' time, their 'Poet Laureate,' and manifested, both by counsel and the exercise of influence, the liveliest interest in his welfare. No trivial service this to the youthful poet on the part of his kindly club brethren. How great it was, and how decisive the effect of their generous championship in establishing Ramsay's reputation on a sure basis, will best be understood by glancing for a moment at the character of the Easy Club and the personnel of its membership.
Originally founded, under a different name, as a means of frustrating, and afterwards of protesting against, the Union, the Club, after its reconstruction in 1711, became a Jacobite organisation pure and simple. As Ramsay himself stated in after years: 'It originated in the antipathy we all of that day seemed to have at the ill-humour and contradiction which arise from trifles, especially those which constitute Whig and Tory, without having the grand reason for it.' The grand reason in question was the restoration of the Stuarts. To give a soupçon of mystery to their proceedings, as well as to veil their identity when thus plotting against the 'powers that be,' each member assumed a fictitious name, generally that of some celebrated writer. The poet, as he himself relates, at first selected Isaac Beckerstaff, suggestive of Steele and the Tatler. Eventually, however, he altered his nom-de-guerre to Gawain Douglas, one more in accordance with his patriotic sentiments.
The membership was limited to twelve, but at the time when Ramsay made his application we only know the names of five of those who belonged to it. Hepburn of Keith, in East Lothian, an antiquarian of no mean standing; Professor Pitcairn, late of Leyden, but at that time in the enjoyment of one of the largest practices as a physician in the Edinburgh of the period; Dr. Patrick Abercrombie, the eminent historian and antiquarian, author of The Martial Achievements of the Scottish Nation; Dr. Thomas Ruddiman, philologist, grammarian, printer, and librarian of the Advocates' Library,—one of the few Scottish polymaths over and above the Admirable Crichton and George Buchanan,—and James Ross the lawyer. Tradition has stated that Hamilton of Gilbertfield was also one of the 'Easy fellows,' as they dubbed themselves, but no confirmation of this fact could be discovered.
We reach now the commencement of Ramsay's literary career. For four years—in fact, until the breaking up of the Society after the Rebellion of 1715—all he wrote was issued with the imprimatur of the Easy Club upon it. That they were proud of him is evident from the statement made by Dr. Ruddiman in a letter to a friend: 'Our Easy Club has been increased by the admission of a young man, Ramsay by name, sib to the Ramsays of Dalhousie, and married to a daughter of Ross the writer. He will be heard tell o' yet, I'm thinking, or I am much out of my reckoning.'
The next pieces which our poet read to his patrons were two he had written some time previous—to wit, a little Ode on the preservation from death by drowning of the son of his friend John Bruce, on August 19, 1710; and the Elegy on Maggy Johnston, the alewife, to which reference has already been made. The first of these bears evident traces of youth and inexperience, in both the esoteric and exoteric or technical mysteries of his art. For example, when referring to the danger wherein the lad and his companions had been placed, he remarks—
'Whilst, like the lamp's last flame, their trembling souls
Are on the wing to leave their mortal goals';