Of course, to his enemies (amongst whom was Pennecuik, the poet), as well as to the more bigoted of the clergy, his trials were a judgment upon his conduct. A shoal of pamphlets and pasquinades appeared, as though to rub salt into the raw wounds of his mortified feelings: such despicable effusions—written in more than one case by 'ministers of the Gospel'—as 'The Flight of Religious Piety from Scotland, upon account of Ramsay's lewd books and the Hell-bred comedians, who debauch all the Faculties of the Soul of our Rising Generation,' 'A Looking-Glass for Allan Ramsay,' 'The Dying Words of Allan Ramsay,' etc. As Chalmers remarks: 'The lampooners left intimations of what must have been of considerable consolation to our adventurous dramatist; that "he had acquired wealth"; that "he possessed a fine house"; that "he had raised his kin to high degree."' Such topics of censure did more honour than hurt to Ramsay. To their ribald raillery the poet replied only by a contemptuous silence, infinitely more galling than if he had turned on the wasps and crushed them, thus bespeaking for them a prominence in no measure merited. Their spleen he forgot amid the engrossments of a closer attention to business, and the charms of friendship's intercourse.
It may be added, however, that the whirligig of time brought in for Ramsay his revenges upon his enemies. The theatre which in 1746 was erected in Playhouse Close in the Canongate, though only by a quibbling evasion of the statute, so Draconic were its provisions, was largely due to his energy and exertions. Thus, says a biographer, Ramsay, at the age of sixty, had the satisfaction to see dramatical entertainments enjoyed by the citizens, whose theatrical tastes he had kindled and fostered.
CHAPTER IX
CLOSING YEARS OF LIFE; HIS HOUSE ON CASTLEHILL; HIS FAMILY; HIS PORTRAITS—1740-58.
Little more of a biographical character is there to relate. The last seventeen years of Ramsay's life were passed in the bosom of his family, and in attention to his business. His son, Allan—afterwards an artist of great celebrity, and portrait painter to George III.,—after studying, as the proud father informs his friend Smibert in a letter about this time, with Mr. Hyffidg in London, and spending a little time at home 'painting like a Raphael,' had been sent to Rome, where he made good use of his opportunities. The father's heart yearns over the boy, and he pathetically adds: 'I'm sweer to part with him, but canna stem the current which flows from the advice of his patrons and his own inclination.' His three daughters were growing up into 'fine, handsome girls,' while 'my dear auld wife is still my bedfellow.'
What a beautiful picture we get of the kindly old poet, drawn unconsciously by himself in this letter. Domesticity and parental affection were two qualities pre-eminently present in Ramsay's nature.
From Mrs. Murray of Henderland we also receive a delicious side-peep into Allan's character. In 1825 she informed Mr. Robert Chambers that 'he was one of the most amiable men she had ever known. His constant cheerfulness and lively conversational powers had made him a favourite amongst persons of rank, whose guest he frequently was. Being very fond of children, he encouraged his daughters in bringing troops of young ladies about the house, in whose sports he would mix with a patience and vivacity wonderful in an old man. He used to give these young friends a kind of ball once a year. From pure kindness for the young, he would help to make dolls for them, and cradles wherein to place these little effigies, with his own hands.'
From 1740 to 1743 he enjoyed to the full the idyllic happiness and peace described in his epistle to James Clerk of Penicuik—
'Though born to not ae inch of ground,
I keep my conscience white and sound;
And though I ne'er was a rich heaper,
To make that up I live the cheaper;
By this ae knack I've made a shift
To drive ambitious care adrift;
And now in years and sense grown auld,
In ease I like my limbs to fauld.
Debts I abhor, and plan to be
Frae shochling trade and danger free,
That I may, loos'd frae care and strife,
With calmness view the edge of life;
And when a full ripe age shall crave,
Slide easily into my grave.'
In 1742, finding himself in a position to take more ease than his busy life had hitherto permitted to him, he bought a piece of ground on the Castlehill, overlooking the valley of the North Loch, and there erected that curious house, with its octagonal-shaped frontage, copied from a Neapolitan villa, and designed by his son Allan, which so long was an ornament on the northern slope overlooking the New Town of Edinburgh. From his windows a reach of scenery was commanded, probably not surpassed in Europe, stretching from the mouth of the Firth of Forth on the east to the Grampians on the west, and extending far across the green hills of Fife to the north. The poet, however, becoming alarmed at the expense he was incurring, altered his son's design after the building was half completed. In consequence, the mansion presented a very quaint appearance. Tradition states that Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun (afterwards Lord Milton) first detected the resemblance to a goose-pie. Be this as it may, Allan was grievously vexed by the comparison, and one day, when showing it, in the pride of his heart, to the witty Lord Elibank, who duly admired its unrivalled prospect, he added, 'And yet, my lord, thae toon wits say it's like naething else than a guse-pie.' 'Deed, Allan, noo I see ye intilt, I'm thinkin' the wits are no' sae far wrang.' History does not record Allan's rejoinder.