Ramsay was survived by his son Allan, the painter, and by his two daughters, Christian and Janet, who amongst them inherited the poet's fortune. The house on the Castlehill fell to his son, and remained in the possession of the family, as Mr. Logie Robertson records, until 1845, when it changed hands at the death of General John Ramsay, the poet's grandson, and the last of his line. For many years it stood, an object of interest to all admirers of the bard, until 1892, when, just as the building was beginning to show signs of age, the site was bought for the erection of the new students' boarding-house, 'University Hall,' which so imposingly crowns the ridge of the Castlehill. With a reverence for the memory of the poet as rare as it is commendable, the promoters of the scheme resolved to preserve as much as possible of the house, and the greater part of it has been incorporated in the new building.
Of Ramsay we have only two portraits remaining that are of any real value,—that painted by his son Allan, and that by Smibert, the poet's lifelong friend. The latter represents him in youth, the former in age—both being considered, at the time of execution, striking likenesses. But perhaps the best idea of the appearance of the poet may be gathered from Sir John Steele's fine statue of him (designed from his son's portrait) which now stands at the corner of West Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, immediately below the site of his house. There, with his familiar 'nightcap' on his head, he stands, watching the busy crowds passing to and fro in front of him, wearing the while an expression on his face as though he were saying with his Patie—
'He that hath just enough can soundly sleep,
The o'ercome only fashes fouk to keep;
Content's the greatest bliss we can procure
Frae 'boon the lift: without it, kings are poor.'
CHAPTER X
RAMSAY AS A PASTORAL POET AND AN ELEGIST
In attempting a critical estimate of the value of Ramsay's works, for the purpose of analysis it will be most convenient to consider the great body of his writings under certain classified headings—(1) Ramsay as a Pastoral Poet and an Elegist; (2) Ramsay as a Satirist and a Song-writer; (3) Ramsay's Miscellaneous Works.
In the chapter on The Gentle Shepherd, we noted the distinctive constituents of pastoral poetry, as currently defined, and also wherein Ramsay's principles, as exemplified in practice, differ from those of other writers of pastoral. To furnish examples illustrative of our contention is now all that remains to be done. Early in his poetical career, as soon, in fact, as he had completed his first tentative efforts, Ramsay seems to have become conscious, with that rare gift of prevision always distinguishing him, that his strength lay in a picturesque yet truthful delineation of rural life. His earliest pieces, although termed elegies, exhibit, rather, many of the characteristics of pastorals, in the broad humour and in the graphic and vivid colouring wherewith he depicts the scenes at Maggy Johnston's tavern at Morningside, or the incidents in the life of Luckie Wood or of Patie Birnie. But, as he has termed them elegies, under that heading let them be considered, though a humorous or mock elegy is somewhat of a contradiction in terms.
Roughly classified, Ramsay's pastorals may be stated as follows:—the dialogues between Richy (Sir Rich. Steele) and Sandy (Alex. Pope), on the death of Mr. Addison; between Robert, Richy, and Sandy, on the death of Matthew Prior; Keitha, on the death of the Countess of Wigton; an Ode with a Pastoral Recitative, on the marriage of James Earl of Wemyss to Miss Janet Charteris; A Masque, performed at the celebration of the nuptials of James Duke of Hamilton and Lady Ann Cochrane; A Pastoral Epithalamium, on the marriage of George Lord Ramsay and Lady Jean Maule; Betty and Kate, a pastoral farewell to Mr. Aikman; and finally, The Gentle Shepherd.
Of Ramsay's less important pastorals, the distinguishing characteristics are their simplicity, their tenderness, and their freedom from aught didactic. In conforming to the conventional idea of pastoral,—the idea, that is, of the shepherd state being a condition of perfect peace and Arcadian felicity and propriety,—in place of copying direct from nature, they one and all differ from The Gentle Shepherd. The picture of burly Sir Richard Steele and of crooked little Alexander Pope, clad in shepherd's weeds, and masquerading with dogs and pipes and what not, savours somewhat of the ludicrous. Then, in Richy and Sandy, he makes Pope bewail the death of Addison, with whom he had been on anything but friendly terms for years previous; while the following picture of the deceased grave-visaged Secretary of State, in such a position as described in the following lines, tends to induce us profane Philistines of these latter days, to smile, if not to sneer—
'A better lad ne'er leaned out o'er a kent,
Nor hounded collie o'er the mossy bent:
Blythe at the bughts how oft hae we three been,
Heartsome on hills, and gay upon the green.'