As a pastoral poet, Ramsay excels in painting all those homely virtues that befit the station to which most of his characters belonged. A fault, and a serious one, it was among the writers of conventional pastoral, to make their shepherds and shepherdesses talk like philosophers, and reason upon all the mysteries of life, death, and futurity. What reader of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, but must have smiled over the shepherds in that delicious romance discussing love, and treating of its metaphysical causes and effects, as profoundly as any
——'clerke of Oxenforde also
Who unto logik hadde long y-go.'
The extravagances of conventional pastoral had been keenly satirised by Gay, who made his Lobbin Clouts and Cloddipoles, his Blowzalinds and Bowzabees and Bumkinets, in the Shepherd's Week, 'talk the language that is spoken neither by country maiden nor courtly dame; nay, not only such as in the present time is not uttered, but never was in times past, and, if I judge aright, will never be uttered in times future.' But by Ramsay the silliness of the prevailing mode, both of British and French pastoral, was more aptly satirised, by presenting, as a contrast, a picture of rural life absolutely truthful in all its details, and thus slaying falsehood by the sword of truth.
Of The Gentle Shepherd, the plot is simplicity itself. It describes the love of a young Pentland shepherd named Patie for a country maiden named Peggy. The pastoral drama, the time of whose action is all embraced within four-and-twenty hours, thus preserving one, at least, of the Greek dramatic unities as defined by the French critics, opens at early morning with the two young shepherds, Patie and Roger, feeding their flocks on the hills, and discussing the progress of their love-suits. The scene is charmingly realistic and natural. Patie is happy in his love for Peggy who reciprocates it; Roger, in despair over his ill-success with 'dorty Jenny.' His friend, however, raises his spirits by telling him how he once served Peggy when she had a fit of tantrums, by feigning indifference to her, a course which soon brought the fair one to reason. He exhorts Roger to adopt the same line, conveying his counsel in the following terms, that contain excellent advice to young lovers, and might have given a hint to Burns for his song, 'Duncan Gray'—
'Dear Roger, when your jo puts on her gloom,
Do ye sae too, and never fash your thumb;
Seem to forsake her, soon she'll change her mood;
Gae woo anither, and she'll gang clean wood.'
Roger agrees to take the advice, and the scene concludes with a delightful picture of a shepherd's meal—
'But first we'll tak a turn up to the height,
And see gif all our flocks be feeding right;
By that time, bannocks and a shave of cheese
Will make a breakfast that a laird might please,—
Might please the daintiest gabs, were they sae wise
To season meat with health instead of spice.
When we have ta'en the grace-drink at this well,
I'll whistle syne'—
The second scene opens with an exquisite description of
'A flowrie howm between twa verdant braes,
Where lasses use to wash and spread their claes;
A trottin' burnie wimpling through the ground,
Its channel, pebbles, shining, smooth and round.
Here view twa barefoot beauties, clean and clear.'
These are Peggy and Jenny. The latter proposes to begin their work on the 'howm' or green in question, but Peggy entreats her to