—this being a humorous allusion to the prevalent idea in England at the time, that the Scots were only a little better off than the savages of the South Seas.

Finally, in his translations, or rather paraphrases, from Horace, Ramsay was exceedingly happy. He made no pretensions to accuracy in his rendering of the precise words of the text. While preserving an approximation to the ideas of his original, he changes the local atmosphere and scene, and applies Horace's lines to the district around Edinburgh, wherewith he was so familiar. With rare skill this is achieved; and while any lover of Horace can easily follow the ideas of the original, the non-classical reader is brought face to face with associations drawn from his own land as illustrative, by comparison and contrast, of the text of the great Roman. Few could have executed the task with greater truth; fewer still with more felicity. Already I have cited a portion of Ramsay's rendering of Horace's famous Ode, Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte. There are two other stanzas well worthy of quotation. Ramsay's rendering of the famous Carpe diem, etc., passage is all I have space for—

'Let neist day come as it thinks fit,
The present minute's only ours;
On pleasure let's employ our wit,
And laugh at fortune's feckless powers.'

Reference has also been made to his apt translation of the ideas contained in Horace's 1st Ode to Maecenas, by making them express his own feelings towards Lord Dalhousie. Two of his aptest renderings of the original, however, were those of Horace's 18th Ode to Quintilius Varus (Nullam, Vare, sacra vite prius severis arborem), which our poet renders—

'O Binny, cou'd thae fields o' thine
Bear, as in Gaul, the juicy vine,
How sweet the bonny grape wad shine
On wa's where now
Your apricock and peaches fine
Their branches bow.

Since human life is but a blink,
Then why should we its short joys sink;
He disna live that canna link
The glass about;
Whan warm'd wi' wine, like men we think,
An' grow mair stout.'

The 31st Ode (B. 1.) to Apollo is thus felicitously rendered—

'Frae great Apollo, poets say,
What would'st thou wish, what wadst thou hae
Whan thou bows at his shrine?
Not Carse o' Gowrie's fertile field,
Nor a' the flocks the Grampians yield
That are baith sleek and fine;
Not costly things, brocht frae afar,
As iv'ry, pearl and gems;
Nor those fair straths that watered are
Wi' Tay an' Tweed's smooth streams.
Which gentily and daintily
Eat down the flow'ry braes,
As greatly and quietly
They wimple to the seas.'

Ramsay had the misfortune never to have studied the technique of his art, so that in no respect is he a master of rhythm. The majority of his longer poems, including The Gentle Shepherd, are written in the ordinary heroic measure, so popular last century because so easily manipulated. His songs for the most part are written in familiar metres, not calculated to puzzle any bonny singing Bess as she danced and lilted on the village green. As a metrist, therefore, Ramsay can claim little or no attention. His poetry was the spontaneous ebullition of his own feelings, and for their expression he seized upon the first measure that came to hand.

Such, then, is Ramsay! In his matchless pastoral he will ever live in the hearts of Scotsmen; and were proof needed, it would be found in the increasing numbers of pilgrims who year by year journey to Carlops to visit the scenes amongst which Peggy lived and loved. To any one save the historian and the antiquarian, the remainder of his poetry may now be of little value,—probably of none,—amidst the multifarious publications which day by day issue from the press. But by Scotsmen the memory of the gentle, genial, lovable Allan will ever be prized as that of one who, at a critical time, did more to prevent Scottish national poetry from being wholly absorbed by the mightier stream of English song than any other man save Scott. Worthy of such veneration, then, is he, both as a poet and as a man; and though the extravagant admiration wherewith he was regarded in his own day, has given place to a soberer estimate of his rank in the hierarchy of letters, yet Allan Ramsay can never be held as other than one of the most delightful, if he can no longer be rated as one of the greatest, of Scottish poets. That his immortal pastoral can ever be consigned to the limbo of oblivion is as improbable as that our posterity will forget Tam o' Shanter and the Cotter's Saturday Night. The opinion of Robert Burns regarding the permanence of his 'poetical forebear's' fame will be cordially endorsed by every leal-hearted Scot, in whose memory the sturdy manliness of Patie and the winning beauty of Peggy are everlastingly enshrined—