Allan Ramsay Part 6

CHAPTER VIII

RESTING ON HIS LAURELS; BUILDS HIS THEATRE; HIS BOOK OF 'SCOTS PROVERBS'--1730-40

Ramsay had now reached the pinnacle of his fame. He was forty-four years of age, prosperous in business, enjoying a reputation not alone confined to Great Britain, but which had extended to France, to Holland, and to Italy. His great pastoral was lauded in terms the most gratifying by critics everywhere as the most perfect example of the pure idyll that had appeared since the days of Theocritus. The proudest of the n.o.bility were not ashamed to take his arm for a walk down High Street, or to spend an hour cracking jokes and discussing literature with him under the sign of Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden.

What Chambers says in his _Eminent Scotsmen_, from which are culled the following facts, is strictly accurate: 'Ramsay had now risen to wealth and high respectability, numbering among his familiar friends the best and the wisest men in the nation. By the greater part of the Scottish n.o.bility he was caressed, and at the houses of some of the most distinguished of them, Hamilton Palace, Loudoun Castle, etc., was a frequent visitor.' With Duncan Forbes, Lord Advocate (and before many years to be Lord President), with Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, Sir William Bennet of Marlefield, Sir Alexander d.i.c.k of Prestonfield, near Edinburgh, he lived in the habit of daily, familiar, and friendly intercourse. With contemporary poets his relations were likewise of the most friendly kind. The two Hamiltons, of Bangour and Gilbertfield, were his constant a.s.sociates. To Pope, to Gay, and to Somerville; to Meston, to Mitch.e.l.l, and to Mallet, he addressed poetical greetings, and several of them returned the salutations in kind. From England, too, came another and a different proof of his popularity, in the fact that, when in 1726 Hogarth published his 'Ill.u.s.trations of Hudibras' in twelve plates, these were dedicated to 'William Ward of Great Houghton, Northamptonshire, and Allan Ramsay of Edinburgh.' Edinburgh itself was proud of her poet, and was not averse to manifesting the fact when fitting opportunity offered. He was a frequent visitor at the University, and Dugald Stewart relates that an old friend of his father informed him, the students of the fourth and fifth decades of last century used to point out a squat, dapper, keen-eyed little man, who was wont to walk up and down the s.p.a.ce in front of their cla.s.srooms with Professors Drummond and Maclaurin, as 'the great poet, Allan Ramsay.'

The narrator also added, he felt a secret disappointment when thus viewing for the first time a real live poet, and noting that he differed neither in dress nor mien from ordinary men. From his studies among the cla.s.sics, and from the prints in the early editions of Horace and Virgil, he had been led to imagine the genus poet always perambulated the earth attired in flowing singing robes, their forehead bound with a chaplet, and carrying with them a substantial looking lyre!

The year 1728 had witnessed, as we have seen, the publication of Allan Ramsay's last original work. Thereafter he was content to rest on his laurels, to revise new editions of his various poems, and to add to his _Tea-Table Miscellany_ and _Scots Songs_. Perhaps he may have been conscious that the golden glow of youthful imagination at life's meridian, had already given place to those soberer tints that rise athwart the mental horizon, when the Rubicon of the forties has been crossed. In 1737, when writing to his friend Smibert, the painter (then in Boston, America, whither he had emigrated), Ramsay states, with reference to his relinquishment of poetry: 'These six or seven years past I have not written a line of poetry; I e'en gave over in good time, before the coolness of fancy that attends advanced years should make me risk the reputation I had acquired.' He then adds in the letter the following lines of poetry, from which we gather, further, that his determination was the result, not of mere impulse, pique, or chagrin, but of reasoned resolve--

'Frae twenty-five to five-and-forty, My muse was neither sweer nor dorty; My Pegasus would break his tether, E'en at the shaking of a feather, And through ideas scour like drift, Straking his wings up to the lift.

Then, then my soul was in a low, That gart my numbers safely row; _But eild and judgment 'gin to say, Let be your sangs and learn to pray_.'

By 1730, then, Ramsay's work, of an original kind at least, was over. In that year, however, he published another short volume of metrical fables, under the t.i.tle, _A Collection of Thirty Fables_. Amongst them we find some of the most delightful of all our poet's work in this vein.

_Mercury in Quest of Peace_, _The Twa Lizards_, _The Caterpillar and the Ant_, and _The Twa Cats and the Cheese_, possess, as Chalmers truly says, 'all the _navete_ of Phaedrus and La Fontaine, with the wit and ease of Gay.'

And thus Ramsay's literary career closed, after well-nigh two decades of incessant intellectual activity. Begun, as Professor Ma.s.son says, 'in the last years of the reign of Queen Anne, and continued through the whole of the reign of George I., it had just touched the beginning of that of George II. when it suddenly ceased. Twice or thrice afterwards, at long intervals, he did scribble a copy of verses; but in the main, from his forty-fifth year onwards, he rested on his laurels.

Henceforward he contented himself with his bookselling, the management of his circulating library, and the superintendence of the numerous editions of his _Collected Poems_, his _Gentle Shepherd_, and his _Tea-Table Miscellany_.'

In pursuance of this determination, Ramsay, in 1731, at the request of a number of London booksellers, edited a complete edition of his works, wherein all the poems published in the quartos of 1721 and 1728 were included, in addition to _The Gentle Shepherd_. The success attending this venture was so great that, in 1733, a Dublin edition had to be prepared, which also handsomely remunerated both author and publishers.

From the American colonies, likewise, came accounts of the great popularity of Ramsay's poems, both among the inhabitants of the towns and the settlers in the mighty forests. Of the latter, many were Scotsmen, and to them the vividly realistic scenes and felicitous character-drawing of _The Gentle Shepherd_ touched, with a power and a pathos almost overwhelming, the subtlest fibres of that love for 'Caledonia, stern and wild,' which, deepened by distance as it is, and strengthened by absence, seems so inwoven with the very warp and woof of the nature of her children that, go where they will, it can never be eradicated, until the last great consummation overtakes them, when earth returns to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.

Our poet now had more time on his hands for those social duties and convivial pleasures wherein he took such delight. His new premises in the Luckenbooths, facing down towards, and therefore commanding a full view of, the magnificent thoroughfare of the High Street, were immediately opposite the ancient octagonal-shaped Cross of Edinburgh, where all official proclamations were made. The vicinity of the Cross was, on favourable afternoons, the fashionable rendezvous of the period.

No sooner was the midday dinner over, than the fair ladies and gallants of the town--the former in the wide hoops, the jewelled stomachers, the silken _capuchins_ (cloaks), the _bongraces_ (hoods), and high head-dresses of the day; the latter in the long, embroidered coats, knee-breeches, silk stockings, and buckled shoes, tye-wigs, and three-cornered hats peculiar to the fourth decade of last century--issued from their dingy turnpike stairs in the equally darksome closes, pends, and wynds, to promenade or lounge, as best pleased them, in the open s.p.a.ce around the Cross. Here were to be met all sorts and conditions of men and women. Viewed from the first storey of the building wherein Allan Ramsay's shop was situated, the scene must have been an exceedingly animated one. Mr. Robert Chambers, with that graphic power of literary scene-painting he possessed in measure so rich, represented the picture, in his _Traditions of Edinburgh_, in colours so vivid, and with a minuteness of detail so striking, that subsequent descriptions have been little more than reproductions of his.

Let us take advantage of his admirable sketch of the scene round the Cross, filling in any important details he may have omitted.

The jostlement and huddlement was extreme everywhere. Ladies and gentlemen paraded along in the stately attire of the period: grave Lords of Session, and leading legal luminaries, bustling Writers to the Signet and their attendant clerks, were all there. Tradesmen chatted in groups, often bareheaded, at their shop doors; _caddies_ whisked about, bearing messages or attending to the affairs of strangers; children darted about in noisy sport; corduroyed carters from Gilmerton are bawling 'coals'

and 'yellow sand'; fishwives are crying their 'caller haddies' from Newhaven; whimsicals and idiots going about, each with his or her crowd of tormentors; _tronmen_ with their bags of soot; town-guardsmen in rusty uniform, and with their ancient Lochaber axes; water-carriers with their dripping barrels; Highland drovers in philabeg, sporran, and cap; Liddesdale farmers with their blue Lowland bonnets; sedan chairmen, with here and there a red uniform from the castle--such was the scene upon which, in the early months of the year 1732,--alas! his last on earth,--the celebrated London poet, John Gay, gazed from the windows of Allan Ramsay's shop. Beside him stood the redoubtable Allan himself, pointing out to him the most notable personages in the motley crowd, and every now and then called upon to explain some Scotticism in his speech which reminded Gay of pa.s.sages in _The Gentle Shepherd_ that Pope had desired him to get explained from the author himself. And worthy Allan is flattered yet fl.u.s.tered withal with the honour, for beside them stand the famous d.u.c.h.ess of Queensberry--better known as Prior's 'Kitty,' otherwise Lady Catherine Hyde, daughter of the Earl of Clarendon--and her miser husband, who only opened his close fist to build such palatial piles as Queensberry House, in the Edinburgh Canongate, and Drumlanrig Castle, Dumfriesshire. They have brought Gay up north with them, after his disappointment in getting his play--_Polly_, the continuation of the _Beggars' Opera_--refused sanction for representation by the Duke of Grafton, then Lord Chamberlain. Ah! how honest Allan smirks and smiles, and becks and bows, with a backbone that will never be as supple in _kotowing_ to anyone else. For does he not, like many more of us, dearly love a lord, and imagine the sun to rise and set in the mere enjoyment of the ducal smile?

A pleasant visit was that paid by Gay to Scotland in 1732, before he returned to London to die, in the December of the same year. He spent many of his spare hours in the company of Ramsay, and that of the two friends in whose society much of the latter's time was now to be pa.s.sed--Sir John Clerk of Penicuik and Sir Alexander d.i.c.k of Prestonfield. By all three, Gay was deeply regretted,--by Clerk and d.i.c.k chiefly, because he had so much that was akin to their own genial friend, Allan Ramsay.

In 1736 our poet published a collection of _Scots Proverbs_, which, for some reason or another, has never been printed with his poems in those editions that are professedly complete. Only in Oliver's pocket edition is this excellent thesaurus of pithy and forcible Scottish apophthegms presented with his other works. That it is one of the best repertories of our proverbial current coin that exists, particularly with regard to the crystallised shrewdness and keen observation embodied in them, must be apparent to any reader, even the most cursory. To supersede the trashy works of Fergusson and Kelly was the reason why Ramsay set himself to gather up the wealth of aphoristic wisdom that lay manna-like on all sides of him. As might be expected, it is richest in the sayings common throughout the three Lothians, though the Lowlands, as a whole, are well represented. Of Gaelic proverbs there is scarce a trace, showing how faintly, despite his Jacobitism, his sympathies were aroused by Celtic tradition or Celtic poetry. Many of the sayings were undoubtedly coined in Ramsay's own literary mint, though the ideas may have been common property among the people of his day. But how close the union between the ideas and their expression in this collection! Of looseness of phrase there is scarce a trace. How apt the stereotyping of current idioms in such pithy verbal nuggets as--'Ne'er tell your fae when your foot sleeps,' 'Nature pa.s.ses nurture,' 'Muckledom is nae virtue,' 'Happy the wife that's married to a motherless son,' 'Farmers'

faugh gar lairds laugh.'

Ramsay's dedication of his volume of _Scots Proverbs_ to 'The Tenantry of Scotland, Farmers of the Dales and Storemasters of the Hills,' shows the value he attached to this kind of literature. He writes in the colloquial Scots, and his words are valuable as presenting us with a reliable example of the Scots vernacular as spoken in educated circles early last century. 'The following h.o.a.rd of _Wise Sayings_ and observations of our forefathers,' he remarks, 'which have been gathering through many bygone ages, I have collected with great care, and restored to their proper sense, which had been frequently _tint_ [lost] by publishers that did not understand our landwart [inland] language.... As naething helps our happiness mair than to hae the mind made up with right principles, I desire you, for the thriving and pleasure of you and yours, to use your een and lend your lugs to these guid auld says, that shine wi' wailed sense and will as lang as the warld wags. Gar your bairns get them by heart; let them hae a place among your family-books; and may never a window-sole through the country be without them. On a spare hour, when the day is clear, behind a rick, or on the green howm, draw the treasure frae your pooch and enjoy the pleasant companion. Ye happy herds, while your hirdsels are feeding on the flowery braes, ye may eithly mak yoursels masters of the holy ware.'

Hitherto the sky of Ramsay's life had been well-nigh cloudless.

Misfortune and failure had never shrivelled his hopes or his enterprises with the frost of disappointment. Nothing more serious than an envious scribbler's splenetic effusions had ever a.s.sailed him. Now he was to know the sting of mortification and the pinch of financial loss.

We have already adverted to the gloomy bigotry of a certain section of the Scottish clergy of this period. To them everything that savoured of jollity and amus.e.m.e.nt was specially inspired by the Evil One, for the hindrance of their ministerial labours. The references to this matter are manifold throughout Ramsay's poetry. Though no one had a deeper respect for vital piety than he, no one more bitterly reprobated that puritanic fanaticism that saw sin and wrong-doing in innocent recreation and relaxation. Against Ramsay the ecclesiastical thunder had commenced to roll some years before (according to Wodrow), when he started his circulating library. That the works of Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Ma.s.singer, Dryden, Waller, and the romances of chivalry, should be placed in the hands of the youth of Edinburgh, was accounted a sin so grave as to merit Presbyterial censure. Accordingly, a party, amongst whom was the infamous Lord Grange, attempted to suppress the library. But the _aegis_ of the redoubtable Dr. Webster had been thrown over him, and the pother in time died away. It appears, however, that Ramsay, in 1736, had imported a large stock of translations of the most celebrated French plays of the day, and had added them to his library. Sufficient was this to blow into a blaze the smouldering embers of clerical indignation. From pulpit and press our poet was fulminated at. Not that he gave the smallest sign that he cared one jot for all their denunciations. He attended to his shop and his library, and quaffed his claret at the _Isle of Man Arms_, at Luckie Dunbar's in Forrester's Wynd, or at the famous John's Coffee House, with the cynical response that 'they might e'en gang their ain gate.'

But just at this precise time Ramsay conceived the idea of becoming a theatre-proprietor, and thus benefiting the worthy burgesses of Auld Reekie by erecting a house where standard dramas might be performed. The very proposal raised a storm of indignation in clerical circles, against which even Dr. Webster and his friends were powerless. Hitherto the opposition of the Presbyterian ministers had prevented the erection of any theatre in the town. The companies of itinerating players who might chance to visit the town from time to time, were compelled to hire a hall or a booth for their performances. Prior to the Commonwealth, _histrionic_ exhibitions were frequent in Edinburgh. But from 1650 to the Union, fanaticism became paramount and sternly repressed them. One of the earliest mentions of dramatic representations after that date occurs in 1710, and again in 1715, when a regular company of players performed certain dramas in the Long Gallery and in the Tennis Court at Holyrood-house. In the subsequent winter, as we learn from the _Scots Courant_ of December 16, 1715, the plays were represented in the old magazine-house at the back of the foot of the Canongate, on which occasion, said the notice, 'the several parts would be performed by some new actors just arrived from England.'

On the last night of the year 1719 Ramsay supplied a prologue for the performance of Otway's play, 'The Orphan,' and 'The Cheats' of Scapin, 'by some young gentlemen,' wherein he remarked--

'Somebody says to some folk, we're to blame; That 'tis a scandal and a burning shame To thole young callants thus to grow sae snack, And learn--O mighty crimes!--to speak and act!

But let them talk. In spite of ilk endeavour, We'll cherish wit, and scorn their fead or favour.'

In 1722 he wrote an epilogue, to be spoken after the acting of 'The Drummer'; in 1726 a prologue, to be addressed to the audience by the famous Tony Aston on the first night of his appearance; in 1727 a prologue, to be delivered before the acting of 'Aurenzebe,' at Haddington School; and finally, an epilogue, recited after the performance of 'The Orphan' and 'The Gentle Shepherd,' in January 1729.

All these, and probably others that have not been preserved, evince that Ramsay cherished a warm affection for the drama, with an earnest desire to see his fellow-countrymen profit by it. After the indignant remonstrance--

'Shall London have its houses twa, And we be doomed to nane ava?

Is our metropolis ance the place Where lang-syne dwelt the royal race Of Fergus, this gait dwindled doun To the level o' a _clachan_ toun?

While thus she suffers the desertion Of a maist rational diversion,'

he commenced to erect, in 1736, a playhouse in Carrubber's Close. In his advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Caledonian Mercury_, announcing the prospective opening, he states, he had built the house 'at vast expense,' in order that, during the winter nights, the citizens might enjoy themselves in hearing, performed by competent actors, dramas that would amuse, instruct, and elevate.

His advertis.e.m.e.nt, in the issue of the _Mercury_ for September 15, 1736, reads:--

'The new theatre in Carrubber's Close being in great forwardness, will be opened on the 1st of November. These are to advertise the ladies and gentlemen who incline to purchase annual tickets, to enter their names before the 20th of October next, on which day they shall receive their tickets from Allan Ramsay, on paying 30s., no more than forty to be subscribed for; after which none will be disposed of under two guineas.'

Meantime the clerical party and the enemies of Ramsay had joined hands in common opposition to his plans. 'Hardly had he begun operations'

(writes Professor Ma.s.son) 'when there came the extraordinary statute of 10 Geo. II. (1737), regulating theatres for the future all over Great Britain. As by this statute, there could be no performance of stage plays out of London and Westminster, save when the king chanced to be residing in some other town, Ramsay's speculation collapsed.' In fact, the munic.i.p.al authorities, at the instigation of the clergy, employed the force of the statute peremptorily to close his theatre. In vain he appealed to law. 'He only received a quibble for his pains. He was injured without being damaged,' said the lawyers. In vain he appealed in a poetical epistle, to President Duncan Forbes of the Court of Session, wherein he says--

'Is there aught better than the stage To mend the follies o' the age, If managed as it ought to be, Frae ilka vice and blaidry free?

Wherefore, my Lords, I humbly pray Our lads may be allowed to play, At least till new-house debts be paid off, The cause that I'm the maist afraid of; Which lade lyes on my single back, And I maun pay it ilka plack.'

Well might the good-hearted, honourable-minded poet dread the future.

The responsibility lay upon him alone for the expense of the building, and from many intimations he let drop the failure of the speculation well-nigh ruined him. But the increasing sale of his books, and the expanding prosperity of his business, soon recouped his outlay. That he was much depressed by his losses, heavy and unexpected as they were, is evident from a private letter he wrote at this time to the President, and which is still preserved at Culloden House. 'Will you,' he writes, 'give me something to do? Here I pa.s.s a sort of half-idle, scrimp life, tending a trifling trade that scarce affords me the needful. Had I not got a parcel of guineas from you, and such as you, who were pleased to patronise my subscriptions, I should not have had a gray groat. I think shame--but why should I, when I open my mind to one of your goodness?--to hint that I want to have some small commission, when it happens to fall in your way to put me into it.'

Not without an element of pathos is the scene that is here presented, of him, who had done so much to amuse and elevate his fellows, being compelled to make such a request. Satisfactory is it, however, to know that, though the poetical epistle 'to the Lords' was fruitless of practical benefit in the way he desired, albeit exciting for him the warmest sympathy among the worthy senators of the College of Justice, there is reason to believe the President was able to throw 'some small commission' in Ramsay's way, and thus, by his opportune generosity, to dispel the thunderclouds of misfortune hurrying hard upon the poet's steps.

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 h.e.l.l-bred comedians, who debauch all the Faculties of the Soul of our Rising Generation,' 'A Looking-Gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 surpa.s.sed 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.