Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/20

156 glances of envious and disappointed poetasters, and of morose and stern moralists. By the first he was annoyed with a "Block for Allan Ramsay's wig, or the Poet fallen in a trance;" by the latter, "Allan Ramsay metamorphosed to a Heather-bloter poet, in a pastoral between Algon and Meliboæ," with "The flight of religious piety from Scotland upon the account of Ramsay's lewd books and the hell-bred playhouse comedians, who debauch all the faculties of the souls of the rising generation," "A Looking-glass for Allan Ramsay," "The Dying Words of Allan Ilamsay," &c. The three last of these pieces were occasioned by a speculation which he entered into for the encouragement of the drama, to which he appears to have been strongly attached. For this purpose, about the year 1736, he built a playhouse in Cat-rubber's close at vast expense, which, if it was ever opened, was immediately shut up by the act for licensing the stage, which was passed in the year 1737. Ramsay on this occasion addressed a rhyming complaint to the court of session, which was first printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, and since in all the editions that have been given of his works. It does not, however, appear that he obtained any redress, and the pecuniary loss which he must have suffered probably affected him more than the lampoons to which we have alluded. He had previously to this published his "Reasons for not answering the Hackney Scribblers," which are sufficiently biting, and with which he seems to have remained satisfied through life. He has described himself in one of his epistles as a

which we think the following letter to his old friend Smibert, the painter, who had by this time emigrated to the western world, will abundantly confirm: "My dear old friend, your health and happiness are ever ane addition to my satisfaction. God make your life easy and pleasant. Half a century of years have now rowed o'er my pow, that begins to be lyart; yet thanks to my author I eat, drink, and sleep as sound as I did twenty years syne, yea I laugh, heartily too, and find as many subjects to employ that faculty upon as ever; fools, fops, and knaves grow as rank as formerly, yet here and there are to be found good and worthy men who are ane honour to human life. We have small hopes of seeing you again in our old world; then let us be virtuous and hope to meet in heaven. My good auld wife is still my bedfellow. My son Allan has been pursuing your science since he was a dozen years auld; was with Mr Hyffidg at London for some time about two years ago; has been since at home, painting here like a Raphael; seta out for the seat of the beast beyond the Alps within a month hence, to be away about two years. I'm sweer to part with him, but canna stem the current which flows from the advice of his patrons and his own inclination. I have three daughters, one of seventeen, one of sixteen, and one of twelve years old, and no ae wally dragle among them all fine girls. These six or seven yean past I have not written a line of poetry; I can give over in good time, before the coolness of fancy that attends advanced years should make me risk the reputation I had acquired.