Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 47.djvu/245

 the degree of LL.D from the university of Oxford, being admitted of St. Mary's Hall. After his return to Paris he was appointed tutor to the Vicomte de Turenne, son of the Duc de Bouillon. He died at St. Germain-en-Laye on 6 May 1743.

Ramsay was also author of ‘Discours de la Poësie Epique,’ originally prefixed to an edition of ‘Telemaque,’ 2 vols. Paris, 1717; ‘Essai philosophique sur le Gouvernement Civil,’ London, 1721, reprinted as ‘Essai de Politique,’ and in English, London 1722 and 1769; ‘Le Psychomètre ou Réflexions sur les differens Caractères de l'Esprit, par un Milord Anglais,’ an essay on Lord Shaftesbury's ‘Characteristics;’ ‘Les Voyages de Cyrus, avec un Discours sur la Mythologie des Payens,’ Paris, 1727, London, 1728, and with additions, 1730, 1733, in English by N. Hooke, London, 1730, 1739, and with additions, Glasgow 1755, and London, 1763, 1795, and 1816, written in imitation of Telemachus and the work on which his reputation chiefly rested; ‘Poems,’ Edinburgh, 1728; ‘Plans of Education for a young Prince,’ London, 1732; ‘L'Histoire du Vicomte de Turenne,’ Paris, 1735, The Hague 1736, and in English, London, 1735; ‘Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, explained and unfolded in a Geometrical Order,’ Glasgow, 1749; ‘Two Letters in French to M. Racine, upon the fine Sentiments of Pope in his Essay on Man,’ in ‘Les Œuvres de M. Racine le Fils,’ ii. 1747. His ‘Apology for the Free and accepted Masons,’ published at Dublin in 1738 and London in 1749, was burnt at Rome on 1 Feb. 1739.

 RAMSAY, CHARLES ALOYSIUS (fl. 1689), writer on stenography, descended from a noble Scottish family, was probably, like his father, Charles Ramsay (d. 1669), born at Elbing in Prussia. He received a liberal education, and studied chemistry and medicine. He was living at Frankfort-on-the-Maine in 1677 and at Paris in 1680.

He became widely known as the publisher of a system of shorthand in Latin, with a French translation. This appeared in 1665 according to Fossé, and in 1666 according to Scott de Martinville. It was the second French work on shorthand, that of the Abbé Jacques Cossard, 1651, being the first. It seems probable that Ramsay first learnt Thomas Shelton's Latin ‘Tachy-graphia,’ which was published in 1660, and, having slightly modified the system, put it forth as his own. A later edition of Ramsay's work is entitled ‘Tacheographia, seu Ars breviter et compendiose scribendi methodo brevissima tradita, ac paucissimis regulis comprehensa,’ Frankfort and Leipzig, 1681, 8vo; another edition has two title-pages, the second, in French, being as follows: ‘Tacheiographie ou L'Art d'Ecrire aussi vîte qu'on parle. … Par le Sieur Charles Aloys Ramsay, Gentilhomme Écossais,’ Paris, 1683. One half of this edition is occupied with a fulsome dedication to Louis XIV. An adaptation of Ramsay's system to the German language appeared under the title of ‘Tacheographia, oder Geschwinde Schreib-Kunst,’ Frankfort, 1678; Leipzig, 1679, 1743, and 1772.

Ramsay also translated from German into Latin ‘Johannis Kunkelii, Elect. Sax. Cubicularii intimi et Chymici, Utiles Observationes sive Animadversiones de Salibus fixis et volatilibus, Auro et argento potabili, Spiritu mundi et similibus,’ London and Rotterdam, 1678, 12mo; dedicated to the Royal Society of London.

 RAMSAY, DAVID (d. 1653?), clockmaker to James I and Charles I, was born in Scotland, and belonged to the Ramsays of Dalhousie. His son William (fl. 1660) [q. v.] says that when James I succeeded to the crown of England, ‘he sent into France for my father, who was then there, and made him page of the bedchamber and groom of the privy chamber, and keeper of all his majesties' clocks and watches. This I mention that by some he hath bin termed no better than a watch maker. … It's confest his ingenuity led him to understand any piece of work in that nature … and therefore the king conferred that place upon him’ (, Astrologia Restaurata, 1653, Preface to the Reader, p. 28). On 25 Nov. 1613 he was appointed clockmaker-extraordinary to the king with a pension of 50l. a year, and in March 1616 a warrant was issued for the payment to him of 234l. 10s. for the purchase and repair of clocks and watches for the king. On 26 Nov. 1618 he was appointed chief clockmaker, and on 27 July 1619 letters of denization were granted to him. Various other warrants were passed for payments for his services, and in one which bears date 17 March 1627 he is described as ‘David Ramsay, esq., our clockmaker and page of our bedchamber.’ 