=10. Allan Ramsay (1686–1758).= Born in Lanarkshire, Ramsay came to Edinburgh at the age of fifteen, and became a wig-maker. He soon took to writing verses, which admitted him into the society of the Edinburgh wits. He started a bookseller’s shop in the city, and became a kind of local unofficial Poet Laureate. His ballads became very popular, and he brought upon himself the notice of the leaders of the literary world in London. Ramsay published much miscellaneous writing, of which a large amount was issued to satisfy a passing demand. The quality can be poor enough; but some of it is more meritorious. A piece like _Lochaber No More_ is quite noteworthy, and others reveal his freakish and pleasing sense of humor. His _Gentle Shepherd_ (1725), a pastoral drama, has many of the vices of its species; but on the other hand it contains pleasing natural descriptions, some delightful though sentimental characters, and a few charming lyrics. As a literary ancestor of Burns, Ramsay is important. He influenced the poetry of the Ayrshire man, who freely acknowledged the aid he obtained. Ramsay also shows how the natural genius of Scotland, while bowing to the supremacy of the school of Pope, nevertheless diverged on lines natural to itself. THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY FORMS The period under review marks a hardening of the process discernible in the last chapter. The secession from romanticism is complete; the ideals of classicism reign supreme. Yet so unsleeping is the sense of progress in our literature that, even at the lowest ebb of the romantic spirit, a return to nature is feebly beginning. In the next chapter we shall notice this new movement, for in the next period we shall see it becoming full and strong. =1. Poetry.= In no department of literature is the triumph of classicism seen more fully than in poetry. (_a_) The _lyric_ almost disappears. What remains is of a light and artificial nature. The best lyrics are found in some of Prior’s shorter pieces, in Gay’s _Beggar’s Opera_, and in Ramsay’s _Gentle Shepherd_. (_b_) The _ode_ still feebly survives in the Pindaric form. Pope wrote a few with poor success, one of them being _On St. Cecilia’s Day_, in imitation of Dryden’s ode. Lady Winchilsea was another mediocre exponent of the same form. (_c_) The _satiric_ type is common, and of high quality. The best example is Pope’s _Dunciad_, a personal satire. Of political satire in poetry we have nothing to compare with Dryden’s. Satire tends to be lighter, brighter, and more cynical. It is spreading to other forms of verse besides the heroic couplet, and we can observe it in the octosyllabic couplet in the poems of Swift, Prior, and Gay. A slight development is the epistolary form of the satire, of which Pope became fond in his latter years. Such is his _Epistles of Horace Imitated_.