The issue of the successive editions of _The Gentle Shepherd_, though occupying a large share of his time not engrossed by the cares of business, did not altogether preclude him from writing some fresh pieces when occasion arose. In 1727 appeared a 'Masque,' which was performed at the celebration of the nuptials of James, Duke of Hamilton, and the Lady Ann Cochrane. In this form of poetry Ramsay revived a good old type very popular amongst the Elizabethan poets and dramatists, and even descending down to the days of Milton, whose _Masque of Comus_ is the noblest specimen of this kind of composition in modern literature. Ramsay's _dramatis personæ_ are rather a motley crew, but on the whole he succeeds in managing the dialogue of his gods, and goddesses very creditably, though any admirer of his genius can see it moves on stilts under such circumstances. _The Pastoral Epithalamium_ upon the marriage of George Lord Ramsay and Lady Jean Maule is of a less ambitious cast, both as regards form and thought; the consequence being, that the poet succeeds admirably in expressing the ideas proper to the occasion, when he was not bound by the fetters of an unfamiliar rhythm. Ramsay's later poems had in turn attained, numerically speaking, to such bulk as fairly entitled him to consider the practicability of issuing a second quarto volume, containing all of value he had written between 1721 and 1728. From all quarters came requests for him so to do. Therefore, towards the close of 1728 he issued his second volume of collected poems. The interest awakened by _The Gentle Shepherd_ still burned with a clear and steady glow. From this fact, gratifying, indeed, as regards the proximate success of the individual book, but prophetic also in an ultimate sense of the stability of reputation to be his lot in the republic of letters, he concluded, as he says in one of his letters to the Clerks of Penicuik, 'to regard himself as ane o' the national bards of Scotland.' That he was justified in doing so, the future amply testified. The realisation that he had now won for himself a permanent place in the literature of his land operated, however, rather injuriously upon the continued fecundity of his genius. He became timorous of further appeals to the public, lest he should injure his fame. Allan Ramsay, in his own eyes, became Ramsay's most dreaded rival. At length he deliberately adopted the resolution that the better part of valour was discretion, and that he would tempt fortune in verse no more. With the exception of his poetical epistle to the Lords of Session, and his volume of metrical _Fables_, Ramsay's poetical career was completed. Henceforth he was occupied in preparing the successive editions of his _Works_ and of the _Tea-Table Miscellany_, and in compiling his collection of _Scots Proverbs_. CHAPTER VIII RESTING ON HIS LAURELS; BUILDS HIS THEATRE; HIS BOOK OF 'SCOTS PROVERBS'--1730-40