'Here midst those streams that taught thy Doric Muse Her sweetest song,--the hills, the woods, and stream, Where beauteous Peggy strayed, list'ning the while Her Gentle Shepherd's tender tale of love. Scenes which thy pencil, true to Nature, gave To live for ever. Sacred be this shrine; And unprofaned, by ruder hands, the stone That owes its honours to thy deathless name.' Ramsay was survived by his son Allan, the painter, and by his two daughters, Christian and Janet, who amongst them inherited the poet's fortune. The house on the Castlehill fell to his son, and remained in the possession of the family, as Mr. Logie Robertson records, until 1845, when it changed hands at the death of General John Ramsay, the poet's grandson, and the last of his line. For many years it stood, an object of interest to all admirers of the bard, until 1892, when, just as the building was beginning to show signs of age, the site was bought for the erection of the new students' boarding-house, 'University Hall,' which so imposingly crowns the ridge of the Castlehill. With a reverence for the memory of the poet as rare as it is commendable, the promoters of the scheme resolved to preserve as much as possible of the house, and the greater part of it has been incorporated in the new building. Of Ramsay we have only two portraits remaining that are of any real value,--that painted by his son Allan, and that by Smibert, the poet's lifelong friend. The latter represents him in youth, the former in age--both being considered, at the time of execution, striking likenesses. But perhaps the best idea of the appearance of the poet may be gathered from Sir John Steele's fine statue of him (designed from his son's portrait) which now stands at the corner of West Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, immediately below the site of his house. There, with his familiar 'nightcap' on his head, he stands, watching the busy crowds passing to and fro in front of him, wearing the while an expression on his face as though he were saying with his Patie-- 'He that hath just enough can soundly sleep, The o'ercome only fashes fouk to keep; Content's the greatest bliss we can procure Frae 'boon the lift: without it, kings are poor.' FOOTNOTES: [2] The first stanza is in reality by Burns, and is identical with that he placed on the tombstone he erected over the remains of Fergusson, the poet, in the Canongate Churchyard. CHAPTER X RAMSAY AS A PASTORAL POET AND AN ELEGIST In attempting a critical estimate of the value of Ramsay's works, for the purpose of analysis it will be most convenient to consider the great body of his writings under certain classified headings--(1) Ramsay as a Pastoral Poet and an Elegist; (2) Ramsay as a Satirist and a Song-writer; (3) Ramsay's Miscellaneous Works.