To a _soupçon_ of diffuseness the poet must, however, plead guilty--guilty, moreover, because of the invincible temptation to pad out a line now and then 'for crambo's sake' when the ideas ran short. Ramsay possessed all the qualities constituting a song-writer of great and varied genius. His work exhibits ease and elasticity of rhythm, liquid smoothness of assonance, sympathetic beauty of thought, with subtle skill in wedding sense to sound. Though his verse lacked the dainty finish of Herrick and Waller, the brilliant facet-like sparkle of Carew, Suckling, and Lovelace, the tender grace of Sedley, and the half-cynical, half-regretful, but wholly piquant epicureanism, of Rochester and Denham, yet Ramsay had a charm all his own. Witness the 'Lass o' Patie's Mill'; is it not entirely _sui generis_? 'The lass o' Patie's Mill, So bonny, blythe, and gay, In spite of all my skill, She stole my heart away. When tedding of the hay, Bareheaded on the green, Love midst her locks did play, And wantoned in her een. Her arms, white, round, and smooth, Breasts rising in their dawn, To age it would give youth To press 'em with his hand Thro' all my spirits ran An ecstasy of bliss When I such sweetness fan' Wrapt in a balmy kiss. Without the help of art, Like flowers that grace the wild, She did her sweets impart Whene'er she spoke or smil'd. Her looks they were so mild, Free from affected pride, She me to love beguiled, I wished her for my bride.' Take also 'Bessy Bell and Mary Gray'; what a rich fancy and charming humour plays throughout the piece, united to a keen knowledge of the human heart-- 'O Bessy Bell and Mary Gray, They are twa bonny lasses; They bigg'd a bower on yon burnbrae, And theek'd it o'er with rashes. Fair Bessy Bell I loo'd yestreen, And thought I ne'er could alter; But Mary Gray's twa pawky e'en, They gar my fancy falter,' or that verse in his 'Scots Cantata,' with what simplicity, yet with what true pathos, is it not charged?-- 'O bonny lassie, since 'tis sae, That I'm despised by thee, I hate to live; but O, I'm wae, And unco sweer to dee. Dear Jeany, think what dowy hours I thole by your disdain: Why should a breast sae saft as yours Contain a heart of stane?' George Withers' famous lines, 'Shall I, wasting in despaire,' are not a whit more pathetic. Then if we desire humour pure and unadulterated, where can be found a more delightful _lilt_ than 'The Widow'? 'The widow can bake, and the widow can brew, The widow can shape, and the widow can sew,[3] And mony braw things the widow can do,-- Then have at the widow, my laddie.' Or if you affect a dash of satire in your songs, what more to your taste than--