'Frae great Apollo, poets say, What would'st thou wish, what wadst thou hae Whan thou bows at his shrine? Not Carse o' Gowrie's fertile field, Nor a' the flocks the Grampians yield That are baith sleek and fine; Not costly things, brocht frae afar, As iv'ry, pearl and gems; Nor those fair straths that watered are Wi' Tay an' Tweed's smooth streams. Which gentily and daintily Eat down the flow'ry braes, As greatly and quietly They wimple to the seas.' Ramsay had the misfortune never to have studied the _technique_ of his art, so that in no respect is he a master of rhythm. The majority of his longer poems, including _The Gentle Shepherd_, are written in the ordinary heroic measure, so popular last century because so easily manipulated. His songs for the most part are written in familiar metres, not calculated to puzzle any bonny singing Bess as she danced and lilted on the village green. As a metrist, therefore, Ramsay can claim little or no attention. His poetry was the spontaneous ebullition of his own feelings, and for their expression he seized upon the first measure that came to hand. Such, then, is Ramsay! In his matchless pastoral he will ever live in the hearts of Scotsmen; and were proof needed, it would be found in the increasing numbers of pilgrims who year by year journey to Carlops to visit the scenes amongst which Peggy lived and loved. To any one save the historian and the antiquarian, the remainder of his poetry may now be of little value,--probably of none,--amidst the multifarious publications which day by day issue from the press. But by Scotsmen the memory of the gentle, genial, lovable Allan will ever be prized as that of one who, at a critical time, did more to prevent Scottish national poetry from being wholly absorbed by the mightier stream of English song than any other man save Scott. Worthy of such veneration, then, is he, both as a poet and as a man; and though the extravagant admiration wherewith he was regarded in his own day, has given place to a soberer estimate of his rank in the hierarchy of letters, yet Allan Ramsay can never be held as other than one of the most delightful, if he can no longer be rated as one of the greatest, of Scottish poets. That his immortal pastoral can ever be consigned to the limbo of oblivion is as improbable as that our posterity will forget _Tam o' Shanter_ and the _Cotter's Saturday Night_. The opinion of Robert Burns regarding the permanence of his 'poetical forebear's' fame will be cordially endorsed by every leal-hearted Scot, in whose memory the sturdy manliness of Patie and the winning beauty of Peggy are everlastingly enshrined--