[Footnote 7: ["Soon after the first edition, in octavo, of this pastoral was published, and about the time of the publication of his second volume in quarto, the 'Beggar's Opera' made its appearance, with such success that it soon produced a great number of other pieces upon the same musical plan. Amongst the rest, Ramsay, who had always been a great admirer of Gay, especially for his ballads, was so far carried away by the current as to print a new edition of his pastoral, interspersed with songs adapted to the common Scotch tunes, He did not reflect at the time that the 'Beggar's Opera' was only meant as a piece of ironical satire; whereas his 'Gentle Shepherd' was a simple imitation of nature, and neither a mimickry nor mockery of any other performance. He was soon, however, sensible of his error, and would have been glad to have retracted those songs; but it was too late; the public was already in possession of them, and as the number of singers is always greater than that of sound critics, the many editions since printed of that pastoral have been almost uniformly in this vitiated taste. He comforted himself, however, with the thought that the contagion had not infected his second volume in quarto, where the 'Gentle Shepherd' is still to be found in its original purity." (General Biographical Dictionary, Vol. XXVI.)] [The following letter was first published in the Scots Magazine, August, 1784: we give it verbatim et literatim. ALLAN RAMSAY To MR. JOHN SMIBERT,[8] in BOSTON, NEW ENGLAND. "Edinburgh, _May_ 10, 1736.