"My dear old friend, your health and happiness are ever ane addition to my satisfaction. God make your life ever easy and pleasant--half a century of years have now row'd o'er my pow; yes, row'd o'er my pow, that begins now to be lyart; yet, thanks to my Author, I eat, drink, and sleep as sound as I did twenty years syne; yes, I laugh heartily too, and find as many subjects to employ that faculty upon as ever: fools, fops, and knaves, grow as rank as formerly; yet here and there are to be found good and worthy men, who are an honour to human life. We have small hopes of seeing you again in our old world; then let us be virtuous, and hope to meet in heaven.--My good auld wife is still my bedfellow: my son, Allan, has been pursuing your science since he was a dozen years auld--was with Mr. Hyssing, at London, for some time, about two years ago; has been since at home, painting here like a Raphael--sets out for the seat of the Beast, beyond the Alps, within a month hence--to be away about two years.--I'm sweer[9] to part with him, but canna stem the current which flows from the advice of his patrons and his own inclinations.--I have three daughters, one of seventeen, one of sixteen, one of twelve years old, and no waly-dragle[10] among them, all fine girls. These six or seven years past, I have not wrote a line of poetry; I e'en gave o'er in good time, before the coolness of fancy that attends advanced years should make me risk the reputation I had acquired. [Footnote 8: [John Smibert, who drew his first breath in the Grass-Market of Edinburgh, was the son of a dyer, and bred a coach painter: but travelling into Italy for instruction, he painted portraits, on his return, at London, till he was induced, by the fascination of Bishop Berkeley, to emigrate with him to Bermuda, and thence to New England. Smibert was born in 1684 and died at Boston, in 1751. (Life of Ramsay by George Chalmers, in Works, Edition of 1800.)]] [Footnote 9: Unwilling.] [Footnote 10: A feeble ill-grown person.] "Frae twenty-five to five-and-forty, My Muse was nowther sweer[11] nor dorty; My Pegasus wad break his tether, E'en at the shakking[12] of a feather, And through ideas scour like drift, Streaking[13] his wings up to the lift: Then, then my saul was in a low, That gart my numbers safely row; But eild and judgment 'gin to say, Let be your sangs, and learn to pray. [Footnote 11: Unwilling.] [Footnote 12: Shaking.] [Footnote 13: Stretching.] "I am, sir, your friend and servant, "ALLAN RAMSAY."]