In Ramsay's _Vision_, the author, in order to aid the deception, has made use of a more antiquated phraseology, than that, which we find in his other Scotish poems: but, it evidently appears from this attempt, and from the two cantos, which he added to _King James the First's_ ludicrous satire of _Christ's Kirk on the Green_, that _Ramsay_ was not much skilled in the ancient Scotish dialect. Indeed the Glossary, which he annexed to the two quarto volumes of his poems, wherein are many erroneous interpretations, is of itself sufficient proof of this assertion. In compiling the Glossary of his Evergreen, _Lord Hailes_ has remarked, that he does not seem ever to have consulted the Glossary to _Douglas's Virgil_; "and yet they who have not consulted it, cannot acquire a competent knowledge of the ancient Scotish dialect, unless by infinite and ungrateful labour."[39] A part of this labour undoubtedly may be ascribed to _Ramsay_, when he selected and transcribed, from the _Bannatyne manuscript_, those ancient poems, which chiefly compose the two volumes of his _Evergreen_: and hence, it is probable, he derived the most of what he knew of the older dialect of his country. His own stock was nothing else than the oral language of the farmers of the _Lothians_, and the common talk of the citizens of Edinburgh, to which his ears were constantly accustomed. A Scotsman, in the age of Ramsay, generally _wrote_ in English; that is, he imitated the style of the English writers; but when he _spoke_, he used the language of his country. The sole peculiarity of the style of Ramsay is, that he transferred the oral language to his writings. He could write, as some of his compositions evince, in a style which may be properly termed English verse; but he wrote with more ease in the Scotish dialect, and he preferred it, as judging, not unreasonably, that it conferred a kind of Doric simplicity, which, when he wished to paint with fidelity the manners of his countrymen, and the peculiarities of the lower orders, was extremely suitable to such subjects.