O happy love! where love like this is found; O heartfelt raptures! bliss beyond compare! If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale. In intimate knowledge of human nature Ramsay yields to few poets either of ancient or of modern times. How naturally does poor Roger conjecture the insensibility of his mistress to his passion, from the following simple, but finely-imagined circumstances: My Bawty is a cur I dearly like, Even while he fawn'd, she strak the poor dumb tyke: If I had fill'd a nook within her breast, She wad have shawn mair kindness to my beast. When I begin to tune my stock and horn, With a' her face she shaws a caulrife scorn. Last night I play'd, ye never heard sic spite, _O'er Bogie_ was the spring, and her delyte; Yet tauntingly she at her cousin speer'd, Gif she cou'd tell what tune I play'd, and sneer'd. _Act 1, Scene 1._ The counsel, which _Patie_ gives his friend, to prove with certainty the state of _Jenny's_ affections, is the result of a profound acquaintance with the human heart: Daft gowk! leave off that silly whindging way; Seem careless, there's my hand ye'll win the day. Hear how I serv'd my lass I love as well As ye do Jenny, and with heart as leel. Then follows a picture so natural, and at the same time so exquisitely beautiful, that there is nothing in antiquity that can parallel it: