so their copies, as drawn by him, do not offend by their vulgarity, nor is there any greater degree of rusticity than what merely distinguishes their mode of life and occupations. In what I have said of the manners of the characters in the _Gentle Shepherd_, I know that I encounter the prejudices of some _Scotish critics_, who allowing otherwise the very high merits of Ramsay as a poet, and giving him credit in particular for his knowledge of human nature, and skill to touch the passions, quarrel with him only on the score of his language; as they seem to annex inseparably the idea of coarseness and vulgarity to every thing that is written in the native dialect of their country: but of this I have said enough before. To every Englishman, and, I trust, to every Scotsman not of fastidious refinement, the dialect of the _Gentle Shepherd_ will appear to be most perfectly consonant to the characters of the speakers, and the times in which the action is laid. To this latter circumstance the critics I have just mentioned seem not to have been sufficiently attentive. The language of this pastoral is not precisely the Scotish language of the present day: the poet himself spoke the language of the beginning of the century, and his persons were of the age preceding that period. To us their dialect is an antiquated tongue, and as such it carries with it a Doric simplicity. But when we consider both the characters and the times, it has an indispensable propriety; and to have given the speakers in the _Gentle Shepherd_ a more refined and pollished dialect, or more modern tone of conversation, would have been a gross violation of truth and nature.