"I have been the fuller on this subject, because, to the great discredit of taste in Scotland, while we admire the effusions of this scribbler, we utterly neglect our really great poets, such as Barbour, Dunbar, Drummond, &c. There is even a sort of national prejudice in favour of the Gentle Shepherd, because it is our only drama in the Scotish language; yet we ought to be ashamed to hold prejudices so ridiculous to other nations, and so obnoxious to taste, and just criticism. I glory in Scotland as my native country; and, while I try to root up all other prejudices out of my mind, shall ever nourish my partiality to my country; as, if that be a prejudice, it has been esteemed an honest and a laudable one in all ages; and is, indeed, the only prejudice perfectly consonant to reason, and vindicable by truth. But Scotland has no occasion to recur to false history, false taste, false science, or false honours of any kind. In the severest light of truth she will stand very conspicuous. Her sons, in trying to adorn her, have shown remarkable defects of judgment. The ancient history of the Picts, so splendid in the page of Tacitus, is lost in our own fables. We neglect all our great poets, and are in raptures with Allan Ramsay. Our prejudices are as pitiful as strong; and we know not that the truth would make us far more illustrious, than all our dreams of prejudice, if _realized_, to use an expression of impossibility. Good sense in antiquities, and good taste in poetry, are astonishingly wanting in Scotland to this hour."[49] [Footnote 49: Ancient Scotish Poems. Vol. I. London, 1786.] JOSEPH RITSON. 1794. "Ramsay was a man of strong natural parts, and a fine poetical genius, of which his celebrated _pastoral_ The Gentle Shepherd will ever remain a substantial monument; and though some of his songs may be deformed by far-fetched allusions and pitiful conceits, _The Lass of Patie's Mill_, _The Yellow-hair'd Laddie_, _Farewell to Lochaber_, and some others, must be allowed equal to any, and even superior, in point of pastoral simplicity, to most lyric productions, either in the Scotish or any other language."[50] [Footnote 50: Ritson's Hist. Essay on Scotish Song, p. lxiii.] WILLIAM ROSCOE. 1795. "Whether the dialect of Scotland be more favourable to attempts of this nature, or whether we are to seek for the fact in the character of the people, or the peculiar talents of the writers, certain it is, that the idiom of that country has been much more successfully employed in poetical composition, than that of any other part of these kingdoms, and that this practice may here be traced to a very early period. In later times the beautiful _dramatic poem_ of The Gentle Shepherd has exhibited rusticity without vulgarity, and elegant sentiment without affectation. Like the heroes of Homer, the characters of this piece can engage in the humblest occupations without degradation."[51] [Footnote 51: Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, vol. i. p. 296.]