THE GENTLE SHEPHERD, a Scots Pastoral Comedy. Edinburgh, 1725. First edition. Numerous other editions. _See Preface, page_ x. Included in all the collective editions of the Poems. _Translations._--By Cornelius Vanderstop. London, 1777. 8vo.--By W. Ward. London, 1785. 8vo.--By Margaret Turner. London, 1790. 8vo. FABLES.--A Collection of thirty Fables. Edinburgh, 1730. First collective edition. The greater part of these were included in the quarto of 1728, and are to be found in all the more recent editions of the Poems. PROVERBS.--A Collection of Scots Proverbs. Edinburgh, 1737. 12mo. Numerous editions. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SUSANNA, _COUNTESS OF EGLINTOUN_.[56] MADAM, The love of approbation, and a desire to please the best, have ever encouraged the Poets to finish their designs with chearfulness. But, conscious of their own inability to oppose a storm of spleen and haughty ill-nature, it is generally an ingenious custom amongst them to chuse some honourable shade. Wherefore, I beg leave to put my Pastoral under your Ladyship's protection. If my Patroness says, the Shepherds speak as they ought, and that there are several natural flowers that beautify the rural wild, I shall have good reason to think myself safe from the awkward censure of some pretending judges that condemn before examination. [Footnote 56: "This is the same dignified lady, to whom, at the age of eighty-five, Johnson, and Boswell, offered their homage; whose powers of pleasing continued so resplendent as to charm the fastidious sage into a declaration that, in visiting such a woman, he had spent his day well. This celebrated patroness of poets was the accomplished daughter of the noble house of Kennedy, who having married, in 1708, Alexander the Earl of Eglinton, by whom she had three sons, two of whom succeeded to the earldom, and seven daughters who married into honourable families, died on the 18th of March, 1780, at the patriarchal age of ninety-one."--_Geo. Chalmers' Life of Ramsay, page xxxiv., edition of 1800._] I am sure of vast numbers that will crowd into your Ladyship's opinion, and think it their honour to agree in their sentiments with the Countess of EGLINTOUN, whose penetration, superior wit, and sound judgment, shines with an uncommon lustre, while accompanied with the diviner charms of goodness and equality of mind. If it were not for offending only your Ladyship, here, Madam, I might give the fullest liberty to my muse to delineate the finest of women, by drawing your Ladyship's character, and be in no hazard of being deemed a flatterer; since flattery lyes not in paying what's due to merit, but in praises misplaced.