Allan Ramsay, the restorer of Scottish Poetry, was born on the 15th day of October, 1686, at Leadhills, in the parish of Crawfordmoor, in Lanarkshire. His father, John Ramsay, superintended Lord Hopetoun's lead mines at that place; and his grandfather, Robert Ramsay, a writer or attorney in Edinburgh, had possessed the same appointment: his great-grandfather, Captain John Ramsay, was the son of Ramsay of Cockpen in Mid-Lothian, who was brother of Ramsay of Dalhousie. His mother, Alice Bower, was daughter of Allan Bower, a gentleman of Derbyshire, whom Lord Hopetoun had brought to Scotland to instruct and superintend his miners. His grandmother, Janet Douglas, was daughter of Douglas of Muthil. In his lineage, therefore, our Poet had something to boast of, and, though _born to nae lairdship_, he fails not to congratulate himself on being sprung from the loins of a Douglas. He did not long enjoy the blessing of paternal care and instruction; for, shortly after his birth, his father died, leaving the widow and family in a condition rather destitute. His mother soon after married a Mr. Crichton, a petty landholder of the same county, by whom she had several children. Under these unfortunate circumstances, young Allan entered upon the career of life; and, for fourteen years he remained in the house of his stepfather, with no other education than was supplied by the school of the parish. Here, surrounded by wild and mountainous scenery, and amid an artless and secluded people, whose manners and language were of patriarchal simplicity, his childhood received those pastoral and Arcadian impressions, which were too lively to be effaced by future habits, however uncongenial, and of which he in his manhood, amid all the artificial life of the city, made so lively and fascinating a transcription. Of his progress and attainments at school, we have no record. It does not appear that he read much poetry prior to his twentieth year; and his emulation, and _ambitious thoughts_, of which he says _he had some_, seem to have slumbered in inactivity, till they were awakened to unceasing exercise by the society and the excitements of Edinburgh.