Ramsay, Allan

ram'zi, Allan (1686-1758), a Scottish poet. He was the son of a Lanarkshire mine manager. At fifteen he went up to Edinburgh to learn the trade of barber, then, owing to the wearing of wigs, an extensive and lucrative business. He became acquainted with a band of young men who aped the manners and morals of the corrupt court of Charles II. They admitted Ramsay to the Easy Club, an organization that professed to include the wit, literary ability, and gallantry of the town. A favorite topic of these critics was the need in pastoral poetry of greater fidelity to nature. The Guardian for April 7, 1713, No. 23, said, "Paint the manners of actual rustic life, not the manners of artificial shepherds and shepherdesses in a fictitious golden age: use actual rustic dialect: instead of satyrs and nymphs, introduce the supernatural creatures of modern superstition," that is to say fairies, brownies, etc. In response to this call, Ramsey wrote The Gentle Shepherd, one of the few successful poems written according to a recipe. For the artificial subjects of the time it substituted the real life of Scotch shepherds. It attracted attention from the scholar and became a household favorite. It was written in a tone of loose morality, true enough, no doubt, to nature, but it was bitterly assailed as bringing the atmosphere of the cavalier into the precincts of the Scottish kirk. "Renowned Allan, canty callan," had a deep influence on Burns, who wrote in the same dialect and adapted the same rollicking cavalier tone, as may be seen in, The Jolly Beggars, Tam O'Shanter, etc. Ramsay exchanged the business of wig making for book selling. He was a tireless collector of old Scottish poetry. He established the first circulating library in Scotland. Among other works by his hand were Evergreen, a collection of poems regarded as the precursor of Percy's Reliques, and a collection of fables, largely translations. A son of the same name attained a degree of eminence as a painter of portraits. See Hogg