Allan Ramsay. [A biography.] - National Library of Scotland

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FAMOUS SCOTS
1728. From all quarters came requests for him so to
do. Therefore, towards the close of 1728 he issued
his second volume of collected poems. The interest
awakened by The Gentle Shepherd still burned with a
clear and steady glow. From this fact, gratifying, indeed,
as regards the proximate success of the individual book,
but prophetic also in an ultimate sense of the stability
of reputation to be his lot in the republic of letters, he
concluded, as he says in one of his letters to the Clerks
of Penicuik, 'to regard himself as ane o' the national
bards of Scotland.' That he was justified in doing so,
the future amply testified.
The realisation that he had now won for himself a
permanent place in the literature of his land operated,
however, rather injuriously upon the continued fecundity
of his genius. He became timorous of further appeals
to the public, lest he should injure his fame. Allan
Ramsay, in his own eyes, became Ramsay's most dreaded
rival. At length he deliberately adopted the resolution
that the better part of valour was discretion, and that he
would tempt fortune in verse no more. With the excep-
tion of his poetical epistle to the Lords of Session, and
his volume of metrical Fables^ Ramsay's poetical career
was completed. Henceforth he was occupied in prepar-
ing the successive editions of his Works and of the Tea-
Table Miscellany^ and in compiling his collection of
Scots Proverbs.