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

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FAMOUS SCOTS
Clerk of Penicuik, Sir William Bennet of Marlefield, Sir
Alexander Dick of Prestonfield, near Edinburgh, he lived
in the habit of daily, familiar, and friendly intercourse.
With contemporary poets his relations were likewise
of the most friendly kind. The two Hamiltons, of
Bangour and Gilbertfield, were his constant associates.
To Pope, to Gay, and to Somerville; to Meston, to
Mitchell, and to Mallet, he addressed poetical greetings,
and several of them returned the salutations in kind.
From England, too, came another and a different proof
of his popularity, in the fact that, when in 1726 Hogarth
published his 'Illustrations of Hudibras' in twelve
plates, these were dedicated to ' William Ward of Great
Houghton, Northamptonshire, and Allan Ramsay of
Edinburgh.' Edinburgh itself was proud of her poet,
and was not averse to manifesting the fact when fitting
opportunity offered. He was a frequent visitor at the
University, and Dugald Stewart relates that an old friend
of his father informed him, the students of the fourth
and fifth decades of last century used to point out a
squat, dapper, keen- eyed little man, who was wont to
walk up and down the space in front of their classrooms
with Professors Drummond and Maclaurin, as ' the great
poet, Allan Ramsay.' The narrator also added, he felt a
secret disappointment when thus viewing for the first time
a real live poet, and noting that he differed neither in
dress nor mien from ordinary men. From his studies
among the classics, and from the prints in the early
editions of Horace and Virgil, he had been led to imagine
the genus poet always perambulated the earth attired in
flowing singing robes, their forehead bound with a chaplet,
and carrying with them a substantial looking lyre
!