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

I04 FAMOUS SCOTS
In 1736 our poet published a collection of Scots
Proverbs^ which, for some reason or another, has never
been printed with his poems in those editions that are
professedly complete. Only in Oliver's pocket edition
is this excellent thesaurus of pithy and forcible Scottish
apophthegms presented with his other works. That it
is one of the best repertories of our proverbial current
coin that exists, particularly with regard to the crystal-
lised shrewdness and keen observation embodied in
them, must be apparent to any reader, even the most
cursory. To supersede the trashy works of Fergusson
and Kelly was the reason why Ramsay set himself to
gather up the wealth of aphoristic wisdom that lay
manna-like on all sides of him. As might be expected,
it is richest in the sayings common throughout the three
Lothians, though the Lowlands, as a whole, are well
represented. Of Gaelic proverbs there is scarce a trace,
showing how faintly, despite his Jacobitism, his sym-
pathies were aroused by Celtic tradition or Celtic poetry.
Many of the sayings were undoubtedly coined in
Ramsay's own literary mint, though the ideas may have
been common property among the people of his day.
But how close the union between the ideas and their
expression in this collection ! Of looseness of phrase
there is scarce a trace. How apt the stereotyping of
current idioms in such pithy verbal nuggets as— ' Ne'er
tell your fae when your foot sleeps,' 'Nature passes
nurture,' ' Muckledom is nae virtue,' ' Happy the wife
that's married to a motherless son,' 'Farmers' faugh
gar lairds laugh.'
Ramsay's dedication of his volume of Scots Proverbs
to ' The Tenantry of Scotland, Farmers of the Dales and