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

ii6 FAMOUS SCOTS
at Penicuik, and that he should there have been seized
with so severe an indisposition as to prevent him return-
ing to Edinburgh for nearly five weeks. Though a Tory
and a Jacobite, honest Allan knew upon which side his
bread was buttered. Such honours as would have been
conferred would have been inconvenient. Moreover, the
Rebellion had not yet attained dimensions sufficient to
transmute it from a rebellion into a revolution. Pawki-
ness and caution were prominent traits in his character,
and they were never used to more salient advantage than
in the instance in question.
To the end of life, Ramsay remained the same kindly,
genial, honourable man, whose appearance in any of the
social circles he frequented, was the signal for ' quips and
cranks and wreathed smiles' to go round, and for the
feast of reason and the flow of soul to commence. His
squat, podgy figure waddling down the High Street on
his way to his shop in the Luckenbooths, his head
covered with the quaint three-cornered hat of the period,
beneath which peeped his tie-wig, was one of the familiar
sights of Edinburgh, to be pointed out to strangers with
a pride and an affection that never diminished. In his
little villa on the Castlehill he entertained his friends
in true Horatian style, and with a hospitality every whit
as warm, though it was every whit as simple as that
which the great Roman promised Maecenas, he made
them free of what was in his power to give.
Foibles he had,—and who is without them ? faults, too,
—for what character lacks them ? yet his very foibles and
his faults leaned to virtue's side. Vain he certainly was,
deny the fact who can? his egotism, also, may have
jarred on some whose individuality was as strong as his