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

I20 FAMOUS SCOTS
Fraser-Tytler, at Woodhouselee, near the Glencorse
locale of The Gentle Shepherd^ has erected a rustic temple
which bears the inscription
—
'Allano Ramsay et Genio Loci.
' Here midst those streams that taught thy Doric Muse
Her sweetest song,—the hills, the woods, and stream,
Where beauteous Peggy strayed, list'ning the while
Her Gentle Shepherd's tender tale of love.
Scenes which thy pencil, true to Nature, gave
To live for ever. Sacred be this shrine
And unprofaned, by ruder hands, the stone
That owes its honours to thy deathless name.'
Ramsay was survived by his son Allan, the painter,
and by his two daughters, Christian and Janet, who
amongst them inherited the poet's fortune. The house
on the Castlehill fell to his son, and remained in the
possession of the family, as Mr. Logie Robertson records,
until 1845, when it changed hands at the death of
General John Ramsay, the poet's grandson, and the last
of his line. For many years it stood, an object of
interest to all admirers of the bard, until 1892, when,
just as the building was beginning to show signs of age,
the site was bought for the erection of the new students'
boarding-house, ' University Hall,' which so imposingly
crowns the ridge of the Castlehill. With a reverence
for the memory of the poet as rare as it is commendable,
the promoters of the scheme resolved to preserve as
much as possible of the house, and the greater part of
it has been incorporated in the new building.
Of Ramsay we have only two portraits remaining that
are of any real value,—that painted by his son Allan, and
that by Smibert, the poet's lifelong friend. The latter
;