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

124 FAMOUS SCOTS
in such a position as described in the following lines,
tends to induce us profane Philistines of these latter
days, to smile, if not to sneer
' A
—
better lad ne'er leaned out o'er a kent,
Nor hounded collie o'er the mossy bent :
Blythe at the bughts how oft hae we three been,
Heartsome on hills, and gay upon the green.'
This, however, was the fashion in vogue, and to it our
poet had to conform. In Richy and Sandy^ in Robert^
Richy, and Sandy, and in his earlier pastorals generally,
we seem to see the poet struggling to rid himself of the
conventional prejudices against painting rural nature
in the real, and in favour of 'a golden -age rusticity'
purely imaginary. Not by this is it implied that I claim
for our poet the credit of first insisting on reverting to
nature for the study of scenes and character. The same
conviction, according to Lowell, was entertained by
Spenser, and his Shepherds^ Calendar was a manifestation,
however imperfect and unsatisfactory, of his desire to
hark back to nature for inspiration. In Keitha the
same incongruity, as noted above, is visible. The poem
in question, with that on the Marriage of the Earl of
Wemyss, can neither be ranked as conventional pastoral
nor as pure pastoral, according to Ramsay's later style.
We note the 'Colins' and 'Ringans,' the 'shepherd's
reeds ' and ' shepherd's weeds,' and the picture of
' the singing shepherd on the green
Armyas hight, wha used wi' tunefu' lay
To please the ear when he began to play,'
—an imitation of Milton's immortal lines in Comus,
which are too well known to need quotation. All of a
piece this with the 'golden-age pastoral.' In the same