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

ALLAN RAMSAY 143
also the one on the Death of Sir Isaac Newton, wherein
occur two memorable stanzas
—
' Great Newton's dead !—full ripe his fame ;
Cease vulgar grief, to cloud our song :
We thank the Author of our frame,
Who lent him to the earth so long.
For none with greater strength of soul
Could rise to more divine a height,
Or range the orbs from pole to pole,
And more improve the human sight.'
His 'humorous elegies,' written in a mock heroic
strain, and sometimes upon persons still living, though,
for the purposes of his art, he represented them as dead,
as in the case of John Cowper, are instinct with broad,
rollicking, Rabelaisian fun. Their vivid portrayal of
the manners and customs of the time renders them
invaluable. What better description of the convivial
habits of Edinburgh society early last century could be
desired, than the graphic pictures in Luckie Wood's Elegy,
particularly the stanza
—
' To the sma' hours we aft sat still,
Nick'd round our toasts and sneeshin'-mill
Good cakes we wanted ne'er at will,
The best of bread
Which aften cost us mony a gill
To Aitkenhead.'
Than his elegies on Luckie Spence, John Cowper, and
Patie Birnie, no more realistic presentation of low-life
manners could be desired. They are pictures such as
Hogarth would have revelled in, and to which he alone
could have done justice in reproduction.
;
;