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

ALLAN RAMSAY 147
of his age. Like Rabelais, he was a humorist, not a
wit, and his satires suffered accordingly. Perhaps the
best of his satires is The Last Speech of a Wretched
Miser, wherein his humour becomes bitingly sardonic.
The wretch's address to his pelf is very powerful
* O dool ! and am I forced to dee,
And nae mair my dear siller see,
That glanced sae sweetly in my e'e
It breaks my heart !
My gold ! my bonds ! alackanie
That we should part.
Like Tantalus, I lang have stood,
Chin-deep into a siller flood ;
Yet ne'er was able for my blood,
But pain and strife,
To ware ae drap on claiths or food,
To cherish life.'
Different, indeed, is the case when we come to consider
Ramsay as a song -writer and a lyrist. To him
the former title rather than the latter is best applicable.
This is not the place to note the resemblances and the
differences between the French chanson, the German
lied, the Italian canzone, and the English song or lyric.
But as indicating a distinction between the two last
terms, Mr. F. T. Palgrave, in the introduction to his
invaluable Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics, regards
a 'lyric' as a poem turning on 'some single thought,
feeling, or situation ' ; Mr. H. M. Posnett, in his
thoughtful volume on Comparative Literature, remarks
that the lyric has varied from sacred or magical hymns
and odes of priest bards, only fulfilling their purpose
when sung, and perhaps never consigned to writing at
all, down to written expressions of individual feeling
from which all accompaniments of dance or music have
!
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