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

26 FAMOUS SCOTS
to sleep precious moments for private reading, which
the arduous nature of his employment at Crawfordmuir
had prevented. Besides, he was in a ' city of books '
books only waiting to be utilised. That he did take
advantage of his opportunities during his apprenticeship,
and that it was at this period that the poetic instinct
in him took fire, on coming in contact with the electric
genius of Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, and other master-
minds of English literature, is a fact to which he refers
more than once in his poems.
From 1 70 1-7,—in other words, from his fifteenth to his
twenty-first year,—while he was serving his apprenticeship,
there is a gap in the continuity of the records we
have of the poet ; a lacuna all the more regrettable as
these were the true germing years of his genius. Of
the name of his trade -master, of the spot where the
shop of the latter was situated, of his friends at that
time, of his pursuits, his amusements, his studies, we
know little, save what can be gathered from chance
references in after-life. That they were busy years as
regards his trade is certain from the success he achieved
in it; and that Ramsay was neither a lazy, thrifdess,
shiftless, or vicious apprentice his after career effectually
proves. That they were happy years, if busy, may, I
think, be accepted as tolerably certain, for the native
gaiety and hilarity of his temperament underwent no
abatement. Whether or not his fashionable Edinburgh
relatives took any notice of him, whether he was a guest
at his grandfather, the lawyer's house, or whether the
latter and his family, hidebound by Edinburgh social
restrictions, found it necessary to ignore a Ramsay who
soiled his fingers with trade, is unknown. Probably not,
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