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

ALLAN RAMSAY 33
But now a change even more radical was inaugurated.
The national Parliament, whose sittings had always
necessitated the attendance of a considerable proportion
of the nobility and gentry of the country, during a certain
part of the year, was merged in that of the larger country.
Those of the purely Scottish peerage, whom choice or
political duties had retained in Scotland, now found no
need to maintain their costly Edinburgh establishments.
Many a noble ancestral home, that for three or four
hundred years had sheltered the household and retainers
of families, whose deeds were interwoven with the historic
records of Scotland's most glorious epochs, was now
advertised for sale. An exodus to London on a vast
scale set in, and the capital of Scotland ere long settled
down, in the apathy of despair, to play the role of a
provincial centre. Henceforward her 'paper lords,'
otherwise Judges of the Court of Session, were to re-
present her titled magnates.
The bitterness of spirit which such a course of action
as this migration inspired in the minds of the residents of
the Scottish capital, Ramsay, as a young journeyman, or
as a master craftsman who had only newly commenced
business for himself, would fervently reciprocate. In
two places at least in his works he pathetically, yet
vigorously, protests against the cream of Scottish youth
being sent away out of the country.
In one of the most suggestively beautiful of his minor
pastorals, Betty and Kate, he thus writes
3
— ;
* Far, far, o'er far frae Spey an' Clyde,
Stands that great town o' Lud,
To whilk our best lads rin an' ride,
That's like to put us wud [mad]