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

48
FAMOUS SCOTS
The benefits received by the self-confident young poet
were not alone of an intangible character. Praise is an
excellent thing of itself, but a modicum of pudding along
with it is infinitely better. To Ramsay the Easy Club
was the means of securing both. The role of his literary
patrons was at once assumed by its members. They
printed and published his Address at their own expense,
appointed him, within a few months' time, their 'Poet
Laureate,' and manifested, both by counsel and the
exercise of influence, the liveliest interest in his welfare.
No trivial service this to the youthful poet on the part
of his kindly club brethren. How great it was, and how
decisive the eff"ect of their generous championship in
establishing Ramsay's reputation on a sure basis, will
best be understood by glancing for a moment at the
character of the Easy Club and the personnel of its
membership.
Originally founded, under a different name, as a means
of frustrating, and afterwards of protesting against, the
Union, the Club, after its reconstruction in 1711, became
a Jacobite organisation pure and simple. As Ramsay
himself stated in after years :
' It originated in the
antipathy we all of that day seemed to have at the illhumour
and contradiction which arise from trifles,
especially those which constitute Whig and Tory, with-
out having the grand reason for it.^ The grand reason
in question was the restoration of the Stuarts. To give
a souppn of mystery to their proceedings, as well as to
veil their identity when thus plotting against the ' powers
that be,' each member assumed a fictitious name,
generally that of some celebrated writer. The poet, as
he himself relates, at first selected Isaac Beckerstaff",