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

ALLAN RAMSAY 6i
A reliable gauge of the estimation wherein Ramsay
was now held, as Scotland's great vernacular poet, is
afforded in the metrical epistles sent to him during the
closing months of 17 19 by Lieutenant William Hamilton
of Gilbertfield, to which Allan returned replies in similar
terms. This was not a poetical tourney like the famous
' flyting ' between Dunbar and Kennedy, two hundred
and thirty years before. In the latter, the two tilters
sought to say the hardest and the bitterest things of
each other, though they professed to joust with pointless
spears ; in the former, Hamilton and Ramsay, on the con-
trary, vied each with the other in paying the pleasantest
compliments. Gilbertfield contributed a luscious sop
to his correspondent's vanity when he saluted him,
in a stanza alluded to by Burns in his own familiar
tribute, as
—
' O fam'd and celebrated Allan !
Renowned Ramsay ! canty callan !
There's nowther Highland-man nor Lawlan,
In poetrie,
But may as soon ding down Tantallan,
As match wi' thee.'
Then he proceeds to inform honest Allan that of ' poetry,
the hail quintescence, thou hast suck'd up,' and affirms
that—
' Tho' Ben and Dryden of renown
Were yet alive in London town,
Like kings contending for a crown,
'Twad be a pingle,
Whilk o' you three wad gar words sound
And best to jingle.'
After such a glowing tribute, Allan could do no less than
dip deep into his cask of compliments also, and assure