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

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66 FAMOUS SCOTS
Small wonder is it that, stimulated by such flattery,
Allan should have desired to evince to his friends by
the Thames, that the notes of their northern brother of
the lyre were not confined to the humble strains of his
own rustic reed.
In the quarto, therefore, w^e have a poem, Tartana, or
The Flaid, written in heroic couplets, with the avowed
desire to reinstate in popular favour the silken plaid,
which, from time immemorial, had been the favourite
attire of Scots ladies, but, since the Rebellion of 1715,
had been somewhat discarded, in consequence of Whiggish
prejudices that it was a badge of disloyalty to the reign-
ing house. Then we have Content^ a long piece of
moral philosophy in verse, and the Morning Intervieiv^
a poem written under the spell of Pope's Rape of the
Lock^ wherein the very machinery of the sylphs is copied
from the great English satire. Nor is the ' South Sea
Bubble,' which ran its brief course from lyiSto 1720,
forgotten in Wealthy or The Woody (gallows), and two
shorter poems illustrative of the prevailing madness.
Epigrams^ Addresses, Elegies, and Odes are also included,
along with one or two of his famous poetical Epistles^
modelled on those of Horace, and brimming over with
genial bonhomie and good-humoured epicureanism. In
this volume, also, we have additional evidence afforded
how fondly he had become attached to Edinburgh and
its environs. Scarce a poem is there in the book that
lacks some reference to well-known features in the local
landscape, showing that he still retained the love of
wandering, in his spare hours, amid Pentland glens and
by fair Eskside. Only with one extract will the reader's
patience be taxed here. It is from his Ode to the Ph—
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