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

8o FAMOUS SCOTS
intended such to be the case is evident from the first
four lines of his dedication, in which he offers the
contents
—
' To ilka lovely British lass,
Frae ladies Charlotte, Anne, and Jean,
Down to ilk bonny singing Bess,
Wha dances barefoot on the green.'
In the collection each stratum of society finds the songs
wherewith it had been familiar from infancy to age.
Tunes that were old as the days of James V. were
wedded to words that caught the cadences of the music
with admirable felicity ; words, too, had tunes assigned
them which enabled them to be sung in castle and cot,
in hall and hut, throughout 'braid Scotland.' The
denizens of fashionable drawing-rooms found their
favourites— ' Ye powers ! was Damon then so blest ?
'Gilderoy,' 'Tell me, Hamilla; tell me why'— in these
fascinating volumes, even as the Peggies and the Jennies
of the ewe-bughts and the corn-rigs rejoiced to note that
' Katy's Answer,' ' Polwart on the Green,' ' My
Daddy
forbad, my Minny forbad,' and 'The Auld Gudeman,'
had not been lost sight of. For many a long day, at
each tea-party in town, or rustic gathering in the country,
the Tea-Table Miscella?ty was in demand, or the songs
taken from it, for the entertainment of those assembled.
The widespread delight evoked by the Miscellany
allured Ramsay to essay next a task for which, it must
be confessed, his qualifications were scanty. Nine
months after the publication of the first volume of the
Miscellany—to wit, in October 1724—appeared another
compilation, The Evergrene : being ane Collection of Scots
FoemSy wrote by the Ingenious before 1600. It was dedi-
'