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

ALLAN RAMSAY 87
since the Idylls of Theocritus. No less eminent a judge
of poetry than Alexander Pope considered it in many
respects superior to the Shepherds' Calendar; while Gay
was so enthusiastic in his admiration that he sent the
work over to Swift, with the remark, 'At last we have a
dramatic pastoral, though it is by a Scot.'
The first edition of The Gentle Shepherd was exhausted
in a few months, and in January 1726 Ruddiman printed
the second, while the third and a cheaper one was called
for towards the close of the same year. The enormous
sale of the poem may be estimated by the fact that the
tenth edition was printed in 1750 by R. & A. FouHs of
Glasgow. So great was the accession of popularity
accruing to Ramsay through the publication of The
Gentle Shepherd^ and so rapid the increase in his book-
selling business, that he found it absolutely necessary to
shift his place of business, or Scotice dictu, to ' flit ' to larger
premises, in the first storey of the eastern gable-end of
the Luckenbooths, a block of towering lands or tenements
which, until 181 7, stood in the very centre of the High
Street, obstructing the thoroughfare, and affording a
curious commentary on the expedients to which the
burgesses of Edinburgh were compelled to resort, to eke
out to the utmost the space enclosed within the charmed
circle of the Flodden Wall.
At his ' flitting,' also, he changed his sign, and, think-
ing the ' Flying Mercury ' no longer applicable to his
new pursuits, he adopted the heads of Ben Jonson and
Drummond of Hawthornden, a sign which in local
parlance gradually grew to bear the title of ' The Twa
Heids.' In his new premises also, Ramsay extended the
scope of his business, adding to the other attractions of