whether or not it may have been to the death, it was certainly not to the marriage of the mother of Ramsay, that his 'betaking himself to a mechanical employment' is to be attributed. It is not easy to see how that second marriage can be said to have left Ramsay 'without property;' it was his father's early death and the impoverished circumstances of the family at the time of that death, that alone could have produced that result. No doubt it left him without the 'means of procuring any' as lacking the advantages of a liberal education and of an hereditary estate, but these and other disadvantages besides, would alike have happened had his mother continued in widowhood. On the contrary, that marriage seems to have procured for her and her fatherless infant in their destitute condition at once a home and a protector. The propriety of the application of the epithet 'niggardly' to Mr. Crichton may be questioned. He was poor. He had a family of his own, by Allan's mother, to provide for. land) to the throne of England; but there is a long lapse in its history, during which the whole of its ancient records have been lost. In 1770, it was happily re-established in all its original vigour; and comparatively short as the succeeding period has been, the effect of the peculiar condition attached to admission into its body is of a nature alike gratifying and important. The Society is now in possession of a body of SCOTTISH BIOGRAPHY, which far exceeds all the published collections with which they are acquainted, in authenticity, in interest, and in variety. Scarcely a single Scotsman who is known to fame for any thing great or good, can be named, who has not found, in some Member of the Society, a zealous if not an able biographer. Many of the Memoirs are of a very original character, abounding in facts not generally known; not a few have been written by individuals who have themselves done honour to the Scottish name; and all of them possess the merit, at least, of having given satisfaction to a numerous circle of individuals neither rash in approbation, nor ill qualified by education and habits to form a just appreciation of literary excellence. "The plan of giving these Memoirs to the world had of late years been often talked of in the Society; and a conviction became general among the Members, that the publication was an act of duty which they owed equally to the honour of the Scottish nation and character, and to the general interests of learning." By order of the Committee, ARTHUR SEMPIL, Secretary." Scotland was then in an extremely depressed state, without manufactures, without trade,—the nation impoverished and dispirited by the failure of the Darien expedition, by exclusion from direct commerce with the colonies, and by other consequences of the commercial jealousy of England, so that there was little encouragement for any one, even had he greater facilities for following the profession than Allan 'in the heather whins' could have had, to devote himself to painting as a means of earning a subsistence. By establishing him moreover as peruke or periwig maker,(1) Mr. C. was,-unconsciously perhaps,-render (1) In the celebrated case of the Perruquiers and Coïffeurs of Paris, the art of dressing hair is demonstrated to be not only a liberal art, but equal in rank to those of the poet, the painter, and the statuary. "By those talents," say the dressers of hair," which are peculiar to ourselves, we give new graces to the beauty sung by the poet; it is when she comes from under our hands, that the painter and statuary represent her; and, if the locks of Berenice have been placed among the stars, who will deny, that to attain this superior glory she was first in want of our aid. A forehead more or less open, a face more or less oval, require very different modes; every where we must embellish nature, or correct her deficiencies. It is also necessary to conciliate with the colour of the flesh that of the dress which is to beautify it; sometimes the whiteness of the skin will be heightened by the auburn tint of the locks, and the too lively splendour of the fair will be softened by the greyish cast with which we tinge the tresses." "Some rigid censurers may perhaps say, that they could do very well without us; and that if there were less art and ornament at the toilettes of the ladies, things would be all for the better. It is not for us to judge, whether the manners of Sparta were preferable to those of Athens; and whether the shepherdess, who gazes on herself in the glassy fountain, interweaves some flowers in her tresses, and adorns herself with natural graces, merits a greater homage than those brilliant citizens who skilfully employ the refinements of a fashionable dress. We must take the age in the state we find it. We feel a congenial disposition to the living manners to which we owe our existence, and while they subsist we must subsist with them." All this, to be sure, is of female locks; but ladies of old wore wigs as well as gentlemen, and where is the proof that Allan was not a maker of wigs to both sexes? Some passages of his poems seem to favour the supposition, that he was equally skilled in the decoration of both; thus, Her cockernony snooded up fu' sleek, Gentle Shepherd, scene 1.-A. S. ing, as it happened, our poet an eminent service. A wig or periwig was then an indispensable ornament of the heads of lawyers, clergymen, and medical practitioners,(1) and was in general use by the aristocracy of both sexes. Its makers were not as now barbers, nor, except in a rigorous sense, hairdressers. In following his business, Ramsay had opportunities which he adroitly and successfully improved of making himself known to, and of being patronised by, the wisest and noblest of the land. "He was therefore," says the writer of a recent and lively biographical notice of him, “as his writings show, not ashamed of it, but continued in it long after his apprenticeship had ceased, nor did he abandon it for the more congenial pursuit of bookselling until he had held for some time a name in the poetical world.”(2) Finally, there is not to be found in all the writings of Ramsay, a trace of evidence that he regarded his mother's second marriage, or his early life under his stepfather, as an unhappiness.' Yet he was not one likely to have been silent on this point had it been the case. On the contrary, his native cheerfulness of disposition, his delightful pictures of rural and pastoral life, his kindly references to his birthplace and neighbourhood, and his seeking to join a society for aiding objects of charity connected with it, (3) indicate that his reminiscences of Crawford-moor and his youthful home, were of a healthful if not of an affectionate character. (1) I theck the out, and line the inside Epistle to Mr. James Arbuckle. 1719. (2) Hogg's Weekly Instructor, Dec. 5th, 1845. II. RAMSAY'S COURTSHIP. "WHAT a pretty young lady" (says a lively writer in Hogg's Weekly Instructor,(1) basing his statement apparently on some well authenticated traditionary report,) "of two-and-twenty could see about 'a small, stunted, dwarfish wig-maker of twenty-four,' to induce her to take the fancy of getting married to him, we cannot say. Such, however, was the case. Before Allan had published a single verse, while he was yet obscure, unfriended, and unknown, he succeeded, by some species of poetic 'glamourie' or other, in captivating at a tea-party the affections of a certain Miss Ross, daughter to one of the city writers. We have the authority of Moore for asserting, that when the heart of a young lady has once gone amissing, the lady herself will soon go in search of it. And so it was here: old Ross, the lady's father, was crowned with one of the most formidable wigs of his day. Allan put it in curl, we are told, once a fortnight, and kept all 'snod.' Miss Ross, till the tea-party night, had never found her way to the tonsor's shop, allowing the servant to call. Now, however, she made frequent visits, and all about 'papa's wig.' Allan had discernment enough to see how matters stood. He had forty times the genius of Andrew Wylie, and was ten degrees 'pawkier.' Mustering in a month or so the necessary amount of fortitude, he made direct proposals to the young lady, and succeeded, though horribly 'blackavized,'() and only five feet four, in bearing away, under a terrific fire from (1) Dec. 5th, 1845. (2) Justice is scarcely done here to Allan's personal appearance. He at least did not consider himself at all 'horrible' when writing himself, 'A black-a-vized snod dapper fallow,' Epistle to Mr. James Arbuckle. the batteries of some five-and-twenty enraged rivals, his invaluable prize-for so it proved. The union was an exceedingly propitious one; and the poet's domestic felicity was, in the course of the subsequent year, increased by the birth of a son, destined in a sister art to all but rival his father-we mean the Allan Ramsay who was afterwards portrait-painter to George III.” III. RAMSAY'S RESIDENCES. I. AT THE SIGN OF THE MERCURY OPPOSITE TO NIDDRY'S WYND. THIS house, of which a view is given in the Vignette titlepage to the present volume, lies on the north side of the High Street, at the head of Kinloch's or the second close now remaining in that side of the High Street below the Tron Church, and opposite to Niddry's Wynd. We copy the following description and account of it from a meritorious and recent publication.(1) "The ancient timber fronted land which faces the street at the head of this close is one possessing peculiar claims to our interest, as the scene of Allan Ramsay's earlier labours, where, 'at the sign of the Mercury, opposite to Niddry's Wynd,' he prosecuted his latter business as author, editor, and bookseller. From thence issued his poems printed in single sheets, or half sheets, as they were written, in which shape they are reported to have nor likely to run a risk of being outrivalled by ordinary competitors, when he adds in the same letter, 'I the best and fairest please.' That he prefixed his portrait to the earliest collection of his works, may be further evidence of his own opinion in this respect. (1) Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time, by Daniel Wilson, F.S.A., Scot., vol. II., pp. 31, 32. |