, in 1686, and was
therefore Pope's senior by two years. He has been called 'the restorer
of Scottish poetry,' and by his compilation of _The Evergreen_ (1724),
and of _The Tea-Table Miscellany_, published in the same year, he
gathered up the wealth of song scattered through the country. _The
Miscellany_ extended to four volumes, and before the poet's death had
reached twelve editions. An undying interest belongs to both
anthologies. _The Evergreen_ was the first poetry Walter Scott perused,
and in a marginal note on his copy of _The Tea-Table Miscellany_ he
writes: 'This book belonged to my grandfather, Robert Scott, and out of
it I was taught _Hardiknute_ by heart before I could read the ballad
myself. It was the first poem I ever learnt, the last I shall ever
forget.' The ballad Scott loved so well, I may say in passing, was
written as a whole or in part by Lady Wardlaw (1677-1727),[35] and
belongs therefore either to our period or to the later years of the
seventeenth century.

In 1725 Ramsay published _The Gentle Shepherd_, a pastoral that puts to
shame the numerous semi-classical and mythological poems which appeared
under that name in England. It is essentially a rural poem, in which the
action and language harmonize with what we know, or think we know, of
country manners and life. There is neither striking invention in the
plot nor much individuality in the characters, but there is poetical
harmony throughout, many pretty rustic scenes, and sufficient interest
to carry the reader pleasantly over the ground. _The Gentle Shepherd_ is
the work of a poet, and gives a higher impression of Ramsay's power than
his songs alone would warrant. His lyrical pieces, though not wholly
without the lilt and charm such verse exacts, are perhaps mainly of
service in showing the immeasurable superiority of Burns. Ramsay was a
successful poet, and not too much of a poet to be also a successful man
of business. He exchanged wig-making for bookselling, kept a shop in the
High Street of Edinburgh, and finally retired to a villa which he had
built for himself on the Castle Hill. A good-humoured, care-defying man,
he enjoyed life in an easy way, and was not disposed to repine when his
road lay down the hill. In an epistle to a friend he writes:

'And now in years and sense grown auld,
In ease I like my limbs to fauld,
Debts I abhor, and plan to be
From shackling trade and dangers free;
That I may, loosed frae care