The Project Gutenberg eBook, Allan Ramsay, by William Henry Oliphant
Smeaton

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Title: Allan Ramsay
Famous Scots Series

Author: William Henry Oliphant Smeaton

Release Date: June 1, 2010 [eBook #32642]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALLAN RAMSAY***

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ALLAN RAMSAY

by

OLIPHANT SMEATON

Famous Scots Series

Published by Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier
Edinburgh and London

The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr. Joseph Brown, and
the printing from the press of Messrs. Morrison & Gibb, Edinburgh.

TO

DAVID MASSON, LL.D.

EMERITUS-PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH LITERATURE
IN EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY

THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED

in grateful acknowledgment of kindly encouragement given in years
long gone by, and of intellectual stimulus received from him by
his former student

THE AUTHOR

PREFACE

Since this Volume was in type, I have received some additional
information which I feel constrained to lay before my readers.

With reference to the Easy Club, I have been favoured, through the
courtesy of the Rev. Dr. A. B. Grosart, with a sight of the complete
Minutes of the Club. From them I observe that Ramsay was one of the
earliest members admitted, and that his song 'Were I but a Prince or
King' was formally presented to the Club after his admission not before,
though its rough draft must have been shown to the members prior to that
event.

Next, as regards the Editions of _The Gentle Shepherd_, a valued
correspondent, Mr. J. W. Scott, Dowanhill, Glasgow, kindly calls my
attention to two 'Translations into English' of the Poem which appear to
have hitherto escaped notice. These are '_Allan Ramsay's Gentle
Shepherd, translated into English by W. Ward, 8vo, 1785._' Ward, as Mr.
Scott states, seems to have been a 'naturalised Englishman' residing at
Musselburgh. Five years after Ward's production, appeared another, and
in many respects a better Edition, to wit, '_The Gentle Shepherd, a
Scotch P