ne'er at will,
The best of bread;
Which aften cost us mony a gill
To Aitkenhead.'

Than his elegies on Luckie Spence, John Cowper, and Patie Birnie, no
more realistic presentation of low-life manners could be desired. They
are pictures such as Hogarth would have revelled in, and to which he
alone could have done justice in reproduction.

CHAPTER XI

RAMSAY AS A SATIRIST AND A SONG-WRITER

Difficult it is to make any exact classification of Ramsay's works,
inasmuch as he frequently applied class-names to poems to which they
were utterly inapplicable. Thus many of his elegies and epistles were
really satires, while more than one of those poems he styled satires
were rather of an epic character than anything else. By the reader,
therefore, certain shortcomings in classification must be overlooked, as
Ramsay's poetical terminology (if the phrase be permissible) was far
from being exact.

As I have previously remarked, Ramsay's studies in poetry, in addition
to the earlier Scottish verse, had lain largely in the later
Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline periods. In these, Milton, Cowley,
Dryden, and Pope were his favourites, and their influence is to be
traced throughout his satires. To Boileau he had paid some attention,
though his acquaintance with French literature was more through the
medium of translations, than by drawing directly from the fountainhead.
Ramsay's satires exhibit all the virtues of correct mediocrity. Their
versification is smooth, and they generally scan accurately: the ideas
are expressed pithily, at times epigrammatically and wittily. The
faults and foibles satirised in most cases are those that richly merited
the satiric lash. Yet, all these merits granted, the reader feels
something to be lacking. The reason is not far to seek. Ramsay never
felt at home in what may be termed 'polished satire.' He was as much out
of place as would a low comedian on being suddenly called upon to
undertake 'drawing-room comedy.' Perpetually would he feel the
inclination to rap out one of the rousing, though vulgar, jokes that
inevitably evoked a roar of applause from the gallery, and sooner or
later he would give way to it. Ramsay was in precisely the same
position. The consequence is that in the _Morning Interview_,
professedly an imitation of Pope's _Rape of the Lock_, there are
incongruous images introduced, for the purpose of relieving the piece by
humorous comparison