inst
poetic canons, or the principles of this, that, or the other school of
poetry. He was a natural singer, not one formed by art--a singer,
voicing his patriotic enthusiasm in many a lay, that for warmth of
national feeling, for intense love of his species, for passionate
expression of the tenderer emotions, is little behind the best of the
songs of Robert Burns. Granted that his was not the power to sweep,
like Burns, or Beranger, or Heine, with masterful hand over the entire
gamut of human passions; that to him was not given, as to them, the
supremely keen insight into the workings of the human heart, and the
magical witchery of wedding sense to sound so indissolubly, that alter
but a word in the texture of the lines and the poem is ruined. Yet, in
his province, Ramsay was dowered with a gift but little less notable,
that of portraying so faithfully the natural beauties of his country,
and the special characteristics of his countrymen, that, in a greater
degree even than Burns,--were Ramsay's songs only recognised as his, in
place of being ascribed to others,--he has a right to the proud title of
Scotland's national song-writer. Not for a moment do I seek to place
Ramsay on a pedestal co-equal with Burns--that were an error worse than
folly; not for a moment do I seek to detract from the transcendent merit
of our great national poet. But though I do not rate Burns the less, I
value Ramsay the more, when I say that, had there been no Ramsay there
might have been no Burns nor any Fergusson--at least, the genius of the
two last named poets would not have found an adequate vehicle of
expression lying readymade to their hand. Ramsay it was who virtually
rendered the Scots vernacular a possible medium for the use of Burns;
and this service, unconsciously rendered by the lesser genius to the
greater, is generously acknowledged by the latter, who could not but be
aware that, as his own star waxed higher and yet higher from the horizon
line of popularity, that of his elder rival waned more and more.
Therefore his noble panegyric on Ramsay is but a tribute to his 'father
in song'--

'Thou paints auld nature to the nines,
In thy sweet Caledonian lines;
Nae gowden stream through myrtle twines,
Where Philomel,
While nightly breezes sweep the vines,
Her griefs will tell.

In gowany glens thy burnie strays,
Where bonnie lassies bleach their claes;
Or trots by haz