was intense.
Henceforward poetry was to represent to him the supreme aim of
existence. But like the canny Scot he was, he preferred to regard its
emoluments as a crutch rather than a staff; nay, on the other hand, the
determination to discharge his daily duties in his trade, as he executed
his literary labours, _con amore_, seems to have been ever present with
him. On this point, and referring to his dual pursuits as a wigmaker and
a poet, he writes to his friend Arbuckle--

'I theek the out, and line the inside
Of mony a douce and witty pash,
And baith ways gather in the cash.

. . . . .

Contented I have sic a skair,
As does my business to a hair;
And fain would prove to ilka Scot,
That pourtith's no the poet's lot.'

During the years in question Ramsay produced in rapid succession his
poem _On Wit_, the Club being again responsible for this clever satire;
and also two humorous _Elegies_, one on John Cowper, the
Kirk-Treasurer's-Man, whose official oversight of the _nymphes de pave_
furnished the poet with a rollickingly ludicrous theme, of which he made
the most; the other, an _Elegy on Lucky Wood_, alewife in the Canongate,
also gave Ramsay full scope for the exercise of that broad Rabelaisian
humour, of his possession of which there was now no longer to be any
doubt.

Finally, in 1716, he achieved his great success, which stamped him as
unquestionably one of the greatest delineators that had as yet appeared,
of rural Scottish life amongst the humbler classes. As is well known, a
fragment is in existence consisting of one canto of a poem entitled
_Christ's Kirk on the Green_. Tradition and internal evidence alike
point to King James I. as the author. The theme is the description of a
brawl at a country wedding, which breaks out just as the dancing was
commencing. 'The king,' says Ramsay, 'having painted the rustic squabble
with an uncommon spirit, in a most ludicrous manner, in a stanza of
verse, the most difficult to keep the sense complete, as he had done,
without being forced to bring in words for crambo's sake where they
return so frequently, I have presumed to imitate His Majesty in
continuing the laughable scene. Ambitious to imitate so great an
original, I put a stop to the war, called a congress, and made them sign
a peace, that the world might have their picture in the more agreeable
hours of drinking, dancing, and singing. The following cantos were
writ