ten, the one in 1715 (O.S. corresponding to January 1716), the other
in 1718, about three hundred years after the first. Let no worthy poet
despair of immortality,--good sense will always be the same in spite of
the revolutions of fashion and the change of language.'

The task was no easy one, but Ramsay succeeded with remarkable skill in
dovetailing the second and third cantos into the first, so that they
read as the production of one mind. For faithful portraiture of Scottish
rural manners, for a fidelity, even in the minutest details, recalling
Teniers and his vividly realistic pictures of Dutch rustic life, the
cantos are unrivalled in Scottish literature, save by the scenes of his
own _Gentle Shepherd_.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Preface.

CHAPTER V

THE FAVOURITE AT THE 'FOUR-OORS'; FROM WIGMAKER TO BOOKSELLER; THE
QUARTO OF 1721--1717-21

Ramsay's fame as a poet, writing in the Scots vernacular, was now
thoroughly established. Though the patronage of the Easy Club could no
longer be extended to him, as the Government of the Elector of
Hanover--lately crowned King of England under the title of George
I.--had directed its suppression, the members of it, while in a position
to benefit him, had laid the basis of his reputation so broad and deep
that virtually he had now only to build on their foundation.

He was distinctly the favourite of the 'auld wives' of the town. In
quarto sheets, familiarly known as _broadsides_, and similar to what had
been hawked about the country in his youth, his poems had hitherto been
issued. It became the fashion, when four o'clock arrived, to send out
their children, or their 'serving-lass,' with a penny to procure Allan
Ramsay's latest piece, in order to increase the relish of their
'four-oors' Bohea' with the broad humour of _John Cowper_, or _The Elegy
upon Lucky Wood_, or _The Great Eclipse_.

During the year or two immediately preceding the publication of the
quarto of 1721 this custom greatly increased. Of course, a supply had
to be forthcoming to meet such a demand, but of these, numberless
pieces, on topics of political or merely ephemeral interest, were never
republished after their appearance in _broadside_ form. By an eminent
collector of this species of literature the fact is stated, that there
are considerably over two score of poems by Ramsay which have thus been
allowed to slip into oblivion. Not that such a fate was undeserved. In
many cases their indelicacy