would debar their admission into any edition
nowadays; in others, their lack of permanent general interest. Such
subjects as _The Flytin' of Luckie Duff and Luckie Brown_, _A Dookin' in
the Nor' Loch_, and _A Whiggish Lament_, were not the kind of themes his
calmer and maturer judgment would care to contemplate being handed down
to posterity as specimens of his work.

In 1719 Ramsay appears to have concluded, from the extensive sale his
poems enjoyed even in _broadside_ form, that the trade of a bookseller
would not only be more remunerative than a wigmaker's, but would also be
more in accord with his literary tastes and aspirations. For some months
he had virtually carried on the two trades concurrently, his reputation
undoubtedly attracting a large number of customers to his shop to have
their wigs dressed by the popular poet of the day. But as his fame
increased, so did his vanity. Of praise he was inordinately fond. 'Tell
Allan he's as great a poet as Pope, and ye may get what ye like from
him,' said the witty and outspoken Lord Elibank to a friend. The charge
had more than a grain of truth in it. That man did not lack more than
his share of self-complacent vanity who could write, as the vicegerent
of great Apollo, as he informs us in _The Scribblers Lashed_, such lines
as these--

'Wherefore pursue some craft for bread,
Where hands may better serve than head;
Nor ever hope in verse to shine,
Or share in Homer's fate or----'

Alas! Allan, 'backwardness in coming forward' was never one of thy
failings!

To Allan, _digito monstrari_ was a condition of things equivalent to the
seventh heaven of felicity; but he felt it would be more to his
advantage to be pointed out as a bookseller than as a wigmaker, when his
reputation as a poet would cause his social status to be keenly
examined. We learn that he consulted his friend Ruddiman on the step,
who spoke strongly in its favour, and gave him good sound advice as to
the kind of stock most likely to sell readily. The 'Flying Mercury,'
therefore, which up to this date had presided over the 'theeking' of the
_outside_ of the 'pashes' (heads) of the worthy burgesses of Auld
Reekie, was thereafter to preside, with even increased lustre, over the
provision of material for lining the _inside_ with learning and culture.

That the time was an anxious one for the poet there can be little doubt.
He was virtually beginning the battle of life anew; and though he