Nor is the ferly great, when nature kind In winter, when he toils through wind and rain, 2 Allan Ramsay in his Songs often anticipates the natural style of Burns; but in The Gentle Shepherd his inspiration seems also to be sometimes derived from classical sources, as in the following bucolic duet :— PEGGY. When first my dear laddie gaed to the green hill, PATIE. When corn-riggs waved yellow, an' blue heather-bells, PEGGY. When thou ran or wrestled or putted the stane, Thy ilka sport manly gae pleasure to me, PATIE. Our Jenny sings saftly the Cowden-broom-knowes; But when my dear Peggy sings wi' better skill It's mony times sweeter an' pleasing to me; PEGGY. How easy can lasses trow what they desire! The following is in a more purely Scottish vein :— Wi' saul that still shall love thee, Where first thou kindly tauld me To a' our haunts I will repair, To greenwood, shaw, or fountain, Frae thoughts unfeigned and tender, From these extracts it will be readily inferred that The Gentle Shepherd is classical in form, romantic in feeling. The romance springs partly out of the spirit of local feudalism, so strongly surviving in the country | districts both of England and Scotland, partly out of the growing love of rural Nature, as opposed to the conventionalities of urban Society. In respect of the former element, Ramsay had much in common with his English contemporary William Somervile, author of The Chase, who was born at Edston, in Warwickshire, about 1679, his father being the chief representative of one of the oldest Norman families in England. He was admitted into Winchester College in 1692, and afterwards became a Fellow of New College, Oxford, relinquishing that position in 1704, when he came into possession of his He lived chiefly in the country, doing his duty 1 The Gentle Shepherd, Song x. 2 Ibid. Song xx. estate. as justice of the peace, and enjoying the rustic amusements which he has celebrated in The Chase (1735), Hobbinol (1740), and Field Sports (1742). All of these poems appeared in the latter years of his life: his death took place on the 19th of July 1742. According to Shenstone, who knew him, his last days were troubled with the embarrassment of his affairs, and to drown his cares he resorted too frequently to the bottle. 1 2 Somervile's poems show little originality of form. He wrote the ordinary panegyrical Ode-for he was a Whig; imitated Prior-not very successfully-in his Tales; and in his poems, descriptive of country life, followed the lead of John Philips in Cider, and of Thomson in The Seasons. His personality, rather than his art, gives him a representative position among English poets. He seems to have combined some of the refined tastes of Sir Roger de Coverley 1 with those of the country squires-described by Pope in a letter to Cromwell-whose favourite poet was Tom D'Urfey. But his love of the country and his acquaintance with its pursuits are unmistakably shown in his poems, which breathe a spirit as different as possible from the literary coffee-house pastoralism cultivated by Pope and Ambrose Philips. He was a friend and a great admirer of Allan Ramsay, and the following lines from the epistle which he addressed to the latter on the publication of The Gentle Shepherd, and in which he describes his own disposition, may be taken as indicative of the new spirit beginning to make itself felt in English Poetry. He begins his epistle by describing the sympathy with which he and his English neighbours had read the Scottish poet's verse :— Near fair Avona's silver tide, Whose waves in soft meanders glide, 1 His best-known lines are those in his address to Addison, whom he compliments on the moral effects produced by The Spectator : When panting Virtue her last efforts made, 2 Pope to Cromwell, 10th April 1710 (Elwin and Courthope's edition of Pope's Works). I read to the delighted swains Your jocund songs and rural strains. And answering the invitation to visit Allan in Scotland, he proceeds: What a strange figure should I make, A poor abandoned English rake; Let spleen and zeal be banished thence, Fierce party rage, and warm debate: Hark! the shrill piper mounts on high; The woods, the streams, the rocks reply To his far-sounding melody. Behold each labouring squeeze prepare Observe Croudero's active bow, His head still nodding to and fro ; His eyes, his cheeks, with rapture glow. See, see, the bashful nymphs advance, To lead the regulated dance; 1 i.e. The ecclesiastical tribunals of the Scotch Kirk. VOL. V 2 B My Rose shall then your Thistle greet; Each national dispute shall end.1 The love of the country and external nature, which was inborn in Allan Ramsay and Somervile, was cultivated as an artificial sentiment by William Shenstone, owner of The Leasowes. This poet was born at Halesowen in Worcestershire on the 13th of November 1714, the son of William Shenstone of Lappal, a small proprietor in the district. His first teacher was Sarah Lloyd, whose fame he has perpetuated in The Schoolmistress.2 From her charge he passed on to Halesowen Grammar School, and thence again to one Crampton of Solihull, who taught him most of his knowledge of classical literature, till, on the 17th of May 1732, he was admitted into Pembroke College, Oxford, where he seems to have resided for several years, but without taking a degree. He was still there when he published anonymously in 1737 his first volume of poems, which contained the earliest draft of The Schoolmistress. The Judgment of Hercules appeared, also anonymously, in 1741. In 1745 he came into the occupation of The Leasowes, a little property purchased by his father, on which he resided for the rest of his life, amusing himself with developing its " picturesque features, and with showing them to strangers who came to the place out of curiosity. Here, at different dates, he wrote most of his verses, which, collected under the different titles of Elegies, Odes, Songs and Ballads, Levities and Moral Pieces, were published 1748-1758. He died on the 11th of February 1763, and was buried in Halesowen Churchyard. Shenstone was perhaps the first English poet who cultivated sentiment and style for their own sake. A 1 Chalmers' English Poets, vol. x. p. 199. 2 He calls the poem “a deformed portrait of my old school-dame, Sarah Lloyd, whose house is to be seen as thou travellest towards the native home of thy faithful servant-but she sleeps with her fathers-and Thomas, her son, reigneth in her stead."-Works in Verse and Prose of William Shenstone, Esq. (1791), vol. iii. p. 46. |