Allan Ramsay (1686–1758) was a Scottish poet, playwright, and impresario known for reviving interest in older Scots literature through collections like 'The Tea-Table Miscellany'. He also established Britain's first circulating library and wrote the notable play 'The Gentle Shepherd.'
Allan Ramsay (1686–1758) was a Scottish poet, playwright, publisher, and impresario of early Enlightenment Edinburgh. He is known for his collections of Scots songs and poems, including 'The Tea-Table Miscellany' and 'The Ever Green,' which aimed to revive interest in older national literature. Ramsay also created what is considered the first circulating library in Britain and wrote the successful pastoral drama 'The Gentle Shepherd.'
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| Back | Allan Ramsay (15 October 1686 – 7 January 1758) was a Scottish poet (or makar), playwright, publisher, librarian, and impresario of early Enlightenment Edinburgh. Allan Ramsay was born at Leadhills, Lanarkshire, to John Ramsay, superintendent of Lord Hopetoun's lead-mines and his wife, Alice Bower, a native of Derbyshire. Allan Ramsay and his elder brother Robert probably attended the parish school at Crawfordjohn. In 1701 Allan was apprenticed to a wig-maker in Edinburgh and received his indentures back by 1709 . He married Christian Ross in 1712; a few years after he had established himself as a wig-maker (not as a barber, as has been often said) in the High Street, and soon found himself in comfortable circumstances. They had six children. His eldest child was Allan Ramsay, the portrait painter. Ramsay's first efforts in verse-making were inspired by the meetings of the Easy Club (founded in 1712), of which he was an original member; and in 1715 he became the Club Laureate. In the society of the members he assumed the name of Isaac Bickerstaff, and later of Gawin Douglas, the latter partly in memory of his maternal grandfather Douglas of Muthill (Perthshire), and partly to give point to his boast that he was a "poet sprung from a Douglas loin." The choice of the two names has some significance, when we consider his later literary life as the associate of the Queen Anne poets and as a collector of old Lowland Scots poetry. By 1718 he had made some reputation as a writer of occasional verse, which he published in broadsheets, and then (or a year earlier) he turned bookseller in the premises where he had hitherto plied his craft of wig-making. In 1716 he had published a rough transcript of "Christ's Kirk on the Green" from the Bannatyne Manuscript, with some additions of his own. In 1718 he republished the piece with more supplementary verses. In the following year he printed a collection of Scots Songs. The success of these ventures prompted him to collect his poems in 1720 and publish a volume in 1721. The volume was issued by subscription, and brought in the sum of four hundred guineas. Four years later he removed to another shop, in the neighbouring Luckenbooths, where he opened a circulating library and extended his business as a bookseller. Ramsay is considered to have created the first circulating library in Britain when he rented books from his shop in 1726. Between the publication of the collected edition of his poems and his settling down in the Luckenbooths, he had published a few shorter poems and had issued the first instalments of The Tea-Table Miscellany (1723–37) and The Ever Green (1724). The Tea-Table Miscellany is "A Collection of Choice Songs Scots and English," containing some of Ramsay's own, some by his friends, several well-known ballads and songs, and some Caroline verse. Its title was suggested by the programme of The Spectator: as Addison had sought for his speculations the hour set apart "for tea and bread and butter," so Ramsay laid claim to that place for his songs "e'en while the tea's fill'd reeking round." In The Ever Green: being a Collection of Scots Poems wrote by the Ingenious before 1600, Ramsay had another purpose, to reawaken an interest in the older national literature. Nearly all the pieces were taken from the Bannatyne manuscript, though they are by no means verbatim copies. They included his version of "Christ's Kirk" and a remarkable pastiche by the editor entitled "The Vision". While engaged on these two series, he produced, in 1725, his dramatic pastoral The Gentle Shepherd. In the volume of poems published in 1721 Ramsay had shown his bent to this genre, especially in "Patie and Roger," which supplies two of the dramatis personae to his greater work. The success of the drama was remarkable. It passed through several editions, and was performed at the theatre in Edinburgh; its title is still known in every corner of Scotland, even if it be no longer read. In 1726 he published anonymously Poems in English and Latin, on the Archers and Royal Company of Archers, by several Hands for the Royal Company of Archers. He wrote the words to the Archer's March, |
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