for Puir Auld Scotland's Sake - 1887 Author:James Logie Robertson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ALLAN RAMS A Y. j|WO hundred years ago this October,1 Allan Ramsay was born in the upland village of Leadhills, and one hundred years ago last July the first ... more »edition of Burns's poems made its appearance in the weaving town of Kilmarnock. For the greater part of the century prior to the latter event, Ramsay was universally regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and 'The Gentle Shepherd,' was believed to be the most consummate flower of Scottish poetical genius; and for just a century since, and in virtue of that latter event, the name and the fame of Ramsay have suffered more or less partial eclipse. He has not been forgotten,—his reputation was too firmly rooted in the popular heart for that; but he has been neglected,undeservedly neglected ;—his poetical power has been growing more and more merely traditional, and is now, we fear, not perhaps universally, but largely taken on trust. His name, we have said, has not been forgotten— it is, indeed, a household word throughout the Scottish lowlands. There, and more especially in the rural parts of that district, they talk familiarly, in the Scottish manner, of Allan —'that's ane o' Allan's sangs,' they will say. If they speak of Allan Cunningham, who was also in his way successful in touching the national heart, they never fail to give him his full name. Ramsay has a prescriptive right to the simple and unsupported prenomen. Sometimes they vary the expression by prefixing honest;—'honest Allan!' they will say in the excess of a proud familiarity with his name. And ten to one they will follow up the words by a quotation, said to be from Burns, which probably reveals the origin of the adjective— 1This was written in 1886. ' Yes ! there is ane—a Scottish callan ; There's ane—come forrit, honest Allan ! Thou needna jouk behin...« less