Ramsay, Allan

(1686-1758)

   A Scottish poet who wrote in the Scots tongue, he was born in Lanarkshire, where his father was manager of a lead mine. He spent most of his life as a prosperous wig maker in Edinburgh. He soon established himself as a poet and song writer, and children were sent out with a penny to buy sheets or halfsheets of "Ramsay's last piece." Between 1716 and 1718 he published Chrysts-Kirke on the Greene, a rollicking poem of several cantos, with a fifth edition in 1723. In 1726 he started the first circulating library in Scotland and his bookshop in Edinburgh attracted many men of letters. He died at Edinburgh and was buried in Old Greyfriars churchyard. Some of his other poetry publications: Scots Songs, 1719. The Fair Assembly, 1723. The Tea-table Miscellany, 1724-1727. The Evergreen, 1724-1727. The Gentle Shepherd, 1725 (pastoral drama, tenth edition, 1750). Some of his poems: "Allan Water," "Auld Lang Syne," "Eagle and the Robin Redbreast," "Horace to Virgil," "The Fox Turned Preacher," "The Highland Laddie," "The Yellow-haired Laddie," "Wine and Music," "Ye Watchful Guardians of the Fair."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Seven Centuries of Poetry: Chaucer to Dylan Thomas. A.N. Jeffares, ed. Longmans, Green, 1955. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Book of Classical Verse in Translation. Adrian Poole and Jeremy Maule, eds. 1995. The Oxford Book of Scottish Verse, John MacQueen and Tom Scott, eds. Oxford University Press, 1966. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Poems of Allan Ramsay. Vols. 1 and 2. T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1800. The Scottish Collection of Verse to 1800. Eileen Dunlop and Kamm Antony, eds. Richard Drew, 1985.