Author Description

Excerpt from A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen, Vol. 7: In Four Volumes; Ramsay-Wilson <p>The poem was published in 1725, under the title Of the Gentle Shepherd; and met with instant and triumphant success. A second edition was printed by Ruddiman for the author, who still resided at his shop Opposite Niddry's Wynd; but the same year he removed from this his original dwelling to a house in the east end Of the Luckenbooths, which had formerly been tite London Coffee house. Here, in place of Mercury, he adapted the heads of Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden, and in addition to his business as a booksel ler, he commenced that of a circulating library. Ramsay was the first to se tablish such a business in Scotland, and it appears that he did so, not without some Opposition from the more serious part of the community, who found fault with him for lending the loose plays of that age to persons whose morals were liable to be tainted by them. In this shop the wits of Edinburgh continued daily to meet for information and amusement during the days of Ramsay and his successors in trade. In the year 1728, he published by subscription the second volume of his poems in quarto, (including the Gentle Shepherd) which was equally successful with the first. Of this volume a second edition was printed in octavo in the succeeding year. In 1730, Ramsay published a collection of thirty fables, after which, though he wrote several copies of verses for the amusement of his friends, he gave nothing more to the public. His fame was now at the full, and though he had continued to issue a number of volumes every year, all equally good as those that preceded them, it could have received no real addition. Over all the three kingdoms, and over all their dependencies, the works of Ramsay were widely difi'used, and warmly admired. The whole were republished by the London booksellers in the year 1731, and by the Dublin booksellers in 1733, all sterling proofs of extended. Popularity,