wa Cats and the Cheese_, possess, as Chalmers truly
says, 'all the _naivete_ of Phaedrus and La Fontaine, with the wit and
ease of Gay.'

And thus Ramsay's literary career closed, after well-nigh two decades of
incessant intellectual activity. Begun, as Professor Masson says, 'in
the last years of the reign of Queen Anne, and continued through the
whole of the reign of George I., it had just touched the beginning of
that of George II. when it suddenly ceased. Twice or thrice afterwards,
at long intervals, he did scribble a copy of verses; but in the main,
from his forty-fifth year onwards, he rested on his laurels.
Henceforward he contented himself with his bookselling, the management
of his circulating library, and the superintendence of the numerous
editions of his _Collected Poems_, his _Gentle Shepherd_, and his
_Tea-Table Miscellany_.'

In pursuance of this determination, Ramsay, in 1731, at the request of a
number of London booksellers, edited a complete edition of his works,
wherein all the poems published in the quartos of 1721 and 1728 were
included, in addition to _The Gentle Shepherd_. The success attending
this venture was so great that, in 1733, a Dublin edition had to be
prepared, which also handsomely remunerated both author and publishers.
From the American colonies, likewise, came accounts of the great
popularity of Ramsay's poems, both among the inhabitants of the towns
and the settlers in the mighty forests. Of the latter, many were
Scotsmen, and to them the vividly realistic scenes and felicitous
character-drawing of _The Gentle Shepherd_ touched, with a power and a
pathos almost overwhelming, the subtlest fibres of that love for
'Caledonia, stern and wild,' which, deepened by distance as it is, and
strengthened by absence, seems so inwoven with the very warp and woof of
the nature of her children that, go where they will, it can never be
eradicated, until the last great consummation overtakes them, when earth
returns to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.

Our poet now had more time on his hands for those social duties and
convivial pleasures wherein he took such delight. His new premises in
the Luckenbooths, facing down towards, and therefore commanding a full
view of, the magnificent thoroughfare of the High Street, were
immediately opposite the ancient octagonal-shaped Cross of Edinburgh,
where all official proclamations were made. The vicinity of the Cross
was, on favourable afternoons,