He now removed to a better shop, and set up for his
sign the heads of Ben Jonson and Drummond, who agreed better in figure
than they had done in reality at Hawthornden. He established the first
circulating library in Scotland. His shop became a centre of intelligence,
and Ramsay sat a Triton among the minnows of that rather mediocre day
--giving his little senate laws, and inditing verses, songs, and fables.
At forty-five--an age when Sir Walter Scott had scarcely commenced his
Waverley novels, and Dryden had by far his greatest works to produce
--honest Allan imagined his vein exhausted, and ceased to write, although
he lived and enjoyed life for nearly thirty years more. At last, after
having lost money and gained obloquy, in a vain attempt to found the
first theatre in Edinburgh, and after building for himself a curious
octagon-shaped house on the north side of the Castle Hill, which, while
he called it Ramsay Lodge, his enemies nicknamed 'The Goose-pie,' and
which, though altered, still, we believe, stands, under the name of
Ramsay Garden, the author of 'The Gentle Shepherd' breathed his last on
the 7th of January 1758. He died of a scurvy in the gums. His son became
a distinguished painter, intimate with Johnson, Burke, and the rest of
that splendid set, although now chiefly remembered from his connexion
with them and with his father.
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