Note 236 — Chapter II · INDICATIONS OF A NEW ATTITUDE TOWARD NATURE IN THE POETRY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

“Answer to the Foregoing” (to Somerville).

In the poems addressed to Allan Ramsay on the publication of his works in 1721 we find significant critical approval based on Ramsay’s avoidance of tame Nature, and his turning from the authority of the schools. The simile of a garden recurs in a poem by “C. T.” He planted trees in equal rows and arranged flowers in a parterre, but found his labor in vain. The narrow scene became daily more distasteful to him, and finally he went back to the fields where “Nature wantoned in her prime.” Here he found space, variety, surprise, and was content. Ja. Arbuckle praises Ramsay for roaming over hill and dale and leaving “carpet-ground” to “tender-footed beasts,” and for choosing to subsist on his native stock while other poets pilfered fame by picking the locks of their predecessors.—“Poems of Allan Ramsay,” I, 4–7.