No More Learning

They had their regular
chiefs, their rules of apprenticeship, their trials for the mastery,
their places of reunion. In Paris they formed a State apart,—
the Kingdom of Argot,-where was spoken the "langue vert,"
and across the boundaries of which the archers of the watch
did not venture. Their elected chief was the great Coësre or
King of Thune, who was drawn in a cart by dogs. He held his
court - his Court of Miracles—sometimes in the cul-de-sac Saint
Sauveur, sometimes in the rue des Frams-Bourgeois, or near
the Convent of the Filles-Dieu, or in the streets of Grande and
Petite Truanderie. He had in each province, like the king, his
bailiff,-called the cagou. Sometimes he summoned a sort of
States-General in the Pré aux Gueux (Beggars' Field) near Notre
Dame d'Auray. His immense people, including all the beggars,
blacklegs, and vagabonds of France, were divided into numerous
classes. All paid a tribute to the King of Thune, and rendered
him homage.
Another powerful monarch was the King of Egypt, sovereign
of the Gipsies. In 1427 the advance guard of these mysterious
Asiatics had appeared in Paris; a duke, a count, ten knights,
followed by a hundred men, women, and children. These people,
known as Bohemians, Saracens, Egyptians, Tsiganes, were soon
swarming on the roads and at the gates of the towns, as show-
men of bears and apes, as tinkers, counterfeiters, fortune-tellers,
From these swarming crowds the army of crime was recruited.
From time to time justice cast in her net, and exposed her capt-
ure in the pillory of the Halles or on the gibbet of Montfauçon;
but the mass was not thereby diminished. If the prevost hung
some scamp in broad day, the King of Thune in turn hung in
broad night some rash bourgeois or too inquisitive sergeant.
As in India there were pariahs, despised even by the slave,
and whose contact was pollution, so in France there were outcast
races. These were called marrons in Auvergne; cagots or cagoux
in the Pyrenees; gaffots, caffots, capots, in Béarn and Navarre;
cagueux, cacuas, cacoux, in Bretagne; gahets, gaffets, in Guyenne.
Whence came they, and who were they? Were they, as was said,
descendants of the Mussulmans left in France by Abderrahman,
or of the Spaniards who were driven from their homes by the
XXI-754


## p. 12050 (#88) ###########################################

12050
ALFRED RAMBAUD
Arabs, or of converted heretics, or of ancient lepers? No one
knew, not even those who persecuted them. The only sure thing
is, that they were treated like veritable lepers, forbidden to fre-
quent churches, taverns, public festivals; forced in Bretagne and
Béarn to wear a red costume, and not permitted to go barefoot
on the roads or to carry arms. Marriage or any contact with
them was refused. They lived in isolated villages hidden in the
country, or in obscure valleys; intermarrying, hated by all and
hating all the world.
Although ancient slavery had disappeared from our soil
through transformation into serfdom, there was a tendency to
reconstitute it in Europe at the expense of the infidels taken in
war. The Italian republics trafficked in their captives. In the
twelfth century they were sold at fairs in Champagne, and Sara-
cen slaves were bequeathed in a will to the bishop of Béziers.
In the thirteenth century, slaves were traded in Provence. The
new slavery was then in force in Roussillon,-which was not
French territory,- but royal France spurned it. Then was estab-
lished the maxim by virtue of which every slave who touched
French soil became free. In 1402 and in 1406 the municipality
of Toulouse applied this to the profit of fugitive slaves from
Perpignan.
In the Middle Ages, the duty of charity toward the poor was
generally discharged. The pouch full of money which hung at
the belts of nobles and bourgeois, men and women, was called
an alms-purse; a chaplain was an almoner. Kings, nobles, and
ladies were often surrounded, as they walked, by the poor whom
they maintained. King Robert allowed them to enter so freely
into his palace, to go under his table, to sit on the floor beside
him, almost between his legs, that on a certain day one of them
cut a gold acorn from his clothing. Not only did alms-givers
aid the poor with money, food, and clothing; but seeing in them
the image of suffering Christ, they gloried in sometimes serving
them at table, and in washing their feet upon Holy Thursday.
The religious orders, founded for the relief of the poor, con-
secrated to them at least a part of their revenues. In certain
convents there were cells reserved for the poor; in nearly all,
distributions of soup and bread were made at the door of the
monastery.
Nevertheless, this charity of the Middle Ages was unintelligent
enough. The kings would have done better to aid their people
1


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ALFRED RAMBAUD
12051
instead of surrounding themselves with a few tatterdemalions;
the monasteries, while distributing their charity, became by seiz-
ing upon the land a cause of impoverishment for a vast radius.
around them. They relieved a few poor people; but these were
infinitely less to be pitied than thousands of peasants crushed
under feudal laws, the ecclesiastical tenth, or the laws of the
royal treasury. The problem of how to aid the poor without
increasing pauperism and without offering a reward to idleness,
so difficult even to modern France, was not one which the Mid-
dle Ages could solve. Moreover, the French of the thirteenth
century, thoroughly imbued with religious ideas, were charitable
not from philanthropy, but from piety; to secure salvation. The
"virtuous poor," with knees worn callous by many prostrations,
with mouth's full of prayers, well trained and indoctrinated by
the Church, always present on the skirts of the sanctuary, always
ready to reap the benefit of a pious thought, were very conven-
ient to whoever wished to acquit himself of the Christian duty
of charity. Poverty was too wide-spread to be possibly dimin-
ished; at least one did what one was called upon to do, leaving
the rest to God.
The sick formed a more limited category of the distressed,
and charity toward them was more efficacious. From the Mero-
vingian epoch, St. Clotilde and St. Aboflède, the wife and sister
of Clovis; St. Radegonde, the wife of Clotaire; St. Bathilde, the
wife of Clovis II. ,- are cited as founders of hospitals. The
hospitals were usually annexed to a monastery, as was that of
Bathilde to the royal abbey of Chelles. At the time of the Cru-
sades, the valiant Knights of St. John prided themselves above
all upon being Hospitallers. The diffusion of leprosy in the
twelfth century brought about the creation of special hospitals
- leper-houses. In the thirteenth century there were nearly two
thousand of these in France. They were usually managed by
Knights of St. Lazarus, another military order. Louis VII. estab-
lished them at the end of the Faubourg St. Denis; their mother-
house was the domain of Boigny. He also created at Saussaie
near Villejuif a convent of women to care for lepers. The kings
made large benefactions to these houses: when they died, their
personal linen and all their horses, mules, etc. , belonged to the
leper-house of La Saussaie. When Jean II. died in England, so
that the house was deprived of his horses, his son paid it an
indemnity. Later, Charles VI. bought back from this convent for


## p. 12052 (#90) ###########################################

ALFRED RAMBAUD
12052
twenty-five hundred francs the horses of his father Charles V.
The knights showed themselves deserving of these favors by
caring not only for the lepers, but for all kinds of invalids.
St. Louis was a Grand-Hospitaller. It was he who enlarged
and endowed the Maison-Dieu (Hotel-Dieu) of Paris, who founded
the Hospital of the Quinze-Vingts for three hundred blind men,
who instituted the hostelleries des postes in the principal towns of
the kingdom. Devout nobles followed his example; and in the
thirteenth century Elzéar de Sabran and his wife are cited as
having given everything-life and fortune-to the service of the
sick.
The Church did not content itself with offering prayers for
travelers. In the most difficult passes of the mountains, in the
snows of the Alps, rose pious hostelries: those of St. Bernard, of
St. Gothard, of the Simplon, of Mont Cenis, are of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries.
The wars with the Saracens, the Mussulman piracy on the
Mediterranean, peopled the markets and prisons of the Orient
and Africa with Christian captives. Religious orders, - the Ma-
thurins, founded in 1198, and the Fathers of Mercy, founded in
1223, went with money to ransom Christian prisoners.
-
Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Jane
Grosvenor Cooke
FRENCH MEDICAL SCIENCE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES
From the History of French Civilization >
Τ'
HE most celebrated physicians of antiquity were among the
Greeks, Hippocrates of Cos, Galen of Pergamus, Herophi-
lus, Erasistratus; among the Romans, Celsus and Cœlius
Aurelianus. Their knowledge of anatomy was still imperfect;
their physiology amounted to nothing, since they were not ac-
quainted either with the circulation of the blood or the func-
tions of the nervous system; their remedies were few, and often
purely imaginary. The downfall of Roman civilization arrested
the progress of this science. The Arabs succeeded. In a com-
pilation of a certain Aaron Christian, priest of Alexandria, known
under the name of "Pandects of Medicine," they rediscovered ex-
tracts from ancient writings. They seized upon these and made
some progress. The most celebrated Arabian physicians were


## p. 12053 (#91) ###########################################

ALFRED RAMBAUD
12053
Rhazès (850-923), and Avicenna (980-1037), both born in the cali-
phate of Bagdad; Avenzoar (1072–1162), and Averroës (1120–1198),
both Spanish Arabs. Maimonides (1135-1204) was a Jewish rabbi
of Spain. The Canon' of Avicenna, translated into Latin, was
the medical work most extensively known throughout Europe.
Thus Europeans seldom knew the physicians of antiquity except
through a triple series of translations from Greek into Syriac,
from Syriac into Arabic, and from Arabic into Latin.
(
For a long time the Christians abandoned the study of med-
icine to the Arabs and Jews. It was to these infidel masters
that later the most daring went to learn the elements of the sci-
ence.
Charlemagne in 805 had prescribed the study of medicine in
the monasteries. About the ninth century, the school of Salerno
in Italy began to be famous throughout Christendom. In the
tenth century some Jews founded the school of Montpellier,
which in the thirteenth became a faculty. In 1200 the Univer-
sity of Paris was founded, which was not until later anything
more than a faculty of medicine; but already in 1213 there was
question of professors of medicine. The Church showed little.
favor to this science, which seemed an evidence of distrust toward
Providence. "The precepts of medicine are contrary to Divine
knowledge," wrote St. Ambrose: "they condemn prayers and
vigils. " The councils of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries for-
bade the study of this art to prelates and archdeacons, and only
permitted it to the lower clergy. No clergyman could practice
surgery, because it sheds blood. Boniface VIII. menaced with
excommunication whoever should dissect a dead body.
Anatomy being proscribed; the natural sciences, such as bot-
any, mineralogy, and chemistry, being in their infancy,—one can
imagine our medical science of the Middle Ages. It consisted of
prescriptions often childish and incomplete; observations borrowed
from antiquity or from the Arabs. The prejudices and supersti-
tions of the time played an important part in it. The doctors,
also called physicians or mires, were also alchemists and astrolo-
gers. They taught that the brain increases and decreases accord-
ing to the phases of the moon; that it has, like the sea, its ebb
and flow twice a day. The purpose of the lungs was to air the
heart, the liver was the seat of love, the spleen that of laughter.
They made use of formulas and cabalistic words; they ordered
strange remedies, such as the liver of a toad, the blood of a


## p. 12054 (#92) ###########################################

12054
ALFRED RAMBAUD
frog, a rat, or a goat; they sought universal remedies or pana
ceas; they bled people only upon certain days, and after having
observed the position of the stars and the phases of the moon.
Such-and-such a remedy was good for the noble but bad for the
serf; the noble must purge himself with hyssop, the peasant
with myrobolan. The one cured a fracture with an earth bolus;
the other with the dung of his cattle.
Surgery was considered an inferior art. As the clergy was
forbidden to exercise it, it was separated from medicine. It was
abandoned to the practitioners who had not received degrees, and
who were also barbers and even bath-keepers. Even in the
seventeenth century, in 1613, there were corporations of surgeon-
barbers. They shaved people, bled them, and bandaged their
wounds. The surgeons traced their organization into a corpora-
tion back to St. Louis, but their Collège de Saint-Côme does not
seem to date farther back than the fourteenth century. They
were placed under the authority of the "king's, barber," who had
his delegates in all the towns of the kingdom.
Further, the doctors and surgeon-barbers served only the
nobles and the rich. The people had their own therapeutics; in
medicine, the remedies of wise women and sorcerers; in surgery,
the bone-setters, who had charms and secrets for restoring broken
limbs with ointments of their own composition, sighs of the cross,
and formulas. The bone-setter above all others was the execu-
tioner: since he understood so well how to break limbs, he ought
to understand how to mend them. It was he who furnished a
precious panacea,- the fat of the hanged.
They believed, too, that a donkey's breath expelled all poison.
Aching teeth they cured by touching them with a dead man's
tooth. To arrest hemorrhage or nose-bleed they dropped a key
down the back. By spitting in the mouth of a living frog they
stopped a cough.
Rather than apply to the doctor they had recourse to the
apothecary, who, in spite of the prohibitions of the faculty, took
a part in healing. Charlatans swarmed.
Religion too had its medicine, in which Christian beliefs were
amalgamated with old pagan superstitions. Epilepsy was then
called the sacred evil, the Divine evil. The epileptic was be-
lieved to be possessed by a demon; the only consideration was
to drive out the evil spirit from him. Therefore the priest sprin-
kled him with holy water; and while the sufferer was rolling in


## p. 12055 (#93) ###########################################

ALFRED RAMBAUD
12055
convulsions, read the formula of exorcism. It is known that
nervous maladies are easily communicated to persons with sensi-
tive nerves; thus the demon driven from one body often gave
himself the pleasure of entering into the body of a spectator,
who writhed in his turn. Sometimes in revenge he entered into
the exorciser. The possessed were also cured by a pilgrimage
to Saint-Maur near Paris, by a novena at the church of Bon-
Secours near Nancy, or by touching the holy cerement at Be-
sançon.
Heaven was peopled with healing saints. If one had sore
throat he addressed himself to Saint Christopher; if dropsy, to
Saint Eutropius; if fever, to Saint Pernella; if insanity, to Saint
Mathurin; if the plague, to Saint Roque; if hydrophobia, to
Saint Hubert, the patron of the chase and of dogs. At the mon-
astery of Saint Hubert, near Liege, a monk touched the patient
with the saint's stole, and cauterized him with "the key of Saint
Hubert. "
Often the choice of the saint was determined by a kind of
pun. For scurf (teigne) they addressed to Saint Aignan (pro-
nounced "Saint Teignan"); for trouble with the eyes, to Saint
Claire; for gout, to Saint Genou (genou, knee); for cramps, to
Saint Crampan.
Certain maladies were even designated only by the name of
the saint who cured them: thus Saint Vitus's dance, a nervous
disease which we now call chorea; Saint John's ill, which was
epilepsy; Saint Anthony's evil, which was canker; Saint Eloy's
evil, which was scurvy; Saint Firmin's evil, which was erysipelas;
Saint Lazarus's evil, which was leprosy; Saint Quentin's evil,
which was dropsy; Saint Sylvan's evil, which seems to have been
a kind of eruptive fever.
The monks who practiced this medicine sometimes drew illicit
profits from it. In the thirteenth century, those of Saint Anthony
were accused of receiving into their hospitals only healthy peo-
ple, upon whose bodies they painted apparent sores, and then
sent them to solicit the charity of the faithful. Those of Saint
Sylvan retained as serfs those who had recovered their health
under the porch of their church. In order to increase the num-
ber of supplicants they forbade all competition. In 1263 they
prohibited women from attempting "to heal those afflicted with
Saint Sylvan's evil, with the exception of the lord and any of his
family"; for these could not be reduced to serfdom.


## p. 12056 (#94) ###########################################

12056
ALFRED RAMBAUD
Kings too cured by touching: the King of England cured
epilepsy; the King of France scrofula. The King of England,
when he had added to his title that too of King of France, also
cured scrofula. The heads of certain noble families, like that
of the house of Aumont in Bourgogne, had the same gift. The
progress of royal power put an end to these feudal healings.
Yet never would a truly serious medical science have been
more useful than at certain epochs of the Middle Ages, when dis-
eases raged which have since disappeared, and when those which
still exist attained an unequaled violence. Then they ignored or
neglected the most elementary principles of hygiene. The peas-
ant lived on his refuse heap, huddled in with his beasts, like
the wretched Irish peasant of to-day; the townsman lived in the
stench of narrow streets. The clergy, by preaching contempt of
the body, indirectly encouraged neglect of the most necessary
care of it.
Until toward the middle of the fourteenth century
hemp and linen cloth was little used, even by the upper classes;
and woolen fabrics in direct contact with the skin must have
irritated it. The peasant was poorly nourished, and by way of
meat had scarcely anything but salt provisions.
Such a regimen naturally favored skin diseases. In the tenth
and eleventh centuries a scrofula or gangrene raged, which
loosed the members of the body joint by joint. Ulcers, tetter,
scurf, the itch were frequent. The poverty of the blood increased
the number of the scrofulous. Leprosy, which began with the
first Crusades, and later developed enormously, lasted throughout
the Middle Ages. In 1250 the army of Saint Louis in Egypt
was decimated by dysentery and scrofula.
Nervous diseases multiplied, incited by terror of the wars,
by the spectacle of tortures, by fear of the devil and of hell, by
the isolation and monotony of life in castle and cloister. There
were epidemics of Saint Vitus's dance, which seized upon entire
populations and drew them into a mad round; frequent cases of
epilepsy, the victims of which were thought to be possessed by
devils; melancholia, or black sadness; lycanthropy, or mania of
those who believed themselves changed into wolves, and who
were called were-wolves; demonomania, which made thousands of
unfortunates believe themselves in commerce with the infernal
spirit; the mania of scourging; hallucinations taken for visions.
Small-pox first appeared in Gaul in the sixth century: from
this disease, described by Gregory of Tours, died the children of


## p. 12057 (#95) ###########################################

ALFRED RAMBAUD
12057
Frédégonde. The Oriental plague or bubonic pest began to show
itself about 540.
The black pest, also a bubonic pest, ran over all Europe in
the fourteenth century, and destroyed a large part of the popula-
tion.
In the fifteenth century the whooping-cough appeared, which
in 1414 killed many old people; and the English sweating-
sickness, which made many ravages down to the sixteenth cen-
tury, but which then became limited to England, and to Calais
which was occupied by the English.
Medical science remained powerless before these scourges:
often it let rule a superstition which it shared. Those believed
to be possessed of evil spirits were exorcised; those who were
asserted to be sorcerers were burned. The lepers recommended.
to Saint Lazarus were confined,- sometimes in isolated huts,
sometimes in leper-houses, but always away from other people.
They made them wear a striking costume,-a red blouse; they
covered their hands with gloves; they supplied them with a rattle
to warn those who passed. The priest, when lepers were brought
to him, forbade them to go barefoot, or to go elsewhere than on
the broad thoroughfares, lest they should brush against travelers;
to enter churches, or to bathe in streams. He consoled them,
however, by recalling to them that their spiritual communion.
with Christians still subsisted. Then he pronounced prayers,
turned a shovelful of earth upon their heads as a sign that they
were cut off from the living, and offered them the sole of his
shoe to kiss. Lepers could associate only with lepers, and marry
only with lepers; and when they died, their huts were burned.
In the fifteenth century there seems to have been a reawaken-
ing of medical science. At Montpellier, under Charles VI. , the
body of a criminal was dissected for the first time in France.
In 1484, an ordinance of Charles VIII. fixed at four years the
duration of apprenticeship in the corporation of the grocers and
apothecaries of Paris; for pharmacists or apothecaries formed a
single corporation with the grocers, which had obtained second
rank among the trades of Paris. An ordinance of Louis XII.
distinctly separates the two professions. These are the origins of
French pharmacy.
Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Jane
Grosvenor Cooke


## p. 12058 (#96) ###########################################

12058
ALFRED RAMBAUD
THE MIDDLE AGES
CHARACTER OF THEIR CIVILIZATION
From the History of French Civilization'
THE
HE Middle Ages were only considered by the historians of the
eighteenth century as a period of ignorance and barbarism,
unproductive and void. They are considered to-day in an
entirely different light.
It was during the Middle Ages that new nations and new
languages originated in Europe; among these the French nation.
and the French language.
Institutions which would have aston-
ished the Greeks and Romans were developed during this period.
The ancients knew no other political life than the municipal life;
they had only the idea of a city, not at all that of a nation; they
did not believe liberty possible except within the walls of a town.
As soon as the Romans had to govern not only towns but an
empire, they believed that they could only govern by the most
absolute despotism. On the contrary, the new nations found the
means, in dominating vast regions, to harmonize the principle
of authority with that of the liberty of the subjects. They out-
lined the system of representation, from which have proceeded
the modern constitutions; they established the jury,- that is, the
judgment of the accused by his peers.
Great steps were accomplished in social progress. Slavery,
that curse of the ancient world, disappeared. The laborer in the
field began to enfranchise himself from the servitude of the globe,
which Roman law had consecrated. The sphere of woman was
enlarged in the family and in society, not only by effect of law
but by custom; and this feature alone was sufficient to distin-
guish in the strongest manner the Middle Ages from the ancient
civilization.
In literature we remained in the Middle Ages far behind the
classic perfection, but we created original methods and styles-
epic poems, the "mysteries," and the lyric poetry of the south.
In the sciences, it is to the Middle Ages that we owe the
modern system of numeration, algebra, the compass, the magni-
fying glass, gunpowder, the process of distillation, the discovery
of gas, the most important acids, the first fulminating elements,
and numberless chemical combinations.
I


## p. 12059 (#97) ###########################################

ALFRED RAMBAUD
12059
In the arts, the Middle Ages were glorified by two grand crea-
tions: French architecture (Roman and ogival) and musical har-
mony. A more rational notation of music was adopted. Engraving
was begun, and painting in oils made its début. If modern paint-
ing and sculpture owe to ancient art the perfection of form, the
artists of the Middle Ages have preceded us in the choice of
expression.
Besides the invention of printing, it may be noted that dur-
ing that time were manufactured for the first time in Europe,
sugar, silk tissues, plate mirrors, clocks, and watches. New con-
ditions of life, comforts unknown to the ancients, such as body
linen and chimneys, characterized the private life of the Middle
Ages.
The world itself was enlarged. No Roman navigator had, like
the Scandinavians, or perhaps the Basques, brought the ancient
world in contact with America; no Roman explorer had, like
Marco Polo and his emulators, revealed to his compatriots central
Asia and the extreme Orient.
The majority of the weak points in the civilization of the
Middle Ages are identical with those of the Roman civilization;
for example, the barbarism of criminal procedure, the cruelty of
torture, and the grosser superstitions.
Our old French civilization on only three points of view-
the glory and the perfection of the arts, the liberty of thought,
and the power of the scientific spirit—is perhaps inferior to the
civilization of the Greeks, which was the mother of all the others,
and which has remained incomparable as the initiative, original,
and prolific. But assuredly our own old civilization is not inferior
to the Roman civilization. Between that of the Romans and
that of our ancestors there is a difference, not of degree, but of
nature. A colder climate, instincts and needs peculiar to the
Gallic and Germanic races, and the great influence of the reli-
gious sentiment, have contributed to this result. It is the civil-
ization of the north contrasted with the civilization of the south.
One cannot say that the France of the thirteenth century was
barbaric in comparison with the Rome of the emperors; for amid
the ruins of the Empire it regained all that it was possible to
possess of political culture.
-


## p. 12060 (#98) ###########################################

12060
ALFRED RAMBAUD
THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
The close of the medieval period is marked by the following
stages:
In the political order: The taking of Constantinople, and the
establishment of the Turks in Oriental Europe upon the débris
of the Greek empire; the fall of the papacy as the directing.
power of Europe; the succeeding of national wars to holy wars;
the birth of the patriotic sentiment; the progress of the royal
power; the new form taken by the power of the third estate,
which is not the form of local communes, but the national form
of general States.
In the social order: The emancipation of the rural classes; the
enrichment of the middle classes, and their increasing influence.
In the religious order: The appearance of new heresies, nota-
bly that of John Huss in Bohemia, which appears to have pre-
pared the way for the advent of Protestantism.
In the literary order: The end of chivalric poetry; the appear-
ance of philosophy in history (under Comines); the decadence
of the ancient theatre, the "mysteries" and the "moralities ";
the first steps in the progress of printing; and the introduction
in the Occident, after the fall of Constantinople, of new Greek
and Latin manuscripts.
In the scientific order: The tendency of the sciences to free
themselves from the yoke of scholasticism and theology through
the resumption of the theory of the world according to Nicholas
de Cusa; and by the revival of medicine in the times of Louis
XI.
In the artistic order: The relaxation in the construction of
ogival (pointed arched) cathedrals; the emancipation of the arts
-sculpture, painting, and music-from the religious influence.
In the military order: The decline of the ideas of chivalry;
the perfection of cannon and portable firearms; the establish-
ment of permanent armies; the improvement of infantry.
In the economic order: The discovery of new routes of com-
munication with the Indies; the development of navigation, and
the first voyages across the ocean.


## p. 12061 (#99) ###########################################

12061
ALLAN RAMSAY
(1686-1758)
HE criticism which ranks Allan Ramsay with Theocritus and
Tasso, as a writer of pastoral poetry, is to a great degree
justifiable. The Edinburgh wig-maker resembles the singer
of Greece and the singer of Italy in that his verse is redolent of the
soil. In an age given over to the composition of artificial pastorals,
of impossible Arcadias, peopled by Strephons and Chloes and Phyl-
lises, Ramsay portrayed real shepherds in the actual country life
of the Scotch peasantry. Instead of placing high-flown, impossible
language upon their lips, he made them use
the familiar Lowland Scotch dialect. He
wrote a poem breathing of the fields, and
full of the homely sights and sounds of
rustic existence. His naturalness and his
spontaneity in an artificial age constitute
his right to be named as a worthy pro-
genitor of Burns.

The author of The Gentle Shepherd'
was born in 1686, in Leadhills, Lanarkshire,
Scotland, in the heart of the Lowther hills.
It is significant that the future poet, while
born and bred among the peasantry, was far
enough removed from them by a strain of
gentler blood to be in the position of ob-
server and critic, rather than in that of a comrade. On his father's
side he was related to the Earls of Dalhousie, on his mother's to the
great Douglas clan. Neither his father nor his mother were native
to Leadhills, and between Ramsay and the rough mining population
there could have been little sympathy. He remained in the bleak
region until his sixteenth year, aiding his stepfather, David Crich-
ton, on his farm; he was then apprenticed to an Edinburgh wig-
maker, whom he served until 1707, when having received back his
indentures, he began business for himself.
The Edinburgh of this period, deprived of its political promi-
nence by the Act of Union, passed in 1707, which united England and
Scotland under the name of Great Britain, gave itself up to certain
literary and social activities, which took concrete form in a variety of
ALLAN RAMSAY


## p. 12062 (#100) ##########################################

12062
ALLAN RAMSAY
clubs. Of one of these, "The Easy Club," Ramsay was made a mem-
ber; and it was through its encouragement and stimulus that his
poetical talents bore fruit. He published occasional pieces- "elegies,”
as he called them full of humor and insight into the life of which
he formed a part. In 1716 appeared the poem which first showed
him to be a master in the portrayal of rustic Scottish life. This was
'Christ's Kirk on the Green. ' King James I. of Scotland had writ-
ten a single canto under this title, describing a brawl at a country
wedding. Ramsay supplied a second and a third canto, imitating
so perfectly the spirit and form of the royal author's work that the
whole appears as the work of one hand.
-
In 1725 The Gentle Shepherd' was published. The immediate
cause of its composition is said to have been an article in the Guard-
ian for April 7th, 1713; which, taking Pope's Windsor Forest' as
its starting-point of discussion, proceeded to describe the character-
istics of a true pastoral poem. These differed essentially from the
popular ideal, which regarded the "shepherd» of literature as a kind
of Dresden-china embodiment of all the virtues; a silken swain living
an exquisite life among beribboned sheep and dainty shepherdesses.
Ramsay, with the instinct of the true poet, brushed this flummery
aside, and following the prescription of nature as set forth in the
Guardian, went direct to the "common people" to obtain material for
his pastoral. 'The Gentle Shepherd' is a poetical embodiment of
rustic Scotland. It is written in the language of the peasantry; it is
an intimate reproduction of their life. The simple tale, told with such
truthfulness of detail and sincerity of feeling, became at once popular
with all classes. It found its way not only into the homes of the
London and Edinburgh wits, but into the farm-houses of the country
people, to whom it became a kind of Bible. Its maxims passed into
proverbs; its many passages of beautiful verse found their true home
in the hearts of those whose manner of life had been the author's
inspiration.
It is through The Gentle Shepherd' that Allan Ramsay is chiefly
remembered as a poet only second to Burns himself. Yet he claims
recognition as one who did not a little for the literature of his coun-
try by the publication of the Tea-Table Miscellany and the Ever-
green,' collections of ancient Scottish verse, which went far to
revive interest in that golden age of Scotland's literature extending
from the time of King James I. to the death of Drummond of Haw-
thornden.
The remainder of Ramsay's life was uneventful. He opened a
book-store in Edinburgh, with which was connected the first circulat-
ing library ever established in the country. He continued to write
until late in his life: many of his poems were issued in "broadsides,"


## p. 12063 (#101) ##########################################

ALLAN RAMSAY
12063
or quarto sheets, which were hawked through the streets of Edin-
burgh; their popularity was enormous. They have long since dropped
into the limbo of obscurity; but The Gentle Shepherd' is read and
loved in Scotland to this day.
THE GENTLE SHEPHERD
Prologue to the Scene
ENEATH the south side of a craigy bield,
B
Where crystal springs the halesome waters yield,
Twa youthfu' shepherds on the gowans lay,
Tenting their flocks ae bonny morn of May.
Poor Roger granes, till hollow echoes ring;
But blyther Patie likes to laugh and sing.
Sang
Tune-The Wauking of the Faulds. '
PATIE
My Peggy is a young thing,
Just entered in her teens,
Fair as the day, and sweet as May,
Fair as the day, and always gay.
My Peggy is a young thing,
And I'm not very auld,
Yet well I like to meet her at
The wauking of the fauld.
My Peggy speaks sae sweetly,
Whene'er we meet alane,
I wish nae mair to lay my care,-
I wish nae mair of a' that's rare.
My Peggy speaks sae sweetly,
To a' the lave I'm cauld;
But she gars a' my spirits glow,
At wauking of the fauld.
My Peggy smiles sae kindly,
Whene'er I whisper love,
That I look down on a' the town,-
That I look down upon a crown.
My Peggy smiles sae kindly,
It makes me blyth and bauld;


## p. 12064 (#102) ##########################################

12064
ALLAN RAMSAY
And naething gi'es me sic delight
As wauking of the fauld.
My Peggy sings sae saftly,
When on my pipe I play,
By a' the rest it is confest,—
By a' the rest, that she sings best.
My Peggy sings sae saftly,
And in her sangs are tauld.
With innocence, the wale o' sense,
At wauking of the fauld.
This sunny morning, Roger, cheers my blood,
And puts all nature in a jovial mood.
How heartsome is't to see the rising plants,-
To hear the birds chirm o'er their pleasing rants!
How halesome is't to snuff the cawler air,
And all the sweets it bears, when void of care!
What ails thee, Roger, then? what gars thee grane?
Tell me the cause of thy ill-season'd pain.
ROGER
I'm born, O Patie! to a thrawart fate;
I'm born to strive with hardships sad and great!
Tempests may cease to jaw the rowan flood,
Corbies and tods to grein for lambkins' blood,
But I, opprest with never-ending grief,
Maun ay despair of lighting on relief.
PATIE
The bees shall loath the flower, and quit the hive,
The saughs on boggie ground shall cease to thrive,
Ere scornfu' queans, or loss of warldly gear,
Shall spill my rest, or ever force a tear!
ROGER
Sae might I say; but it's no easy done
By ane whase saul's sae sadly out of tune.
You have sae saft a voice, and slid a tongue,
You are the darling of baith old and young.
If I but ettle at a sang, or speak,
They dit their lugs, syne up their leglens cleek,
And jeer me hameward frae the loan or bught,
While I'm confused with mony a vexing thought.


## p. 12065 (#103) ##########################################

ALLAN RAMSAY
12065
Yet I am tall, and as well built as thee,
Nor mair unlikely to a lass's ee;
For ilka sheep ye have, I'll number ten;
And should, as ane may think, come farther ben.
PATIE
But aiblins! nibour, ye have not a heart,
And downa eithly with your cunzie part:
If that be true, what signifies your gear?
A mind that's scrimpit never wants some care.
ROGER
My byar tumbled, nine braw nowt were smoored,
Three elf-shot were, yet I these ills endured:
In winter last my cares were very sma',
Though scores of wathers perished in the snaw.
PATIE
Were your bein rooms as thinly stocked as mine,
Less ye wad loss, and less ye wad repine.
He that has just enough can soundly sleep;
The o'ercome only fashes fowk to keep.
ROGER
May plenty flow upon thee for a cross,
That thou may'st thole the pangs of mony a loss;
Oh, may'st thou doat on some fair paughty wench,
That ne'er will lout thy lowan drowth to quench:
Till brised beneath the burden, thou cry dool,
And awn that ane may fret that is nae fool.
PATIE
Sax good fat lambs, I sald them ilka clute
At the West-port, and bought a winsome flute,
Of plum-tree made, with iv'ry virles round,
A dainty whistle, with a pleasant sound:
I'll be mair canty wi't,- and ne'er cry dool,-
Than you with all your cash, ye dowie fool!
ROGER
Na, Patie, na! I'm nae sic churlish beast;
Some other thing lies heavier at my breast.
I dreamed a dreary dream this hinder night,
That gars my flesh a' creep yet with the fright.
XXI-755


## p. 12066 (#104) ##########################################

12066
ALLAN RAMSAY
PATIE
Now, to a friend, how silly's this pretense,—
To ane wha you and a' your secrets kens!
Daft are your dreams, as daftly wad ye hide
Your well-seen love, and dorty Jenny's pride.
Take courage, Roger, me your sorrows tell,
And safely think nane kens them but yoursell.
ROGER
Indeed now, Patie, ye have guessed o'er true;
And there is naithing I'll keep up frae you.
Me dorty Jenny looks upon asquint,-
To speak but till her I dare hardly mint;
In ilka place she jeers me air and late,
And gars me look bombazed and unco blate.
But yesterday I met her yont a knowe,-
She fled as frae a shelly-coated kow.
She Bauldy looes,— Bauldy that drives the car,-
But gecks at me and says I smell of tar.
PATIE
But Bauldy looes not her. Right well I wat
He sighs for Neps. Sae that may stand for that.
ROGER
-
I wish I couldna looe her- but in vain:
I still maun doat, and thole her proud disdain.
My Bawty is a cur I dearly like:
Till he yowled sair she strak the poor dumb tyke;
If I had filled a nook within her breast,
She wad have shawn mair kindness to my beast.
When I begin to tune my stock and horn,
With a' her face she shaws a cauldrife scorn.
Last night I played,-ye never heard sic spite:
'O'er Bogie' was the spring, and her delyte,
Yet tauntingly she at her cousin speered
Gif she could tell what tune I played, and sneered!
Flocks, wander where ye like, I dinna care:
I'll break my reed, and never whistle mair!
PATIE
E'en do sae, Roger, wha can help misluck?
Saebeins she be sic a thrawn-gabbit chuck,—
————
1
1
1


## p. 12067 (#105) ##########################################

ALLAN RAMSAY
12067
Yonder's a craig, since ye have tint all houp:
Gae till't your ways, and take the lover's lowp!
ROGER
I needna mak sic speed my blood to spill:
I'll warrant death come soon enough a-will.
PATIE
Daft gowk! leave aff that silly whingin way;
Seem careless, - there's my hand ye'll win the day.
Hear how I served my lass I looe as weel
As ye do Jenny, and with heart as leel.
Last morning I was gay and early out;
Upon a dyke I leaned glowring about;
I saw my Meg come linking o'er the lee;
I saw my Meg, but Meggy saw na me,-
For yet the sun was wading through the mist,
And she was close upon me e'er she wist;
Her coats were kiltit, and did sweetly shaw
Her straight bare legs that whiter were than snaw.
Her cockernony snooded up fou sleek,
Her haffet locks hang waving on her cheek;
Her cheek sae ruddy, and her een sae clear;
And oh! her mouth's like ony hinny pear.
Neat, neat she was, in bustine waistcoat clean,
As she came skiffing o'er the dewy green.
Blythsome I cried, "My bonny Meg, come here:
I ferly wherefore ye're sae soon asteer;
But I can guess, ye're gawn to gather dew. "
She scoured awa, and said, "What's that to you? »
"Then fare ye weel, Meg-dorts; and e'en's ye like! "
I careless cried, and lap in o'er the dyke.
I trow, when that she saw, within a crack
She came with a right thieveless errand back :
Miscawed me first; then bad me hound my dog,
To wear up three waff ewes strayed on the bog.
I leugh; and sae did she; then with great haste
I clasped my arms about her neck and waist;
About her yielding waist, and took a fouth
Of sweetest kisses frae her glowing mouth.
While hard and fast I held her in my grips,
My very saul came lowping to my lips.
Sair, sair she flet wi' me 'tween ilka smack,
But weel I kend she meant nae as she spak.
-


## p. 12068 (#106) ##########################################

12068
ALLAN RAMSAY
Dear Roger, when your jo puts on her gloom,
Do ye sae too, and never fash your thumb:
Seem to forsake her, soon she'll change her mood;
Gae woo anither, and she'll gang clean wood.
Sang
Tune — 'Fye, gar rub her o'er wi' strae. '
-
EAR Roger, if your Jenny geck,
And answer kindness with a slight,
Seem unconcerned at her neglect;
For women in a man delight,
But them despise who're soon defeat,
And with a simple face give way
To a repulse: then be not blate,-
Push bauldly on, and win the day.
D
When maidens, innocently young,
Say often what they never mean,
Ne'er mind their pretty lying tongue,
But tent the language of their een:
If these agree, and she persist
To answer all your love with hate,
Seek elsewhere to be better blest,
And let her sigh when 'tis too late.
ROGER
Kind Patie, now fair fa' your honest heart,—
Ye're ay sae cadgy, and have sic an art
To hearten ane! for now, as clean's a leek,
Ye've cherished me since ye began to speak.
Sae, for your pains, I'll mak ye a propine
(My mother, rest her saul! she made it fine):
A tartan plaid, spun of good hawslock woo,
Scarlet and green the sets, the borders blue;
With spraings like gowd and siller crossed with black:
I never had it yet upon my back.
Weel are ye wordy o't, wha have sae kind
Redd up my raveled doubts, and cleared my mind.
PATIE
Weel, had ye there! And since ye've frankly made
To me a present of your braw new plaid,


## p. 12069 (#107) ##########################################

ALLAN RAMSAY
12069
My flute's be yours; and she too that's sae nice
Shall come a-will, gif ye'll take my advice.
ROGER
As ye advise, I'll promise to observ't;
But ye maun keep the flute, ye best deserv't.
Now tak it out, and gie's a bonny spring,
For I'm in tift to hear you play and sing.
OH,
PATIE
But first we'll take a turn up to the height,
And see gif all our flocks be feeding right:
Be that time bannocks, and a shave of cheese,
Will make a breakfast that a laird might please;
Might please the daintiest gabs were they sae wise
To season meat with health instead of spice.
When we have ta'en the grace drink at this well,
I'll whistle syne, and sing t'ye like mysell.
BESSY BELL AND MARY GRAY*
H, Bessy Bell and Mary Gray!
They are twa bonny lasses;
They bigged a bower on yon burn-brae,
And thecked it o'er with rashes:
Fair Bessy Bell I looed yestreen,
And thought I ne'er could alter,
But Mary Gray's twa pawky een
They gar my fancy falter.
Now Bessy's hair's like a lint tap,
She smiles like a May morning,
When Phoebus starts frae Thetis's lap,
The hills with rays adorning;
White is her neck, saft is her hand,
Her waist and feet's fou genty,
With ilka grace she can command;
Her lips, oh, wow! they're dainty.
And Mary's locks are like the craw,
Her eyes like diamonds glances;
[Exeunt.
*The first four lines of this are from an old ballad,- see under The Bal-
lad, Vol. iii. of this work.
>


## p. 12070 (#108) ##########################################

12070
ALLAN RAMSAY
She's ay sae clean red up and braw,
She kills whene'er she dances;
Blyth as a kid, with wit at will,
She blooming, tight, and tall is:
And guides her airs sae graceful still,
O Jove! she's like thy Pallas.
Dear Bessy Bell and Mary Gray,
Ye unco sair oppress us;
Our fancies jee between you twae,
Ye are sic bonny lasses:
Wae's me! for baith I canna get,-
To ane by law we're stinted;
Then I'll draw cuts, and take my fate,
And be with ane contented.
LOCHABER NO MORE
F
AREWELL to Lochaber, and farewell my Jean,
Where heartsome with thee I've mony day been;
For Lochaber no more, Lochaber no more,
We'll maybe return to Lochaber no more.
These tears that I shed, they are a' for my dear,
And no for the dangers attending on wear,
Though bore on rough seas to a far bloody shore,
Maybe to return to Lochaber no more.
Though hurricanes rise, and rise every wind,
They'll ne'er make a tempest like that in my mind;
Though loudest of thunder on louder waves roar,
That's naething like leaving my love on the shore.
To leave thee behind me my heart is sair pained;
By ease that's inglorious no fame can be gained;
And beauty and love's the reward of the brave,
And I must deserve it before I can crave.
Then glory, my Jeany, maun plead my excuse!
Since honor commands me, how can I refuse?
Without it I ne'er can have merit for thee,
And without thy favor I'd better not be.
I gae then, my lass, to win honor and fame,
And if I should luck to come gloriously hame,
I'll bring a heart to thee with love running o'er,
And then I'll leave thee and Lochaber no more.


## p. 12071 (#109) ##########################################

ALLAN RAMSAY
12071
AN THOU WERE MY AIN THING
N THOU were my ain thing,
I would love thee, I would love thee;
A
An thou were my ain thing,
How dearly would I love thee.
Like bees that suck the morning dew
Frae flowers of sweetest scent and hue,
Sae wad I dwell upo' thy mou',
And gar the gods envy me.
An thou were, etc.
Sae lang's I had the use of light,
I'd on thy beauties feast my sight;
Syne in saft whispers through the night
I'd tell how much I looed thee.
An thou were, etc.
How fair and ruddy is my Jean!
She moves a goddess o'er the green:
Were I a king, thou should be queen,
Nane but myself aboon thee.
An thou were, etc.
I'd grasp thee to this breast of mine,
Whilst thou like ivy, or the vine,
Around my stronger limbs should twine,
Formed hardy to defend thee.
An thou were, etc.
Time's on the wing and will not stay;
In shining youth let's make our hay,
Since love admits of no delay;
Oh, let na scorn undo thee.
An thou were, etc.
While love does at his altar stand,
Hae, there's my heart, gi'e me thy hand,
And with ilk smile thou shalt command
The will of him wha loves thee.