SOURCE: "Biographical and Critical Introduction: The Gentle Shepherd," in The Works of Allan Ramsay, Vol. IV, edited by Alexander M. Kinghorn and Alexander Law, William Blackwood & Sons Ltd., 1970, pp. 90-108.

Kinghorn's introduction to the fourth volume of Ramsay 's works includes what is widely considered the most accurate and complete biographical information on the poet. In the following excerpt from the critical portion of Kinghorn's introduction, the critic discusses Ramsay's use of the Scots language and the place of The Gentle Shepherd in Scots literary history.'

The work by which Ramsay achieved an immediate reputation among his own contemporaries and in the eyes of succeeding generations was The Gentle Shepherd, a Pastoral Comedy, published in 1725. Woodhouselee refers to it as "the noblest and most permanent monument of his fame" [In The Works of Allan Ramsay, 1800]. The play springs out of two eclogues, "Patie and Roger" and "Jenny...