674 



HAMSAY 



HAMSGATK 



additional cantos to the old Scots poem of Christ's 

 Kirk on tlit (Irrtn, felicitous pictures of riiHtic life 

 and broad humour. Ramsay now abandoned ig 

 making, and commenced business as a bookseller 

 in the High Street, with a sign of Mercury over 

 his door. Later he removed to the Luckenboothx, 

 and there flourished under the heads of Drummond 

 and lien Jonson, adding to liia business a circulat- 

 ing library the tirst established in Scotland. 

 Down to 1755, when he retired to a villa of his 

 own erection, 'honest Allan's' career, worldly 

 and literary, was eminently prosjierous. Neither 

 Puritan nor profligate, social in his instinct*, > t 

 careful and industrious, Kamsay never allowed his 

 pride and vanity as a poet to withdraw him from 

 business. One brief cloud overcast the poet's 

 successful career. He built a theatre in Edinburgh 

 at his own expense, which was almost immediately 

 shut up by the magistrates, in virtue of the act 

 passed in 1737 prohibiting all dramatic exhibitions 

 without special license. Besides his loss he suffered 

 much from the attacks of the churchmen of the 

 day. His application to Lord Advocate Forbes for 

 ' some canny post ' was unsuccessful ; yet his mis- 

 fortunes hail left him a decent competency, ami 

 he spent the last two or three years of his life in 

 cheerful retirement in the quaint but picturesque 

 octagonal house he had built on the north side of 

 the Castle Hill, and here he died 7th January 

 1758. He hod the gratification of seeing his only 

 surviving son, Allan Ramsay (1713-84), fast rising 

 into distinction as a portrait-painter; in 1767 he 

 was appointed principal painter to the king. A 

 complete edition of the elder Allan's poems with a 

 biography was published by Chalmers ( 1800) ; a fine 

 edition, with the music of the songs, and engrav- 

 ings by David Allan, in 1788. A good selection is 

 that by J. Logie Robertson ( 1887 ). A monument to 

 Ramsay by Steell was erected in Edinburgh in 1865. 

 The following are his principal works : Tartana, or the 

 Plaid ( 1721 ) ; a collected edition of his Poemt, published 

 by subscription in 1721, by which it is said the poet 

 realised 400 guineas; FabUt and Tola (1722); Fair 

 Auembly (1723) : Health, a Poem (1724); The Tea-table 

 Miscellany, a collection of the most choice songs, .Scottish 

 and English ( 1724 ), to which a second volume wag pub- 

 lished in 1725, a third in 1727, and a fourth in 1740; 

 The Evergreen, ' being a collection of Scots Poems wrote 

 by the Ingenious before 1600,' published in 1724; The 

 Gentle Shepherd, a I'attoral Comedy ( 1725 ) : a second 

 collection of Poem* (1728); Thirty Fablet (17301. See 

 the Life by Oliphant Smeaton ( ' Famous Scots,' 1896). 



Ramsay, EDWARD BANNERMAN BURNETT, 

 Dean of Edinburgh, was born in Aberdeen, 31st 

 January 1793, the grandson of Sir Thomas Burnett, 

 Bart., of Leys. His father, Alexander Burnett, 

 wan sheriff of Kincardineshire. Edward was the 

 fourth son, and when very young he was taken by 

 his grand-uncle, Sir Alexander Ramsay, who sent 

 him to school near his own house at Harlsey in 

 Yorkshire. In 1806 Alexander Burnett succeeded 

 to Sir Alexander's estates, assumed the surname 

 of Ramsay, and soon after was created a baronet. 

 (Edward Burnett Ramsay took a |>oll degree at St 

 John's College, Cambridge, in 1814, was ordained 

 in 1816, and held a curacy in Somersetshire until 

 1824, when he removed to Edinburgh as curate 

 of St George's. Two years later he was mode 

 incumbent of St Paul's, Carrnbber'g Close, but this 

 he exchanged in 1827 for the curacy of St John's, 

 of which Bishop Sandford was incumlient. On the 

 bishop's death in IH30 Ramsay succeeded to the 

 charge ; and in 1K46 he was appointed dean of the 

 diiH'i'iw, having already ( 1K44) declined thr bishopric 

 of Fredericton, as he afterwards (1847 and 1H62) 

 diil those of Glasgow and Edinburgh. In 1860 he 

 received the degree of LI/. I), from Edinburgh 

 University. He died 27th December 1872. Ramsay 



did a very great service for the Scottish Episcopal 

 Church by his work in connection with the Church 

 society, of which he was the first secretary and 

 really the founder, and out of which grew the later 

 Representative Church Council. But it is for tin- 

 sake of his books or rather of one of them that 

 his fame is secure. . 



Among bis works, besides sermons, 4c., are Memoirs 

 nf Sir J. E. Smith and Dr Chalmers, Dirersitin of 

 < hrittian Character (1858), Fault* in Chriitian Beliertrt 

 (18. r >9), Pulpit Table-talk (18G8), The Chriftian Life 

 ( 1 si i!i ), and a number of others. But the book with which 

 his name will always be identified is the Jteminucencet of 

 Scottish Life and Character, which had its origin in two 

 lectures ( ' On Uecent Changes in Scottish Manners and 

 Habits') delivered in Edinburgh in 1X56-57, and pub- 

 lished in a small octavo of 64 pp. in 1857 ; the third 

 edition (1859), bearing the title of the Reminitu 

 extended to 211 pages. A second series (pp. xxxviii., 

 221 ) appeared in 1861. See the Memoir, by Cosmo Inncs, 

 prefixed to the 22d ed. (1874). 



Knmsbottoill, a manufacturing town of Lanca- 

 shire, on the Irwell, 4 miles N. of Bury. The first 

 Sir Robert Peel established calico-printing here, 

 and it now bos manufactures of cottons, calicoes, 

 ropes, machines, &c. Pop. (1861) 4134; (1881) 

 16,142; (1891) 16,726. 



Ranisden, JESSE, a mathematical instrument- 

 maker, was born at Salterhebble, near Halifax in 

 Yorkshire, in 1735, and began life as a cloth- 

 worker. About 1755 he moved to London, and 

 shortly afterwards began to work as an engraver. 

 His skill recommended him to the mathematical 

 instrument-makers, the daughter of one of whom, 

 Dollond, he married. Being of an inventive turn, 

 he spent his best efforts in effecting improvements 

 in the sextant, theodolite, equatorial, Barometer, 

 micrometer, mural quadrant, and the like. He so 

 improved the sextant that its range of error was 

 diminished from 5 minutes to 30 seconds. He 

 made the theodolite for the ordnance survey of 

 England. He devised the mural circle, and made 

 the first for Palermo and Dublin. He spent several 

 years over an instrument for graduating mathe- 

 matical instruments (see GRADUATION), and pub- 

 lished an account of it as Description of an Engine 

 for Dividing Mathematical Itistriitufiitu (1777). 

 For this the Commissioners of Longitude awarded 

 him 615. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal 

 Society in 1786, and was voted the Copley medal 

 in 1795. He died at Brighton on 5th November 

 1800. Descriptions of some of his improved instru- 

 ments will l>e found in Phil. Trans. ( 1,79 and 1783). 

 See Life by Lalaude in Journal des Sgavaiu ( 1788). 



Ramsey, (1) a seaport and watering-place in 

 the north of the Isle of Man, 14 miles NNE. of 

 Douglas, and by rail (1879) 18 Ml. of Peel. It 

 stands on a spacious bay, with a good handy bench 

 and a background of wooded hills ( 1842 feet), and 

 from the beauty of its surroundings and the salu- 

 brity nl its climate has risen into a favourite resort 

 of tourists and pleasure-seekers. It has two prome- 

 nades, a park, salt-water lake, a pier 730 yards 

 long, and steamboat communication with Liver- 

 pool, Fleetwood, Glasgow, Greenock, Whitehaven, 

 and Douglas. Pop. (1851) 2701; (1871) 3861; 

 (1881) 4025; (1891) 4803. (2) A market town of 

 Huntingdonshire, 12 miles NNE. of Huntingdon. 

 It has a branch-line ( 1863) and remains of a mil i c,l 

 Benedictine abbey (969). Pop. of parish (1851) 

 4645; (1891)4684. 



Ramsgate, a watering-place and seaport of 

 Kent, in the south-east of the Isle of Thanet, 72 

 miles E. by S. of London, 4 SSE. of Mai gate, and 

 16 INI. of Canterbury. From a small fishing- 

 village it began to increase in importance dining 

 the 18th century through successful trade with 

 ' Russia and the East country,' and through the 



