called "The life and death of the Piper of Kilbarchan" and another by Hamilton of Gilbertfield, "The last dying words of Bonnie Heck." Later, Hamilton, who by this poem first inspired Ramsay with the desire to write in verse, heartily recognised his merit and himself wrote of him
"O fam'd and celebrated Allan!
Renowned Ramsay! canty callan!
There's nouther Hieland man nor Lawlan
In poetrie,
But may as soon ding doun Tantallan
As match wi' thee."
This source of inspiration from books of poetry never, as far as we know, fell to the lot of Farquharson, whose education was altogether on a lower plane. He was born and died just a Scottish peasant; but his communing with Nature gave him the power of observation, whilst the love of reading, which has for generations been the heritage of the Scots even in the humblest walks of life, taught him how to express the thoughts which came to him, and he had undoubtedly a gift for verse. His poems on his old "Hardie" fiddle, and on the Sundew are so good that they might have been written by Burns. But, like Burns and Ramsay too, he is best when he sticks to the vernacular. When he begins to write English he is less convincing. It is well to remember that Ramsay could owe nothing to Burns, as he died in 1758, the year before Burns was born; but Farquharson, whose widow is still alive, died only the other day, and was acquainted with the works certainly of one and probably of both of them. This does not, however, make him less deserving of notice; for little as he wrote, the two poems just mentioned show, I cannot help thinking, a high degree of poetic merit, being not merely surprising as the work of a peasant, but—extremely good per se, and serve to show how the true poetic gift may lurk unsuspected in a country village. In his poems Fair Habbies Howe (or hollow) and Monk's Burn he refers to the fact that the descriptions of Nature in Allan Ramsay's pastoral The Gentle Shepherd are taken from the Carlops district, about twelve miles from Edinburgh, in which he himself lived. The second scene of the first act of The Gentle Shepherd begins thus:
Jenny. Come, Meg, let's fa' to wark upon this green,
This shining day will bleach our linen clean;
The waters clear, the lift's unclouded blue
Will make them like a lily wet wi' dew.
Peggy. Gae farer up the burn to Habbie's Howe,
Where a' the sweets o' spring an' simmer grow:
Between two birks, out o'er a little lin,[1]
The water fa's an' maks a singan din:
- ↑ Waterfall.
