Excerpt from The Gentle Shepherd: A Pastoral Comedy In June 1725 appeared the first complete edition, a small 12mo. Volume, now exceedingly scarce, not badly printed, but containing a great many typographical, orthographical, and other errors. It contains onlyfour of the songs in the present edition, viz z - Nos. IX., XL, XVI., and XXII., has only the prose dedication to the Countess of Eglinton, and wants the glossary. A quotation from Spenser on the title-page points dis tinctly to the origin of the title The Gentle Shepherd. Its text has been taken as the standard for what is considered the best edition of Ramsay's Works - that of 1800, edited by George Chalmers, and several others. The next edition, so far as a considerable revision of the text constitutes such, is the quarto of 1728; but simultaneously, or it may be earlier, there must have been issued a common edition with the additional songs. The success of The Beggars' Opera, which appeared in 1727, is said to have induced Ramsay to add the eighteen new songs which now form part of The Gentle Shepherd; but Gay's comedy cannot have suggested the idea of having it put upon the stage, for the first edition bears unmistakable evidence of such an intention. It is not known, however, to have been represented before 1729 and the success of the Beggars' Opera doubtless stimulated and facilitated the accomplishment of the author's wish to see it acted. The quarto edition is not a separate publication, but part of the second volume of his complete works. The text differs in several places from that of the Ist edition, and, in our opinion, everywhere for the better. The volume is also more correctly printed, and has the glos sary of the first volume enlarged. It contains a dedica tion to his patrons, the subscribers to the first volume, in which, referring to his poems, he says I have ex amined them over and over with care, and have struck out everything that I thought ablemish; since nothingis so capable to ruffle my tranquility as your finding any production of my muse imperfect or deformed. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.