''The Gentle Shepherd'' is a

pastoral A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts ...

comedy by

Allan Ramsay Allan Ramsay may refer to: *Allan Ramsay (poet) or Allan Ramsay the Elder (1686–1758), Scottish poet *Allan Ramsay (artist) or Allan Ramsay the Younger (1713–1784), Scottish portrait painter *Allan Ramsay (diplomat) (1937–2022), British diplom ...

. It was first published in 1725 and dedicated to

Susanna Montgomery, Lady Eglinton Susanna Montgomerie, Countess of Eglinton (1690 – 18 March 1780) was the third wife of Alexander Montgomerie, 9th Earl of Eglinton. She lived as a widow for nearly 51 yearsRobertson, Page 104. before dying at Auchans, Scotland in 1780, aged ...

, to whom Ramsay gifted the original manuscript. The play has some happy descriptive scenes and is a pleasant delineation of rustic manners in the countryside of the

Scottish Lowlands The Lowlands ( sco, Lallans or ; gd, a' Ghalldachd, , place of the foreigners, ) is a cultural and historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Lowlands and the Highlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowl ...

in the 18th century. The backdrop is believed to have been inspired by the Penicuik area some eight miles south west of Edinburgh where Ramsay was frequently the guest of his patron Sir John Clerk of Penicuik at

Penicuik House Penicuik House (alternative spellings in use until mid 19th century: ''Penycuik'', ''Pennycuik'') survives as the shell of a formerly grand estate house in Penicuik, Midlothian, Scotland. The 18th-century palladian mansion (at ) was built on the ...

First Scottish opera

The Italian style of classical music was probably first brought to Scotland by the Italian cellist and composer Lorenzo Bocchi, who travelled to Scotland in the 1720s, introducing the cello to the country and then developing settings for lowland Scots songs. He possibly had a hand in the first Scottish opera, the pastoral ''The Gentle Shepherd'', with libretto by the makar

.R. Cowgill and P. Holman, "Introduction: centres and peripheries", in R. Cowgill and P. Holman, eds, ''Music in the British Provinces, 1690-1914'' (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), , p. 4.

References

External links

Text of poem
1725 poems Scottish plays Plays set in Scotland Operas set in Scotland Scottish poems 1725 in Scotland Comedy plays Scottish comedy {{poem-stub