RAMSAY, ANDREW MICHAEL (1686 -1743), commonly called the " Chevalier Ramsay," who was born at Ayr, Scotland, on 9th January 1686, is noteworthy as having been among the few writers not of French birth who are admitted by French criticism to have written in French with purity and scholarship. Ramsay visited France com-paratively early and came under the influence of Fenelon, which made him a convert to Roman Catholicism. He held several important tutorships in his adopted country, the chief of which was the chaxge of Prince Charles Edward and the future cardinal of York. His biographers mention with surprise the conferring of an honoraxy degree upon him by the university of Oxford. The claim was nominally his discipleship to Fenelon, but in reality beyond doubt his connexion with the Jacobite party. He died at St Germain-en-Laye (Seine-et-Oise) on 6th May 1743.

Ramsay's principal work was the Travels of Cyrus (London and Paris, 1727), a book composed in avowed imitation of Teleniaque. He also edited Telemaque itself with an introduction, and wrote an Essai de Politique on the principles of his master aml a Histoire cle la Fie et des Ouvrages de Huelva, besides a partial biography of Turenne, some poen-ts in English, and other miscellaneous works.