'Horace's Letter of Invitation': A Newly Discovered Horatian Imitation by Allan Ramsay

Some ten imitations of Horatian poems by Allan Ramsay are known from printings in Ramsay's own lifetime and later recoveries from manuscripts. Another more extensive imitation, of Horace's Epistle 1.5 inviting a friend to a dinner party, can now be added. This note presents a diplomatic transcription from the Beinecke Library manuscript which contains the only known copy, followed by discussions of the imitation's links to other works by Ramsay and of its relationship to the Latin poem on which it is based.