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Textbook Multi Target Drug Design Using Chem Bioinformatic Approaches Kunal Roy Ebook All Chapter PDF
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Methods in Pharmacology
and Toxicology
Multi-Target
Drug Design
Using Chem-
Bioinformatic
Approaches
METHODS IN PHARMACOLOGY
AND TOXICOLOGY
Series Editor
Y. James Kang
Department of Pharmacology &
Toxicology, University of Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Edited by
Kunal Roy
Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Editor
Kunal Roy
Department of Pharmaceutical Technology
Jadavpur University
Kolkata, West Bengal, India
This Humana Press imprint is published by the registered company Springer Science+Business Media, LLC part of
Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, U.S.A.
Dedication
v
Preface
Despite significant development of novel rational drug design strategies and high-
throughput screening methods, the cost of drug development has sharply increased, and
at the same time, the rate of failures in clinical trials has escalated [1]. The “one drug, one
target, one disease” approach has failed to appreciate the complexities of disease pathways
and the system-wide effects of drugs [2]. Diseases are often multifactorial involving a
combination of constitutive and/or environmental factors, and they result from the break-
down of robust physiological systems due to multiple genetic and/or environmental factors,
leading to the establishment of robust disease conditions. Thus, complex disorders are more
likely to be healed or alleviated through simultaneous modulation of multiple targets. Until
now, there are still not fully effective drugs for treating complex, multifactorial diseases, such
as cancer, metabolic diseases, and neurological diseases [1]. Polypharmacology that
addresses small-molecule interactions with multiple targets has generated a great interest
in drug discovery [3]. This approach allows for studies of off-target activities and the
facilitation of drug repositioning. Multi-target drugs expand the number of pharmacologi-
cally relevant target molecules by introducing a set of indirect, network-dependent effects
[4]. Moreover, low-affinity binding of multi-target drugs eases the constraints of drugg-
ability and significantly increases the size of the druggable proteome. Multi-target agents are
a promising strategy to face complex, multifactorial disorders and drug resistance issues.
Compared to combination therapies, they present several advantages, including more
predictable pharmacokinetics, lower probabilities of drug interactions, and higher patient
compliance [5]. Several already existing efficient drugs, such as nonsteroidal anti-
inflammatory drugs, antidepressants, anti-neurodegenerative agents, and multi-target
kinase inhibitors, affect many targets simultaneously [4]. Hybridization of drugs is also a
powerful tool to develop better treatments for several human diseases, as this can provide
combination therapies in a single multifunctional agent in a more specific and powerful way
than conventional treatments [6].
In polypharmacology, one of the most important goals is to rationally design com-
pounds that act on multiple key targets driving the pathogenesis of a given disease. There-
fore, targeting multiple proteins simultaneously stands a good chance to increase drug
efficacy and decrease the possibility of drug resistance. In order to achieve these goals, it
would be necessary to develop state-of-the-art computational techniques for data curation,
model development, and quantitative predictions [2]. Computational approaches are capa-
ble of predicting the activity profile of ligands to a set of targets, anticipating potential
selectivity issues, and discovering desired multi-target activities early in the iterative design
and optimization steps typical of a preclinical drug discovery project. These approaches are
based on 2D or 3D shape and chemical similarity, pharmacophore mapping, target and
binding site similarity assessment, docking experiments, bioinformatics, graph theory and
modeling, machine learning algorithms, and chemogenomics [3]. These approaches can be
classified into statistical data analysis and bioinformatics, ligand-based, and structure-based
approaches, all of which are well-documented in the literature. The structure-based meth-
ods include inverse docking, binding site similarity analysis, inverse pharmacophore model-
ing, molecular dynamics simulation, etc., while the ligand-based methods include similarity
ensemble approach, extended-connectivity fingerprint, fragment-based shape similarity
vii
viii Preface
search, etc. which can be used in combination with a variety of machine learning methods
including deep learning [2]. Systems biology approaches and cellular networks help to
understand complex diseases and their mechanisms and offer a lot of possibilities to point
out the key elements as potential drug targets and thus suggest new therapeutic treatment
strategies. Proteochemometric modeling (PCM) simultaneously considers the bioactivity of
multiple ligands against multiple targets and permits exploration of the selectivity and
promiscuity of ligands on biomolecular systems of different complexity [7].
Computational modeling including quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR),
pharmacophore mapping, docking, virtual screening, and other cheminformatics and pro-
teochemometric approaches play a vital role in finding and optimization of leads in any drug
discovery program. Computational modeling helps to understand the important molecular
features contributing to the binding interactions with the target proteins, thus facilitating
design of new potential compounds and prediction of activity of designed compounds which
have not yet been tested. These approaches can save time, money, and more importantly
animal sacrifice in the complex, long, and costly drug discovery process.
This volume (Multi-target Drug Design Using Chem-Bioinformatic Approaches) intends
to showcase the recent advances in computational design of multi-target drug candidates
involving various ligand- and structure-based strategies. Different chem-bioinformatic
modeling strategies that can be applied for design of multi-target drugs have been discussed
in this book. Apart from a few literature reviews on the application of chemometric and
cheminformatic modeling tools for multi-target drug design, several case studies are also
presented. Important databases and web servers in connection with multi-target drug
design are also discussed. There are a total of 21 chapters in this book.
The first chapter “Cheminformatics Approaches to Study Drug Polypharmacology”
provides a tutorial overview on selected cheminformatics methods useful for assembling,
curating/preparing a chemical database, and assessing its diversity and chemical space. This
chapter also discusses the methods for evaluating the structure-activity relationships and
polypharmacology.
The second chapter “Computational Predictions for Multi-target Drug Design” high-
lights the current state-of-the-art methodologies used in multi-target identification for
therapeutic effects of known drugs or new drug candidates. This chapter emphasizes
experimental validation of model-derived predictions.
The third chapter “Computational Multi-target Drug Design” discusses multi-target or
polypharmacological drug discovery and several in silico methodologies like quantitative
structure-activity relationship (QSAR), pharmacophore modeling, and molecular docking
used in the process of discovery of multi-targeted drugs.
The fourth chapter “Multi-target Drug Design for Neurodegenerative Diseases” pre-
sents an overview of multi-target computational methods as well as of their successful
applications to neurodegenerative diseases. This chapter recommends application of virtual
screening encompassing both structure-based and ligand-based techniques for effective
multi-target drug design.
The fifth chapter “Molecular Docking Studies in Multi-target Antitubercular Drug
Discovery” gives an overview of various targets for antitubercular drug development fol-
lowed by a literature survey of application of docking studies for the development of multi-
target compounds for developing new promising drug candidates against tuberculosis.
The sixth chapter “Advanced Chemometric Modeling Approaches for the Design of
Multi-target Drugs Against Neurodegenerative Diseases” discusses the recent advances in
chemometric techniques in multi-target anti-neurodegenerative drug design. This chapter
Preface ix
References
1. Lu J-J, Pan W, Hu Y-J, Wang Y-T (2012) Multi-target drugs: the trend of drug research and
development. PLoS One 7(6):e40262. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0040262
2. Chaudhari R, Tan Z, Huang B, Zhang S (2017) Computational polypharmacology: a new paradigm
for drug discovery. Expert Opin Drug Discov 12(3):279–291, doi: 10.1080/
17460441.2017.1280024
3. Rastelli G, Pinzi L (2015) Computational polypharmacology comes of age. Front Pharmacol 6:157.
doi: 10.3389/fphar.2015.00157
4. Korcsmáros T, Szalay MS, Böde C, Kovács IA, Csermely P (2007) How to design multi-target drugs.
Expert Opin Drug Discov 2:799–808. doi: 10.1517/17460441.2.6.799
5. Talevi A (2015) Multi-target pharmacology: possibilities and limitations of the “skeleton key
approach” from a medicinal chemist perspective. Front Pharmacol 6:205. doi: 10.3389/
fphar.2015.00205
6. Bérubé G (2016) An overview of molecular hybrids in drug discovery. Expert Opin Drug Discov
11:281–305. doi: 10.1517/17460441.2016.1135125
7. Cortes-Ciriano I, van Westen GJP, Murrell DS, Lenselink EB, Bender A, Malliavin TE (2015)
Applications of proteochemometrics—from species extrapolation to cell line sensitivity modeling.
BMC Bioinform 16(Suppl 3):A4. doi: 10.1186/1471-2105-16-S3-A4
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
xi
xii Contents
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557
Contributors
xiii
xiv Contributors
PRATEEK PANDYA Amity Institute of Forensic Sciences, Amity University, Noida, India
AMITA PATHAK Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi,
India; Supercomputing Facility for Bioinformatics & Computational Biology, Indian
Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India
LUCA PINZI Department of Life Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia,
Modena, Italy
GIULIO RASTELLI Department of Life Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia,
Modena, Italy
FERNANDA I. SALDÍVAR-GONZÁLEZ Department of Pharmacy, School of Chemistry,
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
DANIELA SCHUSTER Institute of Pharmacy/Pharmacognosy and Center for Molecular
Biosciences Innsbruck, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria; Department of
Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry, Institute of Pharmacy, Paracelsus Medical
University Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
LUCIANA SCOTTI Federal University of Paraı́ba, Health Center, Teaching and Research
Management—University Hospital, João Pessoa, PB, Brazil
MARCUS T. SCOTTI Federal University of Paraı́ba, Health Center, João Pessoa, PB, Brazil
ANUJ SHARMA Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee,
Uttarakhand, India
ASHOK SHARMA Biotechnology Division, CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and
Aromatic Plants, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
FERESHTEH SHIRI Department of Chemistry, University of Zabol, Zabol, Iran
MOHD. HARIS SIDDIQUI Department of Bioengineering, Integral University, Lucknow,
Uttar Pradesh, India
MANPREET SINGH Supercomputing Facility for Bioinformatics & Computational Biology,
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India
GAURAVA SRIVASTAVA Biotechnology Division, CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and
Aromatic Plants, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
SINOY SUGUNAN School of Biotechnology, National Institute of Technology Calicut, Calicut,
Kerala, India
NORBERTO SÁNCHEZ-CRUZ Department of Pharmacy, School of Chemistry, Universidad
Nacional Autonoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
VERONIKA TEMML Institute of Pharmacy/Pharmacognosy and Center for Molecular
Biosciences Innsbruck, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
ASHISH TIWARI Biotechnology Division, CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic
Plants, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
SHUBHANDRA TRIPATHI Biotechnology Division, CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and
Aromatic Plants, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
DANIELA TRISCIUZZI Dipartimento di Farmacia-Scienze del Farmaco, Universita ` degli
Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy
ATUL TYAGI Biotechnology Division, CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic
Plants, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
SEEMA VERMA Centre of Advanced Study, Department of Chemistry, University of
Rajasthan, Jaipur, India
FLÁVIA PEREIRA DIAS VIEGAS PeQuiM, Laboratory of Research in Medicinal Chemistry,
Institute of Chemistry, Federal University of Alfenas, Alfenas, Brazil
xvi Contributors
Chem-Bioinformatic Tools
Methods in Pharmacology and Toxicology (2018): 3–25
DOI 10.1007/7653_2018_6
© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2018
Published online: 09 June 2018
Abstract
Herein is presented a tutorial overview on selected chemoinformatics methods useful for assembling,
curating/preparing a chemical database, and assessing its diversity and chemical space. Methods for
evaluating the structure–activity relationships (SAR) and polypharmacology are also included. Usage of
open source tools is emphasized. Step-by-step KNIME workflows are used for illustrating the methods. The
methods described in this chapter are applied onto a chemical database especially relevant for epi-
polypharmacology that is an emerging area in drug discovery. However, the methods described herein
could be extended to other therapeutic areas and potentially to other areas of chemistry.
1 Introduction
2 Methods
2.1 Construction and Due to the increase in the amount of chemical information, where
Curation of a it is common to the concept of big data [12], the efficient manage-
Compound Database ment of information represents a challenge today. This is of partic-
ular importance in polypharmacology where large compound
datasets contain information of screening across several biological
endpoints. In response to this need, the construction of compound
and other databases can be a convenient way to sort information
according to the data available and the specific objectives of the
study.
In chemoinformatics, construction of databases is a fundamen-
tal practice to perform various computational studies like the design
of chemical libraries, characterization and comparison of the chem-
ical space, the study of the structure–activity relationships (SAR),
and virtual screening studies, among others.
Currently, web pages of large public databases such as Drug-
Bank [13], ChEMBL [14], ZINC [15], and BindingDB [16] allow
the user to download their own databases (complete or partial
downloads) with information on approved drugs, drugs in the
experimental phase, commercially available compounds, molecular
targets, etc. However, these databases are not always updated, so
they can be enriched with new information published in books or in
scientific articles.
Also, in research groups devoted to the synthesis, isolation from
natural sources and/or evaluation of new chemical entities can be
carried out for the construction of completely new compounds’ data-
bases. Such collections are usually referred to as in-house databases.
The process of building and annotating chemical databases is
not trivial. Each organization has its own rules, conventions, and
Cheminformatics and Polypharmacology 5
2.2 Diversity In drug discovery projects focused on one single target or multiple
Analysis targets, it is of high relevance quantifying the structural diversity of
compound datasets. For instance, if the goal of a high-throughput
screening campaign is to identify hit compounds with a desirable
polypharmacological profile, it is desirable to screen a compound
collection with high diversity. This will increase the possibilities to
find active molecules with a desirable profile. If the goal of the
screening campaign is to further develop a focused library (e.g.,
increase the structure–activity information of a focused region in
chemical space [25]), it is desirable to screen a compound dataset
with high internal similarity (low diversity).
The diversity in a chemical library can be assessed in multiple
ways, mainly depending on the data under scrutiny. In addition to
the diversity metric, a key aspect of diversity analysis is molecular
representation [26, 27]. The most common ways to represent mol-
ecules in chemoinformatic applications are molecular descriptors
(including physicochemical properties and molecular fingerprints),
and chemical scaffolds [28]. Depending on the type of descriptor
and the level of accuracy desired (considering the time of computa-
tion and the number of compounds to analyze), the input structures
can be in two or three dimensions (the latter requires conformational
analysis). The choice of molecular representation depends on the
goals of the study.
A more detailed description on how to use molecular descrip-
tors and scaffolds as an input for diversity analysis follows in the
next paragraphs. See Workflow 2 in the Supplementary Informa-
tion for an exemplary diversity analysis in KNIME.
2.2.2 Molecular Many structural features escape the very general information
Fingerprints obtained with physicochemical and complexity descriptors. Molec-
ular fingerprints are vectors that aim towards a more comprehensive
set of features (usually more than a hundred) to compare molecules.
Every feature is encoded as a Boolean variable, where “0” represents
absence and “1” represents presence of the feature. Therefore,
repeated motifs are not generally acknowledged. For every molecule,
a Boolean vector of features is obtained, and these are susceptible of
standard set operations [31–33]. However, molecular fingerprints
do have limitations, for example, they could be more difficult to
interpret intuitively, and therefore pose a greater difficulty for extract-
ing insights relevant for medicinal chemistry.
Cheminformatics and Polypharmacology 9
2.2.3 Molecular KNIME has nodes for finding Murcko scaffolds [36, 37]. By defi-
Scaffolds nition, Murcko scaffolds contain all the cyclic systems in a molecule
as well as the linkers between them. All other decorations and
ramifications are omitted. The greatest benefit of working with
scaffolds data is that, unlike molecular fingerprints, they are readily
interpreted by medicinal chemists. Nonetheless, the representation
is rougher and loses information from the side chains. Also, more
advanced methods must be applied to account for the structural
relations among the scaffolds.
10 J. Jesús Naveja et al.
SE
SSE ¼
log2 n0
Pn
where SE ¼ i¼1 pi log2 pi ,
where pi is the proportion in the dataset of th i-th scaffold
(calculated by dividing the occurrence of this i-th scaffold by
the total number of entries/molecules), SE is the Shannon
entropy, and n is the total number of scaffolds in the dataset.
SSE takes as value a real number in the range [0,1]. For this
statistic, higher values mean higher scaffold diversity.
4. Finally, the statistic can be computed for other reference data-
bases for comparison.
2.2.4 Consensus In the light of numerous variables that can be used to quantify
Diversity Plots diversity, visual representations have been built in order to summa-
rize multiple of them simultaneously. These are the consensus
diversity plots (CDPs). A CDP, as defined by González-Medina
et al. [10], renders 2D diversity measured by scaffolds, fingerprints,
physicochemical properties, and the number of compounds in the
databases. It is also possible to integrate 3D data [24]; however, we
will not emphasize on 3D data usage here. The steps required for
plotting a CDP from data are:
Cheminformatics and Polypharmacology 11
Fig. 1 An exemplary consensus diversity plot (CDP). Each data point represents a compound database.
Molecular fingerprints diversity is plotted in the x-axis, the scaffold diversity in the y-axis, the physicochemical
properties diversity in a color continuous scale, and the relative number of compounds in the database as the
data point size. AUC area under the curve, PCP physicochemical properties
known, can also reveal substructures that are relevant for inhibiting
the target in question. The next paragraphs give details onto some
useful methods for assessing SAR of single and multiple libraries
simultaneously. Workflow 4 in the Supplementary Information illus-
trates a KNIME implementation of the methods described below.
Fig. 2 Structure–activity similarity (SAS) maps. Each data point represents a pair of compounds. The x-axis
plots the structural similarity, while the y-axis plots the activity difference. Four quadrants are formed as
described in Sect. 2.3.1. A color scale might be added to represent density of points or the maximum activity
value in the pair. Tc Tanimoto coefficient
2.3.2 Scaffold SAR can also be explored based on chemical scaffolds. For every
Enrichment Factor dataset with activity annotations against a particular biological
target, every scaffold could be considered as a cluster of molecules.
At this point, it is interesting to find which clusters have a higher or
lesser proportion of active molecules, pointing towards clusters of
highly related molecules that tend to be more or less active than the
average. This is the basis of the calculation of enrichment factors
(EF) for scaffolds, which are obtained as follows:
1. If activity is represented quantitatively in the dataset, a thresh-
old of activity should be set a priori. Often, a pIC50 of 5–6 or
more is useful for defining a compound as active.
2. Essentially, the EF is an odds ratio, i.e., a ratio of proportions.
Specifically, the proportion of active compounds with a given
scaffold is divided by the proportion of active compounds in
the general dataset. A more formal definition would be that, for
every scaffold λ, an EF is calculated using the equation [43]:
ActðC λ Þ
EFðC λ Þ ¼
Act ðC Þ
jC þλ j
where ActðC λ Þ ¼ jC λ j
jC þ j
and Act ðC Þ ¼ jC j ,
2.3.3 Degree of The methods for SAR analysis mentioned above are useful for single
Polypharmacology target studies. However, sometimes inhibition data of multiple
targets are available for single compounds. These data could lead
to polypharmacology studies. Maggiora and Gokhale recently for-
malized the notion of polypharmacology and polyspecificity [44].
In practical terms, the degree of polypharmacology of a molecule
equals the number of different targets against which the molecule is
active, while the analogous degree of polyspecificity of a target
equals the number of different molecules that are active against
the target.
2.3.4 Multiple A review addressing SmARt analysis in epigenetics was recently pub-
Structure–Activity lished [3]. Two of the most useful SmARt tools are methodologically
Relationship Analysis explained in the following paragraphs: dual-activity difference
(DAD) maps and structure–promiscuity index difference (SPID).
Similarly as for other SAR analyses, Workflow 4 in the Supplemen-
tary Information contains practical tools for computing them.
Dual-Activity DAD maps are designed to compare at once the activity of com-
Difference Maps pounds against two biological endpoints, in contrast to SAS maps
[45]. However, DAD maps lose structural information, which is
accounted for with SAS maps. The procedure for generating a
DAD map is straightforward:
1. Select a library of compounds with the activity of each inde-
pendently measured against two different endpoints.
2. Plot in the x-axis one of the measurements and on the y-axis the
other. A general form of a DAD map is presented in Fig. 3.
This piece, and two smaller pastoral pieces in the same vein, called
Patie and Peggy and Jenny and Meggie, had been so much liked
that Ramsay had been urged by his friends to do something more
extensive in the shape of a pastoral story or drama. He had been
meditating such a thing through the year 1724, while busy with his
two editorial compilations; and in June 1725 the result was given to
the public in The Gentle Shepherd: A Scots Pastoral Comedy.
Here the three pastoral sketches already written were inwoven into a
simply-constructed drama of rustic Scottish life as it might be
imagined among the Pentland Hills, near Edinburgh, at that time,
still within the recollection of very old people then alive, when the
Protectorates of Cromwell and his son had come to an end and Monk
had restored King Charles. The poem was received with enthusiastic
admiration. There had been nothing like it before in Scottish
literature, or in any other; nothing so good of any kind that could be
voted as even similar; and this was at once the critical verdict. It is a
long while ago, and there are many spots in Edinburgh which
compete with one another in the interest of their literary
associations; but one can stand now with particular pleasure for a
few minutes any afternoon opposite that decayed house in the High
Street, visible as one is crossing from the South Bridge to the North
Bridge, where Allan Ramsay once had his shop, and whence the first
copies of The Gentle Shepherd were handed out, some day in June
1725, to eager Edinburgh purchasers.
The tenancy of this house by Ramsay lasted but a year longer.
He had resolved to add to his general business of bookselling and
publishing that of a circulating library, the first institution of the
kind in Edinburgh. For this purpose he had taken new premises, still
in the High Street, but in a position even more central and
conspicuous than that of “The Mercury” opposite Niddry’s Wynd.
They were, in fact, in the easternmost house of the Luckenbooths, or
lower part of that obstructive stack of buildings, already mentioned,
which once ran up the High Street alongside of St. Giles’s Church,
dividing the traffic into two narrow and overcrowded channels. It is
many years since the Luckenbooths and the whole obstruction of
which they formed a part were swept away; but from old prints we
can see that the last house of the Luckenbooths to the east was a tall
tenement of five storeys, with its main face looking straight down the
lower slope of the High Street towards the Canongate. The strange
thing was that, though thus in the very heart of the bustle of the town
as congregated round the Cross, the house commanded from its
higher windows a view beyond the town altogether, away to Aberlady
Bay and the farther reaches of sea and land in that direction. It was
into this house that Ramsay removed in 1726, when he was exactly
forty years of age. The part occupied by him was the flat immediately
above the basement floor, but perhaps with that floor in addition.
The sign he adopted for the new premises was one exhibiting the
heads or effigies of Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden.
Having introduced Ramsay into this, the last of his Edinburgh
shops, we have reached the point where our present interest in him
all but ends. In 1728, when he had been two years in the new
premises, he published a second volume of his collected poems,
under the title of Poems by Allan Ramsay, Volume II., in a
handsome quarto matching the previous volume of 1721, and
containing all the pieces he had written since the appearance of that
volume; and in 1730 he published A Collection of Thirty Fables.
These were his last substantive publications, and with them his
literary career may be said to have come to a close. Begun in the last
years of the reign of Queen Anne, and continued through the whole
of the reign of George I., it had just touched the beginning of that of
George II., when it suddenly ceased. Twice or thrice afterwards at
long intervals he did scribble a copy of verses; but, in the main, from
his forty-fifth year onwards, he rested on his laurels. Thenceforward
he contented himself with his bookselling, the management of his
circulating library, and the superintendence of the numerous
editions of his Collected Poems, his Gentle Shepherd, and his Tea
Table Miscellany that were required by the public demand, and the
proceeds of which formed a good part of his income. It would be a
great mistake, however, to suppose that, when Allan Ramsay’s time
of literary production ended, the story of his life in Edinburgh also
came to a close, or ceased to be important. For eight-and-twenty
years longer, or almost till George II. gave place to George III.,
Ramsay continued to be a living celebrity in the Scottish capital,
known by figure and physiognomy to all his fellow-citizens, and
Ramsay’s bookshop at the end of the Luckenbooths, just above the
Cross, continued to be one of the chief resorts of the well-to-do
residents, and of chance visitors of distinction. Now and then,
indeed, through the twenty-eight years, there are glimpses of him
still in special connections with the literary, as well as with the social,
history of Edinburgh. When the English poet Gay, a summer or two
before his death in 1732, came to Edinburgh on a visit, in the
company of his noble patrons, the Duke and Duchess of
Queensberry, and resided with them in their mansion of
Queensberry House in the Canongate,—now the gloomiest and
ugliest-looking house in that quarter of the old town, but then
reckoned of palatial grandeur,—whither did he tend daily, in his
saunterings up the Canongate, but to Allan Ramsay’s shop? One
hears of him as standing there with Allan at the window to have the
city notabilities and oddities pointed out to him in the piazza below,
or as taking lessons from Allan in the Scottish words and idioms of
the Gentle Shepherd, that he might explain them better to Mr. Pope
when he went back to London.
Some years later, when Ramsay had reached the age of fifty, and
he and his wife were enjoying the comforts of his ample success, and
rejoicing in the hopes and prospects of their children,—three
daughters, “no ae wally-draggle among them, all fine girls,” as
Ramsay informs us, and one son, a young man of three-and-twenty,
completing his education in Italy for the profession of a painter,—
there came upon the family what threatened to be a ruinous disaster.
Never formally an anti-Presbyterian, and indeed regularly to be seen
on Sundays in his pew in St. Giles’s High Kirk, but always and
systematically opposed to the unnecessary social rigours of the old
Presbyterian system, and of late under a good deal of censure from
clerical and other strict critics on account of the dangerous nature of
much of the literature put in circulation from his library, Ramsay
had ventured at last on a new commercial enterprise, which could
not but be offensive on similar grounds to many worthy people,
though it seems to have been acceptable enough to the Edinburgh
community generally. Edinburgh having been hitherto deficient in
theatrical accommodation, and but fitfully supplied with dramatic
entertainments, he had, in 1736, started a new theatre in Carrubber’s
Close, near to his former High Street shop. He was looking for great
profits from the proprietorship of this theatre and his partnership in
its management. Hardly had he begun operations, however, when
there came the extraordinary statute of 10 George II. (1737),
regulating theatres for the future all over Great Britain. As by this
statute there could be no performance of stage-plays out of London
and Westminster, save when the King chanced to be residing in some
other town, Ramsay’s speculation collapsed, and all the money he
had invested in it was lost. It was a heavy blow; and he was moved by
it to some verses of complaint to his friend Lord President Forbes
and the other judges of the Court of Session. While telling the story
of his own hardship in the case, he suggests that an indignity had
been done by the new Act to the capital of Scotland:—
“Shall London have its houses twa
And we doomed to have nane ava’?
Is our metropolis, ance the place
Where langsyne dwelt the royal race
Of Fergus, this gate dwindled down
To a level with ilk clachan town,
While thus she suffers the subversion
Of her maist rational diversion?”
However severe the loss to Ramsay at the time, it was soon tided
over. Within six years he is found again quite at ease in his worldly
fortunes. His son, for some years back from Italy, was in rapidly
rising repute as a portrait-painter, alternating between London and
Edinburgh in the practice of his profession, and a man of mark in
Edinburgh society on his own account; and, whether by a junction of
the son’s means with the father’s, or by the father’s means alone, it
was now that there reared itself in Edinburgh the edifice which at the
present day most distinctly preserves for the inhabitants the memory
of the Ramsay family in their Edinburgh connections. The
probability is that, since Allan had entered on his business premises
at the end of the Luckenbooths, his dwelling-house had been
somewhere else in the town or suburbs; but in 1743 he built himself a
new dwelling-house on the very choicest site that the venerable old
town afforded. It was that quaint octagon-shaped villa, with an
attached slope of green and pleasure-ground, on the north side of the
Castle Hill, which, as well from its form as from its situation, attracts
the eye as one walks along Princes Street, and which still retains the
name of Ramsay Lodge. The wags of the day, making fun of its
quaint shape, likened the construction to a goose-pie; and something
of that fancied resemblance may be traced even now in its extended
and improved proportions. But envy may have had a good deal to do
with the comparison. It is still a neat and comfortable dwelling
internally, while it commands from its elevation an extent of scenery
unsurpassed anywhere in Europe. The view from it ranges from the
sea-mouth of the Firth of Forth on the east to the first glimpses of the
Stirlingshire Highlands on the west, and again due north across the
levels of the New Town, and the flashing waters of the Firth below
them, to the bounding outline of the Fifeshire hills. When, in 1743,
before there was as yet any New Town at all, Allan Ramsay took up
his abode in this villa, he must have been considered a fortunate and
happy man. His entry into it was saddened, indeed, by the death of
his wife, which occurred just about that time; but for fourteen years
of widowerhood, with two of his daughters for his companions, he
lived in it serenely and hospitably. During the first nine years of
those fourteen he still went daily to his shop in the Luckenbooths,
attending to his various occupations, and especially to his circulating
library, which is said to have contained by this time about 30,000
volumes; but for the last five or six years he had entirely relinquished
business. There are authentic accounts of his habits and demeanour
in his last days, and they concur in representing him as one of the
most charming old gentlemen possible, vivacious and sprightly in
conversation, full of benevolence and good humour, and especially
fond of children and kindly in his ways for their amusement. He died
on the 7th of January 1758, in the seventy-second year of his age, and
was buried in Greyfriars Churchyard.
Ramsay had outlived nearly all the literary celebrities who had
been his contemporaries during his own career of active authorship,
ended nearly thirty years before. Swift and Pope were gone, after
Gay, Steele, Arbuthnot, and others of the London band, who had
died earlier. Of several Scotsmen, his juniors, who had stepped into
the career of literature after he had shown the way, and had attained
to more or less of poetic eminence under his own observation, three,
—Robert Blair, James Thomson, and Hamilton of Bangour,—had
predeceased him. Their finished lives, with all the great radiance of
Thomson’s, are wholly included in the life of Allan Ramsay. David
Malloch, who had been an Edinburgh protégé of Ramsay’s, but had
gone to London and Anglicised himself into “Mallet,” was about the
oldest of his literary survivors into another generation; but in that
generation, as Scotsmen of various ages, from sixty downwards to
one-and-twenty, living, within Scotland or out of it, at the date of
Ramsay’s death, we count Lord Kames, Armstrong, Reid, Hume,
Lord Monboddo, Hugh Blair, George Campbell, Smollett, Wilkie,
Blacklock, Robertson, John Home, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson,
Lord Hailes, Falconer, Meikle, and Beattie. Such of these as were
residents in Edinburgh had known Allan Ramsay personally; others
of them had felt his influence indirectly; and all must have noted his
death as an event of some consequence.
The time is long past for any exaggeration of Allan Ramsay’s
merits. But, call him only a slipshod little Horace of Auld Reekie,
who wrote odes, epistles, satires, and other miscellanies in Scotch
through twenty years of the earlier part of the eighteenth century,
and was also, by a happy chance, the author of a unique and
delightful Scottish pastoral, it remains true that he was the most
considerable personality in Scottish literary history in order of time
after Drummond of Hawthornden, or, if we think only of the
vernacular, after Sir David Lindsay, and that he did more than any
other man to stir afresh a popular enthusiasm for literature in
Scotland after the Union with England. All in all, therefore, it is with
no small interest that, in one’s walks along the most classic
thoroughfare of the present Edinburgh, one gazes at the white stone
statue of Allan Ramsay, from the chisel of Sir John Steell, which
stands in the Gardens just below the famous “goose-pie villa.” It
looks as if the poet had just stepped down thence in his evening
habiliments to see things thereabouts in their strangely changed
condition. By the tact of the sculptor, he wears, one observes, not a
wig, but the true poetic night-cap or turban.
LADY WARDLAW AND THE BARONESS NAIRNE[6]
Old as he is, he will set out at once, taking his three eldest sons with
him, Robin, Thomas, and Malcolm, and telling his lady in his
farewell to her:—
“My youngest son sall here remain
To guaird these stately towers,
And shoot the silver bolt that keeps
Sae fast your painted bowers.”
And so we take leave of the high castle on the hill, with the lady,
her youngest son, and Fairly fair, in it, and follow the old lord and his
other three sons over the moors and through the glens as they ride to
the rendezvous. On their way they encounter a wounded knight,
lying on the ground and making a heavy moan:—
“‘Here maun I lie, here maun I die,
By treachery’s false guiles;
Witless I was that e’er gave faith
To wicked woman’s smiles.’”
Here the story might seem to end, and here perhaps it was intended
at first that it should end; but in the completer copies there are three
more stanzas, taking us back to Hardyknute’s castle on the high hill.
We are to fancy Hardyknute and his sons returning joyfully thither
after the great victory:—
“Loud and chill blew the westlin wind,
Sair beat the heavy shower;
Mirk grew the nicht ere Hardyknute
Wan near his stately tower:
His tower, that used with torches’ bleeze
To shine sae far at nicht,
Seemed now as black as mourning weed:
Nae marvel sair he sich’d.