- For other uses, see Bob Ferguson
Robert Fergusson (5 September 1750 - 16 October 1774) was the Scottish poet, born in Edinburgh. Despite a short life, his career was highly influential, especially on the poet Robert Burns. He wrote in two languages, Scottish English and Scots, and his works in both were published regularly in the weekly newspaper of the Edinburgh publisher Walter Ruddiman. It is his vivid and masterly writing in the latter leid for which he is still principally acclaimed.
Although formally educated, Fergusson, who had developed early literary ambitions, chose relatively lowly employment and pursued an essentially "bohemian" life course, initially with success. Latterly, his literary energy and free-minded conviviality were overshadowed by what may have been a depression, although other factors played a part. Around the backend of the year 1774, in unclear circumstances, the young poet was submitted against his will into Edinburgh's Darien House "hospital" where some weeks later he died.
Fergusson's bilingual canon was the acknowledged inspiration for the career of Robert Burns, and many leading makars of the twentieth century similarly recognised his importance, especially Robert Garioch and Sydney Goodsir Smith. In effect, his poetry and creative ambition stand as an important artistic and linguistic bridge between the generations of Allan Ramsay and, through Burns, most later Scots writers, yet his legacy has tended to be unjustly neglected.
A memorial headstone for Fergusson's unmarked grave in the Canongate kirkyard was privately commissioned in 1787 by Robert Burns. In the nineteenth century the stone was restored and further inscribed by Robert Louis Stevenson.
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Life
Fergusson's parents were originally from Aberdeenshire but they moved to Edinburgh just prior to his birth. He was educated at the city's Royal High School[2] and subsequently the High School of Dundee where he was prepared for matriculation into at the University of St Andrews in 1765 with the assistance of a Fergusson clan bursary. After the death of his father in 1767 and the departure from Scotland of his older brother in 1768, Fergusson returned to Edinburgh without formally completing his studies, probably to support his mother.
He refused to study for the church, and was reputedly too nervous to study medicine as his friends wished. After a quarrel with his maternal uncle, John Forbes of Round Lichnot (near Auld Meldrum) ended all possibility of family support from that quarter, Fergusson returned to Edinburgh where he chose to take lowly employment as a copyist while at the same time immersing himself in the social and cultural life of the newly-expanding city through its clubs and theatrical circles.
Early literary and social career
There is good evidence that Fergusson was already developing literary ambitions as a student at the University of St Andrews from 1765 to 68. His earliest poem on record, written during this time, is a satirical elegy in Scots on the death of David Gregory, one of the university’s professors of maths. He also claimed he had begun drafting a play on the life of William Wallace, two acts of which were completed before he destroyed the manuscript on the grounds that the idea was not original and he “only wished to produce original works”; a clear indication of the scope and direction of his ambitions at an early age.
Without formally completing his studies, Fergusson returned to Edinburgh in May 1768 in order to support his recently widowed mother on his older brother’s departure from Edinburgh after a decision to join the navy in order to escape creditors. Fergusson turned down entreaties to follow more lucrative career paths which university education had potentially opened up for him, choosing instead, at the age of 19, to follow in his father’s footsteps as a copyist in the city’s legal offices. The work was menial but relatively undemanding, gaving him license to develop his artistic and intellectual ambitions and regularly escape Edinburgh’s urban confines.
In the years 1769 and 1772 Fergusson actively sought celebrity, managing to build a lively social and artistic circle which included many of the city’s intellects, actors, musicians, artists and booksellers (who were often at that time also publishers) as well as many visiting singers and actors. He was an avid theatre-goer with aspirations to write for that medium. In mid 1769 he struck up a friendship with the Italian castrato singer Giusto Fernando Tenducci, then visiting Edinburgh in a production of Artaxerxes. Tenducci asked Fergusson to contribute three Scots airs for the opera which he both performed and published with the libretto. Another of Fergusson’s friends, the theatre-manager William Woods regularly procured Fergusson free theatre admission.[1]
Publication
After a literary debut in which he contributed Scots airs for an Edinburgh run of the opera Artaxerxes, Fergusson's work began to be published in Walter Ruddiman's Weekly Review. The first to appear, on 7 February 1771, were three pastorals in the manner of Shenstone. From that time onwards he was a regular contributor. For the first year his poems were generally conventional English language works in the fashionable pastoral mode of Shenstone. But it is his Scots poems, also published in the same outlet, with which he made his name. The first of these, The Daft Days, appeared on 2 January 1772, and other examples regularly followed, although he also continued his output in English.
Testimony for the popular acclaim he won for his Scots work exists in the number of verse epistles in its praise that were inspired and published in the course of that year. It was this reception which persuaded Ruddiman to publish a full general edition of his poems. This appeared in early 1773, although the Scots work was collected at the back of the volume.
In mid 1773 Fergusson attempted his own publication of Auld Reekie, a vivid verse portrait of his home city, intended as the first part of a planned long poem about the city and now regarded as his masterpiece. It demonstrated Fergusson's ambition to further extend the range of his Scots writing.
His literary output was both urban and pastoral in equal degree. He was often an effective satirist and generally nationalist in themes and outlook.
Clubs
Fergusson was a member of the Cape Club, celebrated by him in his poem of "Auld Reekie". "The Knights of the Cape" assembled at a tavern in Craig's Close, in the vicinity of the Cross; each member had a name and character assigned to him, which he was required to maintain at all gatherings of the order. David Herd (1732-1810), the collector of the classic edition of Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs (1776), was sovereign of the Cape (in which he was known as "Sir Scrape") when Fergusson was dubbed a knight of the order, with the title of "Sir Precentor," in allusion to his fine voice. Alexander Runciman, the historical painter, his pupil Jacob More, and Sir Henry Raeburn were all members. The old minute books of the club abound with pencilled sketches by them, one of the most interesting of which, ascribed to Runciman's pencil, is a sketch of Fergusson in his character of "Sir Precentor."
Death
In late 1774, a fall by which his head was severely injured aggravated symptoms of mental aberration which had begun to show themselves; and after about two months' confinement in Bedlam asylum in Edinburgh the poet died at the age of 24. [2][3]
Influence
Fergusson's poems were collected in the year before his death. The influence of his writings on Robert Burns is undoubted. His "Leith Races" unquestionably supplied the model for the "Holy Fair." Not only is the stanza the same, but the Mirth who plays the part of conductor to Fergusson, and the Fun who renders a like service to Burns, are manifestly conceived on the same model. "The Mutual Complaint of Plainstanes and Causey" probably suggested "The Brigs of Ayr"; "On seeing a Butterfly in the Street" has reflections in it which strikingly correspond with "To a Mouse"; and a comparison of "The Farmer's Ingle" of the elder poet with "The Cottar's Saturday Night" shows the influence of the city-bred poet on that picture of homely peasant life. Burns was the first to pay tribute to the merits of Fergusson; on his visit to Edinburgh in 1787 he sought out the poet's grave, and petitioned the authorities of the Canongate burying-ground for permission to erect the memorial stone which is preserved in the existing monument. The date there assigned for his birth differs from the one given above, which rests on the authority of his younger sister Margaret.
The first edition of Fergusson's poems was published by Ruddiman at Edinburgh in 1773, and a supplement containing additional poems, in 1779. A second edition appeared in 1785. There are later editions, by Robert Chambers (1850) and Alexander Grosart (1851). A life of Fergusson is included in David Irving's Lives of the Scottish Poets, and in Robert Chambers's Lives of Illustrious and Distinguished Scotsmen.
Robert Fergusson is commemorated in Makars' Court, outside The Writers' Museum, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh.
Selections for Makars' Court are made by The Writers' Museum; The Saltire Society; The Scottish Poetry Library.
See also
External links
- Robert Fergusson Society
- Portrait of Fergusson by Alexander Runciman in the National Gallery of Scotland
References
- ^ Matthew McDiarmid, ‘’The Poems of Robert Fergusson (2 vols)’’ Volume 1. Blackwood, 1954. pp.22-28
- ^ [1]
- ^ http://www.nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk/aboutus/nhshistory/reh_history.asp
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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
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