;OBERT FERGUSSON j A : B GROSART FAMOUS SCOTS' SERIES' FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES Thefollowing Volumes are now ready THOMAS CARLYLE. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON. ALLAN RAMSAY. By OLIPHANT SMEATON. HUGH MILLER. By W. KEITH LEASK. JOHN KNOX. By A. TAYLOR INNES. ROBERT BURNS. By GABRIEL SETOUN. THE BALLADISTS. By JOHN GEDDIE. RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor HERKLESS. SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By EVE BLANTYRE SIMPSON. THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. GARDEN BLAIKIE. JAMES BOSWELL. By W. KEITH LEASK. TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By OLIPHANT SMEATON. FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. OMOND. THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS. NORMAN MACLEOD. By JOHN WELLWOOD. SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Professor SAINTSBUKY. ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A. B. GROSART. ROBERT! FERGUSSON BY : : A : B GROSART FAMOUS SCOTS: SERIES PUBLISHED BY Q OUPHANT ANDERSON V FERRIER-EDINBVRGH AMD LONDON f -Wi The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr. Joseph Brown, and the printing from the press of Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edinburgh. DA 506 PREFACE THE myth that no one reads a preface, I cannot allow to de- prive me of the pleasure and privilege of recording here the more than kind helpfulness of many fellow literary workers in this little labour of love. In turning to the forewords to my youthful Life and Works of Fergusson (1851), that I might re-thank former friends, I found that of a long roll of names therein, not a single one survives to-day. I alone remain. I may be pardoned feeling the pathos of this. The same willinghood and actual services of former friends have been shown by many new helpers of the present genera- tion. It would occupy too much space in a book that needs every inch available, to enumerate my correspondents aiders I offer as and ; but one and all, publicly already privately, jny heartfelt thanks, together with acknowledg- ments in the several places. It will not, I hope, be held invidious that, besides this general acknowledgment of debt and in their places, I name the following as having rendered me special help, biographically and critically : Mr. William Keith-Leask, M.A., Aberdeen, who took the of the whole of first pains carefully reading my rough MS. ; Rev. J. G. Michie, M.A., Dinnet; Rev. Andrew Christie, M.A., Kildrummy; Lord Aldenham, who did not rest until at India House and Bank of England he had verified the Burnett gift of ^100, and not less so the prompt and laborious attention of the officers of both ; Lord Rosebery, for books and MSS. ; J. Maitland Thomson, Esq., M.A., Advocate, Edinburgh, for countless notes on countless points; the Rev. Walter Macleod, M. A., Register House, Edinburgh, for successful in his researches great storehouse ; J. Logie- Robertson, Esq., M.A., for his collected newspaper-cuttings and articles, and other helpfulness; James Colville, Esq., for of xi. last Glasgow, luminous reading my chap. ; and 6 6 PREFACE but not least, Mr. Oliphant Smeaton, M.A., Edinburgh, for unfailing attention to numerous commissions. I can in integrity affirm that I have spared no pains to fulfil a lifelong cherished purpose of adequately writing the Life of Robert Fergusson, and I indulge the hope that at long last something like a worthy Life is now furnished. Exigencies of space compel me to suppress a full biblio- graphy of the Poems, critical Essays home and foreign, notes on Portraits, etc. etc., that I had prepared. I add that, whilst in no manner of way wishing to forestall criticism whether of matter or form, I must be permitted to ask remembrance of how meagre and inaccurate other Lives of Fergusson were prior to mine of 1851, and to specialise these things as for the first time given the paternal and maternal descent of the Poet traced; that visit to his uncle in the North, whose failure was a funda- mental factor in his career, fully told; new light on the home-life and his father's employments and his death-date ascertained, with new letters and papers; his schools and course at St. Andrews University, elucidated from fresh materials; the circumstances of his return to Edinburgh of for and abandonment studying the Kirk vindicated ; the advent of Scotland's second vernacular poet with a new ' note, stated and established ; the malevolent conscientious- ' ' ' ness of certain biographers on falsely alleged dissipation and misconduct, exposed and refuted, with revelations of of the relation of Burns to Edinburgh society period ; the Fergusson, and our claims for Fergusson as a Scottish poet enforced the final act of the presented and ; new light on his life the facts of the tragedy of young ; recovery of Burnett draft for ;ioo, and an invitation to India that ' late ' his arrived too ; the second marriage of widowed mother ; and not a few other data from authentic documents, e.g. birth-entry, burial-entry, etc. etc. I shall hope that one outcome of this new Life will be ' ' to unite brither Scots at home and far away to place a monument in Edinburgh to her young Poet, as Robert Louis Stevenson counselled, and as Andrew Lang thinks of doing himself in a memorial-window at St. Andrews. I do not mean to let this sleep. ALEXANDER B. GROSART. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE INTRODUCTION CLAIMS FOR A PLACE AMONGST 'FAMOUS SCOTS' 9 CHAPTER II ' An Ell of Genealogy' FERGUSSONS AND FORBESES . 17 CHAPTER III PARENTAGE BIRTH BIRTHPLACE CHILDHOOD ... 26 CHAPTER IV SCHOOLING AND SCHOOLS FAMILY LIGHTS AND SHADOWS VISIT TO THE NORTH 37 CHAPTER V UNIVERSITY^OF ST. ANDREWS 49 CHAPTER VI RETURN TO EDINBURGH SECOND VISIT TO UNCLE JOHN FORBES 65 CHAPTER VII HOME AGAIN DRUDGERY 77 CHAPTER VIII ADVENT AS A VERNACULAR POET A 'NEW NOTE' . 89 CHAPTER IX STATEMENT AND Apologia SOCIETY OF THE PERIOD CONVIVALIA 106 CHAPTER X * ' Beginning of the End* AND The End' . 121 CHAPTER XI THE RELATION OF BURNS TO FERGUSSON POETRY OF THE COUNTRY AS WELL AS CITY 137 Passing quaint ROBERT HENRYSON, ROBERT THE FIRST, was FERGUSSON ; ' ' Whose Farmer's Ingle still glows red, 'Mongst Doric classics numbered. Next Scotia wistfully turns To ROBERT SECOND ROBERT BURNS : ' ' His wreath of holly he still wears, l Nor Time, nor Change one green leaf seres : So shall they aye together stand, Greater and lesser, hand in hand ; Twin-singers of their native Land. Who shall our heart-homage reprove? Commingled pride, and ruth, and love. FERGUSSON'S Life, in youth I writ, And dar'd my little lamp to lit, That I might his dim'd name relume ; To fading wreath restore perfume ; Putting the Pharisees to shame For their self-righteous scorn and blame ; Who sought his memory to stain With moralising, cheap as vain, And golden words shew'd I was heard, For far and near Scots hearts were stirr'd : And now again I write of him In elder years, my eyes still dim With pity for his sad short life, with at strife Ever Poverty ; His drudgery for scanty wage, A skylark prison'd in a cage ; His friendlessness ; his sordid cares ; His tempters with their deft-plac'd snares ; His tragic end ; his mere boy's years : Key-cold the heart that sheds no tears. A. B. G. 1 Muse of Scotland to Burns ' And wear thou this she solemn said, And bound the holly round my head.' The Vision. ROBERT FERGUSSON CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION CLAIMS FOR A PLACE AMONGST ' FAMOUS SCOTS ' ' . While the lark sings sweet in air Still may the grateful pilgrim stop To bless the spot that holds thy dust.' THOMAS CAMPBELL of Burns. THAT ROBERT FERGUSSON stands transfigured for all time, in ' the gleam, The light that never was, on sea or land, The consecration, and the Poet's dream,' from the homage paid to him by ROBERT BURNS WILLIAM WORDSWORTH THOMAS CARLYLE and ROBERT Louis STEVENSON selecting four representative names out of many more, may surely be accepted as sanction of placing ' him amongst Famous Scots,' and of our task of love, the re-writing of his pathetic story. I know not, therefore, that I can better introduce ROBERT FERGUSSON to Englishmen and Americans and my fellow- countrymen who do not know him as they ought, than by letting the four immortals speak for him and me. I. ROBERT BURNS. The keynote of Burns's admiration and gratitude is struck in his autobiographical letter to Dr. Moore, as follows : ' Rhyme, except some religious pieces that are in print, I had given I anew up ; but meeting with Fergusson's Scottish Poems, strung my wildly-sounding lyre with emulating vigour.' io FAMOUS SCOTS We shall see, hereafter, how critically as well as ethically ' accurate and generous was the word emulating,' to express ' the outcome of this epoch-making meeting with Fergusson's Scottish Poems.' Before passing on, it may be here anticipatively noted that besides our own biographers and critics, not only Angellier and Demonceau, Traeger and Hincke, but a whole band of French and German translators and inter- preters of Burns recognise and accentuate the significance and potency of this 'meeting.' 'Inspirer' is their usual word. In Verse and Prose alike, Robert Burns was never weary of acknowledging his obligations to his young precursor, as these additional testimonies will witness. I give first of all his 'Verses written under the portrait of Fergusson, in a copy of that Author's Works, presented ' to a young lady in Edinburgh, March iQth, 1787 : ' Curse on ungrateful man, that can be pleas'd, And yet can starve the author of the pleasure ! O thou, my elder brother in misfortune, By far, my elder brother in the Muses, With tears I pity thy unhappy fate ! Why is the Bard unfitted for the world ' Yet has so keen a relish of its pleasures ? Further, everyone knows who knows anything of either, that a pilgrimage to the then unnoticed grave of Fergusson was among the earliest acts of Burns after his arrival in Edin- burgh, and how he knelt down and with uncovered head and passionate tears kissed the sod that covered the 'revered ashes.' His letter to the Magistrates reveals how genuine was his emotion.