How poet Robert Fergusson found his true voice in Scots

The 250th anniversary of his death on October 17, 1774, was marked on Thursday and will continue to be commemorated with events and the promised publication of a new edition of his collected works due after the current research project being led by the University of Glasgow.

Last week, I gave information about his early life and education which ended after the death of his father and today I am going to examine his career as a poet.

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Fergusson’s working life as a poet was brief but very productive. As I recounted last week, he left St Andrews University the year after his father died when his bursary expired and after a long walk home to Edinburgh, he collapsed into bed, his always frail health weakened by his journey.

His life could have been very different if his farmer uncle that he had visited in Aberdeenshire had welcomed him into his home and given him a job, but they did not get on, so back to Edinburgh came Fergusson to the family home at Warriston’s Close off the High Street.

It was in his sick bed that he took up his quill and started to compose poems. He was much influenced by Allan Ramsay (1686-1758) the poet and playwright who had used the Scots language in much of his work, and soon Fergusson was composing works in both Scots and what would have been called in those days “King’s English”.

One of his first poems was sourced back to his time at university and was a satirical elegy mostly in Scots called Elegy On The Death Of Mr David Gregory, Late Professor At St Andrews. Here’s a verse: “He could, by Euclid, prove lang syne A ganging point compos’d a line; By numbers too he could divine, Whan he did read, That three times three just made up nine; But now he’s deid.”

Though he had not graduated from St Andrews, Fergusson had nevertheless been well-educated, including the study of rhetoric which left him with a fine speaking voice. He was also a pleasant singer, and despite early indications of the future mental troubles he would suffer, Fergusson was soon accepted into the social life of Edinburgh.

With his elder sister Barbara now married, and with his elder brother Harry enlisted in the Royal Navy, it fell to Fergusson at the age of 18 to become the “man” of the house, responsible for providing for his mother. He quickly found work as a copyist, a type of clerk, in the Commissary Office, a type of court that dealt with everything from marriage law to defamation but mostly dealt with cases of debt.

There he came under the supervision of one Charles Abercromby who seems to have been an understanding boss as he introduced Fergusson to lawyers and officials who welcomed the teenager into their milieu – some would say they led him astray. He also moved in theatrical circles and formed a deep friendship with William Woods, then the most noted actor in Edinburgh.

Entering his 20s, Fergusson became a fixture in the taverns of the Old Town and while he may have drunk to excess on occasion, at first he simply could not afford the drinking he was rumoured to do. That great chronicler of Edinburgh life, Robert Chambers, defended Fergusson’s reputation 50 years later.

He wrote: “The convivialities of Fergusson have been generally described as bordering on excess, and as characterising himself in particular amidst a population generally sober.

“The truth is that the poor poet indulged in exactly the same way and in general to the same extent as other young men of that day.

The want of public amusements, the less general taste for reading and the limited accommodation of private houses in those days led partly to a practice which prevailed among all orders of people in Edinburgh, frequenting taverns in the evening for the sake of relaxation and the exercise of the intellect.”

Fergusson was soon reciting his poems and extemporising at the various taverns but especially at the meetings of the Cape Club, one of those many groups of friends and acquaintances who met for intellectual and liquid sustenance in Edinburgh.

Fergusson was invited to join and as a noted singer, his club name was inscribed as “Sir Precentor” in 1772.

His friends at the Cape Club included the song collector David Herd and the painter Alexander Runciman, “Sir Brimstone”, to whom we owe the various sketches of Fergusson that show him as a handsome young man with pale features and neat dark hair rather than a wig.

By then Fergusson was a published poet. Perhaps encouraged by his fellow tavern-goers, Fergusson contributed poems to the publisher Walter Ruddiman’s weekly magazine, known as Edinburgh Amusements, and soon he was in effect the house poet for the publication.

That weekly outlet for his talent brought him additional income, and that encouraged Fergusson to write even more. His output was prodigious from 1771 to 1773, and his use of Scots soon saw him hailed as the successor to Ramsay.

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Poems such as Leith Races and Hallow Fair demonstrated his flair for description of ordinary lives in Scots, and he began to write more and more in that language. From my research, I think his reputation went into orbit with the publication in 1772 of Daft Days. Here’s the opening two verses: “Now mirk December’s dowie face Glowrs owr the rigs wi sour grimace, While, thro’ his minimum of space, The bleer-ey’d sun, Wi blinkin light and stealing pace, His race doth run.

“From naked groves nae birdie sings, To shepherd’s pipe nae hillock rings, The breeze nae od’rous flavour brings From Borean cave, And dwyning nature droops her wings, Wi visage grave.”

The best, and worst, of him was still to come. Next week I will give the sad details of Fergusson’s tragic decline and death, and examine the legacy of his work, especially the influence he had on Robert Burns.