recall to me his "authority." That it was not communicated by any member of the family is apparent, from its not having been even alluded to by Alexander Campbell, who obtained his materials principally from Mrs. Inverarity, and who published his full life of Fergusson in 1798, only a year before Dr. Irving's; nor is there the most distant allusion to it in any of the three MS. Lives of Fergusson by Mr. Ruddiman. This want of authority' was to me a 'stumbling-block' on the very threshold ; nor did I, nor can I relieve Dr. Irving of the suspicion of exaggeration, if not of calumny. The circumstances are these; and I am indebted to John Forbes, Esq., writer, Old Meldrum, grandson of the poet's uncle, for the substance matter of my account. The various 'particulars,' together with the anecdote which succeeds, were taken down from the lips of his father, who was a courter of the nine" himself, and who cherished a vivid and affectionate remembrance of his cousin.1 The present Mr. Forbes' father derived his account from his father, who was the uncle of Fergusson.

66

Mr. Fergusson, senior, had, through the interest of Lord Finlater, then Chancellor of Scotland, and a patron of his, procured for Robert his bursary at Dundee and St. Andrews. After passing through the curriculum of four years, the poet was invited to his uncle's residence at Round Lichnot, and accordingly he went thither early in 1769.

The Earl [Finlater] having occasion to travel north to Mr. Forbes' residence, wrote to him that he intended to pass his house on a given day, and that he should dine with him.

Mr. Forbes, in consequence, invited Keith Urquhart,

1 Sec Appendix H.

2 Fergusson's uncle had been factor to Lord Finlater before his Lordship recommended him to Keith Urquhart, Esq.,

Esq., of Meldrum, his nearest employer, to meet his Lordship; and on the day appointed, he instructed Fergusson to dress himself, and to be in waiting to come into the dining-room, along with his own sons, one of whom was the father of the present Mr. Forbes, and my narrator, when he should send for them after dinner, as he was very desirous to introduce his nephew to his guests, who might, from their high station and influence, materially forward his future prospects. Fergusson timeously appeared in his "best suit;" but finding the intervening hours hang heavily on his hands, he proceeded to the Wood of Lichnot at about a quarter of a mile's distance, and there consumed the time in climbing trees and swinging on the branches. He returned in the nick of time to answer the summons to the dining-room, but without having had leisure either to brush the 'green' and soil from his clothes, or to get some unseemly 'rents' repaired. Seeing him appear in such a sorry plight, Mr. Forbes was greatly irritated, and from his disreputable appearance, to a certain extent lost his 'temper,' and sharply ordered Fergusson out of the room. On the party rising from table some hours afterwards, it was found that the poet had disappeared. On inquiry being made, a servant remembered seeing him, 'with a bundle under his arm,' on the road which led to Aberdeen. His uncle at once surmising, from his peculiarly sensitive nature, that he had "left," despatched a messenger on horseback after him, to 'entreat his return;' or, at all events, his acceptance of the means to carry him comfortably to Edinburgh, which he sent with the servant. The messenger overtook him, a dozen of miles or so, on his journey; but he peremptorily declined coming back; nor would he accept the proffered supplies. Such is the source of the painfully exaggerated and authorityless statement of Dr. Irving; on the one hand,

a sharp word, spoken in a moment of not unjustifiable irritation; on the other, a delicately sensitive, proud, inexperienced mind, fretting under that word, as under a spark of fire. For what remains of error, if not worse, Dr. Irving's own narrative furnishes an autochthanal refutation. A letter is stated to have been written by the poet to his uncle, from a "small inn in the immediate vicinity" of the house. No such inn ever existed, "solitary," or otherwise, within miles of Round Lichnot, and no letter ever was received by Mr. Forbes.

The poems on the 'Decay of Friendship,' and ' Against repining at Fortune,' are stated to have been composed "when he began to recover strength, as a consolation for his grief." This assertion fully sustains Dr. Irving's own charge against himself, of “precipitance and ignorance. The applicability of the titles is the only authority for the statement. Fergusson's visit to Aberdeenshire was made in 1769, when he was entering on his nineteenth year; but, as Dr. Irving ought to have known, the 'Decay of Friendship' did not appear until September 1772; and the lines' Against repining at Fortune,' not until 24th September of the same year.

Besides, in neither of these poems is there anything which can be referred to the conduct of his uncle, which would, doubtless, have been the case, had they been composed in the first warmth of his resentment. I refer my readers to those two poems,3 and may inform them, that instead of being housed "in grand halls, with all the glories of the pencil hung," Mr. Forbes was, at the period of the poet's visit, during the erection, which was then in progress, of his future permanent residence of Forresterhill, temporarily located in a farm-house of one storey [flat] and surrounded with no appliances which

1 Ante, p. lxvii.

2 Ante, p. lvi.

3 See pp. 184 and 210.

could have suggested, even to a poetic fancy, the imaginary pictures of wealth and luxury depicted in the lines on the 'Decay of Friendship.' But perhaps the most satisfactory evidence yet remains to be told. As a proof that the mother of the poet entertained no ill feeling against her brother for the [apocryphal] ungenerous treatment of her son, it may be mentioned, that after his death, she was accustomed to visit the north, when she invariably resided with her brother at Forresterhill.1

Moreover, it is proper to bear in mind, the friendly correspondence' between Mr. Forbes and the father of our poet, which is exhibited in the preceding portion of the present memoir.

Mr. Forbes of Oldmeldrum has supplied me with an anecdote of Fergusson, while at Round Lichnot, on the authority of his grandfather. He was accustomed to assemble the servants who had been detained from public worship on the Sabbaths; and taking his stand at the mouth of the peat-stack, he would address them for more than an hour at a time, in language so eloquent and fervid, that Mr. Forbes distinctly remembered to have often seen them bathed in tears.

1 Communicated by Mr. Forbes, Writer, Oldmeldrum.

CHAPTER V.

1769-1773.

Enters Commissary-clerk's Office-Abercromby-Note-book-Extracts-The Law-Remark-Refutation-Woods-TenducciSongs in Artaxerxes-Contributes to the Weekly Magazine or Edinburgh Amusement'-English-Scottish-Immediate Applause -Mayne-J. S.-Guion-Campbell-Character-Friendships

Dunbar-Lorimer-Sawers-Convivalia-Cape Club-AnecdoteVolume 1773-Subscription-Particulars.

FERGUSSON, having thus abruptly foreclosed his expectations from Mr. Forbes, found himself once more in the capital with his 'widowed' mother, the poorest of the poor. He was now advancing to manhood, and it became sternly and imperatively necessary that he should apply himself to some profession by which he might earn an immediate subsistence. He was recommended to Mr. Charles Abercromby, then Commissary-clerk, who took him into his office as an extracting clerk, for which his dexterity and skill in penmanship sufficiently qualified him. This situation was miserably inferior to his talents and acquirements, but his straitened circumstances his utter want-compelled him to accept it. With the exception of a few months devoted to similar duties at the Sheriff-clerk's office, where he only remained two or three months, from the painful nature of the Sheriff's duties as an enforcer of executions, he spent in this lowly, machine-like employment, the remainder of his too, too brief and ill-fated life.

His first service was to write out the register of the Commissary-clerk, for which he received only a trifle per page.1 Mr. Abercromby, too, occasionally employed him

1 Sommers.