Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/258

286 create mirth, and not by any means to show his own superiority, or to give the smallest offence. In his natural temper, he was cheerful, and frequently used to amuse his messmates by composing acrostics on their favourites, in which he particularly excelled. As a professional man, he was a thorough seaman; and, like most of that profession, was kind, generous, and benevolent."

FERGUSON,, was the son of the Rev. Adam Ferguson, parish minister of Logie Rait, in Perthshire, descended of the respectable family of Dunfallandy; his mother was from the county of Aberdeen. He was born in the year 1721, in the manse of his father's parish, and was the youngest of a numerous family. He received the rudiments of his education at the parish school; but his father, who had devoted much of his time to the tuition of his son, became so fully convinced of the superior abilities of the boy, that he determined to spare no expense, but to afford him every advantage in the completion of his education. He was accordingly sent to Perth and placed under the care of Mr Martin, Avho enjoyed great celebrity as a teacher. At this seminary Ferguson greatly distinguished himself, as well in the classical branches of education, as in the composition of essays; an exercise which his master was in the habit of prescribing to his pupils. His theses were not only praised at the time of their being delivered, but were long preserved and shown with pride by Mr Martin, as the production of a youthful scholar. In October, 1539, Ferguson was, at the age of fifteen, removed to the university of St Andrews, where he was particularly recommended to the notice of Mr Tullidelph, who had been lately promoted to the office of Principal of one of the colleges. At St Andrews, there is an annual exhibition for four bursaries, when the successful competitors, in writing and translating Latin, obtain gratuitous board at the college table, during four years. Ferguson stood first among the competitors of the under-graduate course for the year he entered the college. At that period the Greek language was seldom taught in the grammar schools in Scotland ; and although young Ferguson had thus honourably distinguished himself by his knowledge of Latin, he seems to have been unacquainted with Greek. By his assiduity, hon-ever, he amply regained his lost time; for so ardently did he apply himself to the study of that language, that, before the close of the session, he was able to construe Homer; nor did his ardour cease with his attendance at college, for during the vacation, he tasked himself to prepare one hundred lines of the Iliad every day, and facility increasing as he advanced in knowledge, he was enabled to enlarge his task, so that by the commencement of the succeeding session, or term, he had gone through the whole poem. This laborious course of study enabled him to devote the succeeding years of his attendance at college to the attainment of a knowledge of mathematics, logic, metaphysics, and ethics.

From St Andrews, on the close of his elementary studies, Mr Ferguson removed to Edinburgh to mix with, and form a distinguished member of that galaxy of great men which illustrated the northern metropolis about the middle of the 1 8th century. Nor was it long before his acquaintance among those who were thus to shed a lustre over Scotland commenced, for soon after his arrival in Edinburgh, he became a member of a philosophical society, which comprehended Dr Robertson, Ur Blair, Mr John Home, the author of "Douglas," and Mr Alexander Carlyle. A society composed of young men of abilities so eminent, it may easily be believed, was an institution peculiarly well adapted to promote intellectual improvement and the acquisition of knowledge. This society afterwards merged in the Speculative Society, which still exists, and has been the favourite resort of most of the young men of talent who have been educated in Edinburgh during the last sixty years.

"In his private studies," (we are informed by one of his most intimate friends,)