Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/275

Rh After removing' thither, he had at least two other children, Robert, born 1750, and Margaret, 1753.

The subject of this memoir was born on the 17th of October, 1750, and was an exceedingly delicate child. Owing to the state of his health, he was not sent to school till his sixth year, though it is likely that his parents gave him a good deal of private instruction before that time. What renders this the more probable is, that he had not been six months under his first teacher, (a Mr Philp in Niddrys Wynd,) when he was judged fit to be transferred to the high school, and entered in the first Latin class. Here he went through the usual classical course of four years, under a teacher named Gilchrist. What degree of proficiency he might have attained under ordinary circumstances, it is impossible to determine; but it is to be related to his credit, that, though frequently absent for a considerable period, in consequence of bad health, he nevertheless kept fully abreast of his companions, a temporary application being sufficient to bring him up to any point which the class had attained in his absence. At the same time he acquired, in the leisure of confinement, a taste for general reading, and it is stated that the Bible was his favourite book. A remarkable instance of the vivid impressions of which he was susceptible, occurred at an early period. In perusing the proverbs of Solomon, one passage struck his infant mind with peculiar force ; and hastening to his mother's apartment in tears, he besought her to chastise him. Surprised at a request so extraordinary, she inquired the cause of it, when he exclaimed "O mother! he that spareth the rod, hateth the child!" So ingenuous by nature was the mind of this boy, and such the pure source whence his youth drew instructions, which, disregarded but not forgotten amid the gayeties of a long course of dissipation, at last re-asserted in a fearful manner their influence over him.

Fergusson finished his elementary education at the grammar school of Dunlee, which he attended for two years. His parents had resolved to educate him for the church; and with that view removed him in his thirteenth year to the university of St Andrews, which he entered with the advantage of a bursary, endowed by a Mr Fergusson, for the benefit of young men of the same name. Here his abilities recommended him to the notice of Dr Wilkie, author of the Epigoniad, then professor of natural philosophy, and it has even been said, that learned person made choice of him to read his lectures to his class, when sickness or other causes prevented his own performance of the duty. Dr Irving ridicules the idea of a youth of sixteen " mounting," as he expresses it, "the professorial rostrum;" and besides the inadequacy of years, Fergusson possessed none of that gravity of demeanour which was calculated to secure the respectful attention of his compeers. His classical attainments were respectable, but for the austerer branches of scholastic and scientific knowledge he always expressed, with the petulance of a youth of lively parts, who did not wish to be subjected to the labour of hard study, a decided contempt. Dr Wilkie's regards must therefore have been attracted by other qualifications than those of the graver and more solid cast namely, by the sprightly humour and uncommon powers of conversation, for which Fergusson was already in a remarkable degree distinguished. The story of his reading the lectures in public arose from his having been employed to transcribe them. Professor Vilant, in a letter to Mr Inverarity on this subject, says, "A youthful frolicsome exhibition of your uncle first directed Dr Wilkie's attention to him, and he afterwards employed