Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/276

304 him one summer and part of another in transcribing a fair copy of his academical lectures." On the doctor's death, in 1772, Fergusson showed his gratitude in a poem dedicated to his memory. In this composition, which assumed the form of a Scottish eclogue, Wilkie's success as an agricultural improver was not forgotten. He had cultivated, with a very remarkable degree of skill, a farm in the vicinity of St Andrews; and we must go back to the time when our fathers Mere contented to raise small patches of stunted corn here and there, on the unenclosed moor, in order to appreciate fully the enterprise which merited the youthful poet's compliment —

Among his fellow students, Fergusson was distinguished for vivacity and humour, and his poetical talents soon began to display themselves on subjects of local and occasional interest, in such a way as to attract the notice both of his companions and of their teachers. We are warranted in concluding, that the pieces to which he owed this celebrity were distinguished by passages of no ordinary merit, for professors are not a set of men upon whom it is easy to produce an impression. It is indeed said, that the youthful poet chose the ready instrument of sarcasm with which to move their calm collectedness; but if this were true, the satire must have been of a playful nature; for, from all that has appeared, these gentlemen manifested nothing but kindly feelings towards their pupil, and he a corresponding affection and respect for them. Besides the tribute which he paid to the memory of Wilkie, he wrote an elegy on the death of Mr Gregory, the professor of mathematics, in which, though the prevailing tone is that of respectful regret, we probably have an example of the length to which he ventured in his satirical effusions. Bewailing the loss that the scientific world had sustained by the decease of this learned person, and enumerating various instances of his sagacity, he says, with irrepressible waggery,

Another effusion, of which the occasion may be referred to the time of Fergusson's attendance at college, is his elegy on John Hogg, porter to the university; in this piece he alludes with some humour to the unwillingness with which he was wont to quit his comfortable bed in a morning after some frolic, when that functionary was sent to summon him before the college tribunal. The familiarity of the old door-keeper, together with the demi-professorial strain of his admonitions, is not unhappily pourtrayed in the stanza

If Fergusson thus remembered in a kindly manner the species of intercourse which his exploits had rendered necessary between him and the servants of the university, they seem on their part to have cherished a corresponding degree of