Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/278

306 in prayer,——, a young man (then present) of whom, from the sudden effects of inebriety, there appears but small hope of recovery."

A proceeding so indecorous could not but be frowned upon by the professors; and another incident, which it was still less in their power to overlook, soon occurred. The circumstances attending the expulsion of the poet from the university have occasioned some controversy, and we therefore deem it best to give the account drawn up in 1801, by Dr Hill, and attested by professor Vilant, who was unable from sickness, to do more at that time, than affix his name to it. "Mr Nicholas Vilant," says this document, "professor of mathematics, the only person now in the university, who was then a member of it, declares, that in the year 1767, as he recollects, at the first institution of the prizes given by the earl of Kinnoul, late chancellor of this university, there was a meeting one night, after the determination of the prizes for that year, of the winners in one room of the united college, and a meeting of the losers in another room at a small distance ; that in consequence of some communication between the winners and the losers, a scuffle arose, which was reported to the masters of the college, and that Robert Fergusson and some others who had appeared the most active were expelled; but that the next (Lay, or the day thereafter, they were all received back into the college upon promises of good behaviour for the future.' Dr Wilkie's intercessions were exerted on this occasion in behalf of the poet; nor are we to suppose that the cordial co-operation of others was wanting, for Mr Inverarity assures us, that in Mr Vilant, Fergusson had found a friend and judicious director of his studies. On the whole, this transaction affords a proof, that Fergusson, whatever might be his indiscretions, had not, by refractory or disrespectful conduct, rendered himself obnoxious to the heads of the university, since, had that been the case, it is to be presumed, they would have availed themselves of this infraction of academical discipline to make good his expulsion. If, therefore, the first aspirations of his muse were employed in satirical effusions against his instructors, it must have been with an absence of all bitterness, and in a vein of pleasantry which was not meant to be, and did not prove offensive.

Of the progress made by Fergusson in his studies, we have no means of forming a very exact estimate. "He performed," says Dr Irving, "with a sufficient share of applause, the various exercises which the rules of his college prescribed." Yet, it is acknowledged that he found more pleasure in the active sports of youth, and in social enjoyment, than in habits of recluse study. His time, however, does not seem to have been spent without some plans of more serious application. A book which belonged to him, entitled, "A Defence of the church government, faith, worship, and spirit of the presbyterians," is preserved ; the blank leaves of this volume were devoted by him to the somewhat incongruous purpose of receiving scraps of speeches, evidently the germs of a play which he meditated writing. Another dramatic scheme of his, assumed a more decided shape; he finished two acts of a tragedy, founded on the achievements and fate of Sir William Wallace, but abandoned the undertaking, having seen another play on the same subject, and being afraid that his own might be considered a plagiarism. Probably both productions were of a common place description; and the poet, perceiving the flatness of that of which he was not the author, and conscious of the similarity of his own, relinquished an undertaking to which his abilities certainly were not equal. It has been observed, that the choice of the subject affords an evidence of Fergusson's judgment; inasmuch as the fate of the illustrious Scottish hero, together with his disinterested patriotism and bravery, supply a much more eligible theme for the tragical muse, than the deaths of Macbeth, Richard III., Pizarro, or any other tyrant of ancient or modern times, whose catastrophes, being nothing more than the vengeance due to their crimes, cannot