Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/282

310 gallon, and accordingly the gill at Lucky Middlemass's cost only threepence The whole debauch of the young men seldom came to more than sixpence or sevenpence. Mr S—— distinctly recollects that Fergusstm always seemed unwilling to spend any more. They generally met at eight o'clock, and rose to depart at ten; but Fergusson was sometimes prevailed upon to outsit his friends, by other persons who came in later, and, for the sake of his company, intreated him to join them in further potations. The humour of his conversation, which was in itself the highest treat, frequently turned upon the odd and obnoxious characters who then abounded in the town. In the case, however, of the latter, he never permitted his satire to become in the least rancorous. He generally contented himself with conceiving them in ludicrous or awkward situations, such, for instance, as their going home at night, and having their clothes bleached by an impure ablution from the garrets a very common occurrence at that time, and the mention of which was sufficient to awaken the sympathies of all present."

The personal appearance of the poet is thus described by the same informant "In stature Fergusson was about five feet nine, slender and handsome. His face never exhibited the least trace of red, but was perfectly and uniformly pale, or rather yellow. He had all the appearance of a person in delicate health; and Mr S—— remembers that, at last, he could not eat raw oysters, but was compelled by the weakness of his stomach, to ask for them pickled. His forehead was elevated, and his whole countenance open and pleasing. He wore his own fair brown hair, with a long massive curl along each side of the head, and terminating in a queue, dressed with a black silk riband. His dress was never very good, but often much faded, and the white thread stockings, which he generally wore in preference to the more common kind of grey worsted, he often permitted to become considerably soiled before changing them."

The following anecdote has been related for the purpose of showing the irksomeness of the poet under his usual vocations. In copying out the extract of a deed, one forenoon, he blundered it two. different times, and was at length obliged to abandon the task without completing it. On returning in the evening, he found that the extract had been much wanted, and he accordingly sat down with great reluctance to attempt it a third time. lie had not, however, half accomplished his task, when he cried out to his office companion, that a thought had just struck him, which he would instantly put into verse, and carry to Huddiman's Magazine, (on the eve of publication,) but that he would instantly return and complete the extract. He immediately scrawled out the following stanza on one Thomas Lancashire, who, after acting the gravedigger in Hamlet, and other such characters, on the Edinburgh stage, had set up a public house, in which he died:—

On his return towards the office, he called at the shop of his friend Sommers, paintseller and glazier, in the parliament close, where he found a boy reading a poem on creation. This circumstance furnished him with the point of another epigram, which he immediately scribbled down, and left for Mr Sommers's perusal. These proceedings occupied him about twenty minutes, and he then returned to Ins drudgery.

Uniform tradition, and every other testimony, ascribe to Fergusson an excellent voice, and a most captivating manner of singing the simple melodies of his