going to sea like his elder brother Henry, who had been away for several years. Ultimately he returned to his desk, and resumed his former habits. He would still sing his Scottish songs, and indulge in an occasional frolic, but his strength gradually gave way. A chance interview with the Rev. John Brown of Haddington startled him into a sense of his spiritual position. He burned various unpublished manuscripts, and would study nothing but his bible. A fall down a staircase brought on an illness that ended in insanity. He had to be confined in the public asylum, where he died, a few hours after a pathetic interview with his mother and his sister, on 16 Oct. 1774. He was buried in the Canongate churchyard, and a plain gravestone with a poetical epitaph was placed at his head in 1789 by Burns, who did not scruple to own his indebtedness to Fergusson. When Fergusson reaches his highest level, as he does in his ‘Farmer's Ingle,’ ‘Leith Races,’ the poems on the session, ‘Caller Oysters,’ and ‘Braid Claith,’ his work presents the rare qualities of keen observation, subtle and suggestive humour, epigrammatic felicity, quick flashes of dramatic delineation, and quaintly pathetic touches of sentiment, all indicative of unusual genius.
The principal editions of Fergusson's poems are: ‘Poems,’ 1773; ‘Poems on Various Subjects,’ with a short life by T. Ruddiman, 1779; ‘Poems on Various Subjects,’ in two parts, Perth, 1789; ‘Works of Robert Fergusson,’ with life by D. Irving, and three engravings, Glasgow, 1800; ‘Works,’ with longer biography, by A. Peterkin, London, 1807; ‘Poems of Robert Fergusson,’ with a sketch of the author's life and cursory view of his writings, by J. Bannington, London, 1809; an edition in two volumes, printed at Alnwick in 1814, with engravings by Bewick; an edition printed in Edinburgh in 1821, with life by James Gray of the high school; one edited by Robert Chambers in 1840, with life and footnotes; and ‘The Works of Robert Fergusson,’ with life and essay on poetical genius, by A. B. G[rosart], 1851.
[The editions of the Poems, with prefixed biographies; Alex. Campbell's Introduction to the History of Poetry in Scotland; Irving's Lives of the Scottish Poets; Sommers's Life of Robert Fergusson; Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen; Chambers's Life and Works of Burns.]
FERGUSSON, ROBERT CUTLAR (1768–1838), judge advocate-general, eldest son of Alexander Fergusson of Craigdarrock, Dumfriesshire, was born in 1768. He was well educated, and received in 1793 the commendation of Mrs. Riddell of Glen Riddell (the friend of Burns) as seeming ‘everything that is elegant and accomplished.’ He had already published an able and moderately reasoned tract, ‘The Proposed Reform of the Counties of Scotland impartially Examined, with Observations on the Conduct of the Delegates,’ Edinburgh, 1792. This was in favour of a widening of the representation. Fergusson now studied English law, entered at Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar 4 July 1797 by that society. His intimate acquaintance with the reformers was shown in his employment as counsel to defend John Allen, a personal friend of his own, who, along with James O'Coigly, Arthur O'Connor, and others, was tried on a charge of high treason at Maidstone, 21 and 22 May 1798. The trial was remarkable from the fact that a great body of the leading whigs, Erskine, Charles James Fox, Sheridan, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord John Russell, and others, came forward as witnesses for O'Connor. The jury retired at fifty minutes after midnight, and returned at 1.25. They found O'Coigly guilty, and the others not guilty. Towards the end of the trial it became known that some Bow Street runners were in court with a warrant to re-arrest O'Connor on another charge of high treason in case of acquittal. Immediately after Mr. Justice Buller had sentenced O'Coigly, and before he had formally discharged the others, O'Connor stepped out of the dock and made for the door. A scene of great confusion followed. The officers pressed forward to seize their man. By accident or design they were impeded by the friends of the prisoners. Lights were overthrown, sticks were brandished, and something like a free fight ensued. O'Connor was, however, seized and brought back and quietness restored.
Fergusson, along with the Earl of Thanet and others, was tried for his alleged share in this riot and attempted rescue, at the bar of the king's bench, 25 April 1799. Though the evidence was by no means strong against him, he was found guilty, was fined 100l., ordered to be imprisoned for a year, and to find sureties for his good behaviour for seven years. He published the same year an account of the proceedings with observations of his own (‘The whole Proceedings upon an Information exhibited ex officio by the King's Attorney-General against the Right Hon. Sackville, Earl of Thanet, Robert Fergusson, Esquire, and others,’ &c.).
Fergusson soon after his release emigrated to Calcutta, where he practised as a barrister. He acted from 1813 to 1818 as standing counsel to the government and from 1818 to 1825 as king's advocate, and in twenty years acquired a large fortune. He then returned home in
