February 1765, intending to study for the church.
Fergusson at St. Andrews was brilliant and attractive, being generally popular with his fellow-students and professors. His distinction as a student would seem to have been scientific rather than literary. Dr. David Gregory [q. v.], professor of mathematics in the university, died in the course of Fergusson's first year, and it is more than probable that he wrote immediately afterwards (in a stanza favoured by Burns) the clever but irreverent ‘Elegy on the Death of Mr. David Gregory.’ He soon became known as a youthful poet of unusual promise. The elegy just mentioned, and perhaps one or two more, have alone survived, and the ‘dramatic fragments,’ given by some of the poet's biographers as specimens of his more ambitious attempts while a student, are of no importance. He owed not a little to the influence of Wilkie of the ‘Epigoniad,’ the eccentric professor of natural philosophy, who fully recognised his merits. Fergusson's high spirits and impulsive temper got him into occasional difficulties with the authorities, but he left St. Andrews respected by all who had known him best. Having finished the four years' curriculum he returned to his widowed mother in 1768, resolved not to study for the church.
In 1769 Fergusson paid a visit to his uncle, John Forbes, at Round Lichnot, Aberdeenshire. While there Lord Finlater one day dined with Forbes, who was naturally anxious to introduce his nephew to his patron. Fergusson presented himself in so untidy a dress that the uncle rebuked and refused to present him. Fergusson left the house at once, and made his way to Edinburgh in spite of entreaties to return. There seems to be no foundation for the stories told by biographers, which represent the uncle as brutal, and Fergusson as retorting by a severe epistle addressed from the nearest public-house. Nor does it seem possible to connect with the episode the two poems, ‘Decay of Friendship’ and ‘Against Repining at Fortune,’ which did not appear till about three years later. While at Round Lichnot Fergusson was in the habit of assembling the servants on Sundays, and preaching to them ‘from the mouth of the peat-stack’ with such impressive fervour as to leave them ‘bathed in tears.’
Fergusson declined to study medicine. His sensitive nature shrank from the proposal, and he said that he seemed to have in his own person symptoms of every disease to which he gave special attention. He presently found a situation as extracting clerk in the commissary clerk's office, which he held to the end of his life, with the exception of a few months in the sheriff clerk's office, from which he was glad to retreat owing to his pain in connection with the enforcing of executions. Fergusson probably despised the drudgery of law. In any case he found that he could write poetry, and became well known in Edinburgh society. Apparently he was a satisfactory copying-clerk, but it was a genuine relief to him when, as early as 1769, he ‘formed an acquaintance with several players and musicians.’ Among these were Woods the actor, and the famous singer Tenducci, for whom he wrote three songs to be sung in the opera ‘Artaxerxes.’ These songs, set to three familiar Scottish airs, while not specially striking either in sentiment or structure, are important as early illustrations of Fergusson's efforts in verse. They occupy the first place among his ‘English Poems’ in the works as published by Fullarton & Co., the most satisfactory edition.
In 1771 Fergusson became a regular contributor to Ruddiman's ‘Weekly Magazine, or Edinburgh Amusement.’ He began with ‘Pastorals,’ according to the orthodox method of the eighteenth century. Presently, however, by the contribution of several Scottish poems, he was hailed as the direct successor to Allan Ramsay. From all parts of the country his fame began to be sounded, and before the end of 1772 he was the intimate friend of many of the most important and the most gifted men of Scotland. He was invited by country gentlemen to spend holidays at their residences. He seems to have been a witty and entertaining companion. By the end of 1772 he began to suffer from want of sufficient self-restraint. In October of that year he joined the ‘Cape Club,’ which included David Herd, the editor of ‘Scots Songs and Ballads,’ Runciman the printer, and other prominent Edinburgh citizens. The club was a somewhat exclusive and well-conducted debating society. But unfortunately he frequented other haunts at times, and his only defence was the pathetic exclamation, ‘Oh, sir, anything to forget my poor mother and these aching fingers!’
In 1773 Fergusson collected his contributions to the magazine, and published through the Ruddimans a 12mo volume under the general title ‘Poems by R. Fergusson.’ He made some money by the publication, and he speedily produced other pieces that added to his fame, including the ‘Address to the Tron Kirk Bell,’ ‘Caller Water,’ the ‘Rising’ and the ‘Sitting of the Session,’ the ‘Odes to the Bee and Gowdspink,’ and the ‘Farmer's Ingle,’ the prototype of the ‘Cottar's Saturday Night.’ The poet, meanwhile, became hopeless over his prospects, and thought of
