Fergusson, Robert

(1750-1774)

   Born and died in Edinburgh, he was one of the leading figures of the 18th-century revival of Scots vernacular writing and the chief forerunner of Robert Burns. Although entered at St. Andrews University, his father's death forced him leave without graduating, and he worked as a clerk for the rest of his short life. Toward the end he suffered from fits of depression and religious guilt. After falling down stairs and sustaining a severe head injury, then developing manic depression, he was confined in the public asylum, where he died. A plain gravestone with a poetical epitaph by Robert Burns was placed at his head in 1789. He wrote three songs, set to familiar Scottish airs, for the singer Tenducci, to be sung in the opera Artaxerxes. Some of his poems: "A Saturday's Expedition," "Against Repining at Fortune," "Auld Reikie, a Poem [Edinburgh]," "Decay of Friendship," "Drinking Song," "Elegy on John Hogg," "Epitaph on General Wolfe," "Leith Races," "The Amputation, a Burlesque Elegy," "The Complaint," "The Rivers of Scotland, an Ode," "To My Auld Breeks."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Poetical Works of Robert Fergusson. Chapman and Lang, 1800.