ROBERT FERGUSSON

Taranaki Daily News, 13 October 1934, Page 16 (Supplement)

ROBERT FERGUSSON

“SCOTTISH CHATTERTON” SIMILARITIES OF TWO POETS. AN INSPIRATION TO BURNS.

(To the Editor).

Sir,—The column in last Saturday's News on Thomas Chatterton recalls vividly the career of Robert Fergusson, ths Scottish poet, who has often been called the Scottish Chatterton. Their careers were markedly similar. The English poet was born in 1752 and lived 17$ years. His Scottish prototype was born two years earlier and lived till he was 24 years of age. Both possessed highlystrung temperaments. Both came of humble stock and both have suffered much from their biographers. While reading a comparatively old biographical note on Chatterton, I noticed the unsympathetic reference to his way of living ip London, which was characterised as perverse and unnatural. In Fergusson’s case it was said in early biographies that he wilfully persisted in riotous living to his own undoing and final death. But in later articles, as has been done in the monograph by L. W. R. on Chatterton, critics have tried to live again the life lived by Fergusson in all its aspects and to judge accordingly. In one important aspect the two poets differed. Until within a few months of his death Fergusson enjoyed human society in a way that was beyond and out with poor Chatterton. The.latter, poor fellow, was always of an outside pattern. But both were heralds of the new light in poetry. THRALDOM OF POPE. English poetry as L.W.R. says, held in the thraldom of the Pope school until Chatterton helped. to break the chains. Previous to Fergusson, with the exception of Allan Ramsay, it could not be said that Scottish poesy had flourished at all. To receive the rush-light from Ramsay and to hand it on a flaming torch to Robert Burns was the contribution of Fergusson. to Scottish literature. And Burns, realising his indebtedness to Fergusson, was pleased to address him as by far his “elder brother in the Muse.’’ Sensible of his obligations, one of the first duties which Burns performed when he went to Edinburgh was to seek out the forgotten and unattended grave of his predecessor in the Canongate Kirkyard and, bareheaded, he knelt and kissed the grimy turf over the grave. He did more. At his own expense he raised a small memorial stone over the grave, and this was the sole memorial in Scotland to Fergusson until a few'" years ago, when Mr. James Craigie, of Timaru, gifted to St. Giles Cathedral a memorial tablet. Burns’ opinion of the treatment meted out to Fergusson by the Edinburgh people was strongly expressed in the wellknown lines:— “My curse upon your whunstane heayts, Ye E’nburgh gentry. The tythe o’ what ye waste at cartes Wad stow’d his pantry.” Fergusson’s family hailed from Aberdeen. His father all his life was a clerk. Of the poet’s mother little is known, save that she was pious and eydent. The straightened circumstances in which the ] poet spent his tender years left their mark upon his physical body. He was never robust. 111-health interfered with his attendance at school and with his participation in the boisterous games common at the time, but natural capacity enabled him to keep pace with his school fellows in the lesson work. . SOUGHT A LIVELIHOOD. The death of his father in 1767 put,, an end to aspirations to a divinity course, and Fergusson took up his residence with his mother again at Edinburgh. What was he to do for a livelihood? His uncle, a rich farmer, had had Fergusson' on his farm for a half year, but by temperament the two were as far asunder as the poles, and the future poet could not stand the life. He obtained a clerkship in the Commissary Court in Edinburgh, and though the work was extremely monotonous and ill paid, it kept body and soul together. A theatre opened nearby his mother’s home, and in it Fergusson found outlet for some of his artistic sensibility. Apparently he first gave wings to his poetic fancies in three pastoral poems which were published in Buddiman’s weekly magazine in 1771. At the time Edinburgh suffered under the blight of a speak-English campaign. Professional men and women wfere flocking to lectures delivered by a Dr. Thomas Sheridan on the correct pronunciation of English. Rich, pregnant Doric was likely to be swept into the limbo by the mincing phrases of South Britain. If Lord Braxfield of the Court of Session had commented on the movement it surely would have been a sardonic smile and a reference to “they daamned eediots.” Fergusson lay under its spell for a year and then, thanks be, threw off its shackles and sent to Ruddiman a long poem on “The Daft Days”—those days around New Year when every Scotsman and Scotswoman forgets the habits of the rest of the year and engages in sundry frivolities. In quick succession followed Hallow Fair, upon which Burns fashioned his Holy Fair, Caller Oysters, an Elegy on the Death of Scot’s Music and others in like style. All were couched in robust, understandable language. All dealt with subjects of every day interest to the people. In them the people saw their foibles held up to gentle ridicule and sarcasm. Fergusson became famous. His company was sought on all sides. Burns received £3O for the first edition (The Kilmarnoch) of his' poems. Fergusson received £5O for his. He was invited to join the most select clubs. Being the possessor of a clear, harmonious voice, he was installed as “Sir Precentor” of the cape club, a very select body. “O’ER DRAUGHTS OF WINE.” A word as to what biographers have said about Fergusson’s convivial habits. First, Fergusson loved the companionship of his fellow beings, and his home offered no field for his talents as a musician, poet and conversationalist. Then the business and social life of the Edinburgh of that day rotated around the taverns. All contempo~ary authorities proclaim that fact. Sir Alexander Boswell said so in the well-kent lines:— “Next to a neighbouring tavern all retired And draughts of wine their various thoughts inspired. O’er draughts of wine the beau would moan his love, O’er draughts of wine the cit his bargain drove, O’er draughts of wine the writer penned the will, And legal wisdom counselled o’er a gill.” Robbie Burns confessed that the same life was too much for him. In the case of Fergussoi, with his low vitality, it was fatal. Born and brought up in an overcrowded area such as old Edinburgh was, loving the convivial gatherings such as I have described, repelled by his rustic uncle, it is a miracle that Fergusson revealed his genius in poems of the country and its deni.vns. In 1773 he gave to the world the poem “The Farmer’s Ingle,” upon which Burns drew for his “Cottar’s Saturday Night.” The sentiment behind both L the same; the verse structure very

similar. Burns addressed “The Mountain Daisy.” Fergusson sang an ode to the Gowdspink, to “Caller Water” and “To a Bee.” In the latter end of 1773 he enjoyed a jaunt in the country, but returned home dejected and miserable. He tried a change of work, but he could not break up the clouds of despondency which Over-hung him. He eschewed company. The killing of a pet starling by a cat one night jarred sensitiveness acutely. Then followed a fall down-stairs. He took to his bed and inactivity of body led to greater introspectional activity of the mind. Reluctantly, his mother .con- , veyed him to a mad house. Here, he had lucid intervals. The dark of the cloud may be seen in some lines that he penned while in confinement. “Can laverocks at the dawning day, Can linties chinning frae the spray, Or toddling bums that smoothly play O’er Gowden bed, Compare wi’ birks o’ Invermay? But now they’re dead.” The wavering flame of the life of the poet w6nt out on October 16, 1774. He had been promised his freedom by a medical man who had visited him a few days before his death. Alienism, however, has moved far since 1774. Dr. W. H, Rivers, who did much psychological work during the Great War, read the story of the last few days of the poet and declared at the end that poor Fergusson had died of over-work and mental strain. The treatment would have been radically different these days. Due recognition of worth in some cases comes late. In Fergusson’s case two and a half centuries passed before he came into his own. An o’ 1 biographer refers to him as one of Scotland’s minor poets. Fergusson’s star is one of the first magnitude among his compatriots.— I am, etc., L. A. TAYLOR. I Hawera, October 12, 1934.