(Robert), who at an early period of life obtained a considerable degree of celebrity as a Scotch poet, was born at Edinburgh on the 5th of September 1750, according to a manuscript account of him with which we have been favoured by a relation. In the biographical sketch prefixed to the Perth edition of his poems he is said to have been born in 1751.

His father William Ferguson possessed, as well as himself, some talents for poetry; but, marrying early, and being wiser than his son, he abandoned the mules for for trade, and was employed in different mercantile houses, first in Aberdeen and afterwards in Edinburgh. At the time of his death he was an accountant in the British linen hall; but never acquired any thing like opulence.

During the years of infancy and childhood, the constitution of our poet was so weak, that little hopes were entertained of his arriving at manhood. By the care, however, and attention of his parents, he gradually acquired strength, and at the age of six was put to an English school, where his proficiency in reading and reciting was uncommonly great. At the age of seven he was sent to the high school of Edinburgh, where he continued four years, and with very little labour made a rapid progress in the knowledge of the Latin tongue; but for some reason or other he was removed from the high school to the grammar school of Dundee, whence, after two years, he was sent to the university of St Andrews. A gentleman of the name of Ferguson had left bursaries in that university for the education of two boys of the same name; and Mr William Ferguson having with difficulty obtained one of them for his son, was induced to educate him at St Andrews in preference to Edinburgh.

Though at no period of his life a severe student, our poet's attainments in science were such as to keep alive in the university the hopes which had been formed of him at school; and he was confessedly the first mathematician of his standing. On this account we are told that he became the favourite of Dr Wilkie, who was then professor of natural philosophy in the university of St Andrews; but it is not improbable that the Doctor valued him as much for his poetical genius as for his skill in geometry; for Wilkie was a poet himself, and Mr Ferguson had already written several small poems which attracted considerable notice, as well from the professors as from his fellow-students. But whatever was the bond of union, Dr Wilkie patronised the youthful poet; and the poet showed afterwards that he was not ungrateful. Upon the Doctor's death, he published, in the Scottish dialect, a beautiful eulogium to his memory, in which the peculiar merits of that eccentric genius are appreciated with great judgment. See Wilkie, in this Supplement.

During the last winter that he resided in St Andrews, our poet had collected materials for a tragedy on the death of Sir William Wallace, and had even completed two acts of the play; but having seen a similar work on the same subject, he abandoned his design; "because (said he to a friend) whatever I publish shall be original, and this tragedy might be considered as a copy."

Having finished his studies at the university, he returned to Edinburgh without resolving on any permanent employment. His father had designed him for the church; but he was now dead, and our author turned a deaf ear to the intrigues of his mother, and of every other friend who endeavoured to persuade him to fulfil his father's intention. He was then advised to study physic; but he declined it, because, he said, that when reading the description of diseases, he fancied that he felt the symptoms of them all in himself. To the law, however, he could not start the same objection; and he began to study it, but made no progress. At this his relation and the editor of his poems express no surprise; for, according to them, it was a study the Ferguson most imprimer for him, as it could not be expected that a genius so lively would submit to the drudgery of that dry and sedentary profession.

That the law was a very improper profession for a man of his narrow fortune is indeed true; but we trust that his two biographers will not consider us as intending any offence to them, if we embrace the present opportunity of exposing the folly of a very common remark, that a lively genius cannot submit to what is absurdly called a dry study. We might instance different lawyers at our own bar, who, with great poetical talents in their youth, have risen to the summit of their profession; but to avoid personal distinctions at home, we shall take our examples from England. The genius of the late Earl of Mansfield was at least as lively as that of Mr Ferguson, and if he had pleased he could have been equally a poet; yet he submitted to the drudgery of studying a law till drier than that of Scotland. To the fine taste of Atterbury bishop of Rochester, and to his classical compositions both in prose and verse, no man is a stranger who is at all conversant in English literature: yet that elegant scholar and poet, after he had risen to the dignity of Dean of Carlisle, submitted to the drudgery of studying, through the medium of barbarous Latin, the ecclesiastical law of England from the earliest ages; and declared, that by dint of perseverance he came in time to relish it as much as the study of Homer and Virgil. Whatever be thought of Milton's political principles, no man can read his controversial writings, and entertain a doubt but that he could have submitted to the drudgery of studying the law.

The truth is, and it is a truth of great importance, that a man of real vigour of mind may bring himself to delight in any kind of study which is useful and honourable. Such men were Lord Mansfield, the Bishop of Rochester, and Milton; but, whether through some radical defect in his nervous system, or in consequence of early dissipation, Mr Ferguson, with many estimable qualities, was so utterly destitute of this mental vigour, that rather than submit to what his friends call drudgery, he seems to have looked with a wishful eye to some finer place.

With this view he paid a visit to an uncle who lived near Aberdeen, a man of great learning and in opulent circumstances, in hopes that, by his interest, he might be settled in a post suitable to his merit: But how delusive were his hopes! His uncle indeed received him with every mark of affection; but his fondness gradually cooled, and at the end of six months, he ordered him abruptly to leave his house, without having endeavoured to procure for him any settlement.

To a mind like Ferguson's, feelingly alive, such treatment from so near a relation, to whom he had always behaved with becoming respect, must have been dreadfully galling. Stung with indignation, he returned to his mother's at Edinburgh; and as soon as he recovered from a severe illness, brought upon him by disappointment and the fatigue of his journey, he composed two elegies; one on "The Decay of Friendship," and the other "Against Repining at Fortune;" both occasioned by his adventure in the North. How much he felt the dashing of his hopes, is apparent from the following pathetic lines in the Decay of Friendship:

But, But, ah! these youthful sportive hours are fled, These scenes of jocund mirth are now no more; No healing flumbers 'tend my humble bed, No friends console the sorrows of the poor.

And what avail the thoughts of former joy? What comfort bring they in the adverse hour? Can they the canker-worm of care destroy, Or brighten fortune's discontented lour?

So destitute was he at this period, that he submitted to copy papers in the commissary clerk's office, we believe at so much the fleest; but not liking the employment, and quarrelling with the commissary clerk-depute, he soon left the office in disgust.

Hitherto he had lived rather in obscurity; and happy had it been for him, if in that obscurity he had been fitterd to remain: happy had it been for him, had his conversation been less fascinating, and his company less courted by the frolic and the gay. Possessing an inexhaustible fund of wit, the best good nature, much modesty, and great goodness of heart, he was viewed with affection by all to whom he was known; but his powers of song, and almost unrivalled talents for mimicry, led him oftener into the company of those who wished for him merely to enliven a social hour, than of such as by their virtue were inclined, and by their influence were able, to procure him a competent settlement for life. The consequence of this was great laxity of manners. His moral principles indeed were never corrupted; nor, as we have reason to believe, his faith in revelation shaken; but there is no doubt but that, courted as he was by the siren voice of pleasure, he yielded to many temptations, and in the hours of ebriety committed actions which, in his cooler moments, he reflected on with abhorrence.

His conscience was indeed frequently rousted. Being on a visit to a friend at Haddington, and fauntering one day near the church-yard, he was accosted by a clergyman, who seemed to be no stranger to the kind of life which he led. This judicious divine contrived to draw his attention to the shortness of time, the length of eternity, death and judgment, and the awful state that awaits the wicked in an unseen world; and the conversation made a deep impression on his mind. It seemed, however, to be effaced from his memory by the dissipation of Edinburgh, till it was recalled with double effect by the following accident:

In the room adjoining to that in which he slept was a starling, which being seized one night by a cat that had found its way down the chimney, awakened Mr Ferguson by the most alarming screams. Having learned the cause of the alarm, he began seriously to reflect how often he, an immortal and accountable being, had in the hour of intemperance felt death at defiance, though it was thus terrible in reality even to an unaccountable and sinless creature. This brought to his recollection the conversation of the clergyman, which, aided by the solemnity of midnight, wrought his mind up to a pitch of remorse that almost bordered on frantic despair. Sleep now forsook his eyelids; and he rose in the morning, not as he had formerly done, to mix again with the social and the gay, but to be a recluse from society, and to allow the remembrance of his past follies to prey upon his vitals. All his vivacity now forsook him; those lips which were formed to give delight, were clos- ed as by the hand of death; and "on his countenance fat horror plum'd."

From this state of gloomy despondency, however, he began gradually to recover; and, except that a settled melancholy was visible in his countenance, his health was completely restored, when one evening he fell and cut his head to dreadfully, that from the loss of blood he became delirious. In this deplorable state he continued for several months, till, being quite exhausted by want of sleep and constant speaking, he expired on the 16th of October 1774. He was interred in the Canongate church-yard, where his friends erected a monument to his memory, which has been since removed to make way for a larger and more elegant monument by his enthusiastic admirer the late poet Burns.

Thus died Robert Ferguson, a young man of the brightest genius and of the best heart, who, had he joined prudence to his uncommon talents, must have risen to great eminence in the republic of letters; but, as a late juvenile poet has observed of him—

Complete alike in head and heart, But wanting in the prudent part, He prov'd a poet's lot.

Of his poems no general character can be given. The subjects of them are sometimes uncommon and generally local or temporary. They are of course very unequal. But such of them as are in the Scottish dialect have been universally admired by his countrymen; and when it is considered that they were composed amidst a round of dissipation, they will be allowed to furnish complete evidence of his genius and his taste.