or FERGUS, FRANCIS PAUL, a charming landscape-painter, was born at Vienna in 1689, and there learned the first principles of his art. He successively cessively practised under Hans Graf, Orient, and Thiele. This last, who was painter to the court of Saxony, invited him to Dresden to insert small figures in his landscapes. Ferg thence went into Lower Saxony, and painted for the duke of Brunswick and for the gallery of Salzdahl. From Germany he went to London, where he might have lived in the highest esteem and influence, if, by an indiscreet marriage, he had not been so effectually depressed, that he was ever after involved in difficulties. The necessities which arose from his domestic troubles compelled him to diminish the prices of his paintings in order to procure an immediate support; and as those necessities increased, his pictures were still more sunk in their price, though not in their intrinsic value. By a series of misfortunes he was overrun with debts, and to avoid the pursuit of his creditors, he was constrained to secrete himself in different parts of London. He died suddenly in the street one night as he was returning from some friends, about the year 1738, before he had attained his 50th year; and left four children. This pleasing artist, Mr Walpole observes, had formed a manner of his own from various Flemish painters, though resembling Poelemburg most in the enamelled softness and mellowness of his colouring; but his figures are greatly superior; every part of them is sufficiently finished, every action expressive. He painted small landscapes, fairs, and rural meetings, with the most agreeable truth; his horses and cattle are not inferior to Wouwermans; and his buildings and distances seem to owe their respective softness to the intervening air, not to the pencil. More faithful to nature than Denner, he knew how to omit exactness, when the result of the whole demands a less precision in parts. The greatest part of his works are in London and Germany; and the price they now bear is the best proof of their real merit. He also etched well with aquafortis; and his prints of that kind are generally esteemed by the curious.