or FERGUS, FRANCIS PAUL, a landscape painter, was born at Vienna in 1689, and there learned the first principles of his art. He successively practised under Hans Graf, Orient, and Thiele. The last of these, who was painter to the court of Saxony, having invited him to Dresden to insert small figures in his landscapes, Ferg repaired to that city, whence he proceeded into Lower Saxony, and painted for the Duke of Brunswick and for the gallery of Salzdahl. From Germany he passed over to London, where he might have lived in esteem and affluence, if, by an indiscreet marriage, he had not been so effectually depressed, not to say degraded, that he was ever afterwards involved in difficulties. The necessities which arose out of his domestic troubles compelled him to diminish the prices of his paintings in order to procure immediate subsistence; and as these necessities increased, his pictures sunk still more in price, though not in intrinsic value. By a series of misfortunes, however, he became overwhelmed in debt, and, to avoid the pursuit of his creditors, 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 1788, before he had attained his fiftieth year, and left four children wholly destitute. This pleasing artist, Mr Walpole observes, had formed a manner of his own from various Flemish painters, though resembling Poelenburg most in the enamelled softness and mellowness of his colouring; but his figures are greatly superior, every part of them being sufficiently finished, and every action expressive. He painted small landscapes, fairs, and rural meetings, with much natural truth; his horses and cattle are not inferior to those of Wouvermans; 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 Ferguson, to omit exactness, when the result of the whole demanded less precision in parts. The greater number 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 description are generally esteemed by the curious.