received, with marks of extreme contrition, the absolution which the poet administered to him in consideration of his repentance. Several other such frolics are recorded. His connection with the Cape Club has been mentioned. Edinburgh in those days had numerous clubs, some of them regulated under curious orders. There was "The Crochallan Fencibles "--a club of free-andeasy wits to which Burns was introduced in 1787, by his friend William Smellie, the founder. Then there was a Spendthrift Club," the members of which were not allowed to spend less than fourpence-halfpenny a night; a "Boar Club," the joke of which consisted in the members choosing for themselves, their localities and intercourse, expressions referring to the habits of pigs and boars; a "Dirty Club," where no member was allowed to appear with clean linen; and so on. In the "Cape Club"-claiming apparently the literary and artistic-nearly all the members bore the mocktitle of knight. FERGUSSON, after for some time previously being a frequent and welcome visitor, became a member of the Cape on the 10th of October, in the year 1772, with the club-name of "Sir Precentor," in reference, doubtless, to his pronounced qualifications as a vocal entertainer; and, in his application for membership, it is worth noting, he was recommended by David Herd ("Sir Scrape-Graystiel "), the famous song-collector and editor, his intimate and, as we discover, admiring friend. In the introduction to his recently issued and interesting work, Songs from David Herd's Manuscripts (Edinburgh: William J. Hay), Dr. Hans Hecht, who supplies particular information on the point, reproduces in fac-simile the "Cape Petition " of the poet, which on the reverse side, along with the address, bears a slight but whimsical and interesting character sketch of "Sir Precentor" in the attitude of song, jotted in a casual moment, presumably, by his fellow-knight, "Sir Brimstone" (Alexander Runciman, the painter). Lithographed copies of this sketch, together with FERGUSSON'S signature, were, as reproduced here, put in circulation many years ago. Ser Precentor Avergusson Dr. Hecht deserves thanks none the less for the facsimile of the Petition, obverse and reverse, which shows the drawing in its original place, as well as for the Cape song by FERGUSSON (see page 212), rescued from the papers left by David Laing, and never before seen in print. The moral of the song, as Dr. Hecht mildly hints, does not commend itself to modern taste, but stomachs were stronger a hundred and fifty years ago. A welcome figure in every social gathering, and appearing in many, and taking his glass freely-sometimes too freely-FERGUSSON was yet not neglecting his poet-craft. Every succeeding number of Ruddiman's Magazine had its poem from his pen. And he was standing stoutly to his office drudgery, and standing no less stoutly by his widowed mother, between whom and his sisters and he the most tenderly affectionate relationship was constantly maintained. Coffee-houses and club-rooms rang with the talk of his successive poems, and Walter Ruddiman seems to have fairly rewarded him for his contributions to the Magazine. If he did not receive large he received regular payment, with the addition of two suits of clothes-one every-day and one Sabbath suit-each year. Mr. Ruddiman himself further testifies that the profit, to the author, upon a little volume of his collected poems, published by subscription in 1773, was about £50. Dr. Chambers and others following his lead, were thus wrong in saying that probably FERGUSSON "never realised a single shilling by his writings.' Equally wrong, and cruelly slanderous, was Dr. Irving, by leaving the impression, as he did, that the £50 proved a curse rather than a blessing, in that the drouthy" and "dissipated" poet spent it in "riotous living." When, many years after, Dr. Grosart read the passage to Miss Ruddiman (the publisher's daughter) her eyes, he says, filled with tears-she was then nearly ninety-and rising to her feet, she said with emphasis, “No, sir, it is most untrue. I see Mr. Robert before me at this moment at the close of 1773, and I remember clearly the dear boy's delight as he tinkled the guineas and said, 'My poor good mother shall have her full share.' And so it was (Grosart adds), as Mrs. Fergusson with a full heart after her son's death, told them all." What FERGUSSON most of all required about this time we might say deserved-on behalf of his muse and himself was relief from "the daily drudgery of the desk's dead wood," by the influence or assistance of a wealthy patron. Success in letters, generally speaking, was a vain effort in those days without such. But his cry, "Oh, sir, anything to forget my mother and these aching fingers!" fell on deaf ears. There is evidence that, unaided, he contemplated escape from the "aching fingers." His brother Henry, who was eight years older than himself, had before this period been obliged, on account of some youthful indiscretions, to go to sea. Henry was a youth of considerable acquirements and ingenuity, and, in particular, had an extraordinary taste for fencing, which, indeed, he taught for a time. Some letters are extant from the young sailor to his mother and brother, and they certainly display powers of mind and habits of reflection which (as Chambers remarks), if discovered on shipboard, must have astonished his superiors. Whether it was the perusal of the letters that suggested the sea to the poet, we may not know, but that he contem |