in which it is to be wished that the poet had uniformly imitated him. Through the influence of Mr Woods, and in consideration, perhaps, of occasional poetical services, he enjoyed a free admission to the theatre, of which he took not unfrequent advantage. To quote a memorandum which has been supplied to us on this subject "He always sat in the central box, denominated the Shakspeare box; and his mode of expressing approbation in comic performances was very
singular. Instead of clapping his hands, or using any exclamations, he used to show how much he was delighted by raising his right hand clenched above his head, and bringing it down emphatically on the front of the box, with a sweeping blow."
His brother, Henry, who was eight years older than himself, had before this period been obliged by 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. Some letters are extant, which the young sailor addressed to his mother and brother, and they certainly display powers of mind and habits of reflection, which, if discovered on ship-board, must have astonished his superiors. Apparently quite tired of the hopeless drudgery of his office, and perhaps impelled by more pressing considerations, Robert Fergusson at one time contemplated the course of life now pursued by his brother, the wild dangers of which might have some charm to a poet's breast. He thus humorously alludes to his design in an epigram:
Fortune and Bob, e'er since his birth,
Could never yet agree;
She fairly kicked him from the earth,
To try his fate at sea.
He was not destined, however, to execute this resolution.
In 1773, Fergusson 's poems were collected from the Weekly Magazine into one volume; but it does not appear that the poet reaped any pecuniary benefit from the publication. It is probable, indeed, that this admired son of genius never realised a single shilling by his writings.
For a brief number of years, Fergusson led the aimless life which we have endeavoured to describe, obtaining the means of a scanty subsistence by a servile and unworthy drudgery, and cheering his leisure moments with mingled intellectual exertion and convivial dissipation. To many persons he was recommended by his fascinating conversation, his modesty, and his gentle and affectionate character. Of these, however, with but one exception, there were none who either felt called upon or had it in their power, to advance his worldly fortunes. That exception was a Mr Burnet, who, becoming much attached to the poet at Edinburgh, was afterwards enabled to send him a draught for a hundred pounds from India, with an invitation to come thither, in order to experience still more solid and lasting proofs of his friendship. Even of this single ray of kindness from his fellow men, the poor poet was destined to reap no advantage, being dead before the money and the invitation arrived. The unhappy youth continued, so long as his mind was sensible of any thing, to feel that, with powers which elevated him above most of his fellows, and were likely to make him be remembered when all of them were forgotten, he yet ate every day a bitterer and a scantier meal, and moiled on and on in hopeless poverty, at once the instrument and the victim of their pleasures.
Early in the year 1774, when his frame was peculiarly exposed by the effects of a certain medicine to cold, he was induced to accompany some gentlemen, who were interested in an election business, to one of the eastern counties of Scotland. It is no uncommon thing for cold, contracted under such circum-
