Robert Fergusson

When Robert Burns arrived in Edinburgh in 1786, he made a pilgrimage to the Canongate kirkyard to pay his respects to the young man, Robert Fergusson who had inspired his poetry, and whose grave had remained unmarked since his death at the age of 24 in October 1774. Robert Burns was to describe Ferguson as "my elder brother in misfortune, by far my elder brother in the muse".

Robert Fergusson (September 5, 1750 - October 16, 1774), the son of William Fergusson, was born in Cap and Feather Close, in Edinburgh's Old Town. He studied at St Andrews University, where he began writing poetry. Returning to Edinburgh in 1768 without a degree, he found a job as a clerk to support his widowed mother. In 1772, Fergusson began writing mainly in the Scots tongue, evoking vivid pictures of life in the Old Town.

"Now mirk December's dowie face

Glours our the rigs wi' sour grimace,

While, thro' his minimum of space,

The bleer-ey'd sun

Wi' blinkin light and stealing pace,

His race doth run."

from The Daft Days

Here, written in English, is his "Character of a Friend, in an Epitaph which he desired the Author to write."

"Under this turf, to mould'ring earth consign'd,

Lies he, who once was fickle as the wind.

Alike the scenes of good and ill he knew,

From the chaste temple to the lewdest stew.

Virtue and vice in him alternate reign'd;

That fill'd his mind, and this his pocket drain'd,

Till in the contest they so stubborn grew,

Death gave the parting blow, and both withdrew.."

from

At the end of 1773, acute depression led Fergusson to give up his job. He was admitted to the public asylum, where he died in October 1774. Burns paid for the headstone that now marks Fergusson's grave, and composed its inscription:

"No sculptur'd marble here, nor pompus lay,

No story'd urn nor animated bust;

This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way

To pour her sorrows o'er her poet's dust."

The back of the stone containsa tribute which reads, "By special grant of the managers to Robert Burns who erected this stone this burial place is to remain for ever sacred to the memory of Robert Fergusson."

Years later, after being damaged, the gravestone was repaired by Robert Louis Stevenson. In May 1894, Stevenson, who was then in Samoa, wrote to Charles Baxter in Edinburgh to ask "I wonder if an inscription like this would look arrogant - This stone originally erected by Robert Burns has been repaired at the charges of Robert Louis Stevenson, and is by him re-dedicated to the memory of Robert Fergusson, as the gift of one Edinburgh lad to another."

• The Robert Fergusson Society

• Beveridge AW (1990) Edinburgh's Poet Laureate: Robert Fergusson's illness reconsidered. History of Psychiatry 1:309-29("Edinburgh's Poet Laureate, Robert Fergusson died in the City Bedlam at the age of 24. Available information concerning his last months is examined and a possible explanation is offered for his early demise.")