STEVENSON AND FERGUSSON.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1198, 5 August 1911, Page 9

STEVENSON AND FERGUSSON.

■Those who are reading Stevenson a letters in tho fine edition of Sir Sidney Colvin will bo struck among other things with his devotion, to the, memory of Fergusson. Fergusson, it will bo remembered, was a specimen of that typo of poet, not unknown in Scotland, for whom—although bo had his tincture of St. Andrews learning—"Liber, Bacchus" meant moro than "liber, a book/' Ho endured every privation and died young, and the snnek which he uttered ho realised that the building to which his friends had brought him was the mddhouso, and which was caught up and echoed by all the inmates of that dolorous mansion, is ono of the weird and painful things of literary history. He. had, many faults, and wopse,'perhaps, than his reckless conviviality was his neglect of his mother; nevertheless one who reflects, upon his genius, his gallant and losing battle with adversity, and his cheerfulness and his tragic end—for, ] iko one of Dickens's characters,-ho "died in tho dark, on tho straw pallet of his cell —fos'.s that he was not to, ho measured by the ■ standards of tho average man and easily breathes tho prayer formulated by Walter Mapes, '•Deus sit •prnyitids liuic potatori." But the feeling of Stavonson . for the "pcor, white-faced,'drunken, vicious boy that raved himself to death in the Edinburgh madhouse" was not merely a blend of admiration aid pity, but a fervent bficciion rising almost to the level uf passion. When his prosperity came, to him the thought of the injustice of the neglect. of the "first ltobert" "sat heavy upon him," and ho proposed to repair the Canongate tombstone and prepared an inscription. He would have dedicated the whole Edinburgh edition to Fersusson s memory, if he had not thought that his wife had a prior claim, lie spoke of "my brother, Robert Fergusson." Ho had a great "sense of kinship" with him; "it looks like the transmigration of souls." "I believe Fei ■gussou lives in me," he said. "I do; but tell it not in Oath; every man has these fanciful superstitions." , . , The mischief is that the essay whicn would have been the natural outcome of those feelings and which would have bettered Ferguson's position in tho eyes of his fellow-countrymen, was never wruhui. Early in his career 'Stevenson planned a book on "Kamsay, i/ergusson, and Burns, and much later, when Cr;ub? Angus) wrote offering to send out to Samoa a precious copy of tho ".lolly Bogsars; to receive his signature for purposes of exhibition, Stevenson begged him to collect nil that he could of Fergusson s, and promised to wvito a prelacc to the vcluint'. Neither enterprise cpme off. Grosart s book of ISU3 did much for the unfortunate poet and it is impossible now to speak of hi in as Campbell spoke, but an essay of Stevenson would hare reached readers who never heard of Grosart. Alike with cultivated Scotsmen and with Scolsnion of the rank and file, consequently, ler«u«on has hardly had his due. Cultivated readers have been too much-under (he influenco of biographers of Burn*, who in discussing that poets debt to Ills predecessor have no desire to magnilj the latter. The ordinary Scotsman knows his poets chiefly by their songs, and torgusson wrote none, Had burns iu ' l ) ten So songs there would have been little general knowledge among tho people of "The Twa Dogs," or even except for the «torv and some memorable lines, ot "Tarn o' Shantcr." Had Fergusson writtoil one or two songs "The Tron Kirk

Bell,""Leith Races," and "The Mutual Complaints of I'laiustanes and Causey" would not bo so ignored as they are.