CODICIL TO R. FERGUSSON'S LAST WILL. WHEREAS, by test'ment, dated blank, 'Midst brighter themes that weekly come From one who lived and died a Bard. But think that something might be more said, The liberty to add and eik To test❜ment which already made is, To Tulloch, who, in kind compassion, 1 A wine merchant.-F. The venerable Miss Ruddiman remembered this circumstance distinctly. Fergusson and Tulloch met in Mr. Ruddiman's house immediately after the appearance of the poem, when Tulloch was humorously rallied by the poet and those present. See Life prefixed. Nor let him to complain begin, He'll get no more of cat than skin. To Walter Ruddiman, 1 whose pen A Newton or a Jamie Duff.2 Nor would I recommend to Walter, This scheme of copperplates to alter, 1 The publisher of the Magazine. 2 A fool who attends funerals.-F. Poor 'Jamie,' it will be remembered, attends the funeral of Mrs. Bertram with 'paper cravat and weepers' in Guy Mannering, [cxxxvII]. Kay has preserved his strange 'phiz'in one or two pictures: and in Patterson's painstaking letter-press to his Portraits published by Paton, there is affluence of biography, anecdote, &c. &c. concerning him. He died 1788. The stanza of Turnbull in his 'Poetical Essays' has escaped notice: and may here be introduced:-It is from his clever poem of the Sale of Stationary Ware.' 'But what's of a' the rarest show, My Pictures, rang'd in seemly row; Here twelve guid rules, which we should know; There Captain Bluff; Here Peeping Tom; and down below Stands Jamie Duff,' 1 Vol. 8vo, 1788. p. 183. Since others at the samen prices Propose to give a dish that nice is, Folks will desert his ordinary To Williamson' and his resetters, Let honest Greenlaw 2 be the staff 1 The penny post-master.-F. See Note 1, p. 3. Nor is this the only poetic compliment that Indian Peter' received. The renowned Claudero, alias James Wilson, dedicated his Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, published in 1766, to' Peter.' 2 An excellent classical scholar.-F. The following notice of Greenlaw appeared in the "Edinburgh Magazine and Review" a few weeks after his death: "Died at Edinburgh, Mr. William Greenlaw, preacher of the gospel, in the sixty-third year of his age. Though he followed not the profession to which he was bred, he was deeply skilled in theology: the few discourses he composed, discovered an abundance of matter that would have sparkled through entire volumes of modern sermons. His views also in astronomy and all the branches of mathematics were profound and uncommon, but he meant chiefly to distinguish himself by his knowledge of the learned languages: the study of them was the great object of his life, and the progress he made in them was proportioned to his acuteness and assiduity. He taught them privately in Edinburgh, above twenty years; and there was so little jealousy in his nature, that he freely bestowed his knowledge on those teachers who wished to profit by his communications. What peculiarly distinguished him was a flow of inoffensive humour; a gift rarely possessed [?] by the natives of Scotland. His heart was warm and open, his social spirit unbounded. Of money he professed a contempt, and he refused a living, which his And that the Muses at my end Without assigning ratio quare: And I (as in the will before did) These presents are deliver'd by R. FERGUSSON. friends would have pressed upon him. With an ambition to excel, he was yet careless of his reputation; conscious of his own merit, he allowed men to judge of him as they pleased. His manners were simple, his figure ungainly. In a licentious age he made a vow of chastity, and what is more surprising, he kept it. The last years of his life were rather unfortunate; the constant use he made of his faculties seems to have impaired them. But he had not the misery to survive their extinction; death came to him when his friends wished for it." He appears not to have discharged the friendly duty bequeathed to him by his friend. Curiously enough his own funeral letters at his own dying request, were written in Latin, anent which a ludicrous anecdote with reference to Baillie Lothian, one of the invited, is recorded in Kay, vol. I. Part. I. p. 44. |