Robert Fergusson was a Scottish poet. After formal education at the University of St Andrews, Fergusson led a bohemian life in Edinburgh, the city of his birth, then at the height of intellectual and cultural ferment as part of the Scottish Enlightenment.
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Bronze figure by David Annand of Robert Fergusson outside Edinburgh's Canongate Kirk where the poet is buried.
Mathematician David Gregory, subject of a "cheerful" satirical eulogy by Fergusson.
Drawing of the poet used in Cassell's Library of English Literature
The Burns epitaph on the poet's headstone in Edinburgh's Canongate Kirkyard
High relief portrait on the Scott Monument of Fergusson
Fergusson plaque in the High Kirk of EdinburghWriters born in the 1750s 6
About this person
Robert Fergusson was a Scottish poet. After formal education at the University of St Andrews, Fergusson led a bohemian life in Edinburgh, the city of his birth, then at the height of intellectual and cultural ferment as part of the Scottish Enlightenment. Many of his extant poems were printed from 1771 onwards in Walter Ruddiman's Weekly Magazine, and a collected works was first published early in 1773. Despite a short life, his career was highly influential, especially through its impact on Robert Burns. He wrote both Scottish English and the Scots language, and it is his vivid and masterly writing in the latter leid for which he is principally acclaimed.
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