E97 



FERDUSI. 



FERGUSON, JAMES. 



ing a representative constitution for the kingdom. Ferdinand, pressed 

 by his ministers, promised to establish a constitution in a given time ; 

 but the Carbonari would not wait, saying it was better to adopt one 

 already made, namely, that of the Cortes of Spain; and thus the 

 Spanish constitution was proclaimed, and a parliament was convoked 

 at Naples. Meantime the Sicilians, ever jealous of their nationality, 

 demanded a separate parliament for themselves, and a repeal of the 

 union of the two kingdoms, which the parliament at Naples refusing, 

 a revolt broke out at Palermo, which was put down after much blood- 

 shed. Soon after, the sovereigns of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, 

 assembled at Troppau, wrote to King Ferdinand, inviting him to a 

 conference at Laybach, in Carinthia, without which they stated that 

 they could not acknowledge the new system of government established 

 at Naples. Ferdinand, after some demur, obtained leave of the par- 

 liament to proceed to the congress in December 1820, leaving his son, 

 Francis, as his vicegerent at Naples. In February 1821, Ferdinand, 

 by a letter written from Laybach, signified to his son that the allied 

 sovereigns were determined not to acknowledge the actual constitu- 

 tional government as established at Naples, deeming it incompatible 

 with the peace of that country and the security of the neighbouring 

 states ; but that they wished Ferdinand himself, assisted by the wisest 

 and mo.-t able among his subjects, to give to his kingdom institutions 

 calculate <l to secure peace and prosperity to the country. Soon after- 

 wards the Austrian army passed the Po, moving on towards Naples. 

 The parliament of Naples determined upon resistance, but at the first 

 encounter, near Rieti, a Neapolitan division was defeated ; the rest of 

 the army being alarmed at the thought of fighting against the will of 

 their own king, disbanded, and the Austrians entered Naples without 

 any further opposition, at the end of March 1821. Ferdinand soon 

 afterwards returned to his capital on what may be styled his third 

 restoration. The leading constitutionalists were allowed to emigrate ; 

 but of those who remained some were tried and sent to the Presidii. 

 The government again became absolute; and Ferdinand now having 

 his dread of the constitutionalists pretty well removed not so lenient 

 or liberal as it was before 1820. After reigning four years longer, 

 Ferdinand died suddenly on the morning of the 4th of January 1825, 

 aged seventy-six, having been king sixty-five years. He was succeeded 

 by his son, Francis I. 



FERDUSI. [FiRDOsi.] 



FERGUSON, ADAM, born in 1724, was the son of a parish minister 

 in Perthshire. He studied .-it St. Andrews and at Edinburgh, with a 

 view to the Christian ministry. On being ordaiued, ho was appointed 

 chaplain to the 42nd, a Highland regiment, in which he remained till 

 1757, when he retired, and was appointed keeper of the advocates' 

 library of Edinburgh. In 1759 he was made professor of natural 

 philosophy in the college of that city, and in 1761 he was appointed to 

 the chair of moral philosophy, a branch of science to which he had 

 more particularly applied himself. In 1767 he published his 'Essay 

 on the History of Civil Society,' a work which was well received, and 

 which procured him the notice of public men. It was reprinted 

 several times, and translated into the French, German, and Swedish 

 languages. In 1774 he accompanied the young Earl of Chesterfield on 

 his travels, but remained with him only a twelvemonth. In 177(5 he 

 wrote 'Remarks on a Pamphlet of Dr. Price, entitled Observations 

 on the Nature of Civil Liberty." In 1778 he was appointed secretary 

 to the commissioners who werj sent to America in order to try to 

 effect a reconciliation with the mother country, an office in which 

 Ferguson took a clearer view of the state of the question, and of the 

 temper of the American people, than was common at that time with 

 Englishmen. On his return in 1779 he resumed the duties of hU pro- 

 fessorship, and in 1783 he published his ' History of the Progress and 

 the Termination of the Roman Republic,' 3 vols. 4to. This work, 

 which has been reprinted several times, and by which Ferguson is 

 most generally known, is not so much a regular narrative of the 

 events of Roman history, as a commentary on that history ; its object 

 is to elucidate the progress and changes of the internal policy of the 

 Roman commonwealth, the successive conditions of its social state, as 

 well as the progress of the military system of the Romans, and the 

 yaried but studied course of their external policy towards foreign 

 nations. He carries his work down to the end of the reign of Tibe- 

 rius, when all remains of the old institutions may be said to have 

 become effaced. Ferguson's work forms therefore a kind of introduc- 

 tion to that of Gibbon on the decline and fall of the empire. Ferguson 

 and his contemporary, the French Abbd Auger, were foremost among 

 those who, previous to Niebuhr, investigated the internal working of the 

 institutions of the Roman republic. [Au'.iiu ]. In 1784 Ferguson re- 

 signed his professorship on account of ill health, and was succeeded by 

 DugaldStew;irt. In 1792 he published ' Principles of Moral and Politi- 

 cal Science,' being chit fly a retrospect of lectures on ethics and politics, 

 delivered in the College of Edinburgh,' 2 vols. 4to. Another work of 

 Dr. Ferguson on the same subject, though a more elementary one, 

 the ' Institutes of Moral Philosophy,' which he first published in 1 7'i'J, 

 baa been translated into the French and German languages, and often 

 reprinted. Ferguson died at St. Andrews in February 1816, being 

 above ninety years of age. Ho had been on terms of friendship with 

 Hume, Robertson, Adam Smith, Dugald Stewart, Playfair, and other 

 distiiiKuished contemporaries. 



FERGUSON, JAMES, was born in 1710, at a short distance from 



Keith, a village in Bauffshire. His father, who was a day-labourer, 

 taught him to read and write, and sent him to school for three months 

 at Keith. 



When only seven or eight years old, having seen his father use a 

 beam as a lever, with a prop for a fulcrum, in order to raise the roof 

 of their cottage, which had partly fallen in, his curiosity was so much 

 excited by the ease with which what appeared to him so stupendous 

 an effect was accomplished, that he thought about it, aud made trials, 

 and constructed models, aud drew diagrams, till he became acquainted 

 with the chief properties of the lever, not only in its simple appli- 

 cation, but as modified by the wheel and axle. The taste for 

 practical mechanics thus formed continued to distinguish him through 

 life, and, together with an equally decided taste for astronomy, 

 conducted him in his later years to distinction and independence. 



His astronomical pursuits commenced soou afterwards. His father 

 sent him to a neighbouring farmer, who employed him in watching 

 his sheep. While thus occupied, he amused himself at night iu 

 studying the stars, and during the day in making models of mills, 

 spinning- wheel >, and similar things. When a little older, he entered 

 into the service of another farmer, who treated him with great kind- 

 ness, and encouraged and assisted him iu his astronomical studies. " I 

 used," he says, " to stretch a thread with small beads on it at arm's 

 length between my eye and the stars, sliding the beads upon it till 

 they hid such and such stars from my eye, iu order to take their 

 apparent distances from one another; and then laying the thread 

 down on a paper, I marked the stars thereon by the beads." " My 

 master," he adds, "that I might make fair copies iu the day-time of 

 what I had done in the night, often worked for me himself." Mr. 

 Qilchrist, the minister of Keith, having seen his drawings, gave him 

 a map of the earth to copy, aud furnished him with compasses, ruler, 

 pens, ink, and paper. 



At the house of Mr. GUchrist he met Mr. Grant of Achoynaney, 

 with whom, at the termination of his engagement with his present 

 master, he went to reside, being then in his twentieth year. He had 

 learnt vulgar arithmetic from books, and Mr. Grant's butler, Mr. 

 Cantley, taught him decimal arithmetic and the elements of algebra, 

 and was about to commence instructing him iu geometry when he 

 left the employment of that gentleman. 



Ferguson soou afterwards entered into the service of a miller in 

 the neighbourhood, where he was overworked, and scarcely supplied 

 with food enough for subsistence. After remaining a year in this 

 situation, he was engaged by Dr. Young, who was a farmer ns well as 

 a physician, aud who promised to instruct him iu medicine, but broke 

 his promise, and treated him with so much harshness that, though his 

 engagement was for half a year, he left at the quarter, aud forfeited 

 the wages which were due to him. A severe hurt of the arm and 

 hand, which he had got in the doctor's service, confined him to his 

 bed for two months after his return home. During this time he 

 amused himself with constructing a wooden clock. He afterwards 

 made a wooden watch with a whalebone spring ; and his talents 

 having been turned in this direction, he began to earu a little money 

 in the neighbourhood by cleaniug and mending clocks. 



He was about this time invited to reside with Sir James Dunbar of 

 Duru, aud, at the suggestion of Lady Dipple, Sir James's sister, 

 began to draw patterns for ladies' dresses. He says, " I was sent for 

 by other ladies iu tha country, and began to think myself growing 

 rich by the money I got by such drawings ; out of which I had the 

 pleasure of occasionally supplying the wauts of my poor father." 

 His studies iu astronomy however were not neglected, and he still 

 continued to use his thread and beads. 



Besides drawing patterns, he copied pictures and prints with pen 

 and ink; and having left the residence of Sir James Duiibar for that 

 of Mr. iaird of Auchmuddau, Lady Dipple's son-in-law, he drew a 

 portrait of that gentleman which was much admired, and now began 

 to draw likenesses from the life iu Indian ink. These appeared to 

 his patrons to be so excellent, that they took him to Edinburgh with 

 the intention of having him regularly instructed in drawing, but a 

 premium having been unexpectedly demanded, he boldly commenced 

 the practice of his art at once. The Marchioness of Douglas having 

 assisted him with her patronage, he succeeded so well that ho 

 obtained money enough, not only to defray his own expenses, but to 

 contribute largely to the support of his aged pareuts. 



Though he continued to follow this profession for about twenty-six 

 years, he seems never to have given his mind to it; and indeed, after 

 having been two years in Edinburgh, he returned to the country with 

 a supply of drugs with the intention of practising medicine, but soon 

 found himself to be totally unqualified for his new occupation. He 

 then went to Inverness, where he remained about three months. 

 While there he drew an Astronomical Rotula, for exhibiting the 

 eclipses of the sun aud moon, which he transmitted to Professor 

 Maclaurin at Edinburgh, who was highly pleased with it. He now 

 returned to Ediuburgh, and the Professor had the ' Kotula' engraved, 

 and it ran through several impressions, till, by the change of tho style 

 in 1753, it became useless. While at Edinburgh he made a wooden 

 orrery, and'delivcred a lecture on it before the mathematical class. 



In 1743 he resolved to go to London, where he coutiuued his pro- 

 fession of drawing portraits, but devoted his leisure to astronomical 

 pursuits. 



