636 MR SMALL S BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF PROF. ADAM FERGUSON. 



this circumstance may serve and awaken the recollection of you both. Pray, in- 

 form me how Mr or Dr Ferguson is usually styled. Is he called Mr or Dr ? * 



Dr Percy, after some time had elapsed, began to think that he might possibly 

 be mistaken on some points, and wrote the following letter to Dr Blair, after con- 

 sulting the memoranda which he had made, when on his visit to Scotland : — 



" Alnwick Castle, September 10, 1781. 



" Dear Sir. — You will excuse my having remained so long silent since I was 

 favoured with your last (inclosing the polite letter from Mr Professor Ferguson), 

 when I inform you, that I delayed my answer till I could send into Northamp- 

 tonshire, to have my papers there searched for minutes, which I remembered to 

 have made, of some of the particulars that occurred to me during my short visit 

 to Edinburgh in 1765 ; for, as I have the misfortune to differ about a matter of 

 fact from a gentleman of so respectable a character as Mr Professor Ferguson, I 

 thought it would not be treating him with due regard, to neglect any means of 

 information that could contribute to settle the point between us. After all, I 

 think he would have recollected the recital made to me by the student, as well 

 as he has done some of the other circumstances, at least he would not have been 

 so positive on this head as he appears to be in his letter, if you had reminded 

 him that the student produced to me was his own pupil, Mr Macpherson, who, I 

 believe, then boarded with him in his house. i 



" I have, however, recovered a pocket-book, in which I had written down 

 minutes at the time, expressing how and where I spent every day during my 

 short stay at Edinburgh in 1765, where I was only five days; for I arrived there 

 from Stirling on Tuesday, October 8th, and departed thence for England early on 

 Monday morning, October 1 3th. 



" Now by these minutes I find, that on Wednesday, October 9th, Mr Ferguson 

 dined with me at your house ; and on the Sunday following, October 13th, after 

 evening service (wherein I well remember to have heard a most eloquent sermon 

 from you), you caused me to drink tea with Mr Ferguson. 



" At his house it was, during that visit, that Mr Ferguson, I believe, gave me 

 the written specimens of Earse poetry, which he mentions ; but very certain it 

 is, that then and there the student was produced to me, who recited viva voce 

 the passages in Earse, as I have related in my former letter. To which I can now 

 add this farther circumstance, that it being Sunday, he could not decently sing 

 the tune, which I had a great curiosity to hear ; and as I was obliged to leave 

 Edinburgh early the next morning, and was not likely to see him again, he in 

 the evening, as we were going away, took me aside, and in a low voice, hummed 

 a few notes to me, as a specimen of the old Highland tune. 



" This having been the case I can have made no jumble, as Mr Ferguson is 

 pleased to suppose, nor could I possibly confound this with any other occurence, for 



* MSB. University of Edinburgh. 



