MR small's biographical SKETCH OF PROF. ADAM FERGUSON. 647 



the farm-house. Tell him (for I will not admit the idea that you have left us) 

 that he is my son. His father was more than the father of your ever affec- 

 tionate, " John MacPherson. 



" Mind me to Drs Blair, Home, Robertson, Carlyle, Black, &c. &c." 



About the time of the resignation of his University duties, Ferguson resided 

 in what was then a southern suburb of Edinburgh, named " the Sciennes." 

 This suburb, which now forms part of the city, was then considered so far distant 

 that his friends used to call his house " Kamtschatka ;" and there, in the beginning 

 of 1787, an interesting occurrence took place, which shows the pleasure he always 

 took in the recognition of youthful genius. 



Burns had come to Edinburgh at the close of the previous year, to super- 

 intend the printing of the second edition of his poems. His arrival in the capital 

 had produced a sensation, and he received great attention from many of the 

 literati of the time. Ferguson's colleagues. Professors Dalzel and Stewart, 

 have recorded the feelings of interest which the arrival of Burns excited in the 

 literary society of Edinburgh. Being desirous to converse with so remarkable a 

 man, Ferguson invited a small party to meet him at his house, amongst whom 

 were Drs Hutton and Black, Mr Dugald Stewart, and the famous aeronaut 

 LuNARDi. Trifling as this incident may seem, it afforded to Sir Walter Scott, 

 then a boy and companion of Ferguson's sons, the only opportunity he ever had 

 of meeting with Burns. On that occasion also he displayed that wonderful ac- 

 quaintance with poetry for which he afterwards was so remarkable. 



In a letter to Lockhart, Scott thus describes this interesting meeting : — " I 

 saw him one day at the late venerable Professor Ferguson's, where there were 

 several gentlemen of literary reputation, among whom I remember the cele- 

 brated Mr Dugald Stewart. Of course, we youngsters sate silent, looked and 

 listened. The only thing I remember, which was remarkable in Burns' manner, 

 was an effect produced upon him by a print of Bunbury's representing a soldier 

 lying dead upon the snow, his dog sitting in misery on the one side, on the other 

 his widow, with a child in her arms. These lines were written beneath : — 



" Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's Plain, 

 Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain ; 

 Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew, 

 The big drops mingling with the milk he drew, 

 Gave the sad presage of his future years, 

 The child of misery baptised in tears." 



*' Burns seemed much affected by the print or rather the ideas which it suggested 

 to his mind. He actually shed tears. He asked whose the lines were, and it 

 chanced that nobody but myself remembered that they occur in a half-forgotten 

 poem of Langhorne's, called by the unpromising title of " The Justice of the 

 Peace ;" I whispered my information to a friend present, who mentioned it to 

 vol. xxiii. part IIL 8 M 



