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



that I should not be willing to exceed what I believed to be the writer's original 

 intention by publication ; and I thought myself the more at liberty to give this 

 opinion that I found my own name repeated with that partial favour which 1 

 always experienced from my friend. It was our lot through great part of our 

 time to be neighbours so near as to be frequently together, and the opportunities, 

 I believe, were never willingly omitted by either. We were socii cj^iminis in the 

 countenance we gave to the first representation of our friend J. Home's tragedy 

 of Douglas, a charge for which I was never called to account. But Dr Carlyle 

 was more known, and had more enemies, who, by prosecuting him for this offence, 

 declared him innocent of anything more likely to serve their spite. We were also 

 accessory to the formation of a Poker Club, and survived most of its members, 

 and thus had occasions of regret which are but ill repaired in the solitary com- 

 forts of sequestered old age. You cannot doubt my desire to promote the respect 

 which is due to the memory of Dr Carlyle, but how I know not, beyond the 

 testimony, if it were called for, that I never knew a more steady friend or more 

 agreeable companion, and in this I should have so many concurring witnesses as 

 to make my words of little account. I shall be anxious to know how you proceed, 

 and I beg I may hear from you.— I am, with best respects to Mrs Bell, yours 

 most affectionately, Adam Ferguson." 



During his residence at St Andrews Ferguson's mind was almost as vigorous 

 as in his younger days, and his bodily functions, with the exception of his sight, 

 were scarcely impaired by age.* Even in 1815, the year before his death, his 

 health was better than it had been for some years, and his spirits were elevated 

 by the successful termination of the war with France, in which he had always 

 been much interested. 



About the beginning of February 1816, however, he was attacked by a febrile 

 complaint, to which he had been occasionally subject. This illness, after con 

 tinning for four days, proved fatal on the 22d of that month, when he was in th( 

 ninety-third year of his age. 



Ferguson had a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters. His 



* In 1812 Ferguson was requested by Mr Henrt Mackenzie — 'The Man of Feeling' — to 

 furnish him with some memoranda relative to his eai'ly acquaintance with John Home, author of 

 ' Douglas.' Mackenzie's last literary effort was a Memoir of Home, which he read before the Royal 

 Society in 1822, and which was afterwards published in a separate form. To that volume an 

 Appendix is added, containing a remarkable letter, written when Ferguson was in his ninetieth year. 

 Besides referring to his early connection with John Home, it contains further information as to his 

 views with reference to the Ossian controversy. 



There was also published, after his death, a short biographical sketch or memoir of his friend, 

 Lieut.-Col. Patrick Ferguson (second son of James Ferguson, of Pitfour, one of the Lords of 

 Justiciary in Scotland), which he had written some short time previously. It was intended as an article 

 for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, but it was considered by the editor too long for that work ; and as 

 Ferguson declined to abridge it, it was not inserted. A few copies were printed in 1817 from the 

 original sketch, for private distribution. 



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