746 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
from his infancy, a past that occupied alike his dreams and his 
poetry, a past the insignia of which he wished to mark his 
last resting place. How sharp was the contrast of this ideal 
world with the life in a city where “scarce twenty could read,” 
where few knew how to keep an honorable promise, where a 
man like Burgam could deny aid to a suffering lad, and where 
even a woman’s heart could turn a starving boy out of lodging 
because she feared he might kill himself in her house. 
The satire is bitter and mocking. Gne feels that Chatterton 
was despising the mean mercenary world that was letting a 
gifted spirit starve in its midst. And yet through it all, be¬ 
hind the light jests with which he mocks the neglectfulness of 
men who might have helped, we feel his intense love for his 
life and his art and the despairing agony that comes to him 
when he realizes that he must die and take with him unex¬ 
pressed the message which, as it seemed to him, the stupidity 
and selfishness of the world would not give him a chance to 
speak. 
About 1773 Robert Fergusson wrote his Last Will / a poem 
of some seventy-eight lines. It is half humorous, half serious 
in character. There is nothing satirical about it; it is rather 
good-humored, playing with the idea of his poverty and the 
passing of compliments to several friends. 
“While sober folk, in humble prose, 
Estate, and goods, and gear dispose, 
A poet surely may disperse 
His moveables in doggerel verse;” 
To Nature he leaves his poetic lore to be passed on to other 
bards as they deserve it. To Jamie Rae, a lawyer friend, he 
leaves his snuff-box. To Oliphant, an Edinburgh bookseller, 
he leaves his verses in manuscript. To Hamilton, another 
lawyer, he leaves the task of collecting his outstanding debts. 
To his friend Woods he leaves his Shakspere. He asks Hutch¬ 
inson, the tavern keeper, to attend his funeral and to see that 
there be generous draughts of wine at the wake. To the will is 
appendid a codicil making similar bequests. 
i Grossart, The Works of Robert Ferguson, Edinburgh, London, and 
Dublin, 1851, p. 252. 
