SOURCE: "Chapter III," in Robert Fergusson, Scottish Academic Press, 1982, pp. 39-110.

Daiches is an English critic. In the following excerpt, he offers a chronological discussion of Fergusson's poetry, with a view to describing the poet's artistic development.

On 7 February 1771 The Weekly Magazine printed anonymously the first of three pastoral poems, entitled respectively "Morning", "Noon" and "Night". The latter two appeared in the issues of the 14th and 21st, and they were all anonymous. But the first had an introductory note by Walter Ruddiman: "We have been favoured with three Pastorals, under the titles of Morning, Noon and Night, written by a young Gentleman of this place, the stile of which appears as natural and picturesque as that of any of the modern ones hitherto published." The young gentleman was Fergusson, and the poems are written in a somewhat vapid style imitative of a strain of English pastoral poetry...