SOURCE: "The Revival of Scottish Poetry," in A Critical History of English Poetry, Chatto & Windus, 1947. Reprint by Chatto & Windus, 1965, pp. 263-67.

A Scottish critic and educator, Grierson was considered a leading authority on Milton, Donne, and Scott. In the following excerpt from A Critical History of English Poetry, originally published in 1944, Grierson and Smith offer a brief summary of Fergusson's contribution to the Scottish literary tradition.

Robert Fergusson (1750-1774) wrote no songs in Scots, but in other forms of poetry he has left a body of work remarkable in one who died so young…. In poetry other than song Fergusson is the chief link between Ramsay and Burns. He was not so versatile a metrist as Ramsay, but he was a sounder and more original poet. He broke new ground in "The Farmer's Ingle" and in the dialogues of "Plainstanes and Causey" and "The Ghaists". He was the...