Mrs. Elizabeth Ferguson was the woman who carried to Washington the letter written by Dr. Duché urging concessions to the British as the only means of saving the country from spoliation and ruin. She was a daughter of Dr. Thomas Graeme, a Scottish physician, and granddaughter of Sir William Keith. Father and daughter lived for a time in the Slate-Roof House, then in the Carpenter mansion at Sixth and Chestnut, and finally at Graeme Hall in Montgomery County. Her life was written in the Port Folio of 1809 (Page 524). Letters from her appear in various numbers of that magazine, always signed "Laura." Nathaniel Evans wooed Miss Graeme as "Laura" in true Petrarchan fashion. The Philadelphia Library possesses the MS. of a translation of Fénelon by Mrs. Ferguson.
She visited Europe in company with Dr. Richard Peters, of Philadelphia, and everywhere her brilliant conversation and refined manners won her recognition and applause in literary society. Laurence Sterne was fascinated by her. "She took a seat upon the same stage with him at the York races. While bets were making upon different horses, she selected a small horse that was in the rear of the coursers as the subject of a trifling wager. Upon being asked the reason for doing so, she said 'the race was not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong.' Mr. Sterne, who stood near to her, was struck with this reply, and turning hastily toward her begged for the honor of her acquaintance. They soon became sociable, and a good deal of pleasant conversation took place between them to the great entertainment of the surrounding company" (Knapp, "Female Biography," page 217).
She wrote a parody upon Pope which was printed with Nathaniel Evans' poems (1772):
How happy is the country parson's lot!
Forgetting bishops, as by them forgot;
Tranquil of spirit, with an easy mind,
To all his vestry's votes he sits resigned.
Of manners gentle and of temper even,
He jogs his flocks, with easy pace, to heaven.
In Greek and Latin pious books he keeps,
And, while his clerk sings psalms, he—soundly sleeps.
His garden fronts the sun's sweet orient beams,
And fat church-wardens prompt his golden dreams.
The earliest fruit in his fair orchard blooms,
And cleanly pipes pour out tobacco fumes.
From rustic bridegroom oft he takes the ring,
And hears the milkmaid plaintive ballads sing.
Back-gammon cheats whole winter nights away,
And Pilgrim's Progress helps a rainy day.
Alexander Wilson was born in Paisley, Scotland, July 6, 1766, and died in Philadelphia, August 23, 1813. "The Poems and Literary Prose of Alexander Wilson" was edited by A. B. Grosart, and published at Paisley in 1876. "With the exception of Allen Ramsay, Ferguson and Burns, none of our Scottish vernacular poets have been so continuously kept in print as Alexander Wilson" (Grosart). Seven biographies of him attest the lively interest felt in his personality and his work. In Scotland he was apprenticed to a weaver, and, after serving his time, he continued to work at the loom for four years more. He published "Watty and Meg" in 1792, an anonymous poem, the authorship of which was commonly ascribed to Robert Burns. He came to America in 1794, worked for a year at his trade, and subsequently taught at various schools in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In 1802 he settled at Kingsessing, now in the city of Philadelphia, close by the home of Bartram, the botanist. Here he taught the "Union" School. It was in a picturesque spot. Before its doors were cedars and "stripling poplars planted in a row, and old gray white oaks."
But birds were more attractive to him than boys. They commanded him, as the nightingale did the gypsy steward, and he followed them into untrodden wildernesses. Thomas Bradford undertook to publish Wilson's colossal "Ornithology." It was to be distinctly an "American" work. It was to be printed on American paper; and Amies, the paper-maker, even declared that he would use only "American" rags in making it. Seven volumes appeared during the author's life, or between 1808 and 1813.
Wilson published the "Rural Walk" in Brown's Literary Magazine of August, 1804, and the "Solitary Tutor" in the same publication, October, 1804. The former poem was reprinted in the Port Folio of April 27, 1805. Dennie was charmed with the poem, and explained that he reprinted it because the author "delights in pictures of American scenery and landscape, and wisely therefore leaves to European poets their nightingales and skylarks, and their dingles and dells. He makes no mention of yews and myrtles, nor echoes a single note of either bullfinch or chaffinch, but faithfully describes American objects, though not entirely in the American idiom." The following four stanzas from the "Rural Walk" may give a conception of Wilson's close observation and nice fidelity to nature.
"Down to the left was seen afar
The whitened spire of sacred name,[17]
And ars'nal, where the god of war
Has hung his spears of bloody fame.
"There upward where it (Schuylkill) gently bends,
And Say's red fortress tow'rs in view,[18]
The floating bridge its length extends—
A lively scene forever new.
"There market-maids in lively rows,
With wallets white, were riding home,
And thundering gigs, with powdered beaux,
Through Gray's green festive shades to roam.
"Sweet flows the Schuylkill's winding tide
By Bartram's green emblossom'd bowers,
Where nature sports in all her pride
Of choicest plants and fruits and flowers."
Wilson, in 1804, undertook a journey to Niagara. The adventures by the way and the sight of the stupendous cataract supply the theme of his longest and most ambitious poem, "The Foresters." It was published with illustrations in successive numbers of the Port Folio of 1809, Volumes I, II and III. The entire poem contained 2,000 lines. The Literary Magazine contains a part of the poem. This appearance, I believe, has never been noted. It is to be found in Volume IV, page 155. The lines were written August 12, 1805, and were published in the same month. In the literary intelligence of the same month the future publication of "The Foresters" is glanced at.
A prose letter and a poem, "The Pilgrim," by Wilson, are in the Port Folio, June, 1809, page 499. Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon met in Louisville, Ky., whither the latter had gone after disposing of his farm upon the Perkiomen Creek, near Philadelphia. Wilson conceived a dislike for Audubon, and wrote to the Port Folio concerning Louisville, "Science or literature has not one friend in this place." Audubon, into whose mind no thought of publishing his own fine drawings had yet come, refused out of jealousy to add his name to the subscription list for Wilson's "American Ornithology." Robert Buchanan wrote, "If Audubon had one marked fault it was vanity; he was a queer compound of Actæon and Narcissus—having a gun in one hand and flourishing a looking-glass in the other." Grosart is much too severe when he styles Audubon "a great dilettante impostor."