When the stars threw down their spears, And water’d heaven with their tears, Did He smile His work to see? Did He who made the lamb make thee? =4. Robert Fergusson (1750–74).= Fergusson was born in Edinburgh, and received his education at the university of that city, but soon fell into loose and disreputable habits. He contributed much to the local press, and acquired some reputation as a poet of the vernacular. His irregular habits led to the madhouse, in which he died at the early age of twenty-four. Fergusson is chiefly notable as the forerunner of Burns, who was generous in his praise of the earlier poet. His best poems are short descriptive pieces dealing with Scottish life, such as _The King’s Birthday_, _To the Tron Kirk_, and _The Farmer’s Ingle_. This last poem perhaps suggested Burns’s _Cotter’s Saturday Night_. Fergusson gives clear and accurate descriptions, and his use of the vernacular Scots tongue is vigorous and natural, thus providing Burns with a model for his best style. (See p. 346.) SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689–1761) =1. His Life.= Richardson was born in Derbyshire, the son of a joiner, by whom he was apprenticed to a London printer. Richardson was an industrious youth, and in the course of time rose high in the pursuit of his occupation. He became a master-printer, produced the journals of the House of Commons, and became printer to the King. He was a man of retiring and almost effeminate habits, but was generous and well liked. =2. His Novels.= Richardson’s first attempts at writing fiction began at the age of thirteen, when he was the confidant of three illiterate young women, for whom he wrote love-letters. This practice afterward stood him in good stead. He was over fifty years old before he printed a novel of his own, called _Pamela_ (1740). The book, which takes the form of a series of fictitious letters, deals with the fortunes of Pamela, a poor and virtuous maid of low degree, who marries and afterward reforms her wicked master. The work was instantly successful, exhausting five editions during the first year of its issue. The characters, especially the chief female character, slowly but accurately fabricated during the gradual evolution of the simple plot, were new to the readers of the time, and mark a great step forward in the history of the English novel. Richardson’s next novel, which was also constructed in the form of letters, was _Clarissa Harlowe_ (1749). This treats of characters higher in the social scale, with indifferent success, and the end is made tragical. The heroine is a young lady of rank and fortune who is persecuted by a villain called Lovelace, and who dies finally of a broken heart. His third and last novel, also in letter-form, was _Sir Charles Grandison_ (1753), dealing chiefly with persons still higher in the social world. Richardson contemplated calling the book _A Good Man_, for he intended the hero to be the perfection of the manly virtues.