In comparison [with the poet Allan Ramsay], Fergusson was neglected, though with him and through him literary Scots assumed a comparatively stable form, the more familiar 'Lallans' used by Burns and his imitators. Analysis shows that it was rooted chiefly in the vernacular of Edinburgh with some additions from older Scots and owning considerable freedom to adopt or reject dialect or anglicised elements according to the demands of rhyme or context. Though loosely referred to as a dialect, 'literary convention' is a better description of this Burnsian compromise, a legacy from Ramsay and Fergusson.

Initially, anti-English politics had helped to fuel Ramsay's patriotic fire and mandarin rejection of the 'Doric' as a language in which it was now unthinkable to write was not such a great obstacle during his active lifetime as it later became. In his forties, long after the first blush of youthful radicalism had faded, Ramsay received support from titled friends and prosperous acquaintances. This well-connected coterie foreshadowed the better-known bourgeois literati of the second half of the century but, like Ruddiman, it was more openly tolerant of Scots while maintaining neo-classical humanist preferences. It has been argued that they would rather have written in Latin following the tradition of Buchanan had not history and the pressures of politics forced English upon them.

Prejudice against current Scots, spoken as well as written, increased. Clear record exists of acute sensitivity in matters of accent and pronunciation during the second half of the eighteenth century. However, lists of 'Scotticisms' printed to guide the unwary were not designed to convert Scotsmen into Englishmen; there is no suggestion of lack of patriotism or confusion of identity (even if James Boswell, politically conscious of his accent, did claim to have been born a 'North-Briton') and although the material benefits of Union had been grudgingly recognised, at least in the towns and ports. These guides to language-traps might be thought cynical but they represented sound social advice. David Hume's, James Beattie's and James Elphinstone's were different types of example. Hume, together with Adam Smith reproved by English readers for his Scotticisms, ironically regretted his inability to change. Beattie was simply fastidious and wished Scots eliminated, but Elphinstone tried to set a standard of Scoto-English and admired 'the braudest Scotch' as indeed the majority who spoke it did, though the pressures of provincial snobbery prevented them from admitting their feelings, at least in 'polite' circles.

This increased self-conscious element goes some way to explain why Fergusson's own handling of the convention is much more uncompromising, flexible, pointed and vivid than Ramsay's; he made sharper pictures out of it, flowing past in a series of 'shots'. "Leith Races" is packed with examples; this one is of the ancient Town Guard heroes, to whom their captain gives the order to fix bayonets in a Highland accent:

and Sawney, selling hose in "Hallow-Fair", hails 'frae Aberdeen':

where w becomes f and guid rhymes with need. The Highland NCOs patrol to keep order and the corporal commands 'Pring in ta drunken sot' when they find Jock Bell 'peching on the causey'.

Albert Mackie's essay on Fergusson's Scots [in Robert Fergusson, edited by Sydney Goodsir Smith] shows how far Fergusson's basic Edinburgh dialect was laced with recognisable Aberdeenshire and Fife elements. In order to secure the effects he sought, he moved from one dialect of Scots to another, casting about for rhyme, crossing the border for English, reaching back to Middle Scots to suit his drift.

The Buchan bodies thro' the beech
Their bunch of Findrums cry,
An' skirl out baul', in Norland speech,
'Gueed speldings, fa will buy.'

is again unmistakably far Nor'-Eastern. Fergusson's direct appeal as 'a laureate of low life' is oral and in experiment he appears as a true makar, more of a Dunbar or Gavin Douglas than a follower of Ramsay's track. He was no editor or antiquary deliberately reviving the past but an original poet who naturally looked to his immediate surroundings for inspiration and to the living legacy of his sixteenth-century poetic ancestors for a suitable means of expressing it. He had no interest in the English market nor in scraping acquaintance with touring London writers as Ramsay had tried to do with Steele and Gay; he wrote no poems corresponding to "Richi and Sandy." On the contrary, he scorned the 'treat' given by his old University of St Andrews to Samuel Johnson, an undeserving case whose professed contempt for Scotsmen was notorious, and he parodied the style of Henry Mackenzie's popular Man of Feeling in "The Sow of Feeling", probably without realising that Mackenzie's intent was itself satirical. Fame such as Mackenzie's 'English' novel brought was not for him.

Fergusson's experiments in language and verse form were dazzling (compare "The Farmer's Ingle"). His vocabulary was more extensive and his use of Scots more concentrated than Ramsay's or, for that matter, Burns's. His death at twenty-three (by which age Ramsay had hardly started to write) closes speculation on what Fergusson might have achieved. His lifespan was less than a third of Ramsay's, yet only ten years after he died the sheer merit of Fergusson's work was perceived by Burns. With excessive modesty Burns placed himself below Ramsay, Hamilton of Gilbertfield and Fergusson, 'a deathless name' whose

Through his membership of the Cape Club and his flood of contributions to Walter Ruddiman's Weekly Magazine Fergusson became a local celebrity but nothing more. The high Professoriate (with the possible exception of William Wilkie of Epigoniad fame) seems to have ignored him, and most of his Cape Club cronies failed to realise the quality of his achievement. The gulf between Fergusson and the Edinburgh bon ton towards modern literary Scots had widened since Ramsay's day, and the greater prosperity of 'North Britain' in the second half of the century was accompanied by a leaning towards genteel culture as represented in London society. Along with this went a hardening of prejudice against home-grown traditions and in particular a denial of the 'polite' use of contemporary Scots, which under the aegis of the Select Society and ornaments of their respective professions like Blair and Robertson became almost official.

In such an atmosphere, explicit critical approval of Fergusson was rarely recorded. There were exceptions, notably one made by his friends the Ruddimans. Thomas Ruddiman was well qualified to provide a just estimate of Fergusson and he did, but only after the poet had died:

His talent for versification in the Scots dialect has been exceeded by none, equalled by few … Had he enjoyed life and health to a maturer age, it is probably he would have revived our ancient Caledonian Poetry, of late so much neglected and despised. His works are lasting monuments of his genius and vivacity.