Fergusson, Robert.

An unpublished poem on the Edinburgh Cape Club in the form of a comical verse epistle, "The Shades &c. | an Epistle by S^{r Precenter [Fergusson] | to Sr Care [Andrew Plummer]", beginning "In these Sad macaroni Days | When Shadows only merit praise", 132 lines in rhyming couplets, five pages, folio (320 x 200mm. except for the short final leaf (195 x 190mm) on a different paper stock), contemporary docketing, later pencil note and ink doodles, with the apparent indented impression of Fergusson's signature beneath the final stanza, Edinburgh, 1772-73, nicks and tears, fragile at folds, dust-staining to final blank, rodent damage at bottom inner edge, final leaf affixed to bifolium}

The Poems of Robert Fergusson, ed. M.P. McDiarmid, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1954-56)

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"The Cape still flourishes anon". A celebration of conviviality in 'Auld Reekie' and a major new addition to the Fergusson corpus. This verse epistle is about the Cape Club, a celebrated drinking society that met nightly in various Edinburgh taverns (the drinking-room being known as the Shades), and counted poets, printers, artists and musicians among its members. The club developed elaborate pseudo-ceremonial traditions with Plummer - this poem's addressee - serving as the club's Sovereign from 1771 to 1773: among his duties was to dub Fergusson a member (with the pseudonym Sir Precenter) by hitting him three times on the head with a poker. 

Fergusson wrote several other songs and poems about the Cape Club, although none as long as "The Shades &c.". Plummer, an advocate, lived near Selkirk and this poem informs him of recent goings-on in the city. It begins by recounting the reception of an earlier poem by Fergusson satirising fellow members of the Cape, which had initially angered Plummer and others but was eventually entered into the club's archive. He goes on to dismiss criticism of the Cape ("...Let Critics rail against our Club | And Poets Lash us from Old Grub..."), then tells a lengthy story about the imprisonment for debt of a surgeon who was a Cape Club member (as was his creditor), and which refers to members including James Cumming ("Neehum") and David Herd ("Sir Scrape"). The poem ends, appropriately enough, with a celebration of a recent carouse.

"...A wight a Surgeon by his Trade
From good Sir Launce Long Credit had
For razers & Each Instrument
To pinch to tear to pierce torment
All putrid flesh in frame thats human
And make this Earthly frame a New man..."