Glasgow Herald/1899/John Ferguson Nisbet

LITERATURE

Mr John Ferguson Nisbet, the well-known author and journalist, died this afternoon in London. He had been in failing health for several months, and recently went to Malaga in Spain in the hope of getting rid of affection of the lungs; but the change did him little if any good. Mr Nisbet was a native of Lanarkshire, and received part of his education at Glasgow University. but he continued to be a student long after he left the north. During his journalistic and literary career in the Metropolis he acquired a thorough mastery of several European languages. In 1882 he became dramatic critic of the "Times", and displayed in this department of his work a somewhat rare independence of judgment, as well as full information on the various branches of the modern drama, for some years he was editor of the "Morning," and he wrote for the weekly newspapers, where again he gave evidence of extensive stores of information on subjects as wide as the Poles. In the midst of such an active life Mr Nisbet contrived by, by careful husbanding of his time, to devote perhaps his best energies to two or three graves works in literature; and it is no disparagement of his characteristic modesty and natural reserve to say that he hoped these compositions would prove to have some permanent value. I refer specially to the books entitled "Marriage and Heredity" and the "Insanity of Genius." To the later volume he gave countless unwearying hours, and if its leading conceptions cannot be universally accepted, no one will venture to deny the amazing detail disclosed in the book, and the enormous industry it must have cost its author. Mr Nisbet, I may add had another work ready. which is now in the press. He possessed a vigorous and compact style, that was frequently touched by the elegance and grace that come of a close acquaintance with the masters of French, Italian, and Spanish literature.