*l^^ " 1 mHi 1 )Wmii}Wii w m &1BIIAB7 No Division Range Shelf Received. 187^- AN ACCOUNT ^ OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OP JAMES BEATTIE, LL.D. \r^ LATE PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND LOGIC IN T ^ MARISCHAL COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. INCLUDING MANY OF HIS ORIGINAL LETTERS. BY SIR WILLIAM FORBES, ' OF FITSLIGO, BART. ONE OF THE EXECUTORS OF DR. BEATTIE. Earum reriim tnninnn vel in pritnis hie fructum a me repetere prope suo jure debet, ^am hunc video mihi principem, et ad suscipiendam, et ad ingrediendam rationem horum studiorum extitisse. CiCEKO pro Archia. ^rEW^YORK: PUBLISHED BY BRISB\N AND BRANNAN, NO. 1, CITY-HOTEL, BROADWAY. 1807. -1^/4 3 TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND BEILBY PORTEUS, D. D. LORD BISHOP OF LONDON, ONE OF HIS majesty's MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL, &C. &C. &C. MY LORD, As soon as I formed the resolution of attempting to write the life of Dr Beattie, I determined to request permission to inscribe it to your Lordship ; because I well know the high value he justly set on your friendship, and how much it would have gratified him to think, that his name should be joined with that of the Bishop of London. Your Lordship well knew Dr Beattie's merit as a Philosopher ^nd a Poet, and his worth as a Man and a Christian. If in this attempt, therefore, to delineate his character, I am so fortunate as to gain, in any degree, your approbation, I shall look upon my work with no ordinary degree of complacence. I embrace, with tlie greatest satisfaction, and with peculiar propriety, this opportunity of expressing my respect for you ; as it was to Dr Beattie's kind partiality that I owed my first introduc- tion to your Lordship, and the beginning of that friendship with which you have ever since been pleased to honour me. X am. My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient. And faithful humble Servant, WILLIAM FORBES. Edinburgh^ 2Wi March, 1806. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVI.icrpsoft. Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/accountoflifewriOOforbrich INTRODUCTION. JVIr mason prefaces his excellent and entertaining Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Gray,* with an observation, more remarkable for its truth than novelty, that " the lives of men " of letters seldom abound with incidents. A reader of sense and " taste, therefore," continues he, " never expects to find, in the " memoirs of a philosopher or poet, the same species of entertain- " ment or information which he would receive from those of a " statesman or general. He expects, however, to be either in- " formed or entertained. Nor will he be disappointed, did the " writer take care to dwell principally on such topics as charac- " terize the man, and distinguish that peculiar part which he acted " in the varied drama of society." Keeping in view this rule of Mr Mason's, it is my purpose to give to the world some account of the late Dr Beattie; a man, whose life, if it does not afford many striking incidents, yet fur- nishes no unuseful lesson, and no mean incentive, to men of genius, how obscure soever their origin may be, or unpromising their early prospects ; as it shews the degree of celebrity and indepen- dence at which they may reasonably hope to arrive, by the exertion of those talents which they inherit from Nature, and a virtuous conduct in the society in which Providence has placed them. Before I enter, however, on this undertaking, I deem it neces- sary to offer some apology for my attempting it at all. I wish, indeed, that it had fallen to the lot of some other person better * Vol. II. p. 1. Ed. 12mo. vi INTRODUCTION. qualified to do justice to the subject ; yet perhaps I may be thought to possess some advantages in that respect, which are essential to the execution of a work of this nature. For as he, who attenigts to write biography, ought to have had a near acquaintance with the person whose life and character he means to delineate ; it is my pride to say, that during the long period of almost forty years, I was honoured with Dr Beattie's unreserved friendship, as well as intimate epistolary intercourse. By those means I enjoyed the opportunity of knowing him well, and of duly appreciating his meiit as a poet and philosopher, in both of which capacities he eminently excelled. I have also been fortunate enough to recover much of his private correspondence with others. From all which I hope to be able to show, that the writings which he gave to the world, were but transcripts of his mind : and that he evinced his love of virtue and religion, as well as his refined and classical taste, no iess in his private and unreserved communications with his friends, (some of them of high rank in life, as well as in the literary world,) than in those valuable works which he composed with more care for the public instruction. In order to exhibit to the reader a faithful portrait of the ori- ginal, I propose to follow the example of Mr Mason in his life of Gray, by producing some of the most interesting of Dr Beattie's letters, and. connecting them by a narrative, at proper periods, of the principal incidents of his life. By this method, he wilj, in no inconsiderable degree, be his own biographer, Jixid those letters will more clearly show the genuine goodness of his heart, and the soundness of his judgment, than any laboured character ©f him that could possibly be drawn. This mode of printing the letters of men of eminence to their private friends, which of course were never meant to meet the public eye, has, I know, been condemned by some ; but it has been well vindicated by others, particularly by Mr Mason.* ^ Letters of eminent persons, not written for publication," say^ ♦ Life of Gray, Vol. II. p. 5. Ed. 12mo. INTRODUCTION. vii the Editor of Lord Orford's works, " have always been sought " for with eagerness by the intelligent public, who justly conceive, " that, by their means, the most intimate and most satisfactory " acquaintance, both with the author and his contemporaries, is " often acquired."* Those who are of a different opinion, may be asked. Whether they can wish that they had never seen such letters as Mr Mason has printed ? and, farther, Whether they think that Mr Gray's character, as a gentleman or a scholar, has been in- jured by their publication ? It may also be asked. Whether there be not a wide difference between those elegant selections, which do equal honour to the head and the heart of the writers, and tlie collections of such men as Edmund Curl, into which every thing is indiscriminately admitted, whether having merit or not, because it bears the name of the eminent literary characters of his day ? I believe few readers of taste will be at any loss to find an answer to the question. If any farther authority were w^anting, I might add that of Mr Hayley, who has published his interesting life of Cowper on the same plan. In the introduction to his third volume, Mr Hayley has given a dissertation on the subject of the publicati- on of private letters ; and a list of the most eminent collections of that species of composition to be met with in ancient as well as modern languages. Whether these letters of Dr Beattie's, which I have thus ventured to lay before the public, may be deemed any Valuable addition to those of which it is already in possession, I scarcely dare to think myself a proper judge: as the partiality I feel for every thing that has fallen from his pen, may not unnatU'- rally be supposed somewhat to bias my judgment in that respect. That every letter of Dr Beattie's here printed is equally interesting, I am very far from wishing to affirm : but I trust that many will be found of no inconsiderable value, as containing the opinions, on literary subjects, of one who was himself so excellent a judge, and so eminent an example, of what is most valuable in philosophy^ poetry, or criticism. • Preface to the Works of the Earl of Orford, p. xix. viii INTRODUCTION. I shall only add farther, that I have, been scrupulous in not. admitting any thing that I thought would hurt the feelings of others ; nor any anecdote or opinion which Dr Beattie himself could have wished to have suppressed. As an Editor, I have not taken the liberty to add a single iota to what Dr Beattie has written ; but I have thought myself fully waiTanted in omitting, without scruple, whatever it seemed to me that he would not have permitted to see the light. When I consider the very great number of his letters, which I have been able to recover, some of them of great length, besides many more that he must have written to his other correspondents, which have escaped my research, or have not been deemed worth the preserving ; when I consider, too, the labour he bestowed in composing, as well as transcribing over and over again (for he seldom employed an amanuensis,) his works for the press, and at the same time think of the deplorable state of his health, and that he employed three hours every day, for almost half the year, in teaching his class, I cannot but be filled with wonder how he could possibly have contrived to write so much, preserving and enjoying at the same time suitable intercourse with society.* After these few introductory observations, I now proceed, with the utmost diffidence, to submit the following narrative to the candour and indulgence of the public. * I have retained tlie ancient custom of placing- the notes at the bottom of the page, though in opposition to the authority of some distinguished historical and biographical writers, who throw all their notes, how short soever, to the end of the voUime ; a mode which I have always thought ex- tremely inconvenient for the reader. When notes run to such a length, how- ever, as to break the narrative too much, they will be found, by references-, iti the Appendix. HFE OF JAMES BEATTIE, LL. D. SECTION I. FROM DR BEATTIE's BIRTH, IN THE YEAR 1 735, TO HIS ESTABLISH^ MENT AT ABERDEEN, IN THE YEAR 1758. James BEATTIE, LL. D. was bom on the 25th October,- 1735, at Lawrencekirk,* at that time an obscure hamlet hi the county of Kincardine in Scotland. His father was James Beattie, -who, at the same time that he kept a small retail shop in the * Lawrencekirk, which is situated twenty-eight miles south from Aber- deen, owes its rise, from so slender a beginning", to the rank of a borough of barony (as such small towns are called in Scotland, holding a rank somewhat above that of a village) to tlie ardent spirit of Lord Gardenstown, and the great encouragement he bestowed on it, at a very considerable expence. — Any farther account of Lawrencekirk, however, is foreign from my present purpose. I may merely add, that the house in which Dr Beattie was born, stood on a rising ground at the north-east end of the village, at no great distance from tlie site of the present inn, from which it was separated by a sroall rivulet. On the same spot is now built a house inhabited by a nephew of Dr Seattle's. And it has been remarked by some who are fond of fanciful analogies, that, as the tomb of Virgil, in the neighbourhood of Naples, was adorned wjtU a laurel, the birth-place of Beattie was pai-tly covered witli ivy, as if to denote tliat it had produced a poet. The banks of the rivulet are beautifully fringed with wdld roses, where Dr Beattie had been accustomed to spend his playful hours when at school, and which he delighted to contem- plate each time he passed through Lawrencekirk, with that enthusiasm with- which we revisit, in after life, tlie haunts of our boyish days. 10 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. village, rented a little farm in the neighbourhood, on which, and on a similar spot about a mile distant, his forefathers, for several generations, had carried on the same useful employment of agri- culture. His mother's name was Jean Watson ; and they had six children, of whom the youngest was James, the subject of these memoirs. If from this humble line of ancestry Dr Beattie derived no lustre, it may be fairly said, that he incurred no disgrace. For though they were poor, they were honest ; and were even distin- guished in that neighbourhood for their superior understanding. His father, in particular, is represented as having been a man of a most respectable character, who, by reading, had acquired know- ledge superior to what could have been expected in his humble condition. After his father's death, his mother, who Was a woman of uncommon abilities, was assisted in the management of their small farm by her eldest son David ; by the profits of which, and of the retail shop in the village, she was enabled to bring up her family in a comfortable manner. Her son James she placed at the parish school of Lawrencekirk. To that part of the civil polity of Scotland, by which in every parish a public school is by law established, it has been, not unjustly, attributed, that the lower classes of people in Scotland often display a superior degree of abilities through common life, to those of the same station in other countries, among whom the blindest ignorance but too frequently prevails. For in these parochial schools the youth, evei^ of the peasantry, may, if so in- clined, receive such a measure of instruction, as is suited to theif station, or may enable them, if possessed of superior genius, to arrive at still higher attainments in literature. The parish school of Lawrencekirk was at that time of some reputation ; and it was rendered the more remarkable, by being the same in which Ruddiman, the celebrated grammarian, had taught about forty years before. When young Beattie attended it, this school was taught by a person of the name of Milne, whom he used to represent as a good grammarian, and toltrably skilled in the Latin language, but destitute of taste, as well as of some other qualifications essential to a good teacher. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. U During the period of his attendance at the parish-school, he had access to few books.* Such as he could procure, he read with avidity, and it was then that he chanced to meet with Ogilby*s transUition of Virgil, from which he learned " the tale of Troy " divine," and first became acquainted with English versification, t Even at that early period, his turn for poetry began to show itself, and among his school-fellows he went by the name of Me Po^t. It was remarked, likewise by his family at home, particularly by a sister some years older than himself, at whose house in Montrose, after her mamage, he occasionally visited,^ that, during the night- time, be used to get out of bed, and walk about his chamber, in order to write down any poetical thought that had struck his fancy. In the year 1749, he commenced his academical course, and attended the Greek class in Marischal College, Aberdeen, at that time taught by Dr Blackwell.§ Of Dr Blackweirs friendship to him, he retained through life the most grateful remembrance, frequently declaring that the learned Principal was the first person who gave him reason to believe that he was possessed of any genius. By Dr Blackwell, he was, to his astonishment, early distinguished as superior to all his classfellows ; and at the close of the session: • For such books as he read at this early period, he was almost solely •indebted to the Rev. Mr Thomson, at that time minister of Lawrencekirk ; a very leai'ned man, whose collection, though in all probability it was not large, yet was superior to what a minister of the church of Scotland can generally be supposed to possess in a country parish. Of that clergyman, Dr Beattie always spoke with the highest respect, and acknowledged ia a paiticular manner his obligations to him for the use of books. f It is a curious co-incidence of circumstances, that Pope was initiated in poetry at eight years of age by the perusal of Ogilby's Homer. A friend having presented Dr Beattie, in the latter part of his life, with a copy of Ogilby's Virgil, made him very happy, in thus recalling to his imagination all the ideas with which his favourite author had at first inspired liim, even through the medium of a translation. \ Mrs Valentine, who told this artecdote to Mr Arbuthnot, from whom I had it. § Dr Thomas Blackwell, Principal of Marischal College, and Professor of Greek, in which language he was eminently skilled; author of an "En- -*« quiry into the Life and Writings of Homer;" " Letters concerning My- ^* thology ;" and " Memoirs of the Court of Augustus." 12 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 1749-50, he received from him a book, elegantly bound, bear- ing- the following inscription : " Jacobo Beattie, in prima classe, " ex comitatu Mernensi,* post examen publicum iibrum hunc " «t^/fs»tfVT<, premium dedit T. Blackwell, Aprilis 3° mdccl/' As his finances were but slender, he became a candidate for one of the bursaries, which are annually bestowed on such of the stu- dents as are raiable to bear the pecuniary expences atten9ant on a university education. These bursaries are small annual stipends, which the piety of our ancestors, and their zeal for the advance- ment of learning, had led them to establish. But no opprobrious distinction, no menial office, no degrading servitude, is annexed to the appellation, of Bursar at Aberdeen,, which merely implies the receipt of a certain revenue. On the contrary, it is a proof of superior merit. For, instead of being a sinecure into which the student is inducted without formality, it is the reward of learning, after a competition displayed by those who are the candidates, and of whose literary merits the professors of the university are the Judges. And it not unfrequently happens, as was the case of young Beattie, that the Bursars, by being the best scholars, are found at the head of their class.f He continued his attendance at the university of Aberdeen during four years, in the course of which, besides attending the Greek class,| he studied philosophy under the late Dr Gerard ; and during three sessions he attended the lectures: given by Dr Pollock, at that time professor of divinity, in Marischal College, no doubt with a view to the ministry ; a pursuit, however, which he soon relinquished^ One of his fellow-students has informed me, that during their attendance at the divinity hall, he heard Beattie de- * " The Meams," ta which Dr Blackwell has here given a Latin termi- nation, is the vernacular name for the county of Kincardine. f Tills alludes to those Bursaries which are in tlie gift of the university^ and are publicly contended for by eveiy candidate who cliuses to make his appearance. Besides these there are several in the gift of private patrons, who bestow them, without trial, on wiiom they please. I As a proof of the ardour with which he prosecuted his studies, not only while he attended the regular course of instruction at the university, but even after he had ceased to be an academical student, he wrote a book of notes on the Iliad, which ha* been foimd amonjf hJ8 papers sLi]c m. the Poets »f Great Britain, Vol. ix. p. 274 . U LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. In this obscure situation he must have passed *hany of his hours in solitude ; for except tlrat of Mr Forbes, the parish-minis- ter, who shewed him great kindness, and in whose family he fre- quently visited, he had scarcely any other society than that of the neighbouring peasantry, from whose conversation he could derive iittle amusement, and no information. But he had a never failing resource in his own mind, in those meditations Which he loved to indulge, amidst the beautiful and sublime scenery of that neigh- bourhood, which furnished him with endless amusement. At ^ small distance from the place of his rtsidence, a deep and extensive glen, finely clothed with wood, runs up into the mountains. Thither he frequently repaired, and there several of his earliest pieces were written. From that wild and romantic spot he drew as from the life, some of the finest descriptions, and most beautiful pictures of nature, in his poetical compositions. He has been heard to say, for instance, that the description of the ©wl, in his charming poem on " Retirement," ** Whence the scar'd owl, on pinions gre} > *' Breaks from the rustling boughs, *♦ And down the lone vale sails away ** To more profound repose.*'* was drawn after real nature. And the seventeenth stanza of the second book of " the Minstrel," in which he so feelingly describes the spot of which he most approved, for his place of sepulture, is so very exact a picture of the situation of the churchyard of Law- rencekirk, which stands near to his mother's house, and in which is the school-house where he was daily taught, that he must cer- tainly have had it in his view at the time he wrote the following beautiful lines. ** Let vanity adorn the mavble-tomb *' With trophies, rhymes, and scutcheons of renown, ** In the deep dungeon of some Gothic dome, ** Where night and desolation ever frown. * It is curious to compare this stanza with the second of Graves Elegy uj.. a Country Church Yard, in which the same tliought occurs. LIFE OF t)R BEATTIE. 15 ^^* Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down, *' Where a green grassy turf is all I crave, '* With here and there a violet bestrown, " Fust by a brook or fountain's murmuring wave ; ? And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave."* It v^as his supreme delight to saunter in the fields the live-long night, contemplating the sky, and marking the aproach of day ; and he used to describe with peculiar animation the pleasure he received from the soaring of the lark in a summer morning. A beautiful landscape which he has magnificently described in the twentieth stanza of the first book of " the Minstrel," corresponds exactly with what must have presented itself to his poetical imu- gination, on those occasions, at the approach of the rising sun, as he would view the grandeur of that scene from the hill in the neigh- bourhood of his native village. The high hill which rises to the v/est of Fordoun would, in a misty morning, supply him with one of the images so beautifully described in the twenty-first stanza. * The wish, that our bones should be laid "in the sepulchre with our '* fathers," has been so prevalent in all ages, that it seems to be a sentiment inherent in our nature. No wonder, therefore, that tlie local scenery where his nearest and dearest connexions were interred, should have made an early and deep impression on the mind of young Beattie, and should have suggest- ed to him the idea, that there^ perhaps, might be his own place of sepulture. AX a later period, however, he had changed his design in that respect; and after he began to spend so much of his time at Peterhead, he became fo.nd of an ancient burying-ground, at six miles distance, where had originally stood the church, now in ruins, of the parish of St Fergus, in the middle of the beautiful links* of that name. This was a favourite spot of Dr Beattie's, •where he much delighted to take his walks of meditation. Combining the idea of solitude and repose with the solemn purpose to whicii the scene was devoted, he felt a more than common interest in that sequestered spot, and used to say to his friends, that it was there he wished his remains might be l;iid. With that view, the first season in which his niece, Mrs Glennie, ac- companied him to Peterhead, he carried her to visit the church-yard in the links of St Fergus. It was the recollection of that circumstance which induced Mrs Glennie to ask him, after the death of both his sons, where he desired to be interred \ to which he i-eplied, that '*he would wish his body to be laid beside those of " his two sons, rather than beside that of the greatest monarch upon earth.'* lie was accordingly buried at Aberdeen. * A word used in ScotlaHict nearly synqpymous with what in England they call " Downs/' "^j^ 16 LIFE OF DR BEATTIl?:. And the twentieth stanza of the second book of " the Minstrel'^ describes a night-scene unquestionably drawn from nature, in which he probably had in view Homer's sublime description of the moon, in the ei>^hth book of the Iliad, so admirably translated by Pope, that an eminent critic has not scrupled to declare it to be Superior to the original.* He used, himself, to tell, that it was from the top of a high hill in the neiglibourhood that he first beheld the ocean, the sight of which, he declared, made the most lively impression on his mind. It is pleasing, I think, to contemplate these his early habits, so congenial to the feelings of a poetical and warm imagination ; and, therefore, I trust I shall be forgiven for having dwelt on them so long.f From this cheerless want of society, however, he was, not long after, in a great degree relieved, by the arrival of his eldest brother, David, who came to establish himself in the village of Fordoun. Although he was eleven years older than our author, the utmost cordiality subsisted between the two brothers, and much of their time was spent in each other's company. At that time David, who was so much older than his brother, no doubt had it in his power to do him considerable service. But that service was amply returned in the course of their after lives, by Dr Beattie, who took every opportunity of assisting his brother and his family. And finally, by his will, he left to David a legacy, from which, how^ ever, by his dying before Dr Beattie, he did not derive any benefit. * Melnioth*s Letters of Sir Thomas Fitzosborn, letter xx. p. 85. f It must have been about this period, that an incident happened to him, which I should be afraid to relate, were I not fully persuaded of its authen- ticity; I never, indeed, myself heard him mention it ; but I have perfect con- fidence in the veracity of those friends to whom he has frequently told the circumstance Having lain down, early in the morning, on the bank of his favourite rivulet adjoining to his mother's house, he had fallen asleep ; on awaking, it was not without astonishment, that he found he had been walk- ing in his sleep, and that he was then at a considerable distance (al)out a mile and a half) from the place where he had lain down. On his way back to that spot, he passed some labourers, and enquiring of them, if they had seen him walking along, they told him that they had, with his head hanging down, as if he had been looking for something he had lostv* * Vide Appeiidix/tB.] LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 17 His first patron was the late Lord Gardenstown,* who, being at that time sheriff of the county of Kincardine, resided occasion- ally at Woodstock, a house in the neighbourhood of Fourdoun. To Beattie Mr Garden became accidentally known, by his hav- ing found him one day in his favourite glen, employed in writing with a pencil. On enquiring Avhat he was about, and finding that he was employed in the composition of a poem, Mr Garden's curiosity was attracted, and from that period he took the young bard under his protection. Dr Beattie has been frequently heard to mention an anecdote which took place in the early part of his acquaintance with that gentleman. Mr Garden, having seen some of his pieces in manuscript, and entertaining some doubt of their being entirely of his own composition, in order to satisfy himself of the abilities of the young poet, asked him, with politeness, to translate the invoca- tion to Venus from the first book of Lucretius. In compliance with this request, Beattie retired into the adjoining wood, and in no long time produced the translation, bearing all the marks of original composition, for it was much blotted with alterations and corrections. It was printed in the first collection of Dr Beattie's poems in the year 1760, but omitted in all the subsequent editions. He also became known at this time to Lord Monboddo,t (whose family-seat is in the parish of Fordoun,) with whom he always maintained a friendly intercourse, although they essentially dif- fered in some very material points, as must be very apparent to those who are conversant with their writings. * Francis Garden, afterwards one of the judges of the supreme courts of civil and criminal law in Scotland, by the title of Lord Gardenstown, the same who is mentioned in the note on p. 9, as the patron of the village of Lawrencekirk, which was on his estate. f James Burnet of Monboddo, also one of the judges of the supreme court of law in Scotland, by the title of Lord Monboddo, well known in the literary world by his publications on the origin and progress of language, and a still more extensive work, entitled, " Ancient Metaphysics," in which he has in- dulged himself in not a few paradoxical and fanciful theories. His writings, however, evince him to have been a man of learning and talents, though cre- dulous in the extreme. He died at Edinburgh, May 26, 1799, aged 85. The beautiful " Elegy written in the year 1758," beginning " Still shall un- " thinking man substantial tleem," was written by Dr Beattie, on the death of Mrs Walker, sister of Lord Monboddo. c 18 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. He continued to teach the school of Fordoun till the year 1757, when, on a vacancy happening of the place of usher in the gram- mar-school of Aberdeen, his friend, Mr Forbes, minister of For- doun, advised him to become a candidate for it. He accordingly offered himself, but did not succeed. He acquitted himself, how- ever, so well in his examination on that occasion, that, on a second vacancy of the same place happening about a year afterwards, the magistrates, who are the electors, requested him to accept of the office without any further trial ; and he was accordingly elected to it, 20th June 1758, soon after which period he left Fordoun, and removed to Aberdeen. SECTION II. FROM DR BEATTIE's ESTABLISHMENT AT ABERDEEN IN THE YEAR 1758, TO THE PUBLICATION OF HIS ESSAY ON TRUTH IN THE YEAR 1770. This event of Beattie's election to be one of the ushers of ihe grammar-school at Aberdeen, humble as the appointment was for a man of his talents and acquired knowledge, yet forms a memo- rable epoch in his life. It removed him in fact from the obscurity in which he had hitherto languished, at a distance from books, with few friends, ^nd with but little of the blessings of congenial society, to a large and populous town, the seat of an university, where he had access to public libraries for study, and the opportu- nity of cultivating the friendship of persons of taste and learning. Principal Blackwell, his early friend, and the first to discover his genius and talents, Avas now dead. But the two universities of Marischal college, New Aberdeen, and King's college. Old Aber- deen, could boast of no inconsiderable number of men of genius and learning, with whom he had soon the happiness of becoming more immediately connected. And there were likewise several gentlemen at that time at Aberdeen, though not of the class of literary men by profession, yet of liberal education and a compe- tent degree of general knowledge, well suited to the taste of such a person as Beattie, who delighted to associate in convivial meetings, with friends whose disposition and habits were congenial with his own. He did not remain long, however, in the humble situation of usher of the grammar-school. In the year 1760, a chair in the Marischal college and university of Aberdeen, became vacant by the death of Dr Duncan, professor of natural philosophy, On Beattie's relating this event, merely as an occurrence of the day, to a gentleman with whom he lived in much intimacy, his friend suggested to him the idea of his endeavouring to procure the vacant 20 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. appointment for himself. Beattie heard the proposal with amaze- ment, conceiving such a situation to be an object altogether beyond his grasp. And, indeed, few things seemed less likely to take place, than that he who but two years ago had filled the obscure office of a country parochial school-master, almost friendless imd unknown, should succeed in obtaining a professor's chair in the gift of the crown. His iPriend,* however, willing to try what could * The gentleman, to whose active zeal and friendly interposition, on this occasion, Beattie owed so mucli, was Robert Arbuthnot, esq, secretary to the Board of Trustees for fisheries and manufactures at Edinburgh, but wlio, at that time, resided chiefly, and carried on business as a merchant, at Peter- head in Aberdeenshire. Beattie and he had become acquainted on the re- moval of the former to Aberdeen; and a friendship was' soon formed between them, which terminated only with their lives. Mr Arbuthnot, who was nearly related to the celebrated Dr Arbuthnot, the friend of Pope and Swift, to a considerable share of classical learning, added an intimate acquaintance with the best autliors in the English language, particularly in poetry and belles lettres, of whom he well knew how to appreciate the respective merits, and with the most favourite passages of whose works his memory M^as stored beyond that of almost any man I ever knew. He had likewise read the most esteemed writers in the French and Italian languages. By these means his conversation was uncommonly entertaining and instructive. He possessed, likewise, an inexhaustible flow of spirits, which had helped to support him through a variety of distressful circumstances, to which it had been his lot to be exposed. And to all this he added a vein of delicate and peculiar luimour, and '* flashes of merriment that were M^ont to set tlie table in a roar." An intimate friendsln'p between Mr Arbuthnot and the autlior of these Memoirs had commenced at an earlier period than that at wliich either of* us knew Dr Beattie, whom we both equally loved as a friend, and admired as a writer of very superior genius. We had the happiness, too, of posstssing in Major Mercer, of whom 1 shall have occasion to say more hereafter, anotlier early friend, who was equally attached to Dr Beattie by long habits of the strictest intimacy. Of the Doctor's regard for all the three, he has given the strongest proof; first, by inscribing to us the collection which he printed of his son's miscellanies, and at last by appointing us the executors of his will, and the trustees of his property ; bequeathing to each, at tlie same time, some memorial of his kind remembrance, with very flattering expressions of esteem.* From those gentlemen, therefore, so intimately acquainted with Dr Beattie, and in whose taste and judgment on literary subjects I had the fullest confidence, I trusted that I should have received the most essential aid, in preparing, by our united efforts, this tribute of affection to the memory of our much loved friend. But, • Vide Dr Beattre's will. Appendix, [C] LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 21 be done, prevailed on the late Earl of Erroll (father of the present lord,) with whom he lived in much intimacy, to apply, by means of Lord Milton, to the late duke of Argyll, who at that time was sup- posed to have the chief interest in the disposal of such offices as became vacant in Scotland ; and, fortunately for Beattie, Lord Erroll received a favourable answer. In consequence of which, on the 8th of October 1760, he was installed professor of moral phi- losophy and logic in Marischal college. Dr Duncan,* whose death thus made way for Dr Beattie*s appointment, was Professor of Natural Philosophy. But the pro- fessorship of Moral Philosophy and Logic becoming vacant soon afterwards by the resignation of Dr Gerard, on his being appointed Professor of Divinity, Dr Skene, who was also a candidate for one of these offices, and Dr Beattie, agreed, that the professorship of Moral Philosophy should be assigned to the last, as more suitable to his taste and disposition ; and that of Natural Philosophy to Dr Skene. They were both installed on the same day.f By this honourable appointment, Dr Beattie found himself raised to a situation of much respectability, where he could give full scope to his talents, and indulge his favourite propensity of " On our firmest resolutions " The silent and inaudible tread of Death " Steals like a thief." Major Mercer and Mr Arbutlinot survived Dr Beattie only a very short space of time ; and the health of both had become so much impaired, as to render ]t impossible for cither to p^ive me any assista.nce. A misfortune which I feel, IS I proceed, almost in every page. Mr Arbuthnot died 5th of November 1803, and Major Mercer, 18th November 1804. * The translator of" Cicero's Orations." t As an expression of his gratitude to Lord Erroll for this most impor- (ant service, he dedicated to that nobleman his first publication of a volume of poems. And when his eldest son was born, he named him James Hey Beattie, after the Christian name and surname of his noble patron, for whom lie -ever after entertained the highest respect. Lord Erroll, on his part, constantly treated Dr Beattie with the most friendly regard; so that he was Always a welcome guest at Slains-Castle, the seat of Lord Erroll, in Aber- deenshire. For some farther account of this accomplished nobleman, vide Appendix, [D]. 22 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. communicating knowledge of the most important nature, and thu« proir^oting the best interests of mankind. His. first business was to prepare a course of lectures, which he began to deliver to his pupils during the winter session of the years 17G0-1. These lectures he continued gradually to improve by repeated study, till he brought them to that state of perfection of which some idea may be formed, from the publication of his work, entitled " Elements of Moral Science," a compendium of his lectures, which he prepared and published, as will be mentioned hereafter, for the use of his students. How indefatigable he was in tne discharge of the duties of his important office, may be gathered from a very curious diary found among his papers, and now in my possession, in which he has noted down the subject of each lecture. From a perusal of this diary may be known what was done in his class every day, during a long period of upwards of thirty years. It exhibits, not only the plan of his lectures, but his unwearied diligence in the conduct of them. For he did not content himself, as it will be seen, with merely delivering a lecture to his students. He laboured, by re- capitulations and public examinations in his class, to impress on the minds of his auditors the great and important doctrines which he taught.* Among other advantages which Dr Beattie derived from his removal to Aberdeen, was that of becoming a member of a society which at that time subsisted there, composed chiefly of professors of King's and Marischal Colleges, with the addition of several gentlemen of that place, of a literary turn, and of agreeable con- versation. So far back as the year 1742, a similar society had been formed there, consisting of young men, who were stu- dents of divinity at those two universities of New and Old Aber^ deen, in which the pleasures of conversation were combined with the pursuits of sacred literature. The chief founder of this society, which was denominated the Theological Club, was Dr Campbell;! besides whom, the principal members were, the * Vide Appendix[E], for some farther account of this diary. I The Rev. Dr Georg-e Camjibell, Principal of Marischal College, and Professor of Divinity, distinguished as a scholar and a divine by his valuable publiciitions in tlie cause of religion; in particular, his "Essay on Miracles," LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 2.3 Reverend Dr John Glennie, who afterwards successfully con- ducted an academy in the parish of Mary Couher, in the coun- ty of Kincardine, of which he was minister, to a very advanced period of life ;* Dr Trail, afterwards Lord Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland ; and the Reverend Mr John Skinner, of the Episcopal church of Scotland, author of an Ecclesiastical History ©f Scotland, who, at the age of 83, is now the only surviving mem- ber of the society. It lasted during several years, until most of its members, having been settled as ministers in country parishes, removed to a considerable distance from Aberdeen. In the beginning of the year 1758, a new society was formed chiefly by the Reverend Dr Reid,t and his friend and relation, Dr in opposition to the doctrine of Mr Hume, has been esteemed one of the most acute and most convincing- argumentative treatises on that great and fun- damental doctrine of revealed religion, that has ever appeared. His trans- lation of'* the four Gospels," with the accompanying dissertations, is a work of much erudition : and his " Philosophy of Rethoric" is a very classical performance, in which the laws of elegant composition and just criticism are laid down with singular taste and perspicuity. Dr Campbell, witli whom I had the happiness of being long intimately acquainted, besides being emi- nently learned as a writer, was a man of the utmost simplicity of manners and naivete of character ; pleasant and agreeable in conversation, and most attentive to the discharge of all the duties of his station as a minister of the gospel, and a public instructor of the youth committed to his care. Tlie strongest friendship and strictest intimacy took place, at a very early period, between Dr Campbell and Dr Beattie, vvliich continued, without interrup- tion, to the close of Dr Campbell's life, wliich happened at Aberdeen, 6th April, 1796, in the 77tli year of liis age. * To the memory of Dr Glennie, wlio first taught me the rudiments of learning, when I attended his Englisli school at Aberdeen, I am Iiappy in.the opportunity of thus publicly testiiying my most sincere respect; and that gratitude which I shall ever feel towards him for the warm interest he was" pleased to take in the direction of my early studies. A strong and mutual regard subsisted between us ever after, during the longjieriod of more than half a century. He died in 1801. His son married Dr Beattie's niece, and to him I here acknowledge my obligations for the materials with wJiich he has taken the trouble to furnish me for the early part of the life of Dr Beattie. f The Reverend Dr Thomas Reid, professor first at Aberdeen, afterwards in the university of Glasgow, wliose " Inquiry into the Human Mind, on the •* Principles of common Sense," and his "Essays on the irteiiectual and " active Powers of Man" have deservedly ranked him among the first phi* 24 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. John Gregory,* on a more extensive plan, for the discussion of literary and philosophical subjects. The original members were Dr Read, Dr Gregory, Dr David Skene, a physician of genius and taste, particularly skilful in botany ; the Reverend Dr Robert Trail, nephew of the bishop of Down and Connor ; and Dr Stewart, profes- sor of mathematics, in Marischal college. To these were afterwards added, Dr Gerard,t Dr George Skene, physician and professor of losophical and metaphysical writers of our age. He left Aberdeen not long after Dr Beattie was settled there. But the friendship which they had early contracted for each other continued unabated to the close of their lives. For farther particulars of Dr Reid, who died in the year 1796, in his 87th year, see an elegant and well written account of his life by my friend Pro- fessor Dugald Stewart of Edinburgh. * Dr Jolni Gregory, at that time professor of medicine in the university of Aberdeen, with whom Dr Beattie became early acquainted; and a friend- ship was formed between them, of the sincerest and most intimate nature, which lasted unimpaired to the death of Dr Gregory. Not long after the period here spoken of, he removed to Edinburgh, from a consciousness of his own talents, which he justly deemed calculated for a more extensive sphere tlian that wherein he was placed at Aberdeen. In Edinburgh he soon obtained a chair in that celebrated school of medicine, was honoured with the office of first physician to his majesty for Scotland, and speedily arrived at high eminence in the practice of his profession. His publications of " A comparative View of the State and Faculties of Man, with those of the Animal World," of his *' Lectures on the Duties and Offices of a Phy- sician," and his beautiful little address to his daughters, published after his death by the title of " A Father's Legacy," show, in a most conspicuous point of view, the goodness of his heart as a man, and his merit as a philoso- pher. He possessed an elegant taste, and an intimate acquai!\tance witli the world. He was, moreover, a person of mucli piety, and a Christian in the best sense of the word. Of manners uncommonly gentle and engaging, his society was courted by persons of the first distinction, and he lived in inti- macy with tlie most eminent literary characters of his time, both in England and Scotland. He honoured me very early, and in a particular degree, with his friendship, of which he gave the most unequivocal proof, by naming me one of the guardians of his children. And I now look back, with a melan- choly satisfaction, to the many pleasing and instructive hours I have spent in his company. For a more particular account of Dr Gregory, who died 9th February 1773, see his life, written by Lord Woodhouselee, prefixed to his works. t The Reverend Dr Alexander Gerard, professor of divinity, first in Ma- rischal College, New Aberdeen, afterwards in King's College, Old Aber- deen, was another of that set of learned and philosophical friends, from LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 25 natural philosophy in the same university ; the Reverend Mr John Farquhar,* and Dr Beattie. This literary society, (or rather club, for it was a convivial meeting in a tavern,) which the vulgar and uninformed denominated the Wise Club, subsisted for several years, and seems to have had the happiest effects in awakening and directing that spirit of piiilosophical research, which has reflected so much lustre on the north of Scotland. The members (says the elegant author of the life of Dr Gregory,) were persons of distin- guished abilities and learning, attached to the same plan, and engaged in similar pursuits. The animosities and the mean jealousies, which so often disgrace the characters of literary men, were unknown to those friends, who, educated in one school, pro- fessing no opposite tenets, or contending principles, seem to have united themselves as in one common cause, the defence of virtue, of religion, and of truth. It would be curious, in many instances (continues the author whom I quote,) to trace the history of those literary compositions, which have instructed or amused the world, and to mark their progress from their first rude sketches to their complete form and ultimate perfection. Some of the most admired works of those philosophers I have mentioned, owed their origin to this literary society, which was held once a fortnight in Aberdeen, on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month. The members met at five o'clock in the evening (for in those days at Aberdeen, it was the custom to dine early,) when one of the members, as president, took the chair, and left it at half an hour after eight, v/hen they partook of a slight and unexpensive collation, and at ten o'clock they separated.! whose writings those two universities have justly derived so great celebrity. He was distinguished by his publications, viz. " An Essay on Taste,** to which was adjudged tlie gold prize-medal by tlie philosoplucal society of Edinburgh ; " Dissertations on the Genius and Evidences of Christianity;" *' An Essay on Genius;" and two volumes of sermons, Dr Beattie and he were constant and intimate friends from their first acquaintance. He died 22d February 1795. * Author of two volumes of excellent sermons, published after his death, by his two friends, Dr Campbell and Dr Gerard. He was brother to sii* Walter Farquhar, hart, physician in London. t Rule* of the Philosophical Society of Aberdeen, MS, Q& LIFE OF DR BEATtlE. At these meetings, a part of the evening's entertainment was- the reading a short essay, composed by one of the members in his turn. Besides those more formal compositions, thus read as dis- courses, a literary or philosophical question was proposed each night, for the subject of conversation at the subsequent meeting. And it was the duty of the proposer of the question to open the discussion ; by him also the opinions of the members who took a part in it, were digested into the form of an essay, which was ingrossed in the album of the society - Of such an institution the advantages were obvious and emi- nent. Besides the benefit to be derived to the members from a miutual communication of their sentiments on the common objects of their pursuit, an opportunity was afforded of subjecting their intended publications to the test of friendly criticism. And the miany valuable works which issued nearly about the same time from individuals connected with this institution, more particularly the writings of Rcid, Campbell, Beattie, Gregory, and Gerard^ furnish the best panegyric on the enlightened views of those under whose direction it was originally planned, and by whose exertions it was so successfully carried on.* But it was not solely to ethics, metaphysics, and logic, that Dr Beattie had devoted his time and attention at this period. For it appears by the following letter, that he relaxed his mind from those severer studies, by a perusal of works of imagination, by which he prepared himself for the composition of those admirable essays on poetry, and other subjects of taste, which he afterwards gave t» the world f * See Appendix, [F J LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 2r LETTER I. DR BEATTIE TO DR JOHN OGILVIE.* Aberdeen, 20th August, 1759. I HAD intended to have written a long letter on the oc- casion of my reading " Clarissa ;'* and I actually had begun one in a very methodical manner ; but happening to read the post- script t afterwards, I was surprised to find the very subject touched upon there, which I had proposed to treat of in my intended letter. I therefore changed my first resolution, judging it unnecessary to trouble you with reading in my words what you find much better expressed in th?.t postscript. I intended to have inquired into the conveniencies and disadvantages of Richardson's manner of writing, compared with that of other novelists : to have considered the propriety or impropriety of the catastrophe ; and to have in- dulged what other critical reflections might have occurred upon the arrangement of the narrations, the length of the work, and a fev/ other particulars. But finding this plan executed, as I said before, in the postscript, and executed in a manner very similar to that which I had designed, I shall trouble you at present only with a few miscellaneous observations upon that celebrated novel. " The author shows great knowledge of mankind, and of human nature. He possesses an inexhaustible fmid of original sentiment, a happy talent at some kinds of description, particularly conversation pieces ; he delineates some characters v/ith masterly and distinguishing strokes ; he seems to be well acquainted with the human heart, and with the particular emotions that arise in it on particular occasions. The fervour wherewith he recommends religion and virtue intimates, that he is truly in earnest, and that his heart goes along with his pen. * The Reverend Dr John OgUvie, minister at Midmarin Aberdeenshire, author of " Providence,'* and other poems of very considerable merit, espe- cially his earlier lyric compositions. He also published •* An Enquiry into *' the Causes of the Infidelity and Scepticism of the Times," a book con- taining much valuable matter. t To " Clarissa,'* referred to in the preface of the work, in v/hich several objections are considered by tlie author. 28 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " On reading " Clarissa," we immediately discover that its design is more to instruct than to amuse. The author warns the reader of this in his preface, and again repeats it in the postscript. It is for this reason that they who read more for amusement than instruction will not be so much captivated with " Clarissa" as with some other of our English novels. I grant there are in the novel before us a great many passages of the most interesting kind, but these passages are few in comparison to the extent of the work. I cannot help thinking that our author is often tedious to a fault. In the first volumes there are, if I mistake not, many needless (and I had almost said nauseating) repetitions. I grant, such letters as fall under this censure are generally characteristical,are often humorous, often instructive, and might possibly please, if we were to read the book a second or third time, when we are acquainted with all the characters, and all the particulars of the story. But as there are not many readers who can afford leisure to read so long a romance twice or thrice over, I presume proper care ought to have been taken to blend amusement and instruction in such a manner, as that the one might be a heightening and seasoning to the other. When a stop is put to the progress of the story, in order to give the author room to shew his talent for humour, or for moralizing, the readers (especially those of the younger sort, for whom principally such books are intended) will be impatient till they disentangle them- selves of these digressions, and fall in again with the story. This, I believe, will generally be the case if the narrative be deeply in- teresting ; and deeply interesting every narrative of this kind ought to be. One of the rules to be observed in the Aristotelean drama, is, that there be no scene in the piece superfluous. I wish the author of " Clarissa'* had kept some such rule as this in his eye ; that he had disposed all the parts of his work in such a manner, as that the reader, though always impatient for the catastrophe, should never be tempted to pass over any part, but should ever find the story rising upon him, so as that his passion for novelty should be fully gratified all along. For my own part, I was often chagrined at his tediousness, and frequently was obliged to turn to the contents of the volume, to relieve my mind a little from the rack of unsatisfied impatience ; yet I doubt not, if I were now to read *' Clarissa" a second time, I should find these tedious parts not the least useful. Whoever rails at Mr Richard- LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 29 son's tediousness should recollect, that his design is more to instruct than to amuse; and that consequently his tediousness is a pardonable fault, as the motive to it is so laudable. " With respect to the characters in " Clarissa," they are, I think, in general, particular and distinct enough. There is some- thing similar in the characters of the three brothers, Harlowes, and at the same time something peculiar in each. The same thing may be observed, upon a comparison of others of the characters that are apparently pretty much alike. The character of Lovelace is wrought up with great art. In the first volum.e the reader sees something amiable enough in this character, sees what he thinks almost sufficient to engage the affections of Clarissa ; nor does he discover the deep designing ruffian, till the third volume; and yet so consistent are Lovelace's designs, even then, with that charac- ter which he bears at the beginning, that the reader is not disap- pointed when he comes to trace out his viilany. " It is with some a very strong objection against our author, that he proposes to our imitation, what they call a perfect character in the person of Clarissa. Clarissa's character is indeed exalted, but it is not humanly perfect. And in proposing a character some- thing more than humanly perfect to our imitation, I cannot at pre- sent discern any absurdity. P'or is it not recommended to those who study to excel in any art or science, that they form themselves after the most perfect models, even although it be morally impos- sible for them ever to attain the perfection of these models? Does not the celebrated judge of the sublime very strongly recommend this rule, when he proposes for the imitation of those v/ho would attempt epic poetry and oratory, no less perfect patterns than Homer and Demosthenes ? Nay, (if we may without profanation, use this other illustration) does not the scripture enjoin us to imi- tate the great Original of all perfection? This rule is founded in nature and reason. If the model be imperfect, the copies must of consequence be more imperfect ; and so liable to error is the hu- man mind, that we are as prone to imitate the faults as the excel- lencies of what is proposed for an original to us. Novr, shall this rule be allowed to every other science, and not to the most impor- * tar.t of all sciences, the science of life and manners ? I know the grand objection is, that to give a man or woman a perfect character 30 LIFE OF DR BEATTIK. is out of nature. A character absolutely perfect does not, we ac- knowledge, belong to man. " But what height of excellence even a human soul may arrive at, we cannot ascertain, till we have left no experiment untried. One, who had never seen the tricks of a wire dancer, would be apt to ridicule as fabulous the first accounts he should hear of those astonishing feats, of which long application and unwearied industry make these performers capable. Who can tell, what happy, what glorious effects might be produced, were an equal proportion of industry applied to the regulation of the passions, and the strength- ening and improving the reasonable powers! Let not then the novelist be censured, if his hero or heroine be possessed of a pro- portion of virtue superior to what we have discovered in our ac- quaintance with mankind ; provided the natural genius inherent in the hero or heroine, assisted by the improvements of the happiest education, be sufficient to render their virtues at least probable. Nature, we must remember, had endowed Clarissa with a genius of the m^ost exalted kind, and a temperament of soul formed to re- ceive the impressions of virtue. This genius, and this disposition^ improved by the culture of a liberal and strictly virtuous education, amid the simplicity of a country life, could not fail to produce an admirable character. Nor do I think this character (all circum- stances considered) stretched beyond the limits of humanity. Clarissa's external conduct was indeed unblameable (and I hope, for the honour of mankind, there are many to be found whose ex- ternal conduct is unblameable), but she often acknowledges her heart was not so. She owns she was conceited and puffed up in her happy days, and not entirely proof against the suggestions of chagrin and despondency in her adversity. If, then, her character be perfect, we must call it (as we before called it) humanly perfect. " On the whole, I think Mr Richardson is, with regard to the manners of his heroine, entirely unworthy of blame. " You ask, What I think of Richardson's talents for the pathe- tic? In this respect, I think he has no equals among his own tribe of writers, and not many superiors even among the most celebrated tragedians. I said before, that he seems to be acquainted with the particular emotions that arise in the human heart on particular oc- casions. Several passages of his work I could point out in proof LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. t-l of this: I shall only at present give one instance, and that is, Cla- rissa's delirious letter to Lovelace (voL v. p. 309.) which no persoix can read without sensible emotion. The starts of phrenzy, of phrenzy in such a person, under such circumstances, are, I think, hit off in such a manner, as w^ould not have been unworthy of Shakespeare himself. I shall transcribe a few lines from that let- ter, with which I cannot tell how much I was struck. " But good, " now, Lovelace, don't set Mrs Sinclair upon me again. I never " did her any harm. She so affrights me when I see her. Ever " since— ^F//ew ivas it? I cannot tell. You can, I suppose.". This- f When was it ? ) suggests a great deal to my imagination. It is. one of those soul-harrowing expressions which are seldom to be met with but in Shakespeare, and which are infinitely preferable to all the laboured harangues and verbose descriptions of a Dry den. I must add, that the full beauty of that phrase cannot be taken in. but by one, who is well acquainted with this part of the story. The descriptions of the arrest, and of Clarissa's death, are very pathetic t and the author shows, by his account of the infamous Sinclair's- fate, that he has no mean talent at describing scenes of horror. There is something dreadfully striking in the penknife scene, as it is called (vol. vi. p. 60.) But as it is needless to be more particular,. I cannot dismiss this criticism, without taking notice, that how- ever pathetic the account of the lady's misfortunes may be, sorrow will not (I think) be the prevailing passion in one who peruses it. If I mistake not, indignation at the infernal villany of the ruflRan, who is the author of these misfortunes, will not a little contribute to steel the heart against the softer impressions of sorrow, at least will render them less penetrating. And yet, perhaps, either of these passions may be prevalent, according to the constitution of the reader. " Richardson, I think, merits commendation for his carefully avoiding to hint, the least anticipation of the catastrophe, in the first volumes. The reader is left as much in the dark, with re- spect to events, as the interested persons themselves. This natu- rally results from the manner of writing which our author has chosen, and is no doubt one of the principal excellencies of his manner, compared with that of other novelists. But this matter is handled in the postscript to the work. 32 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " I shall have done with my criticism on " Clarissa." To point out faults is a disagreeable task; I choose rather to insist upon beauties. Richardson, upon the whole, is an original writer ; and deserves well of his country, for giving it one of the most zisefiU novels in the English language. " After allowing this writer so large a share of merit, perhapa it may be thought too trilling to censure his style. It is, indeed, sometimes very expressive. To have raised it above the familiar had been faulty. He has often coined words, which, in a literary correspondence, is allowable. He varies his style with great judg- ment, and adapts it admirably to the different characters. If I were to find fault with it at all, I would only say, that, from an over- affectation of the familiar, he too often uses the parenthesis ; and as he seldom unites the latter part of the period with the former, by a recapitulating word or two, he lays his reader under the neces- sity, especially where the parenthesis is long, of reading the sen- tence once and again, before he can catch the meaning and intent of the whole. I think the parenthesis ought to be used very spa- ringly ; and when an author chooses to use it, he should con- descend so fcir to the weakness of his reader's memory, as to unite the disjoined parts of the period by a few recapitulating words, as I venture to call them, prefixed to the latter clause. " I was surprised to find, at the end of such a work as " The *' History of Clarissa," a set of verses so very paltry as those in- scribed to the author of " Clarissa." But I believe authors arc on such occasions often at a loss, and find themselves obliged to pre- fer, not the quality of the complimentary verses, but the quality of the friendly rhymers themselves ; otherwise I should venture to pronounce Mr Richardson an inadequate judge of poetical merit. Take the following four lines, and tell me if you have ever seen more prosaic doggerel ? *' With streaming' eyes, too late, the motliei* blames •* Her tame submission to the tyrant, James ; ** Even he, the gloomy father, o'er the hearse ** Laments his rashness, and recals his curse."* * It fs pleasing to compare this criticism of Dr Beattie's, on Richardsoii's ** Clarissa," written when a very young man, in a private letter to a friend, with that which he afterwards gave to the world, at the distance of four and LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. S3 Dr Beattie, as has been already mentioned, had given early- indications of poetical genius. This, however, he had merely em- ployed for the amusement of himself and his friends. He had in- deed occasionally sent some verses to the Scots Magazine, published at Edinburgh.* But his first appearance in print, in his own cha- racter, was by the publication, in London, in the year 1760, of a small collection, entitled, " Original Poems and Translations," t9 which he prefixed his name, and dedicated it to the Earl of Erroll, in testimony of gratitude to that nobleman, to whom he was indebted for his chair in the universityf. twenty years, in his " Dissertation on Fable and Romance ;"* whence it will be seen how accurately he had formed his opinion on the subject, at so early a period of life. * In the Scots Magazine for the year 1756, p. 3.91, will be found a poetn written by Dr Beattie, on reading the declaration of war, signed " ^. B. Kincardineshirei 7th yune^ 1756." In the same Magazine, for the year 1757, p. 258, there is an epitaph with the following words prefixed, designed for its author^ which was signed Morituruss K — d — esh — e, evidently Kincardine- shire, like the former, which was certainly written by him ; as the epitaph in the first edition of his Poems, p. 66. contains nearly the same thought, and the last stanza verbatim. In the Scots Magazine for 1758, p. 482, is the " Ode to PeacCy'* signed Aberdeen, y. B. In the Scots Magazine, 1759, p. 134, is the " Elegy on the death of Mrs. Walker," signed y. B. Aberdeen, Feb. 1759. In the same year, page 303, is the " Epitaph for a Messenger," ivritfen and published at the particular desire of the person for luhom it 'was in- tended. It is signed, Mont. Abd. Ford. June 28, 1759. The contracted words are for Montrose, Aberdeen, Fordoun. t The contents of this small volume were : ** Ode to Peace. ** Retirement, an Ode. *« Ode to Hope. *' The Triumph of Melancholy. *' An Elegy occasioned by the Deatli of a Lady. *' The Hares, a Fable. :|" Epitaph. :{:" Epitaph on Two. Brothers^ " £legy. \" Song in imitation of Shakespeare. p* Anacreon, Ode 22. translated. X" Invocation to Venus from Lucretius, translated. * Dissert, on Fable and Romance, p. 567. E S4 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. This collection was very favourably received, and stamped Dr Beattie with the character of a poet of great and original genius. The public judgment in his favour must be considered, too, as the more valuable, and indeed cannot by any means be suspected of partiality, when it is considered, that the poems were presented to the world without any patronage, and with nothing but their own intrinsic merit to recommend them : for the name of the author had never been so much as heard of in London previous to their publication. The harmony of his numbers, however, the sim- plicity, yet force and elegance of his diction, the brightness of his fancy, as well as the correct and appropriate sentiments throughout, were of themselves sufficient to command the applause of every competent judge. Of the pieces in this collection, all are certainly not of equal merit. While the odes to " Peace," to " Hope," on " Retire- ment," breathe the true spirit of lyric poetry, and some of the ele- giac poems are highly pathetic and aff*ecting, fable seems to be a species of composition for which he had but little genius. It may therefore probably excite some wonder, that while, in the subse- quent editions of his poems he chose to retain the " Hares," a poem which seems to possess little other merit than smooth versi- fication and a faultless moral, he should have omitted his beautiful " Ode to Peace," and the " Triumph of Melancholy." The con- cluding dozen lines of the " Hares," indeed, present r> beautiful and glowing picture of " Evening," and as such are deserving of no ordinary commendation*. In this respect, however, Dr Beattie is not the first poet, who has entertained a judgment of his own works, different from that which was held of them by the public. It is known, that Milton I" Horace, Book II. Ode 10. translated. i" Horace, Book III. Ode 13. translated. :J'* The Ten Pastorals of Virgil, translated. Those pieces marked :f, were never reprinted; and the ** Ode to Peace," as well as the ** Triumph of Melancholy," were omitted out of liis later edi- tions. * The concluding lines of the *' Haves" seem to me to possess beauty sufficient to entitle them to preservation. I have tlierefore ventured t» place them in the appendix, [F.] LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 35 preferred the " Paradise Regained" to his divine poem of " Para- " disc Lost." Virgil is recorded to have ordered, on his death- bed, that the " iEneid" should be burnt, because he did not think it sufficiently finished for publication ; and it is to the disobedience of his executors that we are indebted for the possession of that ex- quisite performance. Tasso nevr-modelled and injured his " Gie- rusalemme Liberata." And it may reasonably be doubted, from the specimen which Akenside has left of the manner in which he intended to alter his " Pleasures of the Imagination," whether that beautiful poem would have been improved by the experiment, had he lived to finisli it. With all these authorities before me, I trust I shall stand acquitted of any impropriety, if I rescue from oblivion those two most beautiful poems, the '^ Ode to Peace," and the " Triumph of Melancholy." Let those who think differently from me, in this respect, only take the trouble carefully to peruse the stanza III. 1. of the " Ode to Peace." — - ♦* Ambition, outside fair ! within as foul " As fiends of fiercest heart below, ** Who ride the hurricanes of fire, that roll *• Their thundering vortex o'er the realms of woe, ** Yon naked waste survey ; ** Where late was heard the flute's mellifluous lay; ** Where late the rosy-bosom'd hours ** In loose array danc'd lightly o'er the flow'rs ; *' Wliere late the shepherd told his tender tale ; '* And, waken'd by the murmuring breeze of morn, ** The voice of cheerful labour fill'd the dale; '' And dove-eyed Plenty smil'd, and wav'd her liberal honi.**' Or stanza IV. 3. of the same poem,-— *' On Cuba's utmost steep,* f Far leaning o*er the deep, ** The goddess' pensive form was seen, ** Her robe, of nature's vai'ied green, '* Wav'd on the gale ; grief dimm'd her radiant eyes, •* Her bosom heav'd with boding sighs." • This alludes to the discovery of America by the Spaniards under Co- lumbus, Those ravagers are said to have made their first descent on the islands in the Gulf of Florida, of which Cuba is one.-^Note of the poet. 36 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. '* She eyed the main ; where gaining on the view, ** Emerging from Ih' ethereal blue, " Midst the dread pomp of war, " Blaz'd the Iberian streamer from afar : '* She saw ; and on refulgent pinions borne, *• Slow wing'd her way sublime, and mingled with the mom.'* And then let them say, if they think I have done wrong in pre-, serving this fine poem, by placing it in the appendix.* For simi^ lar reasons, I have also inserted in the appendix, the " Triumph ^< of Melancholy," wishing that this poem also should not be in^ tirely lost.f The epitaph, printed at p. 66. of the collection of the year 1760, without any particular address, I have also ventured to place in the appendix ; because, from the words prefixed to it in its original form, in the Scots Magazine, which I have already quoted, it seems certainly to have been intended as an epitaph for himself, a circumstance whence it unquestionably derives an additional value. The beautiful " Epitaph on two Brothers" was written on oc- casion of a fatal accident which actually took place, when, in cross- ing the river Southesk, on horseback, in the neighbourhood of Montrose, in the county of Angus, two young men, brothers, of the n'ame of Leitch, were carried down by the stream, and both drowned. Their bodies were afterwards found clasped in each other's arms. In such compositions it was that Dr Beattie emi- nently excelled. Yet that piece too he has omitted from the later editions of his poems, but I have ventured to place it also in the appendix.! Of this collection of Dr Beattie's poetical pieces, the largest share consisted of poetical translations from the classics, and of these the principal were the " Pastorals of Virgil." Speaking of them, he says in his preface, that " Mr Dryden's translation will " be admired as long as the English language is understood, for " that fluent and graceful energy of expression, which distinguishes ^* all the writings of that poet. In his compositions," continue^ ♦ Vide -Appendix, [G.] f Vide Appendix, [H.] I Vide Appendix, £I.] LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 3r Beattie, " even in those which have been censured as inaccurate, *' we are charmed with " Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." " And if we find any thing blaineable, we are inclined to impute it, " not to any defect in his own genius or taste, but to the depravity " of the age in which it was his misfortune to live. " The translation of Virgil, published some years ago by the *.* learned and ingenious Mr Joseph Warton," he goes on, " did not " come into my hands till long after what is now offered to the " public was finished. The perusal of these two masterly ver- " sions," he says, " might have effectually discouraged the publi- " cation of the following, had he ever intended it as a rival to " either of the others. But he disclaims that intention, and would " wish only to be thought an humble copier of Virgil. And he ^' hopes that his translation will be pardoned, if, in a few particular " instances, it be found to have set any of the beauties of the ad- " mired original in a more conspicuous point of view to the Eng- ** lish reader." After a declaration so modest on the part of the author, it would not be fair to scrutinize this translation too severely, more espe- cially as it v/as never republished after the first edition ; yet it is no mean praise, that it may be read with satisfaction even after the translation of Dryden, of which Dr Johnson, in his life of that great poet, speaks with such high commendation:* and whoever shall take the trouble of comparing the translations of Dryden and of Beattie, with the original, will not probably deny, that Beattie comes the nearest to the sense of the author, with, at the same time, no inconsiderable portion of poetical spirit.f After all, a better translation of Virgil than any we yet have seen, seems to be a work more to be wished for than expected. Dr Beattie himself has said in another place, that " It is not possible ^' for one who is ignorant of Latin, to have any adequate notion of * Lives of the English Poets, vol. ii. 12raiO. p. 283. t Vide Appendix, [K.] 38 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. « Virgil. The choice of his words, and the modulation of hisi " numbers, have never been copied with tolerable success in any " other tongue.* In the following letter we have an account of one of those co- incidences in writing, of which it is sometimes difficult to say, whether they happen by accident, or are to be classed under the head of plagiarism. It seems to me to be by no means improbable, that both the translator of Musaeus and Dr Beattie may have written the line in question under an im])ression on the memory, even unknown to themselves, of the beautiful threnody of David on the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, in which the royal Hebrew bard employs the very same turn of expression.! LETTER IL DR BEATTIE TO ROBERT ARBUTHNOT, ESq. Aberdeen, 18th August, 1760. " IN a translation just published of Musaeus's Loves of Hero " and Leander," I was surprised to find the following line, " They liv*d united, and united died ; which is exactly the same with one in my epitaph on the two bro- thers. In order to obviate the imputation commonly applied in such cases, I have subjoined the date to my little piece, which (juxta MS. vetus) appears to be the first of November 1757. Instances of this sameness in expression, as well as sentiment, have so often happened, even in my experience, that I have won^ dered at some of the criterions proposed for the detection of imita- tions, by the accurate and judicious Mr Hurd:j: in his letters to Mu * Essays on the Utility of Classical Learning, p. 758. t 2 Kings, ch. i. v. 23. \ The present Lord Bishop of Worcester. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 59 Mason. I remember, in particular, he will not allow Milton the honour of making Death " Grin horribly a ghastly smile," because Spencer mentions grinning in some part of his Fairy Queen. That panrphlet of Mr Hurd's is, notwithstanding, an in- genious perforHiance, and evinces a great compass of classical knowledge both ancient and modern. " I have never yet seen the " Fragments of Highland Poetry.'* I see one of these fragments versified in a late Magazine, and to better purpose (a few passages excepted), than I did expect. But does not the spirit of such compositions evaporate, when it is strained through the syllable-squeezing alembic ? Did you ever see a version of the Psalms of David in metre, of Job, or the Sonr; of Solomon, that possessed all the pathos, and simplicity, and sub- limity of our prose translation ? The motley mixture of antique and modish phrases, that must necessarily take place in all such paraphrases, gives a grotesque appearance to the whole, and puts one in mind of Cato arrayed in a full-bottomed periwig." The following letter contains some strictures on Rousseau's " Eloise," of which he afterwards gave a short character in his " Dissertation on Fable and Romance," p. 570. LETTER IIL DR BEATTIE TO ROBERT ARBUTHXOT, ESQ. Aberdeen, 24th October, 1761. " I AM just now employed in reading the first volume of tlie '• Nouvelle Eloise." The author seems to possess great knowledge of the human heart : his reflections, in general, are beautiful, ori- ginal, and just ; his sensibility exquisite, and his eloquence won- derfully affecting. But though I grant him these excellencies, I must be pardoned, when I censure either his judgment or his vir- 40 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. tue. If he meant to promote the cause of virtue, it was certainly a proof of an egregious failure in his judgment, that he made , choice of a fable whose tendency seems directly contrary. Van-- brugh, and Congreve, and Rochester, only inflame the imagina- tion ; Rousseau poisons the principles, and misleads the under- standing ; the former is a momentary evil, the other is permanent. And as a harlot, when she assumes the garb, the features, and the language of virtue, is much more dangerous than when she speaks her own words, and wears her proper dress ; so I think the " Nou- " velle Eloise" a much more dangerous book than all the ribaldry printed in the reign of Chai-les the Second." The following letter, written at the period when Ossian*s poems made their first appearance, shows the accuracy of Dr Beattie's critical taste and judgment, which could not be swayed from the genuine dictates of truth and nature in poetry, even by the strong torrent of applause with which that singular production was re- ceived at that time, by the learned as well as unlearned of this country. LETTER IV. DR BEATTIE TO ROBERT ARBUTHNOT, ESQ. Aberdeen, 29th March, 1762. " I HAVE now read Fingal ; but I am at a loss to know whether I should give you my opinion of it or not. My humble tribute of praise (were I disposed to praise it) would be lost amidst that universal deluge of approbation poured upon it, both from the critics of London and of Scotland. And were I inclined to censure it, my suffrage would be as little regarded as the loitering javelin which palsied Priam threw against the heaven-tempered shield of Pyrrhus — telum irnbelle sine ictu. The particular beauties of this wonderful work are irresistibly striking, and I flatter myself that I am as sensible of them as another. But to that part of its merit which exalts it, considered as a whole, above the Iliad or ^neid, LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 41 and its author above Homer or Virgil, I am insensible. Yet I un- derstand, that of critics not a few aver Ossian to have been a greater genius than either of these poets. Yet a little while, and, I doubt not, the world will be of a different opinion. Homer was as much admired about three months ago — I speak not of the present mo- ment, for Ossian just now is all in all — .1 say. Homer was lately admired as much as he was three thousand years ago. Will the admiration of our Highland bard be as permanent? And will it be as universal as learning itself ? " Knowledge of the human heart is a science of the highest dignity. It is recommended not only by its own importance, but also by this, that none but an exalted genius is capable of it. To delineate the objects of the material world requires a fine imagina- tion, but to penetrate into the mental system, and to describe its different objects, with all their distinguishing (though sometime^ almost imperceptible) peculiarities, requires an imagination far more extensive and vigorous. It is this kind of imagination which appears so conspicuous in the works of Shakespeare and Homer, and which, in my opinion, raises them above all other poets what- soever ; I mean not only that talent by which they can adapt them- selves to the heart of their readers, and excite whatever affection they please, in which the former plainly stands unrivalled ; I mean also that wonderfully penetrating and plastic faculty, which is ca- pable of representing every species of character, not, as our ordi- nary poets do, by a high shoulder, a wry mouth, or gigantic sta- ture, but by hitting off, with a delicate hand, the distinguishing feature, and that in such a manner as makes it easily known from all others whatsoever, however similar to a superficial eye. Hot- spur and Henry V. are heroes resembling one another, yet very distinct in their characters ; Falstaff, and Pistol, and Bardolph, are buffoons, but each in his own way ; Desdemona and Juliet are not the same ; Bottom, and Dogberry, and the grave-diggers are dif- ferent characters ; and the same may be said of the most similar of Homer*s characters ; each has some mark that makes him es- sentially different from the rest. But these great masters are not more eminent in distinguishing than in completing their charac- ters. I am a little acquainted with aCato, a Sempi^onius, a Tinsel> a Sir Charles Easy, &c. but I am perfectly acquainted with Achil- 42 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE, les, Hector, Falstaff, Lear, Pistol, and Quickly ; I know them more thomughly than any other person of my acquaintance. " If this accurate delineation of character be allowed the highest species of poetry (and this, I think, is generally allowed), may I not ask whether Ossian is not extremely defective in the highest species of poetry ? It is said, indeed, that this poet lived in an age when mankind, being in a state of almost total barbarism, were in- capable of that diversity of character which is found in countries improved by commerce and learning, and that therefore he had no materials for a diversity of character. But it is certain that di- versities of character are found among the rudest savages ; and it is the poet's business, not to portray the characters as they really exist (which is left to the historian), but to represent them such as they TTiight have existed. But, to have done, Ossian seems really to have very little knowledge of the human heart ; his chief talent lies in describing inanimate objects, and therefore he belongs (ac- cording to my principles), not to the highest, but to an inferior or- der of poets." It is to be observed, that, in this letter, Dr Beattle does not at all enter into the question respecting the authenticity of the poems of Ossian. He confines his strictures merely to their merit as poetical compositions, such as we have them, of whatsoever pe- riod. And he views them solely in comparison with other poets of acknowledged celebrity. The controversy respecting the authenticity of these poems of " Ossian" i>> well known. When Macpherson published first his " Fingal," and afterwards his " Temora," he exhibited them as being complete and regular epic poems, of very remote antiquity, which had existed in the Highlands and islands of Scotland, al- though the parts had been scattered and disjointed, through lapse of time ; which he had searched for, and been so fortunate as to discover ; and which, when thus collected, and brought together into regular order, he had translated and published as a whole. This story, as told by Macpherson, was at first believed by many, in its full extent, even by men of high character in the literary world. X)r Blair, in particular, was so persuaded of their being LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 4^ completely genuine, as to write a dissertation in proof of their an- tiquity, and illustrative of their beauties.* This opinion, he formed partly from the apparent similarity between the poetry thus attri- buted to Ossian, and that of some detached pieces traditionally pre- served in the Highlands, in which the same names were found, as well as from some other points of resemblance ; and partly per- haps from a national vanity, arising from the possession of so ex- traordinary a performance as " Fingal" certainly is, if genuine. Others, again insisted, and do still insist, that the whole was an impudent forgery of Macpherson's own, which, having once pro- duced as the work of the Highland bard, he would not retract, not- withstanding many arguments against their authenticity, drawn from their own internal evidence, as well as from his refusal to comply with the demands repeatedly made upon him to put an end to the controversy, by exhibiting the original manuscript of the poems which he had translated. At the head of this set of critics was, Dr Johnson, who, in his tour to the Hebrides, has strenuously maintained their being altogether a forgery. That there never existed poems exactly in the form in whicji " Fingal" and " Temora" were published by Macpherson, seems now to be the opinion most generally entertained. But it is still maintained by many, with the strongest appearance of reason, that there certainly were poetical compositions, consisting of songs and ballads and other pieces, existing in the Highlands many years be- fore Macpherson was born, of which sufficient traces are even yet to be found in various parts of that country, some in a more, some in a less perfect form. From these scattered fragments it probably was, that Macpherson, by imitations and additions of his own, vrix)ught his work into a whole, and thus gave it the appearance, in some degree, of a regular epic poem. Nor is it very difficult, per- haps, to conceive how these fragments may have been handed down from father to son, even without the use of writing, among a people who, with scarcely any knowledge of agriculture, commerce, or useful arts, filled up the vacancies of a pastoral life, by the re- cital of those popular songs and ballads. This is a practice not * " A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, the son of Fing-al. *' By Hugh Blair, D D. one of the Ministers of the High Church, and ^' Prqfessqr of Rhetoric and Belles Leltres in the Univereity of Edinburgh. 44 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. peculiar to the Highlands of Scotland, but to be found in all nations, who, by their local situation, in the midst of hills and fastnesses, are cut off from any great degree of intercourse with neighbouring countries, farther advanced in the arts of polished life. Nor will it appear so very wonderful, if, in this manner, that poetry may have been preserved, which is believed by many to have existed in the Highlands, when the powers of the memory are considered, and the strength it acquired by the perpetual exercise of listening to the bards, who were an appendage of the state and magnificence of a Highland chieftain. But Macpherson is dead, so that no farther inforniation can be obtained from him; and the researches that are now made must be attended with great difficulty, when the means of enquiry are daily becoming fewer, from the lapse of time, and the gradual disuse of those local manners and customs by which the Highlanders were once distinguished. The misfortune therefore is, that it seems to be almost impos- sible to detect the imitations and interpolations which Macpherson has intermixed with what may have been genuine and original of an- cient Gaelic poetry, of the reality of which, in some form or other, I cannot help being iriyself a strong believer.* In the following letter Dr Beattie gives the first hint of his " Essay on Poetry," composed that year, but not published till 1776, along with the edition, in quarto, of his " Essay on Truth.** In this letter mention also is made, of a poem under the title of the " Grotesquiad," which I never either saw or heard of. It was undoubtedly of the mock heroic or satiric kind, a species of poetry of whjch Dr Beattie used to express himself uncommonly fond ; and being, in all likelihood, a jeu d'esfirit of the moment, he had wisely suppressed it. I find no trace of any such production among his papers. He speaks likewise of his translation of Addi- son's *' Battle of the Pigmies and Cranes," which has since been published. * The Highland Society of Edinburgh are at present engaged in an hives- tigation of the authenticity of the •' Poems of Ossian," and from their enqui. rie^, it is expected tjiat considerable light will be thrown on the subject. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 45 LETTER V. DR BEATTIE TO ROBERT ARBUTHNOT, ESQ. Aberdeen, 28th December, 1762. ***** PRAY what is like to be the fate of the " Grotesquiad?" Jt is natural for a father to be concerned about his offspring, though it be spurious. I shall leave it to you to do with that poem as you think proper. I think you said that Pitt had translated the '•' Pygmies" of Addison. " You will perhaps remember, that in March last I wrote a letter to you, containing some strictures on the '' Poems of Ossian," then newly published. The remark which I made on that occasion was, that the poetry of that old bard, however exquisite in its kind, was not the highest in dignity, and that, therefore, its author could have no title to be ranked above Milton, or Homer, or Shakespeare, who have all made a distinguished figure in the highest species of poetry. This v.^as a subject on which I often had occasion to ex- patiate in conversation, while the rage of extolling the Highland bard continued. It was then that I formed a design of throwing together some thoughts by way of essay on the comparative dig- nity of the several kinds of poetry ; a subject which, so far as I know, has never been treated in a philosophical manner by any critic, ancient or modern. As I applied my thoughts more seri- ously to this inquiry, I found the plan enlarge itself to a very con- siderable extent. I have, however, reduced it to sojnething of form, and find that it will naturally consist of three parts. The first part contains a philosophical inquiry into the nature of poetry in general, considered as an imitation of nature, by means of lan- L^uage. In the second part, I propose to consider the principles which determine the degrees of our approbation in the imitative arts, particularly poetry. In the third part, 1 intend to consider the several kinds of poetry, with a view to these principles, and to determine their comparative excellence according to the degrees of approbation which they naturally command. The first part, which is finished, n^ade a discourse of an hour and a half, which I 4^ LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. read to a philosophical society, composed of some of our literati, who were very well pleased with it, and seemed to think that I had made several new observations, and set some points of criticism in a new light. The discussion of the second and third parts I in- tend to attempt during the summer vacation." In the summer of 1763, Dr Beattie went, for the first time, to London. Of this journey I am not able to give any account, as it* had taken place before my acquaintance with him commenced. It was most probably a journey of curiosity merely : for Beattie was at that time unknown in London, and had scarcely any acquaint- ance there, except the late Andrew Millar, the bookseller, who had published his poems in the year 1760, of whom I find him com- plaining bitterly in some of his letters, for his negligence in not promoting their sale. In one of his letters to Mr Arbuthnot, after his return home, he mentions a gentleman of Scotland, of their mutual acquaintance, who had accorifipanied him on a visit to Pope's house at Twickenham. In some of his letters, at this time, he gives an intimation of a poem upon which he was at work, under the title of the " Judg- " ment of Paris," a classical fable known to every school -boy. An- ci'ent authors have mentioned it as a poetical or legendary tale ; and, in modern times, Congreve has written a masque under that title, and upon the ancient plan. Dr Beattie wished to follow a difPerent course, and thought he couid render his " Judgment of "Paris" subservient to the cause of virtue, by personifying wisdom, ambition, and pleasure in the characters of his three goddesses. It was published in the spring of 1765.* The poem opens with a most beautiful description of the land- scape where the scene is laid ; and the appearance of the three * Of tlie plan and intended mode of execution of this poem, he gives an account in tv/o letters to Mr Arbuthnot, which I have thought it riglit to preserve, by inserting tliem in the appendix. For although the poem was never republished after the edition of the year 1766, copies of it are still preserved in many libraries, and it is but justice to Dr Beattie, that the jHiblic sliould know what his orig'lnal design was in writing the pociH:. Appendix, [L.] LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 47 goddesses, with their characteristic attributes, is described in a vein of the richest imagery, which I have thought it worth while to pre- serve, by inserting those lines in the appendix. But it will proba- bly be thought, that the poet's personification of virtues, under the semblance of those celestial personages, is rather too metaphysi- cal, and is scarcely compensated by the beauties of the poetry. This, indeed, seems to have been pretty much the decision of the public, for the " Judgment of Paris" never was a popular poem. It was republished in the edition of Beattie's poems in the year 1766. But he has himself omitted it in all his subsequent editions'. LETTER VL * ©H BEATTIE TO ROBERT AIJIBUTIINOT, E;5Q. Aberdeen, 12th December, 1763. " SINCE you left us, I have been reading Tasso's " Jerusa- ^' letn," in the translation lately published by Hoole. I was not a little anxious to peruse a poem which is so famous over all Europe, and has so often been mentioned as a rival to the " Iliad,*' "iEneid," and " Paradise Lost." It is certainly a noble work ; and though it seems to me to be inferior to the three poems just mentioned, yet I cannot help thinking it in the rank next to these. As for the other modern attempts at the " Epopee," the " Henriade" of Vol- taire, the " Epigoniad" of Wilkie, the " Leonidas" of Glover, not to mention the " Arthur" of Blackmore, they are not to be com- pared with it. Tasso possesses an exuberant and sublime imagi- nation, though in exuberance it seems, in my opinion, inferior to our Spencer, and in sublimity inferior to Milton. Were I to com- pare Milton's genius with Tasso's, I would say, that the sublime of the latter is flashy and fluctuating, while that of the former dif- fuses an uniform, steady, and vigorous blaze : Milton is more ma- jestic, Tasso more dazzling. Dryden, it seems, was of opinion, that the " Jerusalem Delivered" was the only poem of modem times that deserved the name of epic ; but it is certain that criti- cism was not this writer's talent ; and I think it is evident, from some passages of his works, that he either did not, or would not^ 48 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. understand the " Paradise Lost." Tasso borrows his plot and principal characters from Homer, but his manner resembles Vir- gil's. He is certainly much obliged to Virgil, and scruples not to imitate, nor to translate him on many occasions. In the /lathetic he is far inferior both to Homer, to Virgil, and to Milton. His cha- racters, though different, are not always distinct, and want those masterly and distinguishing strokes which the genius of Homer and Shakespeare, and of them only, knows how to delineate. Tasso excels in describing pleasurable scenes, and seems peculiarly fond of such as have a reference to the passion of love. Yet, in charac- terising this passion, he is far inferior, not only to Milton, but also to Virgil, whose fou7'th book he has been at great pains to imitate. The translation is smooth and flowing; but in dignity, and variety of numbers, is often defective, and often labours under a feebleness and prolixity of phrase, evidently proceeding either from want o^ skill, or from want of leisure in the versifier." In the month of November 1764 Churchill died; a writiei' who' made no little noise in his day, not only from his having assumed the character of an open and professed satirist, but from his pos- sessing no inconsiderable strength of thought, with a vigorous, though slovenly, energy of expression, which, notwithstanding all his profaneness, faction, calumny, and ribaldry, still preserves, in a certain degree, his reputation as a poet. As Churchill, at the time of his death, was extremely unpopular in Scotland, not only on ac- count of some of his own poetical productions, but of his connexion with Wilkes, who, at that time, was publishing the " North Briton,*' a periodical paper, peculiarly levelled against Scotland, it waS' proposed to Dr, Beattie, that he should w^rite some verses on the death of Churchill, a task which he not unwillingly undertook. The " Verses on the death of Churchill" appeared soon after without the author's name, and had a rapid sale. Of this poem Dr Beattie himself appears, by his letters written at the time, to have been exceedingly fond; and they who yet remember the vio- lence of the political contests of those days, with what intemperate zeal Churchill prostituted his poetical talents in the support of the plans and pursuits of the seditious demagogues, who, under the LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 49 banners of Wilkes, set all decency, good order, and good govern- ment at defiance, will not wonder that Dr Beattie, whose principles and opinions were the very reverse of theirs, should feel his indig- nation roused by the popular applause with which he saw Churchill distinguished while he lived, and heard of the honours which were said to be preparing for his memory when dead, by the pro- posal of erecting a monument to him in Westminster Abbey. The lines are, therefore, marked with more than ordinary asperity, though perhaps not more than the occasion warranted. The allu- sion, indeed, in the conclusion of the poem, was deservedly found fault with. In the edition of Dr Beattie's poems, published the year following, he omitted the name of " Churchill,'* and prefaced the verses with an address in prose, in which he vindicates the keenness of his satire. In the subsequent editions of his poetical works,* he omitted the lines altogether. In the autumn of the year 1765, Mr. Gray, whose " Elegy in a " Country Church-yard," and noble lyric compositions, have raised his name to the first rank of British poets, came to Scotland on a visit to the late earl of Strathmore. Dr Beattie, who was an enthu- siastic admirer of Gray, as soon as he heard of his arrival, address- ed to him the following letter. This procured to Dr Beattie an invitation to Glammis castle, which led to a friendship and corres- pondence between these two eminent poets and amiable men, which continued, without interruption, till the death of Mr Gray, on the Slst July, 1771. LETTER VIL DR BEATTIE TO MR GRAY. Marischal College of Aberdeen, 30th August, 1765. " IF I thought it necessary to offer an apology for venturing to address you in this abrupt manner, I should be very much at a loss how to begin. I might plead my admiration of your genius, and my attachment to your character ; but who is he, that could not, with truth, urge the same excuse for intruding upon your retirement ? * Vide Appendix, [M.] G so LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. I might plead my earnest desire to be personally acquainted tvith rf man whom I have so long and so passionately admired in his writ- ings ; but thousands, of greater consequence than I, are ambitious of the same honour. 1, indeed, must either flatter myself that no apology is necessary, or otherwise, I must despair of obtaining what has long been the object of my most ardent wishes ; I must for ever forfeit all hopes of seeing you, and conversing with you. " It was yesterday I received the agreeable news of your being in Scotland, and of your intending to visit some parts of it. Will you permit us to hope, that we shall have an opportunity, at Aberdeen, of thanking you in person, for the honour you have done to Britain, and to the poetic art, by your inestimable compositions, and of offering you all that we have that deserves your acceptance, namely, hearts full of esteem, respect, and affection ? If you cannot come so far northward, let me at least be acquainted with the place of your residence, and permitted to wait on you. Forgive, sir, this request ; forgive me if I urge it with earnestness, for, indeed, it concerns me nearly ; and do me the justice to believe, that I am, with the most sincere attachment, and most respectful esteem, &c. &c. &c* " P. S. Dr Carlisle of Musselburgh, and Dr Wight of Glasgow, acquainted me of your being in Scotland. It was from them I learned that my name was not wholly unknown to you*'* It was in the course of this year, 1765, that my" acquaintance with Dr Beattie began. We first met at the house of our mutual friend, Mr Arbuthnot, in Edinburgh ; and having occasion to pass some tiitie that autumn in Aberdeenshire, I renewed my inter- course with him there. As those with whom he chiefly associated at Aberdeen were my most intimate friends, we were much to* gether ; and that friendship and correspondence took place between us, which I regarded, not only as my pride, but as a source of the purest pleasure ; and I may fairly add, that if I am not a better man for the correspondence and instructive conversation of Dr Beattie, great will be my condemnation at my last account* LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 81 From that correspondence, therefore, which continued to the «nd of his days, when the decay of his faculties would not permit him to carry it on any longer, I am now enabled to begin to eluci- date still farther his writings and his character. But 1 am not without my apprehensions here, that I. may be charged with no small degree of vanity for publishing to the world those warm expressions of esteem, affection, and gratitude towards me, which occur in several of the letters addressed to me by Dr Beattie. And I own I do feel some little pride (an honest pride, I hope) in preserving and recording some testimonies of that favour- able opinion which such a man as Dr Beattie was pleased to enter-- tain of me. I can, however, at the same time assure the reader (as some apology for myself), that I have suppressed much stronger passages of that nature, and a much larger number of them than | Jiave allowed myself to retain. LETTER VIII. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 7th December, 1765. *^ THE receipt of your very obli^ng letter ought to have been •sooner acknowledged. I should abhor myself had my delay bee^ owing to indolence : possessed as I am with a most grateful sense of your favours, with the highest regard for your friendship, and the most zealous attachment to your character : my delay was indeed owing to another cause, " I have been employed for some time past m writing a kind of poetical epistle to Mr Blacklock, in return for a present which he was so kind as to make me of his works, accompanied with a very handsome copy of verses : and I had intended to send under ttie ^ame cover my letter to you, and my verses to Mr Blacklock. The yerses are incleed finished ; but as there are some passages in them, which seem to need correction, I must, for some time, let them lie •by me ; for I have found by experience, that I am a much more impartial judge of such of my works as 1 have almost quite for- igottjen, than of such as are fresh in my memory. The episflc; S2 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. when ready, will be sent to Dr Gregory's care, and he will show it to you and to Mr Arbuthnot, as soon as it comes to hand. " I hope you will pardon me, if I cannot return such an answer to your letter as it deserves. I want words to express how much I value your friendship. Allow me to assure you, that I am not one of the ungrateful, nor (if good intentions can confer any merit on a character) one of the undeserving. The friendship of the good is the object of my highest ambition : if I cannot lay claim to it, I shall at least approve myself not entirely unworthy of it. Let me be tried by my conduct, and if I shall ever give a good man rea- son to be ashamed of owning me for his friend, then let my name be despised to the latest posterity. " I intend, if possible, to publish this winter a new edition of allmy original pieces of poetry. I wrote to Mr Arbuthnot some time ago, to treat with a bookseller, but have received no answer, which disappoints me a good deal, as the season is fast advancing, and as it will soon be too late to apply to another, in case the person to whom he promised to apply should decline my oiFer. Pray, will you advise me to insert the verses on Churchill in the collec- tion ? I do not think them the worst part of my works, and there- fore should be sorry to lose them altogether. My scheme, at pre- sent, is to strike out the name of Churchill, and insert a fictitious one. But in this I would wish to be directed by my friends. " I am sorry you did not see Mr Gray on his return ; you wouiii Jiave been much pleased with him. Setting aside his merit as a poet, which, however, in my opinion, is greater than any of his contemporaries can boast, in this or in any other nation, I found him possessed of the most exact taste, the soundest judgment, and the most extensive learning. He is happy in a singular facility of expression. His conversation abounds in original observations, delivered with no appearance of sententious formality, and seem- ing to arise spontaneously without study or premeditation. I nuss- ed two very agreeable days with him at Glammis, and foiind him as easy in his manners, and as communicative and frank, as I could have wished." LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 33 The following letter, from Dr Beattie to Dr Blacklock,* is the. first, I find, of tiieir correspondence, and does equal honour to his head and to his heart. ■' LETTER IX, DR BEATTIE TO DR BLACKLOCK. V. Aberdeen, 15th January, 17'66. " I CANNOT express how agreeably I was flattered by the present you were pleased to make me of your works, and by the elegant verses which accompanied it. The acquaintance of good men has always appeared to me almost the only temporal object worthy of my ambition; and I can, with great sincerity, declare, that the consciousness of having attained your friendship, yields me much higher pleasure than any compliments that can be paid to my poor merit. Your genius and character I have long known and admired ; and although remoteness of place and diversity of employment had almost extinguished my hopes of becoming per- sonally acquainted with you, I still flattered myself, that, ii;i some way or other, I should find an opportunity of lettiijg you know how highly I esteem and love you. This CY^portunity I have found at last, and it is with the utmost pleasure that I avail myself of it. " On receiving yo'^i. valuable present, I resolved to attempt an answer in ve^'^e ; but, by reason of many unavoidable interruptions ^^^'T* ousiness, from bad health, and from studies of a most unpo- etical nature, it advanced more slowly than I could have wished. I found means, however, to bring it to a conclusion two months ago, and sent it in a cover addressed to Dr Gregory. I heard, some days ago, that it had come safely to hand, and that you was pleased to give it a favourable reception. You will easily perceive, by its miscellaneousness, that the composition of it must have been interrupted with frequent and long intervals ; yet I have at- tempted to give it a kind of unity, and I hope, upon the whole, it is not more incoherent than a poetical epistle may be allowed to ; be. There is, per'haps, more asperity in it than you can approve ; * For some account of Dr. Blacklock, see Appendix, [N.] 54 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. there is, indeed, more than I will undertake to excuse ; but when one dips into certain subjects, it is perhaps difficult to preserve that meekness of expression, and tame acquiescence of sentiment, which, in the ordinary intercourse of mankind, is, for the most part, so agreeable. But whatever you may think of particular ex- pressions, you will not blame the general design ; the thoughts, I trust, are such as become an honest man, who is more ambitious of approving himself to his own conscience than to the world. Let the sincerity of the writer be also pleaded in favour of the essay ; for though written in rhyme, it is a faithful transcript of the real sentiments of his heart. Indeed, I have always thought it a piece of contemptible affectation in an author to assume, in his writings, a character which is none of his own. If a man's sentiments be bad, he ought to conceal them altogether ; but, if good, I see no reason why he should be ashamed of them. However, as a very general prejudice prevails against the sincerity of poetical protestations, I could not rest till I had assured you, in plain prose, that I set a very high value upon your friendship, and will ever account it my honour to act such a part as may merit the continuance of it. " That you may long live an honour to your country, a bless* ing to your family, and t,he delight of your acquaintance, is my earnest prayer," LETTER X. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 30th Januju-y, 1766. " YOUR zeal in promoting my interest demands my warmest acknowledgments ; yet, for want of adequate expressions, I scarce know in what manner to pay them. I must therefore leave you to guess at my gratitude, by the emotions which would arise in your own heart, on receiving a very important favour from a person of whom you had merited nothing, and to whom you could make no just return. " I suppose you have seen my letter to Dr Blacklock. I hope, in due time, to be acquainted with your sentiments concerning it, I know not whether I have gained my point or not : but in coijv: LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 5* J)Osing that letter I was more studious of simplicity of diction than in any other of my pieces. I am not, indeed, in this respect, so very scrupulous as some critics of these times. I see no harm in using an expressive epithet, when, without the use of such an epi- thet, one cannot do justice to his idea. Even a compounded epithet, provided it be suitable to the genius of our language, and authentic cated by some good writer, may often, in my opinion, produce a good effect. My notion of simplicity discards every thing from style which is affected, superfluous, indefinite, or obscure ; but admits every grace, which, without encumbering a sentiment, does really embellish and enforce it. I am no friend to those" prettinesses of modern style, which one may call the pompous ear- ings, and flounces of the muses, which, with some writers, are so highly in vogue at present ; they may, by their glare and flutter- ing, take off the eye from imperfections ; but I am convinced they disguise and disfigure the charms of genuine beauty. " I have of late been much engaged in metaphysics ; at least I have been labouring with all my might to overturn that visionary science. I am a member of a club in this town, who style them- selves the Philosophical Society. We have mettlngs every fort- night, and deliver discourses in our turn. I hope you -win not think the worse of this Society, when I tell you, that to it the world is indebted for " A comparative view of the Faculties of Man,'* and an " Enquiry into Human Nature, on the principles of Com- mon Sense." Criticism is the field in which I have hitherto (chiefly at least) chosen to expatiate : but an accidental question lately furnished me with an hint, which I made the subject of a two hours discourse at our last meeting. I have for some time wished for an opportunity of publishing something relating to the busi- ness of my own profession, and I think I have now found an op- portunity ; for the doctrine of my last discourse seems to be of importance, and I have already finished two-thirds of my plan. My doctrine is this : that as we know nothing of the eternal rela- tions of things, that to us is and must be truth^ which we feel that we must believe ; and that to us is falsehood, which we feel that we must disbelieve. I have shown that all genuine reasoning does ulti- mately terminate in certain principles, which it is impossible to disbelieve, and as impossible to prove : that therefore the ultimate standard of truth to us is common sense, or that instinctive con* 86 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. viction into which afl true reasoning does resolve itself: that therefore what contradicts common sense is in itself absurd, how- ever subtle the arguments which support it: for such is the ambiguity and insufficiency of language, that it is easy to argue on either side of any question with acuteness sufficient to confound one who is not expert in the art of reasoning. My principles, in the main, are not essentially diffi^rent from Dr Reid's; but they seem to offer a more compendious method of destroying scepticism. I intend to show (and have already in part shown), that all sophisti- cal reasoning is marked with certain characters which distinguish it from true investigation : and thus I flatter myself I shall be able to discover a method of detecting sophistry, even when one is not able to give a logical confutation of its arguments. I intend farther to enquire into the nature of that modification of intellect which qualifies a man for being a sceptic; and I think I am able to prove that it is not genius, but the want of it. However, it will be summer before I can finish my project. I own it is not without in- dignation, that I see sceptics and their writings (which are the bane not only of science, but also of virtue) so much in vogue in the present ag-c." In the summer of 1766, a new edition of Dr Beattie's Poems was published in London. In this edition all his poetical transla- tions were omitted ; and of the pieces formerly published only the following were retained — " The Ode to Peace. " Retirement, an Ode. « Ode to Hope. " The Triumph of Melancholy. " Elegy occasioned by the Death of a Lady. « The Hares, a Fable.'* On some of these earlier pieces he had made considerable improve- ments ; and he had added, " The Judgment of P^ris," which had been printed as a pamphlet ; also, " Verses, on the report of a Monument to be erected in West- " minster Abbey, to the Memory of a late Author." LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. ^7 These were the verses on the death of Churchill, which had also been published separately. From this poem he had withdrawn Churchill's name, and substituted that of " Bufo," and had pre- faced it with an apologetical letter. " The Wolf and the Shepherds, a Fable ;" in praise of which much cannot be said ; for it has been already remarked, that " Fable" was by no means a species of composition in which Dr Beattie excelled. " An Epistle to the Reverend Mr (afterwards Dr) Thomas Blacklock." This is a most excellent performance. While at the same time it pays many just and striking compliments to Dr Blacklock, it may be considered as of the nature of an ethic epis- tle, breathing a noble spirit and freedom of sentiment, with great richness of poetry and harmony of versification. The last piece of the collection is " The Battle of the Pigmies "and the Cranes;'* a translation from Addison's " Pygmaeo- " gerano-machia," which certainly is at least equal to, if it does not surpass the original. Of this piece he was himself more than usually fond. " It is written," says he, in a letter to a friend, " in " Ovid's manner. I have aifected a greater solemnity of style and " versification, and have bestowed a few heightening touches on " all the images." Of these additional pieces, " The Judgment of Paris," " The Lines on Churchill," " The Wolf and the Shepherds," and " The Epistle to Blacklock," have been omitted in the subsequent edi- -tions of Dr Beattie's Poems. With the three first, we may easily dispense ; but we regret, with reason, I think, the loss of the ^ Epistle to Dr Blacklock." This republication was received by the public equally well with the former. H 58 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. LETTER XL DR JOHN GREGORY* TO DR BEATTIK. Edinburgh, 1st January, 1766. " MR GRAY got the books. He spoke of you in terms of very high esteem. I think him an excellent critic, and I am persuaded you found him so. But though I think he could give you an ex- cellent advice in what relates to that intrinsic merit of your com- positions, which will be regarded by real judges, of which there is not one in a thousand who read them ; yet I would not depend much on his judgment of that sort of merit which makes a poet popular among the bulk of readers. It is a sentiment that very universally prevails, that poetry is a light kind of reading, which one takes up only for a little amusement, and that therefore it should be so perspicuous as not to require a second reading. This sentiment would bear hard on some of your best things ; and on all Gray's, except his " Church-yard Elegy," which he told me, with a good deal of acrimony, owed its popularity entirely to the subject, and that the public would have received it as well if it had been written in prose. Dr Blair thinks your verses on Churchill the best you ever made. I do not quite agree with him there, though I think it one of the best and most spirited satires that was ever written, but we all agree that two or three lines should be al- tered. " What I earnestly wish is to have you employ your genius on some subject that will be generally interesting, and which can alone procure you that universal fame which you deserve, and will likewise procure you a more solid reward of your labours." • For some account of Dr Gregory, see p. 24. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 59 LETTER XII. ©R BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 18th September, 1766. " YOU flatter tne Very agreeably, by wishing me to engage in a translation of Tasso's " Jerusalem." If I had all the other accom- plishments necessary to fit me for such an undertaking, (which is^. by no means the case) I have not as yet acquired a sufficient know- ledge of the Italian language, although I understand it tolerably well. My proficiency would have been much more considerable, if my health had allowed me to study ; but I have been obliged to estrange myself from books for some months past. I intend to persist in my resolution of acquiring that language, for I am won- derfully delighted with the Italian poetry. It does not seem to abound much in those strokes of fancy that raise admiration and astonishment, in which I think the English very much superior ; but it possesses all the milder graces in an eminent degree ; in sim- plicity, harmony, delicacy, and tenderness, it is altogether without a rival. I cannot well account for that neglect of the Italian litera- ture, which, for about a century past, has been fashionable among us. I believe Mr Addison may have been instrumental in intro- ducing, or, at least, in vindicating it ; though I am inclined to think, that he took, upon trust, from Boileau, that censure which he past upon the Italian poets, and which has been current among the critics ever since the days of the " Spectator."* " A good translation of Tasso would be a very valuable acces- sion to English literature ; but it would be a most difficult under- taking, on account of the genius of our language, which, though in the highest degree copious, expressive, and sonorous, is not to be compared with the Italian in delicacy, sweetness, and simplicity of composition ; and these are qualities so characteristical of Tasso, that a translator would do the highest injustice to his author, who should fail in transfusing them into his version. Besides, a work of * It will be remembered, that this observation was made by Dr Seattle very nearly forty years ago. Since that period Italian literature has been much more cultivated in Britain, than it was at his first acquaintance with it. 60 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. such a nature must not only be laborious, but expensive ; so that a prudent person would not choose to engage in it without some hope, not only of being indemnified, but even rewarded ; and such a hope it would be madness in me to entertain. Yet, to show that I am not averse from the work (f&r luckily for poor bards, poetry is sometimes its own reward, and is at any time amply rewarded, when it gratifies the desire of a friend), I design, as soon as I have leisure, and sufficient skill in the language, to try my hand at a short specimen. In the mean time, I flatter myself, you will not think the worse of me for not making a thousand protestations of my insufficiency, and as many acknowledgments of my gratitude, for the honour you do me in supposing me capable of such a work. The truth is, I have so much to say on this subject, that if I were bnly to begin, I should never have done. Your friendship, and your good opinion, which I shall ever account it my honour to cul- tivate, I do indeed value more than I can express. " Your neglect of the modern philosophical sceptics, who have too much engaged the attention of these times, does equal honour to your understanding and to your heart. To suppose that every thing may be made matter of dispute, is an exceeding false princi- ple, subversive of all true science, and prejudicial to the happiness of mankind. To confute without convincing is a common case, and indeed a very easy matter : in all conviction (at least in all moral and religious conviction), the heart is engaged, as well as the understanding; and the understanding may be satisfied, or at least confounded, with a doctrine, from which the heart recoils Avith the strongest aversion. This is not the language of a logi- cian ; but this, I hope, is the language of an honest man, who con- siders all science as frivolous, which does not make men wiser and better ; and to puzzle with words, without producing conviction (which is all that our metaphysical sceptics have been able to do), can never promote either the wisdom or the virtue of mankind. It is strange that men should so often forget, that " Happiness is " our being's end and aim." Happiness is desirable for its oAvn sake : truth is desirable only as a mean of producing happiness: for, who would not prefer an agreeable delusion to a melancholy truth ? What then is the use of that philosophy, which aims to inculcate truth at the expence of happiness, by introducing doubt and disbelief in the place of confidence and hope? Surely the pro- LIFE OF DR BEATTIE, 61 moters of all such philosophy are either the enemies of mankind, or the dupes of their own most egregious folly. I mean not to make any concessions in favour of metaphysical truth : genuine truth and genuine happiness were never inconsistent : but metaphy- sical truth (such as we find in our sceptical systems) is not genuine, for it is perpetually changing ; and no wonder, since it depends not on the common sense of mankind (which is always the same), but varies, according as the talents and inclinations of different authors are different. The doctrines of metaphysical scepticism are either true or false ; if false, we have little to do with them ; if true, they prove the fallacy of the human faculties, and therefore prove too much ; for it follows, as an undeniable consequence, that all humau doctrines whitsoever (themselves not excepted) are fallacious, and consequently, pernicious, insignificant, and vain. LETTER XIII. DR BEATTIE TO DR BLACKLOCK. Aberdeen, 22d September, 1766. " I AM not a little flattered by your friendly and spirited vindication of the poem on Bufo,* Among the invidious and ma- licious I have got a few enemies on account of that performance ; among the candid and generous, not one. This, joined to the ap- probation of my own conscience, is entirely sufncient to make me easy on that head. I have not yet heard whether my little work has been approved or condemned in England. I have not even heard whether it has been published or not. However, the days of romantic hope are now happily over with me, as well as the desire of public applause ; a desire of which I never had any title to expect the gratification, and which, though I had been able to gratify it, would not have contributed a single mite to my happiness. Yet I am thankful to providence for having endued me with an inclina- tion to poetry ; for, though I have never been supremely blest in my own muse, I have certainly been gratified, in the most exqui- site degree, by the productions of others. * " Verses on the Report of a Monument to be erected in Westminster *^ Abbe)', to the memory of a late Author." See p. 56. 62 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " Those pieces of mine from which I have received the high* est entertainment, are such as are altogether improper for publica- tion, being written in a sort of burlesque humour, for the amuse- ment of some particular friend, or for some select company ; of these I have a pretty large collection; and, though I should be ashamed to be publicly known as the author of many of them, I cannot help entertaining a certain partiality towards them, arising, perhaps, from this circumstance in their favour, that the pleasure they have yielded me has been altogether sincere, unmixed with that chagrin which never fails to attend an unfortunate publication. '^ Not long ago I began a poem in the style and stanza of Spen- ser, in which I propose to give full scope to my inclination, and be either droll or pathetic, descriptive or sentimental, tender or sati- rical, as the humour strikes me ; for, if I mistake not, the manner which I have adopted, admits equally of all these kinds of compo- sition. I have written one hundred and fifty lines, and am surprised to find the structure of that complicated stanza so little trouble- some. I was always fond of it, for I think it the most harmonious that ever was contrived. It admits of more variety of pauses than either the couplet or the alternate rhyme ; and it concludes with a pomp and majesty of sound, which, to my ear, is wonderfully de- lightful. It seems also very well adapted to the genius of our lan- guage, which, from its irregularity of inflexion and number of mo- nosyllables, abounds in diversified terminations, and consequently renders our poetry susceptible of an endless variety of legitimate rhymes. But I. am so far from intending this performance for the press, that I am morally certain it never will be finished. I shall add a stanza now and then when I am at leisure, and when I have no humour for any other amusement : but I am resolved to write no more poetry with a view to publication, till I see some dawnings of a poetical taste among the generality of readers, of which, how- ever, there is not at present any thing like an appearance. " My employment, and indeed my inclination, leads me rather to prose composition ; and in this way I have much to do. The doctrines commonly comprehended under the name of moral phi- losophy are at present over-run with metaphysics, a luxuriant and tenacious weed, which seldom fails to choak and extirpate the wholesome plants, which it was perhaps intended to support and shelter. To this literary weed I have an insuperable aversion, LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 63 which becomes stronger and stronger, in proportion as I grow more and more acquainted with its nature, and qualities, and fruits. It is very agreeable to the paradoxical and licentious spirit of the age ; but I am thoroughly convinced that it is fatal to true science, an enemy to the fine arts, destructive of genuine sentiment, and pre- judicial to the virtue and happiness of mankind. There is a little ode of yours on the refinements of metaphysical philosophy, which I often read with peculiar satisfaction, and with high approbation of your spirit and sentiments. " You, who would be truly wise, " To Nature's light unveil your eyes, ** Hep gentle call obey : ** She leads by no false wandering glare, *' No voice ambiguous strikes your ear, ** To bid you vainly stray. " Not in the gloomy cell recluse, •* For noble deeds, or generous views, *• She bids us watch the night : *• Fair virtue shines to all display'd, " Nor asks the tardy schoolman's aid, ** To teach us what is right. " Pleasure and pain she sets in view, " And which to shun, and which pursue, *' Instructs her pupil's heart. '* Then, letter'd pride ! say, what thy gain, " To mask with so much fruitless pain *' Thy ignorance with art ?" Of the following letter, there is so much pleasant humour in the first part, so very unlike the admirable piece of criticism in the second, that the reader, I think, will thank me for thus exhibitino- to him the versatility of Dr Beattie's powers of genius, which could pass at once from the most playful to the gravest style of epistolary correspondence. Mr Boyd, to whom the letter is addressed, was the second son of the unfortunate Earl of Kilmarnock,* and brother of the Earl of ♦ Vide Appendix, [C] 64 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. Erroll. Although he had not attached himself to any learned pro- fession, he had received a literary education, and having resided long in France, he possessed a familiar acquaintance with the best writers of both countries. He vras master too of no inconsiderable portion of humour, and had some turn for making verses ; qualities which had the natural effect of producing a friendship and corres- pondence between him and Dr Beattie, that lasted till Mr Boyd's death at Edinburgh, 3d August, 1782. LETTER XIV. DR BEATTIE TO THE HONOURABLE CHARLES BOYD. Aberdeen, 16th November, 1766. " OF all the chagrins with which my present infirm state of health is attended, none afflicts me more than my inability to per- form the duties of friendship. The offer which you were gene- rously pleased to make me of your correspondence, flatters me ex- tremely ; but, alas 1 I have not as yet been able to avail myself of it. While the good weather continued, I strolled about the country, and made many strenuous attempts to run away from this odious giddiness; but the more I struggled, the more closely it seemed to stick by me. About a fortnight ago, the hurry of my winter busi- ness began ; and at the same time my malady recurred with more violence than ever, rendering me at once incapable of reading, writing, and thinking. Luckily I am now a little better, so as to be able to read a page, and write a sentence or two, without stop- ping ; which, I assure you, is a very great matter. My hopes and my spirits begin to revive once more. I flatter myself I shall soon get rid of this infirmity ; nay, that I shall ere long be in the way of becoming a great man. For have I not head-achs, like Pope? ver- tigo, like Swift? grey hairs, like Homer? Do I not wear large shoes, (for fear of corns) like Virgil ? and sometimes complain of sore eyes, (though not of lipfiitude) like Horace ? Am I not at this present writing invested with a garment, not less ragged than that of Socrates? Like Joseph the patriarch, I am a mighty dreamer of LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 65 dreams ; like Nimrod the hunter, I am an eminent builder of cas- tles (in the air). I procrastinate, like Julius Ciesar; and very lately, in imitation of Don Quixotte, I rode a horse, lean, old, and lazy, like Rosinante. Sometimes, like Cicero, I write bad verses; and sometimes bad prose, like Virgil This last instance I have on the authority of Seneca. I am of small stature, like Alexan- der the Great; I am somewhat inclinable to fatness, like Dr Ar- buthnot and Aristotle; and I drink brandy and water, like Mr Boyd. I might compare myself, in relation to many other infir- mities, to many other great men; but if fortune is not influenced in my favour, by the particulars already enumerated, I shall despair of ever recommending myself to her good graces. I once had some thought of soliciting her patronage on the score of my re- sembling great men in their good qualities ; but I had so little to say on that subject, that I could not for my life furnish matter for one well-rounded period : and you know a short ill-turned speech is very improper to be used in an address to a female deity. " Do not you think there is a sort of antipathy between philo- sophical and poetical genius? I question, whether any one person was ever eminent for both. Lucretius lays aside the poet when he assumes the philosopher, and the philosopher when he assumes the poet: In the one character he is truly excellent, in the other he is absolutely nonsensical. Hobbes was a tolerable metaphysi- cian, but his poetry is the worst that ever was. Pope's " Essay on " Man" is the finest philosophical poem in the world; but it seems to me to cio more honour to the imagination than to the under- standing of its author: I mean, its sentiments are noble and affec - ing, its images and allusions apposite, beautif]al, and new: its wit transcendently excellent ; but the scientific pak of it is very excep- tionable. Whatever Pope borrows from Leibnitz, like most other metaphysical theories, is frivolous and unsatisfying: what Pope gives us of his own is energetic, irresistible, and divine. The in- compatibility of philosophical and poetical genius is^ I think, no unaccountable thing. Poetry exhibits the general quajities of a species ; philosophy the particular qualities of individuals. This forms its conclusions from a painful and minute examination of single instances : that decides instantaneously, either from its own instinctive sagacity, or from a singular and unaccountable penetra- tion, which at one glance sees all the instances which the phiioso- I 66 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. pher must leisurely and progressively scrutinize, one by one. This persuades you gradually, and by detail ; the other overpowers you. in an instant by a single elFort. Observe the effect of argumenta- tion in poetry ; we have too many instances of it in Milton : it transforms the noblest thoughts into drawling inferences, and the most beautiful language into prose : it checks the tide of passion, by giving the mind a different employment in the comparison of ideas. A little philosophical acquaintance with the most beautiful parts of nature, both in the material and immaterial system, is of use to a poet, and gives grace and solidity to poetry ; as may be seen in the *' Georgics," " The Seasons," and " The Pleasures of " Imagination :" but this acquaintance, if it is any thing more than superficial, will do a poet rather harm than good : and will give his mind that turn for minute observation, which enfeebles the fancy by restraining it, and counteracts the native energy of judg* ment by rendering it fearful and suspicious." LETTER XV. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES, Aberdeen, 8th January, 1767. " I THANK you for your excellent description of Mrs Mon- tague ; * I have heard much of that lady, and I admire her as an Jhonour to her sex and to human nature. I am very happy to hear, thai, from the favourable representations of my friends, she has done me the honour to think of me with approbation. I cannot flatter myself with the hope of ever having it in my power to let her know how much I esteem her ; but I shall rejoice in the re- membrance of having been in some little degree esteemed by her. " The favourable reception you gave to my little poem,t de- mands my acknowledgments. I aimed at simplicity in the expres- • This alludes to a letter which I had written to him, giving an account of a visit which Mrs Montague had paid to the late Dr Gregory in Edin- burgh, in the autumn of ir66, and to which this letter of Dr Beattie's is in answer. He was not tlien personally known to Mrs Montague. t " The Hermit.'* LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. fit •sion, and something like uncommonness in the thought ; and I own I am not ill pleased with it upon the whole ; though I am sen- sible it does not answer the purpose for which I made it. I wrote it at the desire of a young lady of this country, who has a taste both for poetry and music, and wanted me to make words for a Scots tune called " Pentland hills," of which she is very fond. The verses correspond well enough with the measure and subject of the tune, but are extremely unsuitable for the pui'pose of a song* " My broken health, and a hurry of other business, has for a long time interrupted my Italian studies, to my very great regret. However, within the last fortnight, I have read five or six of Me- tastasio's operas with much pleasure. We are apt to despise the Italian opera, and, perhaps, not altogether without reason ; but I find the operas of Metastasio very far superior to what I expected. There is a sameness in the fables and character of this author; and yet he seems to me to have more of character in his drama than any other poet of this or the last ^e. A reader is generally in- terested in his pieces from beginning to end ; for they are full of incident, and the incidents are often surprising and unexpected. He has a h jppy talent at heightening distress ; and very seldom falls into that unmeaning rant and declamation which abounds so much on the French stage. In a word, I should not scruple to compare the modern Italian opera, as it appears in Metastasio, to the ancient Greek tragedy. The rigid observation of the unities of place and time, introduces many improprieties into the Greek drama, which are happily avoided by the less methodical genius of the Italian. I cannot indeed compare the little Italian songs, which are often very impertinent, as well as very silly, to the odes of the ancient tragedians : but a poet must always sacrifice some- thing to the genius of his age. I dare say Metastasio despises those little mor^eaux of sing-song ; and it is evident from some of his performances in that way, that he is qualified to excel in the more solemn lyric style, if it were suitable to the taste of his countrymen. Some of his little songs are very pretty, and exhibit agreeable pic- tures of nature, with a brevity of description, and sweetness of style, that is hardly to be found in any other modern odes. I beg leave to mention as instances the songs in the 7th and I5th scenes of the second, and the 1st of the third act of " Artaserse." By the bye, the songs in this opera, as it is now adapted to the English stage, seem to be very ill translated. ^8 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " You will readily believe, that I rejoice to hear of Dr Gregory's success. I earnestly wish, for the honour of human nature, and for the good of society, that he may still be more and more sucess- ful. The reception his talents and his virtues have met with, gives me a better opinion of the present age than I should otherwise have had ; and seems to prove that there is yet in the world some- thing of a sense of virtue and regard to justice. I have just re- ceived a letter from him, which I will answer as soon as possible. Mr Arbuthnot and he will please to accept of my best wishes ; may you live long happy in each other's society, and may I have the satisfaction to hear that you are so, and that you sometimes think of me with pleasure. " There is a famous stanza in the 4th canto of Tasso's " Gieru- " salemme," which has often been quoted as an mstance of thp harmony of the Italian language. *• Chiama gli abitator de Pombre eterne " II rauco suon de la tartarea tromba; ** Treman le spaciose atre caverne, •* E l*aer cieco a quel rumor rimbomba : '* Ne stridendo cosi da le superne ** Regioni del cielo 11 folgor piomba, *' Ne si scossa giamai trema la terra, ** Quando i vapori in sen gravida serva.'^ I attempted the other day, in a solitary walk, to turn this passage into English, and produced the following lines, which are as obstre- perous at least as the original, but I am afraid not so agreeablje. ** Forthwith to summon all the tribes of hell, ** The trump tartarean pour'd a thundering yell ; " Trembled th' unfathomable caverns round, ** And night's vast void rebellowed to the sound : " Far less the roar that rends th* ethereal world, ** When bolts of vengeance from on high are hurPd; " Far less the shock that heaves earth's tottering frame, " When its torn entrails spout th' imprison'd flame."* * In Dr Beattie's" Essay on Poetry and Music,"* he has given a sopne' wIiAt different translation of this stanza. " To call the tribes that roam the Stygian shores, ** The hoarse tartarean trump in thunder roars ; • '' Eisay on Poetry and Music," part ii. ch. ii, p. 570. 4to ed. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE, 69 I have not Hoole at hand just now ; Fairfax runs thus : ** The dreary trumpet blew a dreadful blast, ** And rumbled through the lands and kingdoms under ; ' ** Through vastness wide it roared, and hollows vast, " And filled the deep with horror, fear, and wonder, ♦* Not half so dreadful noise the tempest cast, «« That fall from skies with storms of hail and thunder; ** Not half so loud the whistling winds do sing, " Broke from the earthen prisons of their king.'* This is sonorous, but tautological, and not quite true to the origi- nal ; Fairfax makes no mention of the earthquake, and introduces in the place of it what is really a bathos. Wind was never so loud as thunder."* " Hell through her trembling caverns starts aghast, ** And night's black void rebellows to the blast: " Far less the peal that rends th' ethereal world, ** When bolts of vengeance from on high are hurl'd; ** Far less the shock that heaves earth's tottering frame, *• When its torn entrails spout th' imprison'd flame. * In order that the examination of the merit of Dr Beattie's translation of this famous stanza of Tasso may be the more complete, I set down here the lines as they stand in Hoole ; which every reader of any taste will perceive to be flat and languid in the extreme, compared either with the original, or with Beattie's spirited version. " The trumpet now, with hoarse-resounding breath, " Convenes the spirits in the shades of death : " The hollow caverns tremble at the sound ; '* The air re-echoes to the noise around ! " Not louder terrors shake the distant pole, *^ When through the skies the rattling thunders roll : " Not greater tremors heave the lab'ring earth, " When vapours, pent within, contend for birth.- 70 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. LETTER XVL DR BEATTIE TO ROBERT ARBUTHNOT, ESq. Aberdeen, 2d March, 1767. *^ I HAVE led a very retired life this winter ; the condition bf my health having prevented my going into company. By dint of regularity and attention, I flatter myself I have now established my health on a tolerable footing ; for I have been better during the two last months than for a year before. " My leisure hours, of which I have but few at this season, haVc been employed in reading Metastasio, an author whom I now un- derstand pretty well, and of whom I am very fond. I have also finished my essay on — I know not well how to call it ; for its pre* sent title-page, " An Essay on Reason and Common Sense" must be altered. " Some persons, who wish well to me and to my principles^ have expressed their wishes, in pretty strong terms, to see this es- say in print. They say, I have set the sceptics in a new point of view, by treating them without any kind of reserve or deference ; and that it might be of use to those who may be in danger from their doctrines, to consider them in the same light. However, I am far from being convinced that it would be proper to publish such a treatise ; for the principles are quite unfashionable ; and there is a keenness of expression in some passages, which could please only a few, namely, those who are thoroughly convinced of the truth and importance of religion. I shall be directed entirely by you and Dr Gregory, and my other friends at Edinburgh. At any rate, I do not repent my having written it ; it has rivetted my conviction pf the insignificance of metaphysics and scepticism : and I hope it will be of some use to the young people under my care ; for whose principles (at least as far as they depend upon me) I hold myself accountable to my own conscience and the public." In the following letter he gives a hint of his design of writing the «* Minstrel." LIFE OF DR BP:aTTIE. 7Y LETTER XVIL DR BEATTIE TO t>R BLACKLOCK. Aberdeen, 20th May, 1767. " MY performance in Spenser's stanza has not advanced a single line these many months. It is called the " Minstrel." The subject was suggested by a dissertation on the old minstrels, which is prefixed to a collection of ballads lately published by Dodsley in three volumes. I propose to give an account of the birth, educa- tion, and adventures of one of those bards ; in which I shall have full scope for description, sentiment, satire, and even a certain spe- cies of humour and of pathos, which, in the opinion of my great master, are by no means inconsistent, as is evident from his works. My hero is to be born in the south of Scotland ; which you know was the native land of the English minstrels ; I mean of those minstrels who travelled into England, and supported themselves there by singing their ballads to the harp. His father is a shepherd. The son will have a natural taste for music and the beauties of na- ture ; which, however, languishes for want of culture, till in due time he meets with a hermit, who gives him some instruction ; but endeavours to check his genius for poetry and adventures, by representing the happiness of obscurity and solitude, and the bad reception which poetry has met with in almost every age. The poor swain acquiesces in this advice, and resolves to follow his fa- ther's employment ; when, on a sudden, the country is invaded by the Danes or English borderers, (I knownot which) and he is stript of all his little fortune, and obliged by necessity to commence min- strel. This is all that I have as yet concerted of the plan. I have written 1 50 lines, but my hero is not yet born, though now in a fair way of being so, for his parents are described and married. I know not whether I shall ever proceed any farther : however, I am not dissatisfied with what I have written." In perusing the following and some subsequent letters of Dr Gregory's, the reader of this day cannot but be struck with some f2 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. surprise at the picture which Dr. Gregory draws of the scepticism of the times in which he wrote. When Dr Beattie harangues against the alarming progress of infidelity, there are some readers who may believe his declamations to be those of a recluse, uttered from within the walls of his college, by a person totally unacquaint- ed with life and manners. But this cannot be said of Dr Gregory, who was a man of the world, of extensive observation, and who, by living much in society, with men of all principles and of all parties, had the best opportunities of knowing the spirit and temper of the times. I know not the person, therefore, of all my acquaintance, on whom I should more fully rely for a faithful report of the prevail* ing opinions of his day. Yet I would gladly flatter myself, that even Dr Qregory, with all his penetration, may, in this case, have been somewhat mistaken ; and that his own ardent zeal for the cause of revelation may have too easily taken the alarm, where he found any tendency towards the growth of scepticism. It will be observed, too, with what nice discrimination Dr Gregory marks the character of those pretenders to science, who most probably having never read, and most certainly not understanding, the writ- ings which they affected so much to admire, had blindly adopted the language of those bold spirits, who rested their pretensions to the character of men of superior genius on the paradoxes they maintained ; and their daring attack on principles that had been held by the best and wisest of men, as essential to the truest inter- ests of human society. But whatever may have been the character of the preceding age, I am happy to think, that the same features do not belong to the present ; and I rejoice to have witnessed in this case an instance of that beautiful order of Providence, by which evil is made to ad- minister to its own remedy. The sceptical conclusions of Mr Hume's philosophy excited an attention which might not other- wise have been bestowed upon it, and stimulated the friends of re- ligion and of science to inquire into the foundations upon which it was built. It was this inquiry which first produced the " Essay on " Truth," in which its sophistry was exposed to the conviction of men of reflection, and its consequences to human conduct and hap- piness unfolded to the apprehension of the most thoughtless. It was this which afterwards produced the great work of Dr Reed,* in * ^Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man." LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 73 ,which its errors were traced to their source, and the mighty fabric of modern scepticism shown at last to rest upon some of those weak hypotheses whiqh usually disgrace the in£incy of science. LETTER XIX. DR JOHN GREGORY TO DR BEATTIE. Edinburgh, 16th June, 1767. "I HAVE been in daily expectation of seeing your papers, which you said some time ago you would send me. Pray, what is become of them ? By the accounts Mr Williamson gave me of them, I am sure they will be much to my taste. I am well con- vinced that the great deference paid to our modern heathens has been productive of the worst effects. Young people are impressed with an idea of their being men of superior abilities, whose genius has raised them above vulgar prejudices, and who have spirit enough to avow openly their contempt of them. Atheism and ma- terialism are the present fashion. If one speak with warmth of an, infinitely wise and good Being, who sustains and directs tlie frame of nature, or expresses his steady belief of a future state of exist- ence, he gets hints of his having either a very weak understanding, or of being a very great hypocrite. Christianity seems to be now thought even below these gentlemen's ridicule, as I never almost hear a sneer against it. There is an insolence and a daring effron- tery in this which is extremely provoking. But what hurts me most is the emphatic silence of those who should be supposed to hold very different sentiments on these subjects. The world sup- poses that no man will tamely hear sentiments ridiculed which he holds as the most deeply interesting and sacred, without express- ing such dissatisfaction as would effectually prevent any gentleman of tolerable good breeding from repeating the insult, or at least, that he would endeavour to retort the ridicule, if he was not con- scious of the weakness of his cause. Till within these thirty years, the wit was generally on the side of religion. I do not remember any man of the least pretensions to genius in Britain, who ever thought of subverting every principle of natural religion till of late. And if the present spirit is not very speedily checked, I am confi- f4> LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. dent it will give the finishing stroke to that corruption of heart and principles which makes such an alarming progress. It is not worth while to say, after this, that it will. as certainly and speedily sup- press all great efforts of genius and imagination. You are the best man I know to chastise these people as they deserve. You have more philosophy and more wit than will be necessary for the pur- pose, though you can never employ any of them in so good a On the 28th June, 1767, Dr Beattie was married at Aberdeen, to Miss Mary Dun, the only daughter of Dr James Dun, rector of the grammar school there. From the period of his establishment at Aberdeen, he had naturally been much connected in social inter- course with Dr Dun's family. His daughter was a few years younger than Dr Beattie ; she was tolerably handsome, and lively in conversation, sung a little, and accompanied her voice with the harpsichord. As these were accomplishments exactly suited to the taste of Dr Beattie, whose heart was full of sensibility, no won- der, that what was at first the ordinary interchange of civility, grew into a strong and mutual attachment. When, therefore, Dr Beattie found himself in a situation in which he had the reasonable prospect of being able to maintain a wife and family, he naturally wished, like every virtuous man, to marry ; and he thought himself more than commonly fortunate, in having met, in Miss Dun, with a mate so exactly suited to his taste, with whom he hoped for that measure of happiness, which the married state, when wisely en- gaged in, is, of all other states, the best calculated to insure. This connexion, however, from which he augured such lasting felicity, unfortunately proved to him the source of the deepest sor- row; Mrs Beattie, having inherited from her mother that most dreadful of all human evils, a distempered mind, which, although it did not, for a considerable time, break out into open insanity, yet, in a few years after their marriage, showed itself in caprices that embittered every hour of his life, till, at last, it unquestionably con- tributed to bring him to his grave. The following letter is curious, as it gives us his sentiments of some of Rousseau's works at a very early period. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE* ^5 Of that celebrated philosopher, and his writings, Dr Beattie has since given an elaborate and masterly character in a long note in the " Essay on Truth," Part III. ch. ii. p. 29 1. 4to edit. LETTER XX. DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. MR JAMES V^^ILLIAMSON.* Aberdeen, 22d October, 1767. " I HAVE been Studying Rousseau's miscellanies of late. His " Epistle to D'AIembert," on theatrical exhibitions, I think ex- cellent, and perfectly decisive. His discourse on the effects of the sciences is spirited to a high degree, and contains much matter of melancholy meditation. I am not so much of his mind in regard to the origin of inequality among mankind, though I think the piece on this subject has been much misunderstood by critics, and misrepresented by wits. Even by his own confession, it is rather a jeu d'esprit than a philosophical inquiry ; for he owns that the na- tural state, such as he represents it, did probably never take place, and probably never will ; and if it had taken place, he seems to think it impossible that mankind should ever have emerged from it without some very extraordinary alteration in the course of na- ture. Farther, he says, that this natural state is not the most ad- vantageous for man; for that the most delightful sentiments of the human mind could not exert themselves till man had relinquished his brutal and solitary nature, and become a domestic animal. At this period, and previous to the establishment of property, he places the age . most favourable to human happiness ; which is just what the poets have done before him, in their description of the golden age. So that his system is not that preposterous thing it has been represented. Yet he says many things in this treatise to wiiich I cannot agree. His solitary and savage man is too much of a * Mr Williamson had been his pupil, and had gained his friendship. That gentleman went afterwards to Oxford, where he became a fellow pf- Hertford College, and distinguislied himself by his skill in mathematics. He published a " Commentary on Euclid's Elements," also an " Argument in favour of Christianity," and now holds the living of Plumtree, near Nottingham. rd LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. brute ; and many of his observations are founded on fects not well ascertained, and very ambiguous in their meaning. There is a little treatise of hii which he calls a letter to Mr Voltaire, which I read with much pleasure, as I found it to be a transcript of my own sentiments in regard to Pope's maxim, " Whatever is, is right." LETTER XXL DR JOHN GREGORY TO DR BEATTIE. Edinburgh, 1st January, 1768. " I APPROVE much of your plan,* and am confident you will execute it in a manner that will do you credit, and promote the in- terests of virtue and mankind. You are well aware of the antipathy which the present race of readers have against all abstract reason- ing, except what is employed in defence of the fashionable princi- ples ; but though they pretend to admire their metaphysical cham- pions, yet they never read them, nor, if they did, could they under- stand them. Among Mr Hume's numerous disciples, I do not know one who ever read his " 'treatise on Human Nature." In order, therefore, to be read, you must not be satisfied with reason- ing with justness and perspicuity ; you must write with pathos, with elegance, with spirit, and endeavour to Warm the imagination, and touch the heart of those, who are deaf to the voice of reason. W^hatever you write in the way of criticism will be read, and, if my partiality to you does not deceive me, be admired. Every thing relating to the " Belle's lettres" is read, or pretended to be read. What has made Lord Kaims's " Elements of Criticism" so popular in England, is his numerous illustrations and quotations from Shakespeare. If his book had wanted these illustrations, or if they had been taken from ancient or foreign authors, it would not have been so generally read in England. This is a good political hint to you, in your capacity of an author ; and certainly, if you write to the world, and wish to gain their approbation, you must write in such a manner as experience shows to be effectual for that plurpose, jf that manner be not criminal." ♦ The plan of the "Essay on Truth." LIFE OF DR BEATTIE;.; 7f8^ LETTER XXII. Bit BRATTrE TO SXR WILI.tAllC FOaBES. Aberdeen, 171di January, 1768i " I HAVE been intending, for these several weeks, to write to yon, though it were only to assure you of the continuance of my esteem and attachment. This place, you know, furnishes little, amusement, either political, or literary ; and at this season it is rather more barren than usual. " I have, for a time, laid aside my favourite studies^ that I might have leisure to prosecute a philosophical inquiry, less amusing indeed than poetry and criticism, but not less important. The extraordinary success of the sceptical philosophy has long filled me with regret. I wish I could undeceive mankind in regard to this matter ; perhaps this wish is vain ; but it can do no harm to make the trial. The point I am now labouring to prove, is the universality and immutability of moral sentiment, a point which has been brought into dispute, both by the friends and by the enemies of virtue. In an age less licentious in its principles, it would not, perhaps, be necessary to insist much on this point. At present it is very necessary. Philosophers have ascribed all reli- gion to human policy. Nobody knows how soon they may ascribe all morality to the same origin ; and then the foundations of human society, as well as of human happiness, will be effectually under- mined. To accomplish this end, Hobbes, Hume, Mandeville, and even Locke, have laboured ; and I am sorry to say, from my know- ledge of mankind, that their labour has not been altogether in vain. Not that the works of these philosophers are generally read, or even understood by the few who read them. It is not the mode, now-a-days, for a man to think for himself ; but they greedily adopt the conclusions, without any concern about the arguments or prin- ciples whence they proceed ; and they justify their own credulity by general declamations upon the transcendent merit of their fa- vourite authors, and the universal deference that is paid to their genius and learning. If I caji prove those authors guilty of gross 78 LIFE OP DR BEATTIE. misrepresentations of matters of fact, unacquainted with the human heart, ignorant even of their ovm principles, the dupes of verbal ambiguities, and the votaries of frivolous, though dangerous phi- losophy, I shall do some little service to the cause of truth ; and all this I will undertake to prove in many instances of high im- portance. " You have no doubt seen Dr Blacklock's new book.* I was very much surprised to see my name prefixed to the dedication, as he never had given me the least intimation of such a design. His friendship does me great honour. I should be sorry, if, in this instance, it has got the better of his prudence ; and I have some reason to fear, that my name will be no recommendation to the work? at least in this place, where, however, the book is very well spoken of, by some who have read it. I should like to know how it takes at Edinburgh. LETTER XXm. DR BEATTIE TO ROBERT ARBUTHNOTj ESq. Aberdeen, 25th February, 1768. "I INTENDED long ago to write to you; but several pieces of business, some of them unexpected, have, from time to time, prevented me. The writing out a copy of Mr Gray's poems- for the press has employed me the last fortnight. They are to be printed at Glasgow by Foulis, with the author's own permission, which I solicited and obtained : and he sent me four folio pages of notes and additions to be inserted in the new edition. The notes are chiefly illustrations of the two Pindaric odes, more copious in- deed than I should have thought necessary : but I understand he is not a little chagrined at the complaints which have been made of their obscurity ; and he tells me, that he wrote these notes out of spite. " The long Story" is left out in this edition, at which I am not well pleased : for, though it has neither head nor tail, be- ginning nor end, it abounds in humorous description, and the versification is exquisitely fine. Three new poems (never before * " Paraclesis, or Consolations.** LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 79 printed) are inserted : two of which are imitations from the Nor- wegian, and one is an imitation from the Welch. He versified them (he says) " because there is a wild spirit in them which " struck him." From the first of the Norwegian pieces he has taken the hint of the iveb^ in the ode on the Welch bards j but the imitation far exceeds the original. The original in his version be- gins in this manner: ** Now the storm begins to lower; " Haste, the loom of hell prepare : " Iron sleet of arrowy shower ** Hurtles in the darken'd dr. " See the grisly texture grow; " 'Tis of human entrails madft; **♦ And the weights that play below, ** Each a gasping warrior's head. ** Shafts, for shuttles, dipt in gore, " Shoot the trembling cords along; ** Sword, that once a monarch bore, " Keep the tissue close and strong.'^ " The second Norwegian piece, is a dialogue between Odin and a prophetess in her grave, whom, by incantation, he makes to speak. One of the most remarkable passages in it is the following description of a dog, which far exceeds every thing of the kind I have seen. " Him the dog of darkness spied, ** His shaggy throat he opened wide, «* While from his jaws, with carnage fiU'd, ** Foam and human gore distili'd. ** Hoarse he bays with hideous din, ** Eyes that glow, and fangs that grin; ** And long pursues, with fruitless yell,. ** The fatlier of the powerful spell." ^^ I give you these passages, partly to satisfy, and partly to liaise, your curiosity. I expect the book will be out in a few weeks, if Foulis be diligent, which it is his interest to be, as there is ano- ther edition of the same just now printing by Dodsley. I gave him notice of this, by Mr Gray's desire, two months ago j but it did not in the least abate his zeal for the undertaking.** m LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. The following note to his friend Mr Tytler, accompanying the beautiftil little poem "The Hermit," has no date, but was probably Written in' the year 1767, at the time he was in Edinburgh. The 'poem itself was written in the^year 1766, as he mentions it in !his ' letter" to^me, 8th January 1 7 ©7, - as a late production of his muse, -and the occasion of it. ^ It was a very flattering compliment to Mr Tytler, who had composed the tune of " Pentland Hills," which the words were to accompany, in imitation of our ancient Scottish melodies, of which he was an enthusiastic admirer. For some ac- count of Mr Tytler, whom I had the happiness to rank among the number of my intimate and most respected friends, see the Appen- dix, [O.] U&TTER XXIV. DR BEATTIE TO WILLI AM TYTLEB,. EaQ. OF WOODHOUSELEE. Edinburgh, Thursday, Noon. " THE above is a copy of the verses I wrote for your tune of " Pentland Hills." The sentiments, I fear, are not such as become a song; but the measure corresponds well enough with the music. I shall be glad to know your sentiments of this performance." The following lettef to hi* sister strongly marks the strength of Dr Beattie's filial affection. LETTER XXV. DR BEATTIE TO MRS VALENTINE. Aberdeen, 27th March, 1768. '^ FOR some weeks past, I have been wishing to have it in my power to write to you my opinion concerning the way in which our mother's affairs are to be settled. The death of our two sis- LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 81) tiers * has produced a great alteration in her circumstances, and will, I am afraid, serve to render the remainder of her life more melancholy than could be wished. We ought, however, to endea- vour, as iiiuch as possible, to prevent this, and to settle her in as comfortable a situation as we can. " Of the state of her affairs, as they are at present, and as they have been for three or four years past, I am ahnost wholly igno- rant ; and out of tenderness to my sister, I did not care to make too particular an enquiry. But matters are now come to that pass, that there is a necessity for doing something. I have written to my mother and brother to this purpose : but every thing I now write is but guess-work : for I have got no particular account either of my mother's circumstances, or of what she would wish to have done ; and this is the reason I did not write to you sooner. I wrote to my brother, desiring some information on this head. My mo- ther's inclinations ought to be consulted in the first place. What- ever way of life is most agreeable to her, shall be so to me. But till I know her inclinations, I can say nothing. On my part, no- thing shall be wanting to render her old age as comfortabl refuses to have LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 103 a share in it, considering that he is one of the principal proprietors of Mr Hume's works, and, in consequence of that, may have such a personal regard for him as would prevent his being concerned in any work of this nature. In a word, I am highly pleased with the whole transaction, except in this one respect, that you and Mr Arbuthnot have agreed to be partners in this publication. This gives me real concern. I know you both despise the risk of losing any thing by it, and will despise the loss when you come to know it, of which I am afraid there is too great a chance ; but notwith- standing, I could have wished you out of the scrape ; and if it shall afterwards appear that you are losers, I shall be tempted to regret that ever I gave you the opportunity. There are some delicacies on this subject, which embarrass me so much, that I know not how to express myself intelligibly. In a word, you will account the loss a trifle ; but to me it will not have that appearance. " I will now fall to work, and put the last hand to my manu- script. This will take up a week or two, as several things have occurred to me within these few days, which I think will, when added, make the book much more perfect. I will venture to say, that few authors have ever been more solicitous than I on this occasion, to make their work correct. It has undergone a most critical examination in the hands of my two friends, Doctors Campbell and Gerard, who have both written observations on it, and who are perfect masters of all the subjects treated in it, and really, in my judgment, the most acute metaphysicians of the age. Both have given me great encouragement, and assured me, that, in their opinion, my book will do good, if people will only vouch- safe it a reading. It was but the other day I received Dr Gerard's remarks, and on my desiring him, honestly and impartially to give his judgment, " I think," says he, " it is p. most excellent book, " and cannot fail to do you credit with all the friends of virtue and " religion." I mention this only to show you, that if it shall after- wards appear that I have judged wrong in thinking this book proper to be printed, I am not singular in the mistake. One thing I was particularly careful in recommending to the two gentlemen just mentioned: I desired them, above everything, to observe whether I had in any place misrepresented my adversaries, or mistaken their doctrine. They tell me, that, in their judgment, I 104 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. have not, except in two or three passages of no consequence, which, however, I have carefully corrected. I have the more confidence in their judgment in this particular, because they are perfect masters of the modern sceptical philosophy, and are parti- cularly well acquainted with Mr Hume's writings, indeed better than any other person I know, except Dr Reid at Glasgow ; to whom, however, they are no ways inferior. Much of my know- ledge on these subjects I owe to their conversation and writings, as Dr Gregory very well knows. Since I am upon this subject, I shall tell you farther, that the book, now under consideration, has been my principal study these four years ; I have actually written it three times over, and some parts of it oftener. I have availed myself, all I could, of reading and conversation, in order that I might be aware of all the possible objections that could be made to my doctrine. Every one of these, that has come to my know- ledge, has been canvassed and examined to the bottom, at least according to the examiner's measure of understanding. If all this, joined to my natural abhorrence of misrepresentation, and to the sense I have of what my character would suffer if I could be charged with want of candour ; if all this, I say, is not sufficient to make my book correct, I must for ever despair of making it so." Of the warmth of affection on the part of Dr fieattie towards his friends, there is another striking proof in the following letter to Major Mercer. It likewise strongly marks the playful humour which he sometimes introduced into his correspondence with those friends whom he loved ; with whom he was wont to joke in conver- sation, and with whom he felt himself perfectly at ease. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 105 LETTER XXXIIL DR BEATTIE, TO CAPJA^If :(aFTERWARDS MAJQr) MERCER.*^ iia I t\oidif fttnvk^ ^^Qj,^QQjy^ 26th November, 1769. " I SHALL not take up your time with enlarging on all the causes that have kept me so long from writing. I shall only tell you, that while the summer lasted, I went abojit as much as pos- sible, and imposed on myself an abstinence from reading, writing, and thinking, with a view to ^shake off this vile vertigo, which, how- ever, still sticks by me, with a closeness of attachment which X could well excuse. Since that time, I mean since the end of sum- mer, I have delayed writing, till I should be able to inform you of the fate of the papers you were so good last winter as to read and interest yourself in. They are sold to a bookseller in Edinburgh, and are now actually in the press, and will make their public ap- pearance, if I mistake' not, in the spring. I have taken no little pains to finish them; and many additions, and illustrations, and corrections, and expunctions, and softenings, and hardenings, have been made on them. With them I intend to bid adieu to meta- physics, and all your authors of profound speculation j for, of all the trades to which that multifarious animal man can turn himself, I am now disposed to look upon intense study as the idlest, the most unsatisfying, and the most unprofitable. You cannot easily conceive with what greediness I now peruse the " Arabian Nights " Entertainments," " Gulliver's Travels," " Robinson Crusoe,** &c. I am like a man who has escaped from the mines, and is now drinking in the fresh air and light, on the top of some of the moun- tains cf Dalecarlia. These books put me in mind of the days of former years, the romantic xra of fifteen, or the still more careless period of nine or ten, the scenes of which, as they now stand pic- tured in my fancy, seem to be illuminated with a sort of purple light, formed with the softest, purest gales, and painted with a ver- ♦ For some account of Major Mercer, see p. 20. and Appendix, [R.] o 'f^6 LIFE OF DR BEATTlE. dure to which nothing similar is to be found in the degenerate summers of modern times. Here I would quote the second stanza of Gray's "Ode on Eton College,*' but it would take up too much room, and you certainly have it by heart. "I hear you are likely to be a major in the army soon. I need not tell you on how many accounts I wish that event to take place. I should look on it as a forerunner of your return, which I should certainly rejoice at, even with an excess of joy, though I had not a single particle of generosity in my whole composition, my own happiness is so much interested in it. Alas ! my walks now are quite solitary. No more do the banks of Dee resound to those con- fabulations, critical, grammatical, philosophical, sentimental, &c. which whilom were agitated between us. I have not seen a man, since you left us, whose notions of Homer and Achilles were the same with mine. " I was a fortnight at Edinburgh this summer, where I saw our friend Sylvester* almost every day. You would be surprised to see his outward man so little changed. His voice has the same tone (only with a little addition of the English accent) as when he went away. As to stature and e?nbonfioint, he is much the same (I fear I have misapplied that word, which I believe is never used of lean people). His complexion rather fresher and fairer than be- fore. He speaks French, Italian, and German with fluency, and is as fond of poetry as ever. He never drinks above two or three glasses of wine at a sitting ; and, indeed, seems to have acquired a great many good qualities by his travelling, without the loss of a single one of those he formerly possessed. ^' "* " You would see Mr Gray's installation ode, and, if so, I aih sure you have approved it. It is not equal to some other of his pieces, but it is the best ode of the panegyrical kind I have ever seen. I had a letter from him since it came out, in which he says, " That it cannot last above a single day, or, if its existence be pro- " longed beyond that period, it must be by means of newspaper " parodies, and witless criticism." He says, he considered himself bound in gratitude to the D. of Grafton to write this ode ; and that he foresaw the abuse that would be thrown on him for it, but * Tlie Right Honourable Sylvester Douglas, Lord Glenbervie. Vide Appendix, [S,] LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. \07i did not think it worth his while to avoid it. I am not of his mind in regard to the duration of the poem. I am much mistaken if it do not carry down the name of his patron to the latest posterity; an honour which, I fear, no other great man of this age will have the chance to receive from the hands of the muses." I am induced to print the following letter of Dr Beattie's, in oi'der to show, that he was aware, before the publication of his. " Essay on Truth,** how much he was supposed to have employed too great a degree of acrimony in the original composition of that essay ; and how far he himself entertained the belief, that he had removed all just cause of any such complaint, before its publication. It proves, too, I think, very clearly, how much he was actuated by principle in all his writings ; and that, in thus warmly expressing his sentiments on the subject, he was merely acting, as he thought,^ in the discharge of his duty. LETTER XXXIV, DR BEATTIE TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN. Aberdeen, 27th November, 1769. " THE concern your lordship is pleased to take in my writ- ings does me a great deal of honour. I should think myself very happy, if, by means of them, I could contribute any thing to the advancement of the cause of truth and virtue. " I have not been able, since you left us, to make any consider- able additions to the " Minstrel ;** all my leisure hours being em- ployed in putting the last hand to my " Essay on Truth,'* which was actually put to the press about three weeks ago. It will, % think, make its public appearance in the spring. Several impor- tant alterations and additions have been made. Most of the aspe- rities have beeii struck out, and such of them as have been retained are very much softened. Still, however, there are, and must be, some strong pictures and expressions, which do not well suit ^hp lOd LIFE OF t)R ftl^ATtlE. apathy and equivocating lukewarmness of this age. But my ex- press design was, to set our sceptics in a new light, and therefore I found it necessary to pursue a new method. I want to shew, that their reasonings and doctrines are not only false, but ridiculous ; and that their talents, as philosophers and logicians, are absolutely contemptible. Your lordship will, I presume, do me the justice to believe, that I have not affected to treat them with more contempt than I think they deserve. I should be ashamed of myself, if, in pleading the cause of truth, I were to personate a character that is not my own. The doctrines I have maintained in this book are, every one of them, according to my real sentiments. I have added some remarks on personal identity ; on the veracity of our senses in regard to extension, distance, magnitude, and those other objects of touch which are commonly referred, both to that sense, and to sight i on the different classes to which certain truths seem reduci- ble ; and I have made several other additions, which, I hope, will render the book less exceptionable than it was when your lordship did me the honour to peruse it. " The * Minstrel' I intend to resume next summer. It will consist of three books ; and, as it promises to be by much the best, and will probably be the last, of my poetical attempts, I propose tp finish it at great leisure.*' The Earl of Buchan, being desirous of exciting an attention to classical learning at Aberdeen, established a prize * to be anually contended for among the young men educated at the Marischal College ; the subject to be the best Greek exercise. In conse* quence of the communication of this design to Dr Beattie, Lord Buchan received from him the following letter, by order of the uni- versity. • A silver pen, presented by Lord Buchan to tHe uiliversity, to wliich st medallion is annually appended, with the name of the successful candidate. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 109 LETTER XXXV. DR BEATTIE TO THE EARL OF BUCHANT. Aberdeen, 15th December, 1769. " I LAID your letter before a full meeting of our univer- sity ; and have their orders to return to your Lordship their most grateful acknowledgments for your attention to the interests of learning in general, and your generosity to this society in particu- lar. We accept, with the most unfeigned sentiments of gratitudes the noble present you have done us the honour to promise us j and will most zealously endeavour to promote, to the utmost of our power, those good purposes your Lordship has so much at heart. We beg to know more particularly, in what way it will be proper for us to propose the prize -subjects ? and from what sciences the arguments are to be taken ? what ranks of students (whether the lower or higher classes, or all, in general) are to be admitted as can- didates ? in what manner their performances are to be examined ? and whether it will be expedient to publish, in the newspapers, the names of such as shall be tliought to have obtained the prize ? In these, and in all other particulars, we would choose to be directed by your Lordship's judgment."* LETTER XXXVL DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 4th May, 1770. " NOTHING, I think, is stirring in the literary world. All \ i'anks are run mad with politics ; and I know not whether there was * The annual competition for this prize still continues at Aberdeen. IW LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. any period at which it was more unseasonable to publish new books. I do not mean that the nation has no need of instruction ; I mean only, that it has neither leisure nor inclination to listen to any. " I am a very great admirer of Armstrong's poem on " Health ;" and therefore as soon as I heard that the same author had published two volumes of " Miscellanies," I sent a commission for them with great expectations ; but I am miserably disappointed. I know not what is the matter with Armstrong ; but he seems to have con- ceived a rooted aversion at the whole human race, except a few friends, who, it seems, are dead. He sets the public opinion at de- fiance ; a piece of boldness, which neither Virgil nor Horace were ever so shameless as to acknowledge. It is very true, that living authors are often hardly dealt with by their contemporaries ; wit- ness Milton, Collins the poet, and many others : but 1 believe it is equally true, that no good piece was ever published, which did not sooner or later obtain the public approbation. How is it possible it should be otherwise ? People read for amusement. If a book be capable of yielding amusement, it will naturally be read ; for lio man is an enemy to what gives him pleasure. Some books, indeed, being calculated for the intellects of a few, can please only a few ; yet if they produce tliis effect, they answer all the end the authors intended ; and if those few be men of any note, which is generally the case, the herd of mankind will very willingly fall in with their judgment, and consent ta admire what they do not understand. I question whether there are now in Europe two thousand, or even one thousand, persons, who understand a word of Newton's " Prin- " cipia ;" yet there are in Europe many millions who extol Newton as a very great philosopher. Those are but a small number who have any sense of the beauties of Milton ; yet every body admires Milton, because it is the fashion. Of all the English poets of this age, Mr Gray is most admired, and, I think, with justice ; -yet there are, comparatively speaking, but a few who know any thing of his, but his " Church-yard Elegy," which is by no means the best of his works. I do not think that Dr Armstrong has any cause to complain of the public : his " Art of Health" is not indeed a popular poem, but it is very much liked, and has often been printed. It will make him knowTi and esteemed by posterity : and I pre- sume he will be the more esteemed, if all his other works perish LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 1 M with him. In his " Sketches," indeed, are many sensible, and some striking, remarks ; but they breathe such a rancorous and con- temptuous spirit, and abound so much in odious vulgarisms and colloquial execrations, that in reading we are as often disgusted as pleased. I know not what to say of his " Universal Almanack :" it seems to me an attempt at humour ; but such humour is either too high or too low for my comprehension. The plan of his tra- gedy, called the " Forced Marriage," is both obscure and impro- bable ; yet there are good strokes in it, particularly in the last scene. '' As I know your taste and talents in painting, I cannot hel^ communicating to you an observation, which I lately had occasion, not to make, for I had made it before, but to see illustrated in a very striking manner. I was reading the Abbe du Bos' " Reflections on " Poetry and Painting." In his 13th section of the first volume, he gives some very ingenious remarks on two of Raphael's cartoons. Speaking of " Christ's charge to Peter," he says of one of the figures in the group of apostles, " Pres de lui est place un autre " Apotre embarasse de sa contenance ; on le discerne pour etre " d'un temperament melanchoiique a la maigreur de son visage " livide, a sa barbe noire et plate, a I'habitude de son corps, enfin a " tous les traits que les naturalistes ont assignes a ce temperament. " II se courbe ; et les yeux fixement attaches sur J. C. il est devore " d'une jalousie morne pour une choix dont il ne se plaindra point, " mais dont il conservera long terns un vif ressentiment ; enfin on ♦' reconnoit ]a Judas aussi distinctement qu* a le voir pendu au " figuier, une bourse renversee au col. Je n' ai point prete d*es- " prit a Raphael," &c. You see the ingenious Abbe is very posi- tive ; and yet you will immediately recollect, that the charge of " Feed my sheep," to which this cartoon refers, was given to Peter after the resurrection, and when, consequently, Judas could not be present (John xxi. 16.) If it be said, that this charge refers to the keys, which Peter carries in his bosom ; a charge given long before : I answer, first, that the sheeji in the back-ground is a presumption of the contrary ; and, secondly, that the wounds in the feet and hands of Jesus, and the number of apostles present, which is only eleven, are a certain proof, that the fact to which this cartoon relate!? happened after the resurrection. The Abbe's mistake is of little moment in itself j but it serves to illustrate this observation, tliat 112 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. the expression of painting is at the best very indefinite, and gene- rally leaves scope to the ingenious critic de fireter d'esjirit to the painter."* At length, in the month of May 1 770, Dr Beattie's " Essay on " the nature and immutability of Truth, in opposition to Sophistry " and Scepticism," made its appearance. As the manuscript had been seen by several eminent men of learning, and as the " Essay " on Truth" was known to be written as a direct attack on the phi- losophical principles of Mr Hume, its publication had been looked for with considerable expectation. The boldness, too, of a writer so little known to the world as Beattie was at this time (for he had merely published a few juvenile poems), in attacking an author so formidable as Mr Hume, contributed not a little to excite the pub- lic curiosity. Mr Hume was in the zenith of his popularity. After a period of more than thirty years spent in literary pursuits, and after having acted in several respectable public situations,t to which his reputation as an author had no doubt recommended him, he had returned to Edinburgh, opulent from a pension which had been bestowed on him by government, but still more by the fruits of that plan of rigid economy, which, he tells us, he had early adopted, and steadily pursued, for the purpose of supplying his original de- ficiency of fortune, and rendering himself independent in the world.| • I have lately met with a criticism similar to the above of Dr Beattie's on the Abb^ du Bos, in the life of Raphael- in " Pilkingt«n's Dictionary of " the Lives of the Painters," p. 501. A coincidence, however, that must have been entirely accidental ; and which no way detracts from tlie origi- nality of Dr Beattie's observation : for I am satisfied, he had never read Pilk- ington, otherwise he would not have sent me the remark as being his own. t Mr Hume attended General St Clair, in the year 1746, as secretary to his expedition on the coast of France. In 1747, he attended the general in the same station in his military embassy to the courts of Vienna and Turin. In the year 1763, he accompanied the Earl of Hertford, as secretary on his embassy to Paris, where he was left chargS d'affaires, on that nobleman's going as lord lieutenant to Ireland. And in 1767, he was appointed by Lord Hertford's brother. General Conway, to be under-secretary of state, while the general held the seals. \ Life of Mr Hume, prefixed to his works, written by himself, p. 7. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 113 Mr Hume, in his disposition, was htimane and charitable, his tem- per was mild, and his manners pleasing, which, added to his natu- ral abilities, as well as his great stock of acquired knowledge, made his company much sought after. The circle of society, therefore, in which he moved at Edinburgh, was not only extensive, but the most distinguished for rank and fashion, and literary merit, of which the metropolis of Scotland could boast. Of all this I am myself a living witness ; for I was well acquainted with Mr Hume, with whom I frequently met in the intercourse of social life. Mr Hume had deservedly acquired a high reputation as an historian ; and he may, with truth, be said to have been among the first to introduce into this country that dignified and classical style of composition with which we are so much delighted in his " His- " tory of England," as well as in the writings of Robertson, Orme, and other eminent authors since Mr Hume's time. His account of the British constitution, of the feudal system, and his affecting narratives of the death of Charles the First, of Lord Strafford, of Archbishop Laud, as well as other passages that might be cited, are proofs of a masterly genius, which must place Mr Hume in the first and most distinguished rank of writers of history in the English language. He had published, likewise, essays on political economy,* as well as on subjects of taste and literature ; which, notwithstanding the revolutions, both in opinions and things, that an interval of upwards of half a century has produced, are still pe- rused with pleasure by every classical scholar. Happy had it been, d sic omnia. But Mr Hume had unfortunately, at an early period of his life,t imbibed the principles of a cold-hearted and gloomy philosophy, the direct tendency of which was to distract the mind with doubts on subjects the most serious and important, and, in fact, to undermine the best interests, and dissolve the strongest ties, of human society. When he examined Mr Hume's philoso- • Dr Adam Smith, in his valuable work, on the ** Causes of the Wealth " of Nations," has acknowledged, that Mr Hume was the first writer who rightly understood, and properly explained, in his " Essays," some of the principles of political economy. Vx)l. ii. p. 39, 119. ed. 3. t He says, in the advertisement to his " Essays," that he had projected his ♦« Treatise on Human Nature" before he left college, and wrote and pub- lished it not long; after. iU LiFE OF DR BEATTlfc. pjhy, and contemplated the mischief which arose from it, Dr Beat- tie's whole faculties rose in arms within him, to use the emphatic expression of an anonymous journalist,* in the defence of the cause of truth, and of every virtuous principle ; and he resolved, without fear, to attempt to show the fallacy of a system, which he conceived to rest on no solid foundation. Such was the origin of the " Essay " on Truth ;" of which, besides what I have already inserted from his private correspondence with his friends, Dr Beattie gives, him- self, the following account, in the advertisement to the edition of the "Essay" published in quarto, in London, in the year 1776; " Ever since I began to attend to matters of this kind, I had heard Mr Hume's philosophy mentioned as a system very un- friendly to religion, both revealed and natural, as well as to science ; and its author spoken of as a teacher of sceptical and atheistical doctrines, and withal as a most acute and ingenious writer. 1 had reason to believe, that his arguments, and his influence as a great literary character, had done harm, by subverting or weakening the good principles of some, and countenancing the licentious opinions of others. Being honoured with the care of a part of the British youth ; and considering it as my indispensible duty (from which, I trust, I shall never deviate) to guard their minds against impiety and error, I endeavoured, among other studies that belonged to my office, to form a right estimate of Mr Hume's philosophy, so as not only to understand his peculiar tenets, but also to perceive their connection and consequences. " In forming this estimate, I thought it at once the surest and the fairest method to begin with the " Treatise of Human Nature," which was allowed, and is well known to be, the ground-w^ork of the whole ; and in which some of the principles and reasonings are more fully prosecuted, and their connection and consequences more clearly seen by an attentive reader (notwithstanding some inferiority in point of styl6), than in those more elegant republications of the system, that have appeared in the form of " Essays." Every sound * Account of the death of Dr Beattie, in the " Orthodox Churchman's " Magazine and Review, for August 1^03, No. 33." LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. Jl^ argument that may have been urged against the paradoxes of the " Treatise," particularly against its first principles, does, in my opinion, tend to discredit the system ; as every successful attempt to weaken the foundation of a building does in effect promote the downfal of the superstructure. Paradoxes there are in the " Trej^- " tise" which are not in the " Essays ;" and, in like manner, there are licentious doctrines in these, which are not in the other ; and therefore I have not directed all my batteries against the first. And if the plan I had in view, when I published this book, had beefi completed, the reader would have seen, that, though I began with the " Treatise of Human Nature," it was never my intention to end with it. In fact, the " Essay on Truth" is only one part of what I projected. Another part was then in so great forwardness, that I thought its publication not very remote, and had even made proposals to a bookseller concerning it ; though afterwards, on enr larging the plan, J found I had not taken so wide a view of the subject as would be necessary. In that part, my meaning was, tp have applied the principles of this book to the illustration of cer- tain truths of morality and religion, to which the reasonings of Helvetius, of Mr Hume in his " Essays," and of some other moder^i philosophers, seemed unfavourable. That work, however, I have been obliged, on account of my health, to lay aside; and whether I shall ever be in a condition to resume jt, i^ at present very un- certain,"* In the prosecution of this design, Dr Beattie has treated his subject in the following manner: He first endeavours to trace the several kinds of evidence and reasoning up to their first principles ; with a view to ascertain the standard of truth, and explain its im- mutability. He shows, in the second place, that his sentiments on this head, how inconsistent soever with the genius of scepticism, and with the principles and practice of sceptical writers, are yet perfectly consistent with the genius of true philosophy, and with * His want of health prevented him from prosecuting' his original de- sign of writing" a second part of tlie ** Essay on Truth." But he contrived to introduce into some of his subsequent publications some portion of wjiaj: hje intended the second part should contain. ^16 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. the practice and principles of those, whom all acknowledge to have been the most successful in the investigation of truth ; conclud- ing with some inferences, or rules by which the more important fallacies of the sceptical philosophers may be detected by every person of common sense, even though he should not possess acute- ness of metaphyiscal knowledge sufficient to qualify him for a lo- gical confutation of them. In the third place, he answers some objections, and makes some remarks, by way of estimate of scepti- cism, find sceptical writers.* • ^ssay on Truth, p. 15. SECTION III. f JIOM THE PUBLICATION OF THE " ESSAY ON TRUTH," TO THE DEATH OF DR BEATTIE's ELDEST SON, |N THE YEAR 1790, W O sooner did the " Essay on Truth make its appearance, than it was assailed by the admirers of Mr. Hume as a violent and personal attack on that writer. Of this Dr Beattie takes notice in the following letters. It is here necessary to mention, that, upon the publication of the " Essay on Truth," it was thought advisable, that a short ana- lysis of the essay should be inserted in the Edinburgh newspapers, in order that something might be known of the manner in which the subject was treated. This task Dr Blacklock undertook, and executed with much ability.* But previous to its publication, he thought it proper to submit what he had written to Dr Beattie, who replied to Dr Blacklock as follows. LETTER XXXVII. DR BEATTIE TO DR BLACKLOCK. Aberdeen, snh May, 1770. " I CANNOT express how much I think myself indebted to your friendship, in entering so warmly into all my concerns, and in making out so readily, and at such length, the two critical articles. The shortest one was sent back, in course of post, to Mr Kincaid,t from whom you would learn the reasons that induced me * Vide Edinburgh Evening Courant, 2d June, 1770. t The publisher. 118 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. to make some alterations in the analysis you had there made of my book. The other paper I return in this packet. I have made a re- mark or two at the end, but no alterations. Indeed, how could I ? you understand my philosophy as perfectly as I do ; you express it much better, and you embellish it with a great many of your own sentiments, which, though new to me, are exceedingly apposite to my subject, and set some parts of it in a fairer light than I have been able to do in my book. I need not tell you, how happy I am in the thought, that this work of mine has your approbation ; for I know you too well, to impute to mere civility the many handsome things you have said in praise of it. I know you approve it, ber cause I know you incapable to say one thing and think another ; and I do assure you, I would not forego your approbation to avoid the censure of fifty Mr Humes, What do I say ? Mr Hume's cen- sure I am so far from being ashamed of, that I think it does me honour. It is, next to his conversion, (which I have no reason to look for) the most desirable thing I have to expect from that quar- ter. I have heard, from very good authority, that he speaks of me and my book with very great bitterness (I own, I thought he wpqld rather have affected to treat both with contempt) ; and that he say^, I have not used him like a gentleman. He is quite right to set the matter upon that footing. It is an odious charge ; it is an objection easily remembered, and, for that reason, will be often repeated, by his admirers ; and it has tliis farther advantage, that being (in the present case) perfectly unintelligible, it cannot possibly be answer- ed. The truth is, I, as a rational, moral, and immortal being, and something of a philosopher, treated him as a rational, moral, and immortal being, a sceptic, and an atheistical writer. My desi^ij was, not to make a book full of fashionable phrases, and polite ex- pressions, but to undeceive the public in regard to the merits of the sceptical philosophy, and the pretensions of its abettors. To say, that I ought not to have done this with plainness and spirit, is to say, in other wordsj that I ought either to have held my peace, or to have been a knave. In this case, I might perhaps have treated Mr Hume as a gentleman, but I should not have treated society, and my own conscience, as became a man and a Christian. I have all along foreseen, and still foresee, that I shall have many reproaches, and cavils, and sneers, to encounter on this occasion ; but I am prepared to meet them. I am not ashamed of my cause ; and, if I miay be- LtFE OF DR BEATTIE. U^ iieve those whose good opinion I value as one of the chief blessing^ of life, I need not be ashamed of my work. You are certainly right in your conjecture, that it will not have a quick sale. Not- withstanding all my endeavours to render it perspicuous and enter- taining, it is still necessary for the person who reads it to think a little; a task to which every reader will not submit. My subject too is unpopular, and my principles such as a man of the world would blush to acknowledge. How then can my book be popular 1 If it refund the expence of its publication, it will do as much as any person, who knows the present state of the literary world, can rea- sonably expect from it. " I am not at all surprised at your notions in regard to liberty and necessity. I have known several persons of the best under- standing, and of the best heart, who could not get over the argu- ments in favour of necessity, even though their notions of the ab- surd and dangerous consequences of fatality were the same with mine. The truth is, I see no possible way of reconciling the fa- talists with the liberty -men, except by supposing human liberty to be a self-evident fact, which, perhaps, the fatalists will never ac- knowledge, and which the staunch Arminian, who has been long in the practice of arguing the matter, would think a dangerous and unnecessary supposition. My own sentiments of this point I have given fairly and honestly in my book. That I am a free agent, is what I not only believe, but what I judge to be of such importance, that all morality must be founded on it, yea, and all religion too. To vindicate the ways of God to man, is not so difficult a thing when we acknowledge human liberty ; but, on the principles of fa- tality, it seems to me to be absolutely impossible. " I beg you will, from time to time, let me know what you hear of the fate of my book. Every author thinks that his works ought to engross every body's attention. I am not such a novice as to have more of this vanity than my neighbours : yet I think it highly probable, that my book will be the subject of some convei'sation, especially about Edinburgh, where Mr Hume is so well known, and where I happen to be not altogether unknown. By the bye, it was extremely well judged not to mention Mr Hume's name, ex- cept very slightly, in the two critical articles you wrote. People will do me a great injustice, if they say or think, that my book is Written solely against Mr Hume. Yet many, I am convinced, will 120 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. say so ; and, therefore, it was proper to say nothing in those articles that might encourage such a notion." LETTER XXXVIIL DR JOHN GREGORY TO DR BEATTlfe. Edinburgh, 20th June, 1770. " MUCH woe has your essay wrought me. The hero of the piece is extremely angry, and so are all his friends, who are numerous. As it was known, that the manuscript had been in my hands, I was taken to task for letting it go to the press as it stands. I have openly avowed every where, that I had advised you to pubr lish your essay ; that I thought the reasoning it contained both ingenious and solid j that it was not only written with great per- spicuity, but with a spirit and elegance very uncommon on such subjects ; that the importance of the subject^ justified sufficiently the warmth with which it was written ; that it was no metaphysical disquisition about questions of curiosity, but a defence of principles, on which the peace of society, the virtue of individuals, and the happiness of every one who had either feeling or imagination, depended. I wished, at the same time, some particular expressions had been softened ; but denied there being any personal sabuse. In one place you say, " TV/mi does the man mean .?" This, you know, is very contemptuous. In short, the spirit and warmth with which it is written, has got it more friends and more enemies than if it had been written with that polite and humble deference to Mr Hume's extraordinary abilities, which his friends think so justly his due. For my own part, I am so warm, not to say angry, about this subject, that I cannot entirely trust my own judgment ; but I really think, that the tone of superiority assumed by the present race of infidels, and the contemptuous sneer with which they regard every friend of religion, contrasted with the timid behaviour of such as should support its cause, acting only on the defensive, seems to me to have a very unfavourable influence. It seems to imply a consciousness of truth on the one side, and a secret con- viction, or at least (Uffidence of the cause on the other. What a LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 121 difference from the days of Addison, Arbuthnotj Swift, Pope, &c. who treated infidelity with a scorn and indignation we are now strangers to. I am now persuaded the book will answer beyond your expectations. I have recommended it strongly to my friends in England. " I am positive in my opinion, that you should publish the first part of the " Minstrel," without waiting for the rest." Mr Hume tells us, in his life, written by himself,* that he had formed a fixed resolution, which he inflexibly maintained, never to answer any body. But from what he has been heard to say on the subject of the " Essay on Truth," there is some reason to suppose, that, although he affected to treat the matter in a vein of ironical pleasantry, he did not derive that consolation from Beattie's work, which he pretends to have derived t from a pamphlet attributed to Dr Hurd, the present bishop of Worcester, against his " History " of Natural Religion." This pamphlet, I believe, the bishop afterwards disclaimed. If, however, Dr Beattie found himself thus attacked by one set of men, he derived ample consolation from the popularity of his book, and the encomiums bestowed upon it by men of a different character. Some passages of his letters, at this time, strongly evince this success of his essay, which, indeed, far exceeded the most sanguine expectations, either of himself or his friends. But no testimony in his favour could convey to him such high gratifi- cation as that which he derived from the following letter from that accomplished scholar and excellent man, the first Lord Lyttelton, to whom Dr Beattie had taken the liberty of presenting a copy of • Page 9. t **In this interval," says Mr Hume, « I published my * Natural History " * of Religion,* along with some other small pieces. Its public entry was « rather obscure, except only that Dr Hurd wrote a pamphlet against it, ** with all the illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility, which distin- " guished the Warburtonian school. This pamphlet gave me some conso- " lation for the otherwise indifferent reception of my performance." — P. 11. 123 Lll^E fer DR BEATTIE. his " Essay on Truth," in consequence of his having been meii' tioned to Lord Lyttelton by the late Dr Gregory. LETTER XXXIX. LORD LYTTELTON* TO DR PEATTIE. HiU-street (London) 6th October, 1770. " THAT the author of such a work as that you have done me the favour to send me, should entertain the opinion you are pleased to express of me and my writings, is an honour to me, of which I feel the high value. Never did I r^aid any book, in which truths * George, Lord Lyttelton, eldest son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton of Hagley, in Worcestershire, was early distinguished by his learning, his taste, and his poetical talents, of which he has left many beautiful specimens, but no poem of any extent. Among other pieces, his plaintive Monody, on the death of the first Lady Lyttelton, is familiar to, and admired by, every reader of taste. His works in prose are numerous. His " Persian Letters,*' and his ** Dia- " logues of the Dead,'* are well known. But, above all, his valuable **Dis- «* sertation on the Conversion and Apostleship of St Paul," is entitled to the highest commendation, as a masterly and convincing argument in favour of revealed religion. It is a very important fact, which we have on his own authority, that he was originally inclined to scepticism in religious opinions ; but, by the effect of study and candid reflection, he became a decided and a steady believer in revelation. Lord Lyttelton also published an elaborate historical work on '* The Age of Henry the Second." The style is void of ornament, but the book contains much valuable information, the result of diligent research. In his posthumous works, published by his nephew, are isome very curious letters from Lord Lyttelton, while abroad, to his father, which set his filial piety in a Very striking point of light. Lord Lyttelton was distinguished as a speaker in parliament ; and, as a polite scholar and a man of taste, was one of the most accomplished charac- ters of his time. He was the friend of Pope, of Thomson, of Slicnstone. And the letter to DrBeattie, which has given occasion to the introduction of this slight biographical sketch of Lord Lyttelton, shows how strongly that '^eat and good man was pleased to interest himself in the fortunes of our Author, even before their personal acquaintance todk place, and when Dr Beattie was merely known to his lordship by his writings, and the testimony of their common friend, Dr Gregor}'. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 123 t»f the greatest importance to mankind are more skilfully extricated from the mazes of sophism, or where reason, wit, and eloquence join their forces more happily, in opposition to errors of the ivkojai pernicious nature. " It has often given me great pain to see Bishop Berkeley, 9 most pious and learned man, overturn the main foundations of all religion and all knowledge, by the most extravagant scepticism concerning the real existence of matter, in some of his writings^ and then fancy, that in others he could, by any force of argument, establish the evidences of Christianity, which are a perpetual appeal to the truth of our senses, and grounded on a supposition that they cannot deceive us in those things which are the proper and natural objects of them, within their due limits. Can one wonder that the sceptics should lay hold of the former in answer to the latter? And can any more useful service be done to Christianity, than to shew the fallacy of such whimsies as would make the body of Christ, which his disciples saw and felt, no body at all ? and the proof of his resurrection, from that testimony of their senses, a mere delu- sive idea ? " Berkeley certainly was not sensible of the consequences of these doctrines, no more than Locke of those you reprehend in his essay; but whatever respect may be due to the persons of authors, their writings must be censured, when they deserve censure, and especially on such subjects. This the friends of Mr Hume have no more right to complain of, than those of Berkeley or Locke. Nor can the censure of systems, which attempt to shake the great pillars both of natural and revealed religion, be delivered by a be- liever, in terms as cool as if only a speculation on the nature of electricity, or the causes of an aurora borealis were in question. Mr Hume, as a man, from his probity, candour, and the humanity of his manners, deserves esteem and respect ; but the more autho- rity he draws from his personal character, or from the meiit of his other books, the more care should be taken to prevent the ill impres- sions which his sceptical writings may make on a number of readers, who, having been used to admire him, and trust in his judgment, are disposed to let him also judge for them in these points, where the being misled must.be fatal, " Go on, sir, to employ your excellent talents in a cause worthy of them, and stop the progress of th^t Ibllvj which, assuming the 124 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. venerable name of philosophy, tends to deprive human nature of the salutary light of its best and clearest knowledge, and throw it into a dark chaos of doubt and uncertainty. " I beg you to present my affectionate compliments to good Dr Gregory, whom I have often been obliged to on many accounts, but never more than for the favour of procuring me your friend- ship, which I shall endeavour to cultivate by the best returns in my power." The following letter to Mrs Inglis,* at Edinburgh, is truly va- luable, as it contains Dr Beattie's sentiments on the important question, which has been so much agitated, whether a public or a private education for boys is to be preferred. LETTER XL. DR BEATTIE TO MRS INGLIS. Aberdeen, 24th December, 177Q. " WHILE I lived in your neighbourhood, I often wished for jin opportunity of giving you my opinion on a subject, in which I know you are very deeply interested ; but one incident or other always put it out of my power. That subject is the education of your son, whpm, if I mistake not, it is now high time to send to some public place of education. I have thought much on this subject; I have weighed every argument, that I could think of, on either side of the question. Much, you know, has been written upon it, and very plausible arguments have been offered, both for and against a public education. I set not much value upon these ; * Daughter of Colonel Gardiner, by Lady Frances Stuart", dau|^hter f an Earl of Buchan. He was killed at tlie battle of Prestonpans, in Scotland, in September, 1745, fighting" at the head of his regiment of dragoons. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 135 speculating men are continually disputing, and the world is seldoirt the wiser. I have some little experience in this way ; I have no hypothesis to mislead me ; and the opinion or prejudice which I first formed upon the subject, was directly contrary to that, which experience has now taught me to entertain. " Could mankind lead tlieir lives in that solitude which is so favourable to many of our most virtuous affections, I should be clearly on the side of a private education. But most of us, when We go out into the world, find difficulties in our way, which good principles and innocence alone will not qualify us to encounter ; we must have some address and knowledge of the world different from what is to be learned in books, or we shall soon be puzzled, disheartened, or disgusted. The foundation of this knowledge is laid in the intercourse of school-boys, or at least of young men of the same age. When a boy is always under the direction of a pa- tent or tutor, he acquires such a habit of looking up to them for advice, that he never learns to think or act for himself; his memo- ry is exercised, indeed, in retaining their advice, but his invention is suffered to languish, till at last it becomes totally inactive. He knows, perhaps, a great deal of history or science ; but he knows not how to conduct himself on those ever-changing emergencies, which are too minute and too numerous to be comprehended in any system of advice. He is astonished at the most common ap- pearances, and discouraged with the most trifling (because unex- pected) obstacles ; and he is often at his wits end, where a boy of much less knowledge, but more experience, would instantly devise a thousand expedients. Conscious of his own superiority in some things, he wonders to find himself so much inferior in others ; his vanity meets with continual rubs and disappointments, and disap- pointed vanity is very apt to degenerate into sullenness and pride ; he despises, or affects to despise, his fellows, because, though supe- rior in address, they are inferior in knowledge ; and they, in their turn, despise that knowledge, which cannot teach the owner how to behave on the most common occasions. Thus he keeps at a distance from his equals, and they at a distance from him ; and mutual contempt is the natural consequence. " Another inconvenience, attending private education, is the suppressing of the principle of emulation, without which it rarely happens that a boy prosecutes his studies with alacrity or success. 126 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. I have heard private tutors complain, that they were obliged t» have recourse to flattery or bribery to engage the attention of their pupil ; and I need not observe, how improper it is to set the exam- ple of such practices before children. True emulation, especially in young and ingenuous minds, is a noble principle ; I have known the happiest effects produced by it ; I never knew it to be produc- tive of any vice. In all public schools it is, or ought to be, carer fully cherished. Where it is wanting, in vain shall we pi-each up to children the dignity and utility of knowledge : the true appetite for knowledge is wanting ; and when that is the case, whatever is crammed into the memory will rather surfeit and enfeeble, than improve the understanding. I do not mention the pleasure which young people take in the company of one another, and what a pity it is to deprive them of it. I need not remark, that friendships of the utmost stability and importance have often been founded on school-acquaintance ; nor need I put you in mind, of what vast consequence to health are the exercises and amusements which boys contrive for themselves. I shall only observe further, that, when boys pursue their studies at home, they are apt to contract either a habit of idleness, or too close an attachment to reading; the former breeds innumei^able diseases, both in the body and soul ; the latter, by filling young and tender minds with more knowledge than they can either retain or arrange properly, is apt to make them superficial and inattentive, or, what is worse, to strain, and consequently impair, the faculties, by over-stretching them. I have known several instances of both. The human mind is more im- proved by thoroughly understanding one science, one part of a sci- ence, or even one subject, than by a superficial knowledge of twenty sciences and a hundred different subjects : and I would rather wish my son to be thoroughly master of " Euclid*s Elements," than to have the whole of " Chambers' Dictionary" by heart. " The great inconvenience of public education arises from its being dangerous to morals. And indeed every condition and pe- riod of human life is liable to temptation. Nor will I deny, that our innocence, during the first part of life, is much more secure at home, than any where else ; yet even at home, when we reach a certain age, it is not perfectly secure. Let young men be kept at the greatest distance from bad company, it will not be easy to keep them from bad books, to which in these days, all persons may have LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. isr easy access at all times. Let us, however, suppose the best ; that both bad books and bad company keep away, and that the young man never leaves his parents' or tutor's side, till his mind be well furnished with good principles, and himself arrived at the age of reflection and caution : yet temptations must come at last ; and when they come, will they have the less strength, because they are new, unexpected, and surprising ? I fear not. The more the young man is surprised, the more apt will he be to lose his presence of mind, and consequently the less capable of self-government. Be- sides, if his passions are strong, he will be disposed to form compa- risons between his past state of restraint, and his present of liberty, very much to the disadvantage of the former. His new associates will laugh at him for his reserve and preciseness ; and his unac- quaintance with their manners, and with the world, as it will render him the more obnoxious to their ridicule, will also disqualify him the more, both for supporting it with dignity, and also for defend- ing himself against it. Suppose him to be shocked with vice at its iirst appearance, and often to call to mind the good precepts he re- ceived in his early days ; yet when he sees others daily adventuring upon it without any apparent inconvenience ; when he sees them more gay (to appearance), and better received among all their acquaintance than he is ; and when he finds himself hooted at, and in a manner avoided and despised, on account of his singularity ; it is a wonder indeed, if he persist in his first resolutions, and do not now at last begin to think, that though his former teachers were well-meaning people, they were by no means qualified to prescribe rules for his conduct. " The world (he will say) is changed since their time (and you will not easily persuade young people that it changes for the worse) : we must comply with the fashion, and live like other folks, otherwise we must give up all hopes of making a ■figure in it." And when he has got thus far, and begins to de- spise the opinions of his instructors, and to be dissatisfied with their conduct in regard to him, I need not add, that the worst conse- quences may not unreasonably be apprehended. A young man, kept by himself at home, is never well known, even by his parents ; because he is never placed in those circumstances which alone are able effectually to rouse and interest his passions, and consequently to make his character appear. His parents, therefore, or tutors, never know his weak side, nor what particular advices or cautions he 128 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. stands most in need of; whereas, if he had attended a public school, and mingled in the amusements and pursuits of his equals, his virtues and his vices would have been disclosing themselves every day ; and his teachers would have known what particular precepts and examples it was most expedient to inculcate upon him. Com- pare those who have had a public education with those who have been educated at home ; and it will not be found, in fact, that the latter are, either in virtue or in talents, superior to the former. I speak. Madam, from observation of fact, as well as from attending to the nature of the thing." So rapid was the sale of the " Essay on Truth,'* that a second edition was published early in the year 1771. In this edition he made several corrections and improvements ; and he subjoined a postscript (he meant it at first for a preface), the rough draft of which he was pleased to submit to the judgment of Dr Gregory, Mr Arbuthnot, and me. He mentions this in the following letter. LETTER XLL DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 28th January, 1771. " IN preparing corrections and a preface for the second edition of my essay, I have laboured so hard these two months, that I had time to think of nothing else. The former were finished three weeks ago ; and of the latter I have sent you, with this, a complete copy. I must beg of you and Dr Gregory, and Mr Arbuthnot, to set apart an hour or two, as soon as possible, to revise this discourse, and mark what you would wish to be changed or altered ; for I will be entirely determined by your judgment and theirs ; and I do not propose to consult, on the present occasion, with any other persons. I beg you will be very free in your censures, as I would not wish to LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 129 say any thing exceptionable ; at the same time, you will see by the strain of the whole, that I want to express some things as clearly and strongly as possible, and to shew that my zeal is not in the least abated. The printing of the second edition goes briskly on." His three friends, to whom he had thus committed the impor- tant trust of judging of the style and execution of his postscript, could not but remark, that the warmth of his zeal in the cause of truth, and his desire to vindicate himself from some attacks which had been made upon him, as he conceived most unjustly, had led him to express himself, in some instances, with a degree of acrimony which they thought had better be corrected. And they did not scruple to state to him their sentiments on this head, with the free- dom which friendship permitted, and which the trust, he had done them the honour to repose in them, fully demanded. With what candour, with what kindness, Dr Beattie received their observations on this intended addition to his essay, will appear from the follow- ing letter. LETTER XLII. DR BEATTIE TO ROBERT ARBUTHNOT, ESQ. Aberdeen, 12th February, 1771. *' IT is not in your power, my dear sir, or Sir William Forbes's, or Dr Gregory's, to offend me on any occasion. Your remonstrances on the present occasion, against my preface, are so far from offending me, that I consider them as a most striking instance of the sincerest friendship ; and as such I should receive from them a great deal of pleasure, unmixed with any pain, if it were not for the trouble and uneasiness which I know you must have felt on my account. I am distressed, too, at the thought of having taken up so much of your time i Dr Gregory, in particular, R 136 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. has too much cause to complain of me in this respect. As I well know the value of his time, you will readily believe that I cannot be entirely at ease, when I reflect on my having been the cause of his writing a letter of twelve quarto pages. All I can say for myself, is, that I did not intend to give my friends so much trouble ; for, though I sent them my preface as I first Vrote it, nvith all its im- perfections on its head, and though I knew they would object to several passages in it, I never expected nor wished them to do more than just to mark the exceptionable parts with their pen, which would have fully satisfied me, as I had determined to follow their advice imfilicitly in every thing. " I hope I have, in my introduction, done justice to Mr Hume as a man, and as a historian : I certainly meant it at least. I have finished a draught of a new preface (postscript I shall henceforth call it) ; it will be sent to Sir William Forbes when finished. You must once more take the trouble to read it over ; I hope you will find nothing to blame in it, for I struck out or altered every thing that Dr Gregory marked or objected to, and many things besides. But lest there should still be any thing wrong, I will invest my friends with a dictatorial power to expunge every tiling they do not like." In the following letter, Dr Gregory has placed in the most proper point of view, the accusation brought by the friends of Mr Hume against Dr Beattie, of having, in his " Essay on Truth," treated the principles of the sceptical philosophy with too much as- perity. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 131 LETTER XLIIL DR JOHN GREGORY TO DR BEATTIE. Edinburgh, 26th November, 1771. " I HAVE no objection to your marginal note.* But I think the reason of the warmth with which you write should be strongly pointed out, and as concisely as possible. It has been said here, that you had written with great heat and asperity against Mr Hume, because you differed from him about some metaphysical subtleties, of no material consequence to mankind. This is al- leged by those who never read your book, and seem never to have read Mr Hume's. You write with warmth against him, because he has endeavoured to invalidate every argument brought to prove the existence of a Supreme Being ; because he has endeavoured to invalidate every argument in favour of a future state of existence ; and because he has endeavoured to destroy the distinction between moral good and evil. You do not treat him with severity, because he is a bad metaphysician, but because he has expressly applied his metaphysics to the above unworthy purposes. If he has not been guilty of this ; if these are only conclusions, which you yourself draw, by implication, from his writings, but conclusions which he himself disavows, then you are in the wrong ; you ought to ask par- don of him, and of the public, for your mistaken zeal. But I have never heard that he, or any of his friends, have pretended, that you do him injustice in these respects. After all, I wish, for the future^- that you would rather employ your wit and humour, of which you have so large a share, against these people, in the way that Addison, Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot did. It would mortify them beyond any thing that can be said against them in the way of reasoning." Very soon after the publication of the second edition of the " Essay on Truth," Dr Beattie published the first canto of the * What the note here alluded to was, does not appear. It was pi-obably some marginal note on the MS. of his postscript, tlien under consideration. 132 LIFE OF DR BEATT^E. <* Minstrel." It was printed without his name, because, as he said, it was an imperfect sketch, being only a first part.* The very great number of editions through which this beauti- ful poem has passed, is a decisive proof of its merit. It is, indeed, in the hands of every reader of taste, and is therefore so univer- sally known and adipired, that it is scarcely necessary to say any thing farther in its commendation. The author tells us, in an ad- vertisement prefixed to the first canto, that he took the idea of this poem originally from Dr Percy's (the bishop of Dromore's) " Essay " on the English Minstrelsy," prefixed to the first volume of" Re- " liques of ancient English Poetry," published in the year 1765. His design, he says, was to trace the progress of a poetical genius, born in a rude age, from the first dawning of fancy and reason, till that period at which he may be supposed capable of appearing in the world as a " Minstrel," that is, as an itinerant poet and musician — a character which, according to the notions of our forefathers, was not only respectable, but sacred.f He has endeavoured, he adds, to imitate Spenser in the measure of his verse, and in the harmony, simplicity, and variety of his composition. Antiquated expressions he has avoided ; admitting, however, some old words, where they seemed to suit the subject : but none, he hopes, will be found that are now obsolete, or in any degree not intelligible to a reader of English poetry. To those who may be disposed to ask, what coujd induce him to write in so difiicult a measure, he says, he can only answer, that it pleased his ear, and seemed, from its Gothic structure and origi- nal, to bear some relation to the subject and spirit of the poem. It admits both simplicity and magnificence of sound and language, beyond any other stanza that he was acquainted with. It allows the sententiousness of the couplet, as well as the more complex modu- lation of blank verse. What some critics have remarked of its uni- formity growing at last tiresome to the ear, will be found to hold true, only when the poetry is faulty in other respects.| * The second canto was published, together witli a new edition of tUe first, fn the year 1774, and \y'ith the addition of his name. t Preface to the Minstrel, ed. 1771. I Preface to the Minstrel, ed, 1771. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. !33 Of all Dr Beattie's poetical works, the " Minstrel" is, beyond all question, the best, whether we consider the- plan or the execu- tion. The language is extremely elegant, the versification harmo- nious ; it exhibits the richest poetic imagery, with a delightful flow of the most sublime, delicate, and pathetic sentiment. It breathes the spirit of the purest virtue, the soundest philosophy, and the most exquisite taste. In a word, it is at once highly con- ceived and admirably finished. The success of the " Minstrel'* was equal to the warmest wishes of the author and his friends. It was received well by the public, and it met with much and just commendation from some of the best judges of poetical composition in the island. Of these, the highest praise Dr Beattie's " Minstrel" ever received, was from the first Lord Lyttelton, in a letter from that excellent man and elegant critic, to Mrs Montagu, who had put the " Minstrel" into his hands on the publication of the first canto. LETTER XLIV. LORD LYTTELTON TO MRS MONTAGU. Hill-Street, 8th March, 1771. " I READ your * Minstrel' last night, with as much rapture as poetry, in her noblest, sweetest chari^s, ever raised in my soul. It seemed to me, that my once most beloved minstrel, Thomson, Was come down from heaven, refined by the converse of purer spirits than those he lived with here, to let me hear him sing again the beauties of nature, and the finest feelings of virtue, not with hu- man, but with angelic strains ! I beg you to express my gratitude to the poet for the pleasure he has given me. Your eloquence alone can do justice to my sense of his admirable genius, and the excellent use he makes of it. Would it were in my power to do him any service l" The letter from the friend to whom I owe the comniunicatiou of this valuable manuscript of Lord Lyttelton's, contains an ob- 134 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. servation on it so extremely just, that I cannot resist the desire of transcribing it here. : " I am very happy," says my friend,* " to be able to send Lord " Lyttelton's letter on the subject of the ' Minstrel.' It was writ- " ten upon his first perusal of the first canto, and to a person to " whom his heart was open. It is very seldom that the world can " see so near the first impression of a work of genius on a cultivated " mind ; and I do not know any thing that Lord Lyttelton has " written, that so strongly marks the sensibility and purity of his "taste. The allusion to Thomson is singularly affecting, and con- " stitutes the finest praise that ever was bestowed on a poet." This letter of Loi^ I^yttelton's, Mrs Montagu transmitted to the late Dr Gregory ; well knowing how much he would be grati- fied by such emphatic praise of his friend Dr Beattie, from so ex- quisite a judge of poetic merit as Lord Lyttelton. Mrs Montagu's own letter contains some valuable strictures on poetical composition in general, which, I think the reader will thank me for inserting here. LETTER XLV. MRS MONTAGU TO DR JOHN GREGORY. London, 13th March, im. <' 1 KEEP as much out of the whirling vortex of the world as I can. Sometimes I am caught up for a day, but settle into tran- quillity the next. I am charmed with the " Minstrel," and have circulated its fame. I have enclosed a note, by which you will see how much it pleased Lord Lyttelton. I have sent one into the country to Lord Chatham ; and I wrote immediately to a person who serves many gentlemen and ladies with new books, to recom- * The Reverend Mr Alison, Rector of Rodington, and Vicar of High Epcal, and Prebendary of Salisbury, whose elegant and classical " Essays *» on the Nature and Principles of Taste," give us cause to regret that he does not write more. I have had the happiness, many years, of the intimate acqu^ntance aiid friendship of Mr Alison. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 155 mend it to all people of taste. I am very sorry the second edition of Dr Beattie's book is not yet in town. I have recommended it, too, to many of our Bishops, and others ; but all have complained this whole winter, that the booksellers deny having any of either the first or second edition. I wish you would intimate this to Dr Beattie. I dare say many hundreds would have been sold if people could have got them. I would advise, that the book and poem might be frequently advertised. I recommended the poem this morning to Dr Percy,* who was much pleased to hear that Dr Beattie had so kindly mentioned him. I admire all the poet tells us of the infancy of the bard ; but I should not have been so well satisfied, if he had not intended to give us the history of his life. General reflections, natural sentiments, representations of the pas- sions, are things addressed to the understanding. A poet should aim at touching the heart. Strong sympathies are to be excited, and deep impressions only to be made, by interesting us for an in- dividual ; and the poet, who is a maker, as well as a tailor is. For real Kate should make the boddlce. And not for an ideal goddess. I am sure the reason why few, even among the lovers of belles let- tres, can bear to read Spenser, is, that they cannot sympathise with imaginary beings. Our esteem of Sir Guyon, our love of Sir Calidore, our veneration for Arthur, is faint and uncertain. We are not convinced of their existence, nor acquainted with their general characters and conditions ; all the sympathies with crea- tures of our own nature and condition are wanting. I assure you, every one is charmed with the " Minstrel." At the same time, and of the same date with this excellent letter of Lord Lyttelton's, Dr Beattie received one from Mr Gray, with a very minute and copious criticism on the first canto of the " Minstrel," which I shall insert here. I have also in my posses- sion a paper, in Dr Beattie's hand-writing, containing his own re- marks on those criticisms of Mr Gray's. It is curious, as well as • The present Lord Bishop of Dromore, editor of " Reliques of ancient " English Poetry," which first suggested to Dr Beattie the idea of the " Minstrel." 136 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. instructive, and it must afford pleasure to every reader of classical taste, to compare the remarks and observations of two poets of such real genius, on this beautiful poem. I shall, therefore, give Mr Gray's letter in the text, and shall subjoin, by way, of notes, Dr Beattie's remarks on Mr Gray's observations. LETTER XLVL MR GRAY TO DR BEATTIE. Cambridge, 8th March, 1771. " THE ' Minstrel' came safe to my hands, and I return you jny sincere thanks for so acceptable a present; in return I shall give you my undisguised opinion of him, as he proceeds, without considering to whom he owes his birth, and sometimes without specifying my reasons ; either because they would lead me too far, or because I may not always know w^hat they are myself. " I think we should wholly adopt the language of Spenser's time, or wholly renounce it. You say, you have done the latter; but, in effect, you YQiam fared, for thy meed, wight, ween, gaude, shency in sooth, aye, eschew, &c. obselete words, at least in these parts of the island, and only known to those that read our ancient authors, or such as imitate them.* " St. 2. V. 5. The obstrefierous trump of fame hurts my ear, though meant to express a jarring sound. " St. 3. V. 6. And from his bending, &c. the grammar seems deficient : yet *as the mind easily fills up the ellipsis, perhaps it b an atticism, and not inelegant. " St. 4. and ult. Pensions, posts, and firaisc. I cannot reconcile myself to this, nor to the whole following stanza ; especially the plaister of thy hair.\ • To fare, i. e. to go, says Dr Beattle, is used in " Pope's Odyssey,*' and so is meed,- ivight (in a serious sense) is used by Milton and Dry den. Ween is used by Miitwi ; gaude by Dryden ; sbeiie by Milton ; eschevi by Atterbury ; aye by Milton. The poetical style in every nation (where there is a poetical style) abounds in old words. 1 1 did not intend a poem uniformly epical and solemn ; but one rather that might be lyrical, or even satirical, upon occasion. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 13^ « Surely the female hearty &c. St. 6. The thought is not just. W^ cannot justify the sex from the conduct of the Muses, who are only females by the help of Greek mythology ; and then, again, how should they bow the knee in the fane of a Hebrew or Philis- tine devil ? Besides, I am the more severe, because it serves to in- troduce what I most admire.* " St. 7. Rise, sons of harmony, Sec. This is charming; the thought and the expression. I will not be so hypercritical as to add, but it is lyrical, and therefore belongs to a different species of poetry. Rules are but chains, good for little, except when one can break through them ; and what is fine gives me so much pleasur&> that I never regard what place it is in. ii-> nnjia '^i\i nX .1: it " St. 8, 9, 10. All this thought is well and freely iSandled, parti- cularly. Here fieacejul are the vales, &c. Know thine ovm toorth^ &c* Canst thou forego, 8cc. i^ baviaado ii h'lrM St. 11. O, how canst thou renounce, &c. But thisj of all others, is my favourite stanza. It is true poetry ; it is inspiration ; only (to shew it is mortal) there is one blemish ; the word garniture Suggesting an idea of dress, and what is worse, of French dress.f " St. 12. Very well. Prompting th* ungenerous wish, &c. But do not say rambling muse ; wandering, or devious, if you please, f "St. 13. A nation fam*d, &c. I like this compliment to your country ; the simplicity, too, of the following narrative : only in St. 17. the words artless and simple are too synonymous to come so near each other. " St. 18. And yet poor Ednvin, 8cc. This is all excellent, and comes very near the level of st. 11. in my esteem ; only, perhapS|. And some believed him mad, falls a little too flat, and rather below simplicity. • I meant here an ironical argument. Perhaps, however, the irony is wrongp placed. Mammon has now come to signify nxealth or riches, without any regard to its original meaning. t I have often wished to alter this same word, but have not yet been able to hit upon a better. :|: Wandering happens to be in the last line of the next stanza, save an9, otherwise it would certainly have been here. s 138 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " St. 21. Ah^ no! By the way, this sort of interjection is rather too frequent with you, and will grow characteristic, if you do not avoid it. " In that part of the poem which you sent me before, you have altered several little particulars much for the better.* " St. 34. I believe I took notice before of this excess of alli- teration . Long^ loaded^ loud, lament, lonely , lighted, lingering^ listen- ing s though the verses are otherwise very good, it looks like affectation, t " St. 36, 37, 38. Sure you go too far in lengthening a stroke of Edwin's character and disposition into a direct narrative, as of a fact. In the mean time, the poem stands still, and the reader grows impatient. Do you not, in general, indulge a little too much in descri/ition and rejiection? This is not my remark only, I have heard it observed by others ; and I take notice of it here, because these are among the stanzas that might be spared ; they are good, nevertheless, and might be laid by, and employed elsewhere to advantage.^ ri^itr:.?: " St. 42. Spite of what! have just now said, this digression pleases me so well, that I cannot spare it. . .., /* St. 46. V. ult. The infuriate flood. I would not make new words without great necessity j it is very hazardous at best."§ * . * Iliad sent Mr Gray from st. 23. to st. 39. by way of specimen. t It does so, and yet it is not affected. I have endeavoured once and again to clear this passage of those obnoxious letters, but I never could please myself. Alliteration has great authorities on its side, but I would never seek for it; nay, except on some very particular occasions, I would rather avoid it. When Mr Gray, once before, told me of my propensity to allitera- tion, I repeated to him one of his own lines, which is indeed one of the finest in poetry— Nor cast one longing lingering look behind. \ Tliis remark is perfectly just. All I can say is, that I meant, from the beginning to take some latitude in the coniposition of this poem, and not con- fine myself to the epical rules for narrative. In an epic poem these digres- sions, and reflections, &c. would be unpardonable. § I would as soon make new coin, as knowingly make a new word, ex- cept I were to invent any art or science where they would be necessary. Infuriate is used by Thomson^Summer, 1096. and, which is much better authority, by Milton. Far. Lost, b. vi. v. 487. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 139 " St. 49, 50, 5 1, 52. All this is very good ; but medium and //z- congruous^ being words of art, lose their dignity in my eyes, and savour too much of prose. I would have read the last line—' Pre- *■ sumptuous child of dust, be humble and be wise.* But, on second thoughts, perhaps—' For thou art but of dust^-^s better and more solemn, from its simplicity. " St. 53. Where dark., &c. You return again to the charge. Had you not said enough before?* " St. 54. JVor ivas this ancient dame, 8cc. Consider, she has not been mentioned for these six stanzas backward. " St. 56. V. 5. The -vernal day. With us it rarely thunders in the spring, but in the summer frequently .f " St. 57, 58. Very pleasing, and has mUch the rhythm and ex- pression of Milton in his youth. The last four lines strike me less by far, " St. 59. The first five lines charming. Might not the mind of your conqueror be checked and softened in the mid'-career of ed. 3. Svo. 1793. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 193 " Mrs Delany* desires her best compliments to you and Mrs fieattie : I beg you will make mine acceptable to her, and I hope that I shall soon have the pleasure of seeing you both at Bul- strode." * Mrs Delany's maiden name was Granville, the grand-daughter of the gallant Sir Bevil Granville, the faithful adherent of King Charles the first, for whose service, by his own popularity, jointly with other royalist gentle- men in Cornwall, an army was raised at their ownexpence, which he led into the west of England ; but was unfortunately killed in the battle of Lansdown, near Bath, on the 5th July, 1643.* Mrs Delany was first married to Pendarvis, Esq. a Cornish gentle- man. Her second husband was the Reverend Dr Delany, Dean of Down, in Ireland, and the chosen friend of Swift. She long survived her husband ; and during many years was the esteemed and intimate companion of the Dutchess-dowager of Portland, who generally spent her evenings, when in London, at Mrs Delany's, where was an assemblage of persons, the most distinguished for rank, as well as literary accomplishments. In return, Mrs Delany passed her summers with the Dutchess of Portland, at Bulstrode. From a romantic and useless stretch of what she no doubt considered to be disinterested friendship, she had insisted, that the Dutchess of Portland should not make any provision for her in her will, notwithstanding that she was far from being in opulent circumstances ; so that on the death of the Dutchess, Mrs Delany found herself reduced to a very circumscribed income. To the credit of their Majesties, to whom Mrs Delany had the honour of being well known, by her residence at the Dutchess of Portland's, whom the King and Queen often visited at Bulstrode, in the course of their morning- airings from Windsor-castle, as soon as they were informed of Mrs Delany's situation, on the Dutchess of Portland's death, they established her in a house at Windsor, with a pension of three hundi-ed pounds a-year. Mrs Delany was a woman of a cultivated understanding and refined taste, and particularly skilled in drawing and painting in oil. She executed, like- wise, an herbal, or collection of plants, formed of coloured paper, so exactly resembling nature, as to be almost a deception, even to adepts in botanical science. Her collection amounted to the astonishing number of nine hun- dred and ninety, which it was her intention, had she lived, to have augment- ed to one thousand. The collection is now in the possession of her nephew, Barnard D'Ewes, Esq. of Welsbum, in Warwickshire. Mrs Delany died in the year 1788, at the advanced age of eighty-eight. * Clarendon, Vol. II. part i. p. 130, 284. ed. in 8 V©, 2 B 194 LffE OF DR BEIATTIE, LETTER LXVI. ^ DR BEATTIE TO DR PORTEUS. London, 23d July, 1773. " I HAVE been very much hurried of late by a variety of interesting matters, otherwise I should have sooner acknowledged the receipt of your most obliging letter of the 1st of July. The many favours I have had the honour to receive at your hands, aff'ect me with the most lively gratitude, which I would fain attempt to express in words, but find, after repeated trials, that I cannot. All therefore that I shall now say on this subject is, that I shall ever cherish a most grateful remembrance of them. " The business which I hinted at in my last still remains unde- termined J and I, of consequence, am still confined to this town, or at least to the neighbourhood. I thank you for your good wishes f but I fear you far over-rate my talents, when you suppose, that London is the properest theatre for exerting them in. One thing at least is in my pov/er; to employ, in whatever place Providence shall allot me, those intervals of health and leisure which may fall to my share, in vindicating, to the utmost of my poor abilities, the cause of truth, virtue, and mankind. If I shall be able to do any thing good in this way, my ambition will be completely gratified ; and I shall have the satisfaction to think, that I am not altogether unworthy of the kindness and attention which I have met with from you, sir, and from others of your noble-minded countrymen. " You have heard, perhaps, of my being at Oxford at the late installation. I went thither in consequence of a letter from the Bishop of Chester.* The University did me great honour. They Avere unanimous, not only in conferring the degree, but also order- ing that it should be given to me free of all expence. " I have not seen the poem you mention. Dr Hawkesworth's book I have seen, and read some parts of it. I do not think that the interests of science, or of mankind, will be much promoted by what I have read of this work ; which, however, does not reflect * Dr Maikham, now Archbishop of York. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 195 on the Doctor, who was no doubt obliged to tell his story in the very way in which he has told it. I am very apt to be distrustful of our modern travellers, when I find them, after a three months residence in a country, of whose language they know next to nothing, explaining the moral and religious notions of the people, in such a way, as to feh^our the licentious theories of the age. I give them full credit for what they tell us of plants and minerals, and winds and tides ; those things are obvious enough, and no knowledge of strange language is necessary to make one under- stand them ; but as the morality of actions depends on the motives that give rise to them ; and as it is impossible to understand the motives and principles of national customs, unless you thoroughly understand the language of the people, I should suspect that not one in ten thousand of our ordinary travellers, is qualified to de- cide upon the moral sentiments of a new discovered country. There is not one French author of my acquaintance, that seems to have any tolerable knowledge of the English government, or of the character of the English nation : they ascribe to us sentiments which we never entertained ; they draw, from our ordinary beha- viour, conclusions directly contrary to truth ; how then is it to be supposed, that Mr Banks and Mr Solander could understand the customs, the religion, government, and morals, of the people of Otaheite ? " Dr Hawkesworth, in his preface, has given an account of Providence, which, in spite of ail my partiality in his favour, X cannot help thinking indefensible. But I need not say any thing on this subject, as you must have seen the whole passage in the newspapers. When my affairs are determined, which I hope wilj be soon, I sh^ll take the liberty to write to you again." LETTER LXVIL MRS MONTAGU TO DR BEATTIE, Sandleford, 14th July, 1773. " IT is not possible to express the pleasure I felt from your ktter last night. It is not on your account alone, I rejoice in the lioiiours and marks of distinction and applause you received at 196 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. Oxford : I congratulate the University, I congratulate the age, oti the zeal with which they pay regard to merit. " I am here, at present, quite alone, which comes nearest to the happiness one finds in the society of those one loves best. Such perfect solitude is not good, but in very fine weather ; soli- tude is a fine thing, says a French writer, but one wants a friend, to whom one can say, solitude is a fine thing. The gayest place of resort is still enlivened by the presence of a friend ; and a friend does not diminish the tranquillity of retirement. I am not sure, that one should not find one's self in a more uneasy state of desti- tution, in the midst of a great town, in which one had not any very intimate friends, than when quite alone in the country. Where there are no enemies, one does not stand in need of allies, nor, . where there are no dangers, of any auxiliaries. The little natives of the woods and meadows act in constant conformity to the laws of their nature, and when you have informed yourself of the quali- ties of the species, you are thoroughly acquainted with each indivi- dual. Here we have no caprices of the disposition, or peculiarities of interest, to attend to, and to fear. In this security the mind is free from little cares, and at leisure to contemplate the system of infinite wisdom and goodness, whose laws equally regulate the little course of the creeping insect, and the vast orbit of the rolling spheres. There is not any thing that more strongly impresses upon the mind a sense of the perpetual presence of the Deity, than seeing things, void of intelligence in themselves, ever progressing, without halt or deviation, error or untowardness, to complete their peculiar destination, and conspire with the laws which pervade the universal system. In these contemplations I have passed the long summer days, since 1 came hither, without feeling any ennui ; yet I am not a disciple of the philosophers, a quattre pattes^ who recommend savage life. I think it as great an abuse of philosophy, as of the human form, to stoop to the level of the brute animals. Philosophy is a holy thing, ^hould keep erect, look up to Heaven, contemplate the stars, and adbre their Maker. Seasons of recess and retire- ment are good for the mind, and give time to reflect on what we have done, and what we ought to do. Dr Beattie will give a voice to all the mute objects I now admire, and lead me farther in virtue and wisdom than I can advance by myself; so he must excuse my being impatient to see him. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 197 " I wish very much for your being presented to the Queen ; I take her to be a sovereign judge of merit, and I do not doubt of her being as gracious to you as his Majesty, and with the same elegance and propriety of manner. As I have a most loyal respect for the King, I have always taken great delight in the peculiar elegance of his language. It is a very essential thing in such great personages, whose woixls are always remembered, often repeated. I am ex- tremely pleased with the obliging attentions the Dishop of Ches- ter* shewed to you; his regard does honour. He is much respected," LETTER LXVIIL DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. Amo's Grove, 26th July, 177 o. " YOUR most obliging and most excellent letter, of the 14th current, bore the impression of Socrates on the outside, t but judg- ment, better than that of Socrates, spoke within. He, if I mistake not, piqued himself on having constantly resided in Athens, and used to say, that he found no instruction in stones or trees ; but you, madam, better skilled in the human heart, and more thoroughly acquainted with all its sublimer affections, do justly consider that quiet which the country affords, and those soothing and ''elevating sentiments, which " rural sights and rural sounds" 30 powerfully inspire, as necessary to purify the soul, and raise it to the contemplation of the first and greatest good. Yet, I think, you rightly determine, that absolute solitude is not good for us. The social affections must be cherished, if we would keep both mind and body in good health. The virtues are all so nearly allied, and sympathize so strongly with each other, that if one is borne down, all the rest feel it, and have a tendency to pine away. The more we love one another, the more we shall love our Maker; and if we fail in duty to our common parent, our brethren of man- kind will soon discover that we fail in duty to them also. * The present Lord Archbishop of York. t This letter was sealed witli a head of Socrates. m LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " In my younger days, I was much attached to solitude, and could have envied even " The shepherd of the Hebride isles, ** placed amid the melancholy main." I wrote Odes to Retirement ; and wished to be conducted to its deepest groves, remote from €very rude sound, and from every vagrant foot. In a word, I thought the most profound solitude the best. But I have now changed my mind. Those solemn and incessent energies of imagination, which naturally take place in such a state, are fatal to the health and spirits, and tend to make us more and more unfit for the business of life : the soul, deprived of those ventilations of pas- sion, which arise from social intercourse, is reduced to a state of stagnation, and, if she is not of a very pure consistence indeed, will be apt to breed within herself many " monstrous, and many " prodigious things," of which she will find it no easy matter to rid herself, even when she has become sensible of their noxious na- LETTER LXIX. DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. I London, 2lst August, 1TT3. " I HAVE at last received a letter from Mr Robinson,* dated yesterday, in which he tells me, " that he is desired by Lord Noith " to inform me that his majesty has been pleased to consent, that ^' a pension be paid me, of two hundred pounds a-year." Mr Robinson says, he will order the warrant to be made out for me immediately, and desires me to call for it at the treasury; which I shall do on Monday. " And now, madam, allow me to congratulate you on the happy conclusion of this affair ; for sure I am, you will take as much pleasure in it as I do. You may believe, I shall never forget from whom this long series of applications took its rise. But I shall not at present enter on this subject. I fear it will not be in my power to set out for Sandleford, till towards the end of the week, • At that time secretary of the treasury. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 199 as I have the warrant to get from the treasury, the court to attend, and a multitude of letters to write, to the Archbishop oi York, Lord KinnouU, Sir Adolphus Oughton, Lord North, &c. &c. As soon as 1 can possibly fix a time for setting out, 1 will write to you. Meantime, I beg to hear some account ol your health. " It is very good in you, madam, to flatter me with the hopes, that stiil better things may be in reserve for me. But I assure you, I think myself rewarded above my deservings, and shall most will- ingly sit down contented : — not to eat, or drink, or be idle, but to make such a use of the goodness of Providence, and his Majesty's bounty, as the public has a right to require of me. What I have now got, added to the emoluments of my present office, will enable me to live independently and comfortably in Scotland, and to culti- vate those connexions and friendships in England, which do me so much honour. But more of this, when I have the happiness to see you. " I am ashamed to send you so shabby a letter, all made up of shreds and patches. It is by mistake, owing to hurry, that I write on so many bits of paper ; but as the post is just going out, I have no time to transcribe ; and I would not keep back this intelligence for a single day. " 1 have another piece of news to tell you, which will give you pleasure. Sir Joshua Reynolds, with whom I formerly told you that I have the happiness to be particularly acquainted, and whose talents, both as a painter, and as a critic and philosopher, I take to be of the very first rate, has planned out a sort of allegorical picture, representing the triumph of truth over scepticism and infidelity. -At one corner of the picture, in the fore-ground, stands your hum- ble servant, as large as life, arrayed in a Doctor of Laws' gown and band, with his " Essay on Truth" under his arm. At some little distance appears " Truth," habited as an angel, with a sun on her breast, who is to act such a part with respect to the sceptic and in- fidel, as shall show, that they are not willing to see the light, though they have the opportunity. My face (for which I sat) is finished, and is a most striking likeness ; only, I believe, it will be allowed, that Sir Joshua is more liberal in the articles of s^iiHt and elegance than his friend Nature thought proper to be. The angci also is finished, and is an admirable figure : and Sir Joshua is de- termined to complete the whole with all expedition, and to have a 20a LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. print done from it. He is very happy in this invention, which is entirely his own. Indeed if I had been qualified to give any hints on the subject, (which is not at all the case) you will readily believe, that I would not be instrumental in forwarding a work that is so very flattering to me. The picture will appear at the Exhibition ; but whether Sir Joshua means to keep it, or dispose of it, is not, I believe, determined." LETTER LXX. DR BEATTIE TO THE EARL OF KINNOULL. London, 29th August, 1773. " MRS MONTAGU*s state of health is very indifferent ; she' complains of a feverish disorder, which has haunted her the great- est part of the summer. She is greatly afflicted at the death of our great and good friend. Lord Lyttelton. This event was unexpected ; it is little better than a fortnight, since I received a very kind letter from him. The loss to his friends, and to society, is unspeakable, and irreparable : to himself his death is infinite gain ; for whether we consider what he felt here, or what he hoped for hereafter, we must admit, that no man eVer had more reason to wish for a dis- mission from the evils of this transitory life. His lordship died, as he lived, a most illustrious example of every Christian virtue. His last breath was spent in comforting and instructing his friends. " Be good and virtuous,'* said he, to Lord Valencia,* " for know " that to this you must come." The devout and cheerful resigna- tion, that occupied his mind during his illness, did not forsake him in the moment of dissolution, but fixed a smile on his lifeless coun- tenance. I sincerely sympathize with your Lordship, on the loss of this excellent man. Since I came last to town, I have bad the honour and happiness to pass many an hour in his company, and to converse with him on all subjects : and I hope I shall be the bet- ter, while I live, for what I have seen, and what 1 have heard, of Lord Lyttelton." . * His son-in-law. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 201 LETTER LXXL THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK* TO DR BEATTIE. Brodsworth, September 11th, 1773. " YOUR letter, which gave me the pleasure of hearing of his Majesty's benevolence to you, went to Scotland, just as I left it, and came back here, t'other day ; otherwise I should appear very tardy, in expressing the sensible satisfaction which I have, in your being rewarded, though not to the full of your merit, yet by a per- sonal mark of the King's favour, and well-grounded opinion. " I look upon this, not only as a distinguished reward of your merit, in the cause of virtue and truth, but as a beacon to those who are tossed about among the waves of infidelity. I believe, as I hope, that it will, in a general light do good; and that is the great purpose of the King; which he declared to me, when he first came to the crown ; and you are one happy instrument, that carries this purpose forward, by your constant labours in defence of truth. " I hope this pension will make you tolerably easy : whether it will so far procure you comfort, as that you should relinquish other views, you best know. I am clear, that this was the right plan at present, as the circumstances and opportunities presented themselves. " I wrote to Lord Kinnoull, as soon as I got your letter, and it will give him great pleasure. I have since seen . who is much pleased, both upon your account, and the service it' may do to many people, particularly in Scotland, who run astray. " I am sorry you give so indifferent an account of my excellent friend, Mrs Montagu ; and rather a poor one of your own, and Mrs Beattie's health. " Don't drop your correspondence, which will be always agree- able to me." * The Honourable and Most Reverend Dr Robert Hay Drummond, bro> ther to the Earl of Kinnoull, at that time Lord Archbishop of York. 2c 262 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. LETTER LXXIL BR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. Aberdeen, 15th October, 177'3. " I PURPOSELY delayed for a few days to answer your let- ter, that I might be at leisure to think seriously, before I should venture to give my opinion, in regard to the important matter, about which you. did me the honour to consult me. A religious education is indeed the greatest of all earthly blessings to a young man ; especially in these days, when one is in such danger of re- ceiving impressions of a contrary tendency. I hope, and earnestly wish, that this, and every other blessing, may be the lot of your nephew, who seems to be accomplished, and promising, far be- yond his years. " I must confess, I am strongly prepossessed in favour of that mode of education that takes place in the English Universities. I am well aware, at the same time, that in those seminaries, there are, to some young men, many more temptations to idleness and dissipation, than in our colleges in Scotland ; but there are also, if I mistake not, better opportunities of study to a studious young man, and the advantages of a more respectable and more polite so- ciety, to such as are discreet and sober. The most valuable parts of human literature, I mean the Greek and Latin classics, are not so completely taught in Scotland as in England ; and I fear it is no advantage, I have sometimes known it a misfortune, to those young men of distinction that come to study with us, that they find too easy, and too favourable an admittance to balls, assemblies, and other diversions of a like kind, where the fashion not only permits, but requires, that a particular attention be paid to the younger part of the female world. A youth of fortune, with the English lan- guage, and English address, soon becomes an object of considera- tion to a raw girl ; and equally so, perhaps, though not altogether on the same account, to her parents. Our long vacations, too, in the colleges in Scotland, though a convenience to the native stu- dent, (who commonly spends those intervals at home with his pa- LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 20.3 retjts) are often dangerous to the students from England ; who being then set free from the restraints of academical discipline, and at a distance from their parents or guardians, are too apt to forget, that it was for the purpose of study, not of amusement, they were sent into this country. " All, or most of these inconveniences, may be avoided at an English university, provided a youth have a discreet tutor, and be himself of a sober and studious disposition. There, classical eru- dition receives all the attentions and honours it can claim ; and there the French philosophy, of course, is seldom held in very high estimation ; there, at present, a regard to religion is fashion- able ; there, the recluseness of a college-life, the wholesome severi- ties of academical discipline, the authority of the university, and several other circumstances I could mention, prove very powerful restraints to such of the youth as have any sense of true honour, or any regard to their real interest. " We, in Scotland, boast of our professors, that they give regu- lar lectures in all the sciences, which the students are obliged to attend ; a part of literary economy which is but little attended to in the universities of England. But I will venture to affirm, from experience, that if a professor does no more than deliver a set of lectures, his young audience will be little the wiser for having at- tended him. The most profitable part of my time is that which I employ in examinations, or in Socratical dialogue with my pupils, or in commenting upon ancient authors, all which may be done by a tutor in a private apartment, as well as by a professor in a public school. Lectures indeed I do, and must give ; in order to add so- lemnity to the truths I would inculcate ; and partly too, in com- pliance with the fashion, and for the sake of my own character ; (for this, though not the most difficult part of our business, is that which shows the speaker to most advantage) but I have always found the other methods, particularly the Socratic form of dia- logue, much more effectual in fixing the attention, and improving the faculties of the student. I will not, madam, detain you longer with this convparison : it is my duty to give you my real sentiments, and you will be able to gather them from these imperfect hints. If it is determined that your nephew shall be sent to a university in Scotland, he may, I believe, have as good a chance for improvement at Edinburgh or 204 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. Glasgow, as at any other : if the law is to form any part of his stu- dies, he ought by all means, to go to one or other of these places ; as we have no law -professors in any other part of this kingdom, ex- cept one in King's college, Aberdeen, whose office has been a sinecure for several generations. Whether he should make choice of Edinburgh or of Glasgow, I am at a loss to say : I was formerly well enough acquainted with the professors of both those societies,' but temfiora mutantur. Dr Reid is a very learned, ingenious, and worthy man, so is Dr Blair ; they are both clergymen ; so that, I am confident, your nephew might lodge safely and profitably with either. Whether they would choose to accept of the office of tutor to any young gentleman, they themselves only can determine ; so^ie professors would decline it, on account of the laboriousness of their office : it is partly on this account, but chiefly on account of my health, that I have been obliged to decline every offer of this sort." LETTER LXXIIL MRS MONTAGU* TO DR BEATTIE. , Sandleford, September, 5th, 1772. " PRAY have you met with Mr Jones*s imitations of the Asiatic poetry ? He possesses the oriental languages in a very ex- traordinary manner, and he seems to me a great master of versifi- j:ation. I wish he had given us translations, rather than imitations, as one is curious to see the manner of thinking of a people born under so different a climate, educated in such a different manner, and subjects of so different a government. There is a gaiety and splendour in the poems, which is naturally derived from the happy soil and climate of the poets, and they breathe Asiatic luxury, or else Mr Jones is, himself, a man of a most splendid imagination. The descriptions are so fine, and all the objects are so brilliant, that the sense akes at them^ and I wished that Ossian's poems had been lay- • This letter should have been inserted at p. 161. before letter LVII. wjhich is in answer to it. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 20S ing by me, that I miglit sometimes have turned my eyes, from the dazzling splendour of the eastern noonday, to the moonlight pic- ture of a bleak mountain. Every object in these Asiatic pieces, is blooming and beautiful ; every plant is odoriferous ; the passions, too, are of the sort which belong to paradise. These things, as rarities brought from Arabia Felix, would give one great pleasure ; but, when I am not sure they are not the dreams of a man who is shivering under a hawthorn hedge, in a north-east wind, I cannot resign myself enough t© the delusion, to sympathize with them. Mr Jones has written some critical dissertations at the end of his poems, which, I think, shew him a man of good taste." In the month of October, 1773, the chair of professor of natural and experimental philosophy, in the university of Edinburgh, became vacant, by the death of Dr James Russel, by whom it had been long ably filled. As that event had been for sometime fore- seen, several gentlemen had turned their thoughts towards it, as candidates. But the magistrates, who are the electors, very pro- perly resolved to be in no hurry in filling up the vacancy, in order that there might be time and opportunity to dispose of the chair in such a manner, as might best support the reputation of the uni- versity. As the winter session was soon to open, however, Dr Fergusson, professor of moral philosophy, agreed in the mean time, to deliver lectures also in natural philosophy^ which he had formerly taught. A few days after the death of Dr Russel, I received a visit from one of the magistrates, who was of my particular acquaintance, and who knew my intimacy with Dr Beattie. He came to inform me, he said, that several of the members of the town council kept themselves disengaged, until they should know whether Dr Beattie meant to become a candidate for the vacant chair. They were aware, he added, that Dr Beattie's eminence lay in another branch of science ; but he said, he believed Dr Fergusson, who had for- merly taught the class of natural philosophy, would be well pleased to resume it, and thereby leave the chair of moral philosophy open for Dr Beattie, which, he made no doubt, his high reputation would readily secure for him. I thanked the gentleman for this 206 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. warm expression of his esteem of Dr Beattie, on which I set the higher value, from being absolutely certain that they were strangers to each other ; and that he interested himself, therefore, for Dr Beattie, merely from the consideration of his singular merit, and from a regard for the prosperity and reputation of the university of Edinburgh. For although a set of civil magistrates, very little, if at all, acquainted with science, or the merits of scientific men, may seem but indifferently qualified for the choice of professors of a university ; yet it is a fact, which reflects no little credit on the magistrates of Edinburgh, that, in the election of professors, they have very seldom allowed themselves to be swayed by political in- terests ; but have generally elected those, who have been deemed best qualified to fill the vacant chairs ; justly considering the repu- tation and prosperity of the university to be of the greatest im- portance to the welfare of the city. I lost no time in communicating this intelligence to Dr Beattie. I well recollected, indeed, the aversion he had shown, from becom- ing a member of the university of Edinburgh, on a former occasion, when a vacancy of the chair of moral philosophy was likely to take place; but I knew not whether he might still be of the same mind, or whether the same reasons still subsisted, which had weighed with him at that period ; and therefore, I left it for himself to de- cide, what he should judge to be most conducive to his interest, or most consistent with his wishes. He well knew the earnest desire I had, that he should think of removing to Edinburgh, because I judged he might have it in his power to do more good here, than where he then was, by his talents having a wider range, and greater scope for the exertion of their influence. Perhaps, too, I will not deny, I may have been somewhat actuated by the selfish motive of his being brought nearer to his friends in Edinburgh ; and our enjoying still more the happiness of his society. The following letter is the answer I received to the communica- tion I made to him on the subject. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 20/ LETTER LXXIV. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 22d October, 177". " THE late arrival of the post yesterday, put it out of my* power to answer your most obliging letter in course. I shall not, at present, attempt to tell you (indeed I could not) how much my heart is touched, by the many kind and generous expressions of friendship, contained in your excellent letter : to be honoured with so great a share of the esteem and affections of such persons as you, is surely of all earthly blessings the greatest. But I shall proceed to business, without further preamble. " Some years ago, I should have thought myself a very great gainer, by exchanging my present office with a professorship in the university of Edinburgh. Such an event would have doubled my income, without subjecting me to one half of the labour which I now undergo. But those were only secondary considerations. My attachment to Edinburgh arose, chiefly, from my liking to the people ; and surely it was natural enough for me to love a place, in which I had, and still have, some of the dearest and best friends, that ever man was blessed with. Nor had I then any rea- son to fear, that either my principles, or the general tenor of my conduct, could ever raise me enemies in any christian society ; it having been, ever since I had any thing to do in the world, my con- stant purpose to do my duty, and promote peace ; and my singu- lar good fortune, to obtain from all who knew me a share of esteem and regard, equal to my wishes, and greater than my deservings. Nor, at this time, are my affections to Edinburgh at all diminished. I am still known to some members of that university, whose talents, and whose virtues, I hold in the highest estimation, and with whom I should account it my honour, to be more nearly connected ; and the favours I have received from very many persons of distinction in the place, demand my most hearty acknowledgments, and shall ever be cherished in my remembrance, with every sentiment that the warmest gratitude can inspire. 20» LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " And yet, my dear friend, there are reasons, and those of no small moment, which determine me to give up all thoughts of appearing as a candidate, on the present occasion; and which would determine me to this, even though I were absolutely certain of being elected. Nay, though my fortune were as narrow now, as it lately was, I should still incline rather to remain in quiet where I am, than, by becoming a member of the university of Edinburgh, to place myself within the reach of those, (few as they are) who have been pleased to let the world know, that they do not wish me well ; not that I have any reason to mind their enmity, or to dread its consequences. They must not flatter themselves, that they have ever been able as yet to give me a moment's uneasiness, notwithstanding the zeal with which they have spoken against me. My cause is so good, that he, who espouses it, can never have occasion to be afraid of any man. I know my own talents, and I am not ignorant of theirs ; I do not (God knows) think highly of the former, indeed I have no reason ; but I am under no sort of apprehension in regard to the latter ; and as to the esteem of others, I have no fear of losing it, so long as I do nothing to ren- der me unworthy of it. But I am so great a lover of peace, and so willing to think well of all my neighbours, that I do not wish to ^^ connected even with one person who dislikes me. j, .f^ Had I ever injured the persons whom I allude to, I might have hoped to regain their favour by submission, (which in that case would have become me) and by a change of conduct. But, as they are singular enough to hate me for having done my duty, and for what, I trust, (with God's help) I shall never cease to do, (I mean, for endeavouring to vindicate the cause of truth, with that zeal which so important a cause requires) I could never hope that they would live with me on those agreeable terms, on which I desire to live with all good men, and on which, by the blessing of providence, I have the honour and the happiness to live with so great a num- ber of the most respectable persons of this age. " I must therefore, my dear friend, make it my request to you^ that you would, in better terms than any I can suggest, in terms of the most ardent gratitude, and most zealous attachment, return my best thanks to the gentlemen of your council, for the very great honour they have been pleased to confer upon me ; and tell them, that the city and university of Edinburgh shall ever have my sin- LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. SOt cerest good wishes, and that it will be the study of my life, to act such a part, as may, in some measure, justify their good opinion ; but that I must, for several weighty reasons, decline appearing as a candidate, for the present vacant professorship." In consequence of this reply from Dr Beattie, which, of course, I communicated to the gentleman, who had addressed himself to me on the subject, I laid aside all thoughts of the matter. Some months afterwards, Dr Beattie informed me, that some person, no doubt with a friendly intention, without his knowledge, had told Lord Dartmouth, that he was a candidate for the profes- sorship; on which his Lordship had written to Sir Adolphus Oughlon, offering his services to promote Dr Beattie's views. In consequence of this communication he wrote to me, expressing his regret that his friends should have had so much trouble on his ac- count ; that he had in part communicated to Sir Adolphus his reasons for declining to be a candidate, but had referred him to me for further particulars, and desired me to shew to Sir Adolphus Oughton his letter to me of the 2 2d October, which I accordingly did. When Sir Adolphus sent it back to me, he accompanied it with the following note. " Returns to him Dr Beattie's very judi- " cious letter. Sir A. imagines it was a view of serving the worthy " Doctor, and rendering him more diffusively useful to his fellow " subjects, not any solicitations from hence, that induced his " Majesty's confidential servants to wish he might fill the moral " philosophy chair at Edinburgh." When I sent him this communication from our mutual friend, I wrote to him at the same time to the following effect. " Since " that time, I have had occasion to hear the sentiments of many of " your warmest friends, as well as of many persons of respectable " character, who, like numberless others, have attached themselves " to you, without a personal acquaintance, and all join, with one " voice, in expressing their wishes that you could be prevailed on " to think more favourably of changing your present situation. " But what induces me to resume this subject particularly at " present, is a conversation which I had yesterday at New Hailes. " I chanced to have your two letters in my pocket, which I gave to 3d 210 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " Lord Hailes to read : * knowing how highly he esteems you, and " how excellent a judge he is of every point like that in question. " His Lordship expressed the greatest concern at the reluctance " you show against coming to Edinburgh, and more than once re- " peated, that he was not at liberty to say all that he could say on that " head. He was kind enough to request I would write to you, that " such were his sentiments ; and to beseech you to treat with the *^ greatest contempt any idea of your meeting with any thing disa- • Sir David Dalrymple, baronet, one of the judg-es of the supreme coiirti^ of civil and criminal law of Scotland, by the title of Lord Hailes ; very emi- nent as a scholar, and particularly as an antiquarian. His ** Annals of Scot- *' land" is a masterly performance, in which, and in some detached pieces of historical research, he was the first to elucidate properly the early part of the history of our country ; and it is only to be regretted that he has not brought his work down to a later period, as it stops at a time when the history was becoming more and more interesting, and his materials more copious. *' The ** case of the Sutherland-peerage," although originally a law paper, written professionally when he was at the bar, at the time when the title of the young Countess to tlie honours of her ancestors was called in question, is one of the most profound disquisitions on the ancient peerages of Scotland any where to be met with. In his other publications, which were numerous, he chiefly appears in the character of an editor. Among these, he translated and printed some fa- vourite passages from the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, and other writers, respecting the early history of the Christian church. In those pub- lications he never omitted any opportimity of exposing the mistakes and mis- representations of Gibbon, in professed opposition to whom. Lord Hailes wrote ** An Inquiry into the secondary Causes which Mr Gibbon has assigned ** for the rapid growth of Clirlstianity," which is justly considered as one of the ablest replies that have appeared in opposition to the sneers against Christianity, so frequently to be met with in the works of that popular, but artful and dangerous writer. As a proof of his attention to every thing that concerned religion and good morals, the following incident should not be omitted. Two vessels, bound from London to Leith, were cast away on the coast between Dunbar and North Berwick, and two-and-twenty persons drowned } the wrecks having been shamefully pillaged by the country-people. Lord Hailes immediately wrote a pamphlet, with tlie title of '* A Sermon *' which might have been preached in East Lothian upon the 25th day of " October 1761, on Acts xxvii. 1, 2. The barbarous people showed us no little " kmdness.''^ This he caused to be printed, and dispersed among the country people in the neighbourhood, where the fatal disaster had happened. It is a. most afiecting discourse, admirably calculated to convince the offenders ; and the effect of it is said to have been such, that several parcels of the gcodsy LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 211 •^ gi^eable in carrying this removal into execution. For he added, " what I most firmly believe to be the truth, that he apprehended " many of what appeared unpleasant circumstances to you would " totally vanish, or that, in all events, you ought to be greatly su- " perior to any such fears." So anxious was Lord Hailes on this subject, that next day he wrote to me no less than two letters, which I failed not to transmit, by the first post, to Dr Beattie. LETTER LXXV. LORD HAILES TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. New Hailes, 15th April, 1774. " I AM sorry to understand that Dr Beattie expresses a great unwillingness at being proposed to fill the chair of moral philosophy at Edinburgh, which, in all probability, will soon be vacant. " If the Doctor thinks he can be as generally useful where he. is, he cannot be blamed for wishing to continue where he is. But if he is persuaded that his sphere of usefulness may be enlarged, by his removal to Edinburgh, I do not see how he can, in consist- ency with his known principles, decline that station, where he will be more known, and have a more ample field of benefiting the rising generation. that had been plundered, were brouglit privately to the church, and deposited there, after the perusal of the sermon. He published likewise, a Collection of Sacred Poems, consisting of translations and paraphrases from the Hol^ Scriptures, which do equal credit to his piety and his poetical taste. As a proof, however, that he did not entirely confine his studies to subjects of a grave and dignified cast, he was also the editor of a Collection of Ancient Scottish Poems, from the " Bannatyne-Manuscript," in the Advocates* Library at Edinburgh ; and he contributed some papers to the two periodical publications, the " World," published at London, and the ** Mirror," at Edinburgh, which contain no inconsiderable portion of humour. He die4 29th November, 1792. • 212 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. '* The magistrates of Edinburgh have shown a zeal almost "Writhout example, of supplying all the vacant professorships with the persons held to be the best qualified. In this, they have re- nounced every party view, every private connexion. Should Dr Beattie obstinately decline their solicitations, it is more than an equal chance that the difficulty which they find in perfecting their noble plan, may lead them insensibly to accept of the most powerful recommendations, and thus suffer things to go on in the easiest way : thus things will turn into a corrupted channel. Should a man of mean abilities, or of dubious principles, fill the chair which Dr Beattie might have filled, ivho must answer for the good which such a person does not, or for the ill which he may do ? " I wish that Dr Beattie could be brought to see this in the strong light in which I see it. There are many things which might be said, and which are not fit for a letter ; many things which, at present, cannot be spoken. It may be supposed that Dr Beattie imagines that his works have procured him enemies, and that those enemies will be more formidable in Edinburgh than in Aberdeen. But surely he will not find those enemies among the members of the university. I could insure him against that for a very moderate premium. If they that are against him are more than they that are for him ; I have no more to say. " He knows that he and I differed as to some particulars, and that I thought something might have been taken from the edge of his style, yet so as to leave it the power of cutting deep enough. But that is a matter of taste and opinion. They, who have felt the sharpness of his weapon, will not provoke it. " If he is affected with obloquy, I wish he were a judge for six months, and, then he would find that unless a man can have pa- ttience to contemn the gainsayers, he will have little comfort in the plain path of duty.'* UFE OF DR BEATTIE. 213 LETTER LXXVI. LORD HAILES TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. New Hailes, 16th April, 1774. " SINCE I had the pleasure of seeing you, I have a letter from London, mentioning Lord Mansfield's zeal for Dr Beattie. I do not consider myself at liberty to mention who my correspondent is ; he is a man not much given to applaud indiscriminately, and one who thinks highly of Dr Beattie. " The more that I think of this affair, the more I am persuaded that Dr Beattie's terrors are panic. I impute them to bad health and a vegetable diet. My poor old friend Dr M'Kenzie of Drumsheugh imputed the errors of the later Platonists to that ascetic diet. " If Dr Beattie would consider, that in his lectures he is to un- fold a system of truth, and that he may confute all the nonsense and irreligion that has appeared since the days of Cain even unto our days, without ever mentioning the name of any theorist or sceptic, he will not consider the intended station as so formidable. " Should he dislike his office, he may leave it ; he will always find a decent retirement into some sequestered recess of literature. " I am not sure that it is a very Christian sentiment, yet I must say, that a rebuff at this time will be very discouraging, especially when we ourselves have the ball at our foot. If the friends of re- ligion, and they who consider the value of religious education, are to have no aid where that might be expected, what is to come next? If Dr Beattie shrinks, will not every man of ability shrink too ?" To these communications from Lord Hailes, which I expected would have produced some effect in making him yield to the solici- tation of his friends, I had the mortification, however, of receiving |the following copious reply. 214. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. LETTER LXXVIL DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 19th April, lTt4. " I HAVE just received your two letters of the 16th current, inclosing two from Lord Hailes to you, which, according to your desire, I return under this cover. I cannot sufficiently thank you, or his Lordship, for your zealous good wishes, and for the very fa- vourable opinion you and he are pleased to entertain of me. As I desire nothing more earnestly, than to secure the continuance of that favourable opinion, I must beg leave to be somewhat particular in answering two accusations, which, from two passages of his Lordship's letter, I have reason to fear are likely to be brought against me, even by my friends. It is insinuated, that my disincli- nation to resign my present employment, may be tlie effect of od- stzTiacy, or ofjear, " Now, I humbly think, that when a man's conduct, and the rea- sons of it, are approved by a very great majority of those who are acquainted with both, it would be rather hard to charge him with obstinacij^ for adhering to such conduct. And most certain it is, that, by all my English friends to whom I have had occasion to explain the affair in question, and by many respectable friends in Scotland, this conduct of mine, and the reasons of it, have been highly approved. Another thing, too, on this head, deserves atten- tion. A man should not be accused of obstinacy, till he have told all his reasons, and till it appear that they are all unsatisfactory. I have never told all my reasons ; I have told those only which are of a less private nature : other reasons I could specify ; but they are of such a sort, that I should think it petulance to obtrude them on the public. " To the second accusation, I know not whether I can decently reply. When I see a man solicitous to prove that he is sober, I generally take it for granted, that he is drunk ; and when one is at pains to convince me that he is brave, I am apt to set him down for a coward. Whether I deserve to be considered as a timorous as- LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 215 serter of good principles, I leave the world to judge, from what I have written, and from what I have done and said on occasions in- numerable. Many hundreds in Great Britain, and some too else- where, think, that no Scottish writer, in my time, has attacked the enemies of truth with less reserve, and confuted them more zea- lously, than I have done. I have declared, in a printed book, which bears my name, that I detest their principles, and despise their talents i and that very book is, in the opinion of many, a proof that I have no reason to retract the declaration. What I have avowed, I am still ready to avow, in the face of any man upon earth, or of any number of men ; and I shall never cease to avow, in plain language, and without concealment or subterfuge, so long as the Deity is pleased to continue with me the use of my faculties. I cannot think that my friends will treat me so hardly, as to give out, that I fear every thing which I dislike. I dislike the croaking of frogs, and the barking of curs ; but I fear neither. I dislike the conversation of infidels ; but I know not in what sense I can be said to fear it. I should dislike very much to live in a society with crafty persons, who would think it for their interest to give me as much trouble as possible, unless I had reason to think, that they had conscience and honour sufficient to restrain them from aspersing the innocent ; yet, if my duty were to call me thither, I should not be in the least afraid to live in such a society; for I know, that, while an honest man does his duty, the world seldom fails to do him justice. As to obloquy^ I have had a share of it, as large as any private man I know ; and I think I have borne it, and can bear it, with a degree of forti- tude, of which I should not need to be ashamed, even if my station were as public, and as important, as that of a judge. Every honest man, whether his station be public or private, will do his duty with- out minding obloquy, which, in fact, was never more harmless than at present, because it never was more common. Convince me that it is my duty to remove from hence to Edinburgh, and you shall see me set out immediately, as regardless of the snarling of my enemies there, as of that of the curs, who might snap at my heels by the way. So very little ground is there for suspecting me of arj: inclination to shrink from my principles, that one chief reason which determines my present choice is, that I may have the more leisure to apply myself to those studies, which may tend to the further confutation of error, and illustration of truth ; so that^ if they think 2X6 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. I have any talents in this way, and if they know what my present resolutions are, my adversaries would wish me rather in Edinburgh, where I should have but little leisure, than at Aberdeen, where I have a great deal. On this account, as well as on others,! am morally certain, that I shall have it in my power to do more good to society, by remaining where I am, than by moving to Edinburgh. " That I am entirely useless in my present profession, is not the opinion of those in this country, who have access to know how I employ myself. My lectures are not confined to my own class. I do what no other professor here ever did, and what no professor in any other part of Great Britain can do ; I admit, together with my own students in moral philosophy, all the divinity students of two universities, who are willing to attend me ; and I have often a very crowded auditory ; and I receive fees from nobody, but from such of my own private class as are able to pay them. Nobody ever asked me to do this,, and nobody thanks me for it, except the young men themselves ; and yet, in all this there is so little merit, it being as easy for me to lecture to a hundred as to thirty, that I should not have thought it worth mentioning, except with a view to obviate an objection, that seems to be implied in some things, that have been thrown out at this time. • " So much for my duties to the public, to which, I would fain hope, it will be found, that I am not quite insensible. But, accord- ing to my notions of morality, there are also duties which a man owes to his family, and to himself: nor is it, in my opinion, incum- bent on any man to overlook the latter, merely because it is possi- ble that, by so doing, he might discharge the former more effectu- ally. I do not think it the duty of any particular Christian, of you, for instance, or Mr Arbuthnot, or myself, to relinquish his family, friends, and country, and to attempt the conversion of the Indians ; and yet, it is not absolutely impossible, but that, by so doing, he might perform a great deal of good. My health and quiet may be of little consequence to the public, but they are of very considerable consequence to me, and to those who depend upon me ; and I am certain, that I shall have a much better chance of securing both, by staying where I am, than by removing to Edinburgh. Dr Gregory was of this opinion : I can show his hand-writing for it ; and this is the opinion of many others. I have more reasons than the world knows of, to wish to pass the latter part of my days in LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. Ql? i^uiet ; and the more quiet, and the more health I enjoy, the more I shall have it in my power to exert myself in the service of the public. " To what Lord Hailes adds, in the conclusion of his letter, about my leaving the office in question, if I found it disagreeable, in the hopes of finding some decent retirement elsewhere, I make no reply : I only say, that I wonder at it. I wish there were more foundation for his humorous conjecture about my food : if I could eat vegetables, I should think myself a great man : but alas I the state of my health is such, that I dare not indulge myself in that wholesome diet. " I hope his Lordship will now be convinced, that I am neither whimsical nor timorous in this affair. The reasons I have speci- fied, have been admitted as valid by many persons, whose judgment in other matters he would allow to be good, if I were to name them ; which I would dp, without scruple, if I thought it neces- sary. " I shall only add, what you, my dear friend, know to be a truth, and what 1 can bring the fullest evidence to prove, that my present disinclination to an Edinburgh professorship is not the conse- quence of any late favourable change in my circumstances. The very same disinclination 1 shewed, and the same reasons I urged, more than two years ago, when I had no prospect of such a favour- able change. " To conclude ; every principle of public and private duty forbids me to comply with this kind solicitation of my friends ; and I will add, that nothing but a regard to duty could have deter- mined me to resist so kind a solicitation. I am certain, the city of Edinburgh can find no difficulty in procuring an abler professor than I am. I heartily wish it may ever flourish in learning, and in every useful and honourable art ; and I shall ever retain a most grateful sense of the honour which so many of its inhabitants hare done me, on this occasion. " I ask pardon for not answering your letter sooner. My health is just now in such a state, (the confinement occasioned by my broken arm having brought back many of my old complaints,) that I am not able to write more than a few sentences at a time, without suffering for it. 2e * ilti MFE 0F DR BEATTIE. , " I have not said a word on the subject of interest. It is evident to me> and 1 think I could prove to your satisfaction, that the change, now proposed, would be detrimental in that respect. But this consideration should not deter me from making the change, if my duty required me to make it. And yet, even if I were tp pay €tome attention to interest in an affair of this kind, I do not believe that the world in general would blame me, considering that I have others to provide for, besides myself. It may be said, indeed, that, having a^lready gotten as much a^s might support me inde- pendently on my office, which is more than I deserve, I have no right to extend my views to interest any further. I admits the fact ; ,.but I deny the inference, in which I will not believe any ma,n to be serious; till h^ show me, by his own conduct, that he thinks i^t " The reasons I have here specified, I wish to be as generally ^known, in and about Edinburgh, as you i^ay think necessary, for the vindication of my character." This letter was inclosed.in the following LETTER LXXVIir. DR BEATtlE TO SIR WILLIAM EDRBES. Aberdeen, 23d April, 1774. "THE long letter, inclosed, you are to consider as an answer/, . not to yours, but to those .of Lord Hailes to you. I know, not only the goodness, but the generosity and gentleness of your heartland, I am sure, you would never wish me to do a thing disagreeable to me, if I could, with a clear conscience, avoid it. Our learned and worthy friend seems to think, that my interest and gratification ought to be entirely out of the question ; in this, I know, you will differ from him, as well as in some insinuations touching my cha- racter, which, I confess, pique me a little. But this enire nous. LIFE OF DH BEATTIE. t^ I hare the greatest regard for him, notwithstariding^, on account oi his learnittg and worth ; and I am pretty certain he ha^ a regard? for ifle ; biit I thought it was best to speak ptain, and put an end td the affair at once. Be assured, that I did not fbr-ffi my present re-^ solution Without very good reason^" It was obviously Dr Beattie's intention, that I should transmit this letter to Lord Hailes, as containing a full statement of our friend's determination, and of his reasons for it. But I confess, the letter did not altogether please me. I thought it written in a tone somewhat too peremptory, in reply to so well-meant a communi- cation. On consulting with two of our most intimate friends, who entire^ agreed with mte in my opinion of the letter, I resolved not to send it to Lord Hailes, but rather to copy out some paragraphs^ frotirr it, A^hich- 1 transmitted to him. At the same time, I thought it right to send to Br Beattie an exact copy of What I had thus Written. The following letters, which- 1 received in reply, closed^ the correspondence on the subject. LETTER VSCkM, EOKD ffAIEES TO Sik WltLrAM POttSES. New Hailes, 2-9th April, 17/4. " I AM sorry to see that Dr Beattie is so resolved : I" do not see that more can be said ; he seems to be dissatisfied with some- tiiing that you and I have said, I am sure without reason. IVho the people are, whose judgment I would think good in other mat- ters, and Who have confirmed him in his resolutions, I know not, nor can I venture to guess: I possibly suspect one, of whose sound head, and distinguished abilities, I have a just sense ; but he and I do not always think in the same way. I could mention men, well known in the literary world, dead and alive, who thought and think Very differently from some of the Doctor's friends, but; I have 917 220 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. reasons for being silent as to names. Since this affair has taken so unfortunate a turn, you and I have done what we thought right, Dr Beattie has done what he thought right, and there is no more to be said ; I hope that all will be for the best. " When you write to Dr Beattie, please assure him, in the warmest manner, of my good wishes and regard.'* LETTER LXXX. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 8th May, 1774. " I HAVE this moment received your packet, which I shall answer, at some length, hereafter. In the meantime, I take the opportunity to tell you, by the return of the post, that your con- duct, in the whole of this business, is prudent, benevolent, and friendly. I beg, therefore, you may make your mind perfectly easy on that head. Show this letter to Mr Arbuthnot.** * As I wished to show at once the whole of the correspondence respecting the Edinburgh professorship, in order that what passed on that occasion may be the more distinctly known, I delayed to insert the following letters, which were written in the interval, be- tween the two periods of that correspondence. • In this letter, which was ostensible, I found inclosed a slip of paper, on which he had written to me the following most affectionate note : ** I cannot help telling you on this scrap, that I could have wished you had been entirely determined by your own judgment, in the affair of the letter. Not that there was any harm in consulting those two friends, whom nobody on earth can honour more than I do ; but because I wish you to be- lieve, that your opinion alone is at any time sufficient authority with me, for the propriety of any measure, you may be pleased to recommend. There is not a thought of my heart, which 1 wish to conceal from you ; and I have been long- accustomed to lay my mind open to you, with less reserve, than to any body else; indeed, without any sort of reserve at all. It may, there- fore, sometimes happen, that I shall write to you, what I would not wish any body else to read.** LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 221 LETTER LXXXL DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. Aberdeen, 18th December, 1773. " MY studies proceed so slowly, that I can hardly be said to study at all ; which, after what I have told you, will not appear surprising. I have, however, added largely to my discourse on classical learning, and have been looking out for materials, towards tlie finishing of my other little essays. If the subswiption-affair succeed, I hope I shall have every thing in readiness in due time. .—I understand, by a letter from Mr Gregory, to one of his friends here, that he has been obliged to lay aside tlie scheme of publish- ing his father's works in one volume ; two of the treatises being (it seems) the property of Dodsley the bookseller : this has made me postpone, to a time of more leisure, what I intended to write on the subject of the Doctor's character. I knew that Mr Gre- gory * would please you : he is, indeed, an excellent young man ; I know not whether I ever have met with one of his years, whose heart was so good, or whose understanding was so thoroughly im- proved. " I had the honour of a letter, lately, from the Dutchess of Port- land, which I will answer soon. Mrs Delany's misfortune gave great concern to Mrs Beattie and me ; but as you mention nothing of it, we are satisfied that the danger is now over. • Dr James Gregory, (eldest son of the late Dr John Gregory) a physi- cian of the first eminence, at present, in Edinburgh, and who fills the chair of Professor of the Practice of Physic, in that university, with such distin- guished ability. From a youth, he enjoyed the friendship of Dr Beattie, as it were by hereditary right : and at all times endeavoured, by his medical skill, to contribute to the restoration of the health of one who had been so dear to his father, and whom he himself so highly esteemed and respected. The elegant and classical inscription, for Dr Beattie*s monument at Aber- deen, which will be found hereafter, is of Dr Gregory's composition. I have already mentioned f the intimate fi-iendship with which the late Dr Gregory honoured me, and I am proud to boast of its continuance with his son. tP.24, 222 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE: " It gives me pleasure to hear, that your nephew finds Edin- burgh so much to his mind. Mr Arbuthnot.will do every thing in his power to make it agreeable to hirtl. Tndon, seeing how much he and his family stood in need of some ferther emolument, than what merely arose from his professor- ship, projected a scheme of publishing there, by subscription, an edition of his " Essay on Truth," by which, it was hoped, a con- siderable sum might be raised. > It was by no means intended to advertise it publicly ; but merely to conduct it privately, by means of a few of his particular friends, Lady Mayne, Mrs Montagu^ Dr Porteus, and a few others, whose extensive circle of acquaintance might give them an opportunity of procuring a large number of subscriptions. A mode this, which, it was thought, could neither be construed into indelicacy towards him nor the public. The .book did not make its appearance until the year 1776, as I shall have occasion to mention hereafter. But as the matter of the subscript tion became pretty generally known, and had been differently thought of by some of his friends, the inclosed letter to Lady Mayne * sets the matter in its proper point of view. • The Honourable Frances Allen, daughter and co-heiress of Joshua Lord Viscount Allen, Lady of Sip William. Mayne, Baronet, afterwards created Lord Newhaven, from both of whom Dr Beattie experienced the strongest marks of friendly and.polite attention. 934 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. LETTER LXXXIL DR BEATTIE TO LADY MAYNE. Aberdeen, 2d Januaiy, 1774. " OF my worthy and generous friend, Dr Majendie, I know not what to say. I must leave it to your ladyship to tell him, for no words of mine have energy enough, with what gratitude, affec- tion and esteem, I do, and ever shall, remember him. The senti- ments which his royal mistress * has been pleased to express, in re- gard to my affairs, do me the greatest honour ; and I should be unworthy of them, if they did not give me the greatest pleasure. It is peculiarly fortunate, that her M y should honour the sub- scription with her approbation. This may exclude, from a certain quarter, those misrepresentations of this affair, which, I have rea- son to think, are already circulating, very much to the prejudice of my character. I was, indeed, somewhat apprehensive, from the beginning, that my enemies might tax me with avarice and impu- dence. But your ladyship, and Mrs Montagu, concerted the scheme in such a manner, that, if it is rightly understood, it must re- dound, even in the judgment of my enemies themselves, still more to my honour, than it can be to my interest. And of this I lately endea- voured to satisfy a friend of mine in England, a gentleman eminent in the literary world, who, on hearing some imperfect account of a subscription, wrote me a letter, urging me in the most earnest manner, as I valued my character, to put a stop to it. I gave him, in return, as plain an account, as, without naming names, could be given, of the rise and progress of the affair. 1 told him, " That " it was a thing of a private nature entirely ; projected, not by me, " but by some of my friends, who had condescended to charge '* themselves with the whole trouble of it ; that it was never meant " to be made public, nor put into the hands of booksellers, nor " carried on by solicitation, but was to be considered as a voluntary " mark of the approbation of some persons of rank and fortune, See p. 179. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 225 •■* who wished it to be known, that they patronized me on account " of what I had written in defence of truth ; and that I was so far " ft'om desiring to put the patience or generosity of my friends to « any further U'ial, that I had repeatedly protested, and did still « protest, that I was fully satisfied with the provision, which, by " his Majesty's bounty, I now enjoy, which was equal to my wishes> " and far superior, in my opinion, to my deservings." I told him further, " That considering the nature of this subscription, and the " liigh character of the persons who had proposed it, I could not " have refused my consent without giving myself airs, which would " have very ill become me :" and I added, " That while the subscript- ** tion, by remaining in suspense, was liable to be misunderstood, " I trusted to my friends for the vindication of my conduct ; but " that, if ever the intended volume came to be published, 1 should " take care to do justice, in a preface, both to them, and to' myself, " by stating the matter fairly to the public." — This information will, I hope, satisfy the gentleman, that the subscription is nol, as he was made to believe, disgraceful to my character^ (these are his words,) but, on the contrary, highly creditable to it, and honour- able. However, that it may never be in the power, even of malice itself to lay any thing to my charge on this score, I would humbly proposej that no entreaty should be used to draw in subscribers, and that they, who make objections, should never be addressed a second time on the subject." LETTER LXXXIIL DR BEATTIE TO ROBERT ARBUTHNOT, ESQ. Aberdeen, 8th January, 1774. " SINCE I left London, Mr Hume's friends have been con- triving a new method to blacken my character. I have been writ- ten to upon the subject, and desired to vindicate myself; as the ut- most industry is used, even by some people of name, to circulate the malicious report. " The charge against me, as stated in my correspondent's let^- ter, is word for word as follows : Pam accused of rancour, and in- gratitude to Mr Hume ; for, say they, " Mr Hume was very instru^ 3f 226 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " mental in procuring for me the professorship I now hold at Aber^ " deen, and kept up a friendly correspondence with me for some time; " till at length I sent him a poem of mine (which was never print- " ed) : but Mr Hume not liking it, and being frank in his nature, '' sent me word, it was as insipid as milk and water ; upon which, " bent on revenge, I immediately set about my " Essay on Truth," " which is full of virulence and misquotation." " You may believe, that an accusation of this sort, in which, you know, I can prove, there is not one single word of truth, cannot give me much pain. But I should be glad, that Mr Hume, for his own sake, would disavow it ; and indeed I cannot suppose, that he is s« destitute of candour, as to give countenance to a report, which he himself certainly knows to be altogether false." LETTER LXXXIV. SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS TO DR BEATTIE. London, 22d February, 1774. *^ I SIT down to relieve my mind from great anxiety and un- easiness, and I am very serious when I say, that this proceeds from not answering your letter sooner. This seems very strange, you will say, since the cause may be so easily removed ; but the truth of the matter is, I waited to be able to inform you that your picture was finished, which, however, I cannot now do. I must confess to you, that when I sat down, I did intend to tell a sort of a white lie, that it was finished : but on recollecting that I was writing to the au- thor of truth, about a picture of truth, I felt that I ought to say no- thing but truth. The truth then is, that the picture probably will be finished, before you receive this letter; for there is not above a day's work remaining to be done. Mr Hume has heard from somebody, that he is introduced in the picture, not much to his credit ; there is only a figure covering his face with his hands, which they may call Hume, or any body else ; it is true it has a tolerable broad back. As for Voltaire, I intended he should be one of the group. " I intended to write more, but I hear the postman's bell. Dr Johnson, who is with me now, desires his compliments.'* LIFE OF DR BEATTIE, 227 LETTER LXXXV. DR BiATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. Aberdeen, 13th March, 1774. " THE second book bf the " Minstrel," (which Mr Fred. Mon- tagu permits me to send Under his cover) will be delivered to you, along with this ; and I must give you the trouble to keep it till Mr Dilly calls for it. You were very indulgent to that part of it which you read last summer, in which I have made no very material alterations. I am impatient to know your opinion of the other part, and particularly of the conclusion, which I do not like the better for its being on a new plan, but to which I cannot help being par- tial, for the sake of the subject. You will see that the blank is to be filled up with the name of Gregory ; a name which I forbear to write at length, till I see whether the public opinion will be so fa* vourable, as to justify my taking that liberty with so dear and so respectable a friend. The lines relating to him were written (as I think I told you before) immediately after I received the melan- choly news of his death ; when my mind was oppressed with a weight of sorrow, which I did not, and which I needed not, attempt to exaggerate in the description. His friendship was for many years a never-failing source of consolation to me, in all my dis- tresses ; and he was taken from me at a time when my health was very bad, and my spirits in a most dejected condition. I had a let- ter from Mr Gregory, a few days ago, inclosing a copy of " The " Father's Legacy." I read it several years ago, in manuscript, and I then told the Doctor, that I looked upon it as the most elegant of all his compositions. " You are right in conjecture, in regard to Dr — — ~. He had, it seems, heard some account of a subscription, and wrote of it to Mr • of . — ., whose letter to me was in these words : " I take the liberty to trouble you with this line, merely to " mention a thing which my friend, Dr < — , out of pure good " will to you, advises me to mention. He Myites me word, that l^q 228 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " hears, on good authority, a subscription has been set on foot, and " is soliciting, for your " Minstrel," (as well the new, as the old " part.) This way of publishing it, he thinks (and 1 heartily coii- " cur with him) will be thought unworthy of your character, and " will certainly disgust your best friends. I take it for granted, if " the story is true, you have acquiesced in the thing, at the in- " stance of some friend, who did not feel that this method of pub- " lishing has so mean an appearance, as it really at present has. I " would, therefore, advise you, by all means to stop the progress of " the affair, as soon as possible ; for I really think, it will be highly " disgraceful to a person of your confest abilities, if it proceeds, *^ &c." I returned Mr . an answer in course, and told him, that Dr- had been misinformed in regard to the " Minstrel," but that there actually was on foot a subscription of another sort, of which I gave him that account, which I afterwards sent to Lady Mayne, in that letter which you read. This happened about three months ago ; and I have not heard from Mr ■ since ; from which I know not whether to draw a favourabk, or an unfavourable inference. " Pray, ma a state of non-existence. The theory is not a new one ; but his Lordship seems to be one of the most sanguine of its adherents.. Some of the objections, drawn from the scripture, he gets the better of by a mode of criticism, which, I humbly think, would not be ad- mitted in a commentary upon any other book. " I must now beg leave to put you in mind, that I have a claim on you, for an essay to my quarto volume ; for I wish to have in it something new, that is really worth the money to be paid for it. I ground my claim upon a promise, which, I think, you were pleased to make me at Sandleford. Such a contribution will give you no trouble ; and to me, considering how poorly provided I am for furnishing out a whole quarto, it will be an act of the greatest charity. The hope of it will be a spur to my industry ; for, though it is impossible for me to provide for it suitable accommodation, I shall, however, bestir myself in decking and garnishing the rest of the volume for its reception. Since I have been in this state of confinement, I have amused myself in collecting materials for finishing an " Essay on Laughter," which I sketched out about ten years ago. I intend that it shall be one of my additional essays s it is a grave philosophical enquiry into the nature of those objects that provoke laughter, with critical remarks on the different sorts of ludicrous composition, and an attempt to account for the supe- riority of the moderns over the ancients, in the articles of wit and humour. I have written fifty pages, and shall have nearly as many more to write. When I have finished the first draught, I will have it transcribed, and sent to you. LETTER LXXXVL LADY MAYNE TO DR BEATTIE. St. James's Square, London, April 18th, X774i. " I BELIEVE it is unnecessary to say, how much pleasure I have received, in reading over and over the second part of your delightful poem, which, I find, meets with the universal approba- tion it deserves ; and all those, to whom you was so obliging as to 230 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. send copies, through me, join with Sir William and me, in a great many thanks, for so agfeeahle a present. " Mr John Pitt, of Arlington-street, has desired me to make a proposal to you, which, whether it be agreeable to you or not, will be, I am sure, considered by you as a real proof of his friendship and esteem. It is, that in case you should have resolved to follow the advice of some of your friends, with regard to taking orders in our church ; he has a living in his neighbourhood in Dorsetshire, likely to be very soon vacant, which he will not d'spose of till he knows your mind. I believe Sir William and I know it pretty well, but as it did not become me to answer for you, I have only under- taken to obtain your own, which he begs may be as soon as possi- ble, because he has a number of applications for it, though the yearly value is only a hundred and fifty pounds. You will, I dare say, judge it proper to write to him yourself upon the occasion. *' He is a man of most uncommon goodness of heart ; he and his charming wife are well-deserving of each other. They both, in the beginning of this winter, proposed a plan, for a society of well'disposed persons, to raise a fund by voluntary subscription, for the relief of distressed and deserving objects. The society soon became very numeix)us, as well as rich, and consists of several of the highest rank, and most eminent virtue, besides others who wish to imitate such good examples. " Some very honest judicious people are kept in pay, to enquire and examine strictly into the true state of all such objects as send in petitions, and a committee of thirty meet every Saturday morn- ing, to consider the reports of these enquirers, and to order suitable relief ; besides which, the whole body of subscribers, to the amount of five guineas and upwards, have a general meeting every Wednesday evening, to form general rules and regulations, and consult upon any extraordinary cases that may offer. Besides this committee, there is another chosen, consisting of six ladies, and a seventh called the treasurer, whose department it is to employ poor women in work, who are industrious, but deprived of employ- ment. I dare say it will immediately strike you, that such an un- limited plan must soon beconie impracticable, in such a town as this is, from the infinity of business that would multiply daily ; and so it has proved. We therefore, about a month ago, found ourselves obliged to confine ourselves to the residents in five LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 23^ parishes; St James's, St George's, St Ann's, St Martin's, and Marybone. This gave a little relief for some time^ but now, as might well be expected, the poor are all establishing themselves within these limits, so that, I greatly fear, this most excellent scheme cannot hold out long, at least upon its present footing. However, the zeal that the greatest number of the subscribers manifest, and the indefatigable pains, as well as time, that they employ this way, in spite of all the allurements of pleasure and dissipation that surround them, make me hope, that experience will open the way to some effectual and durable method of doing all the good they wish, both in the way of relief and detection. Lady Charlotte Finch, and her two daughters, her sister, Lady Juliana Penn, Lady Spencer, Lady Erskine, Lord and Lady Dar- tree. Lady Dartmouth, your friend Mr Hawkins Browne, the Dutchess of Northumberland, Lord and Lady Willoughby, Miss Cooper, Miss Proby, Mrs Eliz. Carter, and a very great number besides, give up the greatest part of their time and thoughts to this business, to such a degree, that some have suffered in their health by it. " Who would have expected, some time ago, to be so edified in the year 1774, in contemplating the occupations of one of the first and most numerous societies in the environs of St James's ? I know this will give double satisfaction to you, as it tends to con- firm your system of innate goodness, for I am sure the greatest part of this society did not acquire theirs, either by prejudice of education, or by the London habits, in which they were early initiated. I dare say it would give you the greatest satisfaction to attend at any of these weekly meetings, where you would see so many amiable people, attentive, for several hours together, to the sole purpose of trying to alleviate the distresses of their fellow- creatures." LETTER LXXXVIL DR BEATTIE TO LADY MAYNB. Aberdeen, 20th May, 1774. *^ I HAVE enclosed an answer to Mr John Pitt's very kind offer, which you will bo- so good as to forward. I thank him for 233 LIFE 0¥ DR BEATTIE. his generosity, of which, indeed, I have a very affecting sense: but I tell him, that, by the advice of my best friends, I have given up all thoughts of entering into the church, many months ago. " I am much obliged to you, madam, for your agreeable account of the charitable society, lately established in the neighbourhood of St James's. It is, as you observe, an honour to my theory of virtue : but, vv^hat gives me much more pleasure, (theorist as I am) it does honour also to the virtue and good sense of the age, it does honour to human nature. I do not know any thing more desirable, nor •more difficult, than to lay down, and carry into execution, a proper plan for the relief of the poor, which, without encouraging idleness or vice, shall administer real comfort to the helpless and the needy. The provision, established by your poor's rate in England, is indeed very ample, nay, in some places so exorbitant, that I should think nothing could flourish in those places, but poverty. I have heard of eight, ten, nay, even fourteen shillings in the pound, paid, in some parishes, to the poor's rate, which, added to the land-tax, would seem to make the land-holder the poorest man in the dis- trict. There must be some grievous mismanagement, both in the exaction and application of such sums ; and it were most devoutly to be wished, that the legislature would endeavour to provide a rer medy for so enormous an evil. Till this be done, all that indivi^ duals can in prudence do, is to enquire into, and relieve the neces- sities of those poor, who live in their neighbourhood, and with whose circumstances they are well acquainted, either from personal knowledge, or undoubted information. Were this done in all parts of the kingdom, the poor would be better supplied than by any legal provision, how great soever ; and begging, as a trade, would be at an end; and nothing can be more praise-worthy, than for per- sons of rank and fortune to set the example of so benevolent an institution. " A prince of Liege, in order to cancel all at once the wrong side of his spiritual account, bequeathed, on his death-bed, his> whole fortune, which was very large, to the poor, appointing the magistrates of Liege his administrators. The consequence is, that of all the beggars and vagabonds in the Netherlands, Liege is now the common receptacle. It is no uncommon thing for an army of five or six thousand of these people to invest the house of the chief magistrate, and threaten to extirpate him, and all his LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 233 generation, with fire and sword, if he does not instantly make a pecuniary distribution. The gentleman from whom I have this account, and who is a person of sense and veracity, resided some time in Liege, and, to give an idea of the multitude of beggars that swarm in the streets of that town, told me further, that one day, in walking half a mile, he gave away, to professed beggars, not less than fifty-eight pieces of money. I need not tell your Ladyship what inferences are to be drawn from this story." LETTER LXXXVIIL* MRS MONTAGU TO DR BEATTIE. Sandleford, 21st June, 1773. " MY health is greatly improved since I came hither, and I shall be able to enjoy the pleasure of the Dutchess of Portland*^ conversation, and the charms of Bulstrode. I had the honour and happiness of passing many of my youthful days in that society, and that place ; so that I feel a more tender and sincere joy when I return to it, than I find any where else. The Dutchess does honour to her sex, and to her rank ; peculiar purity arid dignity have distinguished her through every stage of life. Her example, as a daughter, a wife, a mother, have not been excelled by any- one ; as a lady of the highest birth, rank, and fortune, it has not been equalled. Her humility, benevolence, and generosity, give an amiableness to her whole conduct, and make every one round her happy. " I long to see you here. I had yesterday thirty -six haymakers, and their children, at dinner, in a grove in the garden. When they work in my sight, I love to see that they eat as well as labour, and often send them a treat, to which they bring an appetite that gives a better relish than the Madeira wine, and Cayenne pepper, in which the alderman stews his turtle. You would have enjoyed the sight of this feast : to which temperance was steward, frugality cook, and hunger the guest." • The following seven letters ought to have been inserted at their proper dates. I prefer giving them in this manper to the reader, rather than with- hold them altogether. 2g 23A LIFE OF DR BEATTIE, LETTER LXXXIX. MRS MONTAGU TO DR BBATTIE. August 23d, lYT^. " WHILE my imagination was delighting itself, in painting you in all the florid colours, and utmost glow of prosperity and joy, you were, in fact, languishing on a sick bed! What a poor " limitary cherub" * is our " divine Alma 1" ignorant of all things that do not pass in her presence, and often deceived in those that do ! I flatter myself, that the fresh air, and tranquillity of this place^ will soon restore your strength and spirits. " I am delighted with Sir Joshua Reynolds* plan,, and do not doubt but he will make a very noble picture of it. I class Sir Joshua with the greatest geniuses that have ever appeared in the art of painting ; and I wish he was employed by the public, in some great work, that would do honour to our country in future ages. He has the spirit of a Grecian artist. The Athenians did not em- ploy such men in painting portraits to place over a chimney, or the door of a private cabinet. I long to see the picture he is now designing j virtue and truth are subjects worthy of the artist and the man. He has an excellent moral character, and is most pleas- ing and amiable in society ; and, with great talents, has uncommoiv humility and gentleness." LETTER XC. KEV. DR MAJENDIE TO DR BEATTIE. Kew-Green, Ox>tober I9th, 1773. «^ AS soon as your favour of the 10th September last, and the copies attending it, reached me here, I failed not immediately to make use of the whQle, as it had been agreed upon between us. * J^Iilton. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. .2^5 The two copies of your " Minstrel" were most graciously received by their Majesties, and your letter of the above date read through by both with apparent satisfaction : and no wonder, as a vein of propriety, good sense, and manly gratitude, is so conspicuous in every part of it. May you, good sir, long enjoy the pleasure arising from such feelings, and ever have the additional one, of disseminating them all around you. This I know to be your fixed purpose ; a nobler one you cannot have in view. May every cir- cumstance in life concur to crown it with success. " Your ^' Minstrel" (for a very neat copy of which I have now to thank you) I have read with much satisfaction. As far as I am able to judge of this kind of composition, it seems adequate to the subject ; the verse flowing easily, and unaffectedly ; the senti- ments of the young hero of the piece, such as unvitiated nature suggests ; and your descriptions, in many places, truly poetical and sublime. Your stanzas XL, and XLI, are happily brought in, well executed. So deserved a stricture upon the grovelling Pyrr^ honians, and Epicureans, is worthy of the author of the " Essay '' on Truth." Pray go on with a subject you have so successfully begun. Let us soon see the good, the innocent, the guiltless Edwin (no more your own, since the time you have been pleased to show him to the public) proceeding through lifb as he has commenced it. Kothing can be a bar to his merits and happiness in the world, provided, Qualis ab incefito firocesserit, et sibi constet. You, sir, have fostered him into the worl^i. How can he miscarry, under so able a Mentor?" LETTER XCI. MRS MONTAGU TO DR BEATTKE. Sandleford, 51st October, 1773. ^^ I HAVE just begun a posthumous work of the famous Helvetius (who wrote a book called " L'esprit," some years ago). IjL is astonishing to see how the understancUngs and language of the 236 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. French are corrupted, since the time of Louis XIV. I am particu- larly provoked at one practice of theirs, which is, whenever they repeat an old, and long acknowledged tinith, they endeavour to put it off as their own observation and discovery j and every novel fal- lacy, the offspring of their own brain, they introduce as a known and demonstrated argument, verified by experience. What a cheat should we account a shop-keeper, who put the sterling mark on his pewter, and having in his warehouse only three or four silver spoons and salts, omitted to mark them with the ti*Ue indication of their value, and how surprised would the customer be, when he found he had prized most highly the baser metal l" LETTER XCIL MRS MONTAGU TO DR BEATTIE. London, 4th April, 177'4. " I HAVE for six different mornings intended writing to you, and as often have been disappointed, by persons, who, with very polite intentions of making me civil visits, robbed me of the hours I had destined to a more pleasing purpose. With great satisfac- tion I consigned your charming " Minstrel'* to Mr Dilly ; it will soon come abroad, and, I have no doubt, meet with the highest ap- probation. You have added many fine stanzas since I saw it, and I like much the conclusion, though it does not belong to the subject. However, it is the sweetest office of the Minstrel, to sing the praise of a dear departed friend. A prose panegyric, like the the cypress tree, does but with lugubre state shade the tomb : the Parnas- sian Baij adorns it, and gives it a sanctity, and throws the lustre of immortality around it. I read with new pleasure, and new ivonder, (and wonder is rarely repeated) the felicity with which you have given the sweetest graces of poetry to the severest and gravest subjects. It does not surprise me to see garlands of roses bloom on the brow of youth, beauty and pleasure ; but to see them so gracefully adorn the hoary head of the legislator, and the penr sive brow of the philosopher, shews the consumate address of the artist." LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 237 LETTER XCIII. MRS MONTAGU TO DR BEATTIE. April 30th, 1774. " I AM ashamed that I have not conveyed to you the fame of your " Minstrel," which comes in the sweetest and the loudest notes to my ear every day. Indeed it is surprising to find Edwin pre- serve his smplicity, his harmony, and his poetical imagination, in the school of philosophy, and in the din of society. The stanzas, dedicated to the memory of your friend, have drawn tears and sighs from all who have lost a friend, or have one to lose ; it is on insensi- bility alone that it does not make deep impression, " I have not time to enter into any discussion of Dr Bryant's Analysis of Ancient Mythology, Mr Warton's History of Poetry, and Lord Chesterfield's Letters, all which I have been reading. I must tell you, that Samuel Johnson says of Lord Chesterfield's In- structions to his Son, that they are to teach the manners of a danc- ing-master, with the morals of a prostitute. The sentence is too severe, to be perfectly just, and the character too short, to be per- fectly descriptive ; but there is something too near truth, and too like description. One grieves that Lord Chesterfield's judgment and talent should have been misapplied in the important matter of forming a son's character; but more of this at our better leisure. Your portrait is in the exhibition ; it is very like, and the piece worthy the pencil of Sir Joshua. LETTER XCIV. REV. DR MAJEXDIE TO DR BEATTIE. Windsor, April 26th, 1774. f< IT is with much pleasure, that I come now, though later than I could have wished, to give you an account of the reception your second book of thQ " Minstrel" has met with. Dilly having given 238 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE, me notice that it was printed, and would be shortly published, I de- sired that he would use the utmost dispatch, that very day, which was last Tuesday, to get me two copies, as elegantly bound as so short a notice would permit, that I might be able to present them to their Majesties early next morning ; as else the opportunity would be lost, I being obliged to be absent for three weeks. This request was accordingly complied with, and the books were pre- sented to their Majesties, at a time they were both together. To a heart like yours, my dear sir, it must be no small satisfaction to be informed, that they were received with that same goodness, and affable condescension, which you experienced last summer. Some observations were made upon your character and writings, that shewed how well they are able to appreciate men and things ; and I was particularly ordered by the Queen, to let you know, that she truly values you. " Having thus given you an account of my commission, I should be wanting both to you and myself, if I omit returning you thanks for your kind attention, in ordering me a copy of your second book of the " Minstrel," which I have read with the greatest satisfaction, and lent it to others here, who entertain the same notion of its moral and poetical merit, as I do. May you long continue to be an ornament, a blessing to human nature, and to the age you live ani ^' Transferred from a Prebend of Worcester, to a Canonry here, by his Majesty's great goodness, I am now keeping my strict resi- dence. I have brought down with me the last edition of your Essay, Sec. and given it a second reading. The whole pleases me miore and more. I have been particularly delighted with the 2d Chapter of Part III. The critical account you there give of Aristotle's Works, &c. the fate of metaphysic from his time down to ours ; the crafty and unfair method of our late sceptics handling the subjects they undertake to write upon, which you have so fairly Idd open ; and the manly warmth with which you refute them ; form together a masterpiece, by itself. It is such a one, in my humble opinion, as deserves the thanks, not only of the literati, but of all honest and good men. I am glad to hear, that the sub- scription to the quarto edition is likely to turn to account. I have not been wanting, on my part, to promote it, as far as my little power ^d influence could re^ch. ToJL^dy Mayne, and Mrg Montagu, LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 239 I you are greatly obliged on this occasion, there is no doubt of it. However, to your merit, as a champion in the cause of truth, is chiefly owing the success it met with j which gives me so much the more pleasure, as it affords a proof, that the age we live in, though bad, hath sense enough to know, where rewards and en- couragements are due, and readiness to bestow them accordingly." LETTER XCV. DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. Aberdeen, 3d Ma}'', 17T4, " I AM greatly obliged and honoured by what the hierarchy* have done, and are doing for me. Of Dr Law's attack I shall take no further notice.* " I received a letter, two days ago, fcom Dr Hurd.f It is a very kind letter, and much in praise of the " Minstrel.'* Lord Chesterfield's letters, he says, are well calculated for the purpose of teaching " manners without morals" to our young people of quality. This opinion I had indeed begun to form concerning them, from some short extracts in the news-papers. In one of these extracts I was greatly surprised to see such a pompoujj encomium on Bolinbroke's Patriot King; which has always appeared to me a mere vojc et fir ester ea nihil. Plato was one of the first who introduced the fashion of giving us fine words instead of good sense ; in this, as in his other faults, he has been successfully imitated by Shaftesbury ; but I know not whether he, or any other author, has ever put together so many words, with so little mean- ing, as Bolinbroke, in his papers on patriotism. " Lord Monboddo's second volume has been published some time. It is, I think, much better than the first, and contains much learning, and not a little ingenuity : but can never be very interest- ing, except to those who aim at a grammatical and critical know- ledge of the Greek tongue. Lord Kaimes's Sketches I have seen. • See p. 228. t Now Lord Bishgp of Woreestet. i4,0 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. They are not much different from what I expected. A man, who reads thirty years, with a view to collect facts, in support of two or three whimsical theories, may, no doubt, collect a great number of facts, and make a very large book. The world will wonder when they hear of a modern philosopher, who seriously denies the ex- istence of such a principle as universal benevolence ; — a point, of wliich no good man can entertain a doubt for a single moment. " I am sorry for poor Goldsmith. There were some things in his temper which I did not like ; but I liked many things in his genius ; and I was sorry to find, last summer, that he looked upon me as a person who seemed to stand between him and his interest. However, when next we meet, all this will be forgotten ; and the jealousy of authors, which, Dr Gregory used to say, was next in rancour to that of physicians, will be no more. " I am glad that you are pleased with the additional stanzas of the second canto of the " Minstrel ;" but I fear you are too indul- gent. How it will be relished by the public, I cannot even guess. I know all its faults ; but I cannot remedy them, for they are faults in the first concoction ; they result from the imperfection of the plan. I am much obliged to you, madam, for advising that two copies should be presented to their Majesties, which, Dilly writes me word, has been done by my good friend, Dr Majendie. This honour I meant to have solicited, when the second edition came out, which will be soon. My reason for this delay was, that the first edition having been put to the press, and some sheets of it printed off before I knew, I had it not in my power to order any copies on fine paper. But it is better as it is ; the paper of the copy I have, is not at all amiss. a My " Essay on Laughter" advances but slowly. I have all my materials at hand ; but my health obliges me to labour very moderately in reducing them into order. I am very unwilling to relinquish the hope of receiving from you, madam, some assist- ance in completing my volume. I beg you will think of it. Per- haps you may find more leisure when you come into the north. " Mr Mason has never answered the letter I wrote to him, con- cerning the subscription. I guessed from the tenor of his letters, that he. is, (as you say) out of humour with the world. Mr Dilly writes me word, that he says he is tempted to throw his JJfe of Mr Gray (which is now finished, or nearly so) into the fire, so much is LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 34| he dissatisfied with the late decision on literary property. By the way, I heartily wish the legislature may, by a new law, set this matter on a proper footing. Literature must suffer, if this decision remains unobviated." LETTER XCVL DR BEATTIE TO DR BLACKLOCR. -- Aberdeen, 23d May, 1774- " IF the second part of the " Minstrel" has contributed for one half hour to your amusement, it has in some measure answered the end for which it was written. It was much more laborious, than the first part, in the composing : but I question whether it will be so popular. The public taste requires, and justly too, more fable^ trkn my plan will allow me to put into it ; for fable is to poetry, what bones are to the human body, or timbers and rafters to a building. But my purpose, from the beginning, was to make a didactic or philosophical, rather than a narrative poem : and the title unluckily gives the reader reason to expect more story, than I can, without the greatest inconveniency, afford. However, I hope the piece will receive the encouragement which it may really deserve : as yet, I have no reason to complain ; for a second edition of the second part was called for, within a week after the publi- cation." LETTER XCVIL DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. Aberdeen, 27th May, 1774. " I AM much diverted by Johnson's character of Lord Ches- terfield's Letters. Dr Hurd and Mr Mason (for I have heard from them both, since the second part of the " Minstrel" came out) give nearly the same account of them. 2 » 242 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " Mr Mason seems now to be tolerably reconciled to the sub- scription, but he has found a new subject of concern, in this allego* rical picture, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, which, he thinks, can hardly fail to hurt my character in good earnest. I know not certainly, in what light Mr Mason considers this picture ; but, so far as I liave yet heard, he is singular in his opinion. If Mr Gray had done me the honour to address an ode to me, and speak in high terms of my attack on the sceptics, my enemies might have blamed him for his partiality, and the world might have thought that he had employed his muse in too mean an office ; but would any body have blamed me ? If Sir Joshua Reynolds thinks more favourably of me than I deserve, (which he certainly does) and if he entertains the same favourable sentiments of my cause, which I wish him, and all the world to entertain ; I should be glad to know from Mr JMason, what there is in all this, to fix any blame on my character ? Indeed, if / had planned this picture, and urged Sir Joshua to paint it, and paid him for his trouble, and then have solicited a^Imittance for it into the exhibition, the world would have had good reason to exclaim against me, as a vain coxcomb ; but I am persuaded, that nobody will ever suspect me of this : for nobody can do so, without first supposing that I am a fool. " About three weeks ago, I received a very short letter from Dr Priestley, of which the following is a copy ; " Reverend Sir, ^ Thinking it right that every person should be apprised of any " publication in which his writings are animadverted upon, I take *^ the liberty to send you a copy of a sheet, that will soon be pub- ** lished, in which I announce my intention to remark upon the " principles of your ' Essay on Truth*. I am, reverend sir, your " very humble servant, J. Priestley." This sheet contains a pre- face to a third vol. of " Institutes of Religion." That you, madam, may be the better enabled to judge between him and me, I send it to you in a separate packet, which will be delivered along with this. " I never saw Dr Priestley ; I greatly esteem his talents as a natural philosopher, particularly as a chemist ; whether his talents in moral philosophy be as distinguished, I have no opportunity of knowing. His excessive admiration of Mr Hartley's book, (see the preface, page 2 1 .) I have heard mentioned as one of the learned Doctor's hobby-horses. I am not ignorant of his connections in LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 54S the way of party ; but I hope, in this attack upon ifty book, he is determined by nothing but a love of truth. I need not tell you, that he is the oracle of the Socinians and Dissenters ; and the public will no doubt expect, that I should answer his preface. This will not be a difficult matter. The Doctor must certainly have read my book, since he declares, in print, his disapprobation of it ; but that he has read it attentively, and without prejudice, is npt clear. Certain it is, that every one of his remarks on me, as they appear in this preface, is founded in a gross misapprehension of my doctrine. I have written him a letter, which I enclose in this packet for your perusal ; if you approve of it, please to cause it be forwarded to him ; if not, you may suppress it. " One would think, from reading Dr Priestley's preface, that Dr Reid, Dr Oswald, and I, wrote in concert, and with a view to enforce the very same hypothesis. But the truth is, that I write in concert with nobody : Dr Oswald's book I never read, till after my own was published : and Dr Reid (to whom I have made all due acknowledgments for the instruction I have received from his work) never saw mine till it was in the hands of the public. The con- troversial part of Dr Reid's book regards the existence of matter chiefly ; Dr Oswald's system (though there are many good things in his book) I never distinctly understood. The former of these authors differs in many things from me ; and the latter (if I am rightly informed) has actually attacked a fundamental principle of mine, in a second volume, lately published, which I have not yet got leisure to read." I have already observed, tliat among various plans suggeste4 by Dr Beattie's friends in England, for the advancement of his fortune, that of his taking orders in the Church of England had been mentioned to him.* It has been seen, by the preceding cor- respondence with Lady Mayne, and Mr John Pitt, that he had entirely abandoned that idea. The zeal of his friends, however, was not abated, and he received another very flattering proposition, to the same purpose, throtigh the hands of Dr Porteus. • See p. m. 344 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. LETTER XCVIIL THE REV. DR PORTEUS TO DR BEATTIE., Hunton, near Maidstone, Kent, July 24th, 1774. " I AM desired, by one of the Episcopal bench, whose name I am not yet at liberty to mention, to ask you, whether you have any objections |p taking orders in the Church of England. If you have not, there is a living now vacant in his gift, worth near five hundred pounds a-year, which will be at your service. " Be pleased to send me your answer to this, as soon as possible, and direct it to me at Peterborough, in Northamptonshire, where I shall probably be, before your letter can reach me. I feel myself happy, in being the instrument of communicating to you so honour- able and advantageous a proof of that esteem, which your literary labours have secured to you, amongst all ranks of people." To this proposition, so very flattering, as well as advantageous, Dr Beattie gave the following admirable reply, which does the highest credit to the purity of his principles, and the integrity of his mind. LETTER XCIX. DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. DR PORTEUS. Peterhead, 4th August, 1774. " I HAVE made many efforts to express, in something like adequate language, my grateful sense of the honour done me by the Right Reverend Prelate, who makes the offer conveyed to me in your most friendly letter of the 24th July. But every new effort LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 245 serves only to convince me, more and more, how unequal I am to the task. " When I consider the extraordinary reception which my weak endeavours in the cause of truth have met with, and compare the greatness of my success, with the insignificance of my merit, wliat reasons have I not to be thankful and humble I to be ashamed that I have done so little public service, and to regret that so little is in my power ! to rouse every power of my nature to purposes of benevolent tendency, in order to justify, by my intentions at least, the unexampled generosity of my benefactors ! " My religious opinions would no doubt, if I were to declare them, sufficiently account for, and vindicate, my becoming a mem- ber of the Church of England ; and I flatter myself, that my studies, way of life, and habits of thinking, have always been such, as would not disqualify me for an Ecclesiastical profession. If I were to become a clergyman, the Church of England would certainly be my choice ; as I think, that, in regard to church- government, and church-service, it has many great and peculiar advantages. And I am so far from having any natural disinclina- tion to holy orders, that I have several times, at different periods of my life, been disposed to enter into them, and have directed my studies accordingly. Various accidents, however, prevented me ; some of them pretty remarkable, and such as I think I might, without presumption, ascribe to a particular interposition of provi- dence. " The offer, now made me, is great and generous beyond all expectation. I am well aware of all the advantages and honours that would attend my accepting, and yet, I find myself obliged, in conscience, to decline it ; as I lately did another of the same kind (though not so considerable) that was made me, on the part of another English gentleman.* The reasons which did then, and do now, determine me, I beg leave, sir, briefly to lay before you. " I wrote the " Essay on Truth,*' with the certain prospect of raising many enemies, with very faint hopes of attracting the public attention, and without any views of advancing my fortune. I published it, however, because I thought it might probably do 4 little good, by bringing to nought, or at least lessening the reputa- * See his letter to La4y Mayne^ p. 230'. ne LIFE OP DH BEATTIE. tion of, that wretched system of sceptical philosophy, which had made a most alarming progress, and done incredible mischief to this country. My enemies have been at great pains to represent my views, in that publication, as very different : and that my principal, or only motive was, to make a book, and, if possible, to raise myself higher in the world. So that, if I were now to accept preferment in the church, I should be apprehensive, that I might strengthen the hands of the gainsayer, and give the world some ground to believe, that my love of truth was not quite so ardent, or so pure, as I had pretended. " Besides, might it not have the appearance of levity and insin- cerity, and, by some, be construed int(\ a want of principle, if I were at these years, (for I am now thirty-eight) to make such an important change in my way of life, and to quit, with no other aji- Jiarent motive than that of bettering my circumstances, that church of which I have hitherto been a member ? If my book has any tendency to do good, as I flatter myself it has, I would not, for the wealth of the Indies, do any thing to counteract that tendency ; and I am afraid, that tendency might in some measure be counteracted, (at least in this country) if I were to give the adversary the least ground to charge me with inconsistency. It is true, that the force of my reasonings cannot be really affected by my character ; truth IS truth, whoever be the speaker: but even truth itself becomes less respectable, when spoken, or supposed to be spoken, by insin- cere lips. " It has also been hinted to me, by several persons of very sound judgment, that what I have written, or may hereafter write, in favour of religion, has a chance of being more attended to, if I continue a layman, than if I were to become a clergyman. Nor am I without apprehensions, (though some of my friends think them ill-founded) that, from entering so late in life, and from so remote a province into the Church of England, some degree of un- gracefulness, particularly in pronunciation, might adhere to my performances in public, sufficient to render them less pleasing, and consequently less useful. " Most of these reasons were repeatedly urged upon me, during my stay in England, last summer; and I freely own, that, the more I consider them, the more weight they seem to have. And from the peculiar manner in which the King has been graciously LIFE OF DR BEATTIE, 247 pleased to distinguish me, and from other circumstances, I have some ground to presume, that it is his Majesty's pleasure, that I should continue where I am, and employ my leisure hours in pro- secuting the studies I have begun. This I can find time to do more effectually in Scotland than in England, and in Aberdeen than in Edinburgh ; vi^hich, by the bye, was one of my chief rea- sons for declining the Edinburgh professorship. The business of my professorship here is indeed toilsome : but I have, by fourteen years practice, made myself so much master of it, that it now re- quires little mental labour ; and our long summer vacation, of seven months, leaves me at my own disposal, for the greatest and best part of the year: a situation favourable to literary projects, and now become necessary to my health. " Soon after my return home, in autumn last, I had occasion to write to the Archbishop of York, on this subject. I specified my reasons for giving up all thoughts of church-preferment ; and his Grace was pleased to approve of them ; nay, he condescended so far as to say, they did me honour. I told his Grace, moreover, that I had already given a great deal of trouble to my noble and generous patrons in England, and could not think of being any- longer a burden to them, now that his Majesty had so graciously and so generously made for me a provision equal to my wishes, and such as puts it in my power to obtain, in Scotland, every conve- nience of life, to which I have any title, or any inclination to aspire. ** I must, therefore, make it my request to you, that you would present my humble respects, and most thankful acknowledgments, to the eminent person, at whose desire you wrote your last letter, (whose name I hope you will not be under the necessity of conceal- ing from me) and assure him, that, though I have taken the liberty to decline his generous offer, I shall, to the last hour of my life, preserve a most grateful remembrance of the honour he has con- descended to confer upon me ; and, to prove myself not altogether unworthy of his goodness, shall employ that health and leisure which providence may hereafter afford me, in opposing infidelity, heresy, and error, and in promoting sound literature, and christian truth, to the utmost of my power,** 348 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. Although secrecy was thus enjoined, at the period when the correspondence respecting the living took place, yet it is right, that the name of the right reverend prelate, who made this mo^t generous offer to Dr Beattie, should not be longer concealed, now that both are dead. Dr Thomas, at that time Bishop of Winchesr ter, was the person, whose letter to Dr Porteus I now subjoin. LETTER C. THE EIGHT REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER TO THE REV. DR PORTEUS. Famham-Castle, 24th July, 17^4,. " IT is now, I think, three weeks ago since I wrote to you. I then suggested a conversation that passed between us at Chelsea, relating to Dr Beattie, and my disposition to shew him some mark of my esteem and good -will. " I have a living now vacant, of five hundred pounds a-year, in Hants, and I wish that you would sound him, with secrecy, upon the subject, and let me have a line from you, as soon as you can. The living has been vacant a month ; and I shall have no rest till I can dispose of it." The transactions which I have here related respecting the Edin- burgh professorship, and the church-preferment offered to him in England, form a somewhat remarkable period in the life of Dr Beattie, as they evinced the fixed resolution he had taken, and from which he did not deviate, of continuing, during the remainder of his days, at Aberdeen. We find him, indeed, paying occasional visits to Edinburgh and London, during the summer months of the college -vacation. But these visits seem to have had no other object than his amusement, and the enjoying occasionally the society of h.is numerous friends, at both places. He was, likewise constant LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 249 in his visits, every summer, to Peterhead,* a place to which he was strongly attached, and in which, as well as in the society of some friends there, he much delighted. He thought the air of the place particularly healthy and useful to his constitution : " and I have " often," says a friend, who gave me this information, " seen hin^ " stand for a long time, on the adjoining promontory, inhaling, in a " fine day, the pure air from the ocean, and enjoying the majestic " prospect, expressing great delight in both." He had great con- fidence, too, in the tonic powers of the mineral spring, and of the salt-water baths ; and his hope of being able to go through his pro- fessional duties with comfort, during the \Yinter, was in exact pro- portion to the length of time he had been able to spend at Peterhead, the preceding summer. Nor was it on account of the waters, the baths, and the healthful air alone, that he was so greatly attached to Peterhead. He loved the people, and they loved and respected him ; and there were several of the venerable old inhabitants of the place, for whose in- tegrity and simplicity of character he entertained, and was often heard to express, a high regard. Although he by no means shun- ned the society of the numerous strangers, who flock to Peterhead in the course of the season, and sometimes dined with them, at their common table, yet he spent much of his time alone, in study, or in the society of a few select friends. During the fine weather, he dedicated many hours to his favourite and healthful amusement of walking in the fields, or along the sea-shore ; and he used pleasantly to say, that there was not a road, nor a foot-path, not a rock, nor any • Peterhead, a small town in the county of Aberdeen, situated on the most easterly promontory of Scotland; famous for a Chalybeate spring* of the nature of the waters of Tunbridge-wells, and for salt-water baths of ad- mirable construction, which draw thither a considerable resort of fashionable company, during the summer season, some in search of health, and others of amusement. But it is chiefly to the industry, the sobriety, and prudence of the inhabitants, that Peterhead, from being merely an insignificant fishing town, owes its rapid encrease in commerce, manufactures, and consequent population ; so that from two thousand, four hundred, and twenty souls, to which number only the inhabitants amounted, so lately as the year 1764, the town is said to have contained no fewer than four thousand, one hundred, in the year 1794, and is daily encreasing.f t Statistical Account of Scotland, Parish of Peterhead, Vol. XVI, p. vii. and p. S68, 3l 250 LIFE OF DR BEATTIl!. remarkable stone in the neighbourhood of Peterhead, with which he was r\ot fiersonally acquainted. One of the chief employments, and, indeed, amusements of his leisure hours, at this period, was the conducting, and superintend- ing the education of his eldest son, whom he placed, first, at the usual public shools at Aberdeen, and, afterwards, at the Marischal college in that city. There, the youth's proficiency in the various branches of classical learning and philosophy, was uncommonly great. He inherited, no doubt, by nature, an acute genius, which he cultivated by incessant and laborious application. But it cannot be questioned, that much of the uncommon progress which he made in the various branches of science, to which he applied himself, must have been owing to the incalculable advantages which he de- rived from the taste, the learning, and the unremitting attention of so able a preceptor as his father. Of young Beattie, I shall have ample occasion to speak hereafter. In Dr Beattie*s letters to Mrs Montagu, 27th May, 1774, he had mentioned his having received a letter from Dr Priestleyj intim.at- ing his intention of animadverting on the " Essay on Truth." In the following letter Dr Beattie takes farther notice of this subject. LETTER CL DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. Peterhead, 5th August, 1774. .« DR PRIESTLEY'S Preface is come out, without any acknowledgment of the information conveyed to him in my letter. But he has written to me on the occasion, and says, he will publish my letter in that book which he is preparing, in opposition to the " Essay on Truth," as he thinks such a letter will do me honour. He praises the candour and generosity which, he says, appear in my letter, and seems to be satisfied, that I wrote my book with a good intention ; which is the only merit he allows me, at least he mentions no other. He blames me exceedingly for my want of LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 351 moderation, and for speaking, as I have done, of the moral influence of opinions. He owns, that his notions, on some of the points in which he differs from me, are exceedingly unpopular, and likely to continue so, and says, that perhaps no two persons, professing Christianity, ever thought more differently, than he and 1 do. It is a loss to me, he seems to think, that I have never been acquainted with such persons, as himself, and his friends, in England : to this he is inclined to impute the improper style I have made use of on some subjects ; but he hopes a little reflection, and a candid exami- nation of what he is to write against me, will bring me to a better way of thinking and speaking. His motive for entering the lists with me, is no other, he says, than " a sincere and pretty strong, " though perhaps a mistaken regard to truth.'* This is the sub- stance of his letter, as I understand it. There are indeed some things in it, which I do not distinctly understand j and therefore, I believe, I shall not at present make any reply. He does not tell me, what the points of difference between us are : but I find from some reports, that have penetrated even to this remote corner, that he has taken some pains to let it be known, that he is writing an answer to my book. A volume of his " Institutes of Religion" lately fell into my hand, which is the first of his theological works I have seen ; and, I must confess, it does not give me any high opinion of him. His notions of Christianity are indeed different from mine ; so very different, that I know not whether I should think it necessary or proper to assume the title of a christian, if I were to think and write as he does. When one proceeds so far, as to admit some parts of the Gospel History, and reject others ; as to suppose, that some of the facts, recorded by the Evangelists of our Saviour, may reasonably be disbelieved, and others doubted ; when one, I say, has proceeded thus far, we may without breach of charity conclude, that he has within him a spirit of paradox and presump- tion, which may prompt him to proceed much further. Dr Priest- ley's doctrines seem to me to strike at the very vitals of Christian- ity. His success in some of the branches of natural knowledge seems to have intoxicated him, and led him to fancy, that he was master of every subject, and had a right to be a dictator in all: for in this book of his, there is often a boldness of assertion, followed by a weakness of argument, which no man of parts would adven- ture upon, who did not think that hi^ word would be taken for a law. 252 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. I am impatient for the appearance of his book against me ; as I can- not prepare matters for a new edition of the " Essay on Truth," till I see what he has to say against it. " I have not seen Dr Gerard's " Essay on Genius." I know the author very well, for I studied philosophy under him ; he is a man of great worth, learning, and good sense. His " Essay on " Taste" (which you have probably seen) was well received ; and I am confident, there will be many good things in this new work, T^otwithstanding the unpromising and hackneyed title." In the course of the year 1774, Dr Priestley published his promised work, by the title of " An Examination of Dr Reid*s In- " quiry into the Human Mind, on the Principles of Common " Sense ; of Dr Beattie's Essay on the Nature and Immutability of "Truth; and of Dr Oswald's Appeal to Common Sense, in behalf " of Religion ;" in which he has violently attacked the doctrines of these philosophers. To each of them Dr Priestley had sent a letter, containing a sheet of his introduction, and announcing his intention of animad- verting on their works. To that letter, as has been seen, Dr Beattie had written an answer, in which he had stated certain posi- tions, which, if Dr Priestley attributed to him, Dr Beattie insisted, were no where to be found, either expressed, or implied, in any part of his works. This letter, Dr Priestley has very candidly in- serted, in an appendix to his " Examination." Although Dr Priestley treats these three eminent authors with great contempt, yet he speaks of Dr Beattie with most moderation. He believes, he says, that Dr Beattie wrote his "Essay on the "Nature and Immutability of Truth," with the very best intention in the world. And that it was nothing but his zeal in the most excellent cause, that of religion, which betrayed him into rash cen- sures, and into a mode of reasoning, which Dr Priestley cannot help thinking to be very prejudicial to the cause of that very truths which he means to support, and favouring that very scepticism, which he imagined he was overthrowing. I believe farther, continues Dr Priestley, and I most sincerely rejoice in it, that Dr Beattie's " Treatise" has done a great deal of LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 253 good to the cause of religion ; and I hope it will still continue to do so, with a great majority of those who are most in danger of being seduced by the sophistry of Mr Hume, and other modem unbelievers ; I mean with superficial thinkers^ who are satisfied with seeing superficial objections answered, in a lively, though a superficial manner. But there is danger, he adds, lest other persons, of greater pene- tration, finding, that Dr Beattie argues on fallacious unphilosophical principles, should reject at once, and without farther examination, all that he has built upon them. With respect to such persons, it may be of importance to show, Dr Priestley continues, that religion, though assailed from so many quarters as it has been of late, is under no necessity of taking refuge in such untenable fortresses, as Dr Reid, Dr Beattie, and Dr Oswald, have provided for her ; but that she may safely face the enemy on his own ground, oppos- ing argument to argument, and silencing sophistry by rational discussion. And as he believes Dr Beattie, he says, to be a man of candour, he doubts not, but he will himself take in good part his free animadversions. If truth be really our object, continues Dr Priestley, as it is in the titles of our books, and we be free from any improper bias, we shall rejoice in the detection of error, though it should appear to have sheltered itself under our own roofs. I am very serious, he goes on, when I add, that such a degree of candour and impartiality may be more especially expected of Christians^ and, more especially still, of those who stand forth as champions in the cause of Christianity, which is at the same time the cause of the most important truth, and of the most generous and distin- guished virtue.* The declaration with which Dr Priestley prefaces his Examina- tion of the " Essay on Truth," has, no doubt, an appearance of candour and moderation, which, however, does not very well agree with the manner in which he has conducted his attack. Indeed, no two writers were ever more opposite to each other in their modes of thinking on the most interesting subjects. Dr Priestley was an avowed Socinian ; a staunch believer in the doctrine of necessity ; and, though he admitted the great pillar of Christianity, the resur- Tection of the dead, yet he subscribed to the doctrine of material- * Priestley's Remarks on Dr Beattie's Essay, p. 115. 254 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. ism.* In all this, and in many other particulars, the principles of Dr Beattie were the very reverse. The attack of Dr Priestley, however, gave him no concern. He appears, indeed, by his corres- pondence with his friends, to have formed, at first, the resolution of replying to it ; and he speaks as if he had already prepared his materials, and of being altogether in such a state of forwardness, as to be fully ready for the task. On farther consideration, how- ever, he abandoned the idea, and he no doubt judged wisely. For, while Dr Priestley's " Examination" is now never heard of, the '* Essay on Truth" remains a classical work, of the highest repu- tation and authority. In the following letter to one of his young friends, Dr Beattie speaks of the style of Addison, a topic on which he delighted to enlarge. Of the prose of that inimitable writer, he could not, in- deed, speak too highly : but of his poetry, Dr Beattie's judgment seems to be too severe. While, on the other hand, most readers, I believe, will think his praise of the Comedy of" The Drummer," not a little extravagant. In this letter, Dr Beattie mentions the story, which Pope and his friends certainly believed, that the first book of the " Iliad" was either translated by Addison himself in opposition to Pope, or if by Tickell, under Addison's direction. But of this no clear proof has ever been produced, nor any thing else than some slight and vague suspicions, of no authority. The learned Dr Hurd, the present Bishop of Worcester, in his Life of Warburton, Bishop of Glou- cester, has given an acute and ingenious dissertation on the subject, in which he strongly vindicates Addison from the charge brought against him by Pope and his friends, and shows, with every ap- pearance of probability, that the translation was TickelFs own, and most likely begun by him before he knew any thing of Pope's un- dertaking. Dr Hurd adds some curious conjectures as to the cause of Pope's entertaining the suspicion, respecting this transla- tion by Tickell, of which his Lordship has in his library a printed copy, wherein are entered many criticisms and remarks in Pope's • Preface to '• Disquisitions relating to matter and spirit," p. xiii. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 955 awn hand ; and from two of these, compared together, the Bishop thinks the true ground of Pope's suspicion may, with great plausi- bility, be collected. He farther says, that on mentioning these circumstances to the Bishop of Gloucester, that prelate owned himself so much satisfied, that he declared, if he lived to publish a new edition of the works of Pope, he should omit the charge against Addison.* In this letter to Mr Cameron, Dr Beattie, who could know nothing of this dissertation of the Bishop of Worcester's, because it was not printed till long afterwards, agrees exactly in opinion with the learned prelate, as to the versification of that first book of the " Iliad" being unworthy of Addison; and if Dr Beattie ever saw the dissertation, he must have rejoiced to find the memory of his favourite author so successfully vindicated, against this malig- nant reproach. The unfortunate quarrel between Pope and Addi- son, which gave occasion to one of the severest and most elo- quent satires in the whole range of English poetry,t is well known. Letter oil DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. MR WILLIAM CAMER0N.:|: Aberdeen, 22d September, 1774. " YOUR judgment of Addison is quite right. His prose is most elegant, and deserves to be carefully studied for the style, as well as for the matter. But his poetry is in general cold, and pro- • Life of Bishop Warburton, prefixed to the edition of his works in quarto, p. 56 — 63. f Pope's Works, Vol. IV. p. 17. Prologue to the Satires, I. 193. :|: Minister of the parish of Kirk-Newton, in the county of West-Lothian. Having- studied at Marischal-coUege, Aberdeen, he had been a pupil of Dr Beattie*s, who ever after entertained for him much esteem, as Mr Cameron, in return, regarded Dp Beattie with sentiments of the warmest enthusiasm. Mr Cameron had early discovered a considerable degree of poetical genius, of which he has given no unfavourable specimen, in a small collection of poems, prmted some years ago. The instructions to young students, in this letter, are excellent. 356 • LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. saic, and inharmonious. Yet his tragedy of " Cato" has great merit ; and his comedy of " The Drummer'* is, in my opinion, one of the best dramatic pieces in our language. He attempted a translation of Homer, and actually published the first book of it, under Tickell's name, in opposition to Pope's ; but the performance is altogether unworthy of Addison, and totally destitute of the fire, and energy, and harmony of Homer. " Your studies are in an excellent train. Read the classics day and night, till you make yourself master of them. Exercise your- self in frequent compositions in English prose. Write your thoughts on every subject, and carefully keep what you write. Attend to the phraseology of the best English writers, with a view to correct and improve your English style. We Scotsmen find it a very difficult matter to get rid of the barbarisms of our native dialect." LETTER CIIL MRS MONTAGU TO DR BEATTIE. Hill-Street, January mil, 1775. " I APPROVE greatly of what you have said of Lord Ches- terfield's letters ; truth, so elegantly and concisely expressed, will make an impression on the head and heart, and efface the false principles those letters had introduced into the minds of the unwary. " Lord Chesterfield was an example of the justice of your asser- tion, that if men believed one another to be knaves and hypocrites, politeness of language and attitude, instead of being graceful, would appear as ridiculous as the chattering of a parrot, or the grinning of a monkey. For the moment we are pleased with the imitation of sounds and gesture ia the parrot or the ape, but that pleasure not arising from apprehension of some sentiment, ex- pressed by voice or action, though we admire the art which effects the imitation, sympathies and affections are quite out of the ques- tion. Thus, all the world admired the politeness of Lord Chester- field, and acknowledged the elegance of his civilities ; they felt, at LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. Mt the time, a soothing sweetness in his conversation ; but all this was perfectly void of any mutual endearment, and they parted on the same terms as the audience and a musician ; the first admiring the art which for a moment excited sentiment, unfelt by the artist ; the other pleased with the impression he had made by the ener- gies of his peculiar skill. " I perfectly agree with you, that Dr Hawkesworth said many rash things in his works. I believe he was a good Christian, but not having had a literary education, he was not systematical ; th^ human mind is liable to strange starts, if it has not been in early and good training. If voyages were well written, they would admirably evince the regular government and superintendence of providence, but ignorance, rashness, and a love of novelty, and the marvellous, makes them operate in a different direction. " I am sure you will rejoice to hear the Dutchess of Portland is now well. It has pleased God to preserve still to us an example to the great, and a protector of the unfortunate, and the most amia- ble and valuable of friends. I had the happiness of passing yester- day evening with her, in her private dressing-room, in which I passed many of those youthful hours, which dance away with down upon their feet ; but never did their smoothest pace, and gayest measure, give me such heart -felt delight, as last night's re- flection on the many mercies that had led us both such a series of years, through a period of innocence, to the present time, so that we can look back with pleasure, and forward with hope, and while we remain here, by mercies past, may indulge a wish to cheer each other through the declining path of life." LETTER CIV. DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. DR PORTEUS. Aberdeen, 4th March, 1775. " I HAVE just finished a hasty perusal of Dr Johnson's journey. It contains many things worthy of the author, and is, on the whole, very entertaining. His account of "the Isles" is, I 2 K 258 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. dare say, very just ; I never was there, and therefore can say nothing of them, from my own knowledge. His accounts of some facts, relating to other parts of Scotland, are not unexceptionable. Either he must have been misinformed, or he must have misun- derstood his informer, in regard to several of his remarks on the improvement of the country. I am surprised at one of his mis- takes, which leads him once or twice into perplexity, and false conjecture: — he seems not to have known, that, in the common language of Scotland, Irish and Earse are both used to denote the ispeech of the Scots Highlanders; and are as much synonymous (at least in many parts of the kingdom,) as Scotch and Scottish. Irish is generally thought the genteeler appellation, and Earse the vulgar and colloquial. His remarks on the trees of Scotland, must greatly surprise a native. In some of our provinces, trees cannot be reared by any method of cultivation we have yet discovered ; in some, where trees flourish extremely well, they are not 7nuch cultivated, because they are not necessary : but in others, we have store of wood, and forests of great extent, and of great antiquity. I am sorry to see in Johnson some asperities, that seem to be the effect of national prejudice. If he thinks hijaiself thoroughly acquainted with the character of the Scots as a nation, he is greatly mistaken. The Scots have virtues, and the Scots have faults, of which he seems to have had no particular information. I am one of those who wish to see the English spirit and English manners prevail over the whole island : for I think the English have a generosity and openness of nature, which many of us want. But we are not all, without exception, a nation of cheats and liars, as Johnson seems willing to believe, and to represent us. Of the better sort of our people, the character is just the reverse. I admire Johnson's genius ; I esteem him for his virtues ; I shall ever cherish a grate- ful remembrance of the civilities I have received from him : I have often, in this country, exerted myself in defence both of his charac- ter and writings : but there are in this book several things which I cannot defend. His unbelief, in regard to Ossian, I am not sur- prised at ; but I wonder greatly at his credulity in regard to the second-sight. I cannot imagine, on what grounds he could say, that, in the universities of Scotland, every master of arts may be a doctor when he pleases. I never heard of such a thing, and I have been connected with our universities, ever since I was a l)oy. Our LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 25^ method of giving doctors' degrees I do not approve of ; but we proceed on a principle quite different from what Dr Johnson mentions." LETTER CV. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Gatton-park, near Ryegate, 27th June, 1775. " I WOULD have written to you long ago, if I had had time to write a long letter ; but for six or seven weeks after I came to town, I was so constantly engaged with company, that I had no lei- sure at all. The greatest part of that time, I lodged with my friend Dr Porteus, at Lambeth, who did every thing in his power to amuse and entertain me. His conversation is cheerful, and occasionally even sportive : He is warm and zealous as a friend, kind, gentle, and polite as a companion. He is now gone to reside at one of his livings in the country, whither he earnestly wished us to follow him ; but I am afraid we shall see him no more this summer. We are now with Sir William Mayne, at one of the finest places I have ever seen ; a place adorned with every charm that hill and dale, lawn and grove, wood and water, can bestow, and which wants no- thing but cataracts, precipices, barren mountains, and a view of the sea, to make it super-eminent in every rural beauty. But though we have not the sea, we have a boundless prospect of a rich coun^ try, extending upwards of thirty miles. Here I have made it my business to be as idle as possible, in order to indemnify myself for the fatigue and bustle of London : and since I canie hither, my health has improved greatly. Mrs Beattie is also much better. But we must soon think of returning to the north, as we wish to be in Aberdeen early in August, and have many visits to make hy thp way. " During my stay in London, I visited most of my old friends, and made several new acquisitions, particularly among the bishops and clergy, who all shewed me a degree of attention, far superior to my deservings. I have been at court too, where the King (who knew me at first sight) was pleased to speak to me very graciously, 260 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. asking me several questions about my studies, and observing', that I looked much better than when he saw me last. " You will no doubt be curious to hear something of Priestley. I have not yet met with, nor heard of, one single person, who does not blame his book against Dr Reid and me. Even those of his admirers, who think favourably of his arguments, condemn the spirit of that performance. But the book has attracted very little notice, and would seem at present to be in a fair way of being spee- dily forgotten, notwithstanding the pains taken by its author to puff it away in newspapers. My inclination was (as I told you) to pub- lish a pamphlet in direct answer to it. But I now begin to think, that will be unnecessary, and will only give scope to further contro- versy, Dr Priestley having already declared, that he will answer whatever I may publish in my own vindication ; and being a man who loves bustle and book-making, he wishes above all things that I should give him a pretext for continuing the dispute. To silence him by force of argument, is, I know, impossible. He would still fell upon new modes of misrepresentation, and would still find it an easy matter to make a book, which should seem plausible to his implicit admirers, or to those who had entered but slightly into the subject. All my friends here have been urging me not to answer him ; and have told me, what I know is true, that his work cannot possibly do me any harm, that it has been little read, and will soon be forgotten ; that he is a man of that sort, that it is even credita- ble (on moral and religious subjects at least) to have him for an adversary ; and that I cannot gratify him more, than by writing against him. All this, I say, I know to be true ; yet I am not en- tirely of their opinion, who think that I ought to neglect him alto- gether. I therefore propose to take a middle course ; and, with- out making any formal answer to Dr Priestley, to write something by way oi general answer to those objections to my doctrine that have appeared hitherto in pamphlets or newspapers : observing, at the same time, that 1 do not think it worth while to reply to the abuse ^hat has been thrown out against me, or to those misrefiresentations of my meaning^ which some authors, particularly Dr Priestley, Jj^y^ thought proper to obtrude upon the world/' J LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 361 LETTER CVL DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. DR PORTEUS. St James's Square, July 9th, 1775. " DR MA JENDIE has just returned to me the letter I wrote, declining the offer of the Church-living. I send it to you enclosed. He gave it to the Queen, who condescended to read it over from beginning to end, and was then pleased to say, " That it was a very " sensible letter, and did me much honour." I was anxious, that my reasons for choosing to continue a layman, should be known at court J as a report hajs been circulating, that I declined church- preferment in England, because I could not reconcile myself to the doctrines and discipline of the Church : — a report, which those who know me best know to be ill-founded. I admire the Church of England, on many accounts. I think I could, with a clear con- science, live and die a member, or even a minister of it. Its doc- trines seem to me to be those of Christianity : its rites and cere- monies I greatly approve of, and the constitution of its hierarchy is equally favourable to the interests of religion, and the civil go- vernment of this country." LETTER CVII. DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. Aberdeen, 17th. August, 1775. " AFTER passing a few days with our friends at Edinburgh, we proceeded northwards, and arrived here in safety about ten days ago. The last stage of our journey was distinguished by an accident, which, if Providence had not interposed, would have made it the last stage of our life. The iron axle of the chaise snapt suddenly in two, and the carriage was thrown upon its side, within two feet 262 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. of the brink of a precipice, thirty yards deep. Here we lay for a few moments, with the horses flouncing about us, till at last, partly by the harness giving way, and partly by the activity of the posti- lion, they were disengaged from the carriage, and went off at full speed. An English gentleman, on horseback, was then in sight be- hind us, who immediately galloped up, and in the most humane manner enquired, whether he could be of any service ; and, having seen us fairly rescued from our shattered vehicle, remounted his horse, galloped back to the inn, and soon returned with another chaise. " I have begun my transcribing, which, even if I had nothing to do in the way of correction, would take up some hours of every day, for months to come. I have made many attempts at a pre- face to my quarto volume ; but have not as yet been able to please myself. It seems to me, that the best way to obviate all objections, and to prevent mistakes, in regard to this publication, is to give a short and honest account of the plain matter of fact. This I have endeavoured to do in the inclosed paper, with which, if you approve of it, I intend to begin my preface. The sequel will contain some account of the additional essays, and of the improvements in this edition of the " Essay on Truth." " To make some amends for the terrifying incident, recorded in the first part of this letter, I shall now mention a pleasing one, which was told me by a gentleman of this country, a friend of mine, who lately went to Stratford upon Avon, to pay his duty at the shrine of the man of Warwickshire. You certainly know, that Gar- rick erected a statue of Shakespeare, in a niche in the wall of the town-house, facing the street. As my friend was contemplating this statue, he saw, perched on one of the hands, a dove, which, at first he took for an emblem, as the creature was quite motionless ; but which, in a little time, began to move, and scramble upwards, till it reached the bosom of the statue, in which, as in its home, it nestled, with great appearance of satisfaction. Charles Boyd, Lord Erroll's brother, has, I hear, composed a little poem on the subject, of which I shall send you a copy, as soon as I have seen the author. If Mr Garrick comes in your way, before you leave England, I am sure he will be pleased with this little narrative. " The day after I returned home, I visited the little man, whose magnanimity you are pleased to reward, in so generous a manner, LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 263 I fotind him in great want of clothes, and very infirm ; for he is now of a great age. I told him that a lady in England had desired me to give him some money. This very interesting news he re- ceived with much composure, but implored, with great fervour, the blessing of Heaven upon his benefactress. I have not seen him since that time. Since the days of chivalry, I do not suppose that any lady has had so complete a dwarf, as you, madam, have now at your service ; for I cannot think that he is full three feet high." LETTER CVIIL MRS MONTAGU TO DR BEATTIE. Tunbridge-wells, September 3d, 1773. " IT was not without trembling and horror, I read the ac- count of your overturn, and the dangerous circumstances with which it was attended. The traveller, who is obliged to traverse a pathless wilderness, or in a frail boat to cross the angry ocean, de- voutly prays to the Omnipotent, to assist and preserve him ; the occasion awakens his fears, and animates his devotion ; but it is only from experience and reflection we are taught to consider every day, which passes in safety, and closes in peace, as a mercy. If I had known when you had set out from Denton, how near to a pre- cipice you would have been thrown, I should more earnestly have prayed for your preservation through the journey ; but the inci- dent at once makes me sensible, that our safety depends, not on the road, but the hand that upholds and guides us. " I left Denton the first day of August. On the second, by noon, I reached the episcopal palace of our friend, the Archbishop of York,* at Bishop's Thorpe. I had before visited him at his family-seat at Brodsworth. The man, who has a character of his own, is little changed by varying his situation ; I can only say, that at his family-seat, I found him the most of a prelate of any gentle- man, and at his palace, the most of a gentleman I had ever seen. ♦ Honoiu-able Dr Hay Dnimmond, at that time Archbishop of York, 264 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. Native dignity is the best ground-work of assumed and special dig- nity. We talked a great deal of you ; the subject was copious and pleasant. We considered you, as a poet, with admiration ; as a philosopher, with respect ; as a Christian, with veneration ; and as a friend, with affection. His Grace's health is not quite whgt we could wish. 1 could indulge myself in no longer than one day's delay at Bishop's Thorpe. I then made the best of my way to Lon- don, and after a very short stay there, came to Tunbridge. I have the happiness of having Mrs Carter in my house, and Mrs Vesey is not at a quarter of a mile's distance ; thus, though I live secluded from the general world, I have the society of those I love best. I pro- pose to stay here about three weeks, then I return to London, to prepare for my expedition to the south of France. I have written to a gentleman at Montauban to endeavour to get for me a large house, in any part of that town. I am assured that the climate of Montauban is very delightful ; the air is dry, but not piercing, as at Montpelier. There is but little society, but there are some pro- vincial noblesse^ amongst whom I hope to find some who are more in the ton of Louis XI V's court, than I should at Versailles. It is long before the polished manners of a court, arrive at the distant regions of a great country ; but when there, they acquire a per- manent establishment. At Paris, the minister, or the favourite of the day, is taken for the model, and there is a perpetual change of manners. I think with some pleasure of escaping the gloom of our winter, and the bustle of London, and passing my time in the bless- ings of cheerful tranquillity, and soft sunshine ; at the same time, there is something painful in removing so far from one's dearest friends. " I wish much to see the verses on the pretty incident of the dove's alighting on Shakespeare's statue. Of whatever nature and disposition the animal had been, he might have been presented as a symbol of Shakespeare. The gravity and deep thought of the bird of wisdom ; the sublime flight of the eagle to the starry regions, and the throne of Jove; the pensive song of the nightingale, when she shuns the noise of folly, and sooths the midnight visionary ; the pert jack-daw, that faithfully repeats the chit-chat of the market or the shop ; the skylark, that, soaring, seems to sing to the deni- zens of the air, and set her music to the tone of beings of another region, — would all assort with the genius of universal Shakespeare." LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 265 LETTER CIX. DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. Aberdeen, inh September, 1775. " YOUR reflections on the little disaster, with which our journey concluded, exactly coincide with mine. * I agree with Hawkesworth, that the peril and the deliverance are equally provi- dential ; and I wonder he did not see that both the one and other may be productive of the very best effects. These little accidents and trials are necessary to put us in mind of that superintending goodness, to which we are indebted for every breath we draw, and of which, in the hour of tranquillity, many of us are too apt to be forgetful. -But yoii, madam, forget nothing which a Christian ought to remember ; and therefore I hope and pray that Providence may defend you from every alarm. By the way, there are several things, besides that preface to which I just now referred, in the writings of Hawkesworth, that shew an unaccountable perplexity of mind in regard to some of the principles of natural religion. I observed, in his conversation, that he took a pleasure in ruminating upon riddles, and puzzling questions, and calculations ; and he seems to have carried something of the same temper into his moral and theological researches. His " Almoran and Hamet" is a strange confused narrative, and leaves upon the mind of the reader some disagreeable impressions in regard to the ways of providence ; and from the theory oipity^ which he has given us somewhere in the " Adventurer," one would suspect that he was no enemy to the philosophy of Hobbes. However, I am disposed to impute all this rather to a vague way of thinking, than to any perversity of heart or understanding. Only I wish, that in his last work he had been more ambitious to tell the plain truth, than to deliver to the world a wonderful story. I confess, that from the first I was in- clined to consider his vile portrait of the manners of Otaheiie, as in part fictitious ; and I am now assured, upon the very best au- thority, that Dr Solander disavows^ some of those narrations, or at least declares them to be grossly misrepresented. There is, in 2 L 266 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. almost all the late books of travels I have seen, a disposition on the part of the author to recommend licentious theories. I vi^ould not object to the truth of any fact, that is w^arranted by the testimony of competent witnesses. But how few of our travellers are com- petent judges of the facts they relate ! How few of them know any thing accurately, of the language of those nations, whose laws, religion, and moral sentiments, they pretend to describe 1 And how- few of them are free from that inordinate love of the marvellous, which stimulates equally the vanity of the writer, and the curiosity of the reader. Suppose a Japanese crew to arrive in England, take in wood and water, exchange a few commodities ; and, after a stay of three months, to set sail for their own country, and there set forth a history of the English government, religion, and manners: it is, I think, highly probable, that, for one truth, they would deliver a score of falsehoods. But Europeans, it will be said, have more sagacity, and know more of mankind. Be it so : but this advan- tage is not without inconveniencies, sufficient perhaps to counter- balance it. When a European arrives in any remote part of the globe, the natives, if they know any thing of his country, will be apt to form no favourable opinion of his intentions, with regard to their liberties; if they know nothing of him, they will yet keep aloof, on account of his strange language, complexion, and accoutrements. In either case he has little chance of understanding their laws, manners, and principles of action, except by a long residence in the country, which would not suit the view* of one traveller in five thou- sand. He therefore picks up a few strange plants and animals, which he may do with little trouble or danger ; and, at his return to Europe, is welcomed by the literati, as a philosophic traveller of most accu- rate observation, and unquestionable veracity. He describes, per- haps with tolerable exactness, the soils, plants, and other irrational curiosities of the new country, which procures credit to what he has to say of the people ; though his accuracy in describing the miaterial phenomena, is no proof of his capacity to explain the moral. One can easily dig to the root of a plant, but it is not so easy to penetrate the motive of an. action; and till the motive of an action be known, we are no competent judges of its morality, and in many cases the motive of an action is not to be known without a most intimate knowledge of the language and manners of the agent. Our traveller then delivers a few facts of the moral kind, which LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 267 perhaps he does not understand, and from them draws some in- ferences suitable to the taste of the times, or to a favourite hypo- thesis. He tells us of a Californian, who sold his bed in a morning, and came with tears in his eyes to beg it back at night ; whence, he very wisely infers, that the poor Californians are hardly one degree above the brutes in understanding, for that they have neither fore- sight nor memory sufficient to direct their conduct on the most common occasions of life. In a word, they are quite a different species of animal from the European ; and it is a gross mistake to think, that all mankind are descended from the same first parents. But one needs not go so far as to California, in quest of men who sacrifice a future good to a present gratification. In the metro- polis of Great Britain one may meet with many reputed Christians, who would act the same part, for the pleasure of carousing half ^ day in a gin-shop. Again, to illustrate the same important truth, that man is a beast, or very little better, we are told of another na- tion, on the banks of the Orellana, so wonderfully stupid, that they cannot reckon beyond the number three, but point to the hair of their head, whenever they would signify a greater number ; as if four, and four thousand, were to them equally inconceivable. But, whence it comes to pass, that these people are capable of speech, or of reckoning at all, even so far as to three, is a difficulty, of which our historian attempts not the solution. But till he shall solve it, I must beg leave to tell him, that the one half of his tale contradicts the other as effectually, as if he had told us of a people, who were so weak aa to be incapable of bodily exertion, and yet, that he had seen one of them lift a stone of a hundred weight.- — I beg your pardon, madam, for running into this subject. The truth is, I was lately thinking to write upon it ; but I shall not have leisure these many months. " Take no farther concern about your dwarf. The person whom you honour with your notice, I shall always think it my duty to care for. I have let it be known in the town what you have done for him ; which, I hope, will be a spur to the generosity of others. He has paid me but one visit as yet. His wants are few j and he seems to be modest as well as magnanimous. Both virtues certainly entitle him to consideration. " I have not yet seen the verses on Shakespeare and the dove. One thing I am certain of, which is, that they will contain 268 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. nothing so much to the purpose, or so elegant, as what you have said on the occasion, in prose. You justly remark, that any bird of character, from the eagle to the sky-lark, from the owl to the mock- bird, might symbolize with one or other of the attributes of that universal genius, liut do not you think, that his dove-iike qualities arc among those on which he now reflects with peculiar compla- cency ? And I think it could be shown, from many things in his writings, that he res^jmbled the dove, as much as the eagle. There are no surly fellows among his favourite characters ; and he seems to excel himself in the delineation of a good-natured one. Witness his Brutus, who is indeed finished con amove ; and who, in gentle- ness of nature, exceeds even the Brutus of the good-natured Plu- tarch, as this last exceeded, by many degrees, (if we are to believe some creditable historians) the true original Brutus, who fell at Phiiippi. There are besides, in the writings of Shakespeare, innu- merable passages that bespeak a mind peculiarly attentive to the rights of humanity, and to the feelings of animal nature. Lear, when his distress is at the highest, sympathizes with those, who, amidst the pinchings of want and nakedness, are exposed to the tempestuous elements. I need not put you in mind of the fioor se- questered stag in '' As you like it ;'* nor need I say more on a subject, with which you are much better acquainted than I am." LETTER ex. THE REV. PR PORTEUS TO DR BEATTIE. Lambeth, January llth, 177^. " I SHOULD have thanked you much sooner for your last letter, of the 17th of October, if I had not waited for a second from you, which you gave me reason to expect, in a short time after the first. This, I now conclude, has slipped your memory, or has been rendered impracticable, by your many important avocations, which, at this time of the year, I know, are very numerous. I am afraid, too, bad health has had some share in suspending your corresponr dtnce with your friends. I.IFE OF DR BEATTIE. 269 " I congratulate you, and Mrs Beattie, most cordially, on the many dangers you have escaped, since we saw you, both in your own persons, and that of your little boy. Your escape from the precipice, where your chaise was overturned, was really next to miraculous. At least, I am sure, it affords a strong argument in favour of a particular providence, and might very well be opposed to all the profound reasonings of Dr Hawkesworth against it. Though, I suppose the Doctor would have said in your case, as he did in that of the Endeavour on the rock, that, instead of interpos- ing to deliver you out of that danger, it should have taken care to preserve you from ever coming into it. — But where then would have been that strong sense of God's favour and protection, that gratitude and thankfulness for so visible a mark of it, that entire trust and acquiescence in it for the future, which, I am sure, so singular an accident produces in your mind, and must have pro- duced in every mind, not totally devoid of all religious principles^ and devout sentiments ?" LETTER CXL DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. MR JOHN LUNDIE.* Aberdeen, 17th September, \TTS. " I AM much obliged to you for the Latin translation of " Christ's Kirk on the Green." It is, as you observe, vastly in- ferior to Vincent Bourne. I have not had time to read it very criti- cally ; but I should imagine, from what I have seen, that the trans^ lator has not always hit his author's meaning. I know not on what authority we ascribe this old poem to our King James I. If it be his, which I very much doubt, it is surprising that he, a king, and • Minister of the parish of Lonmay in Aberdeenshire, one of the very few remaining of Dr Seattle's earliest friends. My own intimate acquain- tance with this venerable and respectable clerg-yman has subsisted, without interruption, for upwards of half a century. 2V0 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. who had his education in England, should be so well acquainted with the manners of the common people of Scotland."* LETTER CXIL DR BEATTIE TO THE HONOURABLE MR BARON GORDON, f Aberdeen, 6th February, 1776. " I HAVE been very much employed in preparing some little things of mine for the press ; otherwise I should sooner have acknowledged the favour of your most obliging letter. " The last time I read Virgil, I took it into my head, that the tenth and eleventh books of the iEneid were not so highly finished as the rest* Every body knows, that the last six books are less per- fect than the first six ; and I fancied that some of the last six came nearer to perfection than others. I cannot now recollect my rea- sons for this conceit ; but I propose to read the ^neid again, as soon as I have got rid of this publication ; and I hope I shall then be in a condition to give something of a reasonable answer to any question you may do me the honour to propose in regard to that matter. * In the biographical account of our friend Mr Tytler, I have assigned some reasons for believing- 1 King James I. of Scotland to have been the au- thor of " Christ's Kirk on the Green.'* In reply to Dr Beattie's surprise, how that Prince, who had his education in England, could be so well ac- quainted with the manners of the common people of Scotland, it may be ob- served, that James was eleven years of age before he left Scotland. He had therefore ample opportunity of being familiarly conversant with the charac- teristic sports and genius of the people among whom he had been brought up. And as what we see and hear, at that early period, makes the deepest and most lasting impression on the mind, even a captivity of nineteen years, in England, could not obliterate the ideas he had received in early youth, when he returned and took possession of his kingdom, in which he reigned thirteen years, before he was cut offby a foul assasination. t Cosmo Gordon of Cluny, in Aberdeenshire, one of the Barons of his Majesty's Court of Exchequer in Scotland. Possessed of an ample paternal fortune, which, by economy, he had himself considerably improved, he lived X See Appendix, [0.| LIFE OF DR BEATTm. 271 " I do not mean, that the tenth or eleventh books are at all imper- fect ; I only mean, that they fall short of Virgilian perfection. And many passages there are in both, which Virgil himself could not, in my opinion, have made better. Such are the story of Me- zentius and Lausus, in the end of the tenth book ; and that pas- sage in the eleventh, where old Evander meets the dead body of his son. Mezentius is a character of Virgil's own contrivance, and it is extremely well-drawn : an old tyrant, hated by his people, on account of his impiety and cruelty, yet graced with one amiable virtue, which is sometimes found in very rugged minds, a tender affection for a most deserving son. Filial affection is one of those virtues which Virgil dwells upon with peculiar pleasure; he never omits any opportunity of bringing it in, and he always paints it in the most lovely colours, ^neas, Ascanius, Euryalus, Lausus, are all eminent for this virtue ; and Turnus, when he asks his life, asks it only for the sake of his poor old father. Let a young man read the jEneid with take and attention, and then be an undutiful child if he can. I think there is nothing very distinguishing in Camilla. Per- haps it is not easy to imagine more than one form of that character. The adventures of her early youth, are, however, highly interest- ing, and wildly romantic. The circumstance of her being, when an infant, thrown across a river, tied to a jaVelin, is so very singu- lar, that I should suppose Virgil had found it in some history ; and, if I mistake not, Plutarch has told such a story of King Pyrrhus. The battle of the horse, in the end of the eleventh book, is well con- ducted, considering that Virgil was there left to his shifts, and had not Homer to assist him. The speeches of Drances and Turnus are highly animated ; and nothing could be better contrived to with splendid hospitality, and very successfally cultivated letters, and courted the society of men of learning. Having the advantage, himself, of a correct taste, and much classical learning, particularly in the best Roman authors, with whom he was familiarly acquainted, Mr Baron Gordon was a most entertaining companion, as well as excellent correspondent. He was much attached to Dr Beattie, who frequently spent some days with him, at his seat of Cluny, not far from Aberdeen : and to him, jointly with Major Mercer, Mr Arbuthnot, and myself, Dr Beattie dedicated tlie volume of his son's miscellanies, and the account of his life, which was printed soon after his death. I enjoyed the benefit of Mr Baron Gordon's intimate acquain- tance, from a very early period of life. He died in Edinburgh, 19th Novem- ber, IJiOO. 2h LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. raise our idea of ^neas, than the answer which Diomede gives to the ambassadors from the Italian army. " I ought to ask pardon for troubling you with these superficial remarks. But a desire to approve myself worthy of being ho- noured with your commands, has led me into a subject, for which I am not at present prepared. When I have the pleasure to pay my respects to you at Cluny, which, I hope, will be early in the sum- mer, I shall be glad to talk over these matters, and to correct my opinions by yours." LETTER CXIII. DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. MR CAMERON. Aberdeen, 22d February, 1776. " THE objections to the " Essay on Truth," which you hint at, have been often urged by the Edinburgh critics. The reasons, it is not difficult to discover, which make them particularly severe on that performance ; but I have met with more candour and less prejudice elsewhere. Even in Edinburgh, there are many worthy and learned persons, who have done me the honour to approve what I did, with a sincere purpose to advance the cause of truth, and do good to society. " Your good principles, and your good heart, will secure you against the sneers and sophistries of persons, who dislike religion out of prejudice, and are dissatisfied with the evidence of it, which they do not understand, because they have never examined it. Bear always in mind this truth, which admits of the most satisfac- tory proof: No person of a good heart understands Christianity without wishing it to be true : and no person of a good judgment ever studied its evidence, impartially, and with a sincere wish that it might be true, who did not really find it so." In the course of the year 1776, the new edition, in quarto, of his " Essay on Truth," so long expected, made its appearance. Of this publication, by subscription, as the nature and original inten- LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 273 tion of it had been somewhat misunderstood, he had given an ex- planation, in a letter to Lady Mayne,* written soon after the sub- scription was set on foot. Various causes, chiefly his own bad health, had retarded the publication till now. But when at last the book did appear, it amply rewarded the subscribers, and the public, for the delay. To the " Essay on Truth" he gave a preface, (dated 30th April, 1776,) in which he says, that " This new edition " will, it is hoped, be found less faulty than any of the former. " Several inaccuracies are removed, unnecessary words and sen- " tences expunged, a few erroneous passages either cancelled or " rectified, and some new-modelled in the style, which before " seemed too harshly, or too strongly expressed." " But, in " regard to the reasons and general principles of this Essay," he had not, he says, " seen cause to alter his opinion ; though he had " carefully attended to what had been urged against them by " several ingenious authors. Some objection," he adds, " will " perhaps be found obviated by occasional remarks and amend- " ments, interspersed in this edition." He closes his preface, by mentioning an advertisement, prefixed by Mr Hume, to a new edi- tion of his " Essays," in which that writer seems to disown his Treatise of Human Miture^ and desires that those " Essays, as then " published, may be considered as containing his philosophical ** sentiments and principles." In reply to this advertisement, Dr Beattie, after giving an ac- count of the reasons which had at first induced him to publish the " Essay on Truth," goes on to say, " Our author certainly merits " praise for thus publicly disowning, though late, his Treatiae of " Human Kature ; though I am sorry to observe, from the tenor ** of his declaration, that he still seems inclined to adhere to " * most of the reasonings and principles contained in that trea- " tise.* But if he has now at last renounced any one of his er- " rors, I congratulate him upon it, with all my heart. He has " many good, as well as great qualities ; and I rejoice in the hope, " that he may yet be prevailed on to relinquish, totally, a system, " whicii, I should think, would be as uncomfortable to him, as it " is unsatisfactory to others. In consequence of his advertisement, *''• I thought it right to mitigate, in this editiqn, jjome of the cen- • See p. 224. 3v 274 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " sures that more especially refer to the Treatise of Human " Miture : but as that treatise is still extant, and will probably be " read as long at least as any thing I write, I did not think it ex- " pedient to make any material change in the reasoning, or in the <' plan of this performance."* Besides the " Essay on Truth," the volume contains three other essays ; " On Poetry and Music, as they affect the Mind." " On Laughter, and Ludicrous Composition." " On the Utility of " Classical Learning." Subjects in themselves extremely inter- esting to every reader of taste, and all of which he has treated in a very masterly manner.f And to the whole there is prefixed a list of nearly five hundred subscribers, containing the names of many of the most distinguished characters for rank and learning, both in the church and state ; an honourable testimony to the merit of Dr Beattie, and highly creditable to the period in which he lived. LETTER CXrV. PR BEATTIE TO SJR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 2d August, 1776. " YOUR manuscript is perfectly safe. I have read it through, and have written a few remarks (very slight ones indeed) on the first part of it. You have treated of some subjects that are highly important, and withal very difficult. That of Providence I have chiefly in my eye. You treat it with great accuracy and clearness; but you seem to me rather too anxious to get to the bottom of it, and explain it in such a way as shall leave few or no difficulties un- solved. Now, I presume, this is not necessary. The mysteries of Providence are perhaps unsearchable, in some degree, to all created beings. We are not obliged in these matters to be tvise above what is written ; and I know not whether a habit of thinking too deeply • Preface to the edition in 4to of Dr Beattle's Essays, published in \77&, p. ix — xiv. t For some farther account of these essays, see Appendix, [Y.] LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 275 on certain points, may not rather tend to darken, than to illuminate the understanding. It certainly produces a facility of devising ob- jections, which, though we see they are frivolous, may give us a great deal- of trouble. I wish my son to believe what the Scripture declares concerning Providence; butl would not wish him to enter so far into the subject, as ever to be puzzled in his attempts to re- concile Divine decrees with contingency, or the Divine prescience with human liberty. This, however, is only my opinion ; I would not urge it upon you, and perhaps, if I shall ever regain my forn\er health and spirits, I may have less disinclination to these subjects, than I have at present. But I will endeavour to explain myself on this point more intelligibly hereafter." In the following letter to Mr Cameron, Dr Beattie speaks of a plan, at that time in agitation, of a new and improved poetical ver- sion of the Psalms, for the use of the Church of Scotland, of which more will be said hereafter. LETTER CXV. DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. MR CAMERON. Aberdeen, 4tli August, 17^6. " I APPROVE greatly of your design of versifying some passages of Scripture, for the enlargement of our Psalmody. You cannot employ your muse in a way more honourable to yourself, or more useful to your country. The specimen you sent to me, I think extremely good. I returned it, as you desired, ^ > the gentle- man, after marking, with a pencil, a few criticisms which then oc- curred to me. You judge very rightly in regard to the style that is most proper in these compositions. It should be perfectly simple and perspicuous, without any quaintness, and free from all superfluous epithets. At the same time, it should be harmonious srs LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. and elegant, and equally remote from rusticity and affectation. In a word, it should have dignity to please the best judges, and a plain- ness adapted to the meanest capacity. " I received a letter some time ago, from the Secretary of the Committee for the enlargement of the Psalmody, to which I meant to have returned an answer, but have hitherto been prevented by bad health, and an unusual hurry of business. The business is now almost over, but, unhappily, I have not recovered my health : and therefore, I fear, it will be a considerable time before I be in a con- dition to write that answer, which will be a pretty long one, and contain some remarks on the several English versions of the Psalms, with a proposal for a new version to be made, by collecting all the best passages of the other versions. " The ground-work of this new version, ought (I think) to be that which we now use in the Church of Scotland, and which, ac- cording to my notions in these matters, is the best that has yet ap- peared in English ; though it is neither so elegant in the language, nor so perspicuous in the meaning, as it might easily be made. Tate and Brady are too quaint, and where the Psalmist rises to sublimity, (which is very often the case) are apt to sink into bom- bast ; yet Tate and Brady have many good passages, especially in those psalms that contain simple enunciations of moral truth. Sternhold and Hopkins are in general bad, but have given us a few stanzas that are wonderfully fine, and which ought to be adopted in this new version. Watts, though often elegant, and in many re- spects valuable, is too paraphrastical : from him, I would propose, that a good deal should be taken ; but I would not follow him im- plicitly. King James's version, which is the basis of that which we use in Scotland, is, considering the age and the author, surprise ingly good : and in many places has the advantage of ours, not- withstanding that this was intended as an improvement upon it. Now my scheme is, to take the best passages of these versions, and out of them to make a new version. You say, it would be a motley piece of work, if so many authors were concerned in it. I answer, no ; if the collection were judiciously made. Besides, the Psalms themselves are the work of several authors, David, Asaph, Moses, 8cc. — Where then is the absurdity of translating them in the man- ner I hint at ? The version I speak of, I mean only to propose, and give some hints for conducting it; I am not at all qualified for such LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. WTf a work. My ignorance of the Hebrew tongue is alone sufficient disqualification. " I had no hand in the collection of Parafihrases of some pas- sages of Scripture, published about twenty or thirty years ago, and sometimes printed in the end of our Psalm-books. That collection appeared long before I was of age to attempt any sort of composi- tion, either in verse or prose." On the 15th August, 1776, Mr Hume died in Edinburgh, after having been afflicted for more than a twelvemonth with a complaint which he himself believed would prove fatal. His death, therefore,, he had foreseen for some considerable time ; yet his cheerfulness, and composure of mind, remained unabated, and he even exerted, at times, a playful humour, not altogether decorous in so solemn a situation.* The world was not naturally unsolicitous to see, whether Mr Hume, in his dying moments, would express any sentiments dif- ferent from those which he had published in his philosophical writings. But although he retained the full possession of his fa* culties to the last, he preserved a most cautious silence on that subject, and never uttered a word that could indicate whether any change had taken place in his opinions or not. There is every reason to believe, however, that his sentiments remained still the same : for he left for publication, a treatise, entitled, " Dialogues " on Natural Religion," of a similar strain with those which had been printed during his life -time. The following letter was written on occasion of the death of the Reverend Mr Carr, the worthy clergyman of the Episcopal Chapel in Edinburgh, which I attend. The congregation having deter- mined to erect a monument to the memory of their deceased pas- tor, committed the execution of it to Mr Arbuthnot and me. Being anxious to avail ourselves of Dr Beattie's aid, we sent him an in- scription, which seemed to be such as was wished for j but of which we requested the favour of his correction. * Dr Adam Smith's Letter to Mr Strahan, p. xxi^ 278 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. LETTER CXVIL DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Peterhead, 10th September, 177&- " I AM no stranger to Mr Carr's character, whose deaths though I had not the honour of his acquaintance, was a real afflic- tion to me ; for I have long considered him as one of the most valuable men of the age. I have heard him preach, and admired his gentle and pathetic eloquence. But to his merits as a preacher, great ^s they were, the lustre of his private character was still su- perior. The death of such a man is a real loss to society. I sym- pathize particularly with you, my dear sir, on this occasion ; as I have often heard you speak of Mr Carr with such warmth of affec- tion, as shewed you to be deeply interested in his welfare. " I have carefully read over the two inscriptions,* which, with a few trifling remarks of my own, I return enclosed, lest you should not have kept a copy. I think them both excellent ; and I believe it would puzzle a better critic thanl am, to assign any good reason for preferring the one to the other. The elders of your congrega- tion are the only persons who ought to determine this matter ; for they are best acquainted with the merits of the deceased, and they best know what sort of inscription they would wish to see on the walls of their church. For me to attempt to make any material improvement on either, would be great folly, as well as presump- tion. I am in doubt whether it be necessary to mention the sud- • The one written by Mr Arbuthnot, the other by me. From these two, by the help of Dr Beattie's criticisms, we prepared the inscription, which is engraved on a marble tablet, at the south door of our chapel, and of which the following is a copy. It does no more than justice to his character.f t For some further account of this excellent person, see Appendix, [Z.] LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 379 denness of Mr Carr's death.* To so good a man it is of no im- portance whether he expire by degrees, or at once. In the com- mon opinion, sudden death is an evil ; and as such it is considered in the Litany of the church ; and such it would be, no doubt, to the greater part of mankind ; but to Mr Carr, it was rather a good Ifear this Place are deposited The Remains of THE REVEREND GEORGE CARR, Senior Cltrgyman of this Chapel; In Huhom Meekness and Moderation^ Unaffected Piety, and Universal Benevolence , Were equally and eminently conspicuous. After having faithfully discharged the Duties of His sacred Function, During thirty-nine Tears, He died, On the 18th August, 1776, In the 7lst Tear of his Age, Beloved, Honoured, Lamented/ His Congregation, Deeply sensible of the Loss they have sustained By the Death of this excellent Person, By whose nnild yet pathetic Eioauence, By ivhose exem,plary yet engaging Manners, They have been so long instructed in the Duties, and Animated to the Practice, of Pure Religion, Have erected this Monument, To record The Virtues of the Dead and Gratitude of the Living, • Mr Carr's death was instantaneous : as he was preparing^ to officiate on a Sunday morning) as usual. 280 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. than an evil. But my notions in this respect may perhaps be whimsical, and therefore I will not trouble you with them. " You judge very rightly of Dr Campbell's book :* it is indeed a most ingenious performance, and contains more curious matter, on certain topics of ciiticism, than any other book I am acquainted with. " Lord Monboddo's third volume t I have not yet seen. It will certainly be full of learning and ingenuity : but perhaps the au- thor's excessive admiration of the Greek writers may lead him into some paradoxes, and make him too insensible to the merits of mo- dern literature. I have a great respect for Lord Monboddo ; I know him to be a learned and a worthy man ; and I am greatly concerned to see him adopt some opinions, which, I fear, are not very salutary. " But I know nobody that has less occasion than yourself to study these authors, with a view to the formation of a good style. I beg your partiality to me may not so blind you to the faults of mine, as ever to make you think of studying it for a pattern. You are pleased to pay me compliments on this head, which I do not by any means deserve. The style of my letters, whatever you and Mr Arbuthnot may say, is not a good style ; it has nothing of that accuracy, that ease, or that simplicity, which it ought to have. Nay, in the prose I have printed, my expression, after all the pains I have taken about it, is not what I wish it to be : it is too pom- pous, and, I fear, too visibly elaborate ; and there is often a harsh- ness and a stiffness in it, which I would fain avoid, but cannot. Even provincial improprieties, I know, I am not proof against, though few people have been more careful to keep clear of them. The longer I study English, the more I am satisfied that Addison's prose is the best model : and if I were to give advice to a young man on the subject of English style, I would desire him to read that author day and night. I know not what may be the opinion of others ; but, in my own judgment, that part of my writings, which in the article of style has the least demerit, is An Essay on Laughter^ which is now in the press ; yet perhaps my partiality to it may be owing to this circumstance, tliat it is the last thing I corrected.'* • Philosophy of Rhetoric. t Origin and Progress of Language. See p. 17. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 281 The following letter to me was written after my recovery from a dangerous illness. It contains some important observations on a very solemn subject. LETTER CXVII. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 22d January, 1777. " I SHALL not attempt, my dear sir, to tell you, what a transition from grief to happiness I lately experienced, on occasion of your illness and recovery. Your own heart will teach you to conceive it, but I have no words to express it. " The account you give me of your thoughts and feelings, when your disorder was at the height, is very interesting. That insensibility which you complain of, and blame yourself for, is, I believe, common in all similar cases ; and a merciful appointment of Providence it is. By deadening those aifections, to which life is indebted for its principal charm, it greatly alleviates the pangs of dissolution. In fact, the pains of death to a man in health appear much more formidable, than to a dying man. This at least is my opinion ; and I have been led into it by what has been observed, of some people's displaying a fortitude, or composure, at the hour of death, who had all their lives been remarkably timorous and weak- minded. The proximate cause of this, I take to be that same stufior which gradually steals upon our senses, as our dissolution draws near. And that the approach of death should produce this stufior^ needs not surprise us, when we consider, that the approach even of sleep has something of the same effect ; and that the keenness of our passions and feelings, in general, depends very much, even when we are in tolerable health, upon our bodily habit. If sleep is found to disorder our reason, and give a peculiar wildness to our fancy ; if memory may be hurt, as it certainly has been, by a blow on the head ; if a superabundance of certain bodily humours give rise to certain passions in the mind ; if drunkenness divest a man, for a time, of his character, and even of many of his favourite opinions (for I have known a staunch Presbyterian, who was always a Ro- 2 N 2m LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. man Catholic in his liquor) ; if even a full meal gives a languor to the mind, and impairs a little our faculties of invention and judg- ment ; we have good reason to think, that the connection between our soul and body is very intimate ; and may therefore admit the probability of what I now advance, namely, that when the powers jand energies of the human body are disordered by the near ap- proach of death, it is scarcely possible that the soul should perceive or feel with its wonted acuteness. The stu/ior, therefore, you men- tion, was something in which your will had no part, but the natural and necessary effect of a cause purely material. I ask pardon for all this philosophy ; which, however, I cannot conclude, without one remark more ; which is, that this doctrine, if true, ought to be matter of comfort to a good man, as well as an alarm to such as are not of that character. To the former, it promises an easy dissolu- tion ; and it ought to teach the latter, that of all places on earth, a death-bed is the most improper for devotion or repentance. " You smile, perhaps, at the seriousness of these remarks ; but I am led into them by reading your letter, and considering the occa- sion of it. I must repeat, that you are a very severe judge of yourself. You are conscious, you say, of many faults, which the world does not see in you. But you ought to remfcmbei', that every man is frail and fallible; and the virtue even of the best man, must, in order to appear meritorious at the great tribunal, have something added to it, which man cannot bestow. " I must put a stop, however, to the;,se grave remarks j and to descend at once from a very important to a most trifling subject, I shall now speak a word or two, concerning my own works. " It is very kind in you to speak so favourably of these " Essays."* You will see I have not laid claim to much originality^ in these per- formances. My principal purpose was to make my subject plain and entertaining, and, as often as I could, the vehicle of moral in- struction ; a purpose to which every part of the philosophy of the human mind, and indeed of science in general, may, and ought, in my opinion, to be made in some degree subservient. I was very much on my guard against paradoxes ; yet I expect that many of * On Poetry and Music as they afiectthe Mind. On Laughter and Ludicrous Composition. On the Utility of Classical Learning. Printed in 1776^ See Appendix, [A A,] LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 283 ■my opinions, those especially that relate to music and classical learning, will meet with opposition. Mr Tytler writes me word, that he cannot admit all my doctrine on the subject of music ; but, if I rightly understand what he has said very briefly on that subject, I should imagine, that, if he would favour that part of my book with a second perusal, he would find that his notions and mine are noV very different. To me, indeed, they do not seem to differ at all. I should be sorry if they did ; as I believe he knows more of that, as well as of other matters, than I do. I am already sensible of several inaccuracies and defects in my book ; for I was in a most miserable state of health when I sent it to the press : and I know not how it is, that I can never judge rightly of my own style, till I see it in print. If the book comes to a second edition, and if I have health to make any alterations, there are many things which must be cor- rected. I should be glad to hear how it takes with your people in general. " You may believe Dr Porteus's advancement* gives me great pleasure. It was what I did expect, though I am sure he did nqt.. He says in his last letter, " I have reason to believe, that I owe " this advancement principally to the goodness of their Majesties, " who have been graciously pleased to think me deserving of much " higher honours than I had ever the presumption to look up to." When I was in England in 1775, the Doctor told me, that he was not particularly known to the King at that time ; but I told him, I had good reason to believe, that his Majesty esteemed him very highly. Indeed I know no man that better deserves to wear the mitre. He is not older than I am; and I think he looks much younger : but he is exemplary in the discharge of his duty as a cler- gyman, a cheerful pleasant companion, and of the gentlest manners ; he is, withal, an excellent scholar, a most elegant writer, and a man of business. He, and Dr Hurd, Bishop of Litchfield,! are, I think, the best preachers I ever heard. Indeed, before I heard them, I cannot say that I distinctly knew what true pulpit eloquence was. The king seems determined to promote to the Episcopal bench such clergymen only as are most distinguished for piety and learning. * To the Bishoprick of Chester. t Now Bishops of London and Worcester. 284 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. Dr Markham, now Archbishop of York, and the present Bishops of Chester and Litchfield, had not originally any other influence than what their own merit gave them. Dr Hurd was never at Court till he went to kiss the King's hand, on being nominated to the see of Litchfield." LETTER CXVIII. OR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 19th February, 1777'. " I HAVE now, my dear Sir, read over your papers * with all the attention I am capable of, and have made a few, a very few slight remarks in the margin. The perusal has given me very great pleasure, and I beg you will send me the rest as soon as you conveniently can. Every thing you say in regard to the evidence of religion has my most hearty concurrence ; one or two sentences or phrases excepted, which are not at all material. What these are, you will see when I return the papers. I am clearly of opinion that these papers will make a most valuable addition to the book. Mr Jenyns's late treatise, I observe, is a favourite of yours. There is indeed a great deal in it of very solid and ingenious remark ; and I am convinced it will do much good. It were perhaps to be wish- ed, that the author had made fewer concessions to the adversary, and spoken with more respect of the external evidences. But when one takes up a favourite hypothesis or argument, it is hardly possible to avoid carrying it rather too far ; — such is the weakness of human nature, I mean not to object to Mr Jenyns's favourite argument ; it is surely most satisfactory to every candid mind ; and he has done it more justice than any other author I am acquainted with. I only wish his plan would have allowed him to touch upon the external evidences, which ought never to be overlooked by those who would ♦ " Letters on the Religious Belief and Practical Duties of a Christian," written by the author of these Memoirs for the instruction of his children, still in MS. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 285^ acquit themselves as the champions of Christianity. I began a lit- tle Treatise, some years ago, on the evidences of our religion, but have never finished it ; and indeed Mr J.'s Treatise has in part super- seded mine. My meaning was, to make the subject plain and en- tertaining, and suited to all capacities, especially to those of young people. Like Mr Jenyns, I intended only a little book; but it must have been larger than his, because I should have considered but the external and the internal evidence."* LETTER CXIX. DR BEATTIE TO DR PORTEUS, BISHOP OF CHESTER. 2d October, 1777. " I AM much obliged to your Lordship for your entertaining account of the ancient city of Chester, and its neighbourhood. It must certainly be as you observe, well worthy the traveller's atten- tion ; and if it is ever my fortune to revisit the west of England, I shall be inexcusable if I do not direct my course to a place, which I am now, on many accounts, ambitious to be acquainted with. " Of literary matters I can say nothing. The doctor com- manded me, on pain of death, to abstain wholly from writing, and to read nothing but novels, or such books as require no attention. I have followed the prescription most punctually ; and, since my fever in the spring, have not written half-a-dozen pages, (letters included) nor read any thing but Don Quixote, Spenser's Fairy Queen, and Horace, which last I have read over three times. As I have not read Dr Robinson's last work, I cannot form any opinion about it. Lord Kaimes has published a book of agriculture, which, they say, is the best of all his works, Dr Campbell lately printed another excellent sermon, preached at Edinburgh before the " Society for propagating Christian Knowledge." The subject is, " The success of the first preaching of the gospel, a proof of its truth." I shall * This he afterwards most admirably accomplished in his ** Evidences of the Christian Religion," published in 1786. 286 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. have the honour to send your Lordship a copy of this sermon aji soon as I return to Aberdeen. I have read Captain Cooke's pre- face, which gives me a very high opinion of the author : I vi^ish for an opportunity to read the whole book. When a man of sense and spirit publishes the history of his own affairs, the world is a thou- sand times better instructed, than by the most elaborate composi- tions of the mere book-maker." LETTER CXX. THE BISHOP OF CHESTER TO DR BEATTIE. Hunton, November 28th, 1777. « DURING our stay here, Dr ?Robertson*s " History of America" has been part of our evening's amusement. He is, witli- out dispute, a very judicious compiler, and very elegant writer, and seems to have taken great pains in this work to collect all the infor- mation that could possibly be obtained from books and manuscripts, of which he has consulted a considerable number. Of these, some of the most curious were communicated to him by my friend, Lord Grantham, ambassador at Madrid, and his chaplain, Mr Waddilove. But still the grand source of original information was not opened to him ; I mean the letters and papers written to the Spanish court by the first conquerors of America, and all the authentic documents relative to that transaction, which were collected by Philip the Second, and deposited amongst the archives of the Spanish monarchy, at a place called Simanca, near Valladolid, above a hundred miles from Madrid. To these he could obtain no access ; and till these are produced to the world, I shall never sup- pose that we have any history of South America that can be abso- lutely relied upon. As far, however, as Dr Robertson's materials go, he has set them off to the best advantage, and has enlivened them by many ingenious and useful observations on the natural and moral history of the Aborigines of that country. He has, however, I think, missed some opportunities, which this part of his work threw in his way, of drawing a comparison between the state of the ,savage and of the Christian world. He attributes the difference LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 287 between them solely to the improvements of civil society. I am of opinion, that the gospel has had a large share in this happy change ; and it would have been of infinite service to religion, to have had all its beneficial consequences set forth by so fine a pen as Dr Robert- son's. Such incidental arguments, in favour of religion, interspersed occasionally in works of acknowledged merit and reputation, are perhaps of more general use than professed defences of it. The enemies of Christianity have long taken this method of undermin- ing it, and its friends therefore should not be backward in taking the same means to recommend it. Mr Gibbon and the Abbe Raynal have more especially distinguished themselves by this spe- cies of hostility ; for which reason I am sorry that Dr Robertson has paid them both such high compliments as he has done. " I hear of nothing new and important in the literary world that is likely to make its appearance this winter, except a new trans- lation of Isaiah, by Bishop Lowth ; of which the public has raised its expectations very high, from the known abilities and learning of the author. This, I believe, is in very great forwardness. There is also an edition of " Strabo," by Mr Falkner, a gentleman of Chester, every way equal to the undertaking, which is pretty far advanced. Archbishop Markham shewed me, the other day, a collation for him, of a manuscript in the Escurial, made under the direction of Canonico Bayer, and procured by the assistance of I^ord Grantham.'* LETTER CXXL DR BEATTIE TO SYLVESTER DOUGLAS, ESQ. NOW LORD GLENV BERVIE.* >■ Aberdeen, 5th January, 1778. " I AM much entertained with your plan of writing upon the Scottish barbarisms, accent, &c. It is a very extensive one ; * Between whom and Dr Beattie an intimacy, contracted in early life, subsisted mutually, and without interruption, for a long course of years. I also claim the distinction of ranking- Lord Glenbervie among the number of those who have honoured me witli their regard ; and he and I are now two of the very few surviving associates of Dr Beattic's early fvicndsliip. 288 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. and, in your hands, will be very entertaining and useful. Most of the topics you mention have occasionally engrossed my attention. I have written many sheets upon Scotticism, and the structure and rules of our verse, and how far the English tongue is attainable by a native of Scotland, and in what respects it is not attainable (I mean, a person who does not go to live in England till he is grown up). I once intended to publish something on English prosody and versification, but I believe my literary pursuits are all over. Vos^ O quibus integri crvi — Me si cxlicolx voluissent The greatest difficulty in acquiring the art of writing English, is one which I have seldom heard our countrymen complain of, and which I was never sensible of till I had spent some years in labour- ing to acquire that art. It is, to give a vernacular cast to the Eng- lish we write. I must explain myself. We who live in Scotland are obliged to study English from books, like a dead language. Accordingly, when we write, we write it like a dead language, which we understand, but cannot speak ; avoiding, perhaps, all un- grammatical expressions, and even the barbarisms of our country, but at the same time without communicating that neatness, ease, and softness of phrase, which appears so conspicuously in Addison, Lord Lyttelton, and other elegant English authors. Our style is stately and unwieldy, and clogs the tongue in pronunciation, and smells of the lamp. We are slaves to the language we write, and are continually afraid of committing gross blunders ; and, when an easy, familiar, idiomatical phrase occurs, dare not adopt it, if we recollect no authority, for fear of Scotticisms. In a word, ive han- dle English, as a person who cannot fence handles a sword ; con- tinually afraid of hurting ourselves with it, or letting it fall, or mak- ing some awkward motion that shall betray our ignorance. An English author of learning is the master, not the slave, of his lan- guage, and wields it gracefully, because he wields it with ease, and with full assurance that he has the command of it. In order to get over this difficulty, which I fear is in some respects insuperable after all, I have been continually poring upon Addison, the best parts of Swift, Lord Lyttelton, &c. The ear is of great service in these matters ; and I am convinced the greater part LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. ^9t of Scottish authors hurt their style by admiring and imitating one anothea*. At Edinburgh it is currently said by your ci'itical people, that Hume, Robertson, &c. write English better than the English themselves ; than which, in my judgment, there camiot be a greater absurdity. I would as soon believe that Thuanus wrote better Latin than Cicero or Caesar, and that Buchanan was a more elegant poet than Virgil or Horace. In my rhetorical lectures, and whenever I have occasion to speak on this subject to those who pay any regard to my opinion, I always maintain a contrary doctrine, and advise those to study English authors, who would acquire a good English style. " I agree with you, that many of the vulgar words used in Scot- land may be traced to the Saxon, German, Dutch, & c. The French too, and the Erse, come in for their share, especially the former. French etymologies abound most in the counties to the south of Aberdeen, in Mearns, Angus, &c. where you know the natives in their pronunciation have the sound of the French U. I know of no etymological dictionary of this dialect ; but a great deal of the knowledge to be expected in such a dictionary may be found in Ray's " Collection of English Proverbs," but especially in Ruddi- man's " Glossary to Bishop Douglas's Virgil." This last is a most learned piece of lexicography. You will see it in that edition of ** Gavin Douglas," which was printed at Edinburgh in folio, in 17 10. I need not tell you, that the Scottish dialect is different in almost every province. The common people of Aberdeen speak a language, that would scarce be understood in Fife ; and how much the Buchan dialect differs from that of Lothian, may be seen by comparing Ramsay's " Gentle Shepherd" with " Ajax's Speech to the Grecian Knabbs," which you will no doubt remember to have seen in your youth. I have attended so much to this matter, that I think I could know by his speech, a native of Banffshire, Buchan, Aberdeen, Dee-side, Mearns, Angus, Lothian, and Fife, as well as of Ross- shire, and Inverness. " I am inclined to think, that Erse was once the universal language of Scotland. For you find all over the Low-lands, that the names of the old places are almost all derived from that lan- guage. It is remarkable, that on the northern side of that great hollow or &trath^ which we call the Honv of the Mearns^ the names *ef places are generally Erse, and on the south side English or 2 o 290 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. Saxon. This seems to prove, that the former district was first in- habited, which is indeed probable from other circumstances ; for it fronts the sun, and is sheltered from the north wind by the Gram- pian mountains.** ' , As an introduction to the following letter, it may be proper to mention, that not long after Garrick's celebration of the jubilee at Stratford-upon-Avon, in honour of Shakespeare, in the year 1769, some gentlemen at Edinburgh proposed also to celebrate a jubilee in honour of our countryman, Thomson. But there not appear- ing a sufficient number of persons of any note, to give respectability to such a meeting, the idea was laid aside. A few years afterwards, Mr Craig, an architect of some merit, who designed the plan of the new town of Edinburgh, and the hall of the College of Physicians there, a nephew of Thomson's, formed the design of erecting a monument to his memory, at the village of Ednam, on the banks of the Tweed, the place of Thomson's birth, and Dr Beattie was re- quested to write an inscription. The site of the proposed monu- ment was the summit of Ednam hill. This eminence slopes regu- larly and beautifully to the surrounding valley, and commands a most extensive prospect ; so that the intended monument would have been seen for many miles in every direction. But this inten- tion was frustrated by Craig's death. In order, however, that the memory of the poet might not remain altogether unhonoured, se- veral gentlemen, who reside in the neighbourhood of Ednam, have formed themselves into a society, which for some years past has met there annually on the birth day of Thomson. The following letter of Dr Beattie's, besides the inscription, con- tains some excellent remarks on that species of composition. LETTER CXXII. DR BEATTIE TO ROBEllT ARBUTHNOT, ESq. Aberdeen, 22d July, irrs. " MR CRAIG does me too much honour. I am proud t«» be thought of so favourably by so ingenious an artist, and by the nephew of a man who was an honour to his country and to man- LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 291 kind ; and to whose writings I am under very particular obliga- tions : for if I have any true relish for the beauties of nature, I may say with truth, that it was from Virgil and from Thomson that I caught it. The memory of this amiable poet cannot be dearer to any person than it is to me ; and I should be heartily sorry, if the monument, to be erected for him, were not such, in every respect, as he himself would have approved. Mr Craig will, I am sure, make it such in the architecture ; and, if he follow his own ideas, in the inscription too. But since he does me the honour to desire to have my opinion, I shall give it with the greatest sincerity. I think, then, that all public inscriptions, whether intended for tombs, or cenotaphs, or bridges, or any other public building, are made with a view to catch the eye of the traveller, and convey to him, not the wit of the composer, but some authentic information in regard to the object that draws his attention, and is supposed to raise his curiosity. On this principle, all such writings ought to be perfectly simple, and true, and as concise as the subject and language will admit. This is the character of the Greek and Roman inscriptions, which it is a pity the moderns have so rarely imitated : for, in my mind, nothing is more barbarous than those mixtures of verse and prose, of Latin and English, of narration and common-place morality, which appear in our churches and church- yards, and other public places. A Gothic arch supported by Corin- thian pillars, or a statue with painted cheeks and a hat and wig, is not a greater absurdity. To set up a pillar with a Latin inscription, for the information of those who understand no language but Eng- lish, is not less absurd. I never heard of a Greek inscription at Rome, nor of a Latin one at Athens. Latin is perhaps a more durable language than English, and may therefore be used in those inscriptions that are put on the foundation-stones of bx'idges, and hid under ground ; for these, it may be presumed, will not be read till a thousand years hence, when all our modern languages will probably be unintelligible. But I cannot but think, that an Eng- lish inscription, exposed to wind and weather in this climate, will be understood as long as it can be read. I would therefore, hum- bly propose, that what is intended for Thomson's monument should be in English j the tongue which he spoke, and to which his writings do so much honour, and the tongue which all travellers who visit Ednam may be suppose4 to understand : that it should j^ LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. be simple and concise, not in verse (for this appears more likfe ostentation of wit than an authentic record), but in prose, well mo- dulated, totally free from all quaintness, superfluous words, and fiowery ornaments,— something to the same purpose with the fol- lowing, and in a similar style. But observe, that as I do not mean to enter the lists with either of the two great writers,* who have already prepared inscriptions for this work, I offer the following rather as a hint towards one, than as a finished performance. And let nle remark by the way, that I have been mbre devoted to this simplicity of style in public inscriptions, ever since I read a ver- bose and flowery one in Latin, near the banks of Loch Lomond, to the memory of Doctor Smollett. JAMES THOMSON, Author q/'The Seasons, and other excellent Poemsy Which promote piety, Patriotism, Benevolence, and the Love of Nature, Wherever the English Tongue is understood. Was born in this Village, Wth September, 1700. Died 27th August, 1748. And is buried in the Church of Richmond in Surrey. To do honour to the Place of his Birth, And as a Testimony of Veiieration For SQ amiable a Poet, And so illustrious a Kinsman, This monument \ is erected By his Nephenv, James Craig, Architect, " J would have no quotations or verses on the monument ; and I beg leave to say, that the four which you have taken from the epilogue, are not so very elegant in the expression as might be wished, though the meaning is good, and perfectly true. " I beg my best respects to Sir William Forbes, to whom I will write soon, but cannot at present ; as he will see this letter, I con- sider myself as writing to you both. I am much obliged to you fo!r (giving me so candidly your opinion of my two psalms. It has de- ^ Who these were, does not appear. t Ov pillar. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 293 teritiined me to lay aside all thoughts of a project, which, though my health forbade me to undertake it, had been too much in my head of late. For I see now, that my plan, even though executed to my mind, would not please those whom I most wished to please, who best deserved to be pleased, and who, from their partiality to me, would not be easily displeased with any work of mine. I am not sure whether I shall ever publish the letter to Dr Blair, unless I were to make some additions to it, to justify the preference which I give to the Assembly's metre Psalms ;* I mean to their plan, for the execution has all the faults that Sir William Forbes mentions. In England, they commonly make use of a corrected edition of Sternhold and Hopkins ; and I confess I must agree with them so far, as to think that rudeness, which is the effect of simplicity, more pardonable, than those finical embellishments that are owing^ to affectation. But I cannot at present enter upon the reasons that would determine me to reject all paraphrastical additions and flowery ornaments in a version of the Psalms, and adhere to that manly (I ought to have said divine) and most expressive simpli- city, which characterize the original.**! LETTER CXXIIL DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 22d November, 177Z. " DURING this long confinement, I have often been forced to have recourse to my pen and ink, in order to forget my anxiety for a few minutes. But though I could transcribe and correct a little, 1 was in a very bad state f<)r composition. However, since March last, I have written in a fair hand about 370 pages. In this collection there are (besides other matters) three essays, on " Me- • That version authorized by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. t See what he himself has said on this subject, in Letter II. p. 39. 29-4 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. mory,'* on " Imagination," and on " Dreaming," on which I set some'value. I shall read them to my class very soon ; they will make about ten lectures, of an hour each. In treating of Memory and Imagination, I have endeavoured, not only to ascertain their phenomena and laws, but also to propose rules for improving the former faculty, and for regulating the latter. The view I have taken of Dreaming is new, so far as I know. I have attempted to trace up some of the appearances of that mysterious mode of per- ception to their proximate causes ; and to prove, that it is in many respects useful to the human constitution. On all subjects of this nature, I have constantly received more information from my own experience than from books. ** One of the next faculties that come in my way is Conscience, or the moral faculty ; on which I have in writing a great number of unfinished observations. If I live to finish what I intend on this subject, I shall probably attempt a confutation of several erroneous principles that have been adopted by modern writers of morals, but without naming any names ; and it is not unlikely, that I may in- terweave the substance of what I wrote long ago, at greater length, on the unchangeableness of Moral Truth. But winter will be over before I can seriously set about it ; and perhaps the state of my health may oblige me to drop the scheme altogether. However, I do not repent what I have hitherto done, in transcribing and cor- recting my lectures ; for I have been careful to make it an amuse- ment rather than a task ; whence I have reason to think, that my health has not been injured by it. " I have been reading lately a most extraordinary work, which I did read once before, but (I know not how) had totally forgotten. The " History of Benvenuto Cellini," a Florentine goldsmith and designer, translated from the Italian by Thomas Nugent. There is something in it so singularly characteristical, that it is impossible to reject the whole as fabulous, and yet it is equally impossible not to reject a great part of it as such. To reconcile this, I would suppose, what the work itself strongly evinces, that the author must have been an ingenious, hot-headed, vain, audacious man ; and that the violence of his passions, the strength of his superstition, and the disasters into which he plunged himself, made him mad in the end. We know that the Italians of the 16th century were very ingenious in every thing that relates to drawing and designing ; but it cannot LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 295 be believed, that Popes, Emperors, and Kings, were so totally- engrossed with those matters as Signior Cellini represents them. If you have never seen the book, I would recommend it as a curi- osity, from which I promise that you will receive amusement. Nay, in regard to the manners of those times, there is even some instruction in it." LETTER CXXIV. DR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDON.* Aberdeen, lOth January, 1779. " MAJOR MERCER made me very happy with the news he brought from Gordon-Castle, particularly when he assured me that your Grace was in perfect health. He told me too, that your soli- tude was at an end for some time ; which, I confess, I was not sor- ry to hear. Seasons of recollection may be useful ; but when one begins to find pleasure in sighing over Young's "Night Thoughts" in a corner, it is time to shut the book, and return to the company. I grant, that, while the mind is in a certain state, those gloomy ideas give exquisite delight ; but their effect resembles that of in- * Jane, Dutchess of Gordon, daughter of Sir William Maxwell of Mon- reith. Baronet, in the county of Wigton, in Scotland. Her Grace, the honour of whose intimate acquaintance I have long had tlie happiness to enjoy, dis- tinguished Dr Beattie, during many years, by her friendship and correspon- dence, which were returned on his part by every respectful sentiment of esteem and admiration. While he was charmed by her beauty, the brilliancy of her wit, and her cultivated understanding, the Dutchess of Gordon well knew how to appreciate the talents and the virtues of Dr Beattie ; and these letters, selected from a great number, during a long epistolary intercourse, strongly evince the warmtli of his gratitude for her unremitting kindness and attention on every occasion. Indeed, so tenderly solicitous was the Dutchess of Gordon at all times to sooth his sorrows, and dissipate those gloomy ideas that preyed upon his mind, that he found consolation and relief in the free interchange of thoughts with which her good nature delighted to indulge him : And he has often been heard to say, that he was never more Iiappy than in the society he found at Gordon.Castle. 29B LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. toxication upon the body ; they may produce a temporary fit of fever- ish exultation, but qualms, and weakened nerves, and depression of spirits, are the consequence. I have great respect for Dr Young, both as a man and as a poet ; I used to devour his " Night Thoughts" with a satisfaction not unlike that which, in my younger years, I have found in walking alone in a church-yard, or in a wild moun- tain, by the light of the moon, at midnight. Such things may help to soften a rugged mind ; and I believe I might have been the bet- ter for them. But your Grace's heart is already " too feelingly alive to each fine impulse ;" and, therefore, to you I would recom- mend gay thoughts, cheerful books, and sprightly company : I might have said com}iany without any limitation, for wherever you are, the company must be sprightly. Excuse this obtrusion of ad- vice. We are all physicians who have arrived at forty ; and as I have been studying the anatomy of the human mhid these fifteen years and upwards, I think I ought to be something of a soul-doc- tor by this time. " When I first read Young, my heart was broken to think of the poor man's afflictions. Afterwards, I took it into my head, that where there was so much lamentation there could not be excessive suffering ; and I could not help applying to him sometimes those lines of a song, " Believe me, the shepherd but feigns ; ** He's wretched, to show he has wit.'* On talking with some of Dr Young's particular friends in England, I have since found that my conjecture was right ; for that, while he was composing the " Night Thoughts," he was really as cheer- ful as any other man. " I well know the effect of what your Grace expresses so pro- J)erly, of a cold yes returned to a warm sentiment. One meets with it often in company ; and, in most companies with notliing else. And yet it is perhaps no great loss, upon the whole, that one's enthusiasm does not always meet with an adequate return. A disappointment of this sort, now and then, may have upon the mind an effect something like that of the cold bath upon the body ; it gives a temporary shock, but is followed by a very delightful glow as soon as one gets into a sopiety of the right temperature. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 297 They resemble too in another respect. A cool companion may be disagreeable at first, but in a little time he becomes less so ; and at our first plunge we are impatient to get out of the bath, but if we stay in it a minute or two, we lose the sense of its extreme coldness. Would not your Grace think, from what I am saying, or rather preaching, that I was the most social man upon earth ? And yet I am become almost an hermit : I have not made four visits these four months. Not that I am running away, or have any design to run away, from the world. It is, I rather think, the world that is running away from me. " No character was ever more fully, or more concisely drawn, than that of Major Mercer* by your Grace. I was certain you would like him the more, the longer you knew him. With more learning than any other man of my acquaintance, he has all the playfulness of a school-boy ; and unites the wit and the wisdom of Montesquieu, with the sensibility of Rousseau, and the generosity of Tom Jones. Your Grace has likewise a very just idea of Mrs Mercer.f She is most amiable, and well accomplished ; and, in goodness and generosity of nature, is not inferior even to the Major himself. I met her the other day, and was happy to find her in better health than I think she has been for some years. This will be most welcome news to the Major. Pray, does your Grace think that he blames me for not writing to him this great while ? The true reason is, that I have not had this great while any news to send him, but what I knew would give him pain ; and therefore I thought it better not to write, especially as we have been in daily expectation of seeing him here these several weeks. Will your Grace take the trouble to tell him this ? There is no man to whom I have been so much obliged ; and, with one or two exceptions, there is no man or woman whom I love so well." * See p. 20. and Appendix, [BB.] He was at that time Major of the Duke of Gordon's regiment. t Mrs Mercer was sister of Lord Glenbervie. She died January, 1802. See Appendix, [R.] 2 P 298 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. LETTER CXXV. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 18th January, 1779. " YOU are right in your conjecture, that a metrical version of the Psalms, formed upon that plan of severe simplicity which I recommend, would be a very difficult work. There is a great ^deal of cant in the style of poetry, especially of modern poetry : A set of epithets, and figures, and phrases, which a certain set of ver- sifiers bring in upon all occasions, in order to make out their verses, ^and prepare their rhymes. If a poet has got a good stock of these, and a knack of applying them, and is not very solicitous about energy, consistency, or truth of sentiment, he may write verses with great ease and rapidity ; but such verses are not read above once or twice, and are seldom or never remembered. Their tawdry and unnecessary ornaments make them as unwieldy to the memory, as a herald's coat is to the body. Besides, where language is much /ornamented, there is always a deficiency in clearness, as well as in force ; and though it may please at its first appearance, it rarely continues long in fashion. The favourite authors in every language ^re the siinplest. They have nothing but what is necessary or use- ful ; and such things are always in request. My reasons, there- fore, for recommending a very simple metrical version of the Psalms, are chiefly these : 1st, Such a version will approach more nearly than an ornamental one to the style of the original ; which, I think, will be allowed to be an advantage. 2d, It will be better understood by the common people ; for when poetical language is set off with many ornaments, it must be in a great measure unin- telligible to unlearned readers. Sd, It will continue intelligible and in fashion for a much longer time ; for such is the natural and necessary effect of elegant plainness. 4th, It will take a faster hold of the memory. One of my reasons for tolerating a metrical ver- LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. i^ aion of the Psalms is, that it makes them more easily remembered. And Horace, when speaking on a subject not unlike this, has very- well observed, ** Omne supervacuum pleno depectore manat :** Superfluities of style perish from the memory tike water poured into a vessel thatis already full. 5th, The simplicity I contend for re- quires a concise expression, and consequently conveys much mean- ing in few words ; and this is particularly necessary in words in- tended to be sung with understanding. For singing is of necessity {or at least ought to be) slower than speaking ; and, therefore, if the matter is not very close, it will happen sometimes that the singer shall be sounding notes to which his mind annexes no definite idea. One of my objections to Merrick's Psalms would be, if they are all like the specimen you favoured me with, their unnecessary and pa- raphrastical diffuseness. His first psalm consists of thirty-four lines ; and yet I am certain, that the whole meaning of that psalm might, with equal harmony, with equal elegance, and with superior clearness, be expressed in twenty-four. Tate and Brady's second psalm consists of forty-eight lines, and my version of that psalm of thirty-six ; if the two versions be in all other respects only equaly I believe that which has fewest words would be thought the better. The last reason I shall assign is, that the modish tricks and orna- ments of verse appear to me not very graceful in serious poetry of any sort ; but in sacred poetry I consider them as worse than un- graceful, as even indecent. A high-priest of the Jews, officiating at the altar in ruffles and a laced waistcoat, or a clergyman in the pul- pit, with the airs and dress of a player, are incongruities of the same kind with these, which, in a poetical version of the Psalms, ought to be avoided. Is it right, think you, for a Christian on Sunday, in the church, to sing, " His rains from heaven parched hills recruit, " That soon transmit the liquid store ; " 'Till earth is burthened with her fruit, ** And Nature's lap can hold no more ?" The harshness of the first line, and the half nonsense of the first couplet, might be excused ; but what shall we say to the Pagan al- lusion in the last line ? ^00 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " After what you know of my mind on this subject, I am sure I need not say that it is far from my purpose to recommend a rude or clownish simplicity, whereof I confess that there are innumera- ble instances in the version that is in most common use in Scotland ; and yet, in the present case, rusticity is better than finicalness. I would rather see in the pulpit a sun-burnt face, than a painted one ; and a coat out at elbows, than one overlaid with embroidery. The middle way, you will say, is best ; and I allow it : And, between ourselves, I think it peculiarly honourable to the church of England, that, while she keeps at a distance from the pageantries of the Romish church, she also avoids that ritual, which might do very well with pure spirits, but which is too apt to produce listlessness and coldness in creatures weighed down with flesh and blood. I would hav^ every thing neat and plain, and as elegant as is consist- ent with plainness, in the public services and in the language of re- ligion : or, if now and then I were to introduce a little pomp, which I believe I should often be inclined to do, I would still make it sim- ple and plain ; which, if I mistake not, would heighten its magnifi- cence, and give permanency to its effects. Elegant and pure sim- plicity is the characteristic of the true pulpit-style, as it is now established by the best models, both ancient and modern ; the same thing holds tru^ of the prayers of the church of England ; only these have (what they ought to have) something of a more elabo- rate and more dignified composition, than becomes the sermon. " I know not whether there be any thing new in my papers on the " Origin of Evil," and the " Evidences of Christianity." It will be a considerable time before I get forward to those subjects. At present I confine myself to such as are most amusing, and withal least connected with those topics which formerly engrossed me to a degree that ruined my health. How much my mind has been in- jured by certain speculations, you will partly guess, when I tell you a fact, that is now unknown to all the world, — that since the " Essay " on Truth" was printed in quarto in the summer of 1776, I have never dared to read it over. I durst not even read the sheets, to see whether there were any errors in the print, and was obliged to get a friend to do that office for me. Not that I am in the least dissa- tisfied with the sentiments : every word of my own doctrine I do seriously believe j nor have I ever seen any objections to it which I could not easily answer. But the habit of anticipating and obviat- LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 301 ing arguments, upon an abstruse and interesting subject, came in time to have dreadful effects upon my nervous system ; and I can- not read what I then wrote, without some degree of horror, because it recals to my mind the horrors that I have sometimes felt, after passing a long evening in those severe studies. You will perhaps understand me better, when I have told you a short story. One who was on board the Centurion, in Lord Anson's voyage, having got some money in that expedition, purchased a small estate, about three miles from this town. I have had several conversations with him, on the subject of the voyage, and once asked him, whether he had ever read the history of it. He told me he had read all the history, except the description of their sufferings during the run from Cajie Horn to Juan Fernandez^ which, he said, were so great, that he durst not recollect or think of them." LETTER CXXVL DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. DR LAING. Aberdeen, 31st January, 1779. " I LATELY met with what I consider as a great curiosity in the musical way. Take the history as follows : Mary, the con- sort of King William, was a great admirer of a certain Scots tune, which in England they call Cold and Raw, but which in Scotland is better known by the name of Up in the Morning early. One day at her private concert, where Purcel presided, the Queen interrupted the music, by desiring one Mrs Hunt, who was present, to sing the ballad of Cold and Raw. The lady sung it ; and it is said, that Purcel was a little piqued at being obliged to sit idle at his harpsi- chord, and having his own compositions interrupted for the sake of such a trifle. The Queen's birth-day was soon after, when Purcel, who composed the court music for that solemnity, in order either to please the Queen, or to surprise her, or merely to indulge his own humour, made Cold and Raw the bass of one of the songs. This anecdote I met with some months ago ; and my author added, that this individual song was printed in Purcel's " Orpheus Britannicus.** 302 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. I had a great desire to sec this song, that I might know how such a genius would acquit himself when confined in such trammels. I confess, for all my high opinion of Purcel, I did not expect that a song composed on such a plan could be a good one ; but I am a:greeably disappointed. The song, or hymn, (for it is in the church style) is, in my opinion, excellent. I inclose a copy of it, that you may judge for yourself. It will not perhaps strike you at first, but when you have gone over it five or six times, you will like it much. There is something of a very original cast in the composition." LETTER CXXVIL DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. Aberdeen, 1st February, 1T79. " I SINCERELY sympathize with you on the death of Mr Garrick.* I know not how his friends in London will be able to bear the loss of him, for he was the most delightful companion in the world. On the stage nobody could admire him more than I did ; and yet, I am not sure whether I did not admire him still more in private company. What a splendid career he has run 1 idolized as he has been by the public, as well as by his friends, for almost half a century : happy in his fortune and in his family,t su- perior to envy, invulnerable by detraction : and yet nobody, who knew him will say that his good fortune was greater than his merit. " I have just received the JVotes on Potter's " Eschylus," by which I am happy to find, that my opinion of that translation is ra- tified by your's. I did not think it possible to do justice to the old Grecian in any modern tongue ; but Mr Potter has satisfied 'me, that I was mistaken. It seems to me, that this is indisputably the best translation that ever appeared in English of any Greek poet. I beg. Madam, you will exert all your influence with the author, to make him go on with " Euripides." * For some farther account of this great actor, see the Appendix, [CC] t Mr Garrick was married, but never had any chil^lren. LIFE OF I>R BEATTIE. 30t LETTER CXXVIIL MRS MONTAGU TO DR BEATTIE. Hill-Street, 10th FebruAiy, 1779. " I ADMIRE your perseverance in your college duties and literary labours, in the midst of so many discouragements as want of health and domestic anxiety bring with them. I rejoice in that perseverance, which will give to the world and me the means of so much instruction and pleasure. You do well in collecting and fitting for publication what you have already written. My learned and excellent friend, Mr Stillingfleet, by daily enlarging his lucu- brations, and not putting the finishing hand to any, condemned to the flames, at his death, (which did not happen till he was near seventy) many valuable manuscripts. " You would read, with melancholy pleasure, the honours done to Mr Garrick*s remains, and the tender regret expressed for his loss. He seemed to quit the theatre of the world as he did that at Drury-lane, before any of the energy, any of the graces, with which he was wont to enspirit or adorn the part he was to act, were en- feebled or faded. In full possession of our admiration, in perfect dominion of our affections, and command of our sympathies, he quitted us : No wonder we wept at the catastrophe I As he grew disengaged from the theatrical character, he grew more absolute and excellent in the charms of the private. He gave the highest spirit to conversation ; the highest joy and mirth at the convivial board. The literary men considered him as one, who, by a kind of intuition, possessed all they valued in themselves, and had a closer intellectual correspondence with them than any other man. So universal an actor must be considered rather as a general connois- seur of the human mind in all situations, than as one by profession a mimic of it. " Mr Garrick, in his own character, was highly respectable- His friends have a great loss, the distressed and poor have a great loss, his wife the greatest; I think I never saw such perfecl; affec. 304 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. tion and harmony as subsisted between them. No words can paint her woe; and it would be difficult to do justice to the piety, resig- nation, and dignity of her behaviour on this sad occasion. " I was much pleased with your pamphlet on " Psalmody," and I cannot think it possible it should give oflfence. I think psalms, written with great and noble simplicity, and sung in the same man- ner, friendly to devotion ; and it is almost an offence to call in the aid of insensible and inanimate things to praise the Giver of life and reason. A psalm, decently sung by the congregation, always ex- cites my devotion more than the organ. I would employ musical instruments in a Pagan temple, but only the voice of man in a Christian church. " I am very glad you are so pleased with Mr Potter's " Eschylus." I shall communicate to him what you have said ; and praise like yours will excite him to proceed with his translation of " Euripides.'* Poor man, he has lately met with great domestic afflictions I It seems to me, that he is a man of great genius and learning. " My letters from Paris tell me, that, since the death of Vol- taire, freethinking seems less fashionable. At Paris every thing is governed by fashion ; I wish it may be a-la-mode to endeavour to go to heaven." LETTER CXXIX. ©R BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDON. Aberdeen, 22d February, 1779. " MY friends in England are all in tears for poor Garrick. In his own sphere he was certainly the greatest man of his time ; and since I knew him, I have always thought, that in private company his talents were not less admirable than upon the stage. There was a playfulness in his humour, and a solidity in his judgment, which made him at once a most delightful and most instructive associate. After passing part of two days with him at his house at Hampton, I once intended to have addressed to him a copy of verses, in which I had actually made some progress ; but something interposed to LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 305 prevent me. The thought, as I remember, was to this purpose : That in him the soul of Shakespeare had revived, after undergoing in the other world a purification of one hundred years ; for that was the exact space of time between the death of Shakespeare and the birth of Garrick. Kindred spirits they certainly were. Shake- speare was never thoroughly understood till Garrick explained him. Both were equally great in tragedy and in comedy ; and yet for •omedy both had evidently a predilection.'' LETTER CXXX P9- BEATTIE TO SIR WJLLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 10th April, 1779. " I HAVE at last made ^ood my promise, in regard to the Scotticisms ; and send you inclosed a little book, containing about two hundred, with a praxis at the end, which will perhaps amuse you. I printed it for no other purpose but to give away to the young men who attend my lectures. This collection I have been making from time to time for some years past. I consulted Mr Hume's list, and took a few from it. Mr Elphinston*s book I also looked into, (that book I mean which he wrote either for or against Lord Kaimes) and it supplied me with three or four : But Elphin- ston is mistaken in many things, and his own style is not free from Scotticism ; which, however, is one of his least faults ; for so affected and enigmatical is his phraseology, that he cannot be said to have a style at all. Dr Campbell gave me aboiit a dozen. The rest are the result of my own observation. I shall in time, I be- lieve, collect as many more as will be a supplement to this pamph- let ; for they are endless. Even since these came from the press, I have recollected a few others, which you will find in the postscript. I am not positive that every one of my remarks are right ; but I intend to send them to a learned friend in England, who will cor- rect what is amiss. If any material amendment is made; I shali inform you of it. 2q 306 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " Your opinion of Bishop Lowth*s " Isaiah" coincides exactly with mine. It is equal to my highest expectations, and does honour to our ^age and nation. I wish the learned prelate may proceed in his pious undertaking, and give us as many of the other books of Scripture as his other duties will leave him at leisure to revise. 1 made two or three trifling remarks on the language of his translation, in which there are some peculiarities that I cannot account for. To hist^ (meaning to call \tith a whistle) is a word which I never before met with either in print or in conversation, and which indeed I should not have understood, if the author had not explained it in his notes ; I suspect it may be provincial. Ilex^ too, and cyon^ are a sort of technical words, the one belonging to botany, the other to gardening ; and, as such, ought not, I think, to have a place in a popular translation of Scripture. It is a striking beauty in our English Bible, that, though the language is always elegant and nervous, and for the most part very harmonious, the words are all plain and common ; no affectation of learned terms, or of words of Greek or Latin etymology. I have sometimes amused myself with the simplicity and harmony of particular passages. Nothing can be more melodious than the following, which yet seems to be the effect of accident rather than of art : " Man that is born of a *^ woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth as a '* flower, and is cut down ; he fleeth also as a shadow, and con- " tinueth not." Virgil himself would not versify the following passage, for fear of hurting its harmony ; and yet every word is common, and there is not the least appearance of art in the com- position : " My beloved spake, and said unto me. Rise up, my love, " my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the rain " is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of " the singing of birds is come ; and the voice of the turtle is heard " in our land. The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the *^,vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, *< my fair one, and come away." Our critics have often affirmed, that the English tongue derives a great deal of its harshness from the multitude of its monosyllables ; this passage may serve for a proof of the contrary ; for here (if I reckon right) are eighty words, whereof sixty-eight are monosyllables ; and yet I will venture to say, that the Italian language itself is not susceptible of greater sweetness. Some of oiir words of one syllable are certainly harsh, LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 307 as lohich^ such, scratch, &c ; but even these lose a great part of their disagreeable sound, when the words that come before and after them are properly modulated. " You would hear, no doubt, of the death of Mr Riddoch, one of the ministers of our English chapel. As I think I have heard you say, that you liked those few sermons which he published some years ago,* I shall take the liberty to inform you, that his widow, whom he has left in very poor circumstances, intends to publish two volumes of his sermons by subscription, and has asked that Dr Campbell and I would revise the manuscripts ; which, considering her distress, and his merit both us a man and as a preacher, we did not decline." LETTER CXXXL DR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDON. Aberdeen, 27th. May, 1779. " I REJOICE in the good weather, in the belief that it extends to Glenfiddich ;t where I pray that your Grace may enjoy all the health and happiness that good air, goats* whey, romantic solitude, and the society of the loveliest children in the world, can bestow. May your days be clear sunshine, and may a gentle rain give balm to your nights, that the flowers and birch-trees may salute you in the morning with all their fragrance. May the kids frisk and play * Six occasional Sermons on important subjects, by James Riddoch, A. M. one of the ministers of St Paul's chapel, Aberdeen, published in 1762. The two first, preached on New-year's day, are peculiarly excellent. Those alluded to here, which Dr Beattie and Dr Campbell had the good- ness to revise previous to their publication, were printed in the year 1782. They are plain, pious, practical, and useful discourses, which may be pe- rused with advantage. As his manner in the pulpit was extremely ener- getic, they were listened to by his congregation witli much delight. f A hunting-seat of the Duke of Gordon's in the heart of the Grampian mountains ; a wild, but beautiful, sequestered spot, of which Dr Beattia was peciiUarly fond. • 308 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. tricks before you, with unusual sprightliness ; and may the song of birds, the hum of bees, and the distant water-fall, with now and then the shepherd's horn resounding from the mountains, entertain you with a full chorus of Highland music. " My imagination had parcelled out the lovely glen into a thou- sand little paradises ; in the hope of being there, and seeing every day in that solitude, what is " Fairer than famed of old, or fabled since, ** Of fairy damsels, met in forest wide •* By errant knights." But the information you received at Cluny gave a check to my fancy, and was indeed a great disappointment to Mrs Beattie and me ; not on account of the goats' whey, but because it keeps us s© long at such a distance from your Grace." LETTER CXXXII. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 12th June, 1779. " YOU are extremely welcome to as many copies of the Scotticisms as you please ; I shall send a parcel by the first oppor- tunity. But I would not wish the pamphlet to be exposed to the censure of critics, who know not the peculiar circumstances of the persons for whose use it was intended. I printed it for the improve- ment of those young men only, who attend my lectures ; who are generally of the north country, and many of whom have had no opportunity of learning English from the company they kept. To have confined myself, therefore, to such idioms as may actually be found in printed books, or to such as are current to the south as well as the north of Scotland, would not have answered my pur- pose. There are in the list, as you justly observe, some phrases, which are not often heard among the better sort of our people ; but in this country they are in fact used by many above the rank of the LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 309 vulgar, and are sometimes mistaken for English, because they may- be seen in English books, though in a different sense : such is mis- guide for sully ^ ill to guide for ill to manage ^ Sec. Wrongous and tniquous are very common among Scottish lawyers. In a word, I might no doubt have omitted several of those that are inserted ; and would probably have done so, if I had not known by expe- rience, that phrase-books, vocabularies, and dictionaries, are oftener faulty from defect than from redundancy. " Negatives are hard to prove, especially in language. A good phrase is established by a quotation from a good author : but to say of a phrase, that it is a Scottish idiom, is to say, that, though used in Scotland, it occurs not in any English writer of classical authority ; a point, which in many cases, it will be no easy matter to evince. There may be errors, therefore, in my pamphlet; it would be strange indeed if there were none ; but it may have its use for all that. Old Dr ******* used to tell me, that he formerly be- longed to a club in Edinburgh where nothing but Latin was spoken ; and that when appeals were made to Mr Ruddiman,* (who was a sort of oracle among them) he would give his opinion very readily and decisively, when he thought the Latin good ; but was slow to pronounce concerning any phrases which had the ap- pearance of Latin, that they were bad. And I remember, that Walker, in his excellent " Treatise on English Particles," makes a remark to the same purpose, and gives a list of Latin phrases from the best authors, which one, who was not well read in the classics, would, without hesitation, pronounce to be Anglicisms." LETTER CXXXIII. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, l^th June, 1779. " I HAVE been reading Johnson's prefaces to the English edition of the poets, which poor Dilly sent me in exchange for the Edinburgh edition. There are many excellent things in the pre- * The celebrated graminarian. 310 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. faces, particularly in the lives of Milton, Dryden and Waller. He is more civil to Milton than I expected, though he hates him for his blank verse and his politics. To the forced and unnatural conceits of Cowley, I think he is too favourable ; and I heartily wish, that, instead of the poems of this poet, which are printed at full length, and fill two large volumes, he had given us the " Fairy Queen" of Spenser, which is left out, very absurdly, I think. He has brought his lives no further down than to Hughes , but I hear he intends to give the remainder as soon as he can.'' LETTER CXXXIV. DR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDON, Aberdeen, 22d June, 1779. " I CONGRATULATE your Grace, with all my heart, on the safe arrival of one of the best and most beautiful boys that ever was born.* It gave me the most sincere pleasure to see him so well, so mindful of all his old frends, and so impatient to get for- ward to the Glen.t " And here your Grace will pardon me for expressing a wish, that the Marquis were attended by a man of learning, in quality of tutor, as well as by Mr S*******, who is, to be sure, in every respect but one, the best man in the world for his purpose. Many an English clergyman would, with transport, resign his cure, in order to undertake so pleasing an employment : And I think the tutor ought by all means to be an Englishman, regularly educated ; and to be recommended either by the Arclibishop of York, or by Dr Barnard, provost of Eton, whom I look upon as the best judges now in the world of tne qualifications requisite in a teacher. I beg your Grace will think of this. " I will not attempt to describe what I suffered from the cruel necessity which compelled me to decline your Grace's invitation. My regret was such, and the cause of that regret is so great a • The Marquis of Huntly. f Glenfiddich. See p. 307. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 311 weight on my spirits, that I believe even Adam Smith himself,* if he were to know it, would almost pity me. Mrs Beattie has been a little better for this week past ; and bids me say, that though she is obliged to give up all thoughts of the Glen for this season, she still hopes to be happy in Gordon-Castle before the end of autumn. She now goes out once a day in a chaise; but if the airing exceed two miles she is fatigued with it. I would fain hope, that when she is a little accustomed to this exercise, she may be able to undertake a little journey, which I am sure would be of infinite service to her. " I have made several visits of late to the Den of Rubislaw,t and find a charm in it which I was never sensible of before. One even- ing it appeared in dreadful majesty ; for it was so thick a fog, that I could hardly see the tops of the trees, or even of the cliffs ; and so 1 was at liberty to fancy them as high and as wild as I pleased. But the more I indulge myself in that solitude, the more I regret my distance from another,:}: which I hear is admirable for the beau- ties of still life, and of which I know how much it excels all other solitudes for every other species of beauty. I still flatter myself with the hope of assisting, one time or other, at some of your Grace's morning lectures. Pray remember your promise of sending me the history of a day. " I have a little story to tell your Grace, and a favour to ask ; which will give you the trouble of another letter in a post or two." LETTER CXXXV. DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. Aberdeen, 25th June, 1779. " AN extraordinai'y book has just now appeared in this coun- try ; but before I say any thing of it, I must trouble you with a short narrative. * In allusion to Dr Smith's doctrine of Sympathy. t A romantic, woody spot, in the near neighbourhood of Aberdeen ; to which Dr Beattie delighted to retire, in order to indulge in silent meditation. A Deiiy in the vernacular language of Scotland, as used in the sense b^ere meant, is synonymous with what in England is called a Dingle. \ Glenfiddich. 312 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " During the last years of Mr Hume's life, his friends gave outj that he regretted his having dealt so much in metaphysics, and that he never vrould write any more. He was at pains to disavow his " Treatise of Human Nature,** in an advertisement which he published about half a year before his death. All this, with what I then heard of his bad health, made my heart relent towards him ; as you would no doubt perceive by the concluding part of the pre- face to my quarto book. But immediately after his death, I heard, that he had left behind him two manuscripts, with strict charge that they should be published by his executors ; one, the " History of " his Life,'* and the other, " Dialogues on Natural Religion." This last was said to be more sceptical than any of his other writ- ings. Yet he had employed the latter part of his life in preparing it» The copy which I have, was sent me two days ago by my friend and neighbour Dr Campbell ; than whom no person better understands the tendency and the futility of Mr Hume's philosophy, and who accompanied it with a note in the following words ; " You " have probably not yet seen this posthumous performance of " David Hume. As the publisher, with whom I am not acquainted, " has favoured me with a copy, I have sent it to you for your pe- " rusal ; and shall be glad to have your opinion of it, after you " have read it. For my part, I think it too dry, and too meta- " physical, to do much hurt ; neither do I discover any thing new " or curious in it. It serves but as a sort of commentary to the " ' Dialogues on Natural Religion and Providence,' published in " his life time. What most astonishes me is, the zeal which this " publication shows for disseminating those sceptical principles."* " In my answer to Dr Campbell's note, I told him, that I was happy to find, from his account, that the book was not likely to do much harm ; that I would acquiesce in his judgment of it, which I was persuaded was just ; but that at present my circumstances, in regard to health and spirits, w^ould not permit me to enter upon the study of it. " Are you not surprised, madam, that any man should con- clude his life (for Mr Hume knew he was dying) with preparing * Dr Campbell's prediction, as to the fate of this posthumous work of Mr Hume's, seems to have been completely verified ; for the " Dialogues " concerning Natural Religion" are now never heard of. LIFE OF DR BFlATTIE. S13 Biich a work for the press ? Yet Mr Hume must have known, that, in the opinion of a great majority of his readers, his reasonings, in regard to God and Providence, were most pernicious, as well as most absurd. Nay, he himself seemed to think them dangerous. This appears from the following fact, which I had from Dr Gre- gory. Mr Hume was boasting to the doctor, that among his disciples in Edinburgh he had the honour to reckon many of the fair sex. " Now, tell me," said the doctor, " whether, if you had " a wife or a daughter, you would wish them to be your disciples ? " Think well before you answer me ; for I assure you, that, whatever " your answer is, I will not conceal it.'* Mr Hume, with a smile, and some hesitation, made this reply : " No ; I believe scepticism " may be too sturdy a virtue for a woman." Miss Gregory* will certainly remember, that she has heard her father tell this story. How different is Doctor Gregory's " Legacy"! to Mr Hume's! " Do me the favour, madam, to let me know that you are well ; that your nephew is just such as I wish him to be ; and that the Dutchess-dowager of Portland, Mrs Delany, Mrs Carter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and our other friends, are all in good health. I never pass a day, nor (I believe) an hour of the day, without think- ing of them, and wishing them all imaginable happiness. Some times I flatter myself with the hope of seeing you all once more before I die ; it is a pleasing thought ; but, ** Shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it." " How shall I thank you, madam, for all your goodness! your refusal to accept of any indemnification for the expence of my advertisements is a new instance. I am ashamed, and know not what to say : Dii tibi — et mens sibi conscia recti^ prcemia digna ferant** • Daughter of the late Dr John Gregory4 who, at the date of this letter, was on a visit at Mrs Montagu's. Miss Gregory is now the wife of my re- spected friend, the Reverend Mr Alison. § t Dr Gregory's elegant little posthumous work, " A Fatlier's Legacy tp " his Daughters." \ See Page24. § Se« Page 135. S14 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. The followiDg little artless tale, referred to in a former letter, is well told, and does credit to the goodness of Dr Beattie's heart ; although, unfortunately, his endeavours to serve his old friend, I believe, proved unsuccessful. LETTER CXXXVI. DR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDON. Aberdeen, 5th July, 1779. " I NOW sit down to make good the threatening denounced in the conclusion of a letter, which I had the honour to write to your Grace about ten days ago. The request I am going to make I should preface with many apologies, if I did not know, that the personage to whom I address myself is too well acquainted with all the good emotions of the human heart, to blame the warmth of a school-boy attachment, and too generous to think the worse of me for wishing to assist an unfortunate friend. " Three weeks ago, as I was scribbling in my garret, a man entered, whom at first I did not know ; but, on his desiring me to look him in the face, I soon recollected an old friend, whom I had not seen, and scarcely heard of, these twenty years. He and I lodged in the same house, when we attended the school of Lau- rencekirk, in the year 1747. I was then about ten years old, and he about fifteen. As he took a great liking to me, he had many opportunities of obliging me ; having much more knowledge of the world, as well as more bodily strength, than I. He was, besides, an ingenious mechanic, and made for me many little things : and it must not be forgotten, that he first put a violin in my hands, and gave me the only lessons in music I ever received. Four years after this period, I went to college, and he engaged in farming. But our acquaintance was renewed about five years after, when I remember he made me the confidant of a passion he had for the greatest beauty in that part of the country, whom he soon after married. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 315 " I was very glad to see my old friend so unexpectedly ; and we talked over many old stories, which, though interesting to us, would have given little pleasure to any body else. But my satis- faction was soon changed to regret, when, upon inquiring into the particulars of his fortune during these twenty years, I found he had been very unsuccessful. His farming projects had miscarried ; and, happening to give some offence to a young woman, who was called the housekeeper of a gentleman on whom he depended, she swore she would be revenged, to his ruin ; and was as good as her word. He satisfied his creditors, by giving them all his substance ; and, retiring to a small house in Johns-haven,* made a shift to support his family by working as a joiner ; a trade which, when a boy, he had picked up for his amusement. But a consumptive complaint overtook him ; and though he got the better of it, he has never since been able to do any thing that requires labour, and can now only make fiddles, and some such little matters, for which there is no great demand in the place where he lives. He told me, he had Gome to Aberdeen on purpose to put me in mind of our old acquain- tance, and see whether I could do any thing for him. I asked, ia what respect he wished me to serve him. He would do any thing, he said, for his family, that was not dishonourable : and, on pressing him a little further, I found, that the height of his ambition was to be a tide-waiter, a land-waiter, or an officer of excise. I told him, it was particularly unlucky, that I had not the least influence, or even acquaintance, with any one commissioner, either of the excise or customs : but, as I did not care to discourage him, I promised to think of his case, and to do what I could. I have since seen a clergyman, who knows my friend very well, and describes his con- dition as still more forlorn than he had represented it. " It is in behalf of this poor man, that I now venture to implore your Grace's advice and assistance. I am well aware, that, though his case is very interesting to me, there is nothing extraordinary in it ; and that your Grace must often be solicited for others in like circumstances. It is, therefore, with the utmost reluctance, that I have taken this liberty. If your Grace thinks, that an application from me to Mr Baron Gordon might be sufficient to procure one of the offices in question for my friend, I would not wish you to * A small fishing" town in the county of Kincardine. 316 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. have any trouble ; but if my application were enforced by yours, it would have a better chance to succeed. This, however, I do not request, if it is not so easy to your Grace, as to be almost a matter of indifference. " By the first convenient opportunity I hope to send your Grace a sort of curiosity, — four elegant Pastorals, by a Quaker ; — not one of our Quakers of Scotland, but a true English Quaker, who says thee and Mow, and comes into a room, and sits down in company, without taking off his hat. For all this, he is a very worthy man, an elegant scholar, a cheerful companion, and a particular friend of mine. His name is John Scott of Amwell, near Ware, Hert- fordshire, where he lives in an elegant retirement, (for his fortune is very good) ; and has dug in a chalk-hill, near his house, one of the most curious grottos I have ever seen. As it is only twenty miles from London, I would recommend it to your Grace, when you are there, as worth going to visit. Your Grace will be pleased with his Pastorals, not only on account of their morality and sweet versification, but also for their images and descriptions, which are a very exact picture of the groves, woods, waters, and windmills, of that part of England where he resides." LETTER CXXXVIL IkJRS MONTAGU TO DR BEATTIE. Sandleford, 20th July, 1779, " I ALWAYS consider your letters as a favour; and when they brought a good account of your and MrsBeattie's health, they gave me the highest pleasure. I can only say, that with your last I felt the most sincere and tender sympathy, and daily pour forth the warmest wishes for her speedy recovery. " I will now give you some account of myself: I went to Bath the middle of April, and, with great benefit to my health, drank the waters above six weeks. A winter season in London, and a spring season at Bath, bring on a weariness of the bustle of society ; and I was glad to pass the month of June in the sober, cheerful tran- <|uillity of Sandlefprd. , But ji> this working-day-worjd one cani LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 317 have but few holidays ; the house I am building, and an estate I am purchasing, created many occasions for my going to London ; to the busy world, therefore, business brought me back, and from thence I am but just returned to peace, and sunshine, and the rural joys of July. The animated scene of hay-making is very delightful to me ; and I passed my mornings in the grove, to con- template the gay labour of the hay-makers, who, to the number of forty, of different ages and sexes, were all busy in the field below me. The men were gay, the women chattering, and the boys and girls sporting and playing amidst their work ; so that labour seemed rather a brisk exertion than a painful task. The reapers* employ- ment is more serious and more laborious, as if, the nearer the ap- proach to wealth, the less gay the condition ; their wages are greater than those of the hay-makers, but the occupation is not so delightful, nor performed with such careless ease ; and is it not the same in the business of civil life ? At this juncture, particularly, I think the highest offices in our state must be the most laborious, and full of seriousness and care. Public danger used to begtt pub- lic union ; but I am sorry to say, that our leaders of faction have not seemed to forget their private objects for the general interest. This summer will probably bring very important events to Eng- land. Daily rumours of invasion, in some part or other of our country, seem very alarming to ears, unaccustomed to such re- ports ; but if the chastisements of Heaven will restore those vir- tues, which prosperity seems to have impaired, such corrections must be reckoned amongst the favours of Providence. Resigna- tion to Divine Wisdom and Omnipotence becomes creatures, not only weak, but blind ; so I endeavour to keep my mind in tran- quillity. " I am very glad you were pleased with Mr Potter's " Es- " chylus." I think he has made a great addition to the English literature. At my request he has since added some notes, which I will send you if you have not got them. He is very cautious in explaining ancient mythology; I wished he had given his conjectures on the allegory of Prometheus. Mr Potter is now translating " Euripides ;" and, if he succeed as well as in the other translation, the world will owe him a great deal ; and I heartily wish, that, in some shape, it would pay him part of the debt; he is a man of great merit, small preferment and lareg 318 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. lamily. I hear of few new works to come forth ; in the dm of arms, not only the laws but the muses are silent. " I cannot conclude my letter, without exhorting you to collect together those things you have written for the young people who attend your lectures. I am convinced they would be useful to the ■world, and much approved by it, if you would publish them. In all your essays there is much to be learnt ; observations and de- ductions perfectly new, and at the same time just. With such conditions, I account essays to be pleasant and profitable ; but most essay-writers give mere common-place observations, and a great deal of trite matter." LETTER CXXXVIIL BR BEATTIE TO MAJOR MERCER. Aberdeen, 1st October, 1779. " I BETOOK myself to the reading of Caesar when I was at Peterhead, for I happened to have no other book. I had forgot a great deal of him ; and scarce remembered any thing more than the opinion which I formed of his style about twenty-five years ago. But when I began, I found it almost impossible to leave off. There is nothing in the historical style more perfect ; and his transact tions ai'e a complete contrast to the military affairs of these times. I know not which of his talents I should most admire: his inde- fatigable activity and perseverance ; his intrepidity and presence of mind, which never fail him even for a moment ; his address as a politician ; his ability as a commander, in which he seems to me to have no equal ; or the beauty, brevity, clearness, and modesty, of his narrative. I understand all his battles as well as if I had seen them : and, in half a sentence, he explains to me the grounds and occasions of a war, more fully than a modern historian could do in fifty pages of narrative, and as many more of dissertation. In a word, as the world at that time stood in need of an absolute sove- reign, I am clearly of opinion, that he should have been the person. Pompey was a vain coxcomb, who, because a wrong-headed faction UFE OF DR BEATTIE. 319 had given him the title of Magnus^ foolishly thought himself the greatest of men ; Cassius was a malecontent, and a mere dema- gogue ; and Brutus was the dupe of a surly philosophy, operating upon an easy temper. I ask pardon for troubling you with this, which you understand so much better than I do : but I am quite full of Caesar at present ; and you know, " what is nearest the " heart is nearest the mouth." LETTER CXXXIX. DR BEATTIE TO DR PORTEUS, BISHOP OF CHESTER. Aberdeen, 17th December, 1779. " ABOUT three months ago, a lady, who is a great admirer of Bishop Butler, put into my hands a manuscript-charge of tliat excellent prelate to the clergy of the diocese of Durham. If it is not in his printed works, I doubt whether it was ever published ; but no person, who is acquainted with Butler's manner, could read half a page without being satisfied that it is genuine. I was so well pleased with it, that I had thoughts of printing it in a small pamph- let ; but domestic troubles have so disconcerted me, that I am hardly capable of any thing. If your Lordship is curious to see it, I believe I could easily procure a MS. copy. Let me again make it my request, that you would collect all your printed pieces, and give them to the world in one publication. " I think I told your Lordship in my last, that in order to keep my mind from preying upon itself, and to give it a sufficiency of such employment as would amuse the fancy, without affecting the heart, I had resolved to finish a grammatical treatise, which I began some considerable time ago. It is now finished, and makes one of my largest treatises. It consists of two parts ; the first, " On the " Origin and General Nature of Speech ;" the second, " On Uni- " versal Grammar." I have drawn a good deal of information from Mr Harris's " Hermes," and Lord Monboddo on " Language ;" but my plan and my sentiments differ in utany particulars from 320 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. both. Monboddo*s partiality to the Epicurean hypothesis of the origin of language and society, '* Cum prorepserunt pritnis antmalia terris," Wc. I thought it incumbent upon me to animadvert upon ; and I hope I have shown that it is ill founded. " I have never seen Lord Monboddo*s " Ancient Metaphysics." He and I have long been particularly acquainted. Formerly we used to disagree a little on the subject of religion ; but I hear he has become more cautious on that head. He carries his admiration of Aristotle, and the abstruser parts of the Greek philosophy, to a degree of extravagance that is hardly credible. Herodotus is his favourite historian ; and so far is he from thinking, with the rest of the world, that he is credulous, that he seems to think him infalli- ble in all matters which he says he had an opportunity of inquiring into. He believes in the existence of satyrs, and men with the heads of dogs, and other Egyptian monsters : and he and I have had many a controversy concerning men with tails, whom he firmly believes to exist, not only in the islands of Nicobar in the Gulf of Bengal, but even in this country. He holds, that men are natu- rally cannibals ; from which he infers, that man is not by nature a social animal. The Lacedemonian government and discipline he admires beyond that of all father nations. Whether he justifies their conduct towards the Helots, I do not remember ; but I have heard him seriously maintain, that slavery is the state that is most proper for peasants, and that they and the cattle ought to be annexed to the soil, and bought and sold along with it. He considers Horace as a philosopher, and Virgil as a good poet : but his opinion of Latin literature is but low at best ; for I have heard him say, that, if we except the Roman law, there is hardly anything in the Latin tongue that merits preservation. " Notwithstanding these strange peculiarities of opinion, some of which are the objects of laughter rather than censure, Lord Monboddo is an honest, worthy, and friendly man, indulgent to his servants, and kind to his tenants ; an elegant speaker, agreeable and jocose in conversation, and perfectly well bred. Mr Harris's " Hermes" first set him upon studying the Greek ; and it unluckily directed him to the most insignificant part of ancient learning, LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 321 " The Analytics and Metaphysics" of Aristotle; which he has studied so long, that I believe he is now seriously of opinion, that nothing else deserves to be studied." There is something extremely affecting in the tender solicitude which, in the following letter, Dr Beattie expresses concerning the education and future fortunes of his sons, at a time when he appre- hended that he had not long to live. Little did he then suspect that he would have the misfortune to survive them both. LETTER CXL. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 18th January, 1780. " IN my present condition, it is natural for me to think what is likely to befal my family, when I leave it. The affairs I have to settle are not extensive or complex : I have taken the liberty to give you some concern in them. " About a month ago, I executed a deed, with all the necessary formalities ; in which I named you, my dear sir, with some other friends, tutors and curators for my two boys. I ought, no doubt, to have informed you of this sooner; but I know you will excuse me. This deed I consider as the most, and indeed as the only, material part of my settlements. It is scarce necessary for one to make a will, who wishes his children to be on an equal footing, in regard to inheritance ; and whose property consists chiefly in a little money and some moveables. I hope I shall leave them what may keep them from being a burden on any body, and what, with strict economy, may afford them the means of an education somewhat better than I received myself. Friends may be necessary to help them forward a little in the world ; and I trust in Providence, that those will not be wanting. Will you indulge me in the freedom of saying a word or two more on this subject ? 2 s 32^ LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " My first wish, in regard to my two boys, is, that they may be good Christians, and, in one way or another, useful in society. Of the younger I can say nothing, as 1 know not his character. The elder is much addicted to learning, of a good temper, and excellent capacity ; but his constitution is delicate, and I do not think him made for the bustle of life. I have, therefore, had thoughts of get- ting him appointed, when he comes to be of age, my assistant and successor ; provided he himself should then have no objection to that way of life : and, from my experience in teaching, the care I meant to take of his education, and the farrago of papers which I have got together on moral subjects, I flattered myself, that 1 might make him enter upon that employment in a way creditable to him- self, and not unprofitable to society : But this plan could not be brought to bear these eight or nine years ; and I cannot hope for so long a life. Besides, I have observed, that plans laid so early for children are seldom or never made eff*ectual. The church is a scene of business still more tranquil than mine ; and that, I pre- sume, would not be disagreeable to him. But this is mere conjec- ture. " Be assured, that it would do me great good, if I could flatter myself with the hope of visiting Edinburgh in the spring, and giv- ing you the charge of my person and papers ; not to mention the pleasure I should take in seeing my friends (of which I need not give them any assurances). I am sensible, that I have already lived too long in solitude ; too long, I mean, for one who loves soci- ety and cheerfulness, as I do and always have done. No hermit lives more constant to his cave than I have done to my house for these eighteen months. The smallness of my house, and the deli- cacy of Mrs B.'s nerves, which cannot bear the least noise, will not allow me to have any company with me ; and the consequence is, that there are only two houses in the town to which I am ever in- vited. In fact, I have not dined abroad more than twice these three months. Now that I am able to go to the college again, my busi- ness there gives me some amusement through the day ; but all the long evening I sit alone, trying sometimes to read and sometimes to write, except now and then when I give my son a lesson in Vir- gil. This must in the end have very bad efflects upon my health and spirits ; and, therefore, it is no wonder that I long to be from home, and to sojourn for some little time in a land of friendship, LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 32.3 tranquillity, and cheerfulness. My first excursion (if I ever make any) must be to Gordon Castle. " The " Grammatical Treatise," which I told you of, is finished. It is one of the longest, and not one of the worst, of my dissertations. I have also written, since you were here, " Remarks on Sublimity," being a sort of counter part to those on " Laughter:" but I am not quite pleased with this, nor has it received my last hand. I believe I shall next set about finishing what I formerly threw together on *'' Romance-writing and Chivalry ;" not because it is important, but because it is amusing, and will require no deep study. It is pretty long too; and, in my dull jog-trot way, will be an object to me for at least two months. In a word, my posthumous works (for post- humous I believe I may call them) will soon be as voluminous as those I have printed. I must be transcribing one or other of my old scrawls ; and when one transcribes, one enlarges and corrects insensibly. For I cannot think ; I am too much agitated and dis* trait (as Lord Chesterfield would say) to read any thing that is not very desultory ; I cannot play at cards ; I could never learn to smoke ; and my musical days are over. " It gives me great pain to hear of the fate of poor Cooke. I lately read his voyage for the second time ; and considered him not only as an excellent writer, an able philosopher, and the most con-? summate navigator that ever lived, but also as a person of the greatest magnanimity, modesty, and humanity. He was indeecj one of my greatest favourites ; and I look upon his death as an irre- parable loss to his country and to mankind." LETTER CXLL DR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDON, Aberdeen, 31st January, 1780. " WITH this you will receive a packet containing two " Mirrors,"* which are just come to hand, and which I send sepa- * A periodical paper with that title, published at Edinburgh at this time. For some account of which, and of the " Lounger,'* see the Appendix, [DD.] 324 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. rate from the rest, (whereof I have now a considerable parcel) be- cause your Grace will probably guess the author. 1 had no ambi- tion to view myself in any of these folio looking-glasses i but, as the publisher had sent me a set from the beginning, and told me that he would have no returns but in kind, and, as I had never refused the terms, I thought myself bound in a sort of debt of honour, which I endeavoured to pay with some detached thoughts " On Dream- " ing.'* It is a subject which I ought to understand as well as other people ; for I believe I have dreamed as much, both sleeping and waking, as most men of my age. Your Grace will observe, that the subject is not concluded, as I have not yet got time to transcribe the last part. The foolish gasconade at the top of the first, is an addition by the printer. I shall be happy if you find any thing tolerable in these two papers, to indemnify you for the dulness of this, which indeed I write under very unfavourable circumstances, — rheumatism, east^wind, shivering, a confused head, an aching heart, &c." LETTER CXLIL DR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDOlir. Aberdeen, 19th March, 1780. " AS I sincerely sympathized with your Grace on the occasion of your late uneasiness, it is with the greatest pleasure I now send my congratulations on the good news from Rodney ; by which you will see, that your brother's laurels, instead of being, as you appre- hended, stained with blood, are decorated with gold. For the sake of your Grace, as well as of his country, I pray, that the same success may attend him wherever he goes ; and that your tenderness and anxiety may soon receive their full reward in his safe return. When I consider the life that those lead who are engaged in the service of their country, the busy and merry faces with which they are continually surrounded, and those tumultuous hopes, and that bustle of employment, which keep their minds and bodies in con- stant exercise, I cannot but think their state much more enviable, LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 325 than that of the affectionate friend, whom they leave behind them at full liesure to magnify and multiply all their real dangers, and to imagine a thousand others that will never have any reality. " 1 am greatly obliged to your (irace for the little novel with the great name. At the first reading I did not thoroughly under- stand it ; but at the second I liked it well : and I agree with your Grace, that the author shows a capacity for much better things. There is something waggish enough, as well as uncommon, in the moral. But, in the preface, there are some thoughts and expres- sions not quite so feminine as I could have wished. " Read my " book^ or go hang yourself" is not like the language of a fair lady ; any more than what she says about being drenched in Mr Wal- pole's champaign: — But perhaps she wished it to be thought a masculine performance.* " I am happy that your Grace approves of my treatise " On " Dreaming." The publisher has never expressed any desire to have the sequel, and therefore I have not sent it. I suspect he may think it too serious for his paper. Your Grace seems to think, that I should avow more faith in dreams, if I thought it for the good of mankind that they should be believed. I confess there is something in this : and, as a proof, I beg leave to transcribe the concluding paragraph : " To conclude : Providence certainly superintends the affairs " of men ; and often, we know not how often, interposes for our " preservation. It would therefore be presumptuous to affirm " that supernatural cautions, in regard to futurity, are never " communicated in dreams. The design of this discourse is, " not to contradict any authentic experience, or historical fact, " but only to show, that dreams may proceed from a variety of " causes which have nothing supernatural ; that our waking " thoughts are often equally unaccountable ; that, therefore, a " superstitious attention to the former is not less absurd, than " a like attention to the latter would be : and that, though we are " not much acquainted with the nature of this wonderful mode of " perception, we know enough of it to see, that it is not useless or * I presume the novel Dr Beattie here alludes to, is one which, though published anonymously, was understood to be written by Lady Craven, now Margravine of Anspach. 326 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " superfluous ; but may, on the contrary, answer some purposes of " great importance to our welfare, both in soul and body."* " In the course of my walks, I straggled the other day in- to the Den of Rubislaw : But, whether it was owing to the stormy weather, or to the gloom of my own thoughts, I soon found it was not a fit place for me at that time. Instead of sighing and mur- muring, the naked trees seemed to roar in the wind, and the black stream to rumble and growl through the rocks ; and therefore, as I did not wish to detain even the idea of your Grace in so dreary a wilderness, I made haste to leave it. Two months hence it will be more pleasing, and, it is possible, I may then be more capable of being pleased." LETTER CXLIII. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 11th April, 1730. " I AM glad that you approve of my criticism on the inscrip- tion for the burying-ground. It would still, as you say, be more classical, if it were shorter; but, ^'•inspe beatx resurrectionis per " Christum" ought not to be expunged. Classical writings are good ; but the Christian faith is much better : and (to adopt the words of Addison a little varied) " I should be sorry to sacrifice my " catechism to my latinity." The epitaph on Franklin I had seen before : it is not at all amiss. " I have, since the college broke up, been hard at work upon Mr Riddoch's manuscript sermons ; but I have only got * What Dr Beattie intended as a third number of a ** Mirror" on «* Dreaming," was not printed when that paper was published in single numbers. But it was added as a sequel to the seventy -fourth paper, when the *' Mirror" was afterwards reprinted in volumes. They who wish to see more on this mysterious, and, may I be permitted to add, unintelligible faculty of dreaming, may consult Professor Dugald Stewart's very ingenious dissersation on the subject in his *' Elements of th^ Philosophy of the Hu» man Mind."t t Chap. V. sect. V. p. 310. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 327 through five of them, and there are still five-and-twenty before me. Never did I engage in a more troublesome business. There is not a sentence, there is hardly a line, that does not need correction. This is owing partly to the extreme inaccuracy of the wriiing, but chiefly to the peculiarity of the style ; an endiess string of cli- maxes ; the involution of clauses vi^ithin clauses ; the unmeasura- ble length of the sentences ; and such a profusion of superfluous words, as I have never before seen in any composition. To cure all these diseases is impossible. I must be satisfied with alle- viating some of the worst symptoms : yet, to do my old friend jus- tice, I must confess, that the sermons have in many places great ener- gy, and even eloquence, and abound in shrewd remarks, and strik- ing sentiments.* They are gloomy indeed ; and will suggest to those who never saw the author, what is really true, that in preach- ing he always had a frown on his countenance. He seldom seeks to draw with the cords of love, or with the bands of a man : his motto should be, " Knowing the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men." Both methods are good in their season ; but the former is, if I mistake not, most consonant to the practice of our Saviour and his Apostles, as well as to that of the English divines, who, I think, are the best of all modern preachers. " This puts me in mind of a passage in my friend the Bishop of Chester's last letter, which I know you will be glad to see: " I " am glad to find (says he) we are to have another volume of ser- " mons from Dr Blair. For although they may be thought by " some severe judges a little too florid and rhetorical, yet they " certainly abound with good sense, and useful observations, and just " sentiments of religion, conveyed in lively and elegant language : ^* better calculated, perhaps, to engage the attention, and touch the " hearts of the generality of readers, than that correct simplicity and " chastity of diction, which nicer ears require. There is, however, " another volume of sermons expected, with which every class of " readers will, I cpnceive, be abundantly satisfied ; I mean one from " Bishop Hurd. When such talents, and taste, and learning, as " his, are applied to the illustration of practical subjects, and the " recommendation of common religious duties, we may expect " every effect from them that human abilities are capable of pro- * See page 30?". 328 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " ducing. Such publications as these will, I hope, in some degree, " counteract the principles that will probably be diffused over the " kingdom by a very different sort of composition ; a second " volume of " The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." " I am much obliged to you, my dear sir, for your kind concern in my welfare, and for the many good advices contained in your last. I am deeply sensible of their importance, and will do what I can to follow them : But in my case there are some peculiar difficulties, which I do not well know how it will be possible for me to get over." LETTER CXLIV. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 23d May, 1780. " DR BLAIR'S secot\d volume I also saw at Gordon Castle. The Duke and Dutchess read it en famille on Sunday evening ; and I glanced over a good part of it. I did not think it quite equal to the first; but perhaps I may be mistaken. Dr Gerard's " Sermons," in one volume Svo, are just now sent me ; but I have not had time to read a single page. I am sure they will be sensi- ble and instructive. The author was my master, and I have the greatest regard for him. He was more than my master, — he was my particular friend, at a time when I had very few friends. " The death of Sir Adolphus Oughton must be a great afflic- tion to all his friends; I feel for them, and for myself. In him, the world has lost one of the best men it had to boast of. He has lost nothing, but gained every thing ; and therefore there is some- thing selfish in our lamentations."* LETTER CXLV. DR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDON. Aberdeen, 23d May, 1780. " To say that my departure from Gordon Castle cost me some sighs and tears, is not saying much ; as I am apt, of late, when * See page 162. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 3^9 alone, to be rather expensive in that way. I left you with a weight upon my mind, which would have been hardly supportable, if it had not been alleviated, in some degree, by the hope of soon meet- ing the Duke at Glasgow, and of seeing your (Jrace once more be- fore the end of summer. By the bye, I hope Mr Nicols will not in- termeddle in the arrangement of the dressing-room library ; I flat- ter myself, that honour will be reserved for me. " I have sent a small print, which my bookseller, in the abun- dance of his wisdom, and contrary to my advice, is determined to prefix to a new edition of my " Essays on Poetry, Music," &c. The figure, designed by Angelica, is certainly very noble, — much more so than I expected ; and is intended to represent Socrates in prison, and under sentence of death, composing a hymn in honour of Apollo. , But I am afraid, that the readers will neither guess at the meaning, nor see any connection between it and the book : in which case, they will no doubt suppose, that the author has pre- fixed his own image. However, the outline is good and graceful, and the attitude expressive. If it were not rather too melancholy, I would say, that it is very like Socrates. Your Grace knows, that the old philosopher was one of the merriest men of his time. " I should write a treatise, instead of a letter, if I were to be particular in my acknowledgments of gratitude, for what I have experienced of your Grace's and the Duke's goodness. I shall only say, (for I know you would not read me to an end if I were on this subject to use many words) that I am perfectly sensible of your kind attention to the peculiarities of my case. I saw by many instances every day, how solicitous you were to withdraw my view from every thing that could create or revive painful thoughts. My gratitude and admiration, (which are two very pleasing and healthy emotions) were not wholly inadequate; and the consequences are visible to every body. Since my return, I have been complimented on my improved looks ; though I have felt but little of that plea- sure which the sight of home used formerly to produce in me. In fact, home is not good for me at present, and I shall leave it as soon as ever I can." 2 T 330 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE LETTER CXLVI. i>R BEATTIE TO THE REV. DR LAING. Aberdeen, 25th May, 1?80. " WE often spoke of you at Gordon Castle, and with very great regard. The Duke is still more and more astronomical. He had Mr Copland* with him for a fortnight while I was there ; and they two Were, from morning to night, hard at work in calculation and observation. The Duke and Dutchess are both, I think, in better health than ever I knew them to be. " The manuscript sermon of Bishop Butler I sent to the Bishop of Chester. You will like to see what he says of it. " It abounds " with that strong sense and sound reasoning which so eminently " distinguished him ; and I cannot see in it the smallest foundation " for that accusation which it brought upon him, of being favourable " to Popery." This it seems, was the case at the time the sermon was preached ; and it was perhaps for this reason that he never published it in his works. " I send you inclosed a small piece of music, which I think you will like. I got the air at Gordon Castle, and I set to it the second part and bass. If it were sung with three voices, it would, I should imagine, have a very good effect. " I lately heard two anecdotes, which deserve to be put in writing, and which you will be glad to hear. When Handel's " Messiah" was first performed, the audience were exceedingly struck and affected by the music in general ; but when that chorus struck up, " For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth," they were so transported, that they all, together with the King, (who happened to be present) started up, and remained standing till the chorus ended : And hence it became the fashion in England for the audience to stand while that part of the music is performing. Some days after the first exhibition of the same divine oratorio, * Professor of Mathematics in Marlschal College. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 331 Mr Handel came to pay his respects to Lord Kinnoul, with whom he was particularly acquainted. His Lordship, as was natural, paid him some compliments on the noble entertainment which he had lately given the town. " My Lord," said Handel, " I should be " sorry if I only entertained them ; I wish to make them better." These two anecdotes I had from Lord Kinnoul himself. You will agree with me, that the first does great honour to Handel, to music, and to the English nation : The second tends to confirm my theory, and Sir John Hawkins's testimony, that Handel, in spite of all that has been said to the contrary, must have been a pious man/' LETTER CXLVII. DR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDOS. Aberdeen, 2d June, 1780. " I HAD the honour to write to your Grace on my return to Aberdeen, and to send a parcel of " Mirrors." This will accom- pany the two last papers that we are to have under that title. " I sympathize with you in your present solitude : For though nobody knows so well as your Grace how to improve retirement, yet I do not think it is good for any of us to be quite alone. If you go to the Glen,* I would earnestly recommend it to your Grace, to leave it to the moon and stars to adorn the night, and to be satisfied with sleeping under a canopy somewhat less sublime than that of heaven. For though, in the Eden of Gordon Castle, there is no serpent, I will not answer for the little Paradise of Glenfjddich ; and though walks at midnight, and slumbers in the open air, might be had last summer without harm, we have no reason to expect that the present season will be equally indulgent. I grant, that a lonely walk by moonlight is pleasing, like other intoxications ; but, like them too, it is hurtful to the nerves ; and I know not, whether the cold bath in the morning be a sufficient antidote. I need not inform your Grace, and I hope you will never forget, that in the evening it is particularly dangerous to walk among trees, on account * Glenfiddich. 332 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. of the damps. It was this that brought all his rheumatisms upon Major Mercer, though he was then in one of the best and driest climates in the world, the south of t ranee. " The Duke's summons was unexpectedly sudden : I hope his return will be equally so. He was so good, in passing through the town, as to call on me, notwithstanding his hurry, and to desire me to go with him to Edinburgh ; an invitation so very agreeable^ that nothing would have hindered me from accepting it but my son's bad health. The boy was at that time very ill ; and I appre- Jiended a consumption : But he is now much better ; Dr Livingston having ordered for him a preparation of bark and the vitriolic acid, which, with a strict regimen in the article of diet, has in a few days had the happiest effects. So that, if nothing unexpected occur ; I have thoughts of going southward next week ; in which case, it will not be long before your Grace hears of me from Glasgow. You will probably hear from me too, if I meet with any adventure. 1 shall remember the commission in regard to Addi- son ; and, if you will honour me with any other, please to direct to me at Sir William Forbes's, St Andrew's Street, Edinburgh. " I had lately a tete-a-tete of several hours with Lord Kaimes and Mrs Drummond. There was no company ; and we had much conversation on a great variety of subjects — your Grace and the Duke, Lord and Lady F., Mrs Montagu, David Hume, religion, episcopacy and presbyterianism, manufactures, music, Scotch tunes, with the method of playing them, &c. ; and I flatter myself, that his Lordship and I parted with some reluctance on both sides. He assured me that he hated Mr Hume's tenets as much as I did, or could do ; and he spoke of religion with great reverence. In a word, I found, from his conversation, that he is just what your Grace had described him to me, and that all the other accounts I had heard of him were wide of the truth. I would thank you, madam, for undeceiving me in this particular, and establishing peace, and I hope amity, between us ; but I have so many things to thank you for, that if I were to enter upon that matter in detail, I should not know where to begin, and my letter would never have an end. " Thus far I had written on Friday, when I had the honour to receive your Grace's letter of last Wednesday ; which is so very flattering to me, that I cannot answer a word. I certainly left LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 333 Gordon Castle with great reluctance ; and my heart and my fancy did, both of them, and still do, cast ** Many a longing', lingering look behind," The society was most agreeable ; ^ut, I flatter myself, you will do me the justice to believe, it was not the parting with the guests that touched me so nearly, — though, I am sure, I love and esteem them all as much as they themselves would wish me to do. " I delivered your message to Dr Livingston, with whom I dined the other day, in company with three sensible and cheerful Quakers. I spoke to them of my friend, and their brother, Mr Scott, (the author of the " Eclogues," which your Grace liked so much) whom the Londoner very well knew ; and I diverted them with the history of a dinner, with which I was once entertained by ten or twelve of their fraternity, on the King's birth-day, at one o'clock, near the confluence of the Thames and Fleet-ditch, the very spot where Pope makes his Dunces jump into the mud, in the second book of the " Dunciad." These Quakers were all men of learning and sense ; and their manners, polite though peculiar, were to me a very entertaining novelty. Indeed, the affection they showed me, deserved, on my part, the warmest returns of grati- tude. " I have put up in a parcel for your Grace, " Count Fathom," « The Tale of a Tub," and " Gaudentio di Lucca ;" which, with the " Italian Prayer Book," I have committed to a faithful hand. " Gaudentio" (if you have never seen it) will amuse you, though there are tedious passages in it. The whole description of passing the deserts of Africa is particularly excellent. The author is no less a person than the famous Bishop Berkeley. As to the whisky, I cannot trust it in the rude hands of a carrier, and must therefore keep it till a more favourable opportunity offer : But, that it may remain sacred, I have sealed the cork of the bottle with the impression of three ladies,* whom I take to be your Grace's near relations, as they have the honour, not only to bear one of your titles, but also to resemble you exceedingly in form, feature, and manner. If you had lived three thousand years ago, which I am very glad you * The seal he commonly used, had an impression of the three Graces. 334 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. did not, there would have been four of them, and you the first. May all happiness ever attend your Grace." The following letter, from Dr Johnson to Dr Beattie, is equally creditable to both : It is the unsolicited and unbiassed testimony of one who was no flatterer ; and strongly marks the high degree of estimation in which he held Dr Beattie, who returned his kindness with reciprocal regard.* LETTER CXLVIIL DR SAMUEL JOHNSON TO DR BEATTIE. Bolt-Court, Fleet-Street, 21st August, 1780. " MORE years than I have any delight to reckon have past since you and I saw one another. Of this, however, there is no reason for making any reprehensory complaint, sic fata ferunt : But, methinks, there might pass some small interchange of regard between us. If you say, that I ought to have written, I now write ; and I write to tell you, that I have much kindness for you and Mrs Beattie, and that I wish your health better, and your life long. Try change of air, and come a few degrees southward ; a softer climate may do you both good. Winter is coming on, and London will be warmer, and gayer, and busier, and more fertile of amusement than Aberdeen. " My health is better ; but that will be little in the balance, when I tell you, that Mrs Montagu has been very ill, and is, I doubt, now but weakly. Mr Thrale has been very dangerously dis- ordered, but is much better, and I hope will totally recover. He has withdrawn himself from business the whole summer. Sir Joshua and his sister are well ; and Mr Davis has had great suc- cess as an author, generated by the corruption of a bookseller. • See p. 147. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 3351 More news I have not to tell you ; and therefore you must be con- tented to hear that I am," &c. When I mentioned* the commencement of my acquaintance and epistolary intercourse with Dr Beattie, 1 did not conceal my apprehensions, that I might be accused of vanity, in publishing to the world those warm expressions of affection and gratitude towards me, which occur in almost every letter I received from him ; and of which, for that reason, I have suppressed by far the greatest part. But I should deem myself, not only unworthy of the friend- ship of Dr Beattie, but destitute of the best feelings of our nature, were I insensible to what he says in the following letter, written a short time after he had passed some weeks in our house at Edin- burgh. Indeed, his partiality to every one of my family was very remarkable ; and his esteem and admiration of that best part of it, in particular, of whom it has since pleased Heaven to deprive me, but the memory of whose talents and virtues will never be erased from my heart, could not but be very grateful to me. I trust, therefore, that the reader will pardon me if I dwell with no common fondness on what he wrote on a subject, then so inter- esting to me, and to which the hand of time has now given an in- terest still more affecting. LETTER CXLIX. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 6th November, 1780. " YOUR letter, my dear sir, from Oxford, which I received a few days ago, gave me great pleasure, on account of the agreeable information it brought me of Lady Forbes*s health and yours, and of your amusing journey. I know, from Pennant's " Welsh Tour," * See p. 51. 336 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. that there are many things in that country worthy of the traveller's attention ; many wild and many soothing scenes, and many noble monuments of war, and of superstitious and feudal magnificence. Such things, to a mind turned like-yours, would have a charm inex- pressible ; and would be highly amusing to Lady Forbes, whose mind is, if I mistake not, as open to the impressions of romantic art and nature, as either yours or mine ; which, I will venture to say, is a bold word. Accept of my hearty welcome to your own house and home, which I hope you have reached before this time ; for, in this season of tempest and immature winter, I should be sorry to think that you and your amiable associate were struggling with the inconveniences of deep roads, cold inns, and short days. I hope you got William settled to your mind during your absence ; and that, at your return, you found him, and my friend Miss Forbes> and my sworn brother John, and my acquaintance James, and the other young gentleman, who, I hope, will one day be my acquaints ance, in perfect health, and as flourishing as I wish them to be. " The many kind attentions I received from my friends in Edin- burgh and its neighbourhood, particularly from Lady Forbes and you, and Mr Arbuthnot, did me the greatest service ; and I returned home a new man. But then I instantly found myself plunged into such a chaos of perplexity, as at once swallowed up all the little health I had been collecting from so many quarters ; and, after a few days ineffectual wrangling, I was necessitated (1 will not say to go, but) to run away to Peterhead, taking my son along with me ; and there I remained seven weeks. To unfold the causes of this perplexity would, I think, require two volumes as large as the " Sorrows of Werter:"* I will not therefore attempt it at present. I shall only say, that it did not arise from a certain circumstance which lies nearest my heart, (for in that there is not the least vari- ation) but from the unreasonableness of some persons with whom I am connected, and who, having not much sensibility themselves, can hardly make allowance for that of other people. However, matters are now a little softened, and seem to promise tranquillity, at least for a short time ; and a very small abatement of trouble is a sort of tranquillity to one, who, like me, has been so long buffeted, on all sides, by more storms than are commonly found to assail a • A German novel, muchiii fashion at that time. LIFE OF D:^ BEATtlE. M person so insignificant as I am. Dr Livingston knows every cir- cmnstance of what I allude to.* I have in every thing been gov- erned by his advice ; for I begin to distrust tny own faculties, as I feel them sensibly impaired. At any rate, 1 am sure I shall do well in doing what he recommended ; as I have always found him a most intelligent, prudent, and affectionate friend, as well as one of the ablest of his profession. I shall some time hereafter explain myself to you on this subject very particularly. At present I wish rather to decline troubling you in regard to it. " I am glad you met with the Bishop of Bangor. I knew him formerly when he was Dean of Canterbury ;t and I once passed a morning in company with his lady Mrs Moore, at Dr Markham's, then Bishop of Chester, now Archbishop of York. Your account of Dr Moore is very just ; he is really a most worthy man. By the bye, I think the English bench of Bishops Was never more respect- able, than at present, for learning and piety." LETTEk CL, DR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDON. Whitehall, 16th May, 1781. " I HAVE seen most of the fashionable curiosities ; but will not trouble your Grace with any particular account of them. The exhibition of pictures at the Royal Academy is the best of the kind I have seen. The best pieces, in my opinion, are, Thais (with a torch in her hand) ; the Death of Dido ; and a Boy supposed to be listening to a wonderful story ; these three by Sir Joshua Reynolds ; a Shepherd-boy, by Gainsborough : some landscapes, by Barrett. Christ healing the Sick, by West, is a prodigious great work, and • Dr Thomas Livingston, a physician at Aberdeen, of the first eminence, between whom and Dr Beattie there long subsisted the most intimate friend- ship. He died the 9th March, 1785. t Afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. 2u 3a«r LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. has in it great variety of expression ; but there is a glare and a hardness in the colouring, which makes it look more like a picture than like nature. Gainsborough's picture of the King is the strongest likeness I have ever seen ; his Queen too is very well : but he has not given them attitudes becoming their rank ; the King has his hat in his hand, and the Queen looks as if she were going to courtesy in the beginning of a minuet. Others may think differently : I give my own opinion. > " There is nothing at either playhouse that is in the least capti- vating ; nor, I think, one player, Mrs Abingdon excepted, whom one would wish to see a second time. I was shocked at Leoni, in ^* Had I a heart for falsehood," &c. A man singing with a woman's voice, sounds as unnatural to me, as a woman singing with a man's. Either may do in a private company, where it is enough if people are diverted ; but on a stage, where nature ought to be imitated, both are in my opinion intolerable. " Johnson's new " Lives" are published. He is, as your Grace heard he would be, very severe on my poor friend. Gray. His life of Pope is excellent ; and in all his lives there is merit, as they con- tain a great variety of sound criticism and pleasing information. He has not done justice to Lord Lyttelton. He has found means to pay me a very great compliment, for which I am much obliged to him, in speaking of Mr Gray's journey into Scotland in 1765.* " Copley's picture of Lord Chatham's D^ath is an exhibition of itself. It is a vast collection of portraits, some of them very like : but, excepting three or four of the personages present, few of this vast assembly seem to be much affected with the great event ; which divests the picture of its unity, and will in the next age make it cease to be interesting." •: fitiv/) J .fio'fli;; * Speaking of that journey, Dr Johnson says, " He (Mr Gray) naturally *' contracted a friendship with Dr Beattie, whom he found a poet, a philoso- «* pher, and a good man.'* Johnson's Lives, Vol. IV. p. 471. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. S3? LETTER CLL BR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Middle Scotland-yard, Whitehall, 1st June, 1781. " IF you will not allow eating and drinking, and walking and visiting, to be work, I must confess I have for these five weeks been very idle. Yet in such a perpetual hurry have I been kept by this sort of idleness, that I had no time to write, to read, or even to think. For the amusement of my young fellow-traveller,* and in order also to drive away painful ideas from myself, I have run through a complete Encyclofiedie of shows, and monsters, and other curiosities, from " Douglas" at Drury-lane, to the puppet-show at Astley's riding-school ; from the wonderful heifer with two heads, to Dr Graham and his celestial brilliancy ; from the great lion in the Tower, and the stuffed elephant's skin at Sir Ashton Lever*s, to the little Welsh woman in Holborn, who, though twenty-three yeai^ of age, weighs only eighteen pounds. " But, what you will readily believe to have been much more beneficial to my health and spirits, I have been visiting all my friends again and again, and found them as affectionate and atten- tive as ever. Death has indeed deprived me of some since 1 was last here, of Garrick, and Armstrong, and poor Harry Smith ; but \ have still many left ; some of whom are higher in the world, and in better health, than they were in 1775, and all as well and as flourishing as I had any reason to expect. " I have seen Mr Langton several times, and I gave him your memorandum relating to M. Tremblay. He goes to Chatham in a few days with his family, in quality of engineer; and I intend to make him a visit there, having some curiosity to see the shipping and the fortifications. You certainly know that Mr Langton is an officer of militia. He loves the militarj^ life, and has been inde- fatigable in acquiring the knowledge that is necessary to it. He is * His son. Itie LIFE OF DR BEATTI?. allowed to be a most excellent engineer. Indeed he is excellent in every thing* " Johnson grows in grace as he grows in years. He not only has better health and a fresher complexion than ever he had before, * Bennet Langton, Esq. of Langton, in the county of Lincoln, LL. D. a gentleman no less eminent for his virtues, than for his ardent love of litera- ture. Inheriting" a paternal fortune, that rendered him independent of any profession, he devoted himself to thp study of letters, which he cultivated with uncommon assiduity, first at the g-rammar schools of Kensington, Read- ing, and Beverly, afterwards at Trinity-college, Oxford. His favourite study was Greek, in which he became very learned ; he was an excellent Latiij scholar, and had even acquired a knowledge of the Hebrew. He had % thorough acquaintance with the French language, and read also the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. But his successful and extraordinary acquirements in literature, were by po means the most remarkable parts of Mr Langton*s character. His exem- j)lary piety , his singulai* humility, and his unwearied endeavours in the exercise gf the great duties of charity and benevolence, were hi^ brightest ornaments. It was the emphatic testimony of Dr Johnson in his favour, ** 1 know nqt , ** who will go to heaven if Langton do^s not : S.ir, I could almost say. Sit ** anima meu cum Langtono f^*\ 2iTid when Mr Boswell, to whom the Doctor made the remark, mentioned a very eminent friend of theirs as a virtuous ipan, J<)hnson's reply was, — " Yes, Sir, but he has not the evangelical virtue ** of Langton.'* On another occasion he said to JVf r Boswell, with a velie- inence of affectionate regard, — ** The earth 4Q^f P9f , l>f ar a worthier man ** than Bemiet Langton." I ? j,,,^. His acquaintance with Dr Johnson commenced' in a manner somewhat singular. When Mr Langton was no more than sixteen years of age, and before he went to the university, having read, with a high degree of admira- tion, Dr Johnson's celebrated '* Rambler," which was first published about that period, he travelled to Loi^don chiefly with a view of becoming acr quainted witli its author. In this he succeeded ; and Johnson being struclf with his great piety, love of learning, and suavity of manners^ conceived % warm aflfection for him ; while he, on the other ha^d, was charmed with Dr Johnson, whose ideas and sentiments he found congenial with those he had early imbibed at home. From that period, notwithstanding a considerable disparity of years, a most intimate friendship took place between tliem, which lasted, without the slightest interruption, as loDg as Johnson lived. Whei> tjhe death of his inestimable friend drew near, Mr Langton attended him con- stantly, and soothed some of his last hours with the most pleasing and afiiec- tipnate assiduity. Once when Mr Langton was sitting by his bedsijie, Dr t BosweU's Life of Johnson, 3d ed. Vol. IV. p. 29-1. t/WS the West Indies say, that the Jamaica heat is much more tolerable. In this situation, it is no wonder that I should often think of the shades of the holly-bank at Gordon Castle, and the sea-breezes of Peterhead. " The Persees, or Gentoos, or (as some call them) the Persian ambassadors, are at present one of the great curiosities of the town. They are charged with some embassy from their own country ; but what that is nobody knows. Lord William Gordon did me the honour to make me one of a large party, whom he lately invited to Green-park Lodge to see them. By means of a gentleman, who acted as their interpreter, I asked them several questions, to which they returned pertinent answers. They are dressed in the manner of their country, in long robes of a whitish-coloured stuff resemb- ling Indian silk, with turbans on their heads, differing however from the Turkish turbans. Their complexion is a yellowish black, re- sembling the mulatto colour, with mustachios or whiskers of the deepest black, as are also their eyes. Their features are regular, and of the European cast : the younger of the two may be called handsome ; and the elder, who is his father, has a most expressive, sensible countenance. Though many people of great rank tVere present, particularly the Duke of Gloucester, Lord and Lady Pem- broke, Lady Frances Scot, Lady Irvine and all her daughters, the three Lady Waldegraves, Lord Herbert, 8cc. the strangers behaved with great ease, as well as with great courtesy. Lord William pre- sented me to the Duke of Gloucester, with whom I had the honour of a short conversation, and who made me very happy in saying, that he had heard your Grace speak of me." LETTER CLIIL DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. London, 28th June, 1781. <' I HAVE seen Bishop Hurd * once and again ; and last Sunday at Canewood passed a truly classical day with Lord Mans- * Bishop of Worcester ; between whom and Dr Beattie there existed a mutual respect and esteem. This venerable Prelate is the well-known author of ** An Introduction to the Study of the Prophecies concerning the Chris- ^44 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. field and him. I never saw Lord Mansfield better. He is in per- fect health and good spirits, and looks no older than fifty-five. He walked with me three miles and a half, without the least appearance of fatigue.* " The Bishop of Chester has been gone some time, and several others of my friends have left the town ; so that as my business is finished, or nearly so, I have nothing to keep me longer here. I hope we shall meet in little more than a fortnight. " Mrs Montagu, on going to her cotintry-seat in Berkshire, stbout a month ago. Was seized with a violent illness. The physi-' cians sent her instantly to Bath, where she has been ever since. I had the pleasure to learn last night, by a letter from her own hand, that she is now quite well. " I went lately to Rochester, on a visit to Mr Langton and Lady Rothes ; who desire to be remembered to Lady Forbes and you. Mr Langton has sent me Tremblay*s book, which I shall take pro- per care of. At Chatham I saw that wonderful sight, a ninety-gun ship on the stocks : but, from the top of Shooter's~hill, on my re- turn, I saw a sight still more magnificent, a complete view of this huge metropolis from Chelsea to Blackwall, the back-ground em- bellished with a violent storm of thunder and lightning, which roared and flashed without intermission. " I thought it my duty to appear at the levee before I left Lon- don ; and accordingly the week before last I went to court. The King had not seen me for six years, and yet, to my surprise, knew me at first sight. He spoke to me with his wonted condescension and aff'ability ; and paid me a very polite coihpliment on the sub- ject of my writings." ** tlan Church :" " A Commentary and Notes on Horace's Art of Poetry :" *' Moral and Political Dialogues :** " Sermons preached at Lincoln's-inn," and »* A Moral Dissertation of the Truth of the Christian Religion," taken from Bishop Jeremy Taylor's " Ductor Dubitantium," Dr Beattie has else- where said, that he thought the Bishop of London and Bishop of Worcester the two best preachers be ever heard.f * See p. 158. t See Page 284. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE, 345 LETTER CLIV. DR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDON. Aberdeen, 21st November, 1781. " IN calling your Grace's attention to an " Essay on Beauty," I am afraid I shall incur the same censure with a brother-professor of mine, who had the assurance to deliver, in the hearing of the greatest commander on earth, a dissertation on the art of war. " Many a fool have I seen in my time," said Hannibal, " but this ** old blockhead exceeds them all." " However, one must keep one's word ; and, as your Grace de- sired to see this Essay, and I promised to send it, (as soon as I could get it transcribed) I send it accordingly. I should not give you the trouble to return it, if I had not promised a reading of it to Sir Joshua Reynolds. As it is only an extract from "A Discourse on " Memory and Imagination," (which your Grace could not find time to look into at Peterhead, and which it is impossible for me to send at present, as I am correcting it for the press) I am afraid you will find some obscurity in it, especially towards the beginning. " If the last letter had not miscarried, which I had the honour to write to your Grace, you would have known, that I am now very busy in revising and transcribing papers ; as I am to put a quarto volume to press in little more than a month ; and a quarto not much smaller than my last. Your Grace has seen a good deal of it, but not the whole." LETTER CLV. DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. MR WILLIAMSON. Aberdeen, 5th D>;cember, 1781. " IF Dr Home * be returned to Oxford, I beg you will take the first opportunity to present my best respects to him, and assure * Afterwards Bishop of Norwich, author of " A Letter to Adam Smith, «* LL. D. on the Life, Death, and Philosophy of his friend David Hume, « ^q. by one of the People called Christians." Printed at Oxford in th© year 1777. .2 X 34« LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. him, that I shall ever retain a most grateful sense of the honour he has done me in his elegant letter to Adam Smith. This acknow- ledgment comes rather late ; but it is not on that account the less sincere. Why it has been so long delayed, I now beg leave to ex- plain. " The first notice I received of Dr Home's excellent pamphlet, was in a short letter from you, which came at a time when my health was in so bad a way, that most of my friends here thought I had not many weeks to live. These sufferings, I must acknowledge, drove all literary matters out of my head : your letter wast lost ; and of Dr Home's pamphlet I heard nothing more, till this last summer, when Lord Mansfield asked me, whether I had seen it, speaking of it at the same time in terms of the highest approbation. I was forced to confess I had not seen it, and never heard of it but once ; and, to account for this, I told his Lordship what I have now told you. At Oxford, you will probably remember, that I found it in the beginning of July last, and then it was, that I knew for the first time the extent of my obligations to Dr Home. I wished imme- diately, as you know, to pay my respects to him, but he was gone out of town. Since my return from England, I find the pamphlet has given universal satisfaction ; and some of my friends have wished, that a small and cheap edition of it could be printed, and circulated all over the country, as they think it might counterwork the unwearied efforts which Mr Hume's friends have long been making to extol his character, and depress mine." LETTER CLVL DR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDON. Aberdeen, 18th August, 1782. " I HAD the honour to receive your Grace's letter, and the noble present inclosed in it,* just as I was setting out for Edin- l)urgh. After many attempts to thank you for it, and to tell you how much I glory in it, I find I must at last confine my gratitude • A portrait of tlie Dutchess of Gordon, tIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 347 ^nd my exultations to my own breast ; having no words that can in any degree do them justice. It is indeed a most charming pic- ture, and an exact copy of Sir Joshua's ; and I am envied the possession of it by every one who sees it. Mr Smith has outdone himself on the occasion ; I am exceedingly obliged to him. " Your Grace will perhaps remember, that at Gordon Castle there was some conversation about Petrarch. Knowing that it was, the custom of his age to write gallant verses ; and conjecturing, from other circumstances, that his passion for Laura was not so serious a business as his French biographer pretends, I happened to say, that there was some reason to think, that he wrote his Italian sonnets as much to display his wit as to declare his passion. J have since made some discoveries in regard to this matter, >yhich amount to what follows : " That Petrarch's passion for the lady was so far sincere, as to give him uneasiness, appears from an account of his life and character, written by himself in Latin prose, and prefixed to a folio edition of his works, of which I have a copy, printed in the year 1554. But that his love was of that permanent and overwhelming nature, which some writers suppose, or that it continued to the end of his life, (as a late writer affirms) there is good reason to doubt, upon the same authority. Nay, there is presumptive, and even positive evidence of the contrary ; and that he was less subject, than most men can pretend to be, to the tyranny of the " Winged " Boy." " The presumptive evidence is founded on the very laborious life which he must have led in the pursuits of literature. His youth was employed in study, at a time when study was extremely difficult, on account of the scarcity of books and of teachers. He became the most learned man of his time ; and to his labour in transcribing several ancient authors, with his own hand, we are indebted for their preservation. His works, in my edition of them, fill 1455 folio pages, closely printed ; of which the Italian Sonnets are not more than a twentieth part : the rest being Latin Essays, Dialogues, &c. and an epic poem in Latin verse, called " Africa,'* as long as "Paradise Lost." His retirement at Vaucluse, (which in Latin he calls Clausa) was by no means devoted to love and Laura. " There," says he, in the account of his life above meui- tioned, " almost all the works I ever published were cgmplt^te^, or 348 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " begun, or planned: and they were so many," these are his words, " that even to these years they employ and fatigue me.'* In a word, Petrarch wrote more than I could transcribe in twenty years ; and more than I think he could have composed, though he had studied without intermission, in forty. Can it be believed, that a man of extreme sensibility, pining, from twenty-five to the end of his life, in hopeless love, could be so zealous a student, and so voluminous a writer ? " But more direct evidence we have from himself,, in his own account above mentioned, of his life, conversation, and character. I must not translate the passage literally, on account of an indeli- cate word or two ; but I shall give the sense of it : " In my youth " I was violently in love ; but it was only once ; and the passion was " honourable, or virtuous ; and would have continued longer, if the ^* flame, already decaying^ had not been extinguished by a death, " which was bitter indeed, but useful." And a little after he says : " Before I was forty years of age^ I had banished from my mind " every idea of love, as effectually as if I had never seen a woman." He adds some things, in a strsdn of bitterness, execrating the belle passion^ as what he had always hated as a vile and a disgraceful servitude. " In the above passage, your Grace will observe, that Petrarch does not name his mistress. This, if we consider the manners of that age, and the piety and good sense of Petrarch, may make us doubt whether Laura was really the object of his passion. I had this doubt for a little while : but Hieronymo Squarzafichi, a writer of that age, and the author of another Latin Life of Petrarch, pre- fixed to the same edition of his works, positively says, that the name of the lady whom the poet loved was Lauretta, which her admirer changed to Laura. The name, thus changed, supplies him with numberless allusions to the laurel, and to the story of Apollo and Daphne. Might not Petrarch, in many of his sonnets, have had an allegorical reference to the poetical laurel^ which was offered him at one and the same time by deputies from France and from Italy ; and with which, to his great satisfaction, he was actu- ally crowned at Rome with the customary solemnities ? In this view, his love of fame and of poetry would happily coincide with his tenderness for Laura, and give peculiar enthusiasm to such of his thoughts as might relate to any one of the three passions. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 3^49 ^* ^ut how, you will say, is all this to be reconciled to the ac- count given by the French author of that Life of Petrarch, which Mrs Dobson has abridged in English ? " I answer : First, That Petrarch's own account of his life, in serious prose, is not to be called in question: and, Secondly, That to a French biographer, in a matter of this kind, no degree of credit is due. I have seen pretended lives, in French, of Horace, Tibul- lus, Propertius, &c. in which there was hardly one word of truth ; the greatest part being fable, and that sort of declamation which some people call sentiment. And your Grace knows, that no other character belongs to the " Bellisarius" and " Incas of Peru" by Marmontel. The French life of Petrarch I consider in the same light ; and that what is said of his manuscript letters and memoirs, is no better than a job contrived by the bookseller, and executed by the author." LETTER CLVII. JOHN SCOTT* TO DR BEATTIE. Ratcliif-cross, London, 10th May, 1782. " ACCEPT my best thanks for thy very kind and accepta- ble letter. I am now happy enough to be able to say, that I have • John Scott of Am well, near Ware, in Hertfordshire, was, as this letter indicates, one of the people called Qjiakers ; a poet of no mean genius, as his Eclogues, Elegies, Odes, and other pieces which have been collected and published, amply testify. His two longest works are, '* Am well," a descriptive poem, and an " Essay on Painting." He was not less distin- guished by the blameless simplicity of his manners, than by the warmth of his friendship, and the activity of his benevolence. Though bred to no pro- fession, he was far from leading a life of idleness or inactivity ; but while he amused himself with poetry and gardening, of v.'hich he was uncommonly fond, he employed much of his time in works of public utility in the vicinity of his residence. He published a pamphljpt full of good sense and pliilan- throphy, entitled, *' ObseAations on the Present State of the Parochial and " Vagrant Poor." He frequently interfered in their distresses, and was ever ready to stand forward as the arbiti-ator of differences among his neigh- •350 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. finished my volume of" Poems." I shall wait, with some anxiety, for my friend's opinion of some of the contents, particularly the " Oriental Eclogues," the " Mexican Prophecy," and the " Essay on Painting ;" for on these, as-'far as I can trust my own judgment, I think must much depend the rank I may be allowed to hold as a poet. I should like also to know which of the smaller odes most obtained my friend's approbation. The " Essay on Painting" was an after-thought ; it was begun when the previous part of the book was printed, and finished in about five weeks ; it was, therefore, a hasty, though I hope not an incorrect, performance. I had de- signed (as I mention in the introduction) something of this kind long before Hayley's " Epistle to Romney" appeared, but had laid it aside. Happening to write a few lines on the subject, with an intent to introduce them into another poem, where I afterwards found them not easy introducible, and thinking them too good to be lost, I determined on the work in question, where I knew they would appear with propriety. Thus, from very small, and indeed unforeseen circumstances, things of some importance often arise. I endeavoured, as much as possible, to avoid the same ground that Hayley had trodden. On Landscape he had said little; I had therefore room to expatiate. On Portrait he had said much; and I was necessitated to say something; but even there I wished bours. In g-eneral, he seems to have imitated the philanthrophy of that well-known character, *• The Man of Ross." Dr Beattie, with whom, among other literary persons, he had become acquainted, and between whom a similarity of taste had produced an intimate friendship, alludes, in one of his letters,t to this part of Mr Scott's character: '« I am astonish- ♦' ed," say Dr Beattie, ** at the activity of your mind, and the versatility " of your genius. It is really amazing, tliat one and the same person should, " in one and the same year, pubhsh the most elegant poems, and a * Digest " of Laws rehiting to the Highways.' Go on, Sir, in your laudable resolu- ** tion of delighting and instructing mankind, of patronizing the poor, and " promoting the public weah'* This amiable man died of a putrid fever at London, the 12th December, 17So, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. See a well-written life, and critical remarks on his works, by Dr Ander- son, prefixed to his poems in the " British Poets,** Vol. XL p. 717. t In 1778, with a friendly zeal, he undertook the defence of his friend Dr Beattie, from an anonymous attack in " The Gentleman's Magazine" for January, in a letter in the same Maga. zine for Mardh following, to which he signed his name, and received Dr Beattie's acknowledge** ments on the occasion . LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 351 ^lot to imitate, but rather to rival, my predecessor. Hayley's piece has great merit, but is tedious from its length and inequality. That kind of rhyming prose, used by Dryden in his earlier works, seems coming much into fashion ; but I am clear it must be a vicious taste that gives it encouragement. For the couplet versi- fication, we have no better model than that of Pope ; or if that can be at all improved, it must be by a sparing use of Dryden's manner in what (notwithstanding I have the authority of Johnson against me) I do not hesitate to call the best poetry he ever wrote, his " Tales'* and " Fables.** Another vicious mode of composition seems also to be gaining ground, which, if adopted, will almost ab- solutely destroy the distinction between two species of writing, which should be ever kept separate, rhyme and blank verse : I mean, breaking the lines of couplets ; or, in other words, running the sense too much from one line to another. This is counte- nanced by one very good poet, Meikle, translator of the "Lusiad,** who, in a fine poem, entitled " Almada-hill,'* has practised it to an excess, and by that means injured his poetry. I am told Mason is about a translation of Fresnoy*s " Poem on Painting.'* The origi- nal, as far as I can judge, reads flat and dry. Dryden's prose ver- sion does riot mend it. What charms Mason's poetical powers may bestow upon it, I do not pretend to determine. There is more in expression than we are often aware of. The same thought in different language will disgust or delight us. So just is the axiom of Pope, — • « True wit,* is nature to advantage dressed ; •* What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." " I believe I mentioned in a former letter, that I had seen Bry- ant on the "Rowleyan Controversy,*' and that Dean Mills had published a pompous quarto edition of the author. Both these gentlemen have been completely answered, in a very good and decisive pamphlet, by Mr Thomas Warton ; and Mills has been most severely ridiculed in an archaiological epistle. This is an excellent performance of the serio-humorous kind : it is pretty • I should rather have said true poetry ; or indeed good composition of apy species. 3S2 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. boldly attributed to Mason ; but I scarcely think it is his. Mason has given us nothing avowedly his own, but of the sublime or pathetic as far as I can recollect. I should rather fix this new pro- duction on the yet undiscovered author of the famous " Heroic " Epistle ;" they certainly breathe the same spirit of poetry and politics. " Did I ever mention Dr Johnson's prefaces? My friend has doubtless seen that fund of entertainment and information ; of striking observations and useful reflections; of good sense, and of illiberal prejudices ; of just and of unjust criticism. That a mind, so enlarged as Johnson's in some respects, should be so confined in others, is amazing. The titled scribblers of the last century ; the prosaic Denham, the inane and quaint Yalden, and even the Grub- street, Pomfret, meet with all possible favour. Every man who ex- presses sentiments of religious or political liberty ; every man who writes in blank verse, or writes pastoral ; and every man contem- porary with himself — is sure to meet with no mercy. To Black- more, I think, he has done but justice. Blackmore, with all his ab- surdities, was a poet ; his poem on the " Creation" (tedious as it is) sufficiently proves it. Pope and his brother wits were too hard upon Blackmore : it was very well to point out his faults, but un- generous to stigmatize him as an absolute dunce. Dr Johnson has very properly estimated the merits of Prior, whose poetical powers were too highly rated by the readers of his own time ; though it must be allowed, that much of his " Solomon," and some of hi& " Henry and Emma," is real poetry. Dyer, Shenstone, Collins, Akenside, and Gray, are the authors whom I mOKt regret as suf- ferers by Johnson's unjust censure : and what must one think of the critic's taste, who could prefer Dryden's wretched, conceited « Ode on Mrs Killigrew," to the " British Bard" of our English Pindar ? " As soon as thy health and avocations will permit, I shall be glad of a few lines from a friend, whose coiTespondenceis always highly acceptable.**- LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. S^ LETTER CLVIII. DR BEATTIB TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 25th October, 1782. « ELPHINSTON's " Martial" is just come to hand. It is tniely an unique. The specimens formerly published did very w«ll to laugh at ; but a whole quarto of nonsense and gibberish, is too much. It is strange that a man, not wholly illiterate, should have lived so long in England, without learning the language. " I have lately been very much entertained and instructed with a work of a different nature, which will do honour to thi- country, and be a blessing to mankind, Dr Campbell's " Translation of the " Four Gospels," with explanatory and critical annotations. I have revised the first eighteen chapters of Matthew ; and am really astonished at the learning and accuracy of tiie author. He had be- fore given the world sufficient proofs of both ; but this will be his greatest work. It will be accompanied with preliminary disserta- tions, for explaining what could not be conveniently il ustrated in notes. I have read the titles of the Dissertations, and shall soon, have them in my hands. The whole will make, as I guess, two quarto volumes. I have several times studied the Gospels in the original ; but had no idea, till now, that the common translation stood so much in need of a revisal." LETTER CLIX. noi DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. Aberdeen, SOth January, 1783. " I LATELY had the happiness to receive from the Bishop of Chester the^most agreeable accounts of your health , which no perplexities of my own can eyer make me cease, even for a single hour, to be interested in, 3 Y 354 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " Your little godson, who was all last summer in the coun- try, returned home in October, and since that time has been under my own inspection ; which, till now, the peculiar circumstances of my family did not permit him to be. I found him wild and not very tractable i though not destitute either of affection or of gene- rosity. He had been committed to the care of people, who it seems, thought it too soon to inure him to moral discipline. But as that part of education cannot, in my opinion, begin too early, I have been combating his evil habits with all the caution and steadiness I am ^master of; and my success has been not inconsiderable. I have taught him to fear my anger above every thing (for he is too young to be impressed with any fear of a higher kind) ; and I find, that the more he fears the more he loves me. His brother co- operates with me in this good work ; and I hope we shall in time make him a very good boy. He is stout and healthy, and the pic- ture of good humour and good cheer, and a very great favourite in the neighbourhood. Bodily correction I have never used as yet ; considering it as a dangerous remedy, which ought not to be had recourse to, till all others have been tried and found ineffectual. My other boy is busy at his French and Greek. I thought him too young to go into the higher classes, and have made him study the elements of Greek a second time. He is not, I thmk, very lucky in a French master. The man speaks the language well enough, but does not seem to be an exact grammarian : however, my boy knows grammar pretty well, and has always been accustomed to study with accuracy ; so that I hope he is in no danger of getting into habits of superficial reading. " We have been here, and still are, in great apprehensions of famine. Last summer was cold and tempestuous beyond imagina- tion ; and in many parts of the country there was little or no har- vest. Oatmeal, without which our common people have no notion of supporting life, sells just now at double its usual price ; and the common people are murmuring ; and anonymous letters, in a threatening style, have been sent to many persons. In no othei*^ part of Scotland is the scarcity so great as in this town and neigh- bourhood ; and I believe it is the fear of the military alone that pre- vents insurrection. " I am just now informed, that preliminaries of peace with France and Spain are signed, and that a cassation of hostilities is LIFE OF DR BEATTIE; 355 .agreed on with the Dutch. The hews is certainly very agreeable if the conditions be but moderately good. Whether our separadon from America will be beneficial or hurtful, either to this country or to that, is, I think, doubtful : but such a separation must have hap- pened soon ; and I wish it had happened forty years sooner. Though our empire is diminished in extent, our national honour is not impaired ; and our enemies, notwithstanding what they have gained, and we have lost, have no cause of triumph. " My new book has been in the press for some time ; and I have now received sixteen sheets of it, which is about one-fifth of the whole. It is a quarto, of the same size nearly with my last ; and, what I have seen, is very correctly printed. The proprietor, Mr Strahan, thinks it will be ready for publication in the spring. I am afraid the plainness and simplicity of the style will not hit the taste of the present race of orators and critics ; who seem to think, that the old English tongue, and the old English constitution, stand equally in need of change. Their reasonings, however, have not yet satisfied me, that our forefathers were at all inferior to us in the arts either of writing, or of government. My models of English are Addison, and those who write like Addison, particularly your- self, madam, and Lord Lyttelton. We may be allowed to imitate what we cannot hope to equal ; nay, I think we are, in every laudable pursuit, commanded by all the great teachers of mankind to do so, " The literary labours of Lord Kaimes have come to an end a^ last. He was certainly an extraordinary man : and though he cannot be vindicated in every thing, his enemies must allow that his mind was uncommonly active, and his industry indefatigable. He was six-and-fifty years an author : for to a Collection of Deci- sions, dated in 1726, I have seen a preface of his writing. He retained his good humour to the last. He and I misunderstood one another for several years ; but we were thoroughly reconciled long before his death, and he acknowledged, that he had utterly mistaken my character. " I am very happy to find, that my notions, in rpgard to the origin of language, coincide so exactly with yours. J l>aye, I think, confuted Monboddo's theory ; which I look upoi) as equally absurd and dangerous. He and Lord Kaimes pa^s^d a few days last autumn together at Gordon Castle, and gaye no little entertainment to the company ; for they two were in .every thing direct opposit^s ; ^A LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. aAd ^a^ mutually^ despised and detested each o^er. Kaim«3 confessed, that he understood no Greek ; and Monboddo told him, that no man who was ignorant of Greek could pretend to write a page of good English. Monboddo has many good qualities: bul on the subject of Greek and of Aristotle, he is j^s absurd and a|^ pedantic as Don Quixote was on that of chivalry. The last time J saw him, 1 incensed him to the highest degree by calling the gr^t circumnavigator Cook an ingenious philosopher. It was to hq purpose that I explained the sense in which 1 used the word, and told him, that hy philosophy I meant, the knowledge ofna,ture ojifiliet^ to practical and v^xjiil fiurfioses : he seemed to think that I ha4 offered an insult to science.^ by calling a man a philosopher, whose only merii, he saidv was " that of being a good seaman, even as one ^ may be an expert shoemaker or tailor, and who, besides, was of " an obscure orij^^in : for I hold," said he, " that in men, as well as f' in i.orses, nothing can be great but what is noble" It was, indeed, in opposition to tnis notable aphorism, that I had mentioned the name of Cook, with that encomium which provoked the wrath (^ Monboddo." LETTER CLX. PR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 2d March, 1783. " I HAVE been more idle, and more in company, this winter than I used to be ; which the doctor tells me is good for my health. But I have not been quite idle. I have revised, with all the atten* tion I am master of, Dr Campbell's new translation of Matthew and Mark, with the notes upon it, and ten or twelve of his preliminary dissertations ; and that this revisal has been the work of some time, you will readily believe, when I tell you, that I have written, of criti- cal remarks, not less than seventy or eighty quarto pages. Many of these indeed I thought of little moment j but as lovers before marriage are advised to be as quick-sighted, and after marriage as blind as possible, to one another's faults, so I consider it as my duty lo be as captious as possible in the revisal of a fiend's work befgre LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 3^ publication, and when it is published to be captious »o longer. The Principal, however, is pleased to think more favourably than T do of my strictures, and tells me he has adopted nine-tenths of them. Of the translation of Luke and John, and the notes upon it, and of fo»ir or five more preliminary dissertations, he has the ma- terials almost ready ; but they are not yet put together. The whole will amount to two large quartos at least ; and will, in my opinion, be one of the most important publications that has appeared in our time. It is really a treasure of theological learning, exact criticism, and sound divinity ; and has given me more information, in regard to what may be called scriptural knowledge, than all the other books 1 ever read. His translation conveys the meaning of the original very correctly, and, so far as I could observe, neither adds nor takes away a single idea ; but I have told Mm, that I wisJi it had been more strictly literal, and more conformable to the Greek (or rather to the Hebrew) idiom, which is in many things congenial to the English. His love of conciseness makes him sometimes less simple, though perhaps not less expressive, than the original, and sometime less harmonious than the common version. But I believe most of the passages of this sort, that I objected to, will be mended." LETTER CLXL DR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDON. Aberdeen, 16th March, 1783. " I DO not wonder that your Grace should be greatly affect- ed with Lord Kaimes's kind remembrance in the hour of death. Friendship, that can stand such a test, must be very sincere indeed. But you have other friends, who are capable of all this, though perhaps it may not be in their power to show it. Recollection and composure are not granted to all, in those awful moments. On his own account, his death is not to be regretted ; but Mrs Drum- mond* is much to be pitied. No man ever enjoyed life more than * The wife of Lord Kaimes. She assumed the name of Drummond, on succeeding to her family e^^ate, on the death of ber nephew. S'^rs LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. he; and, when we consider how little time he passed in sleep, we cannot suppose his age to be less than one hundred and twenty. All his wishes, with respect to this world, were gratified ; and there is no reason to think, that his life could have been prolonged without a prolongation of pain. I hope he employed a good hand to draw the picture. A good portrait of a dear friend is inestima- ble ; but an indifferent one is a daily and an hourly grievance. As I wish to die satisfied with every body, it gives me great plea- sure to think, that before his death, he became satisfied with me; this, and many other good things, I owe to your Grace. " I need not attempt to express what I feel, in consequence of that kind invitation which your Grace and the Duke have honoured me with. I have been long accustomed to his Grace's goodness and your's in this particular : but I trust my gratitude is as lively as it was at the first. If my health would permit, and if I could get my family properly settled, nothing would hinder me from setting out for Gordon Castle the first or second week of April." LETTER CLXIL DR BEATTIE TO THE HONOURABLE MR BARON GORDON. Aberdeen, 30th March, 1783. " I REALLY do not know what to say, or what to think, of the times. They seem to exhibit scenes of confusion, which are too extensive for my poor head either to arrange or to comprehend. We had much need of peace ; but I know not whether we have reason to rejoice in the peace we have made. Yet Lord Shelbume spoke plausibly for it ; but Lord Loughborough was as plausible on the other side. When a controversy turns upon a fact, in re- gard to which the two contending parties are likely never to agree, a decision is not to be expected ; and people may continue to wrangle, and to make speeches, till death ; like the president of the Robin-Hood, knock them down with his hammer, without com- ing one inch nearer the truth than they were at first. This seems LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 359 to be the present case. If we were as much exhausted, and our enemies as powerful, as one party affirms, we had nothmg for it but to surrender at discretion, and any peace was good enough for us : but if we were as little exhausted, and our enemies as little powerful as the other party says, we might have made a struggle or two more before we called out for mercy. " To the present confusion in our councils I can foresee no end, till the rage of party subside, or till the executive power regain some part of that influence, which it has been gradually losing ever aince I was capable of attending to public affairs. The encroach- ments that have lately been made on the power of the crown are so great, as to threaten, in my opinion, the subversion of the monar* chy. Our government is too democratical ; and what we want, in order to secure its permanence, is not more liberty, for we have too much, but the operation of a despotical principle to take place in cases of great public danger. If it had not been for this, the con- sular state of Rome would not have existed two hundred years. I hate despotism, and love liberty, as much as any man ; but because medicine has sometimes killed as well as cured, I would not for that reason make a vow never to swallow a drug as long as I lived. The despotical principle I speak of, might be a little violent in its opera- tion, like James's powders and laudanum; but if it could allay paroxysms and fevers in the body-politic, (which, by judicious management, it certainly might do) it would be a valuable additioi^ to the materia medica of government." LETTER CLXIIL JOHN SCOTT TO DR BEATTIE. Amwell, 29th August, 1783. " I KNOW not what apology to make, for not doing what #ught to^ave been done many weeks ago. I can only say, wh?it I am sure my friend will readily believe, that whatever were the causes of my so long delaying to answer his kind and acceptable letter, want of regard for him was not among the number, . sal Ll¥*E OF DR BEAttlE. « I have read tnuch of the " Dissertations,"* alid ivith tttueh. ' pkasure. I cannot wish any part of them suppressed, because 1 db not find them tedious. AH, whom I have heard speak of theiri, hare spoken highly of their merit ; and I believe they will stand high in the opinion of all good judges. For my own part, I have read them with an almost uninterrupted correspondence of senti- iJient on every occasion. This was very far from being the case during my perusal of Dr Johnson's " Lives ;" I perused his narra- tive with avidity, and sometimes profited by his remarks ; but, in general, I found a forcible repulsion to his political and literary opinions, but more to the illiberal manner in which they arc ex- pressed. It is strange so good a writer, both in prose and verse, should be so ill a critic ; and that a man, whose private character is so benevolent, should, as an author, indulge such contemptuous acrimony. " Thy countryman, Dr Blair, has published a critical work ; I have not read it, a few detached passages excepted, which I met ■with in the reviews, and as I gave the volumes a cursory inspection as they lay in a bookseller's shop. I saw enough of them, however, to determine me to purchase them, as soon as I have leisure for reading. At present I am much engaged with my own intended publication, which is in the press. I believe I mentioned the nature of this critical work of mine in a former letter. It will consist of a series of essays on several celebrated poems, by an investigation of whose beauties and defects I have exemplified the difference be- tween good and bad composition.! My criterion of merit is clas- sical simplicity ; that is to say, the manner of Homer, the Greek tragic poets, Virgil, Milton, Pope, in contradistinction to every species of false ornament. There never was a time when it was more necessary to counteract the public taste, which is now running wild after this fashionable ciinquant, as I think it is termed by Addison. The poems I have criticised are, Denham's " Cooper's. " Hill," of which I have nothing to praise, and all to censure ; Milton's " Lycidas," and Dyer's " Ruins of Rome," which I have * Dr Beattie's Dissertations, moral and critical, on Memory and Imagina' tion, &c. published this year. t Thestf Critical Essays were publi»hed in 1785. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. Ml vindicated from the censure of Dr Johnson, and given the praise they merit ; Pope's " Windsor Forest,** Collins's *' Oriental « Eclogues," Gray*s << Elegy,** Goldsmith's " Deserted Village," ,and Thomson*s " Seasons;'* in all which 1 have much to applaud, and something to blame. " The Monthly Reviewers say, that criticism is fashionable ; I hope then I. shall have the luck to be for once in the fashion. I inight often have been in fashion, but for a restive kind of disposi- tion, that liked to write and print what pleased my own fancy, rather i^han what I had reason to think would please the readers of the day. ,J ppver could flatter the Bath-Easton establishment, nor be a can- didate for their laureat sprig of myrtle ; nor can I now praise the ilimsy, flowery, inane productions of the Hayleyian school. I love good poetry, but I cannot admire bad, how much soever it may be the ton to admire it. " My worthy friend? Mr Potter, in a letter I received from him some time ago, requested me to mention when I wrote, that he had ordered Dodsley to send thee a copy of his " Observations on Gray," with two or three proofs of the head, which I expect are before now safely arrived. I know, by experience, how difiicult it is to get a good likeness of any person in an engraving ; I am sure mine, pre- fixed to my poems, is not a good one. Mr Hoole's prefixed to his " Ariosto,** is a very good one, and cost much less than mine. I did not know Gray, but somehow or other, from my own ideas of what such a man should have been, I am wholly of thy opinion, that Mason's print could not be quite like the original. " As I seldom have leisure to keep copies of my letters, I am apt to forget, from time to time, what I have written ; I do not now recollect, whether I mentioned in my former letter two recent publi- cations, in the poetical way, of considerable merit. The one is called, " Aurelia, or the Contest," a mock epic, in censure of the ladies for painting their faces, and other fashionable female foibles. This is written by the younger Hoole, son of the translator of " Ariosto," who published a pretty imitation of the " Bath Guide," entitled, <* Modem Manners." He is a young man, and I think a rising genius ; his last poem has not many faults, it is indeed rather too long. The other publication is called, " The Village," a very clas- sical composition, but also too long ; and very unnecessarily, and I think absurdly, divided into two books. It seems designed as ^ 2z 362 -LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. contrast to Goldsmith's " Deserted Village," in one point of view ? that is, so far as Goldsmith expatiates on the felicities and inno- cencies of rural life. The author of " The Village'* takes the dkrk side of the question ; he paints all with a sombre pencil ; too justly, perhaps, but, to me at least, unpleasingly. We know there is no unmixed happiness in any state 6f life, but one does not wish to be perpetually told so. The author of the above is a Mr Crabbe, who published a poem, called " The Library," about two years ago. I am told he was an apprentice to a surgeon in Suffolk, but, on the display of his poetical talents, met with friends, who advised him to take orders, and gave him a living. Literary merit, in this age, rarely meets such encouragement. " I am sorry, my dear friend, to hear so ill an account of thy health. I hope the sea air and bathing may by this time have had their desired salutary effect. When health and leisure will permit, T shall hope to be favoured with a line. Thy correspondence is always highly acceptable." I:-!-!' LETTER CLXIV. DR BEATTIE TO THE BISHOP OF WORCESTER. Peterhead, 18th September, 1783. " YOUR Lordship's very kind letter, which I had the honour to receive about six weeks ago, demands my most grateful acknow- ledgments. I wished to have made them sooner, but was prevented by a tedious indisposition ; from which, after long perseverance in the use of the sea-bath at this place, I am now recovered so far a*sr to be able to attend a little to the duties of life. " I know not how to thank your Lordship for honouring my book with a perusal; nor have I words to express the pleasure which your approbation of it has afforded me. Some professed critics have been pleased to find much fault with it, and with me ; but your favourable opinion, my Lord, is more than a sufficient counterbalance to all they have done, or can do, and satisfies me, ihst my endeavours to do a little good, and give a little harmless LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. -363 amusement, have not been wholly unsuccessful. Indeed I have the happiness to find, that most of those who approve my principles, are as friendly to this performance as I could desire. " I have not yet met with Dr Blair's " Lectures," but I hear, they have been very well received. With respect to his " Sermons," I am entirely of your opinion. Great merit they undoubtedly have ; but I cannot discover in them that sublime simplicity of manner and style, which I have long thought essential to such compositions, and have seen so nobly exemplified in those of your Lordship. " Whether it will be in my power to prepare any more of my papers for the press, I know not ; but I shall keep the thing in view ; and, if Providence grant me a moderate share of health and spirits, shall consider it as my indispensable duty, as far as I am able, to promote the love of truth, and to oppose the licentious doctrines that many authors of this age are labouring so industriously to establish. Though my last publication does not bear a controver- sial form, a great part of it was really intended, as your Lordship observes, " to correct some mistakes, and obviate some abuses, of " other writers." " I would have availed myself, with the greatest pleasure, of your Lordship's most obliging invitation to Worcestershire ; but I am not yet so well as to undertake a journey, and the business of my profession will soon call me to Aberdeen, and confine me to the college. Next summer I hope I shall be in a condition to revisit England, and pay my respects to your Lordship once more." LETTER CLXV. GEORGE COLMAN, ESq.* TO DR BEATTIE. Margate, 13th October, 1783. " I AM highly flattered by your approbation of my explana- tion and version of " Horace's Epistle," and more especially by your • The translator of Horace's "Art of Poetry," of " Terence," into fami- liar blank verse ; and author of some excellent comedies, " The Jealous "Wife," "The Clandestine Mamage," "The English Merchant,'* " The " Deuce is in Him," and several others. 3e* LIFE OF t)R BEATTIEJ exact coincidence of opinion concerning the drift and intention of the poet ; whose purpose has long appeared to me so very obvious, that I have only wondered at its having been so strangely miscon- ceived and mistaken. Still, however, I was inclined to doubt and suspect the treacherous self-complacency of my own feelings, till I feund my sentiments confirmed by men of learning and discern- ment like yourself. 1 ought, however, in some measure, to regret the having innocently deprived the world of your intended essay on the subject, though that very circumstance inspires me with th6 most agreeable confidence in the propriety of my own undertak- ing." LETTER CLXVL DR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESfi OF GORDON. Aberdeen, 29th January, lY^h ** YOUR Grace will do me the justice to believe, that nothing in which you are interested can be indifferent to me. I am very much concerned to find, from the general strain of the letter, which I had the honour to reunds, the rich verdure of the trees, and their endless variety, forma scenery so picturesque and so luxuriant, that it is not easy to fancy any thing finer. Add to this the cottages, churches, and villages, rising here and there among the trees, and scattered over the whole country ; our common friends, formed a sort of bond of union between Dr Johnson and me ; to which circumstance I attributed much of the notice with which he honoured me. It is unnecessary for me to say here how highly I respected the talents and the virtues of that truly eminent and good man. 374 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. clumps of oaks, and other lofty trees, disposed in ten thousand dif- ferent forms, and some of them visible in the horizon at the distance of more than ten miles ; and you will have some idea of the beauty of Hunton. The only thing wanting is the murmur of running water; but we have some ponds and clear pools that glitter through the trees, and have a very pleasing effect. With abundance of shade, we have no damp nor fenny ground : and though the country looks at a distance like one continued grove, the trees do not press upon us : indeed I do not at present see one that I could wish removed. There is no road within sight, the hedges that overhang the high- ways being very high ; so that we see neither travellers nor carri- ages, and indeed hardly any thing in motion ; which conveys such an idea of peace and quiet, as I think I never was conscious of be- fore ; and forms a most striking contrast with the endless noise and restless multitudes of Piccadilly. " But what pleases me most at Hunton is not now in view ; for my friend, the Bishop of Chester, is gone out a riding. You are no stranger to the character of this amiable man. Mrs Porteus is not less amiable. Their house is the mansion of peace, piety, and cheerfulness. The Bishop has improved his parsonage and the grounds about it as much as they can be improved, and made it one of the pleasantest spots in England. The whole is bounded by a winding gravel walk, about half-a^mile in circumference. Close by, lives a most agreeable lady, with whom we all breakfasted to-day. She is the widow of Sir Roger Twisden ; and, though not more than five-and-twenty, lives in this elegant retirement, and employs herself chiefly in the education of her daughter, a fine child of four years of age, who is mistress of her catechism, and reads wonder- fully well. I expect soon to see our friend Mr Langton, as the Bishop proposes to send him an invitation, Rochester being only ten miles off. Tunbridge-wells is fifteen miles the other way." LIFE OF DR BEATTIJ^. 375 LETTER CLXXIV. »ll BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Hunton, near Maidstone, Kent, 31st July, 1784. " YOUR last letter having given me the fullest assurance, that the unfortunate object of our attention is now in circumstances as comfortable as her condition will admit of, I have been endea- vouring to relieve my mind, for a time at least, from that load of anxiety which has so long oppressed it ; and I already feel the happy consequences of this endeavour. My health is greatly im- proved ; and, if this rheumatism would let me alone, I might almost say that 1 am quite well. Certain it is, that I have not been so well any time these four years. The tranquillity and beauty, the peace and the plenty, of this charming country, are a continual feast to my imagination ; and I must be insensible, indeed, if the kind- ness, the cheerfulness, the piety, and the instructive conversation, of my excellent friend the Bishop of Chester and his amiable lady, did not powerfully operate in soothing my mind, and improving my heart. Those people of fashion in the neighbourhood, who visit the Bishop, and are visited by him, are a small but select society, and eminently distinguished for their piety, politeness, literature, and hospitality. Among them I have found some old friends whom I formerly knew in London, and have acquired some new ones, on whom I set a very high value. Mr Langton and Lady Rothes have just left us, after a visit of two days. You will readily imagine with what regret we parted with them. Our friend Langton is continu- ally improving in virtue, learning, and every other thing that is good. I always admired and loved him ; but now I love and admire him more than ever. We had much conversation about you.* I have given the Bishop a full account of my family transactions, particularly for the last twelvemonth. He highly approves of every thini^ that has been done j bestows great commendations on my * $ee p. S39, 876 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. conduct ; ^nd has given me such advices as one would expect from his good sense and knowledge of the world. I have not yet fixed a day for my departure from this paradise ; but I fear it must be in the course of next week. My friends urge me to prolong my stay, and I am much disposed to do so ; but I must now remember, that the year begins to decline, and I have several other visits to make, and things to do, before I leave England. Meanwhile I shall, from time to time, let you know where I am, and what I am doing. Any letter you may favour me with, you will be pleased to put under the Bishop of Chester's cover. " If I could give you an adequate idea of the way in which we pass our time at Hunton, I am sure you would be pleased with it. This is a rainy day, and I have nothing else to do at present : why, then, should I not make the trial ? " Our hour of breakfast is ten. Immediately before it, the Bishop calls his family together, prays with them, and gives them his blessing : the same thing is constantly done after supper, when we part for the night. In the intervals of breakfast, and in the evening, when there is no company, his Lordship sometimes reads to us in some entertaining book. After breakfast we separate, and amuse ourselves, as we think proper, till four, the hour of dinner. At six, when the weather is fair, we either walk, or make a visit to some of the clergy or gentry in the neighbourhood, and return about eight. We then have music, in which I am sorry to say, that I am almost the only performer. I have got a violoncello, and play Scotch tunes, and perform Handel's, Jackson's, and other songs, as well as I can ; and my audience is very willing to be pleased. The Bishop and Mrs Porteus are both fond of music. These musical parties are often honoured with the company of the accomplished and amiable Lady Twisden, of whom I gave you some account in my last. Observe, that there are in this part of Kent no fewer than three ladies of that name ; but the one I speak of is. Lady Twisden of Jennings, in the parish of Hunton ; who, in the course of one year, was a maid, a wife, a widow, and a mother ; whose husband, Sir Roger, died about five years ago; and who, though possessed of beauty and a large fortune, and not more than twenty-five years of age, has ever since lived in this retirement, employing ^herself partly in study, but chiefly in acts of piety and beneficence, and in the education of her little daughter, who is in- LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. $ff deed a very fine child. I have just now before me Miss Hannah More's " Sacred Dramas," which I borrowed from Lady Twisden, and in which I observe that she has marked her favourite passages with a nicety of selection, that does great honour to her heart, as well as to her judgment. By the bye, Miss More* is an author of very considerable merit. My curiosity to see her works was ex- cited by Johnson, who told me, with great solemnity, that she was ** the most powerful versificatrix" in the English language. " So much for our week-days. On Sundays at eleven, We re- pair to church. It is a small but neat building, with a pretty good ring of six bells. The congregation are a stout, well featured set of people, clean and neat in their dress, and most exemplary in the decorum with which they perform the several parts of public wor- ship. As we walk up the area to the Bishop's pew, they all make on each side a profound obeisance; and the same as we return. /The prayers are very well read by Mr Hill the curate, and the Bishop preaches. I need not tell you now, because I think I told you before, that Bishop Porteus is, in my opinion, the best preacher, in respect both of composition and the delivery, I have ever heard. In this capacity indeed he is universally admired, and many of the gentry come to hear him from the neighbouring parishes. After evening service, during the summer months, his Lordship gene- rally delivers from his pew a catechetical lecture, addressed to the children, who for ^his purpose arc drawn up in a line before him * In a former part of these Memoirs,! some mention is made of the works of this amiable and excellent moralist, who still lives to instruct the world by her writings. It is a circumstance highly redounding to her praise, and well worthy of being recorded, that besides those admirable publications, calcu- lated for the meridian of the upper circles of life, she thought it no degrada- tion of her talents to employ her pen in the service of the lower classes of the people ; and at a period when the press in Britain was teeming with the most infamous productions, purposely calculated to diffuse the principles of infide- lity and sedition, she employed herselfin composing short and familiar tracts, in the form of Tales, Dialogues, Ballads, suited to the capacities of the lower orders of society, and designed as an antidote to the poisonous tendency of the others. Those useful little publications were printed in a cheap form, in order that they might be the more widely distributed by well disposed per- sons ; and it is to be hoped they were productive of the happiest effect. Mrs Hannah More's latest pubhcation is entitled, ** Hints towards forming the *' Character of a young Princess." t See p. 145. 3 B 378 LIFE OF DR BEATTlE. along the area of the church. In these lectures he explains tothem^ in the simplest and clearest manner, yet with ^ his usual elegance, the fundamental and essential principles of religion and morality j and concludes with an address to the more advanced in years. This institution of the Bishop's I greatly admire. When children See themselves so mpch attended to, and so much pains taken in instructing them, they cannot fail to look upon religion as a mattec of importance ; and, if they do so, it is not possible for them, con- sidering the advantages they enjoy, to be ignorant of it. The catechetical examinations in the church of Scotland, such of them at least as I have seen, are extremely ill calculated for doing good ; being encumbered with metaphysical distinctions, and expressed in a technical language, which to children are utterly unintelligible, and but little understood even by the most sagacious of the common people. The Bishop told me, that he chose to deliver this lecture from his pew, and without putting on lawn sleeves, that it might make the stronger impression upon the children ; having observ- ed, he said, that what is delivered from the pulpit, and with the usual formalities, is too apt to be considered, both by the young and the old, as a thing of course. On Sunday evening, he sometimes reads to his servants a brief and plain abstract of the Scripture history, somewhat similar to that which was lately published by Mrs Trimmer, and formerly by Lady Newhaven. " In no other district of Great Britain, that I have seen, is there so little the appearance of poverty, and such indications of compe- tence and satisfaction in the countenance and dress of the common people, as in this part of Kent. In this parish there is only one ale- house, the profits whereof are inconsiderable. The people are fond of cricket-matches, at which there is a great concourse of men, women, and children, with good store of ale and beer, cakes, gin- ger-bread, &c. One of these was solemnized a few nights ago in a field adjacent to the parish-church. It broke up about sunset, with much merriment, but without drunkenness or riot. The con- test was between the men of Hun ton and the men of Peckham,; and the latter were victorious." LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 379 LETTER CLXXV, DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. Hunton, near Maidstone, Kent, 6th August, 1784^' " YOUR remarks on Mrs B*s condition are equally striking and just ; she is certainly not unhappy. And your observation, « that the days of human life, that are passed without sorrow and " without sin, are neither to be lamented when passing, nor regretted " when passed,'* has suggested to me several comfortable reflections. I should indeed be equally insensi]ble both to moral and intellectual excellence, and to the picturesque beauties of nature, if the charm- ing scenes, and the delightful society, in which I have passed these three weeks, had not soothed my mind into a sweet forgetfulness of care, and encouraged me to hope, that I am not in so foi'lorn a condition as I lately imagined.* " The very countenance and behaviour of the common people of this district have had their effect in composing my mind and raising my spirits* I left the country, which is at all times barren and dreary, and which, when I left it, had not got the better of a two years scarcity, I had almost said, famine. The peace and the plenty of this region form the most striking contrast imagina- ble. Here the people are stout, and hearty, and active ; their ap- parel is neat and decent; and their honest countenances are strongly expressive of content and competence. When Virgil says of his happy husbandmen, that they suffer no pain, either from pitying the poor, or from envying the rich, I am now satisfied, that he had no idea of either blaming or praising their Stoical apathy ; his mean-* ing certainly was, that the rich cannot be envied where all have enough, and that the poor cannot be pitied where poverty is un-- Known/' * This alludes to some family-distresses, to which he ha(J been subjectecj. ^80 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. LETTER CLXXVI. DR BEATTIE TO DR PORTEUS, BISHOP OF CHESTER. Sandleford, near Newbury, Berks, 18th August, 1784. " IT is but a week since 1 exchanged the paradise of Hun- ton for the purgatory of London ; and it seems almost a year : so much, during that short period, have I suffered from heat, and bustle, and bad air, and (what is worst of all) from sorrow of heart at parting with the best of friends. The month which I passed at Hunton was the happiest of my life ; and I dare not flatter myself with the hope of such another. But I shall, as long as I live, derive satisfaction from recalling the persons, the conversations, and the scenery of it ; which now occupy so large a space (if I may so ex- press myself) in my imagination, that there is hardly room for the intrusion of any other idea. " On Saturday and Sunday I was so overpowered by the in- tolerable heat of the town, that on Monday I was glad to make my escape a second time into the country. I passed the night at Reading, and yesterday at three o'clock arrived here ; where I found Mrs Montagu and her nephew in perfect health, and very anxious in their inquiries after the health of Mrs Porteus and youf Lordship. I had not been here five minutes, when the wind on a sudden shifted, with a violent squall, to the north-east, and the weather in an instant changed from very hot to very cold, as it still continues to be. " This place is much improved since I saw it last. A great deal of brick-building and garden-wall is cleared away, and the lawn is opening very Jast on every side. A little rivulet, that used to wander, unheard and unseen, through a venerable grove of oaks, is now collected into two large and beautiful pieces of water, round which the walks and ground are laid out to very great advantage indeed. The situation is on an eminence, with a gentle slope of a |[luai'terrof-a-mile towards the south ; and from every part of the J^^wn there is ^ beautiful prospect, first of a romantic village calle(J LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " 3SI Newtown, and beyond that, of the Hampshire hills, some of which are tufted with wood, and others bare, and green, and smooth, to the top. " At the distance of about thirty yards from the house of Sandle-^- ford, stood formerly an old chapel (for the place was once a priory), which for a century past or more had been neglected, or used as a place for lumber. This, Mrs Montagu has transformed into a very magnificent room, and joined to the main body of the house by a colonnade ; which, expanding in the middle, and rising to the height of thirty feet at least, forms a noble drawing-room of an elliptical shape. When the doors of these rooms are thrown open, the walk, from end to end, is upwards of an hundred feet, and the heighth and breadth proportionable. The dining-room terminates in a very large window in the Gothic style, reaching from the floor almost to the roof, and looking into a grove of tall oaks, which, with a happy and very peculiar effect, retire from the eye in four rows, and give to this spacious apartment the appearance of a vast arbour. From this account, if I have done any justice to my idea, you will conclude, and justly too, that there is some little resem* blance between this room and the new room at Hunton." LETTER CLXXVIL DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. Edinburgh, 18th September, 17'84. " I CANNOT express my regret at being obliged to leave so soon the charming society at Sandleford ; a society, in which I had so many opportunities of improving both my understanding and my heart ; and in which I must have been callous indeed, if I had not been every moment conscious of the most delightful emo- tions that admiration and gratitude can inspire. I beg to be re- membered, in the most affectionate terms, to your amiable and ac- complished nephew, whom I found to be just what I wished, and what I expected. He is as good as I wish him to be, and I hope he will always be as happy. 382i LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " My journey was very pleasant. The weather was uncom- monly fine ; and the gay harvest-scenes, that every where sur- rounded me, conveyed such ideas of vivacity and gladness, as could not fail to have the happiest effects on my health and spirits : and I was surprisingly recovered before I got to Temple-Newsam,* in Yorkshire, where I passed ten days very agreeably. I then resumed my journey, and arrived here the day before yesterday. Most of my friends being gone to the country, I can have no temptation to re- main long in Edinburgh, and am just on the eve of my departure for Aberdeen and Peterhead ; from which last place I shall have the honour to write to you, as soon as I have had a conversation with Mrs Arbuthnot. I am impatient to see her, and to " make the widow's heart sing for joy," in the contemplation of your goodness.** In order the better to understand the following anecdote, which does equal credit to Dr Beattie and to Mrs Montagu, it is proper to mention that the worthy woman, to whom Mrs Montagu thus ex- tended her beneficence, was a Mrs Arbuthnot, whose maiden name was Anne Hepburn, daughter of the Reverend Mr Alexander Hepburn, a minister of the episcopal church of Scotland, who had been domestic chaplain in the family of the Earl Marischal of Scot- land, and preceptor to his sons, the late Earl Marischal and Gene- ral Keith. She inherited from nature no inconsiderable portion of genius, and had enjoyed the benefit of a literary education. Her reading, however, had unfortunately taken a turn very unusual with the female sex ; and she had imbibed a partiality for the sceptical philosophy ; but of which she became completely cured, by the subsequent perusal of books of a better tendency, particu- larly Butler's " Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion," which she justly considered as a work of pre-eminent merit, and which continued to be her favourite study, next to the Scriptures, to her dying hour. She was married in the year 1737, when twenty-eight, to Cap- tain Andrew Arbuthnot ; a name of which there were at that time several families in Peterhead, of the same kindred, distinguished for * The seat of Lady Viscountess Irvine. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 383 their great integrity and simplicity of manners. The celebrated Dr Arbuthnot was a branch of the family. Her husband was master of a vessel that traded from Peterhead to America ; and, during one of his voyages, died of a fever at Charlestown, in South Caro- lina, in the year 1740. To add to this calamity, while the mate, who brought home the vessel to Peterhead, had come on shore, to communicate to her the melancholy tidings of her husband's death, by some accident the vessel was wrecked in the bay, and in her the whole of the captain's property was lost. Thus, in one hour, she found herself deprived of an affectionate husband, and left totally destitute, with the charge of a boy, a child of a year old. After this dire calamity, Mrs Arbuthnot struggled hard to maintain herself and her son by her labour, and the kindness of her friends, who contrived to assist her in a concealed manner, so as not to hurt the delicacy of her feelings ; and she has frequently been heard to say, she sometimes received aid as if it had dropt from heaven, without her knowing from what hand it came. To fill up the measure of her misfortune, her only son, whom she had used every effort to educate, by means of a small bursary at the university of Aberdeen,* and who, by the interest of some of his father's relations, had obtained a commission in the army, in which he served with reputation, died at an early age in the West Indies, at a period when he had the prospect of future promotion, by which he might have been enabled to contribute to his mother's more comfortable subsistence. Thus bereft of every consolation, except what she derived from religion, and the soothing ten- derness of her friends, she continued contentedly to strive with Tirtuous poverty during the whole cous>e of her long widowhood. While Mrs Arbuthnot had resided for a short time at Aber- deen, during the period of her son's education, she had become known to the late Dr John Gregory, to Dr Beattie, and several of the eminent literary characters of that time, who esteemed her for her taste in books, and respected her by reason of her virtues and exemplary piety. Dr Beattie, in particular, contracted an intimate friendship with Mrs Arbuthnot, with whom he constantly lodged during his annual visits to Peterhead. In her house he enjoyed tranquillity ai;id perfect freedom ; and, when he was disposed for * See p. 12. i3S4 ^ LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. conversation, he had always the benefit of Mrs Arbuthnot's, whose cultivated understanding, and pious frame of mind, were exactly suited to his taste. To her opinion he generally submitted his ■literary productions before their publication ; and he used to say, that he had seldom found her mistaken in her judgment of their merit. On representing her situation to Mrs Montagu, that lady was pleased to settle on her an annuity, which raised this poor, but grateful woman from her contented poverty, to a state of compara- tive affluence. Mrs Arbuthnot died 19th May, 1795, at the very advanced age of eighty-six. LETTER CLXXVIII. DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU.. Peterhead, 11th October, 1784. « I ARRIVED at Peterhead the first of October. I went in- stantly to Mrs Arbuthnot, whom I found in tolerable health, sitting solitary ^by her little fire, and amusing herself, as usual, with a book and her work ; both which she has the art of attending to at the same time. She was the more pleased to see me, as my arrival was unexpected ; for she had not heard that I was returned to Scotland. After she had asked all the customary questions, I told her, without betraying any emotion, or seeming to have any thing in view but her amusement, that if she was at leisure, I would tell her a story. I accordingly began ; and, agreeably to the commis- sion with which you honc4 red me, made a very long and circum- stantial story of it, recapitulating, as far as my memory would enable me, every thing that passed in that conversation at Sandle- ford, of which she and her aunt, Mrs Cockburn,* were the subject. I saw she was greatly affected with the idea of your thinking so favourably of her aunt, and with your condescension in inquiring so minutely into her own story and character ; but I did not throw out a single hint that could lead her to anticipate what was to follow. At * A lady of considerable genius and learning, widow of the Reverend Mr Cockburn, one of the ministers of the episcopal chapel at Aberdeen, of whose writings two volumes were published, many years ago, now almost entirely forgotten. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 385 last, 'When I found that her heart was thoroughly warmed, and recol- lected your observation, that the human heart in that state becomes malleable, I hastened to the conclusion, which I expressed in the simplest and fewest words possible ; so that the whole struck her at one and the same instant. She attempted an exclamation, but it was inarticulate, and almost resembled a scream ; the tears ran down her furrowed cheeks ; and she could only say, " O dear, I " cannot speak one word !** and seemed almost exhausted with the effort that had produced that short sentence. I desired her not to attempt to speak, but to hear me a little further ; and then told her. Madam, that such acts of beneficence were familiar things to you ;* and mentioned some instances that had come to my knowledge, particularly that of Mrs Williams. She held up her eyes and hands, sometimes in silent adoration of Providence, and sometimes with the most passionate expressions of gratitude to her noble benefactress. In a word. Madam, she accepted your bounty in a way that did honour both to her understanding and to her feelings ; and I left her to compose herself by silent meditation. Indeed I made haste to get away after I had executed my commission ; for the scene was so delightfully affecting, that I could stand it no longer. " When the news was known next day in the town, it diffused a very general joy ; and many an honest heart invoked the bless- ing of heaven upon your head : for Mrs Arbuthnot's chai'acter is * On this subject of Mrs Montagu's charitable distributions, it were in- justice to her to omit inserting the following paragraph of a letter of her's to Dr Beattie, now lying before me. It alludes to the person mentioned in a letter of Dr Beattie's to her, p. 262. ** The Dutchess-dowager of Beaufort gave me a guinea for the little man ' * with the great soul, whom the vulgar at Aberdeen call a dwarf: be so good ** as to give him a guinea, and charge it to my account ; and if at any time he *' is sick or distressed, remember that one, who is weary of seeing little minds ** in great men, will gladly relieve one where this unseemly circumstance is " nobly reversed. Consider me always in the best light in which you can put " me, as the banker of the distressed; and at any time call on me for such " objects ; and, in all senses of the word, / ivill honour your bill Vulgar " wretchedness one relieves, because it is one's duty to do so ; and one has a " certain degree of pleasure in it; but to assist merit in distress is an Epicu- " rean feast ; and indulge this luxury of taste in me, when any remarkable '* object shall offer itself to your acquaintance." 3 c 38^ LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. exceedingly respected by all who know her; and her narrow cir- cumstances have long been matter of general regret; as the deli- cacy of her mind was well known, which no doubt discouraged some persons from making a direct offer of their services, though, indirectly, I believe, that some little matters have been done for her benefit. Yet, since her husband's death, which happened four- and-forty years ago, I know not whether she was at any time worth ten pounds a-year. With this small appointment she has con- stantly maintained the appearance of a gentlewoman, and has re- ceived the visits of the best people in the town and neighbourhood, whom she was always happy to entertain with a dish of tea : and among her visitors can reckon the (present) Dutchess of Gordon, the Countess of Errol, Lord Saltoun's family, Sir William Forbes, and many others of the best fashion. What is yet more strange, with this small appointment, she has always found means to fbe charitable to the poor ; and when I have seen her dealing out her alms which was commonly a handful of oatmeal to each person, I know not how often she has put me in mind of the widow in the Gospel. " There are several persons of her name in this town ; and therefore it may be proper to inform you, that her distinguishing name is Mrs Andrew Arbuthnot. The name Arbuthnot is fre- quent in the neighbourhood. The great Dr John Arbuthnot, so Eminent for his virtue, his learning, and his wit, was the grandson of a gentleman -farmer, who lived at a place called Scots-mill, three miles from this town ; and Dr Arbuthnot and Captain An- drew Arbuthnot were second-cousins. " I am afraid Mrs Arbuthnot will not long stand in need of your bounty ; for she is seventy-six years of age, and suffers much from a cough and asthma. I was introduced to her about twenty years ago, by her nephew, Mr Arbuthnot of Edinburgh, and have since been as attentive to her as I could ; of which she is so sensi- ble ; that sometimes, in the extravagance of her gratitude, she has called me her good genius. She actually gave me that appellation in the first draught of that letter which she wrote to you about a week ago, and which I hope. Madam, you have received ; but I prevailed with her to change the phrase. " Since I came hither I have been seven or eight times in the s*ea ; and I think I am already the better for it. Only for three oi- LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 3«7 four hours after every plunge I am a little disconcerted by a confu- ;5ion in the head, and a tremor in the hands ; of which I am afraid you will see too many proofs in this letter : but that symptom will probably disappear, when I am a little more accustomed to salt- water. I shall remain here a fortnight longer; and then the busi- ness of the college will fix me in Aberdeen for the winter. " Permit me now. Madam, to thank you for your most obliging letter of the 20th of September, which, after wandering long froni place to place, has overtaken me at last. The harvest-scenes, which interest you so much, were also very interesting to me in the course of my journey through England j for the weather was the finest that could be, and every scythe and sickle, and the wag- gons, and the gleaners, were all in motion. With peculiar satis- faction I took notice of that laudable English custom, of permitting the poor and the infirm to glean the fields. " How shall I thank you, Madam, and my amiable friend, Mr Montagu, for the kind invitation you give my son and me to pass some part of the ensuing spring at SandlefordI Be a,ssured, it will be a grievous disappointment to us both, if we cannot get that matter accomplished. If my domestic affairs continue quiet, as I thank God they are at present, I hope we shall find no difficulty in it." LETTER CLXXIX, BR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDON. Peterhead, irth Qctober, 1784. " IT flatters me very much to hear, that I am just now in favour with Lord Monboddo ; for I lately heard a very different ac- count. I am likewise happy to understand, from his comparing your Grace to Helen of Troy, that there is at least one Modern to whom he is willing to do justice: for, in that comparison, he cer- tainly intends a very great compliment, though I cannot think there is a great one. I hope he will no longer insist on it, that Helen was seven feet high ; and that he will devise some expedient, to S«« LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. vindicate that lady's character from the aspersion of having been at least fourscore when Paris ran away with her : a paradox, which, for the honour of my friend Homer, I wish I were able to confute ; though I cannot think of any other way of doing it, than by sup- posing, that there were two fair ladies of that name, one of whom, came to Troy, and the other eloped with Theseus about sixty years before." LETTER CLXXX, DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. Aberdeen, 31st January, 1785. ^' THE sea-bath was of considerable service to me ; and as this^has been the most quiet winter I have passed these seven years, I am rather in better health than usual, and have of late been mak- ing some progress in a little work, of which you saw a sketch at Sandleford, and which you did me the honour to read and approve of. It was your approbation, and that of the Bishop of Chester and Sir William Forbes, that determined me to revise, correct, and enlarge it, with a view to publication. When finished, it will make two little volumes, of the size of Mr Jenyns*s book on the *' Internal Evidence of Christianity." My plan is more compre- hensive than bis, and takes in the external evidence of miracles and prophecy, as well as the internal. That you may see. Madam, somewhat more distinctly what I intend, I beg leave to transcribe the following paragraph from my introduction ; " I have met with little practical treatises, called. Ten minutes <^ advice-'^to those who are about to engage in such or such an en- <* terprise. These performances may have their use, though they ** do not contain a full detail of the business alluded to. I mean to *' give Two hours advice — to that person, who may be in danger « from the books, or from the company of infidels, and who is ^ candid enough to desire to be informed, in few words, whc" ^ ther the evidence on the other side be so plausible, as to de» ♦^ »erve the Jiotice of a rational mind. If I shall satisfy him that it LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 389 « is, he will naturally lay me aside, and have recourse for farther " information, to those great authors, who have gone through the " whole subject, and illustrated and proved many things, which " the narrowness of my plan permits me only to affirm, or perhaps " only to hint at. And (which is far the most important part of the " whole procedure) he will at the same time reverently consult " those sacred oracles, which contain the history of divine revela- " tion ; and which he will find more frequently, perhaps, and more " fully, than he is aware of, to carry their own evidence along with " them. And when he has done all this, in the spirit of candour, " with an humble and docile mind, and with a sincere desire to " know the truth and his duty, I may venture to assure him, that he " will not regret the time he has employed in the study ; and that, " from the writings or conversation of unbelievers, his faith will " never be in danger any more." " Your sentiments of Dr Arbuthnot agree entirely with mine. He had, I think, more wit and humour, and he certainly had much more virtue and learning, than either Pope or Swift. The elo- quence and ostentation of Bolingbroke could never impose on Ar- buthnot : he told his son, (whom I once had the honour to converse with at Richmond) that he knew Bolingbroke was an infidel, and a worthless vain man. The Doctor was the son of a clergyman of this country, and was educated at the Marischal College. His grandfather lived at a place called Scots-mill, in a romantic situa- tion on the brink of a river, about three miles from Peterhead ; a place which I often visit as classic ground, as being probably the place where the Doctor, when a school-boy, might often pass his holidays. I am informed, that the late Doctor Hunter bequeathed an original picture of Arbuthnot to that university ; at which it should appear that he had been educated. If this be true, it is the property of the Marischal College. If I knew any thing of Dr Hunter's executors, I would write to them on the subject ; as the picture has never appeared." 390 i^IFE OF DR BEATTIE. LETTER CLXXXI DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 7th February, 1785. "THE quiet which I have enjoyed this tv^inter, especially since I received your letter, has not only given me better health than usual, but has also left my mind at leisure to resume that little work on the " Evidence of Christianity," of which you saw a sketch last summer. All the introductory part is now written, and the part you saw is extended to double its former size. One entire section is added on the evidence arising from prophecy ; and, in evincing the usefulness of revelation, I have had occasion to make some additional remarks on the insufficiency of the ancient philoso- phy, and the characters of the philosophers. Whether this work will ever be of use to others, I know not ; but this I know, that it has been of considerable benefit to myself. For though, when I enter- ed upon it, I understood my subject well enough to entertain no doubt of the goodness of my cause, yet I find, as I advance, new light continually breaking in upon me. " My list of Scotticisms is also very much enlarged. I believe I shall print it here for the convenience of correcting the press, which, in the present state of the post-office, cannot be done by a person at a distance. If you see Mr Creech, please to ask what number of copies I shall send to him. It will be a pretty large pamphlet, and the price shall not exceed a shilling. " Dr Campbell's preliminary dissertations are all finished : they alone will make a large quarto. I have read them all with great pleasure. They are a treasure of theological learning ; and writ- ten with a degree of candour, as well as precision, of which iij. matters of this kind, the world has seen very few examples." LIFE OF DR bEATTIE. 391 LETTER CLXXXIL DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. DR LAING. Aberdeen, 13th February, 1785. " YOU may believe that your accounts of Mrs Arbuthnot's Tecovery, so far exceeding what I expected, gave me the greatest pleasure. I see now, she will soon be what she was before ; which I heartily pray may be the case. I was rather in low spirits about her, when I wrote last to Mrs Montagu. " In that lady's last letter to me,, dated 21st of November, there are some sentences, which I shall set down here, as I know they will give Mrs Arbuthnot pleasure. ** My mind is so much engaged by Mrs Arbuthnot, I cannot '' think of any thing else. Sometimes I think I am wicked, in not " being thankful enough, that I am at last admitted to her friend- " ship. I fret and repine, that I had not that happiness many years " sooner. Alas I what presumption is it in me to repine at this ! " As if I deserved the heartfelt-delight of being in any degree *' serviceable to one of the best of human beings. What pleasure " should I have had in her correspondence ! While I read your ac- " count of her noble and delicate manner of receiving the friend- " ship of one, v/ho had a high veneration for her and her aunt, I *^ lived along the line^ and every word excited a sensation. I am *^ pleased to find, that by her husband she is so nearly allied to my " first favourite of all the beaux es/ij-its, Dr Arbuthnot. He had " none of the peevish jealousies of Mr Pope, nor the harshness and " pride; of Dr Swift. Conscious of more noble endowments, he " was not anxious to obtain the character of a wit. There is such " ease, and so natural an air in his writings, as prove him to have " been witty without effort or contrivance. I have heard my old " friend. Lord Bath, speak of him with great affection, as a most " worthy and amiable man, and as a companion more pleasant and " entertaining than either Pope or Swift. When I find much to ^^- admire in an autlior, I always wish to hear he has qualities for 39^2 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " which I may esteem and love him ; and I have listened with " great pleasure to Lord Bath's and the late Lady Hervey's praises " of Dr Arbuthnot. With what delight must our friend at Peter- " head read the works of so amiable a relation ! But the only real " and sincere happiness which remains for her" =— " What follows is a compliment to me, which, as I do not at all deserve, I shall not transcribe. " In my answer you will suppose that I did not fail to express my approbation of her sentiments of Dr Arbuthnot, which coincide' exactly with my own. I have told her of Scots-mill, and of my making pilgrimages to it as classic ground ; and I have told her every thing I know of Dr Arbuthnot's history, so far as relates to this country. I believe, however, I omitted to tell her, that he and I are of the same county, and that I had the honour to be born "within four miles of the place of his birth." LETTER CLXXXIIL DR BEATTIE TO THE HONOURABLE MR BARON GORDON. Aberdeen, 28th February, 1785. " The Dutchess of Gordon must, I think, have been mistaken, when she wrote to me some time ago that I was then in favour with Lord Monboddo. He never has pardoned me for calling Captain Cook a philosopher; and I am afraid never will. Besides, I think he did not use me quite well in the preface to his " Meta- " physic ;" and when a man uses you ill, he seldom fails to hate you for it. However, I have not retorted. In my last book, when I combat his opinions, I seldom mention his name, and I never mention him without paying him a compliment. The third volume of " Metaphysic" I have not seen ; but Principal Campbell gave me the other day such an account of it, as satisfies me, that it must be the most extraordinary performance that ever was written, and that he is determined to believe every thing that is in- credible. I wonder whether he has ever read " The Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor."* His hatred of Johnson was singular; he * In the " Arabian Nights Entertainment," LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 393 would not allow him to know any thing but Latin grammar, and that, says he, / know as well as he does. I never heard Johnson say any thing severe of him ; though, when he mentioned his name, he generally " Grinned horribly a ghastly smile." Johnson was a good man, and did much good ; and every one who knew him, or his works, must allow that he possessed extraordinary abilities. I long to see Mr Boswelfs " Johnsoniana." LETTER CLXXXIV. DR BEATTIE TO DR PORTEUS, BISHOP OF CHESTER. Aberdeen, 21st October, 1785. I READ lately Sheridan's "Life of Swift." It is panegyric from beginning to end. Swift had many good as well as great qualities ; but his character was surely, upon the whole very exceptionable. Mr Sheridan, however, will not admit that he had any fault. Even his brutality to Stella on her death -bed, which undoubtedly hastened her dissolution, his biographer endeavours to apologize for ; and he has a great deal of very unsatisfactory reasoning on the subject of the Yahoos. The question is not, whether that man is not a very odious animal, who finds his own likeness in those filthy beings ; but whether Swift did not intend his account of them as a satire on human nature, and an oblique censure of Providence itself in the formation of the human body and soul. That this was Swift's mean- ing, is to me as evident, as that he wrote the book ; and yet I do not find my own likeness in the Yahoos : I only know, for I think I could prove, that Swift wished it to be understood, as his opinion, that the human species and the Yahoo are equally detestable. Mr Sheridan too is not, I think, over-candid in what he says of Lord Orrery ; whose book, though not free from faults, contains some good criticism, and shows no little tenderness for the character of his hero. 3d 394 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " I long to see Dr Johnson's " Prayers and Meditations," and Mr Boswell's " Journey to the Hebrides ;" but it will be a great while before they find their way to this remote corner. " Has your Lordship read Dr Reid's " Essays on the intellec- " tual Faculties of Man ? Those readers who have been conversant in the modern philosophy of the mind, as it appears in the writings of Des Cartes, Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, will be much entertained with this work, which does great honour to the sagacity and patience of the author, It contains the principles of his former book laid down on a larger scale, and applied to a greater variety of subjects. Ever since Plato, or rather Pythagoras, took it into his head, that the soul perceives only what is contiguous to, or inclosed in, its own substance, and consequently perceives not outward things themselves, but only ideas of them, this ideal system has been increasing in bulk and absurdity ; and it is astonishing to see, that so many men of parts could be the dupes of it. All this rubbish is now cleared away, and a happy riddance it is. Dr Reid treats his opponents, and their tenets, with a respect and a solem- nityj that sometimes tempt me to smile. His style is clear and simple ; and his aversion to the word idea so great, that I think he never once uses it in delivering his own opinions. That little word has indeed been a source of much perplexity to metaphysi- cians ; but it is easy to use it without ambiguity ; and it has now established itself in the language so effectually, that we cannot well do without it. It was not without reason, that the learned Stilling- fieet took the alarm at Lock's indiscreet use of that word. It was indeed an ignis fatuus to poor Mr Locke, and decoyed him, in spite of his excellent understanding, into a thousand pits and quag- mires. Berkeley it bewildered still more : and it reduced David Hume to the condition of a certain old gentleman, of whom we read, that, Fluttering his pinions vain. Plumb down he dropped ten thousand fathom deep.'* LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 395 LETTER CLXXXV. DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU. Aberdeen, 15th November, 1785. " PLEASE to accept, madam, of my best thanks for the elegant copy of the last edition of your work, which was forwarded to me by Mr Dilly. I am glad to see you have now claimed the property of the three beautiful dialogues ; but it gives me concern to observe, that you have paid too much attention to my foolish re- marks. " The death of the Dutchess-Dowager of Portland* affected me most sensibly. I was no stranger to her virtues ; I was under great obligations to them ; and, from the tranquillity of her life, the cheerfulness of her temper, and the amusing nature of her favourite studies, I had flattered myself, that great ornament of her sex and country would live many years. Poor Mrs Delany ;t I pitied her from my soul ; but had I known all the truth, I should have been much more in pain for her. Having heard that she brought Dr Delany ten thousand pounds, which was a great fortune sixty years ago, I presumed that her circumstances were at least independent, if not opulent. I must blame her extraordinary request of being omitted in the Dutchess's will ; and I wonder her Grace v/ould comply with it. What a charming account you give me of their Majesties' generosity to Mrs Delany !:|: There was more in it than generosity : there was an affectionate sympathy, and a goodness and tenderness of heart, which does them more honour than even that high station, to which their pre-eminence in virtue, as well as the laws of their country, gives them so just a title. When the rage of party subsides, and misrepresentations are forgotten, how great, and how amiable, will those distinguished characters appear ! " Among the many curiosities which the Dutchess of Portland had collected, there was a volume, which you have no doubt seen, containing some prose -treatises in manuscript of the poet Prior. * See p. irS. t See p. 193. t ^^Jf^- 396 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. Her Grace was so good as to permit me to read them, and I read them with great pleasure. One of them, a dialogue between Locke add Montaii^ne, is an admirable piece of ridicule on the subject of Locke's philosophy ; and seemed to me, when I read it, to be, in wit and humour, not inferior even to the " Alma" itself. I took the liberty to say to the Dutchess, that it was pity they were not given to the world ; but I found her rather averse to the publication. She said, she could not bear to see her old friend criticised and censured by such people as the Critical Reviewers, Sec. I hope the work will no longer be suppressed. " Mr Boswell has published what I am informed is an extraor- dinary book of the " Sayings of Dr Johnson." Johnson, no doubt, said many good things : but his want of temper, and violent preju- dices, often divested him of his candour, and made him say what was not only improper, but in a very high degree censurable. I hope Mr Boswell has made the due distinction between what deserves to be known, and what ought to be forgotten." The following letter from Dr Beattie to Mr Arbuthnot gives, I think, a very just criticism on Mr Boswell's " Tour to the Hebrides." LETTER CLXXXVL DR BEATTIE TO ROBERT ARBUTHNOT, ESQ. Aberdeen, 26th November, 1785. " MR BOSWELL'S book is arrived at last, and I have just gone through it. He is very good to me, as Dr Johnson always was ; and I am very grateful to both. But I cannot approve the plan of such a work. To publish a man's letters, or his conversa- tion, without his consent, is not, in my opinion, quite fair : for how many things, in the hour of relaxation, or in friendly correspon- dence, does a man throw out, which he would never wish to hear of again ; and what a restraint would it be on all social intercourse, LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 397 if one were to suppose that every word one utters would be entered in a register ! Mr Boswell indeed says, that there are few men who need be under any apprehension of that sort. This is true ; and the argument he founds on it would be good, if he had pub- lished nothing but what Dr Johnson and he said and did : for John- son, it seems, knew, that the publication would be made, and did not object to it ; but Mr B. has published the sayings and doings of other people, who never consented to any such thing ; and who little thought, when they were doing their best to entertain and amuse the two travellers, that a story would be made of it, and laid before the public. I approve of the Greek proverb, that says, " I " hate a bottle-companion with a memory." If my friend, after eating a bit of mutton with me, should go to the coffee-house, and there give an account of every thing that had passed, I believe I should not take it well. " Of Dr Johnson himself, as well as of others, many things are told which ought to have been suppressed ; such, I mean, as are not in any respect remarkable, and such as seem to betray rather infirmity or captiousness than genius or virtue. Johnson said of « The Man of the World," that he found little or nothing in it. Why should this be recorded ? Is there any wit in it ; or is it likely to be of any use ? The greatest dunce on earth is capable of saying as good a thing. Of a very promising young gentleman, to whom Dr Johnson was under the highest obligations, (for he had risqued his life in Johnson's service) and who, to the great grief of all who knew him, unfortunately perished at sea about ten years ago, Dr Johnson said, that it was pity he was not more intellectual. Why should this be recorded ? I will allow, that one friend might, without blame, say this to another in confidence ; but to publish it to the world, when it cannot possibly give pleasure to any person, and will probably give pain to some, is, in my judgment, neither wit nor gratitude : and I am sure Mr Boswell, who is a very good- natured man, would have seen it in this light, if he had given him- self time to think of it. At Aberdeen the two travellers were most hospitably entertained, as they themselves acknowledge ; and when they left it, they said to one another, that they had heard at Aber- deen nothing which deserved attention. There was nothing in saying this : but why is it recorded ? For no reason that I can ima- gine, unless it be in order to return evil for ^ood. I found so many 3^8 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. passages of this nature in the book, that upon the whole it left ra- ther a disagreeable impression upon my mind ; though I readily own there are many things in it which pleased me. " The Bishop of Chester's thoughts on this subject are so per- tinent and so well expressed, that I am sure you will like to see them : " You will," says his Lordship in a letter which I received yesterday, " be entertained with Mr Boswell's book, and edified " with some of Johnson's prayers ; but you will wish that many " things in both those publications had been omitted : and, per- " haps, if they had not existed at all, it would have been better still. " Johnson's friends will absolutely kill him with kindness. His " own character, if left to itself, would naturally raise him very high " in the estimation of mankind ; but by loading it with panegyric, " anecdotes, lives, journals, &c. and by hanging round it even all " his little foibles and infirmities, they will sink it lower in the " opinion of the best judges of merit. I saw lately a letter from " Mrs Piozzi, (late Mrs Thrale) in which she announces her Anec- " dotes of Dr Johnson to be published this winter ; and after that " are to follow his Letters to her, &c. Mr Boswell also is to give *' us his Life ; and Sir John Hawkins is writing another to be pre- " fixed to a complete edition of his works. Our modest and worthy " friend, Mr Langton, is the only one who observes a profound si- " lence on this occasion ; and yet no one could speak to better pur- " pose, if he pleased, and if he thought it would answer any good " end." " Johnson's harsh and foolish censure of Mrs Montagu's book does not surprise me ; for I have heard l\im speak contemptuously of it. It is, for all that, one of the best, most original, and most elegant, pieces of criticism in our language or any other. Johnson had many of the talents of a critic ; but his want of temper, his vio- lent prejudices, and something, I am afraid, of an envious turn of mind, made him often a very unfair one. Pvirs Montagu was very kind to him ; but Mrs Montagu has more wit than any body ; and Johnson could not bear that any person should be thought to have wit but himself. Even Lord Chesterfield, and, what is more strange, even Mr Burke, he would not allow to have wit. He preferred SmoUet to Fielding. He would not grant that Armstrong's poem on " Health," or the tragedy of " Douglas," had any merit. He told me, that he never read Milton through, till he was obliged to LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 599 do it, in order to gather words for his Dictionary. He spoke very peevishly of the masque of Comus ; and when I urged that there was a great deal of exquisite poetry in it ; " Yes,'* said he, " but it " is like gold hid under a rock ;" to which I made no reply ; for indeed I did not well understand it. Pray, did you ever see Mr Potter's " Remarks on Johnson's Lives of the Poets ?" It is very well worth reading. " By a Latin letter which I lately received from Holland, I am informed, that Dutch translations of the first part of my last book, and of my " Remarks on Laughter," have been published, the one at Haerlem, the other at Dort. I am greatly obliged to the Dutch. The " Essay on Truth," they translated twelve years ago ; and I have a copy of the version, which I am told, by those who under- stand the language, is very exact. " I become every day more and more doubtful of the propriety of publishing the Scotticisms. Our language (I mean the Eng- lish) is degenerating very fast ; and many phrases, which I know to be Scottish idioms, have got into it of late years : so that many of my strictures are liable to be opposed by authorities which the world accounts unexceptionable. However, I shall send you the manuscript, since you desire it, and let you dispose of it as you please." On this subject of Mr Boswell's " Tour to the Hebrides," I likewise received a letter, some time after, from Dr Beattie, which I shall insert here. But as it refers to one of mine, to which it is in answer ; and as that letter contains some information respecting the publication of that work of Mr Boswell's which I am not ill pleased should be known, I shall venture, for the first and only time, to insert in this work a letter of my own. I found it among some hundreds, which Dr Beattie had preserved : for he seems seldom or never to have destroyed the letters he received from his friends. 400 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. LETTER CLXXXVIL SIR WILLIAM FORBES TO DR BEATTIE. Edinburgh, 9th Januaiy, 1786. " Boswell's * book, which I dare say you have seen before now, contains many things that mighty and several that ought to have been omitted. In regard to those of the first description, Mr Boswell seems to have adopted the idea of the writers on glass, so well described by Lord Hailes in one of his papers in the " World," who think a fact ought to be recorded merely because it is a fact : for surely he has retained a great deal of conversation neither instructive nor entertaining ; although other parts again are highly so. As to the offensive passages, I really do not believe that he considered them in that light when he gave them to the press : for I do believe him to have been sincere in his declaratiouy that it was not his intention to hurt any mortal ; and my memory serves me to recollect many passages of the original MS. which • Mr Boswell's acquaintance and mine began at a very early period of life, and an intimate correspondence continued between us ever after. It scarcely requires to be mentioned here, that he was tlie chosen friend of General Paoli and of Dr Johnson. The circle of his acquaintance among the learned, the witty, and indeed among men of all ranks and professions, was extremely extensive, as his talents were considerable, and his convivial powers made his company much in request. His warmth of heart towards his friends, was very great; and I have known few men who possessed a stronger sense of piety, or more fervent devotion (tinctured, no doubt, with some little share of superstition, which had probably been in some degi*ee fostered by his habits of intimacy with Dr Johnson) perhaps not always sufficient to regulate his imagination or direct his conduct, yet still gen- uine, and founded both in liis understanding and his heart. His " Life'*^ of that extraordinary man, with all the faults with which it has been charged, must be allowed to be one of the most characteristic and entertaining bio- graphical works in the English language. For Mr Boswell I entertained a sincere regard, which he retui'ned by the strongest proof in his power to confer by leaving me the guardian of his children. He died in London, 19th May, 1795, in the fifty.fifth year of his age. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 401 he ha3 omitted for that very reason ; and in his second edition^ wliich is now printed, he tells me he has omitted a good deal of the first. I have been accused of being his adviser to print the book, from a letter of mine towards the conclusion ; which, by the bye, he inserted without my knowledge or permission : but that letter merely related to a perusal of the MS., at a time when I had not the most distant idea of his printing his Journal. I have also been accused of having written that complimentary letter, because of the eulogium with which he has been pleased to honour me in his book : but that passage, in which I am mentioned in so flatter- ing a manner, was not in the original MS. which I saw.* As hia " Life of Dr Johnson" will probably be a work of a similar nature^, I have taken the liberty of strongly enjoining him to be more care- ful what he inserts, so as not to make to himself enemies, or give pain to any person whom he may have occasion to mention : and I hope he will do so, as he seems sorry for some parts of the other. " I have been much pleased with Dr Johnson's " Prayers and -^' Meditations :" they show him to have been a man of sincere and fervent piety : but I think Mr Strahan has been much to blame in printing the MS. -verbatim. I do not think an editor is at liberty to add a single iota to the work of his author; but surely there could have been no crime in Mr Strahan's retrenching oc- casionally a few things, which throw in some degree an air of ridi- cule on a work of so serious a nature ; and which, by giving cause for scoffing, will perhaps diminish the good effects the book might otherwise be expected to produce : had he likewise substituted Elizabeth, (which Boswell tells me was Mrs Johnson's real name) in the place of such a ridiculous appellation as Tetty, surely no man could have found fault with the change. It is somewhat ex- traordinary to see a mind so vigorous as his was, distressing itself with terrors on subjects apparently of no great importance, while the whole tenor of his life had been so irreproachable and useful to the world by his writings ; which one should think are of sufficient magnitude to render unnecessary his self-accusation of idleness. " It would give you pleasure, I am sure, to hear of Mr William Gregory'st having got a living. He is a most excellent young * He has mentioned this in his second edition, p. 524. •t Son of the late Dr John Greg-ory. He is since dead. 402 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. man ; and has well supported Dr Reid's character of him, when in a letter to me while he was at Glasgow college, the Doctor called him one of the incorrufitibles. The living is worth about 160/. and it is a good thing to have such a patron as the Archbishop of Can- terbury." LETTER CLXXXVIII. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 12th February, 172>6. " IT is with much concern, and with the most cordial sym- pathy, that I condole with Lady Forbes and you on your late afflic- tions. I pray God they may be sanctified to you ; that you may be strengthened to bear them without injury to your health ; and that the dear survivors may be spared for a comfort to their parents, a blessing to one another, and an ornament to society. Those, whom a wise Providence has been pleased to take away, have been soon released from their warfare, and have now an eternity of hap- piness before them, without the possibility of change. This con- sideration will sooth your melancholy, and will shortly, I trust, enable you to overcome it. " What you say of Mr Boswell coincides with my sentiments exactly. I am convinced he meant no harm ; but many things in his book are injudicious, and must create him enemies, and are really injurious to the memory of Dr Johnson. Johnson's faults were balanced by many and great virtues; and when that is the case, the virtues only should be remembered, and the faults entirely forgotten. But in this book, Johnson's want of temper, want of candour, obstinacy in dispute, and rage of contradiction, (for most of his speeches began with jVo, Sir^) are minutely recorded and exemplified. I cannot but take notice of a very i41iberal saying of Johnson with respect to the late Mr Strahan, (Mr Boswell has politely concealed the name) who was a man to whom Johnson had been much obliged^ and whom, on account of his abilities and vir- tues, as welljas rank in life, every one who knew him, and Johnson, LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 4^ as well as others, acknowledged to be a most respectable character. See page 340.* I have seen the letter mentioned by Dr Gerard, and I have seen many other letters from Bishop Warburton to Mr Strahan. They were very particularly acquainted ; and Mr Stra- han*s merit entitled him to be on a footing of intimacy with any Bishop, or any British subject. He was eminently skilled in com- position and the English language, excelled in the epistolary style, had corrected (as he told me himself) the phraseology of both Mr Hume and Dr Robertson ; he was a faithful friend, and his great knowledge of the world and of business made him a very- useful one. His friendship for Mr Hume did not prevent his be- ing a very warm friend of mine. He told me some curious anec- dotes of Mr Hume, which I took down in writing at the time, and which, if you please, I shall send you. " Johnson's book of Prayers is, as Macbeth says, " a sorry sight." In themselves the prayers have merit ; but the best pas- sages are taken from tlve " Book of Common Prayer," which is indeed a rich and inexhaustible fund. To compose forms of devo- tion is a most improving exercise ; and to publish them may be beneficial : but to publish a history of one's own devotions and alms, is something so like " praying in the corners of the streets," that I cannot think Johnson would have consented to it till want of health had impaired his faculties. Some of the memorandums are such as cannot be read without pain and pity. Others are of a different character. To set down in a devotional diary, " J\r. B. ^ I dined to-day on herring and potatoes," is a most extraordinary Incongruity." * After so severe a reproof from Dr Beattle, it is proper, for his sake, to insert here the paragraph from Mr Bos well's *' Journal" which occasion- ed It. *' Dr Gerard told us,' that an eminent printer was very intimate with *^ Warburton. yobnson, *' Why, Sir, he iias printed some of his works, " and, perhaps, bought the property of some of them. The intimacy is ** such as one of the Professors here may have with one of the carpenter?^ "^' who is repairing- the college," Sec. &c. 4/CJ* LIFE OF pR BEATTIE.' LETTER CLXXXIX. DR BEATTIE TO THE BISHOP OF WORCESTER. Aberdeen, 21st July, 1786. " HAD not my right hand been disabled by a bruise, of which I have not yet entirely got the better, I should have sooner returned my grateful acknowledgments to your Lordship, for your most obliging letter. Your approbation of my little book* does me the greatest honour ; and will have much influence in rendering it successful. Lord Hailes, with whom I passed a day not long ago, is also well pleased with it ; and, in general, it seems likely to meet with a reception far more favourable than I had rea- son to expect. It is indeed a very brief summary ; but my friends are pleased to think it has on that account a better chance, in these days, to be read than if it had been of a greater size. " Before I put it to the press, I was very anxious to see your Lordship's " Sermons," (preached at Lincoln's -inn) of which I had heard such an account as greatly raised my curiosity. But even the best books find their way slowly into this remote corner. I have read the book once and again with great delight ; and it will be my own fault if I am not the better for it as long as I live. My approbation can add nothing to its fame ; yet I must beg leave to say, that I particularly admire your happy talent in expounding difficult texts, and the perspicuity, conciseness, and elegance, of your style : which I look upon as the perfection of pulpit-elo- quence ; being equally captivating to the learned, and intelligible to the simple. " Though my health will not now permit me to attempt a long journey, yet I still flatter myself with the hope, that I shall one day • " Evidences of the Christian Religion, briefly and plainly stated;" in which Dr Beattie has given, if not a regular deduction, a concise and most useful summary, of the most striking and popular arguments, in ele- gant and perspicuous language, in support of the divine origin of the Gos- pel. It will be difficult, perhaps, to find any other book on the subject that contains more valuable matter, so well arranged, in so small a compass, as this litde treatise of Dr Beattie's ; which although meant chiefly for those who are just finishing their academical course, will be perused at any age, hy the serious and devout, with equal profit and delight. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 405 avail myself of your kind invitation, and pay my duty to your Lord- ship at Hartlebury. The last time I was in England I did serious- ly intend it, but was prevented by illness." In the year 1786 there were published at Abewieen, ^ Outlines ** of a Plan for uniting the King's and Marischal Colleges of Old " and New Aberdeen, with a view of rendering the System of Edu- <* cation there more complete/* A similar idea of an union had been started in the year 1747, in 1754, and in 1770 ; but on each of those occasions, such oppo- sition had arisen to it from one quarter or another, that it had al- ways fallen to the ground. It was now thought that it might be revived with better hopes of success ; either from the measure be- ing better understood, or from the conditions on which it was pro- posed to be carried into effect being rendered less exceptionable than they had formerly been. It is proper to mention, that those two universities, although situated within a mile of each other, are two perfectly distinct and separate establishments, as much so as the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, each having her own professors, separate revenues, and separate jurisdictions. As nei- ther the one nor the other contained a system of education so per- fect, nor advantages so considerable when separate, as it was thought they might be made to embrace, if united, and one com- mon seminary of learning were formed out of the two, many per- sons were of opinion, that such an union, if it could be brought about upon fair and equitable principles, would tend greatly to the benefit of both. It was thought, for example, that one professor for each branch of science would be fully equal to teach, when united, the small number of students attendant on each separate class ; and that the classes, by containing a larger number, though not too great a body of students, would probably draw into one class a greater proportion of young men of superior abilities, whereby a greater emulation would be excited ; while the professors, whose incomes depend chiefly on their class-fees, would find their emolu- ments augmented by their increased number of students, whom it would be their object and endeavour to render as numerous, as in their power, by their industry and attention. Nor would this be all 406 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. the advantage which this newly-modelled seminary of learning would derive from such an union ; for, by means of the double sa- laries paid at present to the professors of the same branch, one of each of which it was proposed to abolish, as the present incumbents should die out, new professorships might be established in the uni- ted universities, which do not at present exist in either. Thus, a school of medicine, and another of law, might be introduced at Aberdeen, as well as at Glasgow and Edinburgh, to the very great advantage of the northern part of the kingdom. Professorships of astronomy, agriculture, and other branches not taught there at pre- sent, might also be established ; a botanic garden might be created ; the libraries, as well as the museum and philosophical apparatus, augmented by additional purchases : and thus students, from the remoter parts of the country, might have the advantage of finding a more complete system of education open to them nearer home, -without being put to the trouble and expence of going to look for it in a southern part of the country. Such were the plausible arguments urged in favour of the union, by the Principal and Professors of Marischal College, by whom the plan was at this time revived. They were joined, however, by no more than two of the Professors of the neighbouring university ; tlie Principal and all the others declaring themselves strenuously adverse to the measure, as tending to a complete overthrow of the constitution of their university, of which they said the revenues and the patronage were by much the most considerable ; and therefore the advantages to be derived from such an union would be all on the side of Marischal College. Whether these were the real motives on the part of the Profes- sors of King's College, or whether, from the omission of any cere- monious punctilios on the part of the Professors of Marischal Col- lege towards their brethren of King's, in the manner of first opening the business, the opposition is to be attributed, it is not easy now to say. But that Dr Beattie thought favourably of the measure, there can be no question ; as he appears to have taken considerable pains to bring it about ; and that he must have believed it possible to ac- ■complish such an union, without encroaching on the rights and privileges of either party, his known love of justice will not allow us to doubt. As it was obvious, however, that no union could pos^ sibly take place between two separate and independent societies, LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 407 without the hearty concurrence of at least a majority of each, after some farther fruitless attempts, which served only to widen the dif- ference between the two, the measure was finally abandoned as hopeless ; and has never since been revived. Whether such an union be really practicable, or whether, if to be attained, it would be for the benefit of science in general, are points foreign from the present memoir. It ought not to he omitted, however, that as such an union could not be set on foot without even the attempt being productive of some bad humour among the members of both col- leges, as soon as the question was fairly laid to rest, Dr Beattie exerted himself strenuously, and not unsuccessfully, in allaying any heat that had arisen. Having an annual custom of dining together, at the first return of their yearly meeting, Dr Beattie laboured, that all that had past on the subject should be buried in oblivion, and no- thing prevail but harmony and good humour.* LETTER CXC. DR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDON. Peterhead, 28th July, 1/8^ " I HAVE the pleasure to inform your Grace, though you have no doubt heard by other means, that the scheme for the union of our two colleges goes on wonderfully well, and that the greater part of the nobility and gentry in this part of the kingdom seem very much inclined to promote it. The petition to the King is subscribed by the whole Marischal College, (the rector and dean of faculty included) and by two of the other college. I wrote the other day to solicit Lord Kinnoull's approbation and advice, which I am confident will not be with held. We can never be sufficiently thankful to the Duke of Gordon and your Grace for the honour * In the course of this business, a variety of papers, memoirs, cases, plans, (but none of them written by Dr Beattie,) were printed and circulated by both universities, where the arguments on each side are detailed. Of these I have in my possession a large collection. But I am surprised so little is preserved on the subject in the " Scots Magazine," although professedly a repository of intelligence regarding Scottish transactions. '\ 408 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. you have done us in entering so warmly into our views ; and I re- joice in the hope, that we shall, in a little time, under the influence of so high a patronage, succeed in a measure, which most of us have had at heart these many years, and which every friend to literature, and the north of Scotland, unless blinded by prejudice and self-in- terest, must see to be so very desirable. " I have deferred sending my little book * to the library of Gor- don-castle, till a new and more correct edition should come out ; -which will probably be soon, as it has been a great while at the press. The first edition was all sold in about five weeks, and has met with a reception much more favourable than I could have ex- pected. LETTER CXCL DR BENJAMIN RUSH TO DR BEATTIE. Philadelphia, 1st August, 1786. " THE American revolution, which divided the British em- pire, made no breach in the republic of letters. As a proof of this, a stranger to your person, and a citizen of a country lately hostile to yours, has expressed his obligations to you for the knowledge and pleasure he has derived from your excellent writings, by procuring your admission into the American Philosophical Society, a certifi- cate of which, subscribed by our illustrious president, Dr Franklin, and the other officers of the Society, you will receive by the next vessel that sails to any port in North-Britain from this city. " The stranger, alluded to, finished his studies in medicine in Edinburgh in the year 1709, and has ever since taught chemistry and medicine in the college of Philadelphia. His name (with the greatest respect for yours) is, " BENJAMIN RUSH." * "Evidences of the Christian Religion." LIFE OF DR BEATTIE, 4Q9 LETTER CXCII. BR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDOJT. Aberdeen, 10th September, 1786. " PERMIT me now to return my most grateful acknow- ledgments to your Grace and the Duke, for your goodness in in- teresting yourselves so much in my recovery. When I saw the letter to Dr Livingston, your kind attention drew tears from my eyes. I have had a pretty severe illness. The fever came on about six weeks ago ; and I am still so weak, that it fatigues me to walk up or down stairs, and exhausts me to write the shortest letter upon the most ordinary business. " I know not what others are, but I begin to be low-spirited on the subject of the union. Mr ******'s last letter seems, as Milton says, to cast ** Ominous conjecture on the whole success." Lord ****** too appears to have some unfavourable prepossessions. Lord **** is very old and infirm ; and I much doubt, whether we can with propriety give him the trouble of taking an active part in the affair. I am very willing to believe, that the present state of my nerves may incline me more to despondence than there is any good reason for ; and I heartily wish this may be the case. What- ever may be the result, the Marischal College have no reason to be ashamed of what they have done. The very general approbation which their conduct has received from the most respectable part of the community, does them the greatest honour, and will, I trust, prepare matters for bringing forward an union one time or other, and probably at a period not very remote. That is now clearly ascertained, which was never so well known before, that the voice of the public declares for an union in the most explicit terms." 3 F 4ia LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. LETTER CXCIIL DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 14th September, 1785. '^ I AM indebted to ydu for two very affectionate and enter- taining letters, and will endeavour to answer them as soon as my head and hand are a little better settled. At present I can hardly hold a pen. " I am very happy to hear of your visit to Hunton. I often wished the Bishop of Chester and you acquainted. He wrote me word of his having met with Lady Forbes and you, and of the great satisfaction he had in the hopes of a visit from you. You would like Mrs Porteus greatly. Her cheerfulness, good sense, and good- ness of heart, make her a most excellent companion for the Bishop, and exceedingly beloved by all who know her. As you were but a day at Hunton, you would see but little of Lady Twisden, who is as remarkable for modesty as for every other virtue ; but if you had been with her for some days, you would have found her most worthy of that character which I think I formerly gave you of her. " We have had much talk about uniting our two colleges. I was desired to write to you about it long ago ; but would not then trouble you, as Lady' Forbes was indisposed ; and of late I have not been able to write. The union is much approved of by the country in general ; but it is opposed by the Principal and six of the Professors of King's College. I shall tell you more about it very soon, and send you some memorials and other papers.'* The following letter relates to a plan which had been formed by some of Dr Beattie's friends here, of publishing the prose-works of Addison in a separate collection. The admirers of that eminent moralist, and truly classical writer^ had long lamented, that, in order LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 4il It) be gratified with a perusal of his excellent compositions, they were forced to look for them in scattered parts and in separate volumes. There is, indeed, a magnificent edition, in quarto, by Baskerville, of the writings of Addison ; but that book contains not only his prose, but his poetical pieces, which are certainly not the best of his performances ; and it is likewise so expensive, as to be above the reach of many who would otherwise wish to be purchasers ; and who would also be gratified by a perusal of some anecdotes of his life not generally to be met with. Such a selection, therefore, from his prose-writings only, together with a critique on his style and manner of writing, it was thought would be a most acceptable present to the admirers of Addison. Nor did we know any one so fit for the task as Dr Beattie, whose good taste, added to his enthu- siastic admiration of that author, whom he had chosen as his own model in composition, qualified him highly for such an under* taking. On its being proposed to him, he most cheerfully agreed to set about it without delay ; and even promised to himself much gratification in the execution. The original intention was to have published the whole of Addison*s prose-works, to which Dr Beattie proposed to prefix a biographical and critical preface, in the latter part of which he meant to insert a Critique on the style of Addison, so as to have shown its peculiar merits, as well as to have pointed out historically the changes which the English language has undergone from time to time, and the hazard to which it is exposed of being debased and corrupted by the innovations which have of late years, found their way into the style of our best and most esteemed writers. Such a preface, however, if properly executed, he found would run the length of half a volume, and would require both more time and application than the state of his health and other avocations would permit him to bestow upon it. He was therefore compelled, though reluctantly, to abandon a plan, from the performance of which he had looked forward with such high expectations of intellectual delight. He gave liopes, indeed, that he might resume the design, at some future period, of commenting on the prose- writings of Adclison ; but he did not live to carry it into execution. All that he was able to do, therefore, on occasion of the re-publica-^ tion of these periodical papers, (to which were added his " Evi- ^ dences of the Christian Religion,'* was to subjoin Tickell'* 413^ LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " Life of Addison" entire, which, though brief, is authentic, and extremely well written, together with some extracts from Dr Johnson's " Remarks on Addison's Prose." This Dr Beattie has accordingly done ; adding a few notes to make up for any material deficiency there may be thought to be in Tickell's narrative, and illustrating Johnson's critique by a few occasional annotations. Slight as those additions are which Dr Beattie has made to his stock of materials, with which he originally set to work, the admirer of Addison will be much gratified by some new information which he was ignorant of before, and to which Dr Beattie has given a degree of authenticity, by adhering, even in this instance, to his general practice of putting his name to every thing he wrote.* X.ETTER CXCIV. Oa BEATTIE TO ROBERT ARBUTHNOT, ESq; Aberdeen, 13th November, 1786, " I MEAN instantly to set about the preface to Addison. I beg you will inform me, whether the printing of the edition be actually begun, and when Mr Creech thinks it will be finished. As my preface will be printed last, it will come in good time (I suppose) five or six months hence. I intend to give in it, first, a brief account of Addison's life (in which I shall have occasion tp contradict some of Johnson's remarks) ; and, secondly, a sort of criticism on his writings, particularly his prose-style. On this head, it will fall in my way to speak of the present rage of innova-. tion in our language ; a subject which I have touched upon in the preface to the Scotticisms, but which I purpose to consider with jjome minuteness in the gther preface. • This work was printed at Edinburgh, in four volumes, 8vo. for W. ^reech and J. Sibbald, 1790. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 41; LETTER CXCV. OR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 30th November, 1786. " I AM greatly obliged to you, my dear Sir, for your very: kind letter of the 1 6th, no part of which gave me more pleasure, than the account you favour me with of your son's proficiency. You did very right in sending him to pass some months in. England. At his age it is not so difficult, as it comes to be after- wards, to get the better of a provincial dialect ; and I am very happy to understand, that he has acquired so much of the English pronunciation ; Greek and Latin he had in sufficient abundance before. It will likewise be of singular use to him to have been in a strange country for a little time ; for such we may call England, notwithstanding that we all live under the same government ; so very diffiirent are the customs, and modes both of thinking and speaking, from those of Scotland. His passing a few months in France next year, will tend still more to his improvement, by pre- senting him with a system of manners still more different from those of his own country, and by preparing him betimes for a cor- rect pronunciation of the French tongue. Youth is- the best time both for acquiring languages, and for getting the better of those national prejudices, which are so apt to adhere to the man who has never stirred from home ; and which are equally unfriendly to Christian charity, to true politeness, and, I may add, to the advance- ment of a man's interest even in this world. " The opposition to the projected scheme of uniting the colleges is much to be regretted ; but, as the voice of the country is so clearly on the side of those who favour the union, I would fain hope, that in time the opposition may become more faint, ^nd at last be withdrawn altogether. At present matters seem to be at a stand. The arguments on both sides have been prosecuted with a minute- ness, and perhaps too with an acrimony, which was unnecessary ; but such things ijfjust always be expected in such cases : and, were 414 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. an union, after all, to take place, I am persuaded, that those alter- cations would be immediately forgotten, and that we should be better friends than ever. Such revolutions happen in love and friendship : and why may they not happen in a contest like the present ? in which, properly speaking, there is no hostility ; the only thing aimed at, being to make both societies more respectable than ever they were before, without injury to any private interest whatever. I have the pleasure to inform you, that Marischal College is this year more crowded with students, than it has been any time these fifty years. Our public hall is indeed quite full ; so that there is reason to think it was never better filled than at present. The other college is not so flourishing. Their students are said to be under ninety ; ours to be above an hundred and forty. I will not say that this account is perfectly exact, but have reason to think it is nearly so. " I am just now reading Lord Hailes's new performance against Mr Gibbon. There is much learning in it, and great knowledge of the subject; but I wish he would make his reason- ing a little more pointed and popular. He often leaves his reader to draw the conclusions from his premises ; which is the most inoffensive way of conducting controversy, but not perhaps the most instructive. It gives me also concern to see so very able and so learned a writer affect sometimes the new-fangled cant style. " Your account of Sir J. Reynolds' new picture is very enter- taining. It is an unpromising subject ; but Sir Joshua's invention will supply every thing."* * The Infant-Hercules strangling the Serpents ; a large picture pahited for the late Empress of Russia, and now at St Petersburgh. It is indeed a wonderful effort of the pencil of that great master. The hero himself is re- presented as a stout, gruff, chubbed boy, squeezing the animals by the throat, one in each hand, with the utmost unconcern ; while the passion of fear is finely 'expressed in the countenances of the mother and attendants, and admirably diversified: that of the mother being solely for her child, while that of the attendants is evidently for themselves. Tlresias stands by, a truly venerable figure : and Juno appears in the clouds, anxiously waiting the success of her experiment. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 415 LETTER CXCVL DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 22d January, 1787. " MISS Bowdler's " Essays"* are just come to hand, and give me a very high idea both of the head and of the heart of the * We are informed by a prefatory advertisement, that these " Poems ** and Essays," the production of Miss Jane Bowdler, were written to re- lieve the tedious hours of pain and sickness. To the humble and pious Christian, who feels the pressure of distress, and seeks in religion that sup- port and consolation which nothing else can bestow, they present an exam- ple of patience and resignation which no sufferings could conquer. Nor is it the pride of Stoicism that these pages exhibit. The author felt, with the keenest sensibility, the uncommon misfortune which condemned her for ten years in the prime of life to constantly increasing sufferings ; but she found in the principles which are here laid down, such motives of consolation, as rendered her superior to all the sorrows of life, and to the lingering tortures of a most painful death. Of the singular merit of these ** Essays" there can be no higher praise than that of an amiable and excellent moralist,! who has declared, that he considered this performance as a production of inestima- ble value to every reader, who has a taste for elegant composition, or a heart disposed to profit by wise instruction ; instruction the more forcible, as she was the bright example of her own excellent precepts. The genuine principles of Christian ethics, undebased by the smallest alloy of bigotry or superstition, are judiciously pursued through their important consequences, and applied with singular accuracy to the various purposes of moral agency. The lan- guage and the sentiments are level to the most ordinary understanding, at the same time that the most improved will find much to admire in both. Miss Bowdler was the eldest daughter of Thomas Bowdler, Esq. of ^shley, a gentleman of independent fortune, who, being bred to no profes- sion, resided chiefly at Bath, wlicre he gave much of his time to study, and the company of men of letters. He was a person of great piety and worth. As an unequivocal proof of his singular attention to the strict discharge of religious duties, he constantly retained a domestic chaplain, who regularly officiated in his family. He died at Bath, 2d May, 1785. t See a letter inserted soon after the death of Miss Bowdler, and the publication of the " Essays," in the " Bath Chronicle," by William JIcbnot;h,;Esti. author of the " Letters oi"Sir " Thomas Fitzesborne," &c. &c. ^ij6 life of dr beattie. excellent author. Such examples of piety and resignation rarely occur ; and the person who publishes them does an important ser- vice to mankind. The preface too, though short, is admirably Although Mr Bowdler, from his attachment to books, may in some de- gree be considered as a literary character, he never, as far as I know, ap- peared in print, like most of his family. Besides the amiable sufferer, the author of these *' Essays," their mother, Mrs Bowdler, daughter of Sir John Cotton, was possessed of very extraordinary talents. Such was her proficiency as a scholar, that she was even well acquainted with the Greek and Hebrew languages ; and thus read the Scriptures, which were her fa- vourite study, in the original. Yet, with all this store of knowledge, she never intruded it into conversation, nor made any useless parade of her superior accomplishments. She printed, at first anonymously, but since her death they have been published by her family with her name, " Practical " Observations on the Revelation of St John." Whatever may be thought of Mrs Bowdler's lucubrations themselves, upon this mysterious book, we cannot but be pleased with the practical inferences which her work contains. She died at Bath, 10th May, 1797, in her eightieth year. Their eldest son, the present Mr Bowdler, a name justly respected by every friend of virtue and religion, published in the year 1797, an excellent and well-timed pamphlet in a plain and familiar style, entitled, " Reform ** or Ruin," at a period when our national concerns wore a very gloomy aspect, yet when national dissipation, apparently the certain forerunner of our destruction as an empire, seemed arrived at its height. This title of Mr Bowdler's pamphlet deceived many. At the time it was published, multiplied pamphlets came out on the subject o^ political reform ; and some people were probably induced to peruse this of Mr Bowdler's, who little suspected that the *' reform" he recommended was a reformation of inanners, not of the constitution. Mr Thomas Bowdler, the late Mr Bowdler's second son (the gentleman mentioned in Dr Beattie's letter) published " Letters written from Hol- ** land, 1787, containing a History of the Expedition into Holland under the " Duke of Brunswick, in the year 1786 :" and Miss Harriet Bowdler has instructed the world by a volume, publislied anonymously, of practical ** Sermons on the Doctrines and Duties of Christianity," which do equal honour to her piety, her taste, and her knowledge of the human heart ; and which cannot be carefully perused by any one, without exciting in the mind the best and most useful impressions of duty. There yet remains to be mentioned another daughter of Mr Bowdler, who, though she has never pub- lished any literary work, possesses a taste and an understanding highly cultivated, with powers of epistolary composition, which speak her to be mistress of talents, were she to employ them for the press, by no means inferior to those of the other branches of this extraordinary family. I have long enjoyed the happiness of her classical and instructive correspondence. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 41^ Written, and give such an emphasis to what follows in the book, as cannot fail to recommend religion to the most inattentive, if they will only take the trouble to read this truly valuable work. I was wonderfully struck and pleased with the beauty and propriety of the motto from Ariosto ; and it brings tears into my eyes when I consider it as an apostrophe to a departed saint. I beg you will return my most grateful and affectionate acknowledgments to the lady who honours me with this present, which I value more than I can express, which I trust has already done me good, and which I am sure will do me a great deal more, if it is not my own fault. I am no stranger to the character of this lady's family, having often heard of it from Mrs Montagu. And, if I mistake not, a brother of her*s once did me the honour to sup at my house in Aberdeen, in company with Mrs Montagu's nephew, Mr Robinson. He seemed to be an excellent young man, and I was much pleased with his conversation. I should be very happy to hear that he is alive and well. I have had two letters lately from the Bishop of Chester, in both which he and Mrs Porteus desire to be particularly remem- bered to Lady Forbes and you. He informs me, that the subscrip- tion-price of the new edition of Shakespeare adorned with draw- ings by the best hands, from designs by the best painters, will not be less than one hundred guineas for each copy. At this rate, one shall give the price of an ordinary book for a sight of this. However, magnificent works of this kind do honour to the natioa that produces them, and raise a laudable emulation among artists, and at the same time serve to give foreigners a high idea of the genius in honour of whom they are undertaken. The French pique themselves and very justly, on a splendid and elegant edi- tion of La Fontaine's " Fables," which is sold for twelve or four- teen pounds; but that work will be nothing to this. Clarke's edition of " Cscsar" was lately sold by auction in London for forty- eight pounds: it is indeed a most splendid work, and the " Spec* " tator" speaks of it as the glory of the British press ; but the original price was only twelve pounds. The finest copy I ever saw of this edition is in the librafry at Gordon Castle." 3 c. *18 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. LETTER CXCVir. DR BEATTIE TO THE HONOURABLE MR BARON GORDON. Aberdeen, 5th March, 178^. " I AM happy to inform you, that on the first of March you were unanimously re-elected Lord-Rector of Marischal College for the ensuing year. Your assessors are also re-elected ; and Major Mercer is re-elected Dean of Faculty. This matter was conducted with the greatest unanimity. All the college, students as well as professors, are very sensible of the obligations they arc under to you, for your constant attention to the interests of the society. " You are very partial, my dear Sir, to my son's little attempt in Latin poetry ; which, however, I acknowledge to be rather ex- traordinary, considering his years and opportunities. It may show, that classical learning is not quite so much neglected at Marischal College, as some of our southern neighbours would wish the pub- lic to believe. He has employed himself, during this winter, in a variety of compositions, both Latin and English, both prose and verse ; all which he will be solicitous to lay before his rector, when a proper opportunity occurs. " Finding that he is fond of a studious and academical life, I have been revolving a plan for him, which to you, as a friend, and as the first (acting) magistrate in the university, I would have men- tioned two or three weeks ago, if I had been able to write. I have laid it before the college, in a letter, a copy whereof I beg leave to send you : " To the Principal and other Profesf:ors of Marischal College. " GENTLEMEN, "I take the liberty to address you on a subject, which is inte- "^ resting to me, and of some importance to the college ; and I do it " in writing because it is reasonable that ye should deliberate upon it " whe.n I am not present. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 4! 9 '^' The state of my health for some time past, though it has not " as yet hindered me from performing the duties of my office, has " however been such as leads me often to think both of an assistant *^ and of a successor ; and many obvious reasons make me wish, " that one and the same person may serve in both capacities. It is ** natural for me to prefer my son to others in a matter of this kind, ^ as he likes an academical and studious life ; and as he is, if not " sufficiently qualified, at least as well qualified for the office as 1, ** was, after I had been seven years a professor. " It is by DO means my intention to give over teaching. On " the contrary, I will never permit any body to teach my class, as " long as I am able to teach it. For habits of seven-and-twenty " years standing are not easily got the better of; and I find so mucU ^' amusement in this business, which on all ordinary occasions gives " me no trouble, that, if I were to retire from it, I am certain that " my health would be much worse than it is. " But it would be a great relief to my mind, to know, that, in " the event of my being confined by illness, the business of the class " would suffer no interruption : and I presume, that, if my assistant " were to appear in it as a professor^ it would be no difficult matter " for him, with my advice and influence, to establish his authority. " If he live to see the beginning of next session, my son will be in " the twentieth year of his age. " Of his behaviour and proficiency while at college, I need not *' say any thing ; as that is Sufficiently known to those professors " under whom he studied, and from whom he received so many " marks of particular attention and kindness. It may be proper, " however, that I lay before the college some things concerning^ " him, which they cannot be supposed to know. And, in doing " this, I do nothing more for him, than justice would require me to " do for any other young man in his circumstances, and whom I " equally well knew. " Having for some years had this employment in view for him, ^ I took pains to give such a direction to his studies, as might im- " perceptibly prepare him for it. And I am well enough pleased " to find, that, though he has been a very assiduous student in all " the parts of learning that are taught here, the bent of his geniu? " seems to lie towards theology, classical learning, morality, poetry, " and criticism. In Greek, he has read Homer's lUad and Odys- 4^0 LIFE OF DR BEATTfE. •*' sey, the Batrachomyomacbia, and a great part of Hesiod, the ^J^' greatest part of Xenephon, the Phedo of Plato, six or seven books *' of Euclid, Arrian's History of Alexander, two Plays of Sophocles, " part of Herodotus and Plutarch, of the Septuagint and New Tes- " tament, the Ethics and Poetics of Aristotle, Longinus, several of *' the Odes of Pindar, &c. Latin he understands better than any " other person of his years I have ever known ; he wrote it pretty " correctly when he was a boy ; and, as 1 have sometimes con- " versed with him in that language, I know that with a little prac- " tice he could speak it easily : he is also making good progress *" in the French tongue. From his early years I accustomed him ^Ho read no books but good ones, and to study every thing he read J^ with grammatical and critical accuracy. The moral sciences, as ^'" far as I teach them, he knows very well ; and, as he has a metho- " dical hea4 and ready elocution, I flatter myself a little practice *' would make him a good teacher. Specimens of his composition, " both Latin and English, both verse and prose, shall be laid before " the college, if they desire it. " To all this it may not perhaps be impertinent to add, that as ^«" .he has passed part of several summers in Edinburgh, and two in " London and other parts of England, and visited wherever I visited, " he may be supposed to have seen a little of the world ; of which, " though he is rather silent in company, I find he has been no in- ♦^' accurate observer, *' If the college agree to recommend him to his Majesty, as a " person fit to be appointed my assistant and successor, I would " farther request, that it may be done as &oon as possible. This, " I think, would be an advantage to the college, as well as to him and *' me. For if he were once sure of the place, I would make him " lay other studies aside for some time, and employ himself in pre- " paring a course of lectures ; which, as all my papers are open to '' him, he would not find it a difficult matter to do, I could also *' teach him how to make many improvements in my plan, which ** I have long had in view, but could never execute for want of '^« health. ^ " I need not suggest to my colleagues the propriety of keeping " this affair secret. Were it to be talked of, and after all to mis- *' carry, it would hurt my son's interest, and make him feel the dis- ** appointment the more heavily. He knows nothing of this appli- LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 424 ■** cation ; nor do I intend that he shall know any thing of it, till I ^ see what the issue is likely to be. I am/' &c. " To this letter the college returned a very polite answer to this purpose : That they were so well satisfied with my son's profici- ency and character, that they would immediately, notwithstanding bis youth, grant the recommendation I requested, if it were not for the present critical state of the business of the union. They there- fore desired me to let the matter rest a little, till the issue of that affair could be more certainly foreseen. In this I thankfully ac- quiesced. " However, that I might if possible secure a majority, in the event of the union taking place, I mentioned my scheme to Mr Professor ****. He entered very warmly into my views, and men- tioned the thing in confidence to Dr ****** and Mr *******. They were as favHurable as I could have expected ; and, though they •made no promise, which indeed was not solicited, they spoke in very strong terms of what tliey were pleased to call the delicacy of my conduct with respect to ray colleagues and to them. They seemed to think, that I might have carried my point by a private application to the Crown in my own name. This might perhaps be true ; but I would not do a thing so disrespectful to the Maris- chal College. " I threatened you with a long letter, and you see I have kept my word. But, as my almanack tells me that your terms are over, I hope you will excuse me. You are interested in this business in more respects than one ; for I took the liberty some time ago to execute a deed, in which you and Sir William Forbes, and some other gentlemen, are named the guardians of my two boys ; as I .think I told you before." LETTER CXCVII. DR BEATTIE TO MISS VALENTINE. London, 20th July, 1787. " I AM just returned from Windsor, where 1 passed three days. I went thither, partly to see some friends, but chiefly that 42^ LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. I might pay my respects to the King and Queen. They both re- ceived me in the most gracious manner. I saw the King first on the Terrace, where he knew me at first sight, and did me the ho- nour to converse with me a considerable time. Next morning I saw him again at prayers in his chapel, where he was pleased to introduce me to the Queen, who inquired very kindly after my health ; observed, that many years had passed since she saw me last ; regretted the bad weather which I had met with at Windsor, (for it rained incessantly) which, said she, has made your friends see less of you than they wished ; and, after some other conversa- tion, her Majesty and the Princess Elizabeth, who attended her, made a slight curtsey, and stepped into the carriage that waited for them at the chapel-door. The King remained with us for some time longer, and talked of various matters, particularly the union of the colleges. He asked whether I was for or against it. I told Tiim I was a friend to the union. But Lord KinnoW, said he, is violent against it (this, by the bye, I did not know^Defore). The King spoke jocularly of my having become fat : I remember the time, saidj he, when you were as lean as Dr **** there, point- ing to a gentleman who was standing by. You look very well, (said his Majesty to me) and I am convinced you are well, if you would only think so : do, Dr Heberden, said the King, convince Dr Beat- tie that he is in perfect health. (Dr Heberden was also standing by). I have been endeavouring. Sir, returned the Doctor, to do so. After two such attestations of my health, as those of the King and Dr Heberden, I suppose I need not say more on that subject. The truth is, I am better than I was. The giddiness has not troubled me but one day since I came to London. " At Windsor I met with several other friends, particularly Lady Pembroke, Mrs Delany, Mr and Mrs De Luc ; and I was often with the famous Miss Burney, (author of " Cecilia") who has got an office in the Queen's household, and is one of the m>ost agreeable young women I have met with ; has great vivacity, join- ed with a most unassuming gentleness and simplicity of manners. " I passed an afternoon a few days ago with Lord Rodney. I -was very glad to meet with that celebrated veteran, and much pleased with his conversation. He is of the middle size, rather lean, has handsome features for an old man, piercing blue eyes, and is very well bred." LIFE OF DR BEATTIEv iSS LETTER CXCVin, DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBBS. Hunton, near Maidstone, 7t\i August, 1787. ^« I CAME to Hunton the 28th of last month. Of the scenery of that beautiful place I need say nothing to you, who are well ac- quainted with it. Every thing is so exactly the same that it was, and my memory of every thing is so accurate, that the three years which have intervened since I was last here, seem to have dwindled into as many days. The Bishop and Mrs Porteus are perfectly well, and desire their best respects to Lady Forbes and you. " Last week we had a visit from a gentleman, (Mr Boissier) in whose history there are some particulars, which I think will enter- tain you. He is a man of fortune, and of a French family, about fifty years of age ; was born in England and commonly resides at Bath, but has passed a great part of his time abroad, where it is evi- dent that he has kept the very best company. He speaks Italian, Spanish, and French, and is well conversant in literature ; and has so much of the French vivacity, that if he had not spoken English with the propriety of a native, I should have taken him for a Frenchman. As Moses was trained up in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, it was this gentleman's chance to be educated in all the folly of French philosophy : he was indeed an avowed, nay a bare- faced, infidel. In this temper of mind he went to hear the Bishop of Chester preach at Bath, about two years ago. The text was, " Truly this was the Son of God." He was so much struck with the Bishop's eloquence and reasoning, that he made no scruple to declare to his friends, that his mind was changed, and that he was determined to study the Christian religion with candour, and with- out delay.** An acquaintance soon took place between the Bishop and him, and they were mutually pleased with each other. Books were put into his hands, and among others my little book.* To * *' Evidences of the Christian Religion, briefly send plainly stated," See p. 404^. 424 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. shorten my story he is now a sincere Christian ; and is just goiilg to publish a " Vindication of Christianity," which he has translated from the French of Mons. Bonnet. This work I have seen, and think very highly of it, as I do of the author and translator, who is truly a very agreeable, sensible, well-bred, man. The sennon which, by the providence of God, was the cause of this conversion, the Bishop, at my desire, preached to us last Sunday. I never in my life heard more animated eloquence,. or a more forcible piece of argumentation ; and the Bishop exceeded himself in the delivery of it."* In addition to the accumulated evils with which Dr Beattie had been long afflicted, of his own bad health, and the total subver- sion of his domestic happiness, arising from his wife's incurable malady, he was soon to experience another and a most weighty domestic calamity, in the loss of his eldest son, of the commence- ment of whose illness, which at last brought him to the grave, his father gives the following affecting account. LETTER CXCIX DR BEATTIETO MRS MONTAGt^. Aberdeen, 17th November, 1787. " AFTER having been for so many months a wanderer, I am at last become stationary, and sit down to give a brief account of what has befallen me since I tore myself away from Sandleford. The chief reason of my leaving, so soon as I did, that delightful place, and still more delightful society, was, though I did not then mention it, the state of my son's health. He had at that time symptoms of approaching illness, particularly an unconquerable • The discourse here mentioned is the 14th in the second volume of the Bishop of London's *< Sermons-.'* LIFE OF J>k BEATTIE. 435 sensation of cold in his hands and feet ; which made me anxious to put him, as soon as possible, under the care of my medical friends in London. He was taken ill, as I expected, first more slightly, and afterwards with such violence, and so many alarming appear- ances, that for several days he seemed to be in great danger. My friend, Dr Lettsom, attended him with his usual humanity ; and, •as soon as he thought it safe to remove from London, advised me to begin my journey. We travelled very slowly, an4 had every advantage that could be derived from good roads and good weather ; but, though he bore the motion of the carriage well enough, he -continued to be so weak, that I was often at a loss to determine whether I should proceed or stop. He himself wished to get for- .ward, especially to get to Morpeth, where Dr Keith lives, a parti- cular friend of ours, of whose affectionate temper and medical abilities we both have the highest opinion. At Morpeth we arrived nt last, and were so lucky as to find our friend at home, who ordered something which did much good ; but the weakness still continued, .and the disorder appeared to be only alleviated, but by no means, removed. At Edinburgh, where we rested ten days, I was advised to take him to Peterhead, which I did accordingly ; and the air and mineral-water of that place had so good an effect, that, by the end of October, when we were obliged to return home, I thought him, and he thought himself, perfectly recovered. He has been regu- larly inducted into his new office : but I do not intend that he shall have any thing to do this year, but to amuse himself, and recover strength ; as I find myself well enough to manage all the business without difficulty. Indeed I have now better health than I remem- ber to have enjoyed for some years. And it would be strange if it were otherwise, considering the very great attention and kindness which I met with at Sandleford and Hunton ; and, since my return to the North, at Gordon Castle, where I made a visit of three weeks, while my son was at Peterhead. The Dutchess desired me to present to you her best respects ; which, however, I presume her Grace will deliver in person, as she is now on her way to London, where she means to pass the winter. " At Peterhead I gave Mrs Arbuthnot the money which you committed to my care, and I was happy to find her wonderfully well, considering her great age. I need not tell you with what gratitude she acknowledged your bounty, nor how anxiously 3fl 436 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. minute she w^s in her inquiries after your health, and that of Mr and Mrs Montagu, and their lovely child. She is naturally of an inquisitive turn, as solitary people of good parts generally are ; but, M^here her heart and affections are engaged, there is no end of her interrogatories. It gives me no little pleasure to observe, how much to the better her poor old house is changed, since she has had the honour to be under your patronage. The roof, which was entire- ly decayed, has undergone a thorough repair ; her moth-eaten tables and chairs, which were on the point of falling to pieces by their own weight, have given place to a set of new ones, not fine in- deed, but neat and substantial ; the smoky roofs of her few apart- ments are cleaned and whitewashed, and the mouldiness of her walls concealed by a decent covering of printed paper. In her dress I perceive little or no change ; for in that respect, even in her worst days, she always contrived to appear like a gentlewoman. " I learned a few days ago, by a letter from his Lordship, that our excellent friend the Bishop of Chester, is promoted to the see of London. Few things could have given me so much pleasure. This is a station in which his great talents for business, and for do- ing good, will find ample scope ; yet so as not to take him to such a distance from his friends, or subject hi^ to such bodily fatigue, as the duties of his former diocese often made necessary." LETTER CC DR BEATTIE TO Sill WILLIAM FORBES'. Aberdeen, 10th December, 178T'. " I WISHED to have written to you by Mr ******, but when he was here I was ill. My son on that occasion took upon him, for the first time, the management of the class, and acquitted himself not only to my satisfaction and theirs, but also to his own. It was not my intention that he should appear in his new character till next winter ; but I am glad he has had this trial, as it has satisfied him that he is equal to his business. However, I do not mean that he shall either amst or succeed me, as long as I can prevent it. He LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. A^7 is greatly obliged to you for your kind concern about him, and de- sires to offer his humble service. His health was improved by Peterhead ; but he is not robust, and I am obliged to exert my authority in moderating his application to study. " Every body must approve greatly of your sending Mr Forbes abroad, previously to his entering on business. Next to a good conscience, nothing tends more to the happiness of life, than habits of activity and industry begun in early youth, so as to settle into a permanent disposition before one arrives at manhood : and I never see, without pity, a young man of fortune who is bred to no busi- ness. ^* The friends you inquire after. Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr Langton, Sec. were all well when I left London ; but I did not this year see so much of them as usual, as my health would not permit me to be much in town. I regret exceedingly my not having had an opportunity to pay my respects to Miss Bowdler. " The passage in the " Lounger," to which she objects, seems to me to be not very accurate ; and I am not sure that I under- stand it. There ai'e men, and those too of masculine minds, who prefer Virgil to Homer ; Mr Burke is one : and there are others who prefer Metastasio to Shakespeare, and Tasso to Milton. Johnson told me he never read Milton through, till he read hiixi in order to gather words for his " Dictionary ;'* and though he has spoken civilly of him in his " Lives," it is well known that he- did not do so in conversation. On the other hand, I have known women, whose sentiments were the same with mine? and I suppose with the " Lounger's" in regard to those great autliors ; and who, for all that, had minds as delicate, and as truly feminine, as any of their sex. Few women have the means of judging with precision of the comparative merit of Virgil and Homer; for, in order to do that, it is absolutely necessary to throw all translations aside, ajid read them in their own language. Pope's translation is a ■'very- pleasing poem, and I believe a great favourite with the fair sex ; but has nothing of Homer but the story and the characters, the manner being totally different : Dryden's " Virgil" is not a very pleasing book, and conveys not any tolerable idea of the original ; of whose tenderness, pathos, and delicacy, and uniform majesty of expression and numbers, Dryden had no just relish, and whose lan- •guage he did not understand so perfectly as he ought to have done. 42S LIFE O^ DR BEATTIE. " Of the superiority of male to female minds, much has beeii said and written, but perhaps in too general terms. In what re- lates to the peculiar business and duty of either sex, the genius of that sex will, I believe, be found to have the superiority. A man, though he could suckle, would not make so good a nurse as a wo- man ; and though the woman were in bodily strength equal to the man, there are in her constitution many things which would make her less fit, than he is, for what may be called the external econo- my of a family. Matters of learning, taste, and science, are not more the natural province of the one sex than of the other ; and, with regard to these, were they to have the same education and op- portunities, the minds of the two sexes would be found to approach m.ore nearly to equality. The same education, however, they can- not have, because each must be trained up for its own fieculiar busi- ness ; nor the same ofifiortunities, because many scenes of observa- tion are open lo men, from which women are, by their reserve and modesty, excluded, and some open to women, to which men are, with great propriety, though for a different reason, denied admit- tance. If one were to enter into the detail of all these particulars, I imagine it would not be difficult to say, what sorts of writing and parts of learning the two sexes might cultivate with egiuzl success, and in what women would be sufierior to men, and men superior to women ; and the inferences, as they occur to me at present, would, if I mistake not, receive confirmation froni the historjr of iitera^- ture." LETTER CCL pR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES, Aberdeen, 5th March, X788. *' I SCARCE remember when my attention was so much en- grossed by a number of little matters, as it has been for the last two months. This must be my apology for not sooner acknowledging jthe receipt of your very kind and affecting letter. After what Dr Hay told me last summer, I had no hopes of your son's recovery ? LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 429 but the account of his death gave me pain, as I well knew what Lady Forbes and you would suffer on that occasion. You have been tried with many severe afflictions of the same kind ; but have borne them as became you ; so that they will, in their consequen- ces, prove matter of everlasting triumph. " It is with great pleasure I see your name in the newspapers, subjoined to a petition to the House of Commons in behalf of the poor negroes. The society, to which I belong, resolved some time ago to present a similar petition, but the thing is delayed till we hear from our chancellor on the subject ; and he is now very in- firm, so that I fear we shall be too late in our application. I wrote a " Discourse on Slavery," particularly that of the negroes, about ten years ago, and had thoughts lately of revising and publishing it. So much was I in earnest, that I had actually transcribed about a fourth part of it ; when, having occasion to consult some authori- ties, which were not at hand, I foresaw, that, let me be ever so dill- gent, the fate of Mr. Wilberforce's intended motion on this subject, would, in all probability, be determined before my little book could be got ready ; and so I dropped the scheme, at least for the present : which I have the less reason to regret, as I had little to say which has not been said by others, who may be thought to have had bet- ter means of information. I earnestly pray, that our legislature may have the grace to do something effectual in this business, so as to clear the British character of a stain, which is indeed of the blackest die. The freest nation and best natured people on earth, are, as matters now stand, the patrons of slavery, and of a slavery more severe than is warranted by the laws of France or Spain, or of any other country in Europe. What an inconsistency is this ! and what a reproach 1 I am not, however, one of those who think, that our negroes ought immediately to be made free. That would be dangerous, and is, I fear, impracticable. But to mitigate in the mean time the horrors of their slavery, and to prepare matters for a gradual abolition of it, seems to me to be neither dangerous nor difficult. " I have been looking into Dr Reid's book on " The Active Powers of Man." It is written with his usual perspicuity and acuteness ; is in some parts very entertaining ; and to me, who have been obliged to think so much on those subjects, is very in- Jteresting throughout. The question concerning Liberty and Ne- 430 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. cessity is very fully discussed, and very ably ; and, I think, no- thing more needs be said about it. I could have wished that Dr Reid had given a fuller enumeration of the passions, and been a little more particular in illustrating the duties of morality. But his man- ner is, in all his writings, more turned to speculation than to prac- tical philosophy ; which may be owing to his having employed himself so much in the study of Locke, Hume, Berkeley, and other theorists ; and partly, no doubt, to the habits of study and modes of conversation which were fashionable in this country in his younger days. If I were not personally acquainted with the Doctor, I should conclude, from his books, that he was rather too warm an admirer of Mr. Hume. He confutes, it is true, some of his opinions ; but pays them much more respect than they are en- titled to. " I have the pleasure to inform you, that we have heard from our chancellor, who approves highly of our declaring our senti- ments with respect to the slave-trade, in a petition to the House of Commons. No time was lost. I had prepared the petition ; which was instantly signed, and sent off by last post. " Mr Boissier* has published his " Translation of M. Bonnet's Inquiries concerning Christianity," and has done me the honour to send me a copy ; which I shall read as soon as I can command a day's leisure. In his preface he mentions Bishop Porteus as the first, " who traced out to him the road which leads to truth." From what 1 have seen of this book, I should be apprehensive that the author's manner is rather abrupt, and too abstruse to be popular, at least in this country. However, the world is under obligations to him, and to his worthy translator, for declaring themselves in so explicit a manner the friends of religion ; and as M. Bonnet's cha- racter is very high in France, I hope his book.will do a great deal of good. " At my spare hours, which have been veiy few this winter, I am preparing to do, what, if circumstances had permitted, I ought to have done long ago, to print an abridgment, a very brief one, of my lectures on moral philosophy and logic. It is intended for no other purpose but to assist the memory of those students who attend my class ; and therefore, though I shall print, I am in doubt whether I should publish it. The students, by paying for their * Mentioned in Letter CXCVIII. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 431 copies, will in time indemnify me for print and paper, which is all I shall ask in the pecuniary way. Notwithstanding all my care to be concise, I find it will extend to two octavos ; the first of which will contain, " Elements of Moral Science," and the second, " Elements of Logic." Under Logic I comprehend, not only the philosophy of evidence, but likewise every thing that relates to lan- guage, composition, and criticism. Hitherto it has been my way, as it was that of my predecessor, to make the students take down in writing an abstract of the lectures and conversations ; and this me- thod is not without its advantages ; but such abstracts, being writ- ten in great haste, were not always correct, and took up a good deal of time. The time, which I shall save by using a printed text book, I intend to employ in commenting upon classic authors, and other profitable exercises*. " You will be glad to hear, that Sunday-schools are likely to do good here. Eight have been set a-going, and are supported by sub- scription. " My son desires his best respects. My cough has obliged me to employ him more frequently, in the morning meeting at eight, than I wished to do : but he likes the business, and has now had experience ot almost all the varieties of it. He has also been com- posing some lectures, one of which, accompanied with a model in pasteboard, is an account of Raymond LuUy's mill for making books, alluded to by Dr Campbell in the " Philosophy of Rhetoric." He got Raymond's book in the college library, and made the mill c;xactly according to the author's directions." LETTER CCIL DR BEATTIK TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Peterhead, 3d May, 1788. " THE book I have in view will not be a mere syllabus, like the pamphlet which Dr Blair published ; nor a collection of apho- risms, like Dr Ferguson's " Institutes :" in its plan it will more • This abridgment of his lectures, Dr Beattie did publish, under the title of '* Elements of Moral Science ;'* the first volume in the year 1790, the second volume in the year 1793. 432 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. Resemble Dv James Gregory's " Conspectus Medicines T/jcoretica ;" ©nly it will be in English. If I live to execute my purpose, it will comprehend the substance of all my lectures and conversations, (for I often teach in the Socratic method, by question and answer,) with the omission of such illustrations, facts, and reasonings only, as cannot be expressed in few words. The first volume will contain, the Philosophy of the Human Mind ; Principles of Natural Reli- gion ; Moral Philosophy ; and Politics : and the second, Logic, -or the Philosophy of Evidence ; and Rhetoric, or the Belles Let- tres. About one hundred and forty large quarto pages of the first volume are written ; and I hope, if my health does not prevent me, to have it in the press before the end of the year. " The same post, that brought your last most agreeable favour, brought also a letter, with two pamphlets, from the Bishop of Lon- don. The Bishop is very urgent with me, as you are, to publish my papers on the slave-trade. He says they will come in good season if they appear before the next session of parliament, for that nothing in that business will be done this session. The Privy- Council, he says, have been at uncommon pains to ascertain the exact nature of the African slave-trade, and the state of the slaves in our West India islands. His Lordship also wishes me to sub- join, as an appendix to my papers, an examination of an extraordi- nary pamphlet, which has just appeared, to prove the lawfulness, or, as the author calls it, the licitness of the slave-trade, from the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. This pamphlet he has sent me, but I have not yet got time to read it. It is the work of a Spanish Jesuit of the name of Harris, who it seems is connected with the slave-merchants of Liverpool, by whose means he hopes to. obtain preferment in the church of England, to which he is wil- ling to conform : his pamphlet is dedicated to the Mayor, Alder- men, &c. of Liverpool. The slave-dealers exult in this champion, and say that his work is unanswerable ; but the Bishop of London says it is mere Jesuitical sophistry. From what I have seen of it, I should think it an easy matter to answer it ; but whether I shall be able to do this, I know not. My health is a great hindrance to all my projects. " The other pamphlet which the Bishop sent me, is a " Pasto- ral Letter to the English Clergy in the West Indies," who are all, it spemsj subject to his ecclesiastical jurisdiction. It is short, but LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 4JJ3 very elegant^ and very like himself and his station. It relates chiefly to two things, the conviersion and education of the negroes, Vvhich he earnestly and powerfully reeommends ; and the qualifica- tions which he insists on finding in all those West Indians who may- apply to him for holy orders. My little book of " Evidences'* is R BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 3d August, 1790. " MY son continues, as he has been for this four weeks past, without either gaining ground, or apparently losing any. His de- bility is extreme ; and his cough a little troublesome, but not very painful ; and to me it does not seem to have that hollow sound which is generally heard in consumptive cases. He continues his milk diet ; the greatest part of which is goats' milk. " I am well aware of the propriety of your advice, and will endeavour to profit by it. To torment ourselves with unavailing anxieties about possible or even probable evils, is not only impru- dent but unlawful ; for our religion expressly forbids it. But I have not now the command of my thoughts. Ever since the com- mencement of our vacation, I have been passing, without intermis- sion, from one scene of perplexity and sorrow to another. But let me not trouble you with things of this nature. It would become me better to speak of the manifold blessings which Providence has conferred upon me, than of any trials which may have fallen to my lot. These will all terminate well, if it is not my own fault ; and even for these I ought to be thankful ; for I can say, from the full- est conviction, that " it is good for me to have been afflicted.'* " I am glad that you approve of my slight annotations upon Addison. I have not yet got a sight of the new edition of his prose- works ; but I should like to see it, having almost forgotten what I wrote, of which I kept no copy. I am greatly obliged to Miss Bowdler for her favourable opinion ; and am well pleased to find, that she approves' of my sentiments with respect to the pre- sent rapid decline of the English language. I begin to fear it will be impossible to check it ; but an attempt would be made, if I had leisure and a little more tranquillity of mind. " I have been reading with all the attention that my bewildered mind is capable of, Bishop Newton's " Dissertations on the 454 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. jProphecies." The simplicity of the style and manner is very characteristical of its author, whom I well knew, and who was the most saint-like Nathaniel I ever saw. It is a very learned and pious work, and should be read by every body : for though all the rea- sonings are not equally satisfying, a thing not to be expected in such a work, it contains many acute and striking observations, which, though they should not overcome the obstinacy of the infidel, can hardly fail to confirm the faith of the Christian. It contains a very great variety of historical information, and throws a surprising light on many obscure passages of Scripture." That misfortune which Dr Beattie had long dreaded, the loss of one so dear to him as his eldest son, was now fast advancing. In his letters to his friends for several months preceding, he had given a melancholy presage of what was about to happen ; and the piety and resignation with which he viewed its approach, were truly edifying. The following letter to the Dutchess of Gordon gives an ac- count of that event having actually taken place. It is worthy of himself, and cannot be perused without a deep sense of what he must have suffered on the occasion. LETTER CCXIX, DR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDON. Aberdeen, 1st December, 1790. " KNOWING with what kindness and condescension your Grace takes an interest in every thing that concerns me and my little family, I take the liberty to inform you, that my son James is dead ; that the last duties to him are now paid ; and that I am en- deavouring to return, with the little ability that is left me, and with entire submission to the will of Providence, to the ordinary busi- ness of life. I have lost one who was always a pleasing companion ; LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 455 but who, for the last five or six years, was one of the most enter- taining and instructive companions that ever man was blest with z For his mind comprehended almost every science ; he was a most attentive observer of life and manners ; a master of classical learning ; and he possessed an exuberance of wit and humour, a force of understanding, and a correctness and delicacy of taste, be- yond any other person of his age I have ever known. " He was taken ill in the night of the 30th of November, 1789 ; and from that time his decline commenced. It was long what physicians call a nervous atrophy ; but towards the end of June, symptoms began to appear of the lungs being affected. Goats' milk, and afterwards asses' milk, were procured for him in abun- dance ; and such exercise as he could bear, he regularly took : these means lengthened his days, no doubt, and alleviated his suf- ferings, which in deed were not often severe ; but, in spite of all that could be done, he grew weaker and weaker, and died the 19th of November, 1 790, without complaint or pain, without even a groan or a sigh ; retaining to the last moment the use of his rational faculties ; indeed, from first to last, not one delirious word ever escaped him. He lived twenty -two years and thirteen days. Many weeks before it came, he saw death approaching ; and he met it with such composure and pious resignation, as may no doubt be equalled, but cannot be surpassed. " He has left many things in writing, serious and humorous, scientific and miscellaneous, prose and verse, Latin and English ; but it will be a long time before I shall be able to harden my heart so far as to revise them. " I have the satisfaction to know, that every thing has been done for him that could be done ; and every thing according to the best medical advice that Scotland could afford. For the last five months I kept in my family a young medical friend, who was con- stantly at hand : and from the beginning to the end of my son's illness, I was always either by him, or within call. From these circumstances, your Grace will readily believe, that I derive no little satisfaction. But my chief comfort arises from reflecting upon the particulars of his life ; which was one uninterrupted ex- ercise of piety, benevolence, filial affection, and indeed of every virtue which it was in his power to practise. I shall not, with re- spect to him, adopt a mode of spcecji which has become too com- 456 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. mon, and call him my poor son : for I must believe, that he is in- finitely happy, and will be so for ever. " May God grant every blessing to your Grace, your family^ and all your friends. " The Duke of Gordon has done me the honour, according to his wonted and very great humanity, to write me a most friendly and sympathetic letter on this occasion.'* b'ECTION IV. ?RQM THE DEATH OF DR BEATTIE's ELDEST SON IX 1790, TO HIS OWN DEATH IN 1803. JL/ R BEATTIE bore the loss of his son with singular fortitude and resignation. Yet although his grief was not clamor- ous, it was not tlie less severe ; and that beautiful line of his own " Hermit" might most aptly be applied to him : *' Rethought as a sage, though he felt as a iTTan."^.y'^ The event indeed had been long foreseen; he was therefore not altogether unprepared to meet the stroke : and the thousand nameless attentions which he had been in the daily habit of paying to this darling object of his affection, during the course of his ill- ness, by continually occupying his time, had in some degree given employment to his thoughts, and had prevented him from feeling the full weight of his impending misfortune. But when at length the scene was closed, and he had piously paid the last mournful duties to his child's remains, he experienced, in its full extent, the melancholy void which was occasioned by the loss of one so dear to him, who, as he himself emphatically expresses it, had been " the pleasantest, and for the last four or live years of his short life, " one of the most instructive companions that ever man was de- " lighted with. But — The Lord gave; the Lord hath taken " away: blessed be the name of the Lord. — I adore the Au- " thor of all good, who gave him grace to lead such a life, and die " such a death, as makes it impossible for a Christian to doubt of " his having entered upon the inheritance of a happy immortal- " ity."* His habitual piety and submission to the wilfof Heaven, * •* Account of the Life and Character of James Hay Beattie," p. 56. lOiTio edition. 3 M 458 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. were indeed the great sources whence he derived that fonitude by which he was enabled to bear up under this weight of affliction. The very thought, too, of his son*s extraordinary merit, while in one respect it aggravated the feeling of his loss, afforded him no slight consolation under it ; and I believe he might have ap- propriated to himself, with perfect sincerity, the beautiful and affecting eulogy of the great Duke of Ormond, on occasion of the death of the virtuous and gallant Earl of Ossory, that " he '' would not exchange his dead son for any living son in Christen- " dom."* As soon as Dr Beattie was able to collect his scattered thoughts, he set himself to examine the papers which his son had left behind him ; consisting chiefly of fragments of essays, and unfinished pieces of poetry, on the composition of which he had occasionally employ- ed himself; together with many unconnected memorandums of what he meant to perform, had it pleased God to prolong his life. Those manuscripts, as they evinced the extent of his genius, and the singular proficiency to which he had attained during so short a period, in so many branches of literature and science, while they excited his father's admiration, added to the regret he could not but feel for the untimely fate of one who had given such rich pro* mises, had he been spared, of being an ornament to his country, and a blessing to mankind. From among these papers, he selected such pieces as he thought deserving of preservation ; and he soothed his grief, by writing an account of his son's life and character, which he resolved, though not to publish, yet to print for the use of his friends. lie was pleased to inscribe it to Mr Baron Gordon, Ma- jor Mercer, Mr Arbuthnot, and myself, to all of whom he was much attached, as he had long received from us the strongest proofs of mutual friendship. Of this selection, it must be fairly acknowledged, that all the pieces are by no means of equal merit. While some bear undis- puted marks of genius and talents, far beyond the author's years, others do not rise even to mediocrity. He himself gave the reason of the miscellaneous nature of the collection, in his prefatory ad- dress ; in which he says, that " He wished to give such proofs as " could be had, and might be published, of the various talents of " the author; and, for the sake of example, to show, that, though " studious and learned, he was neither austere nor formal ; and * Hume's *' History of England^" Vol. VIII. p. 164. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 459 « that in him the strictest piety and modesty were united, with the " utmost cheerfulness, and even playfulness of disposition."* In vain was it that some of his friends, to whose perusal he had sub- mitted the manuscript, took the liberty of representing to him, that of those humorous pieces, of which Dr Beattie was himself exceedingly fond, although they had no doubt been highly relished by the domestic circle, for whose amusement they had been origi- nally composed, some were of such a nature, as that no very high degree of approbation could be looked for from others— that, there- fore, he had better confine his selection to such, whether in verse or prose, as were of undisputed merit. Dr Beattie, however, continued firm in his own opinion ; and the volume came from the press as it now appearsf. To the edition of Dr Beattie's works, in prose and verse, now preparing for publication, I propose to subjoin only such a selection of those pieces of his son's, as, in my judg- ment, do him most credit ; together with an abridgment of the " Account of his Life and Character." If in doing so, 1 shall thus take the liberty of differing from an authority so high, I can only plead in my own vindication, the opinion I have mentioned, as hav- ing originally been given, and the rectitude of my intention, in ■ anxiously wishing to do what I think will be most conducive to the reputation of both father and son. oil as il. I now proceed with a continuance of his correspondence with bis friends. LETTER CCXX. DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. DR LAING. Aberdeen, 14th December, 1790. " I KNOW you are anxious to hear from me ; and I wish, as I have much to say, to write you a long letter ; but that is not in * Dedication of the " Account of the Life and Character of James Hay " Beattie,'* p. vii. t I have said, that the volume was orig-inally printed at Dr Beattie's ex- pense, and only distributed among his friends Those pieces of his son's, however, so printed, together with the account of his life and character, have since been published for sale in London, as a second volume of an edition ef his own poetical works, published under his authority in the year 1799' 4,^0 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. my power at present. There is only one subject on which I can think ;* and my nerves are so shattered, and my mind feels (if I may so express myself) so sore, that I can hardly attend to any thing. You may be assured, that to the will of God I am perfectly resigned : and, in the late dispensation of his Providence, I see in- numerable instances of the divine benignity, for which I can never be sufficiently thankful. tt Mr ****** would tell you many particulars, which I need not recapitulate. Since the last duty was paid, I have thrice a-day at- tended my business in the college ; the doing of which is, in the present circumstances, painful and laborious, but perhaps salutary. I sleep irregularly ; the pain in my side is frequently troublesome ; and the dizziness of my head is so great, as would alarm and asto- nish me, if I had not been used to it : but, upon the whole, I am as well as I had any reason to expect, I have had very kind letters of condolence from all my friends. jot " I know not whether you will, as a physician, approve of what I am doing at my hours of leisure-^writing an account of the life, character, education, and literary proficiency, of our departed friend. I sometimes think it gives relief to my mind, and sooths it. At any rate, it is better than running into company, in order to drive him, as much as possible out of my remembrance. With all the tenderness that writing on such a subject necessarily occasions, it yields also many consolations so pleasing, that for the world I would not part with them, I know not what I shall do with this narrative when it is finished: I have thoughts of printing a few copies of it, and sending them to my particular friends. " I have ordered a marble slab to be erected over his grave ; with an inscription, of which I inclose a copy. In some things I think it falls below the truth ; but rises in nothing above it, so far as I can judge. Monumental inscriptions I consider as belonging, not to poetry, but to history ; the writers of them should give the truth, if possible the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I wrote this inscription in Latin ; thinking that language more suit- able, than English, to his character as a scholar and philosopher, The papers he has left are many ; but few of them finished. In Kttle notes and memorandums, some Latin and some English, I * The recent loss of his eldest son. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 461 find strokes of character greatly to his honour, forms of devotion, pious resolutions, hints for writing essays, &c." LETTER CCXXL DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. DR LAING. Aberdeen, 31st January, 1791. " MY heart is likely to receive very soon another deep wound. Our Principars life is in the most extreme danger. The disorder began with what was supposed a cold only, but has become a most violent asthma with fever, and in the night-time such extreme dis- tress, that Mrs Campbell told me to-day, in an agony of grief, that it would be better for him to be at rest. This morning he express- ed great anxiety to see me. I went immediately, and was a quar- ter-of-an-hour alone with him. He told me he was dying ; with other matters which I cannot mention ; and gave me directions with respect to some things in which he is interested. I endeavoured to raise his spirits ; and when I left him, he was better than when I went in. But Dr ***** has little or no hopes of him : Mrs Camp- bell has none. I thought iiis pulse not bad ; but he told me he had always a very slow pulse. A person so amiable and so valua- ble, and who has been my intimate and affectionate friend for thirty years, it is not a slight matter to lose : but I fear I must lose him. His death will be an unspeakable loss to our society. " The monument, with the inscription, is now erected in the ehurch-yard ; so that all that matter is over. I often dream of the grave that is under it : I saw with some satisfaction, on ?i late oc- casion, that it is very deep, and capable of holding my coffin laid on tliat which is already in it. I hope my friends will allow my body ,to sleep there."* * Se attended to. When will an infidel die such a death ! " I have a thousand things to say ; but after what I said last, every thing else is impertinent. Adieu. May God bless Lady Forbes and your family/' LETTER CCXXIIL DR BEATTIE TO THE DUTCHESS OF GORDON. Aberdeen, 7th March, 1791* ^ AFTER the patient hearing which your Grace has done me the honour to grant to several of my opinions, I presume you will npt be at a loss to guess what I think of Mr Burke's book on The French revolution. I wished the French nation very well y I LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. wished their government reformed? and their religion ; I wished both to be according to the British model ; and 1 know not what better things I could have wished them. But (with the skill and temper of that surgeon, who, in order to alleviate tht toothach, should knock all his patient's teeth down his throat) they, instead of reforming popery, seem to have vesolved upon the abolition of Christianity ; instead of amending their government, they have destroyed it ; and, instead of advising their King to consult his * own and his people's dignity, by making law the rule of his conduct, they have used him much more cruelly than our Charles I. was tised ; they have made him a prisoner and a slave. " They will have a democracy indeed, and no aristocracy I They know not the meaning of the words. A democracy, in which all men are supposed to be perfectly equal, never yet took place in any nation ; and never can, so long as the distinctions are acknow- ledged, of rich and poor, master and servant, parent and child, old and young, strong and weak, active and indolent, wise and unwise. They will have a republic ; and of this word too they misunder- stand the meaning ; they confound republic with levelling : and a levelling spirit, generally diffused, would soon overturn the best republican fabric that ever was reared. They must also have a monarchy (or at least a monarch) without nobility ; not knowing, that without nobility a free monarch can no more subsist, than the roof of a house can rise to and retain its proper elevation, while the Walls are but half-built ; not knowing, that where there are only two orders of people in a nation, and those the regal and the ple- beian, there must be perpetual dissension between them, either till the king get the better of the people, which will make him (if he pleases) despotical, or till the people get the better of the king, which, where all subordination is abolished, must introduce anarchy. It must be the interest of the nobility to keep the people in good humour, these being always a most formidable body ; and it is equally the interest of the nobles to support the throne ; for if it fall they are crushed in its ruins. The same House of Commons that murdered Charles I. voted the House of Lords to be useless : and when the rabble of France had imprisoned and enslaved their King, they immediately Set about annihilating their nobles. Such things have happened ; and such things must always happen in like cir- cumstances. These principles I have been pondering in my mind LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. -WJl these thirty years ; and the more I learn of history, of law, and of human nature, the morel become satisfied of their truth. But there seems to be just now in France such a total ignorance of human nature and of good learning, as is perfectly astonishing ; there is no consideration, no simplicity, no dignity ; all is froth, phrensy, and foppery. " In Mr Burke's book are many expressions, that might perhaps, with equal propriety, have been less^warm : but against these it is not easy to guard when a powerful eloquence is animated by an ar- dent mind. There are also, no doubt, some things that might have been omitted without loss : and the arrangement of the subject might perhaps have been made more convenient for ordinary read- ers. But the spirit and principles of the work, I, as a lover of my King, and of the constitution of my country, do highly approve ; and within my very narrow circle of influence, I shall not fail to re- commend it. It came very seasonably ; at a time, when a consi- derable party among us are labouring to introduce into this island the anarchy of France ; and when some seem to entertain the hope, that the carnage of civil war will soon deluge our streets in blood : but no matter, say they, provided Kings, and nobles, and bishops, are exterminated ; and Mahometans, Pagans, and atheists, obtain universal toleration. " I once intended to have attempted to write somiething on the subject of Mr Burke's book, and neariy according to his plan : and had my mind been a little more at ease during the last summer, I believe I should have done it. But when I heard that Mr Burke had the matter in hand, I knew any attempt of mine would be not only useless, but impertinent. He has done the subject infinitely more justice than it was in my power to do. " At a time when your Grace has so many matters of import- ance to attend to, I would not have troubled you with so long a let- ter, if you had not desired me to give my opinion of Mr Burke's book. But this led me into some digressions ; which, though your judgment may blame, I know your goodness will pardon." 3 N At,6: LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. LETTER CCXXIV. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Fulham Palace, 7th June, 1791. " THE Bishop of London, who brought me out of town on Saturday last, urges me to go to Bath ; in which he is joined by Miss Hannah More, who is here just now, though she commonly resides at Bath. She is to draw up a paper of directions for me. I know not whether you have seen her. She is one of the most agreeable women I know : to her genius and learning * you are no stranger. " Fulham Palace is a noble and venerable pile, and so large that I have not yet learned to find my way in it. The grounds belong- ing to it, which are perfectly level, and comprehend twenty or thir- ty acres, are of a circular form nearly, and surrounded by a moat supplied with water from the Thames j and round the whole cir- cumference, on the inside of the moat, there is a fine gravel walk shaded with four or five rows of the most majestic oaks, elms. Sec. that are any where to be seen. Of the buildings, which form two square courts, (besides offices) some are ancient, and some compa- ratively modern. Many of the apartments are magnificent, par- ticularly the dining room (which was the work of Bishop Sherlock) and the library. There is also a very elegant chapel, in which the whole family meet to prayers, at half past nine in the morning, and where the Bishop preached to us on Sunday evening, from the se- cond article of the creed. I never heard, even from him, a finer sermon ; and Montagu, who is a sort of critic in sermons, was in utter astonishment at the energy and elegance of his pronunciation. " I read yesterday the debate on the slave trade, which fills a two-shilling pamphlet. The speeches of Mr Wilberforce, Mr Pitt, Mr W. Smith, and Mr Fox, are most excellent, and absolutely un- answerable. The friends to the abolition are very sanguine in their hopes, that this diabolical commerce will in two or three years be at an end.'* See' p. 145, ST7. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. Mf LETTER CCXXV. DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. DR LAING. Fulham Palace, 8tli June, 1791. " I KNOW you will be very anxious to hear good accounts of my health, and I wish I could send you such ; but that is very far from being the case. I left Aberdeen the 1 6th of April, and in a week, for I went very slowly, got to Edinburgh, where I remain- ed three weeks, during all which time we had from the east very cold and stormy weather. The journey from Edinburgh to Lon- don was the work of nine days ; for on account of my health I still went slowly, seldom above fifty miles a-day, though the roads were the finest that can be. On my arrival in London, the wind settled in the east, where it has been ever since ; and the weather, from being cold and stormy, became and still continues to be, unsupport- ably hot. Violent heat and east wind will either of them, beat down my strength at any time : think then what I suffered, when both came upon me at once, enforced l>y the stifling atmosphere of London. I lost all my strength, and all the spirit that remained with me. The day after my arrival, I dined with Mrs Montagu, and her amiable nephew and niece, and introduced Montagu to his godmother, who gave him as affectionate a reception as if he had been her own son, and seemed to be (indeed she told me she was) much pleased with his appearance and behaviour. Every body he has seen is kind to him, and he very soon becomes acquainted wherever he is. We lodged ten days with our friends Mr and Mrs ******, who slipwed us the utmost attention and kipdness, and with whom we should have still been, if the Bishop of London had not on Saturday last bmught us to this place, which is his summer residence. It is indeed a noble and venerable mansion, five miles from town, on the brink of the Thames, and situated in a spacious lawn, surrounded with rows of the most majestic elms and oaks, &c. that are any where to be seen. I may have told you, that ou;' 468 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. friend ******'s house is within a hundred yards of Westminster Abbey. Notwithstanding this, and that the commemoration music was going on at the time we were there, in the presence of the King and Royal Family, and some thousands of the first people of the kingdom, and conducted by the greatest band^of musicians that ever were brought together in this world ; and though the music was Handel's (for his Majesty hears no other on that occasion), yet my health was such, that I could not go to it. Perhaps this was no loss to me. Even the organ of Durham cathedral was too much for my feelings: for it brought too powerfully to my remembrance another organ, much smaller indeed, but more interesting, which I can never hear ^y more."* LETTER CCXXVL DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Fulham Palace, 30th Jane, 1791. <^ I AM favoured with yours of the 17th, and thank you for eve- ry part of it, especially for that in which you give me so particular an account of Lady Forbes, in whom I am indeed as much interest- ed as I can be in any human being. I am greatly concerned to hear of her relapse ; which, considering the very untowardly state of the weather, we need neither wonder nor be alarmed at; but now, when summer and the west wind are at last come, I am confident she will soon experience a very sensible change for the better, and gradually regain her wonted health; to which her pla- cid and cheerful temper will greatly contribute. " My health is better since I came hither. To the tranquil- lity, the fresh air, and the venerable bowers of Fulham Palace, I owe much ; but much more to its delightful inhabitants, whom I cannot leave without great regret. Among other pleasing circum- stances, I have here had an opportunity of renewing my acquaint- ance with some very respectable friends, whom I was formerly * This alludes to hjis eldest son's performance on that instrument. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE, de9 much connected with, but had not seen these fourteen years ; par- ticularly Lord Viscount Cremorne (formerly Lord ' Dartrey) and his lady, Mrs Boscawen (the Admiral's widow), and Mrs Garrick, who, notwithstanding her age, is still an elegant woman. I have also, once and again, met with Mr Horace Walpole, and had much convei-sation with him.* He is a very agreeable man, perfectly well bred, and of pleasant discourse ; but it pains one to see him so miserably martyred by the gout, both in his feet and hands. " Dining some days ago with Lord Guilford f at Bushy Park, I unexpectedly met with your friend, the Bishop of Kilaloe,^: and his son. I presented your compliments to the Bishop, who asked particularly about Lady Forbes and you, and desired to be remem- bered to you. I was happy to find that Lord Guilford, though he has entirely lost his sight, is in perfect health and spirits, and re- tains all his wonted vivacity and good humour ; of which he indeed possesses a very uncommon share. He wears no fillet on his eyes, nor needs any, as their outward appearance is not altered in the least. Mr and Lady Katharine Douglas§ dined there the same day, and are quite well ; Lady Katharine is a most agreeable woman. " Last week I made a morning visit to Mr Pitt.H I had heard him spoken of as a grave and reserved man ; but saw nothing of it. He gave me a very frank, and indeed affectionate reception ; and was so cheerful, and in his conversation so easy, that I almost thought myself in the company, rather of an old acquaintance, than of a great statesman. He was pleased to pay me some very obliging * The well known proprietor of Strawberry- Hill : afterwards Earl of Orford. He died 2d March, 1797, aged seventy -nine. t Formerly Lord North, to whom, when minister, Dr Beattie had been so much obliged in the business of his pension, in the year 1773. See p. 176. I Dr Barnard, now Bishop of Limerick. § Now Lord Glenbervie, married to Lady Katharine North, Lord Guilford's eldest daughter. See p. 106. II I lament, for the sake of my country and of Europe, to have at tlie period of this publication, the melancholy necessity of recording the death of this eminent and excellent statesman. He died on the 23d January, 1806, at the early age of forty- six. 470 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. compliments, asked about my health, and how I meant to pass the summer ; spoke of the Dutchess of Gordon, the improvements of Edinburgh, and various other matters : and when I told him, I knew not what apology to make for intruding upon him, said, that no apology was necessary, for that he was very glad to see me, and '' desired to see me again." LETTER CCXXVII. DR BEATTIE TO MISS VALENTINE. Sandleford, Berkshire, 27th July, 1791. " BATH is a town about twice as large as Aberdeen, and situated in the bottom of a deep and narrow valley, overhung with steep hills on every side ; so that there is hardly such a thing to be felt there as a fresh breeze. The soil is white chalk, which on the surface of the ground is pounded, by the feet of animals, and the wheels of carriages, into a fine powder, which, in dry weather, is continually flying about, and drawn in with the breath, proved most offensive to my lungs, though they are not easily affected ; in wet Weather it covers all the level and narrow streets with a deep mire. The heat of the place is, as you will readily suppose, very great ; and the air much more close and stifling than that of London. Some of the streets are, in respect of architecture, very elegant, if they be not too gaudy and too much ornamented ; but, on the whole, it is an irregular and very inconvenient town. Being all built of free-stone, (an uncommon thing in England) it has more the air of a Scotch town than of an English one ; the English towns being for the most part of brick; audit put me more in mind of Edinburgh than any other place I have seen. Montagu will tell you more of it hereafter. The water of the pump, at least of that pump at which I was desired to drink, is so warm as to raise the mercury in the thermometer to 103 : 'J'he common fountain- water is clear and cool, and indeed very good. " At Bath, though my stay was so short, I met with some very agreeable people, particularly two ladies (to whom I was recomr LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 47:| mended by Miss Hannah More), and Mr Wilberforce.* This gentle- man, whom you know I was very anxious to see, is for those virtues that most adorn human nature, one of the most distinguished cha- racters of the age ; and withal a man of great wit, cheerful con- versation, exemplary piety, and uncommon abilities ; I am sorry to see he is not robust j I am afraid his health is too delicate. I was with him part of three days. He is very partial to me, and showed me every possible attention, and was very kind to Montagu.** In the year 1790,t Dr Beattie had published the first volume of " Elements of Moral Science ;" the second volume did not make its appearance until the year 1793. In an advertisement prefixed to the first volume, he informs us, that they contain an Abridgment, and, for the most part, a very brief one, of his Lec- tures on Moral Philosophy and Logic, delivered in Marischal Col- lege. It had long been his practice, he says, with a view of assist- ing the memory of his hearers, to make them write notes of each discourse. This practice, although it strongly evinces Dr Beattie's great attention to the instruction of his pupils, was not without its disadvantages, both to them and to himself. As these notes were written in the lecture-room, many hours were necessarily consumed in that manner, which might have been * William Wilberforce, Esq. M. P. for the county of York, the strenu- ous promoter, in the House of commons, of the abolition of the slave-trade; author of " A Practical View of the prevailing Religious System of profess- ** ed Christians in the higher and middle classes in this Country, contrasted ** with real Christianity." t I must not omit to mention liere a circumstance respecting the pub- lication of the " Elements of Moral Science," very much to the credit of Dr Beattie. On his writing to me to dispose of the Manuscript, to be printed in octavo, I applied to his Bookseller, who made offer of a sum of money for the copy-right ; adding, however, that he could afford to give more if the book were to be printed in quarto. On my mentioning this to Dr Beat- tie, he immediately answered, ** No ; 1 do not wish, for the sake of profit to *' myself, to increase the price to my students, many of whom can but ill " afford to pure: use an expensive publication." It accordfaigly never has been printed in quarto. 472 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. more usefully employed in listening to the teacher. As they were also written in haste, they were very often inaccurate ; and, by an Hnavoidable consequence, many manuscript copies had got into the world, and even some part into print, incomplete, as well as in- correct, with more imperfections, says Dr Beattie, than could rea- sonably be imputed to the author. To remedy both these evil^ he was intreated to publish these notes himself, and thus put it in fhe power of his students to procure cdrrect copies of the whole summary, a little enlarged in the doctrinal parts, and with the ad- dition of a few illustrative examples. Such is the account Dr Beat- tie gives of the publication of his " Elements of Moral Science." He adds farther, in the same advertisement, that he presumes no- body will be offended, if in these papers there be found, as there certainly will, numberless thoughts and arguments, which may be found elsewhere. It will be considered, he says, that as a pro- fessed province is generally assigned him by public authority, his business is rather to collect and arrange his materials, than to in- vent or make them. In his illustrations, in order to render what he teaches as perspicuous and entertaining as possible, he may give ample scope to his inventive -powers ; but in preparing a sum- mary of his principles, he will be more solicitous to make a collec- tion of useful truths, however old, than to amuse his readers with paradox, and theories of his awn. contrivance. And let it be con- sidered farther, he adds, that as all the practical, and most of the speculative, parts of moral science, have been frequently and ful- ly explained by the ablest writers, he would, if he should affect no- velty in these matters, neither do justice to his subject, nor easily clear himself from the charge of ostentation. Notwithstanding this modest declaration on the part of the au- thor, we should do great injustice to the work, were we to sup- pose it to be no more than a mere prospectus or syllabus of a course of lectures on moral philosophy. In a certain degree, no doubt, it may be considered as a text-book ; but in general so copious, so luminous in the arrangement, so perspicuous in the language, and so excellent in the sentiments it every where inculcates, that if the profound metaphysician and logician do not find in it that depth of science which they may expect to meet with in other works of greater erudition, the candid inquirer after truth may rest satisfied^ that if he has studied these " Elements'* with due attention, he LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 473 will have laid a solid foundation, on which to build all the know* ledge of the subject necessary for the common purposes of life. Some of the topics are no doubt treated with more, some with less, brevity. Of such of the lectures as have already, under the name of " Essays,** been published in the same form in which they were at first composed, particularly those on " The Theory of Lan- " guage," and " On Memory, and Imagination,*' Dr Beattie has made this abridgment as brief as was consistent with any degree of perspicuity ; while he has bestowed no less than seventy pages on his favourite topic, the Abolition of the Slave-trade, and the subjects ©f Slavery connected with it. On the Slave-trade, indeed, Dr Beat- tie felt the strongest and warmest interest in favour of the poor Africans ; and he had employed himself, during five-and-twenty years, in collecting materials and information for the purpose of writing and publishing an essay in behalf of that unhappy people. In the mean time, he contrived to interweave into his lectures much of the substance of his projected essay ; and while the busi- ness was pending in Parliament, and he waited with anxious ex- pectation the success of the efforts of Mr Wilberforce and his friends towards effecting the abolition of the trade, Dr Beattie com- forted himself with the reflection, not only that he was doing his duty, by raising his voice against the traffic, but that many of his pupils in the various vicissitudes of life, being led to the West In- dies, might carry his principles with them ; and thus contribute, in a certain degree, to improve the unhappy condition of the ne- groes in our colonies.* His " Essay on Slavery,** however, was' never published : nor do I find any other trace of it among his pa- pers, than what is to be met with in this summary of his lectures on the subject. Dr Beattie has divided his course of lectures into four parts, viz. Psychology, Natural Theology, Moral Philosophy, and Logic* These, again, he has subdivided into a variety of subordinate parts. Under the first part, he has treated of the Perceptive Faculties, and of the Active Powers of Man. In the second, or that on JVatural Theology, he has devoted two chapters to the consideration of the Divine Existence and Divine Attributes ; the proofs of which he deduces from what we feel within ourselves, and what, we perceive * See p. 242. 3a 4U LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. in contemplating created nature around us. To this he has added an appendix on the Immateriality and Immortality of the Soul. His second volumej or that division of his subject which comprehends Moral Philosophy, commences with Ethics, under which head he gives a general delineation of virtue, as well as of the nature and foundation of particular virtues, comprehending those duties which we owe to God, to one another, and to ourselves. Economics then follow, comprehending the relative duties of life ; in which part it is, that he takes occasion to treat so largely of Slavery, and par- ticularly that of the negroes. The third part contains two chap- ters on the General Nature of Law, and the Origin and Nature of Civil Government. To this succeeds Logic, comprehending Rhe- toric and Belles Lettres, and containing much beautiful and valua- ble criticism on style and composition of various sorts ; which he who wishes to form a good style, and to excel in composition of any kind, either prose or verse, will do well to study with atten- tion.* The whole is concluded by some Remarks on Evidence. To give a more copious analysis is not necessary here, as those who wish to be better acquainted with the work, will naturally have recourse to the book itself; which they will find to contain the most interesting truths, explained in a popular but convincing manner, in which elegance, variety, and harmony of style, are united with simplicity, and the subjects illustrated by familiar allusions to history and common life, in such a manner as may not only amuse the fancy, but instruct the understanding, and improve the heart. But there is one excellence of Dr Beattie's " Lectures on <* Moral Philosophy," on which I cannot but dwell with peculiar emphasis ; and that is, his happy manner of fortifying his argu- ments from natural religion, on the most important points, by the aid of revelation. While he details, with precision, the proofs Svhich natural reason alone affords, he never omits any proper op- portunity of appealing to revelation in support of his doctrine, sometimes in the very words of Scripture, at other times by a general reference to the subject, as it is to be learned there ; thus * The diligent student, however, will not content himself with this abrid^ent, but will carefully peruse what is said at large on the head, in Dr Beattie's Essays and Dissertations on " Poetiy," and " The Theory of " Language." LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 475 making them mutually support and strengthen each other, as ought ever to be the study of every teacher of ethics. Dr Beattie is, therefore, justly entitled to the most distinguished of all appel- lations, that of A Christian Moral Philosopher.* * An eminent Professor of Moral Philosophy, Dr Ferguson, whose *' Lectures," delivered in the university of Edinburgh, have been publish- ed since he resigned his chair, has the following observation : ** It may be asked, perhaps, why he (the Professor) should restrict his " argument, as he has done, to the mere topics of Natural Religion and Rea- " son ? This, being the foundation of every superstructure, whether in mora- ** lity or religion, and, therefore, to be separately treated, he considered as " that part of the work which was allotted to him. Farther institutions may *« improve, but cannot supersede, what the Almighty has revealed in bis " works, and in the suggestions of reason to man. *' When first we from the teeming womb were brought, ** With inborn precepts, then our souls were fraught." Rowe's Lucatij lib. ix. 1. 984. •* And what the Author of our nature has so taught, must be considered as *' the test of every subsequent institution that is offered as coming from " Him."t In this concluding sentiment, Dr Ferguson is no doubt perfectly right ; and yet I cannot but presume totally to differ from him in regard to his maxim of confining himself to arguments drawn from natural religion and reason alone. The consequences of such a mode of teaching appear to me extremely hazardous : for if tlie Professor shall state an argument, amount- ing to any strong degree of probability, which at the best is the utmost he can do, there is danger that the student may rest satisfied with the reason- ing, and, leaving revelation entirely out of the question, may not seek to carry his inquiries any farther. If, on the contrary, he derive no solid conviction from the use of mere reasoning, the risk is, that he sink into decided scep- ticism and infidelity. Dr Beattie, on the contrary, while he does ample justice to his argu- ments from reason, never loses sight of the Gospel, as the sole anchor .of a Christian's hope. As a proof of this, take the following among many instan- ces that might be produced from the book now before us. The sentiments enforced are so transcendently beautiful, that they never can be out of place or season, wherever they may be found. In his second chapter of Natural Theology, speaking of the divine attri- butes, he says : ** Revelation gives such a display of the divine goodness, as ** must fill us with the most ardent gratitude and adoration. For in it we t Prefatory advertisement to *' Principles tf Moral suid Politiwl Science/* by Adam Fer- guson, LL. D. p. vii. 4f6 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. LETTER CCXXVIIL pft. BEATTIE TO ROBERT ARBUTHNOT, ESQ. Aberdeen, 17tli April, 1793. " I AM very happy in your and Mc Fraser Tytler's approba- bation of my book ; as also Sir William Forbes*s and our Princi- pal's, who read it in manuscript. General approbation I do not " find, that God has put it in our power, notwithstanding our degeneracy ** and unworthiness, to be happy both in this world and for ever; a hope " which reason alone could never have permitted us to entertain on any '* ground of certainty. And here we may repeat what was already hinted ** at, that although the right use of reason supplies our first notions of the " divine nature, yet it is from revelation that we receive those distinct ideas " of His attributes and providence, which are the foundation of our dearest ** hopes. The most enlightened of the Heathen had no certain knowledge <* of His unity, spirituality, eternity, wisdom, justice, or mercy; and, by •* consequence, could never contrive a comfortable system of natural religion, *• as Socrates the wisest of them acknowledged."* In his lecture on the Immortality of the Soul, he thus introduces the sub- ject : " It is unnecessary to prove to a Christian, that his soul will never die; •* because he believes, that life and immortality have been brought to light " by the Gospel. But though not necessary, it may be useful to lay before " him those arguments, whereby the immortality of the soul might be made ** appear, even to those who never heard of revelation, probable in the " highest degree,"! &c. &c. In treating of the Divine Attributes, Dr Beattie says, " It is reasonable ** to think, that a Being infinitely good, must also be of infinite mercy : but ** still the purity and justice of God must convey t)ie most alarming thoughts " to those who know themselves to have been, in instances without number, ** inexcusably criminal. But from what is revealed in Scripture, concerning " the divine dispensations with respect to man, we learn, that on perform- " ing certain conditions, we shall be forgiven and received into favour, by '* means which at once display the divine mercy in the most amiable light, ** and fully vindicate the divine justice. ** It is indeed impossible to understand the doctrines of our religion, and *« not to viisb at least that they may be true : for they exliibit the most com- • " Elements of Moral Science," Vol. I, p. 400, t Ibid. p. 214, LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 47r expect. The plainness of the style will, by our fashionable writers, be termed vulgarity ; the practical tendency of the whole will satis- fy our speculative metaphysicians, that the author must be shallow and superficial, and a dealer in common-place observations ; and the deference that is paid in it to the doctrines of Christianity, will, by all our Frenchified critics, be considered as a proof, that he is no philosopher. You observe very justly, that the science of mo- rality has not often, at least in modern times, been so treated, as ** fortable views of God and his providence ; they recommend the purest and ** most perfect morality; and they breathe nothing throughout, but benevo- " lence, equity, and peace : and one may venture to affirm, that no man ** ever ivisbed the Gospel to be true, who did not find it so."* Discoursing of the Nature of Virtucy Dr Beattie says, ** These specula- •* tions might lead into a labyrinth of perplexity, if it were not for what re- *« velation declares concerning the divine government. It declares, that man ** may expect, on the performance of certain conditions, not only pardon, but " everlasting happiness ; not on account of his own merit, which in the sight ** of God is nothing, but on account of the infinite merits of the Redeemer, ** who, descending from the height of glory, voluntarily underwent the pun- " ishment due to sin, and thus obtained those high privileges for as many as " should comply with the terms announced by him to mankind. "f Again, ** It is the belief of a future state of retribution, that satisfies the rational ** mind of the infinite rectitude of the divine government ; and it is thisper- ** suasion only, that can make the virtuous happy in the present life. And ** if we could not without revelation, entertain a well-grounded hope of fu- ** ture reward, it is only the virtue of the true Christian that can obtain the *' happiness we now speak of 4 ** Though all men are sinners, yet some are highly respectable on ac- ** count of their goodness ; and there are crimes so atrocious, perjury for ex- ** ample, that one single ])erpetration makes a man infamous. The Scripture ** expressly declares, that, in the day of judgment, it will be more tolerable " for some criminals than for others ; and not obscurely insinuates, that the ** future exaltation of the righteous will be in proportion to their virtue.*'^ Speaking of Piety, or the Duties nve otjoe to Gody he says, *' How far the •< deplorable condition of many of the human race, with respect to false re- ** ligion, barbarous life, and an exclusion, hitherto unsurmountable, from all " means of intellectual improvement, may extenuate, or whether it may not, ** by virtue of the great atonement, entirely cancel the imperfection of those ** to whom in this world God never was, or without a miracle could be, ** known, w« need not inquire. It is enough for us to know, that for our ** ignorance we can plead no such apology." || • " Elements of Moral Science," Vol. I, p. 402. t Ibid. Vol. II. p. 3|, X Ibid. p. 39. 4 Ibid. p. 77. ll Ibid. p. 80. 478 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. to show its connection with practice ; but I have always considered morality as a practical science ; and, in every other part of lite- rature, I do not see the use of those speculations that can be ap- plied to no practical purpose. It may be said, that they exercise the human faculties, and so qualify men for being casuists and dis- putants; but casuistry and disputation are not the business for which man is sent into the world ; although I grant, that they may sometimes, like dancing and playing at cards, serve as an amusement to those who have acquired a taste for them, and have nothing else to do." In the month of October, 1793, Dr Beattie was much affected by the sudden death of his favorite sister, Mrs Valentine.* She On the subject of Public Worship, he says, " These considerations alone " would recommend external worsliip as a most excellent means of improving ^« our moral nature. But Christians know farther, that tliis duty is express- ** ly commanded ; and that particular blessings are promised to the devout ** performance of it. In us, therefore, the neglect of it must be inexcusa- '* ble, and highly criminal, f ** That principle which resti'ains malevolent passions, by disposing us to " render to every one his o\yn, is called justice : a principle of great extent, " and which may not improperly be said to form a part of every virtue ; as " in every vice there is something of injustice towards God, our fellow men, " or ourselves. As far as our fellow men are concerned, the great rule of ** justice is, * Whatsoever ye would that men should do mito you, do ye " even so to them :' a precept which, in this its complete form, we owe to " the Gospel ; and which, for its clearness and reasonableness, for being " easily remembered, and on all occasions easily applied to practice, can ** never be too much admired."^ Such was tlie mode of teaching moral philosophy practised by Dr Beat- tie, during the long course of upwards of thirty years in his public lectui'es at Aberdeen. Let the reader compare those animating and comfortable doctrines inculcated by this excellent writer, with the cold and cheerless speculations of natural reason alone, and then let him say which method most deserves the preference, or is most likely to promote die happiness of mankind. * Widow of Captain John Valentine, who commanded a merchant-vessel belonging to the town of Monti-ose, where his family resided. t " Elements of Moral Science." Vol. II. p. 83. | Ibid. p. 98. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 479 had left her house apparently in perfect health ; but having been taken ill in the street, was carried home speechless, and expired in a few days. His mother had also died suddenly of an apoplexy.* From several of his letters about this time, he appears also to have believed himself to be dangerously ill. At this period, indeed, his health was so bad, that he found himself unequal to the task of teaching his class as usual : he, therefore, engaged Mr George Glennie, who had been his pupil, to assist him during the session of the university 1793-4. He continued, however, to teach his class occasionally, until the commencement of the winter-session of the year 1797. The Reverend Dr Campbell, on perusing Mr Fraser Tytler's " Essay on the Principles of Translation," had been struck with a coincidence of the author's sentiments in regard to the fundamental laws of the art, with those general principles, which he himself had briefly laid down in one of his preliminary dissertations to his " New " Translation of the Gospels,'* and had expressed some suspicion, that the author of the " Essay on Translation" had seen that disser- tation, which was published a short time before his essay. Of the groundlessness of this suspicion, Mr Fraser Tytler very soon con- vinced that respectable writer, as he candidly owned in the amplest and most handsome terms of apology. The following passage in Dr Beattie's letter relates to this subject. • Dr Beattie's mother resided, for several years before her death, with her son David, in the neighbourhood of Lawrence-kirk, during which period Dr Seattle showed her every mark of attention in his power. She died there at a very advanced age. See Letter XXV. to Mrs Valentine, p. 80. 480 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. LETTER CCXXIX. DR BEATTIE TO ALEX. FRASER TYTLER, ESQ. NOW LORD WOOD- HOUSELEE. Aberdeen, 17th Novcmbetj 1793. " I NEEDED no information on the subject of your last. As you had not mentioned our friend Dr Campbell's " Translation " of the Gospels," or the critical dissertations prefixed to it, I was very certain that you had neither borrowed any thing from him, nor even read that learned and excellent work ; and I told him so, and easily persuaded him that it was so. Your letter to him I read Tery attentively ; and as I new there was nothing in it which he would or could disapprove, I sealed and gave it to him. He is, I assure you, perfectly satisfied, as I dare say he has told you before now. On such a subject it is hardly possible that two men of sense and learning could differ in opinion ; and, therefore, it is no wonder that there should be such a coincidence of your sentiments with his. I have thought, and written too, on the same subject, and I agree most cordially with you both. " You did me much honour when you asked me to write a short historical account of our dear departed friend, your father. To do so would be an agreeable employment to me ; as I have sometimes been inclined to think, that next to the pleasure of conversing with a living friend, is that of meditating on the virtues of a deceased one. The last is indeed a melancholy pleasure, but is not perhaps on that account the less delightful. But of late, since my health became so bad, I sometimes think I shall never be in a condition to write any more. I am so much disheartened and stupefied by this vertigo, to say nothing of my other complaints, that I frequently lose the command of my thoughts, and become incapable of all mental exertion. However, if I should get a little better, and if there is no occasion for haste in preparing the biographical account of your father, it may still perhaps be in my power to attempt it.* • This Dr Beattie never accomplished. An excellent biographical sketch of the Lifeof Mr Tytler, by Henry Mackenzie, Esq, is printed in the " Trans- ♦♦ actions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh," Vol. IV. p. 33. See Appendix, [O.] : and p. 80. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 4«^ I am at a loss to know how to find Dr Anderson's account, for I seldom see his periodical work ; and with reviews and magazines I am still less acquainted. " If you see Sir William Forbes or Mr Arbuthnot, please to show them this letter. It will account for my writing so seldora to them of late." LETTER CCXXX. THE BISHOP OF LONDON TO DR BEATTIE. Fulham-house, 25th June, 1794- " I HAVE the pleasure of inclosing to you a letter from my friend, Lady Cremorne, who writes to thank you for the very great pleasure she has received from the perusal of your son's " Life" and the English part of his works. To her acknowledgments I must add my own and Mrs Porteus's, who are both of us no less delighted with this publication. Among the Latin poems I am particularly pleased with the " Translation of the Messiah." In the " Life" you have written of him, you have erected a lasting monument to him and to yourself It will for ever remain a strik- ing proof of his learning, genius, piety, benevolence, and goodness of heart, and of your paternal tenderness, sensibility, and attach- ment, to a son, so worthy of your affection. I lament greatly, that his uncommon diffidence, modesty, and reserve, when he was with us at Hunton, prevented us from knowing so much of his true character, and from testifying so strx)ng a sense of it as we ought to have done. " There is something very ingenious and pleasing in the me- thod you took to give him the first idea of a Supreme Being. It has all the imagination of Rousseau, without his folly and extrava- gance. I make no doubt that the deep impression this incident left on his mind, was the true ground-work of that sublime sense of piety which afterwards animated his whole conduct.* • The passage here alluded to, in the " Account of his Soit^s Life," is as follows : " The first rules of morality I taught him were, to spe^ truth, and keep ** a secret ; and I never found that in a single instance he transgressed eith^:. 3 p 482 Lira OF DR BEATTIE. " The sources from whence you received your information respecting the West Indies, seem very sufficient to justify what you have said. I am now looking out for missionaries and schoolmas- " The doctrines of religion I wished to impress on his mind, as soon as it " might be prepared to receive them ; but I did not see the propriety of mak- ** ing him commit to memory theological sentences, or any sentences, which ** it was not possible for him to understand. And I was desirous to make a f trial how far his own reason could go in tracing out, witli a little direction, ** the great and first principle of all religion, the being of God. The folio w- ** ing fact is mentioned, not as a proof of superior sagacity in him (for I have " no doubt that most children would in like circumstances think as he did), ** but merely as a moral or logical experiment. ^* He had reached his fifth (or sixth) year, knew the alphabet, and could " read a little ; but had received no particular information with respect to " the Author of his being : because I thought he could not yet understand ^' such information ; and because I had learned from my own experience, that ** to be made to repeat words not understood, is extremely detrimental to the "faculties of a young mind. In a corner of a little garden, without informing ** any person of the circumstance, I wrote in the mould, with my finger, the *' three initial letters of his name ; and sowing garden-cresses in the furrows, <* covered up the seed, and smoothed the ground. Ten days after, he came "running to me, and with astonishment in his countenance told me, that his f' name was growing in the garden. I smiled at the report, and seemed in- ** clined to disregard it ; but he insisted on my going to see what had happen- *• ed. Yes, said I carelessly, on coming to the place, I see it is so ; but there *' is nothing in this worth notice ; it is mere chance : and I went away. He "followed me, and, taking hold of my coat, said with some earnestness, it ** could not be mere chance; for that somebody must have contrived matters ** so as to produce it. — I pretend not to give his word's, or my own, for I have "forgotten both; but I give the substance of what passed between us in "such language as we both understood.— .-So you think, I said, that what "appears so regular as the letters of your name cannot be by chance. Yes, "said he, with firmness, I think so. Look at yourself, I replied, and consider "your hands and fingers, your legs and feet, and other limbs ; are they not *' regular hi their appearance, and useful to you ? He said, they were. Came "you then hither, said I, by chance ? No, he answered, that cannot be ; ** something must have made me. And who is that something, I asked. He ** said, he did not know. (I took particular notice, that he did not say, as " Rousseau fancied a child in like circumstances would say, that his parents "made him.) I had now gained the point I aimed at : and saw, that his f* reason taught him, (though he could not so express it) that wliat begins to **be must have a cause, and that what is formed with regularity must have f* an intelligent cause. I therefore told him the name of the Great Being who f*fnftde him ajnd all the world; concerning whose adorable nature l^ave hio^ LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 48^ ters to send to that country ; and if you know any young man that would be a proper person for either of those occupations, please to inform me. His character must be irreproachable ; and his piety and zeal, in the great cause of religion, must be fervent, yet tem- pered with discretion. " The last news from Flanders are very dispiriting*. The numbers of the French are so great, that it seems to me impossible for all the powers of Europe to withstand them. When I look only to human means, and the common course of affairs, I totally des- pair. But I trust that God, who has so often interposed in our fa- vour, will once more rescue us from that torrent of anarchy, confu- sion, infidelity, and misery, which seem ready to overwhelm us. And it is this hope alone which sustains my spirits, and support? my mind." While Dr Beattie was thus suffering by the deplorable state of his own health, shattered by a long train of nervous complaints, originally brought on by too intense application to study, he was about to experience another domestic misfortune in the loss of his only surviving son, Montagu Beattie, who very unexpectedly died at Aberdeen on the 14th March, 1796, in the eighteenth year of his age, of a fever of only a week's continuance. Ever since he lost his eldest son, this his second son had been the great object of his attention. The characters indeed of the two young men were extremely different. The eldest was grave, stu- dious, and reserved ; the other was lively, and of popular manners ; nor was he defective in genius, though far inferior to his elder bro- ther in learning. His progress in science had not indeed been con- siderable ; partly owing to bad health, which had prevented his re- gular attendance at school and college, and partly, perhaps, to his father's having kept him too much with himself: for he was always extremely dependent on the society, and even on tlue assistance, of " such information as I thought he could In some measure comprehend. The *' lesson affected him greatly, and he never forgot either it, or the circum- " stance that introduced it." * This was during the course of the war in that covmtry, in which Great Britain was then engaged. 484 LIFE 6F DR BEATTIE. jjis children. His friends used to think, too, that in his system of education, he erred on the score of personal indulgence : yet Mon- tagu had suffered less in that respect than might have been sup- posed ; for, as Dr Beattie had been so long in the habit of teaching, and as he bestowed all the time he could possibly spare on his son's instruction, he tells us himself in one of his letters, that scarce a day passed in which he did not give him a lesson of one sort or other ; and he speaks of his progress in literature as by no means con- temptible. The care of this his youngest son's education, and the plans he Was devising for his future establishment in the world, served to fill up his time after he lost his eldest son, and proved a tie that con- tinued to connect him with society. On this subject he and I had frequent conferences ; in the course of which he informed me, that lie had done me the honour to appoint me one of those friends to whom he had left the charge of his son, if we should survive him. He had therefore expressed himself to me on this interesting topic with uncommon energy and unreserve ; and he had occasional- ly spoken of his intention to make his son a clergyman of the church of England ; for which profession the youth himself showed some inclination. With such views and such prospects, Dr Beattie was pleasing himelf ; when all at once they were destroyed by his son's unexpected death. Of that melancholy event he gives a most inte- resting and affecting account in the following letter. LETTER CCXXXI. DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 14th March, 1796. "OUR plans relating to Montagu are all at an end. I ara sorry to give you the pain of being informed, that he died this morning at five. His disorder was a fever, from which at first we had little apprehension ; but it cut him off in five days. He him- self thought from the beginning that it would be fatal ; and, before the delirium came on, spoke with great composure and Christian piety of his approaching dissolution ; he even gave some LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 485 directions about his funeral. The delirium was very violent^ and continued till within a few minutes of his death, when he was heard to repeat in a whisper the Lord's prayer, and began an unfi- nished sentence, of which nothing could be heard but the words incorruptible glory. Pious sentiments prevailed in his mind through life, and did not leave him till death ; nor then I trust did they leave him. Notwithstanding the extreme violence of his fever, he seemed to suffer little pain either in body or in mind, and as his end drew near, a smile settled upon his countenance. I need not tell you that he had every attention that skilful and affectionate physicians could bestow. I give you the trouble to notify this event to Mr Arbuth- not. I would have written to him, but have many things to mind, and but indifferent health. However, I heartily acquiesce in the dispensations of Providence, which are all good and wise. God bless you and your family. " He will be much regretted ; for wherever he went he was a Very popular character." The death of his only surviving child, completely unhinged the mind of Dr Beattie, the first symptom of which, ere many days had elapsed, was a temporary but almost total loss of memory respect- ing his son. Many times he could not recollect what had become of him ; and after searching in every room of the house, he would say to his niece, Mrs Glennie, " You may think it strange, but I " must ask you if I have a son, and where he is ?" She then felt her- self under the painful necessity of bringing to his recollection his son Montagu's sufferings, which always restored him to reason. And he would often, with many tears, express his thankfulness, that he had no child, saying, " How could I have borne to see their " elegant minds mangled with madness 1"* When he looked for the last time on the dead body of his son, he said, " I have now done " with the world :" and he ever after seemed to act as if he thought so. For he never applied himself to any sort of study, and answered but few of the letters he received from the friends whom he most valued. Yet the receiving a letter from an old friend never failed • Alluding, no doubt, to tbeir mother's melancholy situation. 485 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. to put him in spirits for the rest of the day. Music, which had been his great delight, he could not endure, after the death of his eldest son, to hear from others ; and he disliked his own favourite violoncello. A few months before Montagu's death, he did begin to play a little by way of accompaniment when Montagu sung : but after he lost him, when he was prevailed on to touch the violon- cello, he was always discontented with his own performance, and at last seemed to be unhappy when he heard it. The only enjoy- ment he seemed to have was in books, and the society of a very few old friends. It is impossible to read the melancholy picture which he draws of his own situation about this time, without dropping a tear of pity over the sorrows and the sufferings of so good a man, thus severely visited by affliction, who at the same time was bear- ing the rod of divine chastisement with the utmost patience and resignation. LETTER CCXXXIL THE BISHOP OF LONDON TO DR BEATTIE. London-house, 23d March, 1796. " I CAN scarce recollect a time when I have been more sur- prised and afllicted than at the receipt of your last letter. It is in- deed a sad and most dismal event ; and both Mrs Porteus and my- self most cordially sympathize with you in your loss and in your grief. At the same time, there are circumstances in the case, which give no small consolation to our minds. The faith, the piety, the fortitude, displayed by so young a man on so awful an occasion, do infinite credit to him, and must afford the highest satisfaction to you. And it is with no less pleasure I observe the composure and resignation with which you support this great calamity. It shows in the strongest light the power of Christian principle over the mind ; and it shows also from what source this excellent and amia- ble young man derived those virtues which adorned his short life and dignified his premature death. " But 1 will dwell no longer on this melancholy subject ; nor will I at present obtrude any trifling matters on your serious mo* LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 487 ments. When time has a little lightened the pressure of this affliction, I will write to you again ; and, in the meanwhile, im- plore for you all the comforts of religion." LETTER CCXXXIIL DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. DR LAING. Aberdeen, 10th April, 1796. " I WISHED to answer your kind letter as soon as I recei- ved it, or as soon after as possible ; but the very interesting and painful suspense I was kept in by Dr Campbell's illness, disquali- fied me for writing and every thing else. His illness was so vio- lent, that, considering his age and enfeebled state, and some other disorders which I knew he was afflicted with, I did not at first ima- gine that he could live two days. To the surprise of every body, however, he held out, almost a week, though unable to speak, and for a great part of the time delirious. His death at last was easy, and he died as he had lived, a sincere Christian ; we yesterday paid our last duties to his remains. He and I were intimate friends for about thirty -eight years, without any interval of coldness or dis- satisfaction. His instructive and cheerful conversation was one of the greatest blessings of my life, and I shall cherish the remem- brance of it, with gratitude to the Giver of all good, as long as I live. " His death was looked for, and by himself much desired. Mon- tagu's came upon me in a different manner. His delirium, which was extremely violent, ended in a state of such apparent tranquil- lity, that I was congratulating myself on the danger being over, at the very time when Dr ***** came, and told me, in his own name, and in that of the other two physicians that attended Montagu, that he could not live many hours : this was at eleven at night, and he died at five next moniing. I hope I am resigned, as my duty re- quires, and as I wish to be ; but I have passed many a bitter hour, though on those occasions nobody sees me. I fear my reason is a little disordered, for I have sometimes thought of late, especially ii| 4aa LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. a morning, that Montagu is not dead, though I seem to have « remembrance of a dream that he is. This, you will say, what I myself believe, is a symptom not uncommon in cases similar to mine, and that I ought by all means to go from home as soon as I can. I will do so when the weather becomes tolerable. Inclina- tion would draw me to Peterhead ; but the intolerable road forbids it, and I believe I must go southward, where the roads are very good : at least I hear so. " Being now childless, by the will of Providence, (in which I trust I acquiesce) I have made a new settlement in my small affairs ; the only particular of which that needs to be mentioned at present is, that the organ, built by my eldest son and you, is now yours. " I am much obliged to the kind friends who sympathize with me. Montagu was indeed very popular wherever he went. His death was calm, resigned, and unaffectedly pious ; he thought him- self dying from the first attack of his illness. " I could wish," said he, " to live to be old, but am neither afraid nor unwilling to die.''' LETTER CCXXXIV. ^R BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Aberdeen, 17th April, 1796. " I HAVE been these many days resolving to write to you and Mr Arbuthnot, to thank you for your very kind and sympathetic letters, but various things have come in my way to prevent it. I need not pretend a hurry of business, for every body knows I am not capable of any. A deep gloom hangs upon me and disables all my faculties, and thoughts so strange sometimes occur to me, as to make me " fear that I am not,*' as Lear says, " in my perfect *' mind." But I thank God I am entirely resigned to the divine will ; and, though I am now childless, I have friends whose good- ness to me, and other virtues, I find great comfort in recollecting. The physicians not only advise but intreat, and indeed command me, to go from home, and that without further delay : and I do seriously resolve to set out for Edinburgh to-morrow. As I shall travel slowly, it will perhaps be a week or more before I see you. At another time, and in different circumstances, I should have had LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 4«9 much to say on the loss of our friend, Dr Campbell, but that sub- ject, as well as some others, I must defer till we meet." LETTER CCXXXV. DR BEATTIfi TO MRS MONTACU. Aberdeen, 17th April, 1796. '' I THANK you most cordially for your letter, so full of kindness and sympathy, and by consequence of comfort, to my be- Avildered mind. I t»ust that in resignation, to the will of the su- premely wise and good Disposer of all events, I am not deficient ; but my frailties are many, and I cannot yet counteract the pressure that bears so hard upon me. Time and recollection will, I hope, give some strength to my faculties, and restore to me the power of commanding my thoughts. The physicians, who see how it is with me, not only advise but command me to go from home, without further delay : and I intend to begin to-morrow, to try at least what I can do in the way of travelling. My first course will be towards Edinburgh, where I shall stay two or three weeks ; and if I find I am able, I shall probably after that go a little way into Eng- land : but whether I shall find it advisable to proceed as far as Lon- don, I cannot as yet determine. " My son Montagu sleeps in his brother's grave ; the depth of which allows sufficient room for both. The inscription I have en- larged a little, and inclose a copy : its only merit is its simplicity and truth. MONTAGU. BEATTIE. Jacobi. Hay. Beattie. Prater, Ejusque. Virtutum. et, Studiorum. ^mulus. Seimlchrique . Consors. Variarum. Peritus. Artium, Pingericii. imjirimis. Mitus. Octavo. Julii. MDCCLXXVIJI. Multum. Defletus. Obiit. Decimo. Quarto. Martii, MDCCXCVI. 490^ LIFE OF DR BEATTIE, LETTER CCXXXVL DR BEATTIE TO ROBERT ARBUTHNOT, ESQ- Aberdeen, 9th February, 1797. " If I could have said any thing that would mitigate your grief for the loss of a most deserving son,* your own heart will testify for me that I would not have been so long silent. But I have had too much experience not to know,ihat the only sources of comfort, in a case of this kind, are subinission to the IJivine WiU, aided by the slow and silent operation of time. God grant that these may be effectual for the alleviation of your sorrow. Think on the many other blessings you enjoy ; and think that the most enviable of all deaths is that which we now bewail, an honourable death in the ser- vice of our country. I beg leave to offer my best wishes and sym- pathy to Mrs Arbuthnot and the rest of your family ; and shall be happy to hear, that you and they are as well as it is reasonable to expect. " I sometimes make an excursion to Major Mercer's, which is the only sort of visit I ever attempt ; and he and I are I hope bene- ficial to each other ; though his affliction is, I fear, in some respects, heavier than either yours or mine. Alas ! how many things occur in this world, which are worse than death I" The following letter to Mr Eraser Tytler, now Lord Wood- houselee,t in return for a present which that gentleman had made him of a new edition of his elegant and excellent " Essay on Trans- " lation," is written with more of Dr Beattie's former manner, than any I have met with of his, after the death of his youngest son. It does no more than justice to the merit of the " Essay on Transla- " tion ;" and it is curious, as containing an account and a specimen of a work not frequently to be met with. * A very deserving officer of artillery, who died at this time in the West Indies, t See Appendix, [F.] LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 491 LETTER CCXXXVII. >R BEATTIE TO ALEX. FRASER TYTLERj ESQ. NOW LORD WOOP- HOUSELEE. Aberdeen, 15th May, 1797. ** EVER since March I have been, as I still am, in a great degree, crippled both in my legs and arms by rheumatism, which has been very painful, and is likely to be not less durable. This made me, from time to time, defer attempting to thank you for the much-esteemed present of the new edition of your " Principles of " Translation." As yet I have read it only once ; but I read it with much attention, and great pleasure, as well as instruction. I am astonished at the variety of your examples, which prove that you must have thought long and deeply on the subject ; and I am con- vinced that your work will be very acceptable to the learned world, and very useful. Great taste, as well as learning, appears in every' part of it. I must thank you, in particular, for the very favourable manner in which I have the honour to be quoted in it : for your very elegant compliment to my son I have thanked you, and I still thank you, with my tears. Had he lived to see your book, I know it would have given him much pleasure ; for I have often heard him speak on the subject, and in terms which perfectly coincided with your sentiments. " A judicious critic every body must acknowledge you to be, and yet you are very merciful, especially to Cowley and Dryden. This last frequently burlesques Virgil ; whether he intended it, I know not ; if he did not intend it, he must have been very little of a scholar. But who is equal to the task of translating Virgil ? No- body, I will venture to say, will ever attempt such a task who is equal to it. I formerly attempted some parts of him ; but it was at a time when I understood him very superficially indeed.* * Alluding to his translations of the Pastorals of Virgil, printed in the first edition ofDr Beattie's Poems, but never re -published. Seep. S7; and Appendi;x, [K.] 492 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. " There is one translation which I greatly admire, but am sure you never saw, as you have not mentioned it : the book is indeed very rare ; I obtained it, with difficulty, by the friendship of Tom Davies, an old English bookseller ; I mean, Dobson's " Paradisus " Amissus ;" my son studied, and I believe read every line of it. It is more true to the original, both in sense and in spirit, than any other poetical version of length that I have s^^n. The author must have had an amazing command of Latin phraseology, and a very nice ear in harmony. I shall give you a passage, I need not say from what part of the poem : ** Dixerat ; et laetis dicta auribiis haiisit Adamus^ * " At nil respondit ; namque oHis maximus hospes " Jam propior stetit ; adversique a culmine montis ** Flammea praescriptam stationem adiere cherubum *' Ag-mina, suspensis per humum labentia plantis. ** Ut nebula, ex fluviis se effundens vespere sero, « Pervolitat densas liquido pede lapsa paludes, ** Agricolamque premit reducem, calcemqiie suburget. ** Undantes a fronte faces sublime vibratus " Numinis evomuit gladius, ceucrine cometa " Terribile lugubre rubens, coelique benignam " Temperiem iuvertit : torrenti incanduit atrox " Igne vapor, quantus sitientibus incubat Afris. ** Corripit inde manu nostros utraque parentes *' Nuntius, increpitatque moras ; portamque ad eoam *' Ducit agens, celsaque iterum de rupe jacentem " Ocius in campum ; tenues dein fugit in auras. " Convertere oculos ; lateque plagas Paradisi " Eoas, sua tam nuper laetissima rura, ** Flammivomo mucrone vident ardescere ; formisque *-' Obsessam horrificis portam, et flagrantibus armis. " Naturae imperio lacrimas misere, repente ** Detersas : Patuit spatiosis tractibus orbis *' Terrarum, requiem optatam dulcesque reoessus ** Qua peterent sibi cunque loca ; et Deus adfuit auspejn " Turn vaga, lentaque, ducentes vestigia, palmis ** Connexis, solos Edeni abiere per agros.** '-' There are perhaps in this quotation two or three words which might have been better, and I am far from thinking the work fault- less ; but when there is so much excellence, cavilling is unreason- able. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 49^ " Being curious to know some particulars of Dobson, I inquired of him at Johnson, who owned he had known him, but did not seem inclined to speak on the subject. But Johnson hated Milton from his heart ; and he wished to be himself considered as a good Latin poet, which however he never was, as may be seen by his translation of Pope's " Messiah/* All that I could ever hear of Dobson's private life was, that in his old age he was given to drink- ing. My edition of his book is dated 1750. It is dedicated to Mr Benson, who was a famous admirer of Milton ; and from the dedi- cation it would seem to have been written at his desire and under his patronage.'* LETTER CCXXXVIII. DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. DR LAING. Aberdeen, 5th June, 179&. " YOU would have heard from me long ago, if it had been in ally power to write ; but my complaints, which seem to grow worse every day, are now so bad, that I can do nothing. My vertigo^ the greatest of them all, is now so violent, that I am for a great part of the day unable to go down stairs ; my sight is much im- paired ; I cannot attend to what I read, and I forget almost every thing that I see or hear. *' I have been trying to play a little on the violoncello, but my fingers have not strength to press down the strings. I will send you, when I get an opportunity, a little treatise, by a man, propos- ing an improvement in the art of music. He wishes, like some other writers, to reduce all music to simple melody : a doctrine which old admirers of Corelli, like you and me, will never acqui- esce in. It is the violin which he proposes to improve, by a method, which, in my opinion, would ruin that instrument. He thinks mu- sic an imitative art ; and that a tune, which he calls the Cameronian Bant, is an exact resemblance of two women scolding. Mr Glen- iiie plays the tune, which seems to me to be nothing but confusion and barbarism, and to bear no resemblance to ai»y thing in art or 494 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. nature. Lord Monboddo, another adherent to the imitative notion, says, the only true music he ever heard, is the thing called the Hen^s March ; which no man who deserves to have ears in his head, would allow to be music at all. " I have just seen a new edition, by Dr Joseph Warton, of the works of Pope. It is fuller than Warburton*s ; but you will not think it better, when I tell you, that all Pope's obscenities, which Warburton was careful to omit, are carefully preserved by Warton, who also seems to have a great favour for infidel writers, particu- larly Voltaire. The book is v^ell printed, but has no cuts, except a curious caricature of Pope's person, and an elegant profile of his head." LETTER CCXXXIX, D& BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Peterhead, 3d August, 1898. " I AM. acquainted with many parts of your excursion through the north of Elngland, and very glad that you had my old friend Mr Gray's " Letters" with you, which are indeed so well written, that I have no scruple to pronounce them the best letters that have been printed in our language. Lady Mary Montagu's " Letters" are not without merit, but are too artificial and aifected to be confided in as true, and Lord Chesteiiield's have much greater faults, indeed some of the greatest that letters can have : but Gray's letters are always sensible, and of classical conciseness and perspicuity. They very much resemble what his conversa- tion was. He had none of the airs of either a scholar or a poet ; and though on those and all other subjects he spoke to me with the utmost freedom, and without any reserve, he was, in general com- pany, much more silent than one could have wished. " Have you seen Mr Pinkerton's new " History of the James's " of Scotland ?" The author, with whom I was acquainted in Lon- don about fifteen years ago, has sent me a copy of it, but my dizzy head will not ytt permit me to read it. He is a Scotchman, and- LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 49$ speaks with a strong Edinburgh accent, at least he did so formerly. There are two quartos, with a striking likeness of the author pre fixed. He seems to abound too much in our new-fashioned Eng- lish ; but I cannot yet take it upon me to criticise his work." In the following letter he evinces the same warmth of affection as ever for his friends, by the manner in which he laments the death of Mrs Montagu ; although the intelligence he had received of that event proved to be a mistake, as that lady did not die till the yeaV following. LETTER CCXL. DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. DR LAING. Aberdeen, 7th March, 1799. " I HAVE just now heard, by the post of this day, a piece of news that affects me very much, the death of my excellent friend Mrs Montagu. Her age was not less than fourscore, so that on this point she is not to be regretted. But many people depended on her ; and to me, on all occasions, ever since 1771, when I first be- came acquainted with her, she has been a faithful and affectionate friend, especially in seasons of distress and difficulty. You will not wonder, then, that her death afflicts me. For some years past a failure in her eyes had made writing very painful to her ; but for jiot less than twenty years she was my punctual correspondent. She was greatly attached to Montagu, who received his name from her, and not less interested in my other son, and in every thing that related to my family. I need not tell you what an excellent writer she was: you must have seen her book on Shakespeare, as compared with the Greek and French dramatic writers. I have known several ladies eminent in literature, but she excelled them all ; and in conversation she had more ivit than any other person, male or female, whom I have ever known. These, however, were 496 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. her Blighter accomplishments : what was infinitely more to h<^' honour, she was a sincere Christian, both in faith and in practice, and took every proper opportunity to show it ; so that by her ex- ample and influence she did much good. I knew her husband, who died in extreme old age, in the year 1775 ; and by her desire had conferences with him on the subject of Christianity ; but, to her great concern, he set too much value on mathematical eviden- ces, and piqued himself too much on his knowledge in that science, He took it into his head, too, that I was a mathematician, though I was at a great deal of pains to convince him of the contrary." Dr Beattie's sufferings were now drawing to a conclusion. Iu« the beginning of April, 1799, he had a stroke of palsy, which for eight days so affected his speech, that he could not make himself understood, and even forgot some of the most material words of every sentence. At different periods after this, he had several re- turns of the same afflicting malady. The last took place on the 5th October, 1802. It deprived him altogether of the power of motion ; and in that humiliating situation, I saw him for the last time in the month of June, 1803. He continued to languish in this melancholy condition till nine o'clock in the morning of Thursday the 18tli of August, 1803, when it pleased the Almighty to remove him from this world to a better, in the sixty -eighth year of his age, without any pain or ap- parent struggle. For some weeks preceding, his remaining strength had declined rapidly, and his appetite entirely left him ; but he seemed not to suffer, and at last he expired as if falling asleep. His remains were deposited according to his own desire,* be- side those of his two sons, in the church-yard of St Nicholas at Aberdeen. The spot is marked by the following elegant and clas- sical inscription, written by his friend the present Dr James Gre- gory, Professor of the Practice of Physic in the university of Edin? burgh : * Seep. 14. ; and supra, 187. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 497 Memornce. Sacru?n. JACOBI. BEATTIE. LL. D. Elhices, In. Academia. Marescallana. hujus. UrbU. Per. XLIII. Jnnos. Professori. Meritiasimi. Viri. - Pietate, Probitate. Jngenio. atque. Doctrina. Prxsiantis. Scriptoris. Elegantisdmi. Poetx. Suavissimi. Philosophi. Vere. Chris tiani. Mztus. est. V. J\'ov. Jn?io. MDCCXXXV. Obiit. XVIII. Aug. MDCCCIII. Omnibus. Liberis. Orbus. Quorum. JVatu. Maocimus. Jacobus. Hay. Beattie. Vel. a. Puerilibu^. Annis. Patrio. Vigent. Ingenio. Kovumque. Decus. Jam. Addens. Paterno. Suis. Carissimus. Patriae. Flebilis. Lenta. Tabe. Consumjitus. Periit. Anno. Mutatis. XXIII. Geo. et. Mar. Glennie. H. M. P. They who have perused, with any degree of attention, the ■preceding narrative of the life of Dr Beattie, and his letters to his friends, will not require much to be said to give them a sufficient idea of his character. That he was a poet and philosopher of real and original genius, his writings,, in the possession of the public, are the strongest tes- timonies. The sweetness and harmony of his numbers, the rich- ness of his fancy, and the strictness of moral inculcated in his poetical compositions, are such as will long secure to him a high degree of reputation. His best and most valuable poem is his " Minstrel ;" in the delineation of whose character it is generally, and I believe with truth, understood that he depicted his own. 3 R 4911 UFE 0F DR BEATTIE. His Essays on " Poetry and Music," on " Memory and Ima- " gination,*' on " Fable and Romance," " The Theory of Lan- *' guage," and some others, are strongly calculated to give plea- sure, as well £^a instruction, to every enlightened and cultivated imderstanding ; and do equal credit to the elegance of Dr Beattie's taste, and the correctness of his judgment. Eminently skilled in the languages of antiquity, he had formed that taste, and matured that judgment, on the purest models of Greek and Roman litera- ture. He had studied, also, with attention, the most classical com- positions in our own lajiguage. Nor was he unacquainted with the works of the celebrated authors of France and Italy. His memo- ry was uncommonly strong, and his knowledge of books was ex- tensive ; so that to, him might, without impropriety, be applied, what Johnson says of his friend Gilbert Walmsley ; " His studies " had been sat I am not able to name a man of equal " knowledge. His acquaintance with books was great ; and what " he did not imm^jliately know, he could at least tell where to find." What Johnson likewise says of his obligations to Walmsley, I may, with equal truth, apply to myself in respect to Dr Beattie ; " Such was his amplitude of learning, and such bis copiousness of *' communication, that it may be doubted? whether a day now pas- " ses in which I have not s&me advantage fron;i his friendship."* There were, indeed, few branches of science with which he was not in some degree conversant, except mathematics, and me- chanics ; for which he used to sayv he not only had no turn, but that every application to them brought on his headachs. His chief acquirements were in moral science- In religion, his favourite books, besides the Scriptures and the English Liturgy,! were But- ler, Clarke pecker, Pojjteus. Of the classics, Homer, Horace, Csesar, and above all, Virgil. ♦ JohnsOn^s " Lives of the English Poets," Vol. III. p. 36. Life of Smith. f It is deserving of notice, that although Dr Beattie had been brought up. ^ member of the presbyterian church of Scotland, and regxilarly attend- ed her worship and ordinances when at Aberdeen, he yet gave the most de- cided preference to the church of England, generally attending the service of that church when any where from home, and constantly when at Peter- head. He spoke with enthusiasm of the beauty, simplicity, and energy, of the English Liturgy, especially of the Litany, which he declared to be the finest piece of uninspired composition in any language. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. "^ 499 His prose-writings were far from being calculated merely to amuse the fancy and delight the imagination ; they were admirably fitted to improve and mend the heart. Of his celebrated " Essay " on Truth," which laid the foundation of his fame as an author, an analysis will be found in the Appendix.* In that essay, as has been shown by his correspondence with his philosophical friends, it was his professed aim to combat the fashionable philosophy of the sceptics of his day ; and it may be said, I believe with justice, that this work of Dr Beattie*s did much towards bringing that phi- losophy into the discredit in which it is now sunk. Of his " Evidences of Christianity,"t mention has already been made ; and it is perhaps the most popular, as it is certainly among the most useful, of his prose-writings. As a. teacher of ethics, some idea may be formed of his abilities, as well as of his system, from his " Elements of Moral Science," which, it has been seen,t he published originally for the use of his pupils, but which may be perused with advantage by every one who wishes to gain some knowledge of the subject, without toiling through elaborate systems of moral philosophy. Those, however, who had the benefit of his tuition, can best tell of his merit as an in- structor of youth. Some of them I have heard expatiate with de- light, on the unwearied pains he bestowed, not by the mere formal delivery of a lecture, but by the continued course he pursued of ex- amination and repetition, to imprint the precepts of philosophy and religion on the minds of the youth committed to his charge.§ As a professor, not his own class only, but the whole body of students * Appendix, [Y.] f Supra, p. 187. ^ Supra, p. 286. § I have been enabled to give the following interesting and satisfactory account of his mode of teaching, by two gentlemen who had been his pupils, to whom I applied for that purpose, and who, witliout any mutual communi- cation, furnished me with the substance of the following detail, nearly in similar words. The ordinary session, or termof teaching, commences in Marischal Col- lege on the first day of November, and ends the first week of April. During that term, the Professor of Moral Philosophy teaches in his class three hours every week-day, viz. at eight o'clock in the morning, at eleven in the fore- noon, and at tliree in the afternoon, except on Tuesdays and Fridays, when there is no teaching in the afternoon. Dr Beattie began his Course of Pre- lections with " Cicero de Oftlciis." Of that excellent treatise, he generally made his students carefully read and translate a part every day, at the hour 500 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. at the university, looked up to him with esteem and veneration. The profound piety of the public prayers, with which he began the business of each day, arrested the attention of the youngest and most thoughtless : the excellence of his moral character, his gravity blended with cheerfulnes^ , his strictness joined with gentleness, his favour to the virtuous and diligent, and even the mildness of his reproofs to those who were less attentive, rendered him the object of their respect and admiration. Never was more exact discipline preserved than in his class, nor ever any where by more gentle means. His sway was absolute, because it was founded in reason of meetinjr in the morning On the passage then read, the Professor com- mented at the next hour of meeting, comparing it with the other systems of the ancient Heathen philosophers. He also, from time to time, examined them on the s\ibject of these lectures; and at the end of this introductory course, he dictated to them an abstract of the whole, which they committed to writing in the class.* He then entered on the study of Pn^umatology, subdivided into Psjcboiogy and Natural Theologyy Speculative and Practical Ethicst Economics^ jurispru- dence, Politics t Rhetoric y and Logic: ofallvvhich branches of philosophy, he, in the same manner, dictated in the morning an abstract; on which, as on a text-book, he commented at his lectures in the forenoon and afternoon, in the clearest, most lively, and most engaging manner ; examining his pupils, as he went along, on the attention they had paid to, and the benefit they had de* rived from, his lectures. At first he was wont to dictate the abstract of his prelections in Latin, from which his pupils, who were tolerable proficients in classical learning, derived much advantage ; as they acquired thereby the habit of speaking and writing that language more readily than they had been accustomed to. But as many of his students were far from being masters of Latin, which he himself spoke and wrote with great fluency, he found it ne- cessary to discontinue this practice, and to dictate the abstract of liis whole course in Enghsh. After the pubUcation of the "Elements of Moral Science," which comprehended the whole of this abstract, it became unnecessary for him to spend, as formerly, one hour each day in dictating notes to his stu- derts. He continued, however, in reading the Greek and Latin classics, to make them translate as literally as the genius of the English language would permit; which, in his opinion, was not at all incompatible with that intelli- gence and taste, wherewith even a philosopher peruses those excellent ori- ginals, when he wishes to enter fully into their beauties, and duly to esti- piate their respective and various merits. The accuracy of this account of Dr Beattie's method of teaching, may be ascertained, by comparing it with the •• Elements of Moral Science," or even with that part of the Diary alrea- dy mentioned, of which a/ac simile will be found in the Appendix, [E.] I See supra, p, 287. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 501 and affection. He never employed a harsh epithet in finding fault with any of his pupils ; and when, instead of a rehuke, which they were conscious they deserved, they met merely with a mild reproof, it was conveyed in such a manner, as to throw not only the delin- quent, but sometimes the whole class, into tears. To gain his fa- vour was the highest ambition of every student ; and the gentlest word of disapprobation was a punishment, to avoid which, no exer- tion was deemed too much. His great object was not merely to make his pupils philoso- phers, but to render them good men, pious Christians, loyal to their King, and attached to the British Constitution ; pure in morals, happy in the consciousness of a right conduct, and friends to all mankind. Nor did he confine his care of his students solely to their in- struction while they attended his course of lectures. It was his peculiar delight to assist them in finding situations for their future establishment in life ; which he had it often in his power to pro- mote, by being frequently applied to by parents and others to pro- cure for them schoolmasters and teachers, whom his knowledge of the genius and abilities of the young men, who had been his pu- pils, peculiarly enabled him to discover and recommend.* No stronger proof need be required of the high degree of esti- mation in which Dr Beattie's talents and virtues were held by men of learning, both at home und abroad, than his having been sponta- neously elected an honorary member of the following Societies : " The Zeeland Society of Sciences ;"t " The American Philoso- *^ phical Society at Philadelpliia ;" " The Literary and Philosophi- " cal Society of Manchester." Dr Beattie was also a Fellow of " The Royal Society of Edinburgh." The style of his lectures may be judged of by that of the com- positions which he has given to tlie world : and in both cases the * In perusing the voluminous collection of letters which he had received, it was extremely pleasing to find so great a number from young men in dif- ferent parts of the world, particularly America and the West Indies, who had attended his lectures ; all of them expressing their gratitude for the benefit they had reaf;ed from his tuition, and some of them for the advanta- geous situations they had obtained through his means. t The " Essay on Truth," very soon after its publigation, had been trans- lated in Holland iiito the Dutch language. 502 LIFE OF DR BEAITIE. best quality of it was, that it was the style of a man who spoke and wrote in " simplicity and in earnest.* The language in which he was to write, he studied profoundly. He has himself said, that the qualities at which he chiefly aimed were perspicuity, simplicity, and elegance ; and knowing how well these were attainable by the genuine purity of the English language, he was a decided enemy to all innovations in writing, by the introduction of new words and affected phraseology. Of all our English writers, Addison was the author whom he most admired ; whose style, therefore, he most carefully studied, and which he adopted as his model in composi- tion. In his earlier writings the effect of this admiration is visible : but afterwards, when success had taught him a little more confi- dence in his own powers, he seems occasionally to lose sight of his model, and to break forth into a fulness of expression, which re- minds us of the force and freedom of the prefaces of Dryden. One undoubted excellence of his style is its variety, its power of ex- pressing whatever he thought or felt, and of communicating to the reader the same thoughts and the same sentiments. On moral subjects, it is grave and manly : on subjects of science and philosophy, it is pure and perspicuous to a degree that has been seldom equalled : but on subjects where his heart or his imagina- tion are interested, it rises to greater richness and elevation, and abounds in those delicate but undefineable touches of fancy and of feeling, which characterise the works of the masters in composition, and which are never attainable by ordinary writers. Yet in thus aiming at simplicity, he was far from losing sight of sublimity of diction, of which many striking instances in his prose -writings will occur to every attentive, reader.f * Bishop Butler's preface to his Sermons. 1 1 need only instance here, his Reflections on the Contemplation of the Works of Nature ;♦ on National Music ;t the Description of the Highlands and Southern Provinces of Scotland 4 on Personification ;§ his Comparison of the Writings and Genius of Dryden and Pope ;|j the Character of Swift ;^ the Discrimination of the Characters of Homer's and Virgil's He- roes;** Strictures on Gray's Ode.ff On reading these, and many similar • Essay on Poetr)' and Music, p. 369, 370. 390. + Ibid. p. 474. ilbid.p.479>480,481,482,483. § Ibid. p. 548. || Ibid. p. 358. t Ibid. p. 378, 379, * » Ibid. p. 398-^10. ft Ibid. p. 559. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 503 Throughout the whole course of his life, Dr Beattie was most exemplary in the discharge of the relative duties of a son, a bro- ther, a husband, a father, and a friend. Of his conduct towards his unhappy wife, it is impossible to speak in terms of too high commendation. It has already been mentioned,* that Mrs Beattie had the misfortune to inherit from her mother, that most dreadful of all human ills, a distempered imagination, which, in a very few years after their marriage^ showed itself in caprices and folly that, embittered every hour of his life, while he strove at first to conceal her disorder from the world, and, if possible, as he has been heard to say, to conceal it even from himself ; till at last from whim, aiid caprice, and melancholy, it broke out into downright insanity, which rendered her seclusion from society absolutely necessary. During every stage o,f her illness, he watched and cherished her with the utmost tenderness and care ; using every means at first, that medicine could furnish, for her recovery, and afterwards, when her condition was found to be perfectly hopeless, procuring for her every ^.ccoramodation and comfort that could tend to alleviate her sufferings.! When I reflect on the many sleepless nights and anxious days, which he experienced from Mrs Beattie's malady, and think of the unwearied and unremitting attention he paid to her, during so great a number of years, in that sad situation, his character is exalted in my mind to a degree which may be equalled, but I am sure never can be excelled, and makes the fame of the poet and the pliilosopher fade from my remembrance. The strictness and regularity of Dr Beattie's piety was shown, not merely by a regular attendance, while his health permitted, on passages in his wopks^, I have been often disposed to apply to him the ex- quisite praise which Cowley bestow;s on a much inferior writer : " His candid style like a clear stream does flow; " And his brig-ht fancy all the way " Does, Uke the sunshine, on it play." Cowley's Ode on the Royal Society. * See p. 74. f Of this last part of Dr Beattie's conduct, I am fully able to speak from my own personal knowledtre ; as, during" several years, I had the sole charge of her and her concerns, while she resided at no great distance from Edinburgli. She still survives hiip in the same melancholy condition. I T 504 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. the public ordinances of religion, but by the more certain and une- quivocal testimony of private devotion. I have been informed by his niece, Mrs Glennie, that after he had retired at night to his chamber, she frequently overheard his voice rendered audible in the ardour of prayer. And she has also told me, that even throughout the day, when she knew his spirits to be more than usually depressed, while he thought himself alone, she could occa- sionally perceive that he was offering up his orisons to Heaven with the utmost fervour. His pious resignation to the Divine Will, under some of the hardest trials that " flesh is heir to," was indeed but too severely proved during the greatest part of his life ; but it is consoling to know, that it was not tried in vain. Great tenderness of heart, and the keenest sensibility of soul, qualities very frequently the concomitants of genius, were emi- nently conspicuous in the character of Dr Beattie. They rendered him " tremblingly alive" to the sorrows and the sufferings of others, and produced in him the warmest emotions of friendship, with an earnest desire to perform every service in his power to all within his reach. It must not be dissembled at the same time, that Dr Beattie was not altogether free from prejudices: But they were most commonly prejudices of an amiable kind; He loved virtue where- ever he found it ; and as he had the happiness of numbering among his friends some of the best and most accomplished characters of the age in which he lived, he returned their kindness with ardour and enthusiasm. If there was an affection of his nature more strong than any other, it was that of gratitude. To those, there-- fore, who had spontaneously undertaken to promote his interest, he thought he never could declare too strongly the sense he entertain- ed of their kindness. This sentiment, which on every occasion he proclaimed so loudly, he did not confine to mere expressions of gratitude for favours conferred on him : it led him to form a judg- , m.ent even of their writings, if they were literary characters, which could not but be considered as sometimes a good deal exaggerated. In the same manner, instances might be produced, where he had carried antipathies to particular persons, and to their writings, somewhat beyond the measure of due discretion. In both cases, however, it was very readily allowed, that he never uttered a sylla- LIFE OF BR BEATTIE. 505 ble, either of commendation or dislike, which he himself did not believe to be perfectly well-founded. It is a curious circumstance, that although when at school and college he had been admired and loved by his companions for his mild and gentle disposition, it was remarked by his most intimate friends, at a more advanced period of life, that he had become not a little irritable by a continued application to metaphysical contro- versy. This habit, however respected authors rather than men ; and as it gave little or no disturbance to those around him, was easily overlooked by his friends, in the multitude of his amiable qualities, and was often rather a subject of pleasantry to them th^n otherwise. In his disposition he was humane and charitable. And it has been told of him by his family, that no suppliant, to his knowledge, ever went from his door unsatisfied. I have already remarked, that he was a passionate admirer of the beauties of nature ; delighting to walk out into the fields, some- times in the company of a friend, but more frequently by himself, cither when oppressed by those violent headachs, to which he had been subject from his youths or when struggling under the weight of domestic affliction. In those solitary walks it was, that he was wont to indulge in silent and profound meditation on the studies in which he was engaged. In committing his thoughts to paper, afterwards, he was laborious in the extreme ; very rarely making use of an amanuensis, but constantly and repeatedly transcribing his works in his correct, neat, and beautiful hand-writing. Dr Beattie was fond of society ; and while Mrs Beattie's health permitted her to appear, he saw a good deal of company, and much enjoyed the pleasure of having his friends with him at his table, chiefly at dinner, except when he had musical parties at night. But he had a great dislike to cards, which, however, he expressed in the gentlest manner, by saying with much good humour, that he never had capacity sufficient to learn any game. To chess he had a real aversion, as occasioning, in his opinion, a great waste of time, and requiring an useless application of thought. His conversation on moral and literary subjects was in the highest degree instructive and entertaining ; and so much wa,s his 3 s 506 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. company valued and sought after, that in his best days, he was not able to comply with half the invitations he received from persons eminent for their rank, character, and learning. In the midst of a select party of his private friends, and in his little domestic circle, he was uncommonly cheerful, animated, and pleasant ; indulging himself in frequent sallies of playful but innocent mirth. He was even fond of the amusement of a pun ; in which, however, it must be confessed, he was not always very successful. He wished, in- deed, to be thought to possess a certain degree of wit and humour, especially when in company with some of our mutual friends, such as Major Mercer and Mr Arbuthnot, who were endowed with more of these qualities than almost any men I ever knew ; but in which Dr Beattie followed them " haud passibus aqids.** His mornings, during the winter season of the university, were chiefly employed in attendance on his class, and in taking the exer- cise necessary for his health, sometimes on horseback, but more frequently on foot, for he took particular delight in walking. The evening, when not engaged with company, was his time for seri- ous study : but after supper, he dedicated his hours to the amuse- ment of his family, by reading aloud such books of entertainment as came occasionally in his way, or in social conversation ; and to the young people around him he was always exceedingly indul- gent. During the summer, as he was not engaged with the busi- ness of the college, he could afford to devote more of his hours to study, yet still he dedicated a considerable portion of his time to exercise and to the society of his friends. As an exercise, he was fond of archery, and used it long enough to arrive at some dexterity in the practice, until he grew so corpulent that it fatigued him, and this obliged him to lay it aside. Although Dr Beattie's acquaintance in early life had been of the humblest sort, and even after his removal from the parochial school of Fordoun to Aberdeen, had been of a rank very inferior to that in which he came afterwards to be introduced, yet he show- ed no awkwardness of behaviour in the most exalted and polished circles. And it must be recorded to his praise, that notwithstand- ing he had been caressed by the great and the learned in England, in a degree beyond most authors of his day, he returned to his na- tive country unspoiled by prosperity, and as humble and unassum- ing in his manners as he had left it. LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 5^7 To a very correct and refined taste in judging of poetry, paint- ing, and music, he added the rare accomplishment of some actual practice in each. Of his skill in poetical composition, enough has been already said. Of music, he was remarkably fond. He loved all kinds of good music, but especially that of the old school, and the simple but enchanting melodies of our own country. His fa- vorite masters were Corelli, Handel, Purcel, Pergolese, Gemini- ani, Avison, Jackson. He not only understood the theory of music, but he occasionally amused himself by composing basses anff second parts to some of his favourite airs. He was delighted with the organ, on which he often played simple harmonies ; and he performed with taste and expression on the violoncello. He sung a little ; but his voice was loud, and deficient in mellowness. In his best days, he was a regular attendant, and an useful direc- tor of the weekly concert at Aberdeen, where he was generally at the same time a performer on the violoncello.* In the other sister art of painting, he excelled in drawing grotesque figures and caricatures of striking resemblance ; although in this last talent, he very sparingly indulged himself, and at an early period of life laid it entirely aside. Once in company with a few friends, he drew three or four of these for our amusement, as we sat at table, which I carried away with me, by his permission ; and I presume they are the only specimens of his excellence in that species of design now existing. I believe I may say, that although I have known many who could practise two of the sister arts variously combined, such as poetry and music, or painting arid poetry, Dr Beattie is the sole instance of my own acquaintance, at least, of a person who possessed the happy talent of being able to practise, tvith some success, in all the three. It has been sometimes said, I believe, that Dr Beattie, in the latter part of his life, indulged rather too much in the use of wine. In one of his letters, he intimates, that he found it necessary as a * His musical entertainment was once unluckily Suspended, by his acci- dentally cutting the tendon of the middle finger of the left-hand, so necessary in the use of tliat instrument. But in time he arrived at the dexterity of per- forming all the stops, readily and accurately, with the three remaining fin- gers. Although he ceased to perform any longer in public, he continued to amuse himself and his friends in private as before, until after the deatii of his sons. 508 LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. medicine. " My health," says he, (writing to Mr. Arbuthnot) " for these ten days past, has been declining very fast. With the " present pressure upon my mind^ I should not be able to sleep, if " I did not use wine as an opiate. It is less hurtful than laudanum, " but not so effectual." Wine used for this sad purpose, might sometimes possibly exceed its due limits. Had this really been the case, who would be much surprised, when it is considered, that, in the decline of his life, almost every day was embittered % the unfortunate derangement of his wife, by the loss of both his sons, by his own increasing maladies of body, and the deepening depression of his mind ? Who would wonder, (though every one would lament) if, under such extraordinary circumstances, re- course should sometimes be had to the cordial powers of wine to blunt the edge of pain, and deaden the sense of sufferings, too acute to be borne ? Over failings arising from such sources as these, (even if they had been real) the hand of pity and charity would draw the veil of silence and oblivion : Yet I must solemnly declare, that although I have often seen him in the hours both of melan- choly and gaiety, and although he has occasionally resided at our house for weeks together, I never once saw him disposed to any (gxcess of this kind. In his person, Dr Beattie was of the middle size, though not elegantly, yet not awkwardly formed, but with something of a slouch in his gait. His eyes were black and piercing, with an ex- pression of sensibility, somewhat bordering on melancholy, except when engaged in cheerful and social intercourse with his friends, when they were exceedingly animated. As he advanced in years, >and became incapable of taking his usual degree of exercise, he grew corpulent and unwieldly, till within a few months of his death, when he had greatly decreased in size. When I last saw him, the diminutioij of his form was but too prophetic of the event that soon followed. Here I close my account of the Life of Dr Beattie ; throughr out the whole of which I am not conscious of having, in any res- pect, misrepresented either his actions or his character ; and of whom to record the truth is his best praise, LIFE OF DR BEATTIE. 509 On thus reviewing the long period of forty years that have ela]>sed since the commencement of our intimacy, it is impossible for me not to be deeply affected, by the reflection, that of the nu- merous friends with whom he and I were wont to associate, at the period of our earliest acquaintance, all, I think except three, have already paid their debt to nature ; and that in no long time (how soon is known only to Him, the great Disposer of all events) my gray-hairs shall sink into the grave, and I also shall be numbered with those who have be^n. May a situation so awful make its due impression on my mind ! and may it be my earnest endeavour to employ that short portion of life which yet remains to me, in such a manner, as that when that last dread hour shall come, in which my soul shall be required of me, I may look forward with trembling hope to a happy immortality, through the merits ^d mediation of our ever-blessed Redeemer 1 APPENDIX jyotes and illustrations. Note [A.] p. 12. IT was once my intention to have inserted here the diary Dr Beattie had kept of his perusal of Homer, in which he had scrupulously marked the number of days he had bestowed on each book. But on farther reflection, I have chosen to omit the diary, as thjs exertion of study does not seem to exceed what any young man, with no very extraordinary deg-ree of applica- tion, may accomplish ; and, as the work has swelled in bulk much beyond my original expectation, I am imwilling- to add to it by the insertion of what is unnecessary. I may just add, however, that he has been often heard to say, that it was this first careful perusal of Homer, that gave him a just con- ception of the true nature of epic poetry. How beautifully and correctly he has expressed his ideas of the Epopee in his '« Essay on Poetry," is known to every reader of taste. He has concluded his diary with the following ap- posite quotation : " Qiii cupit optatam cursu contingere metam, " Multa tulit fecitque puer." HoiU-T. Note [B.] p. 16. There have, no doubt, been many extraordinary and well-attested instan- ces of somnambulism ;* and an anecdote of the late Dr Blacklock is not less remarkable than any other to be met with. It is mentioned in Dr Cleghorn's thesis, " De Somno," as having happened at the inn at Kirkcudbright in Scotland, and authenticated by the testimony of Mrs Blacklock, who is still alive, and was present with a numerous company of his friends, who dined with him that day. But as it is already in print,f I am unwilling to swell this Appendix by inserting it here. * " Encyclopaedia Britannica/' Vol. XVII. p. 534. t See Anderson's *< Poets of Great Britain/' Vol. II, p, 1154. Life of Blacklockv 512 APPENDIX. Kote [C] p. 20, Cofiy of the last Will and Testament of James Beattie, LL. D. written by his own Hand, and dated 20th July, 1799. I James Beattie, Doctor of Laws, Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic in Marischal College, Aberdeen, willing to prevent all dispute and litigation about the property I may leave behind me at death ; and being at present, by the goodness of God, in soundness of mind, and in my usual bodily health, do make my last will and testament as follows : To the per- sons after mentioned as the executoi*s of this my will, namely, to Sir Wil- liam Forbes, Baronet, of Pitsligo ; to Robert Arbuthnot, Esq. secretary to the Tl-ustees, &.c. in Edinburgh ; to Major James Mercer, formerly of the forty-ninth regiment ; and to James Farquhar Gordon, Esq. writer to the signet, I bequeath in trust, after payment of all my just debts, to be lent or laid out by them, on sufficient heritable security, the sum of ***** pounds sterling ; and I appoint the legal interest thereof to be applied yearly by them for the use and behoof of my wife, Mary Dun ; and this to continue all the days of her life ; hoping that this provision, with ****** pounds sterling, a-year, to which slie will be entitled from the Widows Fund,* will be fully sufficient for her comfortable support : To my niece, Margaret Valentine, wife of Mr. Professor Glennie of Marischal College, Aberdeen, I bequeath ****** pounds sterling ; and to her thi2 said Margaret Valentine, to whom I and my children, while I had children, were under great obligations, I also bequeath all my household furniture, and all my books and other moveables, ejtcept few books and moveables after mentioned, which I leave as memo- rials of me to other friends ; to her also the said Margaret Valentine, 1 be- queath my picture by my dear friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds, deceased, who made me a present of it, of which picture I know she will be particularly careful, from her regard to me, and on account of the great merit of the work : To my excellent friend, Sir William Forbes, Baronet, of Pitsligo, I bequeath, as a small memorial of our friendship, my silver watch, with a stop and second hand, made with particular care by Gartly, and also the two splendid volumes in quarto of Lavater's *' Physiognomy," which will be found among my other books : To my dear friend, Robert Arbuthnot, Esq. secretary to the Trustees, &c. in Edinburgh, I bequeath my gold-headed cane, which I received as a present from the late William, Lord Nevvliaven, and also my gold ring with the King's head by Tassie, which ring I had the honour to receive from George, Lord Onslow : To the Rev. Dr William Laing in Peterhead, to whom as a friend and as a physician I have often been obliged, I bequeath all my music books, together with ***** pounds sterling, and the telescope which he made for me : and to Miss Beattie Laing, his second daughter, I bequeath the organ which was built by my * A fund established by act of Parliament, for the payment of annuities to the widows of the clergy of the church of Scotland, and the widows of the professors of the universities in that part of the united kingdom. An excellent institntlon \ APPENDIX. W deceased son, James Hay Beattie, and which is now, and for some time past has been, in the dweUing--house of the said Dr Laing* : To my brother, Da- vid Beattie, I bequeath ***** pounds sterling ; and I desire that juy bond, accepted by him for ******* pounds sterling', which I lent him, and on which moi-e than thirteen years interests are now due, may be cancelled and sent to him : To my sister's son, James Dewars or Duers, I bequeath ***** pounds sterling: I beg, my dear friend, James Mercer, Esq. formerly Ma- jor of the forty-ninth regiment, will accept of my Olivet's Cicero in nine volumes quarto, and of my Clarke's Homer in two volumes quarto, as a small acknowledgment of tlie pleasure and improvement, which for almost forty years I have derived from his conversation and friendship : To the Poors Hospital of Aberdeen, I bequeath ****** pounds sterling ; and to the Lunatic Hospital of Aberdeen, I bequeath the same sum of ****** pounds. And after paying these several legacies, I order and appoint, that what may remain of my property may be equally divided between my said niece, Margaret Valentine, and her brother, David Valen- tine, Lieutenant in the Royal Navy ; recommending it to them to give such pecuniary assistance as they may judge reasonable to my brother David Beattie's children. And this I declare to be my last will and testament. And I appoint and nominate the said Sir William Forbes, Baronet, of Pit- sligo, the said Robert Arbuthnot, Esq. the said Major James Mercer, and the said James Farquhar Gordon, Esq. jointly, or any two of them accept- ing and surviving, to be the executors of this my last will and testament, bequeathing to each of these executors the sum of **** pounds sterling, as a small acknowledgment for their trouble in e.xecuting this my said will : Reserving to myself the privilege of making at any time, by a codicil or co- dicils annexed, or in any other way I may think proper, such alterations in, er additions to, this my will, as may to me appear reasonable. In witness whereof, these presents, written with my own hand on this and the preced- ing page, are subscribed by me at Aberdeen, the twentieth day of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine years, before these witnesses, John Arthur, sacrist of Marischal College, and George Pirie, porter of Maris- chal College. (Signed) J. Beattie. (Signed) Johw Arthur, witness. George Pirie, witness. Note [D.] p. 21. James, the fourteenth Earl of Erroll, was the eldest son of William the unfortunate Earl of Kilmarnock, (who lost his head on Tower-Hill, 18th August, 1746,) by Lady Anne Livingston, only child and heiress of James, Earl of Linlithgow and Callander, by Lady Margaret Hay, second daughter of John, twelfth Earl of Erroll ; on the death of whose Eldest sister, Mary, Countess of Erroll in her own right, in the year 1758, her grand-nephew, known at that time by the title of Lord Boyd, as eldest son of Lord Kilmar- nock, succeeded to the earldom and estate of Erroll , tlius uniting in his 3 T- 514 APPENDIX. person the four earldoms of Erroll, Kilmarnock, Linlithgow, and Callaji- der,* as well as the ancient dignity of Lord High Constable of Scotland, which had been long enjoyed by the Earls of Erroll, and had been reserved to them by the Articles of Union of the two kingdoms, as well as by the act of Parliament abolishing the heritable jurisdictions of Scotland in the yeac 1749. I cannot better delineate the character of tliis amiable and accomplished nobleman, than by the following extract of a letter from Dr Beattie to Mrs Montagu, giving her an account of Lord ErroU's death, which happened the 3d June, 1778, in the fifty-second year of his age. " Lord Erroirs death, of which you must have heard, is a great loss to thif " country, and matter of unspeakable regret to his friends. I owed him *' much : but, independently on all considerations of gratitude, I had a sin- " cere liking and very great esteem for him. In his maimers he was wonder- *» fully agreeable, a most affectionate and attentive parent, husband, and " brother, elegant in his economy, and perhaps expensive, yet exact andme- ** thodical. He exerted his influence as a man of rank and a magistrate ia " doing good to all the neighbourhood ; and it has often been mentioned to ** his honour, that no man ever administered an oath with a more pious and *' commanding solemnity than he. He was regular in his attendance upon ** public worship, and exemplary in the performance of it. In a word, *' he was adored by his servants, a blessing to his tenants, and the darling ** of the whole country. His stature was six feet four inches, and his pro- ** portions most exact. His countenance and deportment exhibited such a " mixture of the sublime and the graceful, as I have never seen united in ** any other man. He often put me in mind of an ancient hero ; and I re-' ** member Dr Samuel Johnson was positive, that he resembled Homer's " character of Sarpedon." To the truth of every part of this account by Dr Beattie, of the late Lord Erroll, I can bear ample testimony; as I had the happiness of his Lord- ship's acquaintance, and was honoured with his friendship, of which he gave me a strong proof, by appointing me one of the guardians of his children. I may add, that were I desired to specify the man of the most graceful form, the most elegant, polished, and popular manners, whom I have ever known in my long intercourse with society, I should not hesitate to name James, Earl of En'oll. At the coronation of his present Majesty, Lord Erroll officiated as Lord High Constable of Scotland. Note [E.] p. 22. The diary, as I have it, commences on the 6th January, 1762, on the rcr . assembling of his class after the Christmas holidays : but as it refers on the top of the page to a former diary of the preceding part of that ses- sion, it had most probably comprehended the whole period of his lectures * The three last had been attainted in the persons of the Earl of Linlithgow and Callander ih the year 1715, and of the Earl of Kilmarnock In the year 1745 : But had those attainders not" taken place, the right of succession to those dignities centered in I-ord KrroU. APPENDIX. • 51S from their comniencement. It is written with uncommon neatness* and even elegance of penmanship, to which he was always extremely attentive, in the form of a kalendar^ and continued without interruption to he 2d April, when the winter- session of the year 1792-3 was closed with the usual graduation of masters of arts. When the delicate state of his health is con- sidered, shattered as it was by intense application to study in the compo- sition of his various works, it must appear wonderful, that he was able to deliver his lectures from year to year, with so little interruption from indis- position. Note, [F*.] p. 26. I am indebted for this account of the Philosophical Society of Aberdeen, not only to their manuscript records, now in my possession, but to the Life of Dr Gregory, prefixed to his works, p. 37. This elegant account of the. late Dr Gregory is anonymous. But it is well known to be written by my friend the Honourable Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, one of the Judges of the Supreme Civil Court of Law of Scotland, to whom the public is also indebted for a valuable and truly original " Essay on the Prin- ** ciples of Translation ;" as well as fur an excellent critique on the poetical works of our Scottish " Theocritus," Allan Ramsay : although to neither of these classical performances has his modesty suffered him to prefix his name. He has also published. "Elements of General Hi.story, Ancient and '* Modern;" a performance of much merit, of which he has acknowledged himself to be the author, as it contains the outlines of a course of public lec- tures, delivered by him in the university of Edinburgh, in which he was Professor of universal history, before he was raised to the Bench. Lord Woodhouselee was also one of the elegant writers to wJxom we are indebted for those two excellent periodical works, the *' Mirror" and •* I^ounger," published at Edinburgh.* Some account of the Philosophical Society of Aberdeen, will likewise be found in the Supplement to the " Encyclopedia Britannica," Vol. I. p. 699. article, Life of Dr Gerard. Note [F.] p. 34. This and the three following notes were meant for the preservation of some pieces of Dr Beattie's poetry, published in the two first editions of his poems, though omitted in his later editions ; but which I had thought it a pity should be lost. But on farther reflection, it has been judged expedient to retain only the " Ode to Peace," of which two stanzas are already in- serted in the text, at p. 50. and which appears to be of superior beau- ty. The Epitaph on himself is also preserveil,. for the reason assigned in the text. The reader will therefore be pleased to pardon the inaccuracy of the references here. • TMs Letter of reference is by mistake repeated. t See Note [DDJ 516 APPENDIX. The concluding lines of the *' Hares** are inserted here, as mentioned in the text, p. 34 note [F ] ; because it is not meant to print the fable itself in the projected new edition of his " Works in Prose and Verse.** ** Now from the western mountain's brow, ** Compassed with clouds of various glow, •* The sun a broader orb displays, ** And shoots aslope his ruddy rays. ** The lawn assumes a fresher green, " And dew-drops spangle all the scene, *♦ The balmy zephyr breathes along, '* The shepherd sings his tender song ; ** With all their lays the groves resound " And falling waters murmur round. ** Discord and Care were put to flight, " And all was peace and calm delight.'* Note [G.] p. 36. ODE TO PEACE. WRITTEN IN THE YEAR l758. I. 1. PEACE, heaven-descended maid ! whose powerfiil voice From ancient darkness called the mom ; And hushed of jarring elements the noise, When Chaos, from his old dominion torn. With all his bellowing throng. Far, far was hurled the void abyss along ; And all the bright angelic choir, Striking, through all their ranks, the eternal lyre. Poured, in loud symphony, the impetuous strain ; And every fiery orb and planet sung. And wide, through night's dark solitary reign. Rebounding long and deep, the lays triumphant rung ! I. 2. Oh, whitlier art thou fled, Saturnian Age ! Roll round again, majestic years ! To break the sceptre of tyrannic rage ; From Woe's wan cheek to wfpe the bitter tears ; Ye years, again roll round ! Hark ! from afar what desolating sound. While echoes load the sighing gales. With dire presage the throbbing heart assails ! Murder, deep-roused, with all the whirlwind's haste, And roar of tempest, from her cavern springs. APPENDIX. ait Her tangled serpents girds around her waist. Smiles ghastly fierce, and shakes her gore-distilling wings. I. 3. The shouts, redoubling, rise In thunder to the skies ; The nymphs, disordered, dart along. Sweet powers of solitude and song, Stunned with the horrors of discordant sound ; And all is listening, trembUng round. Torrents, far heard amid the waste of night, That oft have led the wanderer right, Are silent at the noise. The mighty Ocean's more majestic voice. Drowned in superior din, is heard no more ; The surge in silence seems to sweep the foamy shore, II. 1. The bloody banner, streaming in the air. Seen on yon sky-mixt mountain's brow, ^Y The mingling multitudes, the maddning car, Driven in confusion to the plain below. War's dreadful lord proclaim. Bursts out, by frequent fits, the expansive flame ; Snatched in tempestuous eddies, flies The surging smoke o'er all the darkened skies ; The cheerful face of heaven no more is seen ; The bloom of morning fades to deadly pale : The bat flies transient o'er the dusky green. And night's foul birds along the sullen twilight isail. II. 2. Involved in fire streaked gloom, the car comes on , The rushing steeds grim Terror guides. His forehead writhed to a relentless frown. Aloft the angiy power of battle rides. Grasped in his mighty hand A mace tremendous desolates the land ; The tower rolls headlong down the steep, The mountain shrinks before its wasteful sweep. Chill horror the dissolving limbs invades, Smit by the blasting lightning of his eyes ; A deeper gloom invests the howling shades ; Stripped is the shattered grove, and every verdure dies. SiB APPENDIX. II. 3. How startled Phrensy stares. Bristling" her ragged hairs ! Kevenge the gory fragment ^awa ; See, with her griping vultui*e-claws Imprinted deep, she rends the mangled wound ? Hate whirls her torch sulphureous round. The shrieks of agony, and clang of arms. Re-echo to the hoarse alarms, Her trump terrific blows. Disparting from behind, the clouds dii^closft, Of kingly gesture, a gigantic forhi. That with his scourge sublime rules th6 cate^ringTStotin. in. 1. Ambition, outside fair I within as foul As fiends of fiercest heart below. Who ride the hurricanes of fire, that roll Their thundering vortex o'er the realms, of ,woe» . ^ Yon naked waste survey ; >. uor no r* j -^ Where late was heard the flute's mellifluous lay ; Where late the rosy-bosomed hours, In loose array, danced lightly o'er the flowers ; Where late the shepherd told his tender tale ; And, wakened by the murmuring breeze of morn, The voice of cheerful labour filled the dale ; And dove-eyed Plenty smiled, and waved her liberal horn. III. 2. Yon ruins, sable from the wasting flame, But mark the once resplendent dome ; The frequent corse obstructs the sullen stream, And ghosts glare horrid from the sylvan gloom. How sadly silent all ! Save where outstretched beneath yon hanging wall, Pale Famine moans with feeble breath. And Anguish yells, and grinds his bloody teeth. Though vain the muse, and every melting lay. To touch thy heart, unconscious of remorse ! Know, monster, know, thy hour is on the way ; I see, I see the years begin their mighty course. III. 3. What scenes of glory rise Before my dazzled eyes ! Young zephyrs wave their wanton wings, And melody celestial rings. APPENDIX. 5i9 All blooming on the lawn the nymphs advance. And touch the lute, and range the dance : And the blithe shepherds, on the mountain's side. Arrayed in all their rural pride. Exalt the festive note, Inviting Echo from her inmost grot— - But ah ! the landscape glows with fainter light ; It darkens, swims, and flies for ever from my sight, IV. 1. Illusions vain ! Can sacred Peace reside Where sordid gold the breast alarms. Where cruelty inflames the eye of pride. And grandeur wantons in soft pleasures arms ? Ambition, these are thine ! These from the soul erase the form divine ; And quench the animating fire. That warms the bosom with sublime desire. Thence the relentless heart forgets to feel. And hatred triumphs on the o'erwhelming brow. And midnight Rancour grasps the cruel steel. Blaze the blue flames of death, and sound tlie shrieks of woe: IV. 2. From Albion fled, thy once beloved retreat, What regions brighten in thy smile, Creative Peace ! and underneath thy feet See sudden flowers adorn the rugged soil ? In bleak Siberia blows, Waked by thy genial breath, the balmy rose ? Waved over by thy magic wand. Does life inform fell Lybia's burning sand ? Or does some isle thy parting flight detain. Where roves the Indian through primaeval shades ; Haunts the pure pleasures of the sylvan reign, And, led by Reason's light, the path of nature treads ? IV. 3. On Cuba's utmost steep,* Far leaning o'er the deep. The Goddess' pensive form was seen. Her robe, of Nature's varied green, Waved on the gale ; grief dimmed her radiant eyes, * This alluded to the discovery of America by the Spaniards under Columbus. Those ra- vagere are said to have made their first descent on the islands in the Gulf of Florida^ of which Cuba is one 520 APPENDIX. Her bosom heaved with boding sighs. She eyed the main ; where, gaining on the view, Emerging from the ethereal blue, Midst the dread pomp of war. Blazed the Iberian streamer from afar. She saw ; and, on refulgent pinions borne. Slow winged her way sublime, and mingled with the morn. From p. 36* EPITAPH ON ***• *•»**•* ESCAPED the gloom of mortal life, a soul Here leaves its mouldering tenement of clay, Safe, where no cares their whelming billows roll. No doubts bewilder, and no hopes betray. Like thee, I once have stemmed the sea of life ; Like thee, have languished after empty joys ; Like thee, have laboured in the stormy strife ; Been grieved for trifles, and amused with toys. Yet for a while 'gainst Passion's threatful blast Let steady Reason urge the struggling oar ; Shot through the dreary gloom, the morn at last Gives to thy longing eye the blissful shore. Forget my frailties, tliou art also frail ; Forgive my lapses, for thyself may'st fall ; Nor read, unmoved, my artless tender tale, — I was a friend, O man, to thee, to all. - In perusing this beautiful Epitaph, the reader will be in some places re- minded of Gray's *' Elegy in a Country Church -yard." Whether Beattie had that poem in his eye while he was writing, cannot with any certainty be discovered. Gray's " Elegy in a Country Church-yard," was first publish- ed, in a quarto sixpenny pamphlet, by Dodsley, in 1750 ; it was afterwards published, along with some other of Mr Gray's poems, in 1753 ; vvhereas this Elegy of Dr Beattie's was first printed in the " Scots Magazine" only in 1757. It is, therefore, possible, that Dr Beattie may have seen the Elegy of Gray before he wrote his own. But when his obscurity at that time is considered, and the little access he had to books, it is, I think, much more probable, that it had never come within his view. It is, however, of no con- sequence ; for any coincidence of thought between the two, is merely a proof, how much one man of genius may imitate another, without servilely copying him. % N. B, The letter of reference accidentally omitted. APPENDIX. 521 Note [K.] p. 37. I am indebted to my friend. Lord Woodhouselee, whose classical taste in every branch of polite literature, especially on the subject of " Transla- ** tion,*' is justly entitled to high commendation, for an excellent paper of critical observations on the translations of the " Bucolics of Virgil," by Dry- den, Warton, and Beattie ; and I confess I was ag-reeably surprised to find the result so favourable to Beattie, who, soon after his translations were pub- lished, declared, that he was ashamed of them, and wished them to be for ever consigned to obhvion. We do not hear that either Dry den or Warton thought so meanly of their translations, though the former was one of the best of the English poets, and the latter possessed of poetical genius and a refined critical taste. LORD WOODHOUSELEE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES. Edinburgh, 10th Januaiy, 1804. «* AS you expressed a wish to have my opinion of the comparative merits of the three translations of the "Eclogues of Virgil," by Dryden, Warton, and Beattie, it has been a very pleasing amusement to me in a few leisure holiday -hours, to make this comparison ; and I now sit down to com- ply with your request. In matters of this sort, general approbation or cen- sure is of little value. On the otherhand, we risk being tedious, if we go too much into particulars. I shall endeavour, if I can, to avoid both extremes. "Of the three rival translations, I think Dr Warton's the most faithful to the sense of the original, the least faulty, and in general, though not always, the most poetical. " Dryden, in the usual licentiousness of his translations, while he fre- quently loads his original with his own supposed embellishments, more fre- quently impairs the sense by the omission of material ideas. Thus in Ec- logue first, the beautiful apostrophe, ** Fortunate senex, bic, inter fiumina notOt " Etfontes sacros,frigus captabis opacum" is left out altogether. Warton gives it faithfully, " Happy old man ! here, midst the customed streams, " And sacred springs, you'll shun the scorching beams." Beattie, with more beauty of poetry, but less fidelity, as he omits the expres- sive repetition oi fortunate senex, " You, by known streams and sacred fountains laid, ** Shall taste the coolness of the sacred shade.'* " In the finest passage of the same Eclogue, Dryden is extremely poor : " En unquam patrios longo post tempore fines ^ ** Pauperis et tuguri congestum cespite culmeUf " Post aliquot, mea regna videns, mirabor aristas .'. ** Impius hcec tain culta novaiia iniles habebit ? " Barbarus has segetes ? En quo discordia cives *' Perduxit miserosf En qiieis consevimus agros /'* ^ APPENDIX. *' O must the wretched exiles ever moum, " Nor after length of rolling" years return ! ** Are we condemned by Fate's unjust decree ** No more our houses and our homes to see I ** Or shall we mount again the rural throne, " And rule the country kingdoms all our own I ** Did we for these barbarians plant and sow ? ** On these, on these our happy fields bestow ? ** Good heaven ! what dire effects from civil discord flow !*' Dryden. Nor does Beattie's version of this passage deserve much praise : " When long, long years have tedious rolled away, *< Ah ! shall I yet at last, at last survey ** My dear paternal lands, and dear abode, •* Where once I reigned in walls of humble sod ! ** These lands, these harvests must the soldier share : " For rude barbarians lavish we our care ! ** How are our fields become the spoil of wars ! <* How are we ruined by intestine jars !" it is much better rendered by Warton ; though still with inferior beauty to the original : ** Ah ! shall I never once again behold, " When many a year in tedious round has rolled, *' My native seats ? Ah, ne'er with ravished thought ** Gaze on my little realm, and turf-built cot ? " What \ must these rising crops barbarians share ? " These well-tiUed fields become the spoils of war ? *' See, to what misery Discord drives the swain ! " See for what lords we spread the teeming grain !" Ibid. ** Sic ilium vidi juvenem, iSi'c. " Pascite ut ante boves, pueri^^ Isfc. *« There first the youth of heavenly birth I viewed, " For whom our monthly victims are renewed ; ** He heard my vows, and graciously decreed " My grounds to be restored, my former flocks to feed." Dryden. Jt is evident that a beauty is here lost, by tlie omission of the apostrophe in the close. '* 'Twas there these eyes the heaven-born youth beheld, ** For whom our altars monthly incense yield : " My suit he even prevented, while he spoke,-— " Manure your ajicient farm, and feed your former flock !" B^ATTIE. APPENDIX. ^ This were well, but for the omission of the courteous appellative />uen', which is a characteristic stroke. " My suit he even prevented," is a very happy turn. Dr Warton is more correct, but with less beauty of poetry : *' There I that youth beheld, for whom shall rise ** Each year my votive incense to the skies ; *• 'Twas there this gracious answer blessed mine ear, — ** Swains, feed again your flocks, and yoke your steers \^ Warton- " In the second Eclogue, *' At mecutn raucist iua dum vestigia lustro, " Sole sub ardenti resonant arbusta cicadis" Dryden debases this passage of simple description by a ludicrous conceit : " While, in the scorching sun, I trace in vain "Thy flying footsteps o*er the burning plain, ** The creaking locusts with my voice conspire ; ** They fried with heat, and I with fierce desire." Dryden. Warton injures it, by an absurd attempt to give it digtiity : ** Thee, while I follow o'er the burning plains, *« And join the shrill Cicada^s plaintive strains." WVrton, Beattie has succeeded without any effort, by the justness of his taste : " And all is still ; save where the buzzing sound " Of chirping grashoppers is heard around : ** While I, exposed to all the rage of heat, " Wander the wilds in search of thy retreat." Beattie. " It required much judgment to avoid indelicacy of expression, and at the same time to convey the full sense, in some passages of the third Eclogue : as, " Parcius ista viris ** Kovimus et qui fe," l!fc. Here Dryden is most offensive and disgusting : Beattie is too plain : War- ton is more delicate, and not less faithful to the original. Ibid. I " De grege non ausim quicquam deponere tecum : ** Est mi hi namque dom.i pater, est injusta noverca" Warton and Beattie saw nothing scurrilous in this passage ; but Dryden de- lighted to make it so : " You know too well I feed my father's flock ; " What can I wager from the common stock ? *' A step-dame too I have, a cursed she, " Who rules my hen-pecked sire, and orders me.*' Ibid. " Conon, et quisfuit alter,** iSfc. Warton has missed this fine stroke of rustic simplicity; Dryden and Beattie have both done it justice. S24> APPENDIX. " The fourth Eclogue, Pollio, of a different stram from all the rest, is, in my opinion, better translated by Beattie than by either of his rival poets. Dryden, whose genius could have done the most ample justice to the sub- ject, has failed, in some instances, from a bad taste, but in more from care- lessness. He had a strange fancy for giving variety to the heroic measure by a sort of double Alexandrine : *« — Majestic months set out with him to their appointed race — « — Another Argos land the chiefs upon the Iberian shore — ** — And joyful ages from behind in crowding ranks appear" — This measure is extremely harsh and unmusical, and gives a burlesque air, instead of dignity. ** The beautiful passage in the close of this Eclogue, *' Incipe, parve pueVy risu cognoscere matrem ; *♦ Matri longa decern tuleruntfastidia tnenses :" is thus debased : *• Begin, auspicious, boy, to cast about *' Thy infant eyes, and with a smile thy mother single out : ** Thy mother well deserves that short delight, " The nauseous qualms often long months, and travel to requite." The critics, on this passage of the original, are divided in opinion, whether the risus, or smile, is meant of the mother or of the child. Warton applies it to the former ; Dryden and Beattie to the latter : and as the expression in the original is ambiguous, the preference is merely a matter of taste : I think, for my own part, the latter sense gives a greater beauty to the picture, as well as more propriety to the associated sentiments. " In the sixth Eclogue, the description of sleeping Silenus is better in Beattie's translation than in either of the others ; though not excellent in any of them. None of the three translators have given the full sense of ** Infiatutn hesterno venas, ut semper laccho^'' Dryden's " Doz'd with his fumes, and heavy with his load," conveys but a small part of the meaning : The significant parenthesis, "wf " semper t^* is missed by them all. " In Eclogue seventh^ the pleasing apostrophe, ** Muscosifontes, et somno onoUior herba," Isfc. is translated by Beattie with more beauty of poetry than by either of his rivals: " Ye mossy fountains, warbling as ye flow, *• And softer than the slumbers ye bestow ; ** Ye grassy banks, ye trees with verdure crowned, <* Whose leaves a glimmering shade diffuse around ; •* Grant to my weary flocks a cool retreat, " And screen them from the summer's raging heat ! " For now the year in brightest glory shines ; f* Now reddening clusters deck the bending vines." Peattip. APPENDIX. 413^; It is pity that this fine passage should lose any thing of its merit from the mistaken sense in the last line. Gemma are the buds of the vine, and not the reddening clusters. " ^cim, venit astas torrida" does not imply that it is now the season of summer, (which would indeed demand clusters and not buds) but that the summer is approaching-. If it be objected, that the mention of the solstice in the preceding line proves the season to be midsummer, the answer is, that the poet has hercconfounded all the seasons : for in the next response of Thyrsis, the time of viinter is plainly marked, ** Hic focus et tadce pingues^ hic plurimus ignis. *' JItc tanttitn Borece curatnus frigora .*" then in a moment we return to springs *' Omtiia nunc rident,''* Isfc. The characters of the season cannot therefore justify the substitution of clusters for buds. " In the eighth Eclogue, ** Sepibus in nostris, parvam. te roscida malap ** fBux ego tester eram) vidi cum matre legentem : ** Alter ab undecimo turn mejaon caper at annus ; *' 'yamfragiles poteram, a terra contingere ramos : " Ut vidiy ut perii, ut me tnalus abstulit error .'" It was most difficult to rival in any translation the singular beauty -^f this ori- ginal, and certainly impossible to exceed it. Beattie and Dryden are here much on a par ; neither of them approaching to excellence, nor yet remark- ably deficient : Warton is somewhat better: ** Once with your mother to our fields you came ** For dewy apples — thence I date my flame. *' The choicest fruit I pointed to your view, " Though young, my raptured soul was fixed on you ! ** The boughs I scarce could reach with little arms, *' But then, even then, could feel thy powerful charms ; ** Oh, how I gazed in pleasing transport tost ! *■* How glov^ ed my heart in sweet delusion lost !'* A corresponding passage in the Aminta shews that Tasso, had he translated from virgil, could have equalled his original : ** Essendo to fanciullettOt si che a pena ■ ** Giunger potea con la m,an pargolletta " A corre iftutti dai piegati rami *' Da gli arboscelliy intrinseco divenni ** De la piu vaga e car a verginella ** Che Tnai spiegasse al vento chiotna d'oro^^ i^c. In pastoral poetry it is often difficult to attain simplicity, without deviating, on the one hand, into coarseness and vulgarity, or, on the other, into flat- ness and insipidity. The delicacy of Beattie's taste secured him against the former of these errors ; but it has not preserved him from fiUling at times into the feeble and prosaic. i^ APPENDIX. ** ficlogue ninth ; " The unexpected day at last is come, *• When a rude alien drives us from our home : " Hence, hence, ye clowns, the usurper thus commandii ** To me you must resign your ancient lands. «' Thus, helpless and forlorn, we yield to fate ; *« And our rapacious lord to mitigate, ** This brace of kids a present I design ; " Which load with curses, O ye Powers divine !" Beat TIE. But yet this is better than the vulgar ribaldry of Dryden : " The time is come I never thought to see, " (Strange revolution for my farm and me !) ** When the grim captain, in a surly tone, " Cries out, Pack up, ye rascals, and begone ! *' Kicked out, we set the best face on't we could, ** And these two kids, to appease his angry mood, ** I bear, of which the Furies give him good." " It were easy, dear Sir, to carry this parallel to a much greater length : but enough has been said to answer the end you wished. My opinion you may infer to be this : That of the three translations in question, Warton's is, on the whole, the most perfect ; though he has occasionally been excelled in particular passages by both the others : that Beattie's translation, though not equally correct, being in many instances flat and prosaic, has, in the more remarkable and splendid passages, done most justice to the original : and that Dryden, with superior native genius to either of his rivals, has, from carelessness and a defect of taste, in a work which chiefly depended on taste, fallen below them both. There is certainly room for a better translation of the ** Pastorals of Virgil,'* than any we have yet seen. But, when we con- sider the early age at which Beattie's version must have been composed, and the great improvement of his poetic powers, evinced in his latter composi- tions, I think it is fair to conclude, that had he given to this translation such amendment as he was capable of bestowing, it wculd have been hazardous in any poet of the present day to have trodden the same ^'ound." Note [L.] p. 46. I have said in the text, at the place referred to, that the " Judgment of ** Paris" never was a popular poem, probably owing to its being of too me- taphysical a nature, and that it has therefore sunk into oblivion ; so that I scarcely think it necessary to revive the memory of it, by the insertion here of the two letters alluded to, and the introductory stanzas, noth withstanding their beauty of description ; as I find, in order to have done this with proper effect, and in the manner I first intended, I must have inserted no fewer than nine-and-twenty stanzas of the poem ; a greater proportion of it than the purpose seems to warrant. APPENDIX. 527 Note [M] p. 49. I once thought of giving- some farther account of Churchill, and of in- serting the lines here, with the omission only of the last couplet. But as Churchill is a name so well known to every reader of poetry in Britain, I now think it unnecessary to swell this Appendix with any thing farther than what is already said of him ; and as the lines relate to political circumstan- ces, long since out of date, they may also be dispensed with. Note [N.] p. 53. As an elegant biographical sketch of the life and writings of Dr Black- lock, written by my friend Mr Henry Mackenzie, and prefixed to a posthu- mous publication of the Doctor's poems, is already in print, it may seem unnecessary, as well as a piece of great presumption in me, to say any thing here on the subject. But as so strong a friendship subsisted between Dr Beattie and Dr Blacklock, who were in truth congenial spirits, I feel a de- sire to make this amiable and worthy man better known to such of my read- ers as may not have met with the posthumous publication of his poems, and Mr Mackenzie's biographical sketch. The Revertnd Dr Thomas Blacklock, — a man very extraordinary at once for his talents as a poet and philosopher, for his acquired knowledge as a scholar, and his virtues as a man and a Christian, — had the misfortune to lose his sight by the small-pox before he was six months old ; an age so early, as not to leave with him the slightest remembrance of his having ever possessed that blessing. Though his father was in no higher station than a bricklayer, he gave his son such acquaintance with books as he could, by reading, to amuse him ; and his companions assisted in the task, by whose means he acquired some knowledge of Latin. At nineteen hs lost his father ; yet he was not left destitute of friends, whom Providence brought to his aid. Among others, Dr Stevenson, physician in Edinburgh, having accidentally learned his history, gave to his natural endowments the assist- ance of a classical education in that university. His acquired knowledge of ancient and modern languages, and of various branches of science, was tru- ly astonishing, not only as an instance of the strongest and most retentive memory, but of the native powers of mind, applied to the most abstruse sub- jects, under circumstances the most unpropitious. While at Edinburgh, he published a volume of poems, which attracted the notice of Mr Spence, prebendary of Durham, who wrote an account of his life and character, prefixed to an edition published afterwards in London by subscription. If the descriptions and imagery, which his poetry exhibits, be deemed the result of memory merely, of things of which he never could ^lave had any knowledge, the reader will at the same time find in them the qualities of fancy, tenderness, and sublimity, the thoughts, as well as the elegance and vigour of expression, which characterise the genuine produc- 528 APPENDIX. tions of tlie poetical talent. One other praise, says his biographer, which the good will value, belongs to them in a high degree ; they breathe the purest spirit of piety, virtue and benevolence.* After applying some time to the study of theology, he became a minis- ter of the church of Scotland, and is said to have excelled as a preacher. But the inhabitants of the parish in which he had been placed, having, through prejudice formed against him from his want of sight, made strong opposition to his settlement, he resigned the living, on receiving a small an- nuity, and returned to Edinburgh, where he ever after resided. Beside his poetical compositions, he published several works in prose, of a moral and religious tendency, which do him honour as a philosopher and a Christian, particularly, " Paraclesis, or. Consolations deduced from Na- <* tural and Revealed Religion," in two Dissertations : the first, supposed to be written by Cicero, and translated by Dr Blacklock ; the other, original, by himself. In the " Encylopaedia Britannica," the article on the Blindy written by him, is both curious and instructive. To those qualities of mind, whether native or acquired, for which he was so remarkable, Dr Blacklock added the utmost goodness of heart, as well as gentleness of manner, but accompanied with the keenest sensibiUty. In his friendship he was warm to enthusiasm. Of this his correspondence with Dr Beattie affords a striking proof. Their spirits were congenial, and they loved each other with great affection. Dr Beattie's and Dr Blacklock's first intercourse seems to have arisen From a present, which Dr Blacklock had sent him of his works, accompanied by a copy of verses ; to which Dr Beattie replied in a similar manner. It is an ethic epistle, and, in my opinion, of so much merit, that I am sorry Dr Beattie has left it out of the later editions of his poetical works. His peculiar misfortune gave him a high relish for the pleasures of con- vei*sation. In the circle of his friends he seemed to forget the privation of sight, and the melancholy which at other times it produced ; and he entered, with the cheerful playfulness of a young man, into all the sprightly narrative, the sportful fancy, and the Immorous jest, tliat rose around him. Of music he was uncommonly fond ; as was extremely natural for one who was blessed with a musical ear, and who found in it a greater source of delight, from the want of other pleasures from which he was shut out by his blindness. He sung with taste; and always carried in his pocket a small flageolet, on which he was by no means averse from being asked to per- form, for the amusement of those with whom he happened to be in com- pany. With Dr Blacklock I had the happiness of being well acquainted ; and I look back with gratitude to his memory, for the many instructive hours which I have enjoyed in his company. The last act of Dr Beattie's friendship for Dr Blacklock, was the com- position of the following elegant and classical inscription, which is engraved • Mr Mackenzie's "Life of Dr Blacklpck," prefixed to the posthumous publication of his works. APPENDIX. 5S9 on his monument at Edinburgh, where he died the 7th July, 1791, in th^ seventieth year of his age. Viro reverendo THOMiE BLACKLOCK, D. D. Proboi Pioy Benevolo, Omnigend Doctrind erndito, Poet* ken by the order of his present Majesty, for making Discoveries in the ** Southern Hemisphere :" a pubhcation, which, though it produced to Dr Hawkesworth alargesum of money, :j:| added little to his fame as an author, or to his reputation as a moralist. In the preface to that publication, are some very vague and ill-digested ideas respecting the doctrine of a particu- lar Providence ; and some parts of his narrative respecting the manners and customs of the natives of Otaheite, if too strongly verified to admit of any doubt as to the truth of the story, had better, for the credit of human nature, and the good of society, have remained unpublished to the world. Dr Hawkesworth lived at Bromley, in Kent, where I had the pleasure of his acquaintance, and died 16th November, 1783, aged fifty-eight. The fol- lowing beautiful quotation from the concluding paper of the " Adventurer," closes the inscription on his monument in Bromley church : *' The hour is ** hasting,inwhich whatever praise or censure I have acquired will be remem- **bered with equal indifference. Time, who is impatient to date my last ** paper, will shortly moulder the hand which is now writing it in the dust, • Green hollows, t Birch-trees. t Brook. § Meanders. P Hums, K Soft. •* KnoUs. tt Blow. a It is saii, no less than six thoosand pounds. APPENDIX. 533 *' and still the breast that now throbs at the reflection. But let not this be •* read as something that relates only to another ; for a few years only can " divide the eye that is now reading, from the hand that has written.** Note [R.] p. 105. Major Mercer was the son of a private gentleman in Aberdeenshire, who, having joined the Highland army in the year 1745, retired to France after the battle of CuUoden, where he resided till his death. His son receiv- ed his education at the Marischal College, Aberdeen, and afterwards went to reside with his father at Paris. There he spent his time in elegant society, and devoted his leisure hours to the cultivation of letters. Thus he acquired those polished manners, and that taste for study, by which he was ever after so highly distinguished. He possessed, too, a very high degree of elegant and chastised wit and humour, which made his company to be universally sought after by those who had the happiness of his friendship or acquaint- ance. On the death of his father he returned to Scotland, and soon afterwards entered into the army, at the commencement of the Seven Years War ; dur- ing the greatest part of wliich he served.in Germany under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, and was in one of the six British regiments of infantry, that gained such reputation for their gallantry at the memorable battle of Min- den. The regiment in which he afterwards served, being reduced at the Peace of Paris, he returned to Aberdeen, where he married Miss Katharine Dou- glas, sister to Lord Glenbervie, a beautiful and accomplished woman, witli whom he lived many years in much happiness. In order to fill up the vacant hours of his then unemployed situation, he devoted his time chiefly to books, and in particular recommenced the study of the Greek language, (of which he had acquired the rudiments under the learned Dr Blackwell at Marischal College) with such assiduity, that Dr Beattie, in anotlier letter, says, he doubted whether there were in Scotland at that time six gentlemen who knew Greek so well as Major Mercer. Then it was, that by attention to the purest models of antiquity, he corrected that partiality for French literature, which he had strongly imbibed by his early habits of study at Paris. Not long after, he again entered into the army, in which he continued to serve till about the year 1772, when he had arrived at the rank of Major. But he then quitted the profession, and only resumed a military character, when he held a commission in a regiment of Fencibles during the American war. On the return of peace he retired with his family to Aberdeen, where he conti-nued chiefly to reside during the rest of his life. An acquaintance had first taken place between him and Dr Beattie, onliis return to Aberdeen, after the Seven Years War ; and as their taste in books and tlieir favourite studies were in some respects entirely similar, a lasting friendship ensued, which proved to both a source of the highest enjoyment. ^4 APPENDIX. Major Mercer's acquaintance with books, especially of poetry and beltf.s lettres, both ancient and modern, was not only uncommonly extensive, but he himself possessed a rich and g-enuine poetical vein, that led him, for his own amusement solely, to the composition of some highly finished lyric pieces. These he carefully concealed, however, from the knowledge of even almost all his most intimate friends ; and it was with much difficulty that his brother- in-law, Lord Glenbervie, at length could prevail on him to permit a small collection to be printed, first anonymously, afterwards with his name. In perusing these beautiful poems, the reader, I think, will find they possess much original genius, and display a taste formed on the best classic writers of Greece and Rome, whose spirit their author had completely imbibed, es- pecially of Horace, who seems to have been the model whom he had propos- ed to himself for his imitation. A few years ago. Major Mercer had the misfortune to lose his wife, af- ter a long course of severe indisposition, during which he had tended her with the most anxious assiduity. Of that misfortune, indeed, he may be said never to have got the better ; and he survived her little more than t\^o years. That circumstance gave occasion to some elegant lines which Mr Hayley addressed to Lord Glenbervie, soon after Major Mercer's death.* He had long been in a very valetudinary, nervous state, till at last his consti- tution entirely failed, and he expired without a struggle or a pang, in the seventy-first year of his age. Besides possessing no ordinary share of knowledge both of books and men, (for in the course of his military life especially, he had lived much in society of various sorts,) and being one of the pleasantest companions I ever knew. Major Mercer was a man of much piety, strict in the observance of all the ordinances of religion, and of high honour in every transaction of life. Being my relation, although somewhat older, he was one of the earliest companions of my playful hours ; and we continued through life the steadiest friends and most constant correspondents. It is, therefore, with a melancho- ly yet pleasing satisfaction, that I lookback on tliat intercourse of friendship, which subsisted between us during more than half a century, without inter- ruption and without decay. Major Mercer was bom 27th February, 1734, and died 18th November, 1804. * EPITAPH FOR MAJOR MERCER. Around this grave, ye types of merit spread! Here Mercer shares the Sabbath of the dead : Ye laurels, here, with double lustre, bloom. To deck a soldier's and a poet's tomb • Gracefully pleasing in each manly part ! pis verses, like his virtues, win the heart. Grateful for wedded bliss, (for years his pride !) He lost it, and, by fond affliction, died. Here, Sculpture ! fix thy emblematic dove. To grace the martyr of connubial love ! Hail, ye just pair.' in blest re-union rise ! Revered on earth 1 rewarded in the skies ! APPENDIX. $^S (Note [S.]p. 106. Tiie reader will be pleased to excuse an inaccuracy in the reference hefe. Note [T.] p. 140. The following" words which are printed in Italics, are those on which Mr Gray had made remarks, together with the changes made by Dr Beattie, which are printed in the second column in Roman characters : Stanza 2. Obstreperous, is retained. 3. ^ Y 538 APPENDIX. ture of that evidence which takes place in mathematical science ; the evi- dence of our external senses, of consciousness and of memory ; the evidence which governs our reasoning from the effect to the cause ; the evidence which takes place in probable and in analogical reasoning ; and finally, that species of evidence which determines our belief in hurtian testimony. And from this wide and comprehensive induction, he arrives at last at the following con- clusions : " That unless we believe many things without proof, we never can " believe any thing at all : that all sound reasoning must ultimately rest on "the principles of coonmon sense, that is, on principles intuitively certain, **or intuitively probable : and consequently, that common sense is the ulti- *' mate judge of truth, to which reason must continually act in subordina- «tion.»' II. Having thus ascertained the existence of certain ultimate truths, which are perceived by an appropriate faculty of the human mind, and upon which it thus appears that all reasoning, in fact, is founded, Dr. Beattiegoes on, in the second part of his work, to establish these conclusions, by the actual experience of all legitimate philosophy, and by tlie practice of all those who have been the most successful in the investigation of truth. For this pur- pose he exemplifies his doctrines by the instances of mathematical and phy- sical science, in which it is universally acknowledged, that the greatest ad- vances of human discovery have been made. He shews, that in the former of these sciences, all reasoning rests upon intuitive evidence, and in the lat- ter, upon the evidence of sense ; and that if the mathematician or natural philosopher had deserted these grounds of their reasoning, or doubted of the evidence they convey, their several sciences must have stopped in the threshold, and degenerated into verbal and unproductive controversy. It is from this satisfactory illustration, that Dr Beattie goes on with gi-eat advan- tage to the analysis of that sceptical philosophy, which it was the great end of his labours to combat. For this end, he enters, in tlie second chapter, into an historical account of the progress of this philosophy in modern times, from its first appearance in the works of Des Cartes, to its final completion in the writings of Mr Hume. He shews, that its principles are directly the reverse of those which have governed the investigations of the mathemati- cian and the natural philosopher ; that it substitutes the evidence of reason- ing for that of common sense : that its essence consists in the rejection of all those ultimate truths, upon the admission of which the certainty of all other sciences is founded; and that it terminates in conclusions, which con- tradict all the most genuine and universal principles of human belief. To illustrate the nature of this sceptical system still farther, he selects two re- markable examples of the doctrines of the sceptical philosophy, and of the mode of reasoning by which they are supported, viz. the doctrines of the non- existence of matter f and oftbe necessity of human actions. And from the ana- lysis of these reasonings, he shews, that, in common with all the reasonings of this philosophical system, they are marked by these peculiar characteris- tics : *' That the doctrines they are intended to establish, are contradictory " to the general belief of all men m all ages : that though enforced and sup- APPENDIX. 63^ " ported \^ith singular subtilty, and though admitted by some professed phi- '* losophers, they do not produce that conviction which sound reasoning ne- ** ver fails to produce in the inteUigent mind : and, lastly, that really to be- " lieve, and to act from a real belief, of sucli doctrines and reasonings, must " be attended with fatal consequences to science, to virtue, to human society, *' and to all the important interests of mankind." III. In the third part, under the appearance of answering the objections which he anticipates, Dr. Beattie pursues, with great force, his argument, against that system of sceptical philosophy which he had before analysed. In the first chapter, in replying to the objection, *«That his system tends "to discourage freedom of inquiry, and to encourage implicit faith ;'* he dis- tinguishes between that implicit faith, which consists in acquiescence with the doctrines of men, and that which consists in acquiescence with the fun- damental laws of intellectual and moral belief; and shews, that as the last is the foundation of all legitimate philosophy, it is that also which alone his doctrine encourages and promotes. To a second objection, " That his system of philosophy is not strictly ac- ** cording to logic, or some of the established laws of that science," he re- plies, by admitting the objection, but by distinguishing between that techni- cal logic which has obtained in the scliools, and that rational logic which is founded on the knowledge of the faculties of man, and the established laws of his constitution. With the last of these, he shews, that his system is en- tirely consistent, and that it agrees in its principles with that enlightened system of investigation which was recommended by Lord Bacon : and in the illustration of this important subject, he enters, in the secqnd chapter, into a long and ingenious disquisition, to shew, that the logic of the schoolmen was the legitimate parent of the modern system of scepticism ; that the principles of both are to doubt of every thing, and to consider every thing as a subject of dispute ; that tlie investigations in both are chiefly supported either by the illusion of words, or the evidence of a narrow and partial induction ; and that they both lead to conclusions contrary either to experience, or to truths of the most indisputable authority. In the concluding chapter, in answer to the objection, " That he has re- * presented the consequences of metaphysical error as more fatal than they " are found to be in fact," Dr Beattie enters into a warm and eloquent dis- play of the reality of these consequences. He shews, that the system which he has combated, is hostile equally to the moral and the intellectual charac- ter of man ; that it establishes a method of reasoning, sufficient to overturn every truth upon which his virtue or his piety is rested ; and that no man can adopt it without losing all the convictions which can render human life either honourable or happy. As the doctrines and language of the ** Essay on Truth" have met with some opposition by later writers, particularly by Dr Priestley and his follow- ers, I had hoped to gratify my readers with some observations on that sub- ject by my friend Mr Professor Stewart, who supports the greivt docrines of Dr Reid and Dr Bsattie, in the chair of moral philosophy in this univer^ Sm APPENDIX. sity, with a force of reasoning, and a dignity of eloquence, altogether his own. But in this hope I have been disappointed by some unavoidable inter- ruptions, to which Mr Stewart has been exposed, that have put it out of his power to fulfil his intention. I should the more have lamented this misfor- tune, did I not trust that he may hereafter give those observations a place in some of his own compositions. Mr Stewart's observations were to be communicated to me in a letter, of which he had only been able to prepare the rough draught : but the account of Dr Beattie's mode of writing on philosophical subjects, and the eloquent encomium with which he meant to wind up the whole, are so truly charac- teristic of my deceased friend, that I cannot resist the desire of inserting them here. ****** In a work professedly polemical," says Mr Stewart, ** it was im- possible for the author to aim at unity cr at elegance of design ; but what was really practicable, he appears to me to have executed with an uncom- mon degree of skill and judgment; arranging his materials in a distinct and luminous order, and leading the attention agreeably from one part of his argument to another, by those happy transitions, which form one of the chief secrets in the art of composition ; — above all, enlivening and adorning his important subject, (so unattractive in itself to the generality of readers) by a power of varied and happy illustration, peculiarly characteristical of his own genius. * * * * ♦* These critical remarks on the " Essay on Truth" (I must request you to observe,) says Mr Stewart, ** do not in the least affect the essential merits of that very valuable performance ; and I have stated them with the greater freedom, because your late excellent friend possessed so many other unquestionable claims to high distinction — as a moralist, as a critic, as a grammarian, as a pure and classical writer, and, above all, as the au- thor of the " Minstrel.''' In any one of the different paths to which his am- bition has led him, it would not perhaps be difficult to name some of his contemporaries by whom he has been surpassed ; but where is the individual to be found, who has aspired with greater success to an equal variety of lite- rary honours ? ** I am happy to think, that the moral eflTect of his works is likely to be so powerfully increased by the Memoirs of his exemplary life, which you are preparing for the press ; while the respect which the public already enter- tains for his genius and talents, cannot fail to be blended with other senti- ments still more flattering to his memory, when it is known with what for- titude and resignation he submitted to a series of trials, far exceeding those which fall to the common lot of humanity ; and that the most vigorous ex- ertions of his mind were made, under the continued pressure of the severest domestic affliction, which a heart like his could be doomed to suffer. *****! regret the extravagant length to which this letter has insensibly extended ; but I have no time to attempt an abridgment of its contents. I hope, however, (if you think any part of it worth a place in your Appendix) that you may consider yourself as at perfect liberty to make whatever i-e- APPENDIX. 541 trenchments may appear to you to be proper ; marking" with asterisks the place of any paragraph you may be pleased to omit, in order to account for the want of connection," &c. &c. To Sir William Forbes, Bart. Dr Beattie*s philosophical writings may be properly divided into two classes. Morality and Criticism. But these are so intimately blended in his works, as materially to support each other ; and he loses no proper oppor- tunity, even on subjects that seem least to promise him the means of en- forcing moral truths, to impress upon the minds of his readers, such views of human nature as tend to ennoble the understanding, and improve the heart. Besides his great work, his " Essay on Truth," that to which he owed the first dawn and subsequent advancement of his reputation as a moral philosopher, there still remains to be given, however, some account of his other Essays. I shall endeavour to do this as briefly as possible, and in such a manner, as that the reader, before he begins to the perusal, may have some idea of what sort of instruction, or entertainment, he is likely to meet with. In his first Essay, Dr Beattie has given some analysis of the sister arts of poetry and music, with a view to discover how they affect the mind. He was led, he says, to this dissertation, by having heard it urged, that taste is capricious, and criticism variable ; and that the rules of Aristotle, being founded on the practice of Sophocles and Homer, ought not to be applied to poems of other ages and nations. He admits the plea, he says, as far as those rules are local and temporary ; but asserts, that many of tliem, being founded in nature, are indispensable, and not to be violated without impro- priety. Notwithstanding its apparent licentiousness, he maintains, that true poetry is a thing perfectly rational and regular ; and that nothing can be more strictly philosophical than that part of criticism may, and ought to be, which unfolds the general characters which distinguish it from other kind^ of composition. In the commencement of this Essay, Dr Beattie examines a question which has been a good deal agitated among the critics. What is the end of poetry ? Whether to give pleasure, or to convey instruction ? and he decides in favom* of the first. To instruct, he says, is an end common to all good writing. If the historian and philosopher accomplish this, they will be allow- ed to have acquitted themselves well ; but the poet must do a great deal for the sake of pleasure only ; and if he fail to please, he may deserve praise on other accounts, but as a poet he has done nothing. Having occasion, in the course of this disquisition, to mention Dryden, he delivers his opinion of that great genius ; gives a character of his writings at considerable length, and draws a very masterly comparison between him and Pope. In his second chapter, speaking of the standard of poetical invention, he takes occasion to introduce an animated and beautiful eulogium on the ad- vantages and pleasure to be derived from the study and contemplation of the 542 APPENDIX. works of nature ; a theme on which he delij,'hted much to expatiate. In this disquisition, he introduces a character of Swift and some of his writings, particularly his " Gulliver's Travels," the latter part of which he severely re- probates. In his next chapter, he shows, that poetry exhibits a state of na- ture somewhat different from the reality of things ; and this he illustrates by a variety of observations drawn from contemr lating the human character. In the prosecution of this subject, he takes occasion to enter into some ex- amination of the divine poems of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, and of the merit of the characters found in each. Connected with the subject of poetry, Dr Beattie next introduces into this Essay, remarks on music, as it affects the mind : and here he first ex- amines the question, Whether music be an imitative art ? which he resolves in the negative. This he illustrates by a variety of the happiest observa- tions, drawn from the nature of the human mind, as well as the practice of the best masters, both in music and poetry. In his following section he enquires, How the pleasiu'es we derive from music are to be accounted for ? He is well aware, he says, of the difficulty of this question. He therefore promises nothing more than a few cursory remarks. Yet into these remarks he has contrived to introduce a variety of reflections, founded in sound sense, in true philosophy, a love of virtue, and Consummate knowledge of human nature. Then follows a section on the peculiarities of national music ; in the course of which he particularly examines the two very different species of music peculiar to the Highlands and southern parts of Scotland ; and shows how they naturally accord with the face of the country in those opposite re- ^ons. This section will be perused with interest by every native of Scot- land. It is here that he has introduced a Disquisition on the Second Sight, which he justly treats as a visionary, though popular, belief in the Highlands of Scotland. In the second part of this Essay, he treats, at considerable length, of Poetical Language, and introduces many ingenious, instructive, and pleasing elucidations, of epic, dramatic, and other species of poetry ; and all this he illustrates by a variety of apposite examples from the most esteemed poems, both of ancient and modem times. Towards the close of this Essay, he en- ters, at considerable length, into an examination of the structure of verse. But for all this the reader must consult the Essay itself, which will afford him a high gratification. Every reader of any taste will be struck with the observation, that, in this Essay on Poetry and Music, the language is more ornamented than in any other part of his philosophical works. I have elsewhere remarked, that although the characteristic qualities of Dr Beattie's style are perspicuity, sim- plicity, and elegance, it is far from being destitute of sublimity. Of that as- sertion, I have drawn most of my proofs from this very Essay.* And here it is curious to remark the manner in which our philosophical poet has express- • Vide supra, p. 332* APPENDIX. 543 ed the same sentiment in elegant and pathetic prose, and in chaste and har-i monious verse. " It is strange," he says, «* to observe the callousness of *' some men, before whom all the glories of heaven and earth pass in daily " succession, witliout touching their hearts, elevating their fancy, or leaving *' any durable remembrance. Even of those who pretend to sensibility, how « many are there, to whom the lustre of the rising or setting sun ; the spark- •* ling concave of the midnight sky ; the mountain forest tossing and roar- «' ing to the storm, or warbling with all the melodies of a summer-evening ; <* the sweet interchange of hill and dale, shade and sun-shine, grove, lawn, •* and water, which an extensive landscape offers to the view ; the scenery " of the ocean, so lovely, so majestic, and so tremendous ; the many pleasing " varieties of the animal and vegetable kingdom, could never afford so much ** real satisfaction, as the steams and noise of a ball-room, the insipid fid- ** dlmg and squalUng of an opera, or the vexations and wranglings of a card- *' table."* This is the very same sentiment with that so beautifully expressed in the '* Minstrel." " O how canst thou renounce the boundless store " Of charms, which nature to her votary yields ? <* The warbling woodland, the resounding shorie, ** The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields, " All that the genial ray of morning gilds, ** And all that echoes to the song of even, " All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, ** And all the dread magnificence of heaven, «' Oh how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven !" Minstrel, Book I. Stanza IX. His following Essay is on Laughter, in which he says, that in tracing out- the cause of laughter, he means rather to illustrate, than to confute the opi- nions of those who have already written on the same subject. Yet notwith- standing former discoveries, the following Essay, he thinks, may be found perhaps to contain something new, to throw light on certain points of criti- cism that have not been much attended to, and even to have some merit as a familiar example of philosophical induction, carried on with a strict regard to fact, and without any bias in favour of any theory. He sets out with marking the distinction between ridiculous and ludicrous ideas, as both exciting laughter, although in different ways ; and this leads him to divide laughter into two kinds, which he distinguishes into, what he calls, animal and sentimental. He then gives the several opinions, which different philosophers have entertained on the subject, Aristotle, Hobbes, Hutcheson, Akenside, and this leads him to enquire into the cause of laugh- ter. In the course of these disquisitions, he has introduced and treated of * Essay on Poetry and Music, Part I. chap, ii. p. 36P, SU APPENDIX. a variety of literary topics, which he has embellished with infinite art and critical skill ; and in doing this, he has contrived, with a dexterity peculiar to himself, even from so unpromising a subject as Laughter and Ludicrous Composition, to introduce some moral disquisitions of great value, with cha- racters of comedies, and satires, and novels, in such a manner, as to show the charms of virtue, the efficacy of religion, and the odious deformity of vice. In particular, he reprobates, with becoming zeal and propriety, all those attempts to excite ridicule and laughter, by parodies of scripture, and profane allusions to sacred things. His concluding chapter is an attempt to account for the superiority of the moderns, in ludicrous writing, over the ancients, which he clearly decides in favour of the former, and in proof of which he produces many ingenious arguments. •• Upon the whole, this is an admirable Essay ; displaying much knowledge of the human heart and understanding ; and whence, whoever reads it with attention, will reap both entertainment and instruction in no ordinary mea- sure. The concluding Essay, in tliis volume, contains remarks on the utility of classical learning ; in which he combats the absurd idea, that the study of Greek and Roman learning is of little or no value, and may very readily be dispensed with. He strongly urges all the usual arguments in support of his proposition, with perspicuity and force ; and in the most satisfactory manner answers all the hackneyed objections that have been brought for- ward by those, who undervalue classical learning, which, as Dr Beattie has justly observed, he, who is possessed of, would not relinquish on any conside- ration ; and that those persons are most delighted with the ancient writers, who understand them best. Such were the Essays, which Dr Beattie added to that edition of the ** Essay on Truth,*' published in 1776 ; and which, it must be allowed, were a very valuable present to his subscribers to that excellent performance. He afterwards published, in the year 1783, " Dissertations Moral and ** Critical," of which I proceed to give some brief account. They were first composed, as Dr Beattie tells in his preface, in a differ- ent form, being part of a course of prelections, read to those young gentle- men, whom it was his business to initiate in the elements of moral science. This, he hopes, will account for the frequent plainness of the style ; for the introduction of practical and serious observations ; and for a greater variety of illustration, than would have been requisite, if his hearers had been of riper years, or more accustomed to abstract enquiry. He had been desired to publish the whole system of lectures, but had been prevented by many considerations. He therefore gave only a few detached passages, and wished them to be considered as separate and distinct Essays. In treating of them, he wished to avoid all matters of nice curiosity, and confine himself to such as seem to promise amusement and practical information. The first Essay is on Memory and Imagination. It commences with some general observations on the natural connection between the soul and bedy, while we remain in this world, as far as memory is concerned, which APPENDIX. W he justly considers as one of those peculiarities that distinguish man from the inferior animals. In his first chapter, he marks the difference between memory and imagi- nation. ■ In his second chapter, he gives a general account of this faculty, Jts phenomena and laws, and shows, that the great art of tnemorv is attention. This part of his subject he illustrates by a variety of lively and ingenious ob- servations. Among other things, he gives account of a curious invention, frequently spoken of by die old rhetoricians, under the name of artificial me- morVf whereof both Cicero and Quintilian have given an account, though neither of them so distinctly as could be wished. Of this, he gives what, he says, he conceives to be a description, but whicli, if just, he agrees with Quintilian that it was too complex ; and I suppose it will be generally allowed, that to remember the art would require as great an exertion of thought and memory, as would be necessary to keep in mind the thing to be remembered. Here he introduces a dissertation on hand- writing, as connected with tran- scription, which he deems an useful help to memory. He then goes on to show the varieties of memm-y ; and after having touched on these points, he gives us a very sensible chapter on the various methods of improving memo.- ryy which he concludes with a disquisition on the oratory of the pulpit, the bar, and the senate, comparing the one mode of public speaking with the other? in the course of which he examines the question, whether sermons ought to be delivered from memory, or from a written copy, and cl.early gives the preference to the latter : for which he quotes the authority of some of the most esteemed preachers of the church of England.* For the truth of this remark, he appeals to " those wlio have had the happiness to observe, " and to feel, that sublime and apostolic simplicity, and that mild, though •* commanding energy, which distinguish both the composition and the pro- **nunciation of a Porteus and a Hurd."t The concluding chapter of this ingenious Essay is occupied with remarks on the memory of brutes, which he admits tliey enjoy in a certain degree. Yet with all the lielps which animals derive from instinct, or from more acute organs of sense, how inferior, he exclaims, is the memory of the most in- telligent brute to that of reasonable beings ! The disproportion is almost in- finite. He then gives an animated and brilliant eulogium on the extent and capacity of the human memory, and of the powers of which he gives a slight recapitulation in the most glowing colours. I lament that the plan and li- mited nature of this analysis forbid my giving here the whole of this beauti- ful passage ; but I cannot resist the pleasure of quoting the sublime conclu- sion of this energetic address to his audience. " Let us hence learn,'* says he, "to set a proper value on the dignity of '' the human soul ; and to think of its intellectual faculties as inexpressibly <* superior, both in kind and in degree, to those of the animal world, If we *' be capable of endless improvement (and what reason is tliere to believe ** that we are not), surely our destination must be different from theirs ; fci' * Dissert. Mor. and Critic, p. 47—57. t The present Bishops of London and Worcester. 3? 546 APPENDIX. ** the author of nature does nothing in vain; and an understanding, far more " limited than that of man, would be sufficient for all the purposes of a crea- *'ture, whose duration is circumscribed by the term of an hundred years. "Our minds, therefore, must have been destined for scenes of improvement ^* more extensive and glorious, than these below ; and our being to compre- "hend periods more durable, than those that are measured out by the " sun."* In his subsequent Dissertation, on Imaginationt Dr Beattie gives a gene- ral account of that faculty of the mind. He treats of the association of ideas, and the various causes whence it proceeds. He then introduces a disquisition on the origin of beauty, for which he in part endeavours to account ; and he has two chapters, the one containing remarks on Genius^ and the other on Taste and its improvements, as they are connected with the Imagination. This dissertation, which is of considerable length, will be deemed, I suspect, by most of his readers, at least it surely appears so to me, to be of rather too abstracted and metaphysical a nature. Yet it cer- tainly contains much depth of thinking, and many proofs of original genius, as well as critical knowledge, which those readers who are fond of such spe- culations, will peruse with pleasure. He concludes this Essay, by returning to the subject of Imagination ; with some directions for a proper regulation of it. This last part of his subject is highly interesting, and very much in- tended for the use of studious and literary persons. Unhappily, he was but too well qualified, from his own melancholy experience, and the dread- ful condition to which his own health had been reduced, by intense application to study, to treat on the evils attendant on a literary course of life. In the close of this Essay, he seizes, as usual the opportunity of introducing a most beautiful eulogy on the genius and spirit of the Chris- tian religion, in language so expressive and appropriate, that I cannot resist the pleasure of transcribing it here. ♦* Lastly," says Dr Beattie, **let those who wish to preserve their imagi- " nation in a cheerful and healthy state, cultivate piety, and guard against "superstition; by forming right notions of God's adorable being and provi- **dence, and cherishing the correspondent aftections of love, veneration, and " gratitude. Superstition is fierce and gloomy ; but true Christianity gives "glory to the. divine nature, and is most comfortable to the human. It "teaches, that nothing happens, but by the permission of Him, who is "greatest, wisest, and best; that the adversities which befal us may all be *« improved into blessings : that man is indeed a sinful creature; but that ** God has graciously provided for him the means both of pardon and of hap- "piness; that if we obey the Gospel, than which no system of doctrine can "be more excellent in itself, or supported by better evidence ; Our light af- ^^JlictionSi Hvbich are but for a moment, shall laork out for us an eternal iveight " of glory : for that when these transitory scenes disappear, an endless state '^of thin^ will commence, wherein virtue shall triumph, and all her tearabe * Dissertations Moral and Critical, p. 68. APPENDIX. S4ir " wiped away for evesr ; wherein there will be as much felicity, as the most *' exalted benevolence can desire, and no more punishment, than the most «* perfect justice will approve. He who believes all this, and endeavours to ** act accordingly, must look upon the calamities of life as not very material; " and, while he retains the command of his faculties, may have continually "'present to his imagination the most sublime, and most transporting views, "that it is possible for a human being either to wish for, or to compre- ^«hend." " The divine Omnipotence ought at all times to inspire us with venera- *'tion and holy fear. By the simplest means, or without any means, it caii **acc0mpUsh the most important purposes. This very faculty of imagina- f*ti6n, the Deity can make to each of us, even in this world, the instrument ** of exquisite happiness, or consummate misery, by setting before it the most " glorious objects of hope, or the most tremendous images of despair. What ** a blessing are cheerful thoughts, and a sound imagination ! And what man ** can say, that his imagination and thoughts are always, or indeed at any " time, in his own power ? Let us, therefore, learn humility, and seek the ** Divine favour above all things. And while we endeavour to make a right •* use of the rules he has prescribed, or gives us grace to discover, for puri- ** fying and improving our nature, let us look up for aid to him, whose influ- ** ence alone can render them successful."* His next Dissertation is that on Dreaming. Of this production he wap himself exceedingly fond : and yet it cannot be said, I think, to add much to our stock of ideas. The truth is, Dr Beattie was a great observer of his own dreams, and therefore has probably attached more importance to the subject than any thing so much out of our own power may seem to de- serve. An abridgment of this Dissertation on Dreaming is inserted in the •* Mirror," Nos. 73 and 74, and it is mentioned above, p. 72. Dr Beattie's next, and by much his longest and most elaborate, Disser. tation, is that on the Theory of Language. It combines, indeed, much learn- ing and great knowledge of the human mind, with deep philosophical re- search ; and as it was a subject which he had studied profoundly, he seems to have treated it with more than common ability, so as to have left little for the scholar to wish for. He has divided his Dissertation into two parts, in which he treats, 1. Of the Origin and General Nature of Speech. 2. Of Universal Grammar. The faculty of speech, he says, to wliat class soever of human powers we refer it, is one of the distinguishing characters of our nature; none of the in- ferior animals being in any degree possessed of it. For we must not call by the name of speech that imitation of human articulate voice, which parrots and some other birds are capable of; speech implying thought and consci- ousness, and the power of separating and arranging our ideas, which are fa- * Dissertations Moral and Critical, p. 205. S^^ - APPEISTDIX. culties peculiar to rational minds. That some inferior 'animals should be able to mimic human articulation, will not seem wonderful, when we recol- lect, that even by machines certain words have been articulated ; but that the parrot should annex thought to the word he utters, is as unlikely as that a machine should do so. Hogue and hiave are uttered by every parrot ; but the words they stand for are incomprehensible, except by beings endued with reason and a moral faculty. It has, however, been a common opinion, and is probable enough, that there may be, among irrational animals, something which, by a fgure, we may call language : some mode by which one animal can make his thoughts, his intentions, and his wishes known to another of his own species. This is so well authenticated, as scarcely to admit of a doubt.* Pope has elegantly employed the epithet half-reasoning elephant to this purpose, even as the in- stinctive economy of bees is figuratively called goveniment. This at least is evident, that the natural voices of one animal are in some degree intelligi- ble, or convey particular feelings or impulses to ol^iers of the same species. To dogs and horses, and even to other creatures of less sagacity, the voice of their master soon becomes familiar ; and they learn to perform-certain actions, on receiving certain audible or visible signals from those whom they are wont to ohey. Tliis, however, is a proof, rather of their docility, and of the quickness of their eye and ear, than of any intelligence in regard to lan- guage ; and these, and the like animal voices, have no analogy with human speech. For, first, men speak by art and imitation, whereas the voices in question are wholly instinctive : for, that a dog, which had never heard ano- ther bark, would notwitlistanding bark himself, admits of no doubt ; and that a man, who had never heard any language, would not speak any, is equally certain. After having treated, somewhat anatomically, of the organs of speech, and the manner in which it is formed, Dr Beattie proceeds to consider the English alphabet ; and, in the course of this disquisition, he introduces the art of teaching those who are deaf and dumb to speak. He has also a chap- ter on the numbers and measures of English poetry, as depending on empha- sis ; their numbers and varieties, illustrated in a very entertaining manner, by apposite examples. Dr Beattie then examines the absurdity of the Epicurean doctrineof the origin of language, that it is of human invention ; and he proves, that if ever there was a time when all mankind were, as the Epicureans supposed, mutiini et turpe pecus, a dumb and brutal race of animals, all mankind must, in the ordinary course of things, have continued dumb to this day. For, to such animals speech could not be necessary ; as they are supposed to have existed for ages without it : and it is not to be imagined, that dumb and beastly sa- vages would ever think of contriving unnecessary arts, whereof they had no example in the world around them, which they had never felt any inconveni- ence from the want of, and which never had been attempted by other ani- * See the remarkabje anecdote of the gentleman's d^^pectator,'* is the finest piec&of the kind any whtjre to be met \rith. 550 APPENDIX. Dr Bealtie, proceeding" in his Dissertation, divides modern prose fable into two kinds, the Allegorical and Poetical. The first he subdivides into the Historical and the Moral, and the second into the Serious and the Comic. Of these four species of modern fable, he treats in their order, illustrating his subject with apposite and pleasing examples ; in the course of which he gives the characters of a number of our most celebrated alnd popular produc- tions of this nature : and, according to his uniform practice, omitting no op- portunity of checking vice, and enforcing a love of virtue and religion. Thus, in speaking of Swift's " Gulliver's Travels," and " Tale of a Tub," while he does ample justice to the wit, the humour, the satire, so largely to be found in those celebrated performances, Dr Beattie reprobates with the utmost severity, as he had already done on a former occasion, (see p. 320.) the plan of the author, who, in the last of the four voyages, has exerted himself to the utmost in an absurd and abominable fiction, presenting us with rational beasts and irrational men, in direct contradiction to the most obvious laws of nature ; and because there must be something of an irreligious tendency in a work, which, like this, ascribes the perfection of reason and of happiness to a race of beings, who are said to be destitute of every religious idea. But what is yet worse, if any thing can be worse, this tale represents human na- ture itself as tlie object of contempt and abhon-ence, *' Let the ridicule of " wit," says Dr Beattie, ** be pointed at the follies, and let the scourge of «' satire be brandished at the crimes of mankind ; all this is both pardonable " and praise-wortliy, because it may be done v^ith a good intention, and pro - " duce good effects. But when a writer endeavours to make us dissatisfied " with that Providence who has made us what we are, and whose dispensa- *' tions towards the human race are so peculiarly and so divinely benefi- ** cent, such a writer, in so doing, proves himself the enemy, not of man " only, but Of goodness itself: and his work can never be allowed to be in- "nocent." The " Tale of a Tub,'* Dr Beattie goes on to say, is another allegorical fable, by the same masterly hand ; and, like the former, supplies no little matter, both of admiration and of blame. As a piece of humorous writing it is unequalled. The subject is religion ; but the allegory, under which he typifies the Rfformation, is too mean for an argument of so great dignity ; and tends to produce in the mind of tlie reader, some very disagreeable as- sociations of the most solemn truths witli ludicrous ideas. Dr Beattie now enters on what he considers as the chief part of his sub- ject, the rise and progress of the Modern Rotnance, or Poetical Prose Fabkt which, being connected with so many topics of importance, if fully illustra- ted, he says, would tlirovv great light upon the history and politics, the man- ners and the literature of these latter ages. In the progress of his Dissertation, accordingly, he gives a most instruc- tive, distinct, and concise, account of the state of Europe during what are called the dark or middle ages, of those northern nations who over-ran the Roman empire, of the form of policy introduced by them, which is com- monly called the feudal government ; this government it was, which, among APPENDIX. 551 many other strange institutions, gave rise to chivalry, and It was chivalry which gave birth and form to that sort of fabulous writing, which we term Romance. Here he gives a most entertaining accomitof the Knights errant, who flourished at this time in Europe, of the Crusades, of the Troubadours and jongleurs, and of the revival of letters in Italy and the southern provinces of France. After having discussed these various topics briefly, but in a most agreea- ble and entertaining manner, he comes to tlie moxlern Serious and Comic Ro' m,ance, which he analizes with great exactness, but with a degree of minute- jiess though which it was impossible here to follow liim, while he criticises and characterises Richardson, Fielding, and SmoUet, pointing out the res- pective merits and defects of each in a very masterly manner. He con- cludes this Dissertation with the following very just and useful observations : ** Let not the usefulness of romance-writing," says he, " be estimated by ** the length of my discourse ujjon it. RoTnances are a dangerous recreation. " A few, no doubt, may be friendly to good taste and good morals ; but far " the greater part are unskilfully written, and tend to corrupt the heart and ** stimulate the passions. A habit of reading them breeds a dislike to his- ** tory, and all the substantial parts of knowledge ; withdraws the attention " from nature and truth ; and fills the mind with extravagant thoughts, and ** too often with criminal propensities. I would, therefore, caution my " young readers," says he, " against them ; or if he must, for the sake of " amusement, and that he may have something to say on the subject, in- ** dulge himself in this way now and then, let it be sparingly and seldom." Dr Seattle's next Dissertation is on the " Attachments of Kindred." He prefaces this Essay with a note, in which he tells us, that there are modem authors, who, from an excessive admiration of the Greek policy, seem to have formed erroneous opinions in regard to some of the points touched on in this discourse. With a view to those opinions, the discourse was written several years ago. Afterwards, when a book called *' Thely- " phthora" appeared, he had thoughts, he says, of enlarging these remarks, so as to make them comprehend an examination of it. This the authors of the " Monthly Review" rendered unnecessar)% by giving a very ingenious, learned, and decisive, confutation of that profligate system. He therefore publishes his Essay, he says, as it was first written ; satisfied that Mr Ma- dan's book, whatever private immoralities it may promote among the licen- tious and ignorant, will have no weight with the public, nor deserve farther animadversion. In this Dissertation we do not indeed meet with any thing very new. The usual arguments in favour of marriage, and against polygamy, on the mutual relations between parent and child, and the various systems that have been formed by legislators respecting education, are detailed with precision, and in a most agreeable manner. Upon the whole, his general conclusion is, that the present system, according to which society is constituted in modern Europe, is the most congenial to our nature, and the most productive of vir- tue, as well as happiness, to mankind. 5$2 APPENDIX. His concluding Disseptation is entitled, " Illustrations of Sublimity ;'*in which he has unfolded in a very pleasing manner, and explained by well- chosen examples, chiefly from the poets, the true principles of sublimity, as they are founded in human nature. This is an excellent Essay. Note [Z.] p. 278. The Reverend George Carr, the excellent man who is the subject of thi^ note, was born at Newcastle, 16th February, 1704, and educated at St John's College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Soon after his return to Newcastle he went into orders, and in the year 1727 was appointed senior clergyman of the episcopal cliapel at Edinburgh, where he spent |,he remainder of his days ; and officiated for the space of nine-and- thirty years, during three^and-twenty of which, I had the happiness of being his very constant hearer. Of his merit as a preacher, his posthumous discour- ses bear ample testimony. They do not indeed contain the profound, though somewhat abstracted, reasonings of Butler, nor the laboured but elegant discussions of Sherlock, neither the learning of Tillotson, nor the declama- tion of Seed ; but they exhibit the most useful and important truths of the Gospel, not only with plainness and perspicuity, but in language always elegant, and seldom incorrect. I may even go farther, and add, that Mr Carr's style often rises into eloquence ; and that in its general features, of plainness without vulgarity, and earnestness without bombast, in its equal distance from obscurity, and from useless amplification, it exhibits no com- mon model of that sober and chastened eloquence, which ought ever to be studied in discourses of the pulpit. In each discourse he makes choice of one single topic of belief or prac* tice, which he illustrates and enforces by all the principal motives that can be urged, neither too briefly, so as to leave his argument imperfect, nor at so great length as to give no room for any addition by an attentive and well- informed reader. His discourses are in a peculiar manner distinguished by the most engaging spirit of charity, of moderation, of benevolence, continu- ally inculcating the love of God and our neighbour as the sum of the law ; and recommending the government and regulation of our appetites, passions, and aflections, as the best method of securing happiness on earth as well a« hereafter. If Mr Carr's composition can be deemed in any respect negligent or in- correct, it is chiefly from a degree of redundancy, when he occasionally re- peats the same thought, though almost always with a variety of expression ; a fault, if it be a fault, that passed unnoticed in the pulpit, for which alone these discourses were originally intended, and which he would no doubt have corrected, had he lived to prepare them for publication. His delivery, though not animated, was graceful and pleasing ; and though it might be said to border somewhat on monotony, those of my readers who remember it will agree with me in the declaration, that he never failed to engage and preserve the attention of his hearers; and that every word he uttered, every doctrine he taught, every virtue he recommended, came strongly deforced APPENDIX. 5Si by the purity oF his morals and the exemplaiy piety of his blameless life. With all the g-ood-breedlng of a gentleman, he was a cheerful entertaining companion ; and though his manners were most irreproachable, they had no tincture of either rigour or austerity. His patient suffering under the most excruciating tortures of the gout, with which, though extremely temperate, he had been for many years violently afflicted, was most exemplary ; and cannot be better illustrated than by the following private letter to one of his oldest and most intimate friends, written a few weeks before his death, the Copy of which was found among his papers. I feel a pleasure in inserting it, as so strongly characteristic of my departed friend. ** I ought much sooner to have acknowledged your last letter ; but in- <» disposition must be my apology. I flattered myself, that after a succes- ♦* sion of fits of the gout from January to June, I should have had an interval *' of health this summer as usual ; but this is not the case : and I fear I am ** doomed to a perpetual gout, either fixed or wandering. If it were in my ** option, I do not know whether I should chuse to hold existence upon these •* terms. I own to you, I am one of those, who would not wish to run the «* race of life over again, if the ground were to be marked out precisely with " the same pleasures and pains. I shudder when I look forward to winter, <« and take a view of the teri'ible road I expect to pass. But I shall tliea *' probably be near the ending post ; and then, adieu to pain. Then, I hope, <* existence will become extremely eligible; for surely it was meant upon the ** whole a favour to every created being. The Creator would never have ** introduced us ijito existence, if he saw that we should be suflTerers by it. *' He, who has the sole disposal of pleasures and pains, and can weigh them ** with the utmost accuracy, will certainly order matters so, that the former ** shall at last preponderate. But no more of these grave reflections. I have ** the pleasure to inform you," * * * &c. &c. In this heavenly frame of mind he continued faithfully to discharge the duties of his sacred function, calmly looking for, but not soliciting, his dis- solution, until the morning of Sunday the 18th August, 1776, when, after having selected the discourse which he meant that day to deliver from the pulpit, he suddenly expired. An awful warning to those Who survive ! For how few like him are so well prepared for a summons so unlooked for ? yet how uncertain are we, that tlie same sudden fate may not be our own ! How studious, then, ought we to be, that our lives, like his, may be pure and un- corrupted by the business, the follies, the vices, of the world, so that; when God shall require our souls of us, we may not be surprised in an hour when we are least thinking of it. His widow did me the honour to put his manuscripts into my hands, from which, with the assistance of a friend, I made choice of this volume now in print, as the most finished, and therefore the most proper for publica- tion. I accepted of this task with singular pleasure; and endeavoured to execute it with care and attention. It made me happy to contribute in any way to the perpetuating the memory, and rendering the virtues and the ta- Ifents more extensively known, of one with whose friendship I had beeo bon- 4 A 554 APPENDIX. cured during many years. The veneration I shall ever retain for the memo- ry of this excellent man, will plead my excuse, I trust, for having dwelt lon- ger on this character than might otherwise seem necessary. Note [AA J p. 282. This reference applies equally with that at [Y.] to the same volume of ** Dissertations Moral and Critical." ^ Note [BB.] p. 29/. A similar reference to the same person with that at [R.] p. 105. Note [CC] p. 302. Mr Garrick was born 28th February, 1716. His father, Captain Garrick, a gentleman of respectable character, on retiring from the army, fixed his residence at Lichfield, where his son received his education, the latter part of it at an academy opened in that neighboui'hood by the celebrated Dr Sa- muel Johnson ; whence, notwithstanding the disparity of years, an intimate friendship commenced between these two eminent men, which lasted during the rest of their lives. Johnson not succeeding, however, with his academy, young Garrick and he resolved to try their fortunes in London ; whither they accordingly re- paii'ed in spring, 1737. In thus relating their first outsetting together, it is curious to remark the diversity of their subseqivent fortunes in the world ; and I believe it was not without envy, as well as indignation, that Dr John- son saw his fellow-traveller start at once into celebr.ty, and speedily amass a large fortune, by the exercise of a profession, which he always aifected to view with some contempt ; while he himself, who rose to the first station in literature, continued in poverty during the greatest part of his long life ; and, after struggling with all the hardships attendant on tlie profession of a mere author, condemned to write for daily bi'ead, arrived, even at last, at no more than a very moderate income. Garrick's original destination was the bar ; and on his ai*rival in London he was entered of Lincoln's-Inn. He soon, however, abandoned the pursuit of the law, as well as of business, in which he had made an unsuccessful attempt as a wine-merchant. Having now lost both his father and mother, however, (to whose feelings he had hitherto sacrificed his own inclinations) he found himself at liberty to indulge his darling passion for the stage, and he prepared himself in earnest for that employment, in which nature meant him so highly to excel. His diffidence prevented him from appearing at first on a London theatre ; and he embraced the oppoi'tunity of commencing his noviciate, by acting with a company of players at Ipswich, in summer, 1741. His first character was Aboan, in Southern's " Oroonoko,'' which he per- formed under the assumed name of Lyddall. Tlie applause he met witlj was equal to his most sanguine wishes ; and he afterwards frequently ap- peared there in tlie course of the season, with a success which answered all his views in this distant noviciate. APPENDIX. 555 After having thus tried his powers, and having studied with great assidui- ty a variety of parts, he ventured, on the 19th October, 1741, to present himself before a London audience, at the theatre in Gdodman's -Fields, in the character of Richard the Third. His performance was received not only with approbation, but astonishment. The same play was repeated six or seven times successively. And such was the universal applause which fol- lowed this young" actor, that the more established houses of Drury-Lane and Covent- Garden were deserted : he drew after him to the city the fashionable inhabitants of St. James's ; and the coaches of the nobility were to be seen, says one of his biographers,* from Temple Bar to White-Chapel. Nor was this merely the fashion of a day ; they who had seen the most esteemed ac- tors, the Booths, the Wilkes's, and the Cibbei-s of former times, confessed, that he had exceeded all of them in the variety of his exhibitions, and equal- led the ablest of them in the most appropriate of their parts. The versatility of his talents was probably beyond example in the histo- ry of the stage. He was distinguished not only in the most eminent of Shakespeare's tragic characters, to which he peculiarly bent the whole ener- gy of his powers, Macbeth, Lear, Richard, Hamlet ; but lie was unrivalled, also, in the comic parts of Benedick, Bayes, Ranger, Sir John Brute, Abel Drugger, and many others of a similar description. To those who were ac- customed to the stage as it then appeared, he broke forth at once as a theat- rical meteor, banishing rant, bombast, and grimace, and restoring nature, ease, simplicity, and genuine humour. And it is Garrick's best eulogy, that although we have seen a Mrs Gibber, a Mrs Pritchard, a Mrs Barry, a Mrs Yates, a Mrs Siddons, all of them great actresses in their various ways, no actor has appeared since his day, (I speak it without derogation of any, eitlier living or dead,) who, in my mind at least, has possessed the art of expressing with equal force the effusions of comic gaiety and of tragic terror, or who deserves, in these respects, to be placed at all in competition with him. Nor is it without a more than ordinary degree of emotion, that, at this long inter- val, I now retrace, •*in my mind's eye," the various scenes in which I have so often beheld him with supreme delight, and remember that these match- less exhibitions can be seen no more. As a manager, a situation which Mr Garrick held at Drury-Lane theatre during many years, the stage owed him great obligations for the decorum which he preserved in the pieces that were represented ; banishing all those of an improper tendency, which the hcentious temper of a former age had suiFered to appear. As a comic writer, too, he enriched the stage with se- veral pieces of distinguished merit ; and his prologiies and epilogues, as well as several small pieces of lighter poetry, are excellent of their kind. After having thus continued, during the long period of five-and-thirty years, to delight the public with his unrivalled excellence in his profession, finding his bodily health much broken, while his powers of acting were still unimpaired, he wisely formed the resolution of retiring from the stage; which I saw him do on the 10th June, 1776. He lived but a short time after, andilied 20th January, 1779. ♦ Davies's " Life of darrick/' Vol. I. p. 48. 556 APPENDIX. Beside the public applause and admiration, of which Mr Garrick enjoyed so large a share, he had the happiness to possess the friendship of a nume- rous and splendid circle of those who were most eminent for rank, fortune, and literary accomplishments, of his time. As he had acquired an opulent fortune, he lived with splendid hospitality ; and his convivial powers made him the delight of every company of which he made a part. Johnson, after having borne this emphatic testimony in favour of Gai-rick's superior merit on the stage, '* that he was the only actor he had ever seen, whom he could «* call a master both in tragedy and comedy," concluded with this compli- ment to his social talents, ** and after all, I thought him less to be envied on ** the stage than at the head of a table :"* a sentiment in which it appears both Mrs Montagu and Dr Beattie entirely concurred. Jt is with pleasure, too, that I add another testimony of Johnson's in his favour, of a more valnable nature : When Garrick was accused of avarice, Johnson said, *♦ I know that Garrick has given away more money than any »* man in England that 1 aip acquainted with ; and that not from ostentatious " views."t I have always deemed it a piece of good fortune, that I had the opportu- nity of being introduced to Mr Garrick's acquaintance ; and while 1 shared with the world in the admiration of his public talents, of witnessing the fas^ cination of his manners in private life. Note [DD.] p. 323. The publication of the " Mirror" was undertaken at Edinburgh by a set of friends, chiefly of the Scottish bar, whose attachment to literary pursuits was congenial ; and who, meeting frequently in the intercourse of business or society, found their conversation insensibly turn upon subjects of man- ners, of taste, and of literature ; until by one of those accidental resolutions, of which the origin cannot easily be traced, it was determmed to put their thoughts into writing, and to read them for the entertainment of each other. These essays thus assumed the form ; and soon after, some one suggested the idea of a periodical paper. Having resolved to print their lucubrations, the selection of materials for their work afforded them a most agreeable amusement; and they constituted themselves into a club, which met and decided on the merits of those pieces, which, like the lion's mouth of their predecessor the •♦ Spectator," were conveyed to them anonymously through the hands of their publisher, as well as those furnished by themselves* • Boswell's '* Life of Johnson," Vol. IV. p. 253. 8vo. ed. 4th. t BoswelPs " Life of Johnson," Vol. III. p. 72, 8vo, ed, 4th. It has been told to me by a friend, who heard Sir William Jones relate, that he went in the same coach with Dr Johnson to Mr Garrick's funeral, and that he employed the whole time in going from the Adelphi, where Garrick's house was, to Westminster- Abbey, in pronouncing a studied eulogy upon his deceased friend, of which Sir William particularly remembered the following expression : " Mr Garrick and his profession have '' been equally indebted to each other. His profession made him rich, and he made his " profession respectable." This was well said, in Johnson's best manner, and deserves not to be forgotten. APPENDIX. $Sr The very respectable list, prefixed to the later editions, of fhe^names of the authors of each paper,shows of what distinguished characters this literary society consisted ; and it is not a little remarkable, that of those essayists, no fewer than six either are, or have been, Judges.of the supreme courts o^ law in Scotland ;* other members of the society were equally respectable for talents and literary accomplishments. The gentlemen who thus associated themselves for the entertainment of the public, by these periodical papers, conscious of the advantage, indeed of the necessity at first, of concealment, kept themselves entirely unknown, even to their publisher, until the whole was finished, when concealment had ceased to be necessary ; as the public approbation had left them no longer under any apprehension as to the reception wliich their labours would meet with from the world. The intercourse between them and their publisher was car- ried on by Mr Henry Mackenzie, from whom he received the manuscript from time to time, although he knew that others beside that gentleman were engaged in the undertaking. Mr Mackenzie, who not only undertook the general conduct of the work, but who also contributed more papers to the common stock than any other member of the association, was well known to the literary world by various pieces, which had been extremely well received. The first w^as an ethic epistle, printed anonymously, by the title of the " Pur- " suits of Happiness ;*' a poem of very considerable merit, especially when considered as the production of so young a writer. His next work had drawn to its author much attention, and had stamped him with the charac- ter of a writer of original genius, and distinguished talents. It was his well known novel, "The Man of Feeling;" of the public approbation of which, the best proof is its having gone through so great a number of editions. He had also published two other novels, ** Julia de Roubigne," and " The " Man of the World," which have been favourably received, and of which new editions continue to be called for : and he had brought on the stage at Edinburgh, in the year 1773, a tragedy named the <' Prince of Tunis," where it had the advantage of the great powers of that capital actress, Mrs Yates, but has never since been revived, I have said elsewhere,! that periodical papers are a species of publica- tion almost peculiar to England, althougli Dr Seattle observes, tliat some of Seneca's epistles are compositions of the same character. A few years ago, an attempt was made in France, by the celebrated novelist. Mad. Riccoboni, to introduce a periodical paper at Paris, under the title of " L'Abeille ;*' but it did not succeed, and only three numbers were printed. The first se- ries of these popular essays that appeared in England, the first at least of any great reputation, was the ♦* Tatler,** projected and begun by Sir Richard Steele, who soon received a powerful co-adjutor in Mr Addison. The *'Tat- • Lord Abercromby, Lord Craig, and Lord Cullen, were original members of the club, or association. Lord Hailes> Mr Baron Gordon, and Lord Woodhouselee, contri- buted papers as correspondents, t See supra, p. 376. 558 APPENDIX. «* ler" was followed by the <* Spectator," of which, as also ofthe "Guardian," the principal writers were Steele and Addison, with the occasional as* sistance of Pope, Budgell, Lord Hardwicke, and Dr Pearce, Bishop of Ro- chester, who only died the 29th June, 1774, beyond the eig-hty-fifth year of his age, and was the last surviving writer of the " Spectator." From the publication of those three celebrated papers, of which the " Spectator" is, I think, generally allowed to be the best, and Addison unquestionably entitled to the preference as a writer, an interval of almost forty years intei*vened be- fore any paper of pre-eminent merit made its appearance, when the "Ram- *' bier," and afterwards the " Idler," were published by Dr Johnson. Then appeared the " Adventurer"* by Dr Hawkesworth, with some assistance from Dr Johnson and Mr Warton, which was succeeded by the " World," chiefly written by Mr Moore, Mr Jenyns, Mr Cambridge, Lord Chesterfield, Horace Walpole (Lord Orford), Sir David Dalrymple (Lord Hales). The ** Connoisseur" was written by Lloyd and Thornton. After a considerable length of time, the ** Mirror" first, and next the " L6unger," by the same set of friends, were published at Edinburgh. And it is no mean praise, that these two papers still continue to maintain their place among so many other excellent productions of a similar nature. The " Mirror" and " Lounger," in truth, are written with elegance ; and many of them, those by Mr Mackenzie in particular, on serious and important sub- jects, in a manner that do honour to the heart of the wiilper bs a moralist, as well as to his taste and judgment as a pblite scholar.f Several of the characters are weU drawn, and well supported; and not- withstanding the narrow limits of local manners, by which the writers have found themselves occasionally circumscribed, their lucubrations will be read with interest, as a valuable addition to the stock of English polite literature. The '* Mirror" commenced 23d January, 1779, and continued till 27th May, 1780. The " Lounger" commenced 5th February, 1785, and termi- nated 6th January, 1787. No similar publication is carrying on at present. • See $upra, p. 376. t See " Mirror/' No. HO. APPENDIX. rS^ LIST OF DR BEATTIE's WORKS. Poems, first published in the year 1760. Essay on Truth, ditto, 1771. Minstrel, Book I • . ditto, 1771. Book II ditto, 1774. Essay on Truth, ^ on Poetry and Music, • • • • • Litto, 1776. on Laughter and Ludicrous Composition, | on Classical Learning, J Dissertations on Memory and Imagination, on Dreaming, on the Theory of Language, . I ^^.^^q^ jjrg^ — — — on Fable and Romance, . . . on the Attachments of Kindred, f ' on Illustrations of Sublimity, . J Evidences of Christianity, ....... ditto, 1786. Elements of Moral Science, Vol. I ditto, 1790. Vol. II ditto, 1793. A translation into Dutch of the " Essay on Truth" was published at Utrecht in the year 1773 ; and the first volume of *' Elements of Moral «* Science" was also translated into the same language, soon after the book was published here, by Frederick Henry Hennert, Professor of Mathematics and Experimental Philosophy in the university of Utrecht. Whether a trans- lation was also published of the second volume of that work, I do not findT any trace among his papers. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY Return to desk from which borrowed. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. \^^^ 9 1953 LIT REC'D LD MAR 14 1960 JUL 2 5 1989 73 REC'D LD OCT '2 ISTT LD 21-100m-ll,'49(B7146sl6)476 SENT ON ILL SEP 1 9 2000 REC'D Lu OCT RECEIVED BY ArK 1 ci feb/ cmcuLAnoN DEPTi /l(/GI9'69-UAM 1 Z 1970 r 6/v. -5PM ^ ^1 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY m mmi Si