The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair and Falconer | Page 5

the flatteries he received from Lyttelton and
that peculiar clique which circled round him; and hence his prejudice in
their favour, and the praise he reciprocates, are enormous. "Lord
Lyttelton," says a writer, "is his private friend, and him he always calls
the 'Great Historian,' though he is obliged to give his lordship's name
afterwards, to let his readers know of whom he is speaking! From his
letters it might appear that all the literary talent, all the taste, and all the
virtue of the country, were confined to his circle of friends--Lord
Lyttelton, Mrs Montague, Dr Porteous, and Major Mercer."
In 1773, he again visited London, and the climax of his renown seemed
to be reached, when the University of Oxford gave him the degree of
LL.D.--when three different times he refused the offer by bishops and
archbishops of promotion in the English Church--and when (oh, brave!)
he was admitted to an interview with their Majesties, complimented on
his "Essay on Truth" by good old George III., who was much better
qualified to judge of an essay on turnips, and gifted with a pension of
£200 a-year. About the same time he was urged to apply for the
Professorship of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh, which he declined to
do, apparently from a terror at the thought of coming so near David
Hume--a terror which strikes us as exceedingly ludicrous, when we
recollect that, most pernicious as were Hume's principles, he was in
private as harmless, good-natured, and ('Scottice') 'sonsy' a being as
lived.
A few months after the "Essay on Truth" appeared, and while the
echoes of its fame were beginning to spread through the world, there

had appeared a thin anonymous quarto, entitled the "First Book of the
Minstrel." It slid noiselessly as a star into the world's air. The critics,
finding no name on the title page, were peculiarly severe, and
peculiarly senseless, in their treatment of the unpretending volume,
which would have been crushed under their heavy strictures, had
not--rare event in those days--the public chosen to judge for itself, and
to fall in love with the beautiful poem. It consequently soon ran
through four editions, each edition containing some corrections and
improvements; and in the year 1774 he published the second part,
which, now that its author's name was known, was loudly praised by
the Reviews, as well as by the general reader. He always meant to, but
never did, add a third.
From the date of his refusal of promotion in the English Church,
Beattie had made up his mind to remain in Aberdeen, which is a
beautifully built town, and which teemed to him with old associations.
He spent his winters in diligently instructing his class, and in summer
was often found at Peterhead, a town situated on the most easterly
promontory of Scotland, and which was then noted for its medicinal
waters. Beattie was troubled with a vertiginous complaint, which he
found benefited by the use of the Peterhead Spa. He no doubt also
admired and often visited the noble sea scenery to the south of that
town.--Slaines Castle, standing on its rock, sheer over the savage surge,
and begirt by the perpetual clang of sea-fowl and roar of billows, and
the famous Bullers of Buchan, where the sea has forced its way through
the solid rock, leaving an arch of triumph to commemorate the passage,
and formed a huge round pot where its waters, in the time of storm,
rage and fret and foam like a newly imprisoned maniac--a pot which Dr
Johnson proposes to substitute for the Red Sea, in the future
incarceration of demons.
In 1776, he published, by subscription, a new and splendid edition of
his "Essay on Truth," accompanied by two other essays, much more
interesting, on "Poetry and Music," and on "Laughter and Ludicrous
Composition," and by "Remarks on the Utility of Classical Learning."
This was followed, in 1783, by a volume of "Dissertations on Memory
and Imagination, Dreaming," &c. In 1786 he published a little treatise

on the "Christian Evidences," which he had shown to Bishop Porteous
in London, two years before, and been recommended by him to give to
the world. Beattie himself preferred it to all his writings, in "closeness
of matter and style." In 1790 and 1793, appeared two volumes on the
"Elements of Moral Science," containing an abridgment of his lectures
on Moral Philosophy and Logic. He wrote also, in the "Transactions" of
the Royal Society, Edinburgh, a paper on the sixth book of the "Æneid",
and contributed a few notes to an edition of Addison's works.
His wife long ere this had been separated from him by her malady. By
her he had two sons, James Hay, named after the Earl of Errol, and
Montague, after the celebrated Mrs Montague. The history