The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair and Falconer | Page 6

of both was
hapless. James Hay, who gave high literary promise, and was still more
distinguished by his amiable disposition, after having been appointed to
be his father's successor in the chair, died in 1790, at the age of
twenty-two, of a consumption. Beattie felt the blow deeply, and
published, soon after, the life and remains of the precocious youth. Our
readers must all remember the exquisite story of his teaching him the
idea of a Creator by sowing his name in cresses in the garden. The loss
of Montague, also a youth of much promise, by a rapid fever in 1796,
completed the prostration of the poor father. It was the case of Burke
over again, but worse, inasmuch as Beattie, a weaker nature, was
sometimes driven to seek oblivion in the cup, and as sometimes his
reason reeled on its throne, and he went about the house asking where
his son was, and whether he had or had not a son. He retired from all
society--lost taste for his former pleasures, such as music, which he had
once relished so keenly--was seized, in 1799, with a paralytic affection,
which deprived him of speech--and languished on, ever and anon
visited with new assaults of the same malady, till at last, on the 18th of
August 1803, the gifted, amiable, but most miserable "Minstrel"
breathed his last. He now lies beside his two dear sons in the
churchyard of St Nicholas, Aberdeen, a graceful Latin inscription from
the pen of Dr James Gregory of Edinburgh distinguishing the stone
which covers his ashes.
Beattie was of the middle size, of slouching gait, and common-place
appearance, redeemed by two fine dark eyes, which, melancholy in

repose, gleamed and glowed whenever he became animated in
conversation. He had warm affections, a tender, shrinking, sensitive
disposition, was a kind parent, an attached friend, truly pious, and
could be charged with no fault, save an irritability of temper, which
grew upon him with his misfortunes and infirmities, and, latterly, that
occasional excess to which we have alluded, which sprung rather from
dotage and wretchedness than from inclination, and in which he was far
more to be pitied than blamed.
Of his pretensions as a philosopher we shall say nothing, save that he
has now no name, and is held rather to have struck at and all about
Hume, than to have smote him hip and thigh. His essays are
exceedingly agreeable reading. Cowper relished no book so well, but
they can scarcely be called either profound or brilliant. They soothe,
but do not suggest--they tickle, but do not tell us anything new. It is as
a poet that his name must survive, and the paean of reception which
saluted him in his "Essay on Truth," entering on stilts, should have
been reserved entirely for the "Minstrel," with the meek harp in his
hand.
Much has been said of the effect of fine scenery upon the development
of genius. And as this is the theme of one-half of the "Minstrel," we
must be permitted a few remarks on it. The finest scenery in the world
cannot, then, 'create' genius. A dunce, born in the Vale of Tempe, will
remain a dunce still. And, on the other hand, a poet reared in St Giles or
the Goosedubs will develop his poetic vein. The true influences, we
suspect, of scenery on genius are the following:--1st, Where poetry lies
deep and latent in a deep but silent nature, scenery will act like the rod
of Moses on the rock in bringing forth the struggling waters--it will
prompt to imitation, and gradually supply language. 2d, Early
familiarity with the beautiful aspects of nature will enable the youth of
genius to realize the descriptions of nature in the great poetic masters,
to test their truth, and imbibe their spirit, by comparing them day by
day with their archetypes. He can stand on a snow-clad mountain, with
Thomson's "Winter" in his hands. He can walk through a wood of pines,
swinging in the tempest, and repeat Coleridge's "Ode to Schiller." He
can, lying on a twilight hill, with twilight mountains darkening into

night around him, and twilight fields and rivers glimmering far below,
and one cataract, touching the grand piano of the silence into
melancholy music, turn round and see in the north-east the moon rising
in that "clouded majesty" of which Milton had spoken long before. He
can take the "Lady of the Lake" to the same summit, while afternoon,
the everlasting autumn of the day, is shedding its thoughtful and
mellow lines over the landscape, and can see in it a counterpart of the
scene at the Trosachs--the woodlands, the mountains, the isle, the
westland heaven--all, except the chase, the stag, and the stranger, and
these the imagination can supply; or he