JAMES BEATTIE:

SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.

JAMES BEATTIE was born at Laurencekirk, in Kincardineshire, the 25th of October, 1735. His father, who was a small farmer and shopkeeper, died in 1742, James being then seven years old. David, the eldest of the six children, undertook for the education of James. The parish school to which he was sent was then taught by one Milne, whom his pupil describes as a good grammarian and Latinist, but destitute of taste and other qualifications for a teacher. Milne preferred Ovid to Virgil; while his pupil, even at that age, showed a better taste by preferring the severer poet. It is said that, in the interval of school hours, Paradise Lost and Thomson's Seasons were eagerly devoured by the boy. In 1749, at the age of fourteen, Beattie entered Marischal College, Aberdeen; and such was his proficiency, that he took the first of the allowances which were given to such students as were unable to pay their own way. He was much given to general reading, especially in poetry; and spent a good deal of his leisure in the study and practice of music: he also applied himself closely to all the branches taught, except mathematics, for which he had no taste or aptitude, and took the regular degree in 1753.

Being now obliged to look out for himself, he applied for the situation of parish schoolmaster at Fordoun, which happened to be vacant, and was elected in August, 1753. The salary was small, and the place in other respects not very eligible. Near the village, however, resided Lord Gardenstown, who caught Beattie, with pencil and paper in hand, in a romantic glen near his house; struck up a conversation with him; and, finding him to be a poet, gave him the invocation to Venus in the opening of Lucretius to translate this he did on the spot, and so well withal, as to remove the doubts which that gentleman entertained as to whether his poetry was really his own. The result was, that his lordship became a friend and patron of the young poet, as Lord Monboddo also did, the two vying with each other in his behalf. While there, he wrote several poetical pieces, and sent them, with his initials, to the Scots Magazine, where they were published. These, however, brought him nothing but fame.

After teaching some time, he returned to Aberdeen to engage in preparing for the ministry; but it was not long before he gave up his purpose of undertaking that office; and in 1758, a vacancy occurring in the Aberdeen Giammar School, he was elected, and entered upon his duties, which allowed him leisure for the cultivation of his poetical gift. Two years later, through the aid of his friends, he was appointed Professor of Philosophy in Marischal College. He was young and scantily qualified for such a post; but he set manfully to work, read and wrote hard, and in a few years became able to front such men as Gregory, Campbell, and Reid, with whom he was associated. In 1761, he published a volume of poems. The book appeared at the same time in Edinburgh and London, and was hailed with general applause; the poetry being held superior to any since Gray's. But he himself soon grew to think quite otherwise of it, and indeed was taken with a fastidious loathing of the poems. In 1767, Beattie was married to Mary, the daughter of Dr. Dunn, then Rec tor of the Aberdeen Grammar School. She was an amiable and gifted woman,

but, unfortunately, inherited from her mother the germs of insanity, which are said to have broke out in capricious waywardness, some time before the evil culminated in actual madness. The great era of Beattie's life was in 1770, when he published his Essay on Truth, which soon spread his fame far and near. The first edition was bought up so eagerly, that a second was issued the next year; and in less than four years five large editions were sold. It was also translated into several foreign languages, and attracted the notice of many eminent persons in various parts of the Continent. The essay was intended as a refutation of Hume's sceptical and atheistical philosophy, and was written with great ardour, and in a rather florid and taking style, well adapted to catch a loud and rapid popularity, but not a solid and enduring one. - The next year, Beattie visited London, and began a personal acquaintance with men of the highest eminence, such as Lords Mansfield and Lyttleton, Dr. Johnson, Burke, and others. He was also honoured with the degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of Oxford; and in 1773, he was admitted to an interview with the King, who received him very graciously, and bestowed on him a pension of £200 a year.

The Essay on Truth is scarcely heard of in our time; nor does it deserve to be, for it is altogether lacking in the calmness of thought and austerity of style which should rightly mark a philosophical treatise. I read it many years ago, but have never cared to read it again. The production of Beattie that I am next to speak of is one that I am never weary of reading. After a while he became so disgusted with his juvenile poems, that he tried his utmost to run them out of print, and induce a public oblivion of them. As a natural conse quence of this, he seems to have grown more chary in his courtship of the Muses. Nevertheless he was not so unconscious or so distrustful of his poetical gift as to relinquish his early and favourite pursuit. A few months after the publication of the essay, the first book of The Minstrel was given to the world, but without the author's name. The professional critics, not knowing whose workmanship it was, were very severe in condemnation of it, but the public chose, in this case, to judge for themselves, and so they fell in love with the beautiful poem. The result was, that it ran through four editions, each later one being revised and improved by the author. In 1774, he published the second book; which, as the authorship was now known, was loudly praised by the critics, as well as by the general reader. It was his purpose to add a third book; but this he never did.

In 1776, Beattie set forth a new edition of his Essay on Truth, adding withal two other essays, one on Poetry and Music, and one on Laughter and Ludicrous Composition. This was followed, in 1783, by a volume of Dissertations on Memory and Imagination, Dreaming, &c.; also, in 1786, by a little treatise on the Christian Evidences, which he himself preferred to all his writings for its "closeness of matter and style;" also, in 1790-93, by two volumes on the Elements of Moral Science, an abridgment of his professorial lectures. Long before this time, his wife had to be separated from him on account of her malady. He had two sons, one named James Hay, from his friend the Earl of Errol; the other named Montague, from the celebrated Mrs. Montague, who was one of his London friends. The history of both sons is sad enough. James Hay, who gave high literary promise, and was still more distinguished for his amiable disposition, was appointed to succeed his father in the chair, but died in 1790 at the age of twenty-two. The father suffered dreadfully from this blow. The death of Montague, also a youth of much promise, in 1796, by a rapid fever, totally prostrated the poor man. In his extreme anguish, he was sometimes driven to seek relief in the cup, and was so far put from himself, that sometimes he went about the house asking where his son was, and whether he had a son or not. He withdrew from all society, lost all relish of his former delights, was seized, in 1799, with a paralytic affection, and languished on till the 18th of August, 1803, when the gifted, amiable, and most afflic ed "Minstrel" breathed his last.