in this philosophic excursion, he was far from forgetting his early favorites, the Muses. A few months after the publication of the "Essay on Truth," Mr. Beattie published the first book of "The Minstrel" in 4to., but without his name. By this concealment he ensured a more impartial and rigid judgment on its merits, than in the high state of his reputation at the time he could have otherwise hoped for; and never, perhaps, was an experiment of this kind attended with a result more calculated to give to the pleasure of approbation its highest zest. The best judges of poetical composition in the island loaded the unknown author with their commendations, praising him for having adopted the elevated, yet difficult, measure of Spenser, and for having the rare enthusiasm of that writer to support and render it agreeable. The public, discovering in it the genuine poetry of nature and feeling, read it with such avidity, that before the author had the second part ready, four editions of the first were disposed of.

In 1774 he published the "Second Book," with a new and amended edition of the first; and now avowed himself as the author. The work in this enlarged state suffered no diminution of its popularity: edition after edition has ever since continued to be called for, and it may now be regarded as among the standard poems of the language. The opinion which Lord Lyttelton expressed of the Minstrel might of itself serve to carry it down through many an age. The whole field of criticism cannot boast of a more enchanting encomium. In a letter to Mrs. Montagu he says, "I read your Minstrel last night with as much rapture as poetry in her noblest, sweetest charms, 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 human, but with angelic strains."

Mrs. Montagu's friendship for Beattie commenced in 1771, on a visit which he then paid to London. At her house, he had the good fortune of meeting and becoming personally acquainted with Dr. Johnson, and several other of the most eminent writers of that period; with the whole of the literary society, indeed, whose conversations have been so pleasantly related by Boswell. In May, 1773, Mr. Beattie paid a second visit to London, and, on this occasion, was honored by several very flattering marks of distinction. The University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws; his majesty not only placed him on the civil list for a pension of 2001. but admitted him to the honor of a private interview at Kew; and Sir Joshua Reynolds made him a present of the admirable picture, in which he has given a portrait of Dr. Beattie, with an allegorical representation of the triumph which his "Truth" had achieved over sophistry, scepticism, and infidelity.

Soon after this visit to England, he received several flattering proposals to enter into the English church; but very prudently declined them. It could not but have derogated greatly from his character, to have seen the advocate of truth changing his religion for the sake of worldly advancement.

In October, 1773, the chair of natural and experimental philosophy in the University of Edinburgh

becoming vacant, an offer of it was made to Dr. Beattie, but this also he declined. In this, as in every step of his life, he seems to have weighed the probable consequences to his character with great accuracy. He had already acquired an enviable eminence as a poet, a critic, and moral philosopher; but experimental philosophy was all a new field to him, in which even an ordinary reputation was not to be sustained without a course of laborious and unintermitting study, and new laurels were scarcely to be hoped for by one beginning the study at so late a period in life. Dr. Beattie besides, though his knowledge was extensive, confessedly knew little or nothing of the branches of mathematics, geometry, and mechanics; he used to say, indeed, that he not only had no turn for them, but that every application to them brought on headaches. It is not without its importance to notice these facts; for, strange as it may seem, his biographers, instead of having recourse to them for the most natural explanation in the world, of his conduct in declining the chair of experimental philosophy in Edinburgh, have been pleased to describe the Scottish capital as such a literary beargarden at this period, that the amiable Beattie was deterred from removing thither from an apprehension that "the formation of a new society of friends might not be so easy or agreeable, in a place where the enemies of his principles were numerous"!! Necessity had undoubtedly as great a share as inclination in determining Dr. Beattie's choice on this occasion; and, to a mind so well regulated as his, it must have afforded a source of approving reflection, that by declining the chair, he left it open to one for

whom nature had more truly designed it, the celebrated Professor Robertson.

In 1776, Dr. Beattie published a series of Essays on Poetry and Music, on Laughable and Ludicrous Composition, and on the Utility of Classical Learning; in 1783, Dissertations, Moral and Critical;" in 1786, "the Evidences of the Christian Religion, briefly and plainly stated;" and in 1790 and 1793," Elements of Moral Science." Most of these productions formed originally part of the course of prelections which he read from his chair in the university; and his aim, as he declared, in all of them, was "to inure young minds to habits of attentive observation; to guard them against the influence of bad principles; and to set before them such views of nature, and such plain and practical truths, as may, at once, improve the heart and the understanding, and amuse and elevate the fancy."

While thus delighting the world with the quick succession and variety of his productions, Dr. Beattie was himself, unhappily, nearly all the while a prey to the severest private sufferings. A hereditary tendency in Mrs. Beattie to that most dreadful of all human maladies, insanity, began, in a few years after their marriage, to exhibit itself in caprices which embittered every hour of his life; and ended, at last, in a state of such confirmed alienation, as required that she should be secluded from the society of her family. The only offspring of their connection were two sons, James Hay Beattie and Montagu Beattie. Both grew up to be every thing a father's heart could wish; distinguished for rising genius, sweetness of temper, and filial affection; but both it was his melancholy lot to

see consigned to an early grave, the eldest in his twenty-second, and the youngest in his eighteenth year. On the death of his son, James Hay Beattie, he sought to alleviate his grief by writing an account of his "Life and Character," which was afterwards published along with some of his literary remains, and is perhaps one of the most interesting and pathetic narratives in the language. It was the sorrowing "Minstrel's" parting effort; when he had discharged this last sad duty to the memory of his son, he laid aside his pen, and never resumed it more. For a few years, however, he still continued, although with intervals of depression and sickness, to deliver his public lectures as usual; but, when his only surviving child was also snatched from him, the blow was more than his fortitude could sustain; taking a last look of the dead body of his son, he said, "I have now done with the world." From this period he began to withdraw from society, and brooded in silence over the havoc which affliction had made in his family, until his mind seemed lost to all that was passing around him. Many times, he could not recollect what had become of his son Montagu; 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?" When Mrs. G. on these occasions, felt herself under the painful necessity of bringing to his recollection his son Montagu's sufferings, the mention of them always restored him to reason. He would then, with many tears, express his thankfulness that he had no child, saying, in allusion to their mother's hereditary malady, "How could I have borne