The poetical works of James Beattie

He had still one son left, and round him his affections gathered with increased earnestness. Though without the extra capabilities of his elder brother, the talents of Montague Beattie were more than respectable; while his loving heart and lively disposition made up for the want of dazzling accomplishments. He was a universal favourite. Cheered by his watchful assiduity, Dr Beattie laboured on at his accustomed work. In 1790 appeared the first volume of his "Elements of Moral Science;" and in 1793 the second. These, with "Essays on Poetry and Music, Laughter and Ludicrous Composition, and the Use of the Classics," "Dissertations, Moral and Critical," and "Evidences of the Christian Religion," comprised the substance of his lectures to his students. For them, too, he drew up a small brochure on Scotticisms, which contains some shrewd verbal criticism. The only other works with which the name of Beattie is connected are one or two papers in The Lounger, a letter to Dr Blair on a proposed revisal of the Scottish metrical version of the Psalms, and an account of the life and character of his son, James Hay Beattie.

This testimony of his paternal love was Beattie's last literary exertion. It was finished January 18, 1791. Five years afterwards Montague Beattie died. This stroke was more than his father's mind could bear. His intellect even was touched. He lost all memory of his son's death; would search through the house for him; and, not finding him, would say to his niece and housekeeper, Mrs Glennie, "You may think it strange, but I must ask you if I have a son, and where he is." He could only be brought to recollection by a recital of the sufferings of Montague's deathbed. When he looked for the last time upon the dead body, he said, "Now I have done with the world." And so it was in truth. He gave up all study, all recreation, and all correspondence with friends. The following year he became quite a cripple with rheumatism; and in 1799 he had a stroke of palsy, from which he never entirely recovered; and, finally, on the

18th of August 1803, he was released from his sufferings by the kindly hand of death.

Dr Beattie's intercourse with the world was marked by the courtesy and forbearance of a Christian gentleman; or, if in aught, during the heat of controversy, he overstepped the bounds of propriety, the love he bore to virtue was in fault. In temper he was naturally gentle and placable; but from his close and long-continued study of polemics, it was noticed that, towards the close of his public life, he was in the smallest possible degree inclined to acerbity and sharpness. In his last years all this dross was purified; the original metal alone remained, gentle, radiant, and without alloy.

In his character as a husband and father, Beattie manifested the same sterling qualities, though in a much higher and more attractive degree. Gentle and affectionate, ruling by love rather than fear, he had yet that clear-sighted firmness which kept him from injuring by over-indulgence. Sorely tried as he was by the melancholy fate of his wife, he never murmured nor complained. Even when the fondest hopes of his heart were buried in the grave of his sons, he bowed in silent submission to the decrees of an all-wise Providence. Though the stroke was hard to bear, there was no loud, rebellious grief. He calmly waited for the time when he would rejoin his lost ones, never more to leave them. Were we to sum up in a single word his character as a man, we could not better express it than the poet himself has done, in a stanza of an epitaph, written while in Fordoun :

"Forget my frailties, thou art also frail;

Forgive my lapses, for thyself mayest fall;
Nor read unmoved my artless tender tale:
I was a friend, O man, to thee, to all !"

As an author, Beattie is distinguished in his prose compositions for the smooth flow of his language and the easy gracefulness of his thoughts. In controversy he sometimes,

though rarely, expresses himself more sharply than would be deemed necessary in the present day; but we only require to realise the times in which he lived, the ominous mutterings of wreck and revolution that were already filling the air, fully to exonerate him from the charge of unnecessary harshness. But it is as a poet that Beattie will be longest and most fondly remembered. As a metaphysician his labours may be, so far as their main purpose is concerned, superseded by more recent investigators, who, thanks to his aid and that of his contemporaries, have been enabled to penetrate further into the regions of speculation; but while the English language lasts, so long will the quiet beauty of the word-pictures in "The Minstrel" charm every student of nature, and that in proportion to his loving familiarity with her gentle and more peaceful scenes.