When he had finished his academical stuIsed of

dies, he obtained, in April, 1753, the appointment of schoolmaster of the parish of Fordoun, a small hamlet, about six miles distant from Lawrencekirk. Here he also filled the office of precentor, or parish clerk.

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Thus doomed to obscurity and insignificance, we contrast the celebrity of his after-life, and wish, in vain, for information that might display, minutely, the progress of his elevation. Few men have risen to distinction with greater obstacles of birth, fortune, and station, to overcome. The proudest hopes might have drooped under such circumstances. Literature had not shed that lustre upon Scotland, in the early part of the last century, which it does now: and the facilities of intercourse with the southern part of the kingdom were less. A young man doomed to the same privacy in a village of England, might, feeling his own. powers, cherish the expectations of fame by his vicinity to the metropolis, where the means are copious, and the reward, finally, bestowed. He is nearer to the common centre of exertion, patronage, and remuneration; and the oppor tunities of success are numerous, easy, and, sometimes, certain. But, to be banished to

an obscure hamlet in a remote part of Scotland exercising the humble functions of a village schoolmaster and a parish clerk; cut off from the power of disclosing the qualities of his mind to those who could appreciate or be friend them; and without the resources of literature; seem such a concurrence of impedi ments, that our wonder may justly be excited when we see them vanquished, and the indivi dual rising to unusual popularity and deserved eminence.

It may be conjectured, that while in this si tuation he passed much of his time in solitude. Except the parish minister, it is highly probable that he had no other companions but such as the labouring peasantry could supply. How such a mind as Beattie's would, therefore, employ itself, may be easily imagined. Surrounded by majestic scenery, the towering hill, the silent valley, the stream, the waterfall, and the restless illimitable ocean in the distant landscape, fancy had free range, and his thoughts dwelt upon objects that were congenial to them. Relieved from the toil of instruction, with what ardour must he have 'sought nature and solitude, there to commune with his own feelings, there to cherish those

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tender musings which afterwards delighted the world in his Minstrel, and there, perhaps, to anticipate, in bitterness of spirit, the inglo rious retreat which might be his lot. Wan dering amid these varied beauties of scenery, composed some of his earliest pieces, and as he looked abroad upon the creation, not seeing it through books, he transfused into his juvenile compositions those simple characters of truth and reality which at once command applause and excite pleasure.

The following stanza, from the second book of the Minstrel, is said to be an accurate des lincation of the rustic churchyard of Lawrencekirk.

Let vanity adorn the marble tomb,

With trophies, rhymes, and 'scutcheons of renown,
In the deep dungeon of some Gothic dome,

Where night and desolation ever frown.

Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down,

Where a green grassy turf is all I crave,
With here and there a violet bestrown,

Fast by a brook or fountain's murm'ring wave,
And many an evening sun shine śweetly on my grave.

One of his greatest delights we are told by Sir William Forbes was, to saunter, through the whole night, in the fields, and to watch for, and contemplate, the dawn of day.

That he habitually or frequently abjured sleep thus, may be doubted; but that, under the temporary influence of peculiar and accidental feeling, he may have been tempted to pass the hours of repose in solemn meditation and silent watching, is not unlikely. What has been occasionally done is too often magnified, by ourselves and others, into a distinct quality of our nature: and Sir William Forbes, having once believed that Dr. Beattie walked and thought, while the rest of mankind slept, finds no difficulty in referring the accuracy of some of the descriptions in the Minstrel, to the observations which he made at these times; and even to discover the very hill on which he must have stood when he saw what he has described. This is doubtful sagacity.

From the penury of intercourse to which his situation doomed him, he was relieved by the arrival of his eldest brother David, who arrived at Fordoun, with the intention of establishing himself there.

About the same period, also, he attracted the notice of Lord Gardenstown, at that time sheriff of the county of Kincardine, and whose mansion was in the neighbourhood of Fordoun,

Their meeting was accidental. Beattie had wandered one day into his favourite glen, and was there discovered by Lord Gardenstown, while he was committing to paper some com position. His lordship's enquiries ended in the discovery that they were verses which he was writing. His curiosity was excited, and he became his patron: but he was not without suspicion of the integrity of Beattie. He doubted that his verses were wholly his own. Whether this doubt arose from the consideration of the condition of the youthful poet, his means of cultivating his intellect, the inéquality between his discourse and his writing, or from a willingness, in Lord Gardenstown, to believe duplicity a natural concomitant of inferiority of birth and station, cannot perhaps be discovered: but the fact is not very creditable to Beattie, as he condescended to remove his lordship's suspicions by a translation from the Latin of Lucretius, the manuscript of which being blotted with corrections, carried conviction to the mind of his judge. During this period he obtained the notice of Lord Monboddo, a writer well known for his erudition and his singularities of opinion. The in