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 favourité glen, and was there discovered by Lord Gardenstown, while he was committing to paper some composition. 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 inequality 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

tercourse thus established, continued, without interruption, till the death of Monboddo, in May, 1799. Beattie's Elegy beginning

"Still shall unthinking man substantial deem, &c." was written on the death of Mrs. Walker, the sister of his lordship.

Dr. Beattie continued to teach the parish school of Fordoun till the year 1757, when a vacancy occurring in the situation of usher in the grammar school of Aberdeen, he was advised to become a candidate for it. This he did, but without success. The ability, how ever, which he displayed on the occasion, made that impression on the magistrates, who are the electors, that he was requested by them, in the ensuing year, to accept the situation without any further trial, a second vacancy having occurred. With this offer he complied, and he was accordingly elected to the appointment on the 20th of June, 1758, and removed from Fordoun to Aberdeen..

We are now to consider Dr. Beattie as an inhabitant of that town from which his "sober wishes" never afterwards "learned to stray;' where he rose to a professorship; and whence issued those works which have elevated his name to a conspicuous place in British litera

ture. By this event he was removed from that obscurity, and that inequality of society, which he must have felt very keenly. He was now among men from whose conversation he might derive knowledge, and from whose discernment his own attainments might receive distinction. The stores which he had already amassed, would no longer stagnate from want of use: and he would be incited to the accumulation of greater, by an emulation to equal, if not to surpass, those who were now his companions and his rivals. He would learn what were his own deficiencies in general knowledge, by observing how they were supplied by others and he would acquire a just confidence in his own powers, as often they enabled him to excel those who were already allowed to be his superiors. Weak minds sink into despair and silence before the display of eminent abilities; but conscious genius is in vigorated by opposition: defeat only awakens new resolutions to supply defects; and victory excites fresh caution to maintain, by general superiority, what has been gained, perhaps, by accidental. It may easily be imagined, therefore, that Beattie's removal-to Aberdeen would stimulate him to a degree of

exertion, which he would scarcely have undertaken while buried in solitude and obscurity.

He did not remain long in the humble capacity of an usher. In the year 1760, Dr. Duncan, professor of natural philosophy, in the Marischal College, Aberdeen, died. It was suggested to him by a friend, (Mr. Arburthnot, a near relative of the celebrated Dr. Arburthnot, and a steady promoter of Beattie's welfare through his whole life,) that he should try for the vacant chair. The proposal towered so high above the expectations of Beattie, that he listened to it with astonishment. His friend, however, had more sanguine hopes, and he prevailed on Lord Erroll to intercede with Lord Milton, that an application might be made to the duke of Argyle, who was, at that time, believed to possess much influence in the disposal of such offices as became vacant in Scotland. The result was favourable. He was installed Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic in Marischal College, on the 8th of October, 1760; for this office was more congenial to his pursuits, than that of natural philosophy; and Dr. Skene, who had ob tained the appointment to the former, but with