was called for, within a week after the publication."

LETTER XCVII.

DR BEATTIE TO MRS MONTAGU.

Aberdeen, 27th May, 1774.

"I am much diverted by Johnson's character of Lord Chesterfield's Letters. Dr Hurd and Mr Mason (for I have heard from them both, since the second part of The Minstrel' came out) give nearly the same account of them.

I

"Mr Mason seems now to be tolerably reconciled to the subscription, but he has found a new subject of concern, in this allegorical picture, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, which, he thinks, can hardly fail to hurt my character in good earnest. know not certainly in what light Mr Mason considers this picture; but, so far as I have yet heard, he is singular in his opinion. If Mr Gray had done me the honour to address an ode to me, and speak in high terms of my attack on the sceptics, my enemies might have blamed him for his partiality, and the world might have thought

that he had employed his muse in too mean an office; but would any body have blamed me? If Sir Joshua Reynolds thinks more favourably of me than I deserve, (which he certainly does,) and if he entertains the same favourable sentiments of my cause, which I wish him and all the world to entertain; I should be glad to know from Mr Mason, what there is in all this to fix any blame on my character? Indeed, if I had planned this picture, and urged Sir Joshua to paint it, and paid him for his trouble, and then had solicited admittance for it into the Exhibition, the world would have had good reason to exclaim against me as a vain coxcomb; but I am persuaded, that nobody will ever suspect me of this: for nobody can do so, without first supposing that I am a fool.

"About three weeks ago, I received a very short letter from Dr Priestley, of which the following is a copy: "Reverend Sir-Thinking it

right that every person should be apprised of any publication in which his writings are ani"madverted upon, I take the liberty to send you "a copy of a sheet, that will soon be published, "in which I announce my intention to remark

66

upon the principles of your Essay on Truth.'

1

"I am, reverend Sir, your very humble servant, "J. Priestley." This sheet contains a preface to a third vol. of Institutes of Religion.' That you, Madam, may be the better enabled to judge between him and me, I send it to you in a separate packet, which will be delivered along with this.

"I never saw Dr Priestley; I greatly esteem his talents as a natural philosopher, particularly as a chemist: whether his talents in moral philosophy be as distinguished, I have no opportunity of knowing. His excessive admiration of Mr Hartley's book, (see the preface, page 21.) I have heard mentioned as one of the learned Doctor's hobby-horses. I am not ignorant of his connections in the way of party; but I hope, in this attack upon my book, he is determined by nothing but a love of truth. I need not tell you, that he is the oracle of the Socinians and Dissenters; and the public will no doubt expect that I should answer his preface. This will not be a difficult matter. The Doctor must certainly have read my book, since he declares, in print, his disapprobation of it; but that he has read it attentively, and without prejudice, is not clear. Certain it is, that every one of his remarks on me,

as they appear in this preface, is founded in a gross misapprehension of my doctrine. I have written him a letter, which I enclose in this packet for your perusal; if you approve of it, please to cause it be forwarded to him; if not, you may suppress it.

"One would think, from reading Dr Priestley's preface, that Dr Reid, Dr Oswald, and I, wrote in concert, and with a view to enforce the very same hypothesis. But the truth is, that I write in concert with nobody: Dr Oswald's book I never read, till after my own was published; and Dr Reid (to whom I have made all due acknowledgments for the instruction I have received from his work) never saw mine, till it was in the hands of the public. The controversial part of Dr Reid's book regards the existence of matter chiefly; Dr Oswald's system (though there are many good things in his book) I never distinctly understood. The former of these authors differs in many things from me; and the latter (if I am rightly informed) has actually attacked a fundamental principle of mine, in a second volume, lately published, which I have not yet got leisure to read.

I have already observed, that, among various plans suggested by Dr Beattie's friends in England, for the advancement of his fortune, that of his taking orders in the Church of England had been mentioned to him.* It has been seen, by the preceding correspondence with Lady Mayne and Mr John Pitt, that he had entirely abandoned that idea. The zeal of his friends, however, was not abated, and he received another very flattering proposition, to the same purpose, through the hands of Dr Porteus.

* See Vol. I. p. 333.