Having thus frankly declared my sentiments, it is almost unnecessary to add, that I prefer the plan adopted by Dr. Currie, in his Life of Burns, to that, which has been chosen by Sir William Forbes for the life of his illustrious friend. In the execution of the mode he has followed Sir William has discovered a soundness of judgment and taste in his selection, an elegance of language, a purity of sentiment, and an ardour of friendship, which will do him immortal honour. But, as my purpose is not to criticise the biographer,but to make some slight remarks on the poet, I must proceed.

Beattie was born a poet; that is, he was born with those talents and sensibilities, which, with the assistance of the slightest education, are almost certain in due time to vent themselves in poetry. In the first Occupation of his manhood, the care of an obscure country school, Sir Wm. Forbes says, " he had a never failing resource in his own mind; in those meditations which he loved to indulge, amidst the beautiful and sublime scenery of that neighbourhood, which furnished him with endless amusement. At a small distance from the place of his residence a deep and extensive glen, finely cloathed with wood, runs up into the mountains. Thither he frequently repaired; and there several of his earliest pieces were written. From that wild and romantick spot, he drew, as from the life, some of his finest descriptions, and most beautiful pictures of nature, in his poetical compositions. He has been heard to say, for instance, that the description of the owl, in his charming poem "On Retirement,"

• Whence the scar'd owl, on pinions grey,
Breaks from the rustling boughs;
And down the lone vale sails.away
To more profound repose ;'

crave,

Where a green grassy turf is all I With here and there a violet bestrown, Fast by a brook, or fountain's mur

muring wave; And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave'

"It was his supreme delight to saunter in the felds the livelong night, contemplating the sky, and marking the approach of day; and he used to describe with peculiar animation the soaring of the lark in a summer morning. A beautiful landscape, which he has magnificently described in the twentieth stanza of the first book of The Minstrel, corresponds exactly with what must have presented itself to his poetical imagination, at those occasions, on the approach of the rising sun, as he would view the grandeur of that scene from the hill in the neighbourhood of his native village. The high hill, which rises to the west of Fo:doune, would, in a misty morning, supply him with one of the images so beautifully described in the twenty-first stanza. And the

twentieth stanza of the second book of The Minstrel describes a night scene unquestionably drawn from nature, in which he probably had in view Homer's sublime description of the Moon in the eighth book of the Iliad, so admirably translated by Pope, that an eminent critick has not scrupled to declare it to be superiour to the original. He used himself to tell, that it was from the top of a high hill in the neighbourhood, that he first beheld the ocean, the sight of which, he declared, made the most lively impression on his mind.

"It is pleasing, I think, to contemplate these his early habits, so congeni i to the feelings of a poet ical and warm imagination; and therefore, I trust, I shall be forgiven for having dwelt on them so long." Sir William Forbes need have made no apology for the length of these passages. I would have said "O si sic omnia!" but that it would seem to imply some censure; and I well know that all could not be like this. We cannot always be watching the dawn of day on the misty mountain's top;" nor be constantly wandering "alone and pensive" by the "pale beams" of the "Queen of Night." But it will not be doubted, that in the occupations of "young Ed win" the poet described many of his own early propensities and amusements. I do not agree therefore with an eminent critick, who observing that Edwin "is marked from his cradle with those dispositions and propensities, which were to be the foundation of his future destiny," adds, " I believe it would be difficult in real biography to trace any such early indications of a genius exclusively fitted for poetry; nor do I im

agine that an exquisite sensibility to the sublime and beautiful of nature is ever to be found in minds, which have not been opened by a degree of culture." The interposition indeed of the word “ exclusively" a little qualifies the assertion; but the endowments attributed by the poet to Edwin, though they are not exclusively, are more peculiarly, adapted to poetical eminence.

If this assertion then be true, that the delineation of the infant Minstrel was essentially that of the author, for which we have the authority of Sir W. Forbes, and even of Beattie himself, there is an end to the denial of particular genius, which Johnson was so fond of urging, and which so many, on his great, but surely far from infallible judgment, are fond of repeating. Every one, possessed of equal fancy and equal sensibility of heart with Beattie, would feel in childhood similar sentiments and similar pleasures; and I think it must not be questioned that the impression of those sentiments and those pleasures would lead a person of equal capacity more peculiarly, not only to the inclination, but, with the aid of a little industry, to the power, of composing poetry.

I assert again therefore that the hand of Nature impressed on Beattie's mind the character of a poet. He afterwards became a philosopher by the effect of accident, and study. All this indeed he appears to me to have confirmed by his own direct declarations.

Hear him in a Letter to Dr. Blacklock, dated 9 Jan. 1769.

**** « Perhaps you are anxious to know what first induced me to write on this subject ;" (Truth.) "I will tell you as briefly as I can. In my younger days I read chiefly for my amuse

ment, and I found myself best amused with the classicks, and what we call the Belles Lettres. Metaphysicks I disliked; mathematicks pleased me better; but I found my mind neither improved nor gratified by that study. When providence allotted me my present station" (of Professor of Moral Philosophy) "it became incumbent on me to read what had been written on the subject of morals and human nature: the works of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, were celebrated as master-pieces in this way; to them, therefore, I had recourse. But as I began to study them with great prejudices in their favour, you will readily conceive, how strangely I was surprised to find them, as I thought, replete with absurdities: I pondered these absurdities; I weighed the arguments, with which I was sometimes not a little confounded; and the result was, that I began at last to suspect my own understanding, and to think that I had not capacity for such a study. For I could not conceive it possible that the absurdities of these authors were so great, as they seemed to me to be; otherwise, thought I, the world would never admire them so much. About this time, some excellent antisceptical works made their appearance, particularly Reid's "Inquiry into the Human Mind."Then it was that I began to have a little more confidence in my own judgment, when I found it confirmed by those, of whose abilities I did not entertain the least distrust. I reviewed my authors again with a very different temper of mind. A very little truth will sometimes enlighten a vast extent of science. I found that the sceptical philosophy was not what the world imagined it to be; but a frivolous, though dangerous, system of verbal subtlety, which it

required neither genius, nor learn. ing, nor taste, nor knowledge of mankind, to be able to put together; but only a captious temper, an irreligious spirit, a moderate command of words, and an extraordinary degree of vanity and presumption. You will easily per

ceive that I am speaking of this philosophy only in its most extravagant state, that is, as it appears in the works of Mr. Hume. The more I study it, the more am I confirmed in this opinion," &c.

The above extract discovers the origin of Beattie's philosphical works. Those which follow exhibit the first traces of his incomparable poem, "The Minstrel."

Dr. Beattie to Dr. Blacklock, 22 Sept. 1766.

****. "Not long ago I began a poem in the style and stanza of Spenser, in which I propose to give full scope to my inclination, and be either droll or pathetick, descriptive or sentimental, tender or satirical, as the humour strikes me; for, if I mistake not, the manner, which I have adopted, admits equally of all these kinds of composition. I have written one hundred and fifty lines, and am surprised to find the structure of that complicated stanza so little troublesome. I was always fond of it; for I think it the most harmonious that ever was contrived. It admits of more variety of pauses, than either the couplet, or the alternate rhyme; and it concludes with a pomp, and majesty of sound, which, to my ear, is wonderfully delightful. It seems also very well adapted to the genius of our language, which, from its irregularity of inflexion, and number of monosyllables, abounds in diversified terminations, and consequently renders our poetry susceptible of an endless variety of legitimate rhymes. But

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 angelick strains! I beg you to express my gratitude to the poet for the pleasure he has given me. Your eloquence alone can do justice to my sense of his admirable genius, and the excellent use he makes of it. Would it were in my power to do him any service !"*

In a letter dated 6 July, 1772, the author declares that the second canto had been nearly finished these two years; but it was not published till 1774, accompanied by a new edition of the first canto. In the mean time Beattie's domestick afflictions increased with his fame; and embittered the exquisite satisfaction, which he would otherwise have derived from the flattering station he now held in society. To these I think we must attribute the change of sentiments on a very important topick, which the latter part of the following most eloquent letter seems to discover.

Dr. Beattie to Mrs. Montagu, 26 July, 1773.

"Your most obliging and most excellent letter of the 14th current,

The Rev. Mr. Allison, the elegant author of "Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste," and the husband of Dr. Gregory's daughter, feelingly observes, "I do not know any thing that Lord Lyttleton has written, that so strongly marks the sensibility and purity of his taste. The allusion to Thomson is singularly affecting, and constitutes the finest praise, that ever was bestowed on a poet."

bore the impression of Socrates of the outside. He, if I mistake not, piqued himself on having constantly resided in Athens, and used to say, that he found no instruction in stones or trees; but you, Madam, better skilled in the human heart, and more thoroughly acquainted with all the sublimest affections, do justly consider that quiet which the country affords, and those soothing and elevating sentiments, which "rural sights and rural sounds" so powerfully inspire, as necessary to purify the soul, and raise it to the contemplation of the first and greatest good. Yet, I think, you rightly determine, that absolute solitude is not good for us. The social affections must be cherished, if we would keep both mind and body in good health. The virtues are all so nearly allied, and sympathise if one is borne down, all the rest so strongly with each other, that feel it, and have a tendency to pine away. The more we love one another, the more we shall love our Maker and if we fail in duty to our common parent, our bret.ren of mankind will soon discover that we fail in duty to them also.

:

"In my younger days I was much attached to solitude,and could have envied even "The Shepherd of the Hebride isles, placed far amid the melancholy main." I wrote Odes to Retirement, and wished to be conducted to its deepest groves, remote from every rude sound, and from every vagrant foot.

In a word, I thought the most profound solitude the best. But I have now changed my mind. Those solemn and incessant energies of imagination, which naturally take place in such a state, are fatal to the health and spirits, and tend to make us more and more unfit for the business of life: the