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present station will be more for the comfort of himself and family, and will leave him more leisure for his Literary undertakings.

Shortly after, the Bishop of Winchester, through the channel of Dr Porteous, made Dr Beattie an offer of a living in the church of England, which was worth 5001. a year. His answer to this offer gives a striking view of the purity and scrupulous disinterestedness of his character. He begins with stating, that if he were to become a clergyman, he would prefer the church of England, and that be had often felt a disposition to enter into that profession. He then states, as follows, his reasons for declining the offer.

"I wrote the Essay on Truth," with the certain prospect of raising many enemies, with very faint hopes of attracting the public attention, and without any views of advancing my fortune. Ipublished it, however, because I thought it might probably do a little good, by bringing to nought, or at least lessening the reputation of, that wretched system of sceptical philosophy, which had made a most alarming progress, and done incredible mischief to this country. My enemies have been at great pains to represent my views in that pub. fication, as very different: and that my principal, or only motive was, to make a book, and if possible, to raise myself higher in the world. So that if I were now to accept preferment in the church, I should be apprehensive, that I might strengthen the hands of the gainsayer, and give the world some ground to be. lieve, that my love of truth was not quite so ardent, or so pure, as I had pretended.

"Besides, might it not have the appearance of levity and insincerity, and, by some, be construed into a want of principle, if I were at these years, (for I am now thirty-eight) to make such an important change in my way of life, and to quit, with no other apparent motive than that of bettering my circum. stances, that church of which I have hitherto been a member? If my book has any tendency to do good, as Í flatter

myself it has, I would not for the wealth of the Indies do any thing to counteract that tendency; and I am afraid, that tendency might in some measure be if I were to give the adversary the least counteracted, (at least in this country) ground to charge me with inconsistency. It is true, that the force of my reason. ings cannot be really affected by my character; truth is truth, whoever be the speaker: but even truth itselt becomes less respectable, when spoken, or supposed to be spoken, by insincere lips.

"It has also been hinted to me, by several persons of very sound judgment, that what I have written, or may hereafter write, in favour of religion, has a chance of being more attended to, if I continue a layman, than if I were to become a clergyman. Nor am I without apprehensions, (though some of my friends think them ill-founded, that, from entering so late in life, and from so remote a province, into the Church of England, some degree of ungracefulness, particularly in pronunciation, might adhere to my performances in public, sufficient to render them less pleasing, and consequently less useful.

"Most of these reasons were repeatedly urged upon me, during my stay in England, last summer; and 1 freely own, that the more I consider them, the more weight they seem to have. And from the peculiar manner in which the King has been graciously pleased to distinguish me, and from other circumstances, I have some ground to presume, that it is his Majesty's pleasure, that I should continue where I am, and employ my leisure hours in prosecuting the studies I have begun. This I can find time to do more effectually in Scotland than in England, and in Aberdeen than in Edinburgh; which, by the bye, was. one of my chief reasons for declining the Edinburgh professorship. The business of my professorship here is indeed toilsome: but I have, by fourteen years practice, made myself so much master of it, that it now requires little mental labour; and our long summer vacation, of seven months, leaves me at my own disposal, for the greatest and best part of the year; a situation favour able to literary projects, and now be come necessary to my health.

P. 360.

About

About this time, some letters passed between him and Dr Priestley on occasion of the attack made by the latter on the doctrines of his Es say on Truth. In his correspondence with this ingenious, but petulant adversary, Dr Beattie shews a great deal of candour and diginity. He had at first intended to answer, but this intention he appears, afterwards, to have dropt : "Dr Priestley, says he, having declared that he will au swer whatever I may publish, in my own vindication; and being a man who loves bustle and bookmaking, he wishes above all things that I should give him a pretext for continuing the dispute. To silence him by force of argument, is, I know, impossible."

A long interval now elapses without any event of importance occurring in Dr Beattie's life, till the year 1786, when a proposal was made for the union of the two colleges of Aberdeen (those of King's and Marischal). The advantages of this measure seem to be extremely ob vious. The two universities are at present quite distinct and separate establishments; and for many sciences there is a professor in both universi. ties. Now one professor might be quite sufficient to teach all the stu dents in any one science, while the salaries, which would be thus thrown vacant, might be employed in establishing new professorships, which do not at present exist in either. This proposal originated with the Marischal College, but was opposed by a great majority of the other, who. urged, that as they were by much the best endowed, all the advantages of of the proposed arrangement would be on the side of their rivals. Our author hints, however, that this opposition might perhaps arise from the omission of some punctilio in the manner of bringing it forward. However, the King's College persisting in their opposition, the matter was of

necessity dropped. Dr Beattie exerted himself a good deal in favour of the measure; but on finding it fruitless, he very properly did his utmost to heal any little animosities to which it might have given rise.

The concluding part of Dr Beattie's life was oppressed with misfortunes of peculiar severity. The most afflicting of these was the death of his eldest and favourite son. He had long bestowed peculiar attention on the education of this young man, whose talents and dispositions appear to have been extremely promising. On his coming to the age of twenty-one, Dr Beattie made an application to have him appointed his assistant and successor, which (after a short delay on account of the business of the union, which was then agitated) was cordially agreed to by the university. Before he entered upon his office, however, symptoms of consumption made their appearance; and though he recovered so far as to be able to teach the class, a relapse soon took place, and his constitution gradually sunk, under the violence of his disease. Dr Beattie published a very interesting little volume, containing some of his select pieces, and a short sketch of his life.

In a few years after, he lost his sister Mrs Valentine, and then his youngest and only surviving son, Montagu, to whom, after the death of his elder brother, he had devoted all his leisure. He gives a very affecting account of this last event in a letter to Dr Laing.

His (Dr Campbell's) death was looked for, and by himself much desired. Montagu's came upon me in a different manner. His delirium, which was extremey violent, ended in a state of such apparent tranquillity, that I was congratulating myself on the danger be. ing over, at the very time when Dr ***** came, and told me, in his own name, and in that of the other two physicians that attended Montagu, that he could not live many hours: this was at

eleven at night, and he died at five next morning. I hope I am resigned, as my duty requires, and as I wish to be; but I have passed many a bitter hour, though on those occasions nobody sees me. I fear my reason is a little disordered, for I have sometimes thought of late, especially in a morning, that Montagu is not dead, though I seem to have remembrance of a dream that he is.

a

This you will say, what I myself believe, is a symptom not uncommon in cases similar to mine, and that I ought by all means to go from home as soon as I can. I will do so when the weather becomes tolerable. Iuclination would draw me to Peterhead; but the intolerable road forbids it, and I believe I must go southward, where the roads are very good at least I hear so.

"Being now childless, by the will of Providence, (in which I trust I acquiesce) I have made a new settlement in my small affairs; the only particular of which that needs to be mentioned at present is, that the organ, built by my eldest son and you, is now yours.

"I am much obliged to the kind friends who sympathise with me. Montagu was indeed very popular, wherever he went. His death was calm, resigned, and unaffectedly pious; he thought himself dying from the first attack of his illness. "I could wish," said he, "to live to be old, but am neither afraid nor unwilling to die."

Vol. II. P. 310.

His Biographer adds:

The death of his only surviving child completely unhinged the mind of Dr Beattie, the first symptom of which, ere many days had elapsed, was a temporary but almost total loss of memory respecting his son. Many times he could not recollect what had become of him; and after searching in every room of the house, he would say to his niece, Mrs Glennie, "You may think it strange, "but I must ask you if I have a son, and

"where he is?" She then felt herself

under the painful necessity of bringing to his recollection his son Montagu's sufferings, which always restored him to reason. And he would often, with many tears, express his thankfulness that he had no child, saying, “How "could I have borne to see their elegant

"I have now

minds mangled with madness!" When he looked for the last time on the dead body of his son, he said, done with the world:" and he ever after seemed to act as if he thought so. For he never applied himself to any sort of study, and answered but few of the letters he received from the friends whom he most valued. Yet the receiving a letter from an old friend never failed to put him in spirits for the rest of the day. Music, which had been his great delight, he could not endure, after the death of his eldest son, to hear from others; and he disliked his own favourite violoncello. A few months before Montagu's death, he did begin to play a little by way of accompaniment when Montagu sung: but after he lost him, when he was prevailed on to touch the violoncello he was always discontented with his own performance, and at last seemed to be unhappy when he heard it. The only enjoyment he seemed to have was in books, and the society of a very few old friends. It is impossible to read the melancholy picture which he draws of his own situation, about this time, without dropping a tear of pity over the sorrows and the sufferings of so good a man, thus severely visited by affliction, who, at the same time, was bearing the rod of divine chastisement with the utmost patience and resignation. P. 307.

In the beginning of April 1799, Dr Beattie had a severe attack of the palsy, which he survived four years, but in the most melancholy condition. Repeated strokes at length deprived him altogether of the power of motion, till, on the 18th of Aug. 1803, he was happily relieved from his sufferings, in the sixty eight year of his age.

He had early expressed a wish to be buried in the church yard of Lawrencekirk, whose situation he has beautifully described in his Minstrel. Afterwards, when he was in the habit of visiting Peterhead, he had fixed on a small retired spot, where he had

* Alluding, no doubt to their mother's melancholy situation. ...

had often said that he would wish to be interred. But a short time before his death, when Mrs Glennie, his niece, spoke to him on this sub. ject, he replied, that "he would wish his body to be laid beside that of his two sons, rather than beside that of the greatest monarch upon earth.” His remains were accordingly deposited in the church yard of St Ni. cholas, Aberdeen.

Sir William has concluded with a character of Dr Beattie, which seems to be written with a great degree of candour and impartiality, and with out any undue partiality. We can afford to extract only a small part.

Throughout the whole course of his life, Dr Beattie was most exemplary in the discharge of the relative duties of a son, a brother, a husband, a father, and a friend. Of his conduct towards his unhappy wife, it is impossible to speak in terms of too high commendation. It has already been mentioned that Mrs Beattie had the misfortune to inherit, from her mother, that most dreadful of all human ills, a distempered imagination, which, in a very few years after their marriage, showed itself in cap. rice and folly, that embittered every hour of his life, while he strove at first to conceal her disorder from the world, and if possible, as he has been heard to say, to conceal it even from himself; till at last from whim, and caprice, and melancholy, it broke out into downright insanity, which rendered her seclusion from society absolutely necessary. During every stage of her illness, he watched and cherished her with the utmost tenderness and care; using every means at first, that medicine could furnish for her recovery, and afterwards, when her condition was found to be per

fectly hopeless, procuring for her every tend to alleviate her sufferings. When

accommodation and comfort that could

* Of this last part of Dr Beattie's conduct, I am fully able to speak from my own personal knowledge; as, during several years, I had the sole charge of her and her concerns, while she resided Nov. 1806.

I reflect on the many sleepless nights and anxious days, which he experienced from Mrs Beattie's malady, and think of the unwearied and unremitting attention he paid to her during so great a number of years, in that sad situation, his character is exalted in my mind to a degree which may be equalled, but I am sure never can be excelled, and makes the fame of

the poet and the philosopher fade from my remembrance.

The strictness and regularity of Dr by a regular attendance, while his health Beattie's piety was shown, not merely permitted, on the public ordinances of religion, but by the more certain and unequivocal testimony of private de votion. I have been informed by his niece, Mrs Glennie, that after he had retired at night to his chamber, she frequently overheard his voice rendered audible in the ardour of prayer. And she has also told me, that even throughout the day, when she knew his spirit to be more than usually depressed, while he thought himself alone, she could occasionally perceive that he was offering up his orisons to Heaven with the utmost fervour. His pious resignation to the Divine Will, under some of the hardest trials that flesh is heir to," was indeed but too severely proved during the greatest part of his life; but it is consoling to know, that it was not tried in vain.

Great tenderness of heart, and the keenest sensibility of soul, qualities very frequently the concomitants of genius, were eminently conspicuous in the character of Dr Beattie. They rendered him tremblingly alive" to the sorrows and sufferings of others, and produced in him the warmest emotions of friendship, with an earnest desire to perform every service in his power to all within his reach.

Vol. II. P. 333.

We meant to have concluded with suggesting a few retrenchments which might have been made with advantage, particularly in the notices of the different eminent characters mentioned

at no great distance from Edinburgh. She still survives him in the same melancholy condition.

tioned in the course of the work, most of whom were already quite familiar to English readers. But this is unhappily rendered superfluous by the melancholy event which has occurred since our first sitting down to write this article. The author survives no longer, either to enjoy the success of his work, or to bestow on it any farther improvement. The last paragraph, in which he anticipates this mournful event, must, at the present moment, be read with peculiar interest; and if it cannot claim the praise of eloquence, it certainly dis. plays excellencies of an higher kind.

On thus reviewing the long period of forty years that have elapsed since the commencement of our intimacy, it is impossible for me not to be deeply affected, by the reflection, that of the nu merous friends with whom he and I were wont to associate, at the period of our earliest acquaintance, all, I think, except three, have already paid their debt to nature; and that in no long time (how soon is known only to HIM, the great Disposer of all events) my gray-hairs shall sink into the grave, and I also shall be numbered with those who have been. May a situation so awful make its due impression on my mind! and may it be my earnest endeavour to employ that short portion of life which yet remains to me, in such a manner, as that when that last dread hour shall come, in which my soul shall be required of me, I look forward may with trembling hope to a happy immortality, through the merits and mediation of our ever-blessed Redeemer.

Vol. II. P. 342.

11. Miscellanies in prose and verse, by Alex. Molleson. 12mo. 221 pp. (Glasgow.) MR MOLLESON seems here to have collected all the pieces, both in prose and verse, which he had written on different occasions. We have read many of them with very considerable pleasure; for though the style

asm.

is somewhat juvenile and eccentric, it often displays considerable elegance, and is marked by a spirit of benevolence, and a not unpleasing enthusiThe most considerable is entitled "Melody the Soul of Music," which has been long before the pub. lic, and has in general been favourably animadverted upon, as appears by a long list of criticisms which the author has drawn out, somewhat whimsically, with observations of his own on the opposite page. There is also an essay on Intoxication, which gives a favourable view of the author's ta

lents as a popular moralist. There are different proposals for charitable institutions in Glasgow, which prove his active benevolence. One is for spreading manufactures through the Highlands; another for relieving the poor under the storm of 1795; a third for supplying them with clothes.

The biographical account of Mr David Dale, which appeared in our Magazine, and for which we were chiefly indebted to Mr Molleson, wilk give an idea of the style of his prose composition.

Mr

A considerable proportion of this volume consists also of poetical pieces, which are of various merit. Molleson sometimes fails in the quantity of his lines, and his humorous poems are not of the first excellence ; but there are others which deserve a different character. Among these is his longest poem, entitled the "Sweets of Society," which appears to have been very popular, being now reprinted for the second time. The following passage may serve as a specimen.

Now sportive play delights the infant throng;

They jump, and roll, and lightly frisk along,

Check not severe their heartfelt social glee,

But cheer the scene, and let them sport

with thee!

Age

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