SKETCH OF THE LIFE

OF

J. BEATTIE, LLD.

For Edwin Fate a nobler doom had plann'd;
Song was his favorite and first pursuit,

Minstrel.

IT has been frequently observe, that the lives

of literary men are animated by few incidents, and therefore seldom afford any great scope for biographical remark; extraordinary adventure and variety of action is not to be expected in the closet, or in the privacy of study: a simple narrative therefore of their writings and opinions is all that we can hope to find in their history.

James Beattie was a native of Scotland, born on the 5th of November, 1735. The parish of Lawrencekirk, in the county of Kincardine, has the honor of enrolling his name among those of several other literary characters, which that remote part of the island has produced. The subject of this memoir was deprived of his father at a very tender age; he was then only seven years old. An event of this kind is always accompanied with serious consequences, and where the circumstances of the sufferer are not sufficiently destitute to excite the commiseration of the public, and are left to their own unassisted exertions, it is that such misfortunes are most severely felt: precisely in this situation was the family of Mrs. Beattie, whose hopes, and those of her helpless offspring, were now fixed upon her eldest son David, who at that time had just seen his eighteenth year. In him they were not disappointed: actuated by those motives which confer a lustre on poverty,

A

by his virtuous exertions, and indefatigable industry, he not only supported his mother in creditable affluence, but gave James a classical education at the parochial school of Lawrencekirk, at that time kept by the celebrated James Milne. Here it was that the natural genius of Dr. Beattie began to shine, and after various consultations it was at length determined that the University should give a last polish to what Milne had so successfully begun.

In the year 1749 the two brothers left Lawrencekirk on one horse, and directed their course to Aberdeen, a distance of thirty English miles, at a season not the most agreeable for the undertaking, and when good roads were unknown in the North. As Beattie's, or rather his brother's circumstances were not very affluent, he immediately became a candidate for, and obtained the office of Bursar, or Bursery, in the Marischal College; an idea of which is in some measure conveyed by the expression of being put on the foundation in our Universities; except, that in Scotland no opprobrious distinction or menial office is attached to it; on the contrary, it is a proof of superior merit, and becomes a premium of a victorious contest, the just reward bestowed on the victor after a competition in which classical excellence alone carries away the palm.

"Non sine pulvere palmæ."

After remaining the regular course of four years at college, Mr. Beattie took his degree of Master of Arts, and returned in April 1753 to Lawrencekirk, anxious for some employment that would increase bis finances, without greatly interrupting the progress of his studies; fortunately about this period the neighbouring parish of Fordoun was deprived of its schoolmaster, and the very high character which Beattie bore as a scholar and a man of genius, easily procured him the humble appointment. Its emolu