a position seems to require the graces of poetry to set it off. The reception of this poem, however, was unfavourable, and although he added it to a new edition of his poems, in 1766, yet it was never again reprinted, and even his biographer has declined reviving its memory by an extract. To this edition of 1766 he added a poem "On the talk of erecting a Monument to Churchill in Westminster-hall," which, sir William Forbes says, was first published separately, and without a name. That it was printed separately we are informed on undoubted authority, but we question if it was ever published for sale unless in the above-mentioned edition of his poems. The asperity with which these lines are marked induced his biographer, contrary to his first intention, to omit them, but they are added to his other poems, in the late edition of " English Poets *."

Although Mr. Beattie had now acquired a station in which his talents were displayed with great advantage, and commanded a very high degree of respect, the publication of the "Essay on Truth" was the great era of his life; for this work carried his fame far beyond all local bounds and local partialities. It is not, however, necessary to enter minutely into the history of a work so well known. Its professed intention was to trace the several kinds of evidence and reasoning up to their first principles, with a view to ascertain the Standard of Truth, and explain its Immutability. He endeavours to show that his sentiments, however inconsistent with the genius of scepticism, and with the practice and principles of sceptical writers, were yet perfectly consistent with the genius of true philosophy, and with the practice and principles of those whom all acknowledge to have been the most successful in the investigation of truth; and he concludes with some inferences or rules, by which the most important fallacies of the sceptical philosophy may be detected by every person of common sense, even though he should not possess acuteness of metaphysi

cal knowledge sufficient to qualify him for a logical confutation of them.

When this work was completed, so many difficulties occurred in procuring it to be published, that his friends, sir William Forbes and Mr. Arbuthnot, were obliged to become the purchasers, unknown to him, at a price with which they thought he would be satisfied. Sir William accordingly wrote to him that the manuscript was sold for fifty guineas, as the price of the first edition. This edition was published in an octavo volume in 1770, and bought up with such avidity that a second was called for, and published in the following year. The interval was short, but as the work had excited the public attention in an extraordinary degree, the result of public opinion had reached the author's ear, and to this second edition he added a postscript, in vindication of a certain degree of warmth of which he had been accused.

The "Essay on Truth," whatever objections were made to it, and it met with very few public opponents *, had a more extensive circulation than probably any work of the kind ever published. This may be partly attributed to the charms of that popular style in which the author conveyed his sentiments on subjects which his adversaries had artfully disguised in a metaphysical jargon, the meaning of which they could vary at pleasure; but the eagerness with which it was bought up and read, arose chiefly from the just praise bestowed upon it by the most distinguished friends of religion and learning in Great Britain. With many of these of high rank both in church and state, the author had the pleasing satisfaction of dating his acquaintance from the publication of this work. There appeared, indeed, in the public in general, an honourable wish to grace the triumph of sound reasoning over pernicious sophistry. Hence in less than four years five large editions of the Essay were sold †, and it was translated into several foreign languages, and attracted the notice of many emi

nent persons in France, Germany, Holland, Italy, and other parts of the continent.

Among other marks of respect, the university of Oxford conferred the degree of LL. D. on the author *, and on his second arrival in London he was most graciously received by his Majesty, who not only bestowed a pension on him, but admitted him to the honour of a private conference. Many years after, when Dr. Beattie went to pay his respects to his Majesty, he was still received with every mark of royal condescension and kindness.

It was in July 1771 that Dr. Beattie first visited London, and commenced a personal acquaintance with men of the first eminence, with lord Mansfield and lord Lyttelton, Drs. Hurd, Porteus, Johnson, Mr. Burke, and, indeed, the whole of the literary society whose conversations have been so pleasantly detailed by Mr. Boswell; and returned to Scotland with a mind elevated and cheered by the praise, the kindness, and the patronage, of the good and great. It was, however, on his second visit to London, in 1773, that he received his degree from Oxford, and those honours from his majesty, which we anticipated as a direct, though not an immediate consequence of the services he rendered to his country by the publication of the "Essay on Truth." His conversation with his majesty is detailed at some length by himself, in a diary published by sir William Forbes.

Soon after this visit to London he was solicited by a very flattering proposal sent through the hands of Dr. Porteus, late bishop of London, to enter into the church of England. A similar offer had been made some time before by the archbishop of York, but declined. It was now renewed with more importunity, and produced from him the important reasons which obliged him, still to decline an offer which he could not but consider as "great and generous." By these reasons, communicated in a letter to Dr. Porteus, we find that he was apprehensive of the injury that might be done to the cause he had espoused, if his enemies should have any ground for asserting that he had written his Essay on Truth, with a view to promotion: and he was likewise of opinion, that it might have the appearance of levity and insincerity, and even of want of principle, were he to quit, without any other apparent motive than that of bettering his circumstances, the church of which he had hitherto been a member. Other reasons he assigned, on this occasion, of some, but less weight, all which prevailed on his friends to withdraw any farther solicitation, while they honoured the motives by which he was influenced. In the same year he refused the offer of a professor's chair in the university of Edinburgh, considering his present situation as best adapted to his habits and to his usefulness, and apprehending that the formation of a new society of friends might not be so easy or agreeable in a place where the enemies of his principles were numerous. To some of his friends, however, these reasons did not appear very convincing.

Although Mr. Beattie had apparently withdrawn his claims as a poet, by cancelling as many copies of his juvenile attempts as he could procure, he was not so inconscious of his admirable talents, as to relinquish what was an early and favourite pursuit, and in which he had probably passed some of his most delightful hours. A few months after the appearance of the "Essay on Truth," he published the "First Book of the Minstrel," in 4to, but without his name. By this omission, the poem was examined with all that rigour of criticism which may be expected in the case of a work, for which the author's name can neither afford protection or apology. He was accordingly praised for having adopted the measure of Spenser, because he had the happy enthusiasm of that writer to support and render it agreeable; but objections were made to the limi tation of his plan to the profession of the Minstrel, when so much superior interest might be excited by carrying him on through the practice of it. These objections appear to have coincided with the author's re-consideration; and he not only adopted various alterations recommended by his friends, particularly Mr. Gray, but introduced others, which made the subsequent editions of this poem far more perfect than the first.

The Minstrel, however, in its first form, contained so many passages of genuine poetry, the poetry of nature and of feeling, and was so eagerly applauded by those whose right of opinion was incontestable, that it soon ran through four editions; and in 1774, the author produced the "Second Book;" and as its success was not inferior to that VOL. IV.

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of the first, it was the general wish that the author would fulfil his promise by completing the interesting subject; but the increasing business of education, the cares of a family, and the state of his health, originally delicate, and never robust, deprived him of the time and thought which he considered as requisite. In 1777, however, he was induced to publish the two parts of the Minstrel together, and to add a few of his juvenile poems.

During the preceding year, 1776, he prepared for the press a new edition of the "Essay on Truth," in a more splendid form than it had hitherto appeared in, and attended by a very liberal subscription, and with other circumstances of public esteem which were very flattering. The list of subscribers amounted to four hundred and seventy-six names of men and women of the first rank in life, and of all the distinguished literary characters of the time. The copies subscribed for amounted to seven hundred and thirty-two, so that no inconsiderable sum must have accrued in this delicate manner to the author. Dr. Beattie was by no means rich; his pension was only two hundred pounds, and the annual amount of his professorship never reached that sum.

The Essays added to this volume, and which he afterwards printed separately in 8vo, were "On Poetry and Music;" on "Laughter and ludicrous Composition; and " on the utility of Classical Learning." They were written many years before publication, and besides being read in the private literary society already mentioned, had been submitted to the judgment of his learned friends in England, who recommended them to the press.

For the frequent introduction of practical and serious observations, he offers a satisfactory reason in the preface to "Dissertations Moral and Critical, on Memory and Imagination; on Dreaming; the Theory of Language; on Fable and Romance; on the Attachments of Kindred; and Illustrations on Sublimity," 1783, 4to. These, he informs us, were at first composed in a different form, being part of a course of prelections read to those young gentlemen whom it was his business to initiate in the elements of moral science; and he disclaims any nice metaphysical theories, or other matters of doubtful disputation, as not suiting his ideas of moral teaching. Nor was this the disgust of a metaphysician "retired from business." He had ever been of the same opinion. Dr. Beattie's aim was, indeed,