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LIFE OF JAMES BEATTIE, LL.D.

By J. S. GIBB.

JAMES BEATTIE, the author of "The Minstrel," was baptized at Laurencekirk, November 25, 1735, ten years before the thunder-cloud of war swept across Scotland, to dissolve in blood on the desolate heath of Culloden. His father, also bearing the name of James, had a small retail shop in Laurencekirk-at that time, and for thirty years after, merely a clachan or kirktown of six or seven houses. In addition to the shop, he rented Boroughmuir Hills, a small farm to the south-east of the village. By the united aid of these he strove to rear his family of six children, of whom James was the youngest, in that system of healthful domestic training, to which, in Scotland, the youth of a former age owed so much. In these efforts he was ably seconded by his wife, Jane Watson, who is said to have been a woman of informed and cultivated mind beyond the common. Indeed Beattie was fortunate in both his parents. "His father," says the writer of the article "Beattie" in the "Biographie Universelle," "was a simple farmer, but that did not hinder him from indulging a natural taste which he felt for poesy: they preserve yet in his family some pieces of verse of his composition." This was written in 1811. the life of Alexander Ross, schoolmaster of Lochlee in

In

Forfarshire, prefixed to the edition of his "Helenore; or, The Fortunate Shepherdess," published in 1812, his biographer, the Rev. Alexander Thomson of Lintrathen, remarks: “Mr Ross has often said that Mr Beattie only wanted education to have made him as much distinguished in the literary world as his son. He was a man of great natural acuteness, of clear and distinct conception, and employed much of his time in reading. He knew something of natural philosophy, and particularly of astronomy, and used to amuse himself in calculating eclipses; and our author has observed that, as he was self-taught, without the advantage of any man's instruction, his knowledge was truly surprising. He was likewise a poetical genius, and shewed our author some rhymes of considerable merit. In fact it would appear that his mind wanted nothing but cultivation to have raised him to a level with some philosophers and poets, whose merit must always be acknowledged by those who are proper judges of it."

Such is Ross's testimony concerning the elder Beattie; and he was well qualified to give it, from the intercourse he had enjoyed with him, having for some time previous to 1726 been master of the parish school of Laurencekirk, only a hundred yards or so from Boroughmuir Hills, where the subject of the present memoir was born. And here, in passing, we cannot help remarking that Laurencekirk has been more favoured as the birthplace or residence of men who have won themselves a name by their intellectual acquirements, than many localities far more imposing in appearance. There is its founder, Lord Gardenstone, of whom the burgh may justly be proud. The celebrated Thomas Ruddiman, in February 1695, left his tutorship at Aldbar to become her parish schoolmaster. As we have seen, in 1726 the author of "The Fortunate Shepherdess," filled the same situation. Dr Beattie was born here in 1735. Dr George Cook, author of a "History of the Church of Scotland," was her minister from 1795 to 1828. And here, five years before this latter date,

—that is, in 1823,-George Menzies drove the shuttle and nursed those thoughts which he afterwards embodied in sounding verse, or brought to bear on the successful prosecution of his duties as editor of a Canadian newspaper.

But to return to our more immediate subject. Of the early boyhood of Beattie we know little except what he has told us himself in his works. He was shy, retiring, fond of nature and solitude, given to reading, and even while at school known by the name of the POET. The rudiments of his education he obtained at the parish school, then taught by James Milne, who had deservedly attained considerable reputation as an educator. Beattie lost his father when only seven years of age; but this loss was, as far as it could be, made up by the increased assiduity and care of his mother, and of his elder brother David, who did everything that affection could do to enable the young student to gratify to the full his love of learning and knowledge,—a kindness Beattie did not forget in after-years, when it was in his power to repay it, as far as such self-sacrificing affection could be repaid.

In 1749, James, then fourteen years of age, was escorted to Aberdeen by his brother David. There were no railways nor even stage-coaches then, and the two brothers set out from home with only one steed between them, and so behoved to walk by turns or ride double. The journey was performed in safety, and James was entered a student of Marischal College, which at that time could boast the name of Dr Blackwell as one of her professors. At the termination of his first session as a student, Beattie proved his powers and diligence, by gaining, as the result of a public competition, the first or highest class bursary attached to his college. This, of course, was a considerable relief to the home funds, as the amount of the bursary would at least suffice for his most pressing wants during the college session. The recess he would spend at home, where the burden of his sustenance would not be severely felt. Beattie continued at

college with much credit the usual period of four sessions, when he took his degree of A.M., and then returned to Laurencekirk to endeavour to turn his acquirements to some practical account.

His original destination was the Church. With the view of entering it, he had attended the theological classes, and, before leaving Aberdeen, had delivered in the hall a trial lecture, which one of his hearers declared was "poetry in prose." The same thing, by the way, was remarked of the trial discourse of Thomson, the author of "The Seasons," whose original destination too was the Church; and there is this further coincidence in the history of the two poets, so similar in the beauty of their imagery, and their pastoral descriptive power, that, from some reason or other, both gave up all thoughts of the pulpit as a vocation.

Young Beattie did not long remain at home. He returned from Aberdeen about the beginning of April 1753; and on the 1st of August the same year, he was appointed parochial schoolmaster and session-clerk of Fordoun, a hamlet about five miles to the north of Laurencekirk. The duties of these offices he discharged, with painstaking diligence, for five years. There was but small opportunity for enjoying the pleasures of refined intercourse in a retired country parish, such as Fordoun was then; what there was, Beattie's approved talent and unassuming deportment soon placed at his command. He quickly secured the favourable notice of Mr Garden, afterwards the famous Lord Gardenstone. He was also honoured with the acquaintanceship of the celebrated Lord Monboddo, whose beautiful family mansion is only about a mile from the scene of Beattie's daily labours.

It was not so much, however, for the influence of his social position in forming his taste, that Beattie's residence at Fordoun is worthy of so marked a place in his history. It was the close intercourse he here enjoyed with nature in all her moods that laid the foundation of his fame as a poet. It was, indeed, a fitting nursery for a minstrel. To use the

vivid words of George Menzies, at one time a pupil in the parish school of Fordoun, and subsequently a gardener at Drumtochty, in the very centre of the romantic scenery he describes, all round we find—

"The shadowy glen, the sweeping strath,
The deep ravine, the rugged path;
Dy dizzy crag and waterfall,
Untrod and unapproach'd by all,

Save him, whose heart may seldom quail
In peril's hour, the hardy Gael.

The Grampians dimly shadow'd forth,
Like guardian spirits of the north,
Enthroning their majestic forms
Amid the gloom of boreal storms."

Beattie's tastes were still much the same as when the shy, solitude-loving schoolboy at Laurencekirk. He was fond of wandering alone in the fields. In early morning he might be seen ascending the steep brow of Strathfinella, to watch the sun emerge from the German Ocean; or, late at night, he would be found wandering among the romantic glades of Drumtochty, observing the stars as they silently came forth in their brightness; or listing the melancholy wail of the owl awakening the hollow echoes, and peopling the wooded crags with those graceful denizens of the woods-fays and fairies-that owe their existence to the warmth and power of a poetic imagination.

It was during his residence at Fordoun that Beattie first came before the public as an author, by writing several poetical pieces for the Scots Magazine. He was only twentyone years of age when he sent the first of these contributions, yet it is far from devoid of merit.

In 1758, Beattie was appointed one of the masters of the Grammar School, Aberdeen. This opened up to him a wide field of social and congenial intercourse. There was a noble cluster of learned and eminent men connected with Aberdeen at this period-Reid, Gregory, Campbell, and Gerard-men whose works are their best monument, of whom Scotland is

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