For the Literary Magazine.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF DR. JAMES BEATTIE.

JAMES BEATTIE was born on the 5th of Nov. 1735, in the parish of Lawrencekirk, in Kirkcardineshire. When only seven years old, he lost his father, who was a farmer, and remarkable for his probity and his love of the muses. Through the generous assistance of his elder brother, David, James was initiated in the English and Latin languages, by Mr. Mylne, schoolmaster at Lawrencekirk; a teacher of reputation, and successor to the celebrated Ruddiman. Poet Beattie, for so he was called even at this early period of his life, distinguished himself among his school-fellows by diligence and superior attainments, though he laboured under the disadvantage of a very weakly constitution.

In 1749, he obtained a small scholarship in Marischal College, Aberdeen, by excelling in a comparative trial; and he commenced his academical career by studying Greek, under Dr. Blackwell, from whose hands he received a very honourable prize. The second term of his public study seems to have embraced Latin, mathematics, in which he was no remarkable proficient, and history, geography, and chronology. Natural philosophy formed the principal object of the third course. In this department a want of the requisite mathematical knowledge must be very unfriendly to the student's progress. The fourth term was devoted to moral philosophy and the abstract sciences, under Dr. Alexander Gerard, well known by his Essay on Taste, and other perfor

mances.

In 1753, Mr. Beattie took his degree in arts, and obtained the humble situation of schoolmaster at Fordoun, a village not far from Laurencekirk. At this time, he enjoyed the friendship and patronage of Francis Garden, afterward lord Gardenstone, and added to his poetical reputation by contributions to the Scotch Ma

gazine, and an epitaph on two brothers who were drowned when bathing. It likewise appears that he was a severe disciplinarian, that he officiated as clerk of the parish, that he was enrolled in Marischal College as a student of divinity, and that his manners were not yet subdued into gentleness or complacency.

In 1758, he was appointed one of the ushers in the grammar school in Aberdeen, a situation to which he had aspired some months before, though without success. Beattie's sphere of activity and acquaintance was now enlarged; and, except some harassing head-achs, his ushership, which lasted two years, passed with considerable satisfaction to himself. During this period, his poems were published, for the first time, by subscription.

On the 8th of Oct. 1760, Mr. Beattie, having obtained a royal patent, was made professor of moral philosophy and logic, in Marischal College. In the course of a few years, he attained distinguished celebrity as a teacher of ethics.

His habits of study were regular and constant. Little time was spent in idleness, because he was ambitious to acquit himself with credit, and to benefit his students as far as was in his power. An academical life is so barren of incidents that it cannot be expected to furnish much in the narrative. The lives of most literary men consist of little more than a history of their works. His pleasant and agreeable manners, even at this time, have been much commended. To his old associates he was kind and affable; and at his house and table they were always welcome.

In 1766, he married miss Mary Dun, daughter of Dr. James Dun, who, for near seventy years, was a teacher in the grammar school of Aberdeen. About four years subsequent to his marriage, he received from King's College, Aberdeen, the degree of doctor in laws. In July following, he visited London, and was favoured with very flattering

marks of attention from some of the most distinguished literary characters of the age.

In 1772, his mother died at the advanced age of fourscore years. Her affectionate son, Mr. David Beattie, had for thirty years shown her every mark of attention and kindness, and it was in his house at Johnstone, in the neighbourhood of Laurencekirk, that she died. Those persons who knew her best have represented her as possessed of great self-command; as a prudent, kind woman, and as exemplify ing those simple and unaffected manners, which were then more frequently to be found in Scotland than they are at present.

The doctor repeated his visit to London in 1773, obtained a pension, was presented at the levee, and had the distinguished honour (says his biographer) of conversing with the king for five minutes. Before he returned to the north, he had a private audience of their majesties at Kew.

The death of his son, James Hay Beattie, in 1790, was a severe trial to the feelings of a parent. In his 18th year, this young man, who united indefatigable application to uncommon genius, was appointed his father's assistant and successor, and promised to be an ornament to the university. The doctor's second son, Montagu, with whom he went to London in 1791, died in 1796.

These, and other misfortunes, harrowed up the soul of Dr. Beattie, and his health, never at any time good, was thereby very considerably impaired. He was no longer under the necessity of doing the duty of the class, because he had the influence to get Mr. George Glenny appointed his assistant and successor.

Of late years he entirely sequestered himself from society, and even the kind attentions and civilities of his friends and admirers were not relished by him. He dropped all correspondence with his old English friends, and their numerous inquiries after his health did not now excite those quick sensibilities of

which he had formerly been so susceptible. Premature old age, with all its infirmities, had made rapid advances upon him, and for three years before his death, he kept the house, and was for a great part of that time confined to his bed. If I mistake not, the last time he ventured out to take a short walk, was in the month of June, 1800. He was then very corpulent, and discovered extreme debility. At this time he was only about sixty-five years of age.

His person was about the middle size, of a broad, square make, which seemed to indicate a more robust constitution than he really had. He was, during the whole course of his life, subject to attacks of head-ach, which on many occasions interrupted his studies. His features were exceedingly regular; his complexion was somewhat dark; his eyes had remarkable expression.

In the earlier part of his life he showed great convivial talents, and was much admired in company, for his wit and uncommon flow of humour. He indulged himself, however, in liberties of that kind very seldom in his latter years. He was an admirable punster. His puns are often quoted in conversation in the north; which, as far as that kind of wit deserves praise, discover great facility of invention. In company he was remarkably silent, but he was not only attentive to the conversation, but seemed to be studying the features of those persons with whom he was in company.

Towards the close of life, Dr. Beattie endured much bodily pain; and, when, at length, he had become insensible to his own sufferings. he expired on the 18th of August, 1803.

The possession of genius, taste, and learning, and their direction to the best interests of mankind, ought, no doubt, to cover a multitude of sins: but we should also reflect that a well constituted mind, rich in its own resources, and susceptible of the most refined and elevated pleasures, is the least exposed to debasement from habits of low intemperance.

Yet that such a mind sometimes yields to degrading propensities, will not admit of dispute. A sense of false delicacy, or the partiality of friendship, may draw a veil over the melancholy fact: but the professed painter of human character is imperiously required to exhibit its diversities as he finds them, and not as he would wish them to be. More than one public teacher of youth has fallen a sacrifice to the immoderate use of ardent spirits: we can commiserate their fate; but we cannot patiently endure that they should be held up as paragons of conduct, or exalted into saints Dr. Beattie's case admits of palliation and pity. The pressure of domestic affliction exhausted and paralyzed the finer sensibilities of his frame, unstrung the man, and left only a "wreck behind."

For the Literary Magazine.

ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE.

NOTHING is more pleasing than what may be called the romance of real life such incidents as somewhat partake of the romantic or the marvellous, and are at the same time true. The following little story occurs in the letters of the countesses of Hartford and Pomfret, lately published.

A gentleman in Suffolk had an estate of two thousand pounds ayear; and an only son, who was brought up with the expectation of being heir to that fortune after his father's death. This took place when he was just four and twenty; but, when he came to look into his inheritance, he found the whole property so involved, that he had only left four hundred pounds ayear, which proved to be in church lands. He lived on this for about twelve months, but during that time was very melancholy. He then declared to his friends that it was against his conscience to enjoy the revenue of what had belonged to

the church, and that he could make himself easy in no other way but by restoring the lands; which he did, in spite of the persuasion of all his relations to the contrary, and left himself with no more than an annuity of fifty pounds. In the neighbourhood there was a quaker, who always went once, and sometimes twice ayear into Yorkshire, on business. At one house in that country he was received upon a footing of great intimacy, by an old gentleman, who had an only daughter, that was to be his heiress, elegant in her person, of good temper, and well accomplished. The quaker one day asked him why he did not get this young lady married. The gentleman replied, that it was what he wished to do, but he was determined never to dispose of her but to a man whose principles he approved, and who would come and settle upon the estate. If he could find such a person, he would give his daughter to him, though he was not worth a shilling. The quaker related to him the history of his neighbour: and the old gentleman was so much delighted with his character, that he desired the quaker to bring him to his house the next time he came; and, if the young people liked each other, it should be a match. The honest quaker returned home, and with great pleasure told the young gentleman the prospect of this good fortune; but was surprised to find all the arguments he could use wanted force on him to prevail on him to go. He declared that he would rather live upon his small annuity all his days, than marry a woman he did not previously love, though she possessed the wealth of the Indies. When the time drew near for the quaker to go again into Yorkshire, he applied to a relation of the young gentleman with whom he lived, and showed him several letters from the lady's father, requesting him to bring his friend along with him. By the importunity of this relation, and the quaker's entreaty, the youth was at length prevailed on to accompany him;

but under a feigned name, and only as an acquaintance whom he had met by accident on the road. Matters being thus settled, he set out with the quaker, and was introduced to the old gentleman and his daughter. They were all three so well pleased with each other, that they soon became better acquainted, and the young gentleman discovered who he was. The marriage was quickly concluded; and he now enjoys eighteen hundred pounds a year, which his wife brought him, besides a considerable sum of money. They have now lived together six years in perfect happiness, and have two children.

For the Literary Magazine.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE FRENCH

REVOLUTION.

Written in 1799.

THE monarchy of France had been the fixed yet qualified despotism of ages, but prepared, at length, for its revolution by the incapacity, indolence, and improvidence of two successive reigns. This revolution began in a reform of the monarchy, proceeded to its subversion, and is sued in the erection of a republic. The scene of its action was laid in one country, and among one people: but it was difficult to limit its influence; and the whole of Europe might have undergone a correspondent change.

The first step in the change had an alarming aspect to the courts of princes; for though the monarchy was suffered to remain, together with its law of entail, determining that humiliating question, "to whom do the people belong?" yet the principle of original equality, which reached to all below the throne, however fixed by usage, or made venerable by time, had left the monarchy without an aristocracy, its necessary support.

Thus an early combination against

it, of all the monarchical and aristocratical governments, as was natural, was formed; and which, in return, as naturally exasperating the revolution beyond its first principles, the monarchy was formally abolished; and in that act, the system of political equalization was completed, all men being now placed upon the same broad and primitive plane.

From some analogies, nevertheless, in the forms of her own government to that of France, it might have been expected that England would have shown less hostility than some other nations to the new principles; and that she might have view. ed, with a less jealous apprehension, the phenomenon of French freedom: but entertaining against France, for four entire centuries, an innate or latent animosity, produced by every slight occasion into action, she, besides, had her heritable rights and establishments, the crown and the peerage, to be affected by the contagion of such levelling doctrines.

To

We may conceive again an accessary cause, even of a more forcible though different nature, why England should have carried her jealousy of the new principles, even beyond that of other nations. the republican part of her own constitution it was that she owed the enterprising industry of her own people and hence, principally, her pre-eminence in manufactures and commerce; and in France, once republicanised, she had anxious forebodings of a congenial people, that might one day rival her own, in arts which were the great spring and sources of her extraordinary opulence and power. Had she not, therefore, an incalculable interest in bringing that nation again under the torpor of the ancient government?

But though all the old European establishments might be equally indisposed towards France, yet, in their deportment to her, they originally varied. Where the body of the people, as in Germany, were altogether without a will to be consulted, there the princes were open and unreserved, in a meditated op

position to her revolution; whilst, in England, from some deference to national sentiment, upon which alone he could safely act, the minister Pitt was obliged to dissemble, to be guarded and circumspect in all his projects: we see him, therefore, at first, content with a secret and silent stimulation of the concert of princes and powers; carefully watching the movements of the revolution, and gradually unfolding himself, as occasions offered, to bring the mass of the nation to approve of and to second his hostile designs.

Unhappily, the occasions sought for were too abundantly presented in the wild and flagitious misrule of the revolutionary leaders, and Englishmen were, by a too easy sensibility, brought to consent to a league with despotism, against a government by system, at least, free. But the people and their minister meant different things: they abhorred the crimes of the republic, and wished only to defend themselves against the danger of its example, to confine the growing power of France within some safe limit, but not to meddle with her system; he, on the contrary, rejoiced in the crimes, the restraint or punishment of which he made the stalking-horse to his real object, the destruction of the government; and, still concealing his mo tive, hypocritically acted upon one principle, under the pretext of another.

As to account for that atrocious conduct, which has not only so disgraced, but endangered the French revolution, in furnishing the pretence for arming against it, is not to justify it, it will not be improper, and it may be useful, to explore some of its causes: an endeavour towards it, therefore, shall be made.

The revolutionary change was made from a system which for ages had been fashioning the habits, manners, and understandings of the peo. ple, and forming a national character, with which their new governmental situation was altogether incongruous. Under the monarchy, men had been saved the trouble of

VOL. V. NO. XXXIII.

all political thinking and acting, and few, on this account, could come into the service of a republic with the qualifications necessary to a wise and temperate administration of its affairs, which, of consequence, too often took any direction given to them by ignorance or presumption. Men cannot be fitted for any material change in government but by the change itself, and the fitness, only in expectancy, must be waited for.

An evil, incident to all revolutions, was, in this, aggravated even by the virtue of individuals, by a mistake most frequent with the honest and the sincere. Many of the most respectable of the early revolutionists, disgusted at occasional irregularities, or too frequent violations of fundamental principles, either by emigration or by secession abandoned these disorders to themselves, which their authority or their presence might have controlled, and left the government to be orderly consummated in violence and iniquity. And in this regard the disqualification of the members of the constituent assembly was a self-denying ordinance, of peculiarly fatal operation.

Revolutions, besides, with whatever definite views they may set out, cannot be stopt at any precise point; and, if gone too far, can no more than a bearded arrow be drawn back; like balloons, too easy to let off, they are as difficult to be restrained or managed in their course: and this, in particular, from the occurrence of the foregoing causes, soon rose to a more than common height of wildness and extravagance.

To those who have observed, in common life, that to anticipate the depravity of character is often to ensure it, it will not appear fanciful to accuse prophecy itself of some instrumentality in this regard. The predictions of writers, chiefly of Burke, indignant at or jealous of the new principles, that the nation assuming them would become the cutcasts of the moral world, falling in so much with general prejudice and policy, the agreement to treat France

4