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THE POETICAL WORKS OF BEATTIE - BLAIR - AND FALCONER
THE POETICAL WORKS OF BEATTIE - BLAIR - AND FALCONER REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN Produced by Jonathan Ingram Clytie Siddall Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
THE
POETICAL WORKS
OF
BEATTIE BLAIR AND FALCONER.
With Lives Critical Dissertations and Explanatory Notes
BY THE
REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN.
CONTENTS
Beattie's Poetical Works
The Life and Poetry of James Beattie
The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius
Miscellaneous Poems
Ode to Hope
Ode to Peace
Ode on Lord Hay's Birthday
The Judgment of Paris
The Triumph of Melancholy
Elegy
Elegy written in the year 1758
Retirement
The Hermit
On the Report of a Monument to be erected in Westminster Abbey to
the Memory of a late Author (Churchill)
The Battle of the Pigmies and Cranes
The Hares. A Fable
The Wolf and Shepherds. A Fable
Song in imitation of Shakspeare's "Blow blow thou winter wind"
To Lady Charlotte Gordon dressed in a Tartan Scotch Bonnet with
Plumes &c
Epitaph: being part of an Inscription designed for a Monument
erected by a Gentleman to the Memory of his Lady
Epitaph on Two Young Men of the name of Leitch who were drowned in
crossing the River Southesk
Epitaph intended for Himself
Blair's Poetical Works
The Life of Robert Blair
The Grave
A Poem dedicated to the Memory of the late learned and eminent Mr
William Law Professor of Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh
Falconer's Poetical Works
The Life of William Falconer
The Shipwreck
Occasional Elegy in which the preceding narrative is concluded
Miscellaneous Poems
The Demagogue
A Poem sacred to the Memory of His Royal Highness Frederick Prince of
Wales
Ode on the Duke of York's second departure from England as Rear-Admiral
The Fond Lover. A Ballad
On the Uncommon Scarcity of Poetry in the Gentleman's Magazine for
December last 1755 by I. W. a sailor
Description of a Ninety-Gun Ship
POETICAL WORKS OF JAMES BEATTIE.
THE LIFE AND POETRY OF JAMES BEATTIE.
James Beattie the author of the "Minstrel" was born at Laurencekirk in
the county of Kincardineshire--a village situated in that beautiful
trough of land called the Howe of the Mearns and surmounted by the
ridge of the Garvock Hills which divide it from the German Ocean--on
the 25th day of October 1735. His father who was a small farmer and
shopkeeper and who is said to have possessed a turn for literature and
versifying died when James was only seven years old; but his brother
David the eldest of a family of six undertook the superintendence of
his education till he was fit to go to the parish school. That school
which had been raised to celebrity by Thomas Ruddiman the grammarian
was now taught by one Milne whom his pupil describes as also a good
grammarian and an excellent Latin scholar but destitute of taste and
of all the other qualifications of a teacher. Milne preferred Ovid to
Virgil; but Beattie's taste already giving promise of its future
classical bent was attracted by the less meretricious beantics of
Virgil; and this author in Dryden's translation as well as Milton's
"Paradise Lost" and Thomson's "Seasons" were devoured with eagerness
and copied with emulation by him in the intervals of his school hours.
He was assisted in his studies by Mr Thomson minister of the parish. In
1749 when he reached the age of fourteen he entered Marischal College
Aberdeen and such was his proficiency that he took by competition the
first of those bursaries or exhibitions which are given to those
students who are unable to support the expenses of their own education.
Aberdeen has been always distinguished by its eminent professors.
Blackwell Gerard Reid Campbell the subject of this sketch Brown
Blackie &c. are only a few of the celebrated names the roll of its two
colleges contains. The two first-mentioned were flourishing at the time
when young Beattie entered the University. Blackwell was a learned but
pedantic Grecian who wrote with considerable power and great pomp on
"Mythology" "Homer" and the "Court of Augustus." Alexander Gerard was
the author of some books of some merit although now nearly forgotten
on the "Genius of Christianity" on "Taste and Genius" &c. Under both
these Beattie profited very much. He gained a high prize in Blackwell's
class for an analysis of the fourth book of the "Odyssey." He did not
neglect general reading nor the art of poetry. He spent much of his
leisure in studying and practising music which he always loved with a
passion. We can conceive him too the "lone enthusiast" repairing
often to the resounding shore of the ocean or leaning where a greater
than he was by and by to lean over the Brig of Balgounie which bends
above the deep dark Don or walking out pensively to the Bridge of Dee
and watching the calm translucent yet strong victorious river running
through its rich green banks and clustering corn-fields to wed the sea.
No university in wide Britain can be named with Aberdeen in point of
the wild romantic grandeur of its environs if we include in these the
upper courses of the two rivers which meet beside it and Byron Hall.
Macintosh as well as Beattie have owned the inspiration which the
scenery still more than the scholastic training of the Northern
Metropolis breathed into their opening minds.
In 1753 having cultivated assiduously every branch of study taught at
college except mathematics for which he had neither taste nor aptitude
Beattie took the degree of A.M. He had hitherto been supported by the
kindness of his brother David but now he was to look out for a
profession for himself. The situation of parish schoolmaster at Fordoun
falling vacant he determined to apply for it; and on the 11th of August
1753 he was elected to the office. Fordoun is situated a few miles to
the north-east of Laurencekirk and is surrounded by similar scenery. A
series of gentlemen's seats extend at brief intervals from Brechin to
Stonehaven along a ridge of bare and bold mountains and overlooking a
fair and rich plain so that thus the neighbourhood of Fordoun includes
a combination of the soft the beautiful the luxuriant and the
nakedly-sublime which must have fed to satiety the eye and heart of
this true poet. Otherwise the situation could not be called eligible.
The salary was small the society at that time indifferent and the
sphere limited. There were however some counter-balancing advantages.
Near the village resided Lord Gardenstown who met Beattie in a romantic
glen near his house with pencil and paper in his hand--entered into
conversation with him--found out that he was a poet--and gave him the
"Invocation to Venus" in the opening of Lucretius to translate which
he did on the spot and thus removed some doubts Lord Gardenstown had
entertained as to whether his poetry was actually his own; and besides
Lord Monboddo a remarkable man alike in talent and eccentricity; and
both vied with each other in their patronage of the poetical _dominie_
when he had undisturbed leisure for study and solitary communion with
nature. On the whole perhaps the future "Minstrel" was happier as a
parish schoolmaster than in any part of his after life; and perhaps
often in more brilliant but less easy days would revert with a sigh to
the simple school and the stream which murmurs past the small kirkyard
of Fordoun.
While there he wrote a few poetical pieces which he sent with his
initials and the name of his place of abode to the _Scots Magazine_.
We can fancy him like the immortal Peter Pattieson on the day the
Magazine was due walking as far as the little height of Auchcairnie to
watch and weary for the long-expected carrier's cart wending its slow
way from the south and when the parcel reached his hand with eager
trembling fingers opening it up to have all the joy of virgin
authorship awakened in his soul. In these days a poetic production from
the country seemed a phenomenon--as great to use an expression of De
Quincey's as if "a dragoon horse had struck up 'Rule Britannia'" and
no doubt many an eyebrow in Auld Reekie rose in wonder and many a
voice exclaimed "Who can this be?" when verses so good by J. B.
Fordoun flashed upon the public from time to time. But although his
poetry procured him more fame than he was then aware of it brought him
nothing more and his way to competence and elevation in society seemed
as completely blocked up as ever.
It would seem that he had from an early period of his life looked
forward to the Church as his profession; and having taught for some
time in Fordoun he returned to Aberdeen to prosecute those preparatory
studies which he had for a while abandoned for a parish school and
poetry. Here he attended the lectures of Dr Robert Pollock of Marischal
College and Professor John Lumsden of King's-and performed the
exercises prescribed by both. It was at this time that he delivered a
discourse in the Divinity Hall in language so lofty that the Professor
challenged him for writing poetry instead of prose--a story reminding us
of similar facts in the history of Thomson Pollok and others whose
names we do not mention--and corroborating the truth that poetical
genius and the halls of philosophy or theology are seldom congenial and
that "musty fusty crusty" old professors are in general harsh
stepfathers to rising poets.
Whether from chagrin on account of this criticism--and this is the more
probable because Beattie was all along very sensitive to depreciation
or abuse--or from some other cause he determined to abandon the study
of Divinity and to follow teaching as a profession. In 1757 a vacancy
occurring in the Grammar School of Aberdeen Beattie offered himself as
a candidate but failed in the preliminary examination as he had
himself expected from a want of circumstantial and minute acquaintance
with the Latin tongue. A few months after however a second vacancy
having taken place in the same school he was elected without the form
of a trial and entered on the discharge of his duties in June 1758. He
was now in a more advantageous and a more reputable post--and while
discharging its duties with exemplary diligence he found time for the
cultivation of his poetical gift.
In 1760 through the exertions of his friends especially the Earl of
Erroll and Mr Arbuthnott Beattie was appointed Professor of Philosophy
in Marischal College. It was thought at the time a startling experiment
to appoint a man so young--and who had given no proof of peculiar
proficiency in philosophical lore--to such an important chair; and was
no doubt stigmatised as one of those arrant 'jobs' by which the history
of Scotch Colleges has been often disgraced. In Beattie's case however
as well as in the kindred one of Professor Wilson the issue was more
fortunate than might have been expected. He set manfully to work to
supply his deficiencies--read and wrote hard--and in a few years had
prepared a very respectable course of lectures--and became able to
front without shame such men as Gerard and Gregory Campbell and
Reid--with whom he was now associated. In the same year appeared in a
very modest manner "Proposals for Printing Original Poems and
Translations." In 1761 the volume itself was published--consisting of
the pieces formerly printed in the 'Scots Magazine' corrected and
altered and of some new productions. The book appeared simultaneously
in Edinburgh and London and was hailed with universal applause; the
critics generally maintaining that no poetry so good had been written
since Gray's; which they thought Beattie had taken for his model. He
himself entertained after a while a very different opinion of their
merits; he was in fact seized with a fastidious loathing for them; he
destroyed every copy he could procure; and on republishing his poetry
before his death he acknowledged only four of these early effusions.
In 1765 he published in quarto his "Judgment of Paris" which met
with the unfavourable reception it deserved. He added it to an edition
of his poems printed in 1766; but afterwards refused to reprint it. We
have given it however as well as all his original minor poems in our
edition including a poem on Churchill published by him in 1766 and
which acrimonious and unjust as it is is full of spirit and shows
Beattie in the character of a "good hater."
In 1763 he had visited London where almost his only acquaintance was
Andrew Millar the bookseller and where nothing remarkable occurred
except a visit to Pope's Villa at Twickenham. In 1765 he had been
invited by the Earl of Strathmore to meet with Gray then on a visit at
Glammis Castle. Lovelier spot or more appropriate for the meeting of
two poets does not exist in broad Scotland than the Castle of Glammis
with its tall vast antique structure towering over its ancient park
and shadowed by large ancestral trees--with its interior full of the
quiet memories quaint paintings and collected curiosities of a
thousand years--with its chapel situated in the very groin of the
edifice and in whose dim religious light you see walls surrounded by
some female hand of a past age with curious pictures--and with its
leaden roof commanding a wide view over forest and lawn village and
stream mountain meadow and all the glories which replenish the long
fair valley of Strathmore. Here the poets met and spent two delightful
days. Beattie was amazed at the taste the judgment and the extensive
learning of Gray; and Gray an older and a more fastidious man was
nevertheless delighted with Beattie's enthusiasm bonhommie and heart.
In 1767 he married Mary the daughter of Dr Dunn rector of the Grammar
School Aberdeen. She was an amiable and lovely woman. Dr Johnson when
he saw her in London along with her husband seemed to think more
highly of her than of him. He was not aware however of a fact which
became afterwards distressingly apparent--that from her mother she
inherited a tendency to insanity which broke out in capricious
waywardness some time before it culminated in madness. We know not but
this may explain Dr Johnson's saying to Boswell--"Beattie" he said
"when he came first to London 'sunk upon' us that he was married"
'i.e.' tried to hide that he was married. Perhaps the reason of this
remark which so much offended Beattie himself was that afraid of her
capricious flightiness being misunderstood he was at first reluctant to
bring her into society. His letter to the contrary was we fear written
for a purpose and in order to 'conceal' the truth.
And now came what Beattie and some of his friends--although not we nor
the literary world now generally--considered the grand epoch of his
life--the publication of his "Essay on Truth." He had for some time been
alarmed at the progress of the sceptical philosophy both at home and
abroad and had expressed that alarm to his friends in his
correspondence. At last this fear awoke in him a Quixotic courage and
he sallied forth like the valiant Don in search of all whom he knew or
imagined to be the enemies of Truth--and like him made some considerable
mistakes and showed more zeal than discretion. We may quote here some
sensible sentences from one of his biographers.--"That his meaning was
excellent no one can doubt; whether he discovered the right remedy for
the harm which he was desirous of removing is much more questionable.
To magnify any branch of human knowledge beyond its just importance may
indeed tend to weaken the force of religious faith; but many acute
metaphysicians have been good Christians and before the question thus
agitated can be set at rest we must suppose a proficiency in those
inquiries which he would proscribe as dangerous. After all we can
discover no more reason why sciolists in metaphysics should bring that
study into discredit than that religion itself should be disparaged
through the extravagance of fanaticism. To have met the subject fully
he ought to have shown that not only those opinions he controverts are
erroneous but that all the systems of former metaphysicians were so
likewise." In truth Beattie would have gained his purpose far better
had he been able to have written another such satire against Hume and
his followers as Swift's "Battle of the Books" Butler's "Elephant in
the Moon" or Voltaire's "Micromegas." Had he had sufficient wit and
sufficient knowledge the inconsistencies absurdities and endless
quarrels of metaphysicians might have furnished an admirable field! But
wit was hardly one of his qualities and his knowledge of these subjects
was superficial. In fact the gentle "minstrel" warring against
philosophy reminds us of a plain English scholar attacking the Talmud
or of one who had never crossed the 'Pons Asinorum' slandering the
Fluxions of Newton.
The essay appeared in 1770 and became instantly popular passed through
five large editions in four years and was translated into foreign
tongues. Hume smiled at it in his sleeve but attempted no answer.
Burke Johnson and Warburton who must have seen through its sounding
shallowness pardoned and praised it for its good intentions and
because its author though a champion rather showy than strong was on
the right side. Flushed by its success Beattie in 1771 revisited
London and obtained admission to the best literary circles--sate under
the "peacock-hangings" of Mrs Montague--visited Hagley Park and became
intimate with Lord Lyttelton--chatted cheerily with Boswell and
Garrick--listened with wonder to the deep bow-wows of Johnson's
talk--and as he watched the rich alluvial yet romantic mountain stream
of thought knowledge and imagery that flowed perpetually from the
inspired lips of Burke perhaps forgot Gray and Glammis Castle and felt
"a greater is here." These men in their turn seem all to have liked
Beattie although the full 'quid pro quo' of praise came only from
Lord Lyttelton who vowed that in him Thomson had come back from the
shades much purified and refined by his Elysian sojourn! Beattie we
fear was a little spoiled by the flatteries he received from Lyttelton
and that peculiar clique which circled round him; and hence his
prejudice in their favour and the praise he reciprocates are enormous.
"Lord Lyttelton" says a writer "is his private friend and him he
always calls the 'Great Historian' though he is obliged to give his
lordship's name afterwards to let his readers know of whom he is
speaking! From his letters it might appear that all the literary talent
all the taste and all the virtue of the country were confined to his
circle of friends--Lord Lyttelton Mrs Montague Dr Porteous and Major
Mercer."
In 1773 he again visited London and the climax of his renown seemed to
be reached when the University of Oxford gave him the degree of
LL.D.--when three different times he refused the offer by bishops and
archbishops of promotion in the English Church--and when (oh brave!) he
was admitted to an interview with their Majesties complimented on his
"Essay on Truth" by good old George III. who was much better qualified
to judge of an essay on turnips and gifted with a pension of L200
a-year. About the same time he was urged to apply for the Professorship
of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh which he declined to do apparently
from a terror at the thought of coming so near David Hume--a terror
which strikes us as exceedingly ludicrous when we recollect that most
pernicious as were Hume's principles he was in private as harmless
good-natured and ('Scottice') 'sonsy' a being as lived.
A few months after the "Essay on Truth" appeared and while the echoes
of its fame were beginning to spread through the world there had
appeared a thin anonymous quarto entitled the "First Book of the
Minstrel." It slid noiselessly as a star into the world's air. The
critics finding no name on the title page were peculiarly severe and
peculiarly senseless in their treatment of the unpretending volume
which would have been crushed under their heavy strictures had
not--rare event in those days--the public chosen to judge for itself
and to fall in love with the beautiful poem. It consequently soon ran
through four editions each edition containing some corrections and
improvements; and in the year 1774 he published the second part which
now that its author's name was known was loudly praised by the Reviews
as well as by the general reader. He always meant to but never did add
a third.
From the date of his refusal of promotion in the English Church Beattie
had made up his mind to remain in Aberdeen which is a beautifully built
town and which teemed to him with old associations. He spent his
winters in diligently instructing his class and in summer was often
found at Peterhead a town situated on the most easterly promontory of
Scotland and which was then noted for its medicinal waters. Beattie was
troubled with a vertiginous complaint which he found benefited by the
use of the Peterhead Spa. He no doubt also admired and often visited the
noble sea scenery to the south of that town.--Slaines Castle standing
on its rock sheer over the savage surge and begirt by the perpetual
clang of sea-fowl and roar of billows and the famous Bullers of Buchan
where the sea has forced its way through the solid rock leaving an arch
of triumph to commemorate the passage and formed a huge round pot where
its waters in the time of storm rage and fret and foam like a newly
imprisoned maniac--a pot which Dr Johnson proposes to substitute for the
Red Sea in the future incarceration of demons.
In 1776 he published by subscription a new and splendid edition of
his "Essay on Truth" accompanied by two other essays much more
interesting on "Poetry and Music" and on "Laughter and Ludicrous
Composition" and by "Remarks on the Utility of Classical Learning."
This was followed in 1783 by a volume of "Dissertations on Memory and
Imagination Dreaming" &c. In 1786 he published a little treatise on
the "Christian Evidences" which he had shown to Bishop Porteous in
London two years before and been recommended by him to give to the
world. Beattie himself preferred it to all his writings in "closeness
of matter and style." In 1790 and 1793 appeared two volumes on the
"Elements of Moral Science" containing an abridgment of his lectures on
Moral Philosophy and Logic. He wrote also in the "Transactions" of the
Royal Society Edinburgh a paper on the sixth book of the "AEneid" and
contributed a few notes to an edition of Addison's works.
His wife long ere this had been separated from him by her malady. By her
he had two sons James Hay named after the Earl of Errol and Montague
after the celebrated Mrs Montague. The history of both was hapless.
James Hay who gave high literary promise and was still more
distinguished by his amiable disposition after having been appointed to
be his father's successor in the chair died in 1790 at the age of
twenty-two of a consumption. Beattie felt the blow deeply and
published soon after the life and remains of the precocious youth. Our
readers must all remember the exquisite story of his teaching him the
idea of a Creator by sowing his name in cresses in the garden. The loss
of Montague also a youth of much promise by a rapid fever in 1796
completed the prostration of the poor father. It was the case of Burke
over again but worse inasmuch as Beattie a weaker nature was
sometimes driven to seek oblivion in the cup and as sometimes his
reason reeled on its throne and he went about the house asking where
his son was and whether he had or had not a son. He retired from all
society--lost taste for his former pleasures such as music which he
had once relished so keenly--was seized in 1799 with a paralytic
affection which deprived him of speech--and languished on ever and
anon visited with new assaults of the same malady till at last on the
18th of August 1803 the gifted amiable but most miserable "Minstrel"
breathed his last. He now lies beside his two dear sons in the
churchyard of St Nicholas Aberdeen a graceful Latin inscription from
the pen of Dr James Gregory of Edinburgh distinguishing the stone which
covers his ashes.
Beattie was of the middle size of slouching gait and common-place
appearance redeemed by two fine dark eyes which melancholy in repose
gleamed and glowed whenever he became animated in conversation. He had
warm affections a tender shrinking sensitive disposition was a kind
parent an attached friend truly pious and could be charged with no
fault save an irritability of temper which grew upon him with his
misfortunes and infirmities and latterly that occasional excess to
which we have alluded which sprung rather from dotage and wretchedness
than from inclination and in which he was far more to be pitied than
blamed.
Of his pretensions as a philosopher we shall say nothing save that he
has now no name and is held rather to have struck at and all about
Hume than to have smote him hip and thigh. His essays are exceedingly
agreeable reading. Cowper relished no book so well but they can
scarcely be called either profound or brilliant. They soothe but do not
suggest--they tickle but do not tell us anything new. It is as a poet
that his name must survive and the paean of reception which saluted him
in his "Essay on Truth" entering on stilts should have been reserved
entirely for the "Minstrel" with the meek harp in his hand.
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