mountainous country, the ocean, the [Pg xxxviii]sky, thoughtfulness and retirement, and sometimes melancholy objects and ideas, had charms in my eyes, even when I was a schoolboy: and at a time when I was so far from being able to express, that I did not understand my own feelings, or perceive the tendency of such pursuits and amusements; and as to poetry and music, before I was ten years old I could play a little on the violin, and was as much master of Homer and Virgil as Pope's and Dryden's translations could make me." [Pg xxxviii] The intense thought which Beattie had devoted to the composition of the Essay on Truth having materially injured his health, he was advised by his physicians to try the remedy of change of scene. He accordingly set out on a journey to London, and arrived there in the beginning of autumn, 1771. He was no longer the obscure individual who had visited it in 1763;[P] he was now the triumphant adversary of scepticism, and the author of the admired Minstrel; a man whom the most distinguished characters in the literary and fashionable world were prepared to treat with attention and respect. Among several letters of introduction, which he carried with him, was one from Dr. Gregory, of Edinburgh, to Mrs. Montagu. At the splendid and hospitable mansion of this celebrated lady, Beattie became acquainted with various persons, both male and female, who were[Pg xxxix] then the chief ornaments of London society; and he used to dwell with delight on the recollections of her more private parties, made up of Lord Lyttelton, Mrs. Carter, and a few others, who spent their evenings in the most unreserved conversation on literary, moral, or religious subjects. From this time, Mrs. Montagu continued to be one of his firmest friends; and their epistolary correspondence closed only with her life. The politeness and kindness of Hawkesworth, Armstrong, Garrick, and Johnson, also contributed much to render pleasant his visit to the metropolis. Concerning the last illustrious man he writes thus: "Johnson has been greatly misrepresented. I have passed several entire days with him, and found him extremely agreeable. The compliments he pays to my writings are so high that I have not the face to mention them." In December Beattie had returned to Aberdeen. [Pg xxxix] In 1772, his mother died, at the advanced age of fourscore, at the house of her affectionate son David, in the neighbourhood of Laurencekirk. Towards the end of April, 1773, Beattie, accompanied by his wife, set out again for London. This journey
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