IX.

X.

[Pg vii]

[Pg vii]

MEMOIR OF BEATTIE, BY THE REV. ALEXANDER DYCE.

BY THE REV. ALEXANDER DYCE.

"Heard you that Hermit's strain from Scotia borne,

'For virtue lost, and ruin'd man I mourn?'

Who may forget thee, Beattie? who supply

The tale half-told of Edwin's minstrelsy?"

The Pursuits of Literature.

The subject of this memoir was born on the 25th of October, 1735, at Laurencekirk, in the county of Kincardine, Scotland. His father, James Beattie, who kept a small shop in the village at the same time that he rented a little farm in the neighbourhood, was a man of considerable talents and acquirements:[A] his mother, too, was distinguished for her abilities. Our author, James, was the youngest of the six children of this respectable pair.

After his father's decease, which happened when he was only seven years old, his mother,[Pg viii] by means of the emoluments derived from the shop and the farm, was enabled to bring up her family in comfort. In the management of her affairs she was assisted by her eldest son, David, a youth of eighteen, who generously and affectionately relinquished all other pursuits for that of promoting her welfare and happiness, and who appears to have fostered his brothers and sisters with an almost parental care. James was placed at the parish school of Laurencekirk, which was then in some repute, and of which, about forty years before, Ruddiman, the famous grammarian, had been the master. At this time he had access to few books, except those which the minister of the village (the Rev. Mr. Thomson) kindly lent him, and which 

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