Our [Pg lxxi] "He will be much regretted; for wherever he went he was a very popular character." Such an effect had this fresh calamity on the intellectual powers of Beattie, that a few days after Montagu's death, he experienced a temporary hut almost utter loss of memory respecting him. Having searched every room in the house, he would say to his niece, Mrs. Glennie, "You may think it strange, but I must ask you if I have a son, and where he is?" She then felt herself under the painful necessity of calling to his recollection the sufferings of Montagu, the mention of which never failed to restore him to reason. Often with tears he would declare himself thankful that his children were in the grave, exclaiming, in allusion to their mother's malady, "How could I have borne to see their elegant minds mangled with madness!" On viewing the[Pg lxxii] dead body of Montagu for the last time, he said, "I have now done with the world." [Pg lxxii] The following passages from two of his letters, written about this period, are deeply affecting. He tells the Rev. Dr. Laing, 10th April, 1796: "I hope I am resigned, as my duty requires, and as I wish to be; but I have passed many a bitter hour, though on those occasions nobody sees me. I fear my reason is a little disordered, for I have sometimes thought of late, especially in a morning, that Montagu is not dead, though I seem to have a remembrance of a dream that he is. This you will say, what I myself believe, is a symptom not uncommon in cases similar to mine, and that I ought by all means to go from home as soon as I can. I will do so when the weather becomes tolerable." To Sir William Forbes he says, 17th of the same month: "I have been these many days resolving to write to you and Mr. Arbuthnot, to thank you for your very kind and sympathetic letters, but various things have come in my way to prevent it. I need not pretend a hurry of business, for every-body knows I am not capable of any. A deep gloom hangs upon me, and disables all my faculties; and thoughts so strange sometimes occur to me as to make me 'fear that I am not,' as Lear says, 'in my perfect mind.' But I thank God I am entirely resigned to the divine will; and, though I am now childless, I have friends[Pg lxxiii] whose goodness to me, and other virtues, I find great comfort in recollecting. The physicians not only advise, but entreat, and indeed command me to go
Prev.
Back
Top