beginning of the year 1765." I have been unable to meet with the original edition.

[H]

[I] I have been told that the poem consisted originally of only four stanzas, and that the two beautiful ones with which it now concludes were added, a considerable time after the others were written, at the request of Mrs. Carnegie, of Charlton, near Montrose. This lady, whose maiden name was Scott, was authoress of a poem called Dunotter Castle, printed in the second edition of Colman and Thornton's Poems by Eminent Ladies. 

[I]

 'Pentland Hills', for which Beattie wrote The Hermit, was an air composed by Mr. Tytler, of Woodhouselee, in imitation of the old Scottish melodies.

[J] On one occasion, I have been informed, she took some China jars from the chimney-piece, and carefully arranged them on the top of the parlour door, in order that when Beattie opened it, they might fall upon his head.

[J]

[K] Beattie's Verses were printed in the Aberdeen Journal, together with an introductory letter in prose also by him, signed "Oliver Oldstile." The writer of the Life of Ross, in that pleasing compilation, Lives of Scottish Poets, 3 vols. 1822, says: "The author of both productions was generally understood to be Dr. Beattie; and they have remained so long ascribed to him without contradiction, that there can be little doubt of their being from his pen." Part iii. p. 107. There is no doubt about the matter; Beattie owns them in a letter to Blacklock.—Forbes's Life of Beattie, vol. i. p. 153. ed. 1807. The Fortunate Shepherdess is a poem of great merit: to the second edition of it (and I believe to all subsequent editions) Beattie's verses are prefixed.

[K]

[L] Dr. Reid.

[L]

[M] Dr. Campbell.

[M]

[N] Mr. Hume, who at an early period had been the patron of Blacklock. Long before the date of this letter they had ceased to have any intercourse.

[N]

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