death of Dr Duncan, professor of Natural Philosophy. Beattie, whose ambition had never presumed to soar to such an object, happened to mention the circumstance in conversation, as one of the occurrences of the day, to his friend, Mr Arbuthnot, merchant in Aberdeen;[1] who surprised him with a proposal that he should apply for the vacant situation. With a reluctant permission from Beattie, he exerted his influence with the Earl of Errol to apply, by means of Lord Milton, to the Duke of Argyll, who then dispensed the crown patronage of Scotland; and to the astonishment of the subject of the application, he received the appointment. By an accommodation, however, with the nominee to another vacant chair, he became professor of Moral, instead of Natural Philosophy; an arrangement suitable to the genius and qualifications of both the persons concerned.
By this honourable appointment, Beattie found himself, through an extraordinary dispensation of fortune, elevated in the course of two years from the humble and obscure situation of a country parish school-master, to a place of very high dignity in one of the principal seats of learning in the country, where he could give full scope to his talents, and indulge, in the greatest extent, his favourite propensity of communicating knowledge. His first business was to prepare a course of lectures, which he began to deliver to his pupils during the session of 1760-1, and which, during subsequent years, he greatly improved. In the discharge of his duties, he was quite indefatigable; not only delivering the usual lectures, but taking care, by frequent recapitulations and public examinations, to impress upon the minds of his auditors the great and important doctrines which he taught.
So early as the year 1756, Dr Beattie had occasionally sent poetical contributions to the Scots Magazine from his retirement at Fordoun. Some of these, along with others, he now arranged in a small volume, which was published at London, 1760, and dedicated to the Earl of Errol, his recent benefactor. His "Original Poems and Translations,"—such was the title of the volume made him favourably known to the public as a poet, and encouraged him to further exertions in that branch of composition. He also studied verse-making as an art, and in 1762, wrote his "Essay on Poetry," which was published in 1776, along with the quarto edition of his "Essay on Truth." In 1763, he visited London from curiosity, and in 1765, he published a poem of considerable length,. but unfortunate design, under the title of "The Judgment of Paris," which threatened to be as fatal to his poetical career, as its subject had been to the Trojan state. In 1766, he published an enlarged edition of his poems, containing, among other compositions, "The Judgment of Paris;" but this poem he never afterwards reprinted. His object was to make the classical fable subservient to the cause of virtue, by personifying wisdom, ambition, and pleasure, in the characters of three goddesses, an idea too metaphysical to be generally liked, and which could scarcely be compensated by the graces of even Beattie's muse.
Gray, the author of the "Elegy in a Country Church-yard," visited Scotland in the autumn of 1765, and lived for a short time at Glammis Castle with the Earl of Strathmore. Beattie, whose poetical genius was strongly akin to that of Gray, wrote to him, intreating the honour of an interview; and this was speedily accomplished, by an invitation for Dr Beattie to Glammis Castle, where the two poets laid the foundation of a friendship that was only interrupted by the death of Gray in 1771. In a letter to Sir William Forbes, Beattie thus speaks of the distinguished author of the Elegy.
- ↑ Father to Sir William Arbuthnot, Bart, who was Lord Provost of Edinburgh at the visit of George IV. in 1822.
