The Poetical Works of James Beattie

THE POEMS OF BEATTIE.
BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. NEW YORK: EVANS AND DICKERSON. PHILADELPHIA: LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO AND COMPANY. M.DCCC.LIV.
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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.
After his father's decease, which happened when he was only seven years old, his mother, 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 he read with avidity. It was then that he first became acquainted with English versification in Ogilby's Virgil. Even then he was known among his schoolfellows by the name of the poet ; and sometimes he would rise from bed, during the night, that he might commit to writing any poetical idea that his fancy had happened to suggest.
Having taken the degree of M. A., he was elected, on the 1st of August, 1753, schoolmaster of Fordoun, a small hamlet at the foot of the Grampian hills, about six miles distant from his birthplace: here also he officiated as præcentor, or parish-clerk.
At this time too he became known to another more celebrated and more eccentric character, Lord Monboddo, whose family estate is in the parish of Fordoun; and though their opinions on some important points by no means coincided, they ever after lived on friendly terms.