which met with the unfavourable reception it deserved. He added it to an edition of his poems printed in 1766; but afterwards refused to reprint it. We have given it, however, as well as all his original minor poems, in our edition, including a poem on Churchill, published by him in 1766, and which, acrimonious and unjust as it is, is full of spirit, and shows Beattie in the character of a "good hater."
In 1763, he had visited London, where almost his only acquaintance was Andrew Millar, the bookseller, and where nothing remarkable occurred except a visit to Pope's Villa at Twickenham. In 1765, he had been invited by the Earl of Strathmore to meet with Gray, then on a visit at Glammis Castle. Lovelier spot, or more appropriate for the meeting of two poets, does not exist in broad Scotland than the Castle of Glammis, with its tall, vast, antique structure, towering over its ancient park, and shadowed by large ancestral trees—with its interior full of the quiet memories, quaint paintings, and collected curiosities of a thousand years—with its chapel situated in the very groin of the edifice, and in whose dim religious light you see walls surrounded, by some female hand of a past age, with curious pictures—and with its leaden roof, commanding a wide view over forest and lawn, village and stream, mountain, meadow, and all the glories which replenish the long, fair valley of Strathmore. Here the poets met, and spent two delightful days. Beattie was amazed at the taste, the judgment, and the extensive learning of Gray; and Gray, an older and a more fastidious man, was nevertheless delighted with Beattie's enthusiasm, bonhommie, and heart.
In 1767, he married Mary, the daughter of Dr Dunn, rector of the Grammar School, Aberdeen. She was an amiable and lovely woman. Dr Johnson, when he saw her in London, along with her husband, seemed to think more highly of her than of him. He was not aware, however, of a fact which became afterwards distressingly apparent—that from her mother she inherited a tendency to insanity, which broke out in capricious waywardness, some time before it culminated in madness. We know not but this may explain Dr Johnson's saying to Boswell—"Beattie," he said, "when he came first to London,
sunk upon
us that he was married,"
i.e.
, tried to hide that he was married. Perhaps the reason of this remark, which so much offended Beattie himself, was, that, afraid of her capricious flightiness being misunderstood, he was at first reluctant to bring her into society. His letter to the contrary was we fear, written for a purpose, and in order to
conceal
the truth.
And now came what Beattie and some of his friends—although not we, nor the literary world now generally—considered the grand epoch of his life—the publication of his "Essay on Truth." He had for some time been alarmed at the progress of the sceptical philosophy, both at home and abroad, and had expressed that alarm to his friends in his correspondence. At last this fear awoke in him a Quixotic courage, and he sallied forth like the valiant Don, in search of all whom he knew or imagined to be the enemies of Truth—and like him made some considerable mistakes, and showed more zeal than discretion. We may quote here some sensible sentences from one of his biographers.—"That his meaning was excellent, no one can doubt; whether he discovered the right remedy for the harm which he was desirous of removing, is much more questionable. To magnify any branch of human knowledge beyond its just importance, may indeed tend to weaken the force of religious faith; but many acute metaphysicians have been good Christians, and before the question thus agitated can be set at rest, we must suppose a proficiency in those inquiries which he would proscribe as dangerous. After all, we can discover no more reason why sciolists in metaphysics should bring that study into discredit, than that religion itself should be disparaged through the extravagance of fanaticism. To have met the subject fully, he ought to have shown, that not only those opinions he controverts are erroneous, but that all the systems of former metaphysicians were so likewise." In truth, Beattie would have gained his purpose far better had he been able to have written another such satire against Hume and his followers, as Swift's