'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.
[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.
[L] Dr. Reid.
[M] Dr. Campbell.
[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.
"O how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms which Nature to her votary yields!
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields;
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
And all that echoes to the song of even,
All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of heaven,
O, how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven!"
"I have often wished," says Beattie, in a note on Gray's letter, "to alter this same word [garniture], but have not yet been able to hit upon a better."
[P] See p. xv.