The Poetical Works of James Beattie. James Beattie
I heartily acquiesce in the dispensations of Providence, which are all good and wise. God bless you and your family.
"He will be much regretted; for wherever he went he was a very popular character."
Such an effect had this fresh calamity on the intellectual powers of Beattie, that a few days after Montagu's death, he experienced a temporary hut almost utter loss of memory respecting him. Having searched every room in the house, he would say to his niece, Mrs. Glennie, "You may think it strange, but I must ask you if I have a son, and where he is?" She then felt herself under the painful necessity of calling to his recollection the sufferings of Montagu, the mention of which never failed to restore him to reason. Often with tears he would declare himself thankful that his children were in the grave, exclaiming, in allusion to their mother's malady, "How could I have borne to see their elegant minds mangled with madness!" On viewing the dead body of Montagu for the last time, he said, "I have now done with the world."
The following passages from two of his letters, written about this period, are deeply affecting. He tells the Rev. Dr. Laing, 10th April, 1796:
"I hope I am resigned, as my duty requires, and as I wish to be; but I have passed many a bitter hour, though on those occasions nobody sees me. I fear my reason is a little disordered, for I have sometimes thought of late, especially in a morning, that Montagu is not dead, though I seem to have a remembrance of a dream that he is. This you will say, what I myself believe, is a symptom not uncommon in cases similar to mine, and that I ought by all means to go from home as soon as I can. I will do so when the weather becomes tolerable."
To Sir William Forbes he says, 17th of the same month:
"I have been these many days resolving to write to you and Mr. Arbuthnot, to thank you for your very kind and sympathetic letters, but various things have come in my way to prevent it. I need not pretend a hurry of business, for every-body knows I am not capable of any. A deep gloom hangs upon me, and disables all my faculties; and thoughts so strange sometimes occur to me as to make me 'fear that I am not,' as Lear says, 'in my perfect mind.' But I thank God I am entirely resigned to the divine will; and, though I am now childless, I have friends[Pg lxxiii] whose goodness to me, and other virtues, I find great comfort in recollecting. The physicians not only advise, but entreat, and indeed command me to go from home, and that without further delay; and I do seriously resolve to set out for Edinburgh to-morrow."
Though Beattie never from henceforth engaged in any kind of study, he still found some enjoyment in books, and still derived some pleasure from the society of a very few of his oldest friends. He almost entirely ceased to correspond, even with those whom he most valued; yet when he happened to receive a letter from any of them, his spirits were always excited for the rest of the day. Music, in which he had once delighted, had become disagreeable to him since the loss of his eldest son.28 A few months, however, before Montagu's death, he had occasionally played an accompaniment while Montagu sung; but now, when prevailed on to resume his favourite violoncello, he was always dissatisfied with his own performance. "My fingers," he writes to the Rev. Dr. Laing, 5th June, 1798, "have not strength to press down the strings."
In this state he continued till the beginning of April, 1799, when he was struck with palsy, which, for eight days, rendered him nearly incapable of utterance. At different times the disease repeated its attacks, the last of which, on the 5th of October, 1802, deprived him entirely of the power of motion. On the morning of the 18th of August, 1803, he expired without a struggle, in the sixty-eighth year of his age.
His remains were laid, according to his own desire, beside those of his children, in the church-yard of St. Nicholas, at Aberdeen; and a Latin inscription, from the pen of the late Dr. James Gregory, of Edinburgh, marks the spot of his interment.
In person he was of the middle size, of a broad, square make, which seemed to indicate a more robust constitution than he really possessed. In his gait there was something of a slouch. During his later years he grew corpulent and unwieldy; but a few months before his death his hulk was greatly diminished. His features were very regular; his complexion somewhat dark. His eyes were black, brilliant, full of a tender and melancholy expression, and, in the course of conversation with his friends, became extremely animated.
Though I am of opinion with Gilbert Wakefield, that the maxim De mortuis nil nisi VERUM is better than De mortuis nil nisi BONUM, it is with pain that I touch on the reported failing of so truly good a man as Beattie. It has been asserted that towards the close of life he indulged to excess in the use of wine. In a letter to Mr. Arbuthnot, he says, "With the present pressure upon my mind, I should not be able to sleep, if I did not use wine as an opiate; it is less hurtful than laudanum, but not so effectual." He may, perhaps, have had too frequent recourse to so palatable a medicine, in the hope of banishing for a while the recollection of his sorrows; and if, under any circumstances, such a fault is to be regarded as venial, it may be excused in one who was a more than widowed husband and a childless father.
The prose writings of Beattie appear of late years to have fallen into disrepute; and the once celebrated Essay on Truth is at present as much undervalued as it was formerly overrated.
His fame now rests upon The Minstrel alone. Since its first publication, many poems of a far loftier and more original character have been produced in England; yet still does it maintain its popularity; and still in Edwin, that happy personification of the poetic temperament, do young and enthusiastic readers delight to recognize a picture of themselves. Though we cannot fail to regret that Beattie should have left it incomplete, yet we do not long for the concluding books from any interest which we take in the story, such as is excited by some other unfinished works of genius, the tale of Cambuscan, for instance, or the legend of Christabel. In The Minstrel, indeed, there is but little invention; it is a poem of sentiment and description, conveying to us lessons of true philosophy in language of surpassing beauty, and displaying pictures of nature, in her romantic solitudes, painted by a master's hand. "On my once asking Dr. Beattie," says Sir William Forbes, "in what manner he had intended to employ his Minstrel, had he completed his original design of extending the poem to a third canto, he said, he proposed to have introduced a foreign enemy as invading his country, in consequence of which the Minstrel was to employ himself in rousing his countrymen to arms."29 But surely such a conclusion would have formed too violent a contrast to the repose of the earlier books; and the charm which attaches us to the meditative Edwin, while a wanderer among the lonely hills and groves, would have been broken, or at least weakened, by placing him amid the throng of warriors and the din of arms.
With the exception of The Hermit and the following exquisite stanza30 of Retirement, there is little worthy of particular notice in the minor poems of Beattie.
ADVERTISEMENT
Having lately seen in print some poems ascribed to me which I never wrote, and some of my own inaccurately copied, I thought it would not be improper to publish, in this little volume, all the verses of which I am willing to be considered as the author. Many others I did indeed write in the early part of my life; but they were in general so incorrect, that I would not rescue them from oblivion, even if a wish could do it.
Some of the few now offered to the Public would perhaps have been suppressed, if in making this collection I had implicitly followed my own judgment. But in so small a matter, who would refuse to submit his opinion to that of a friend?
It is of no consequence to the reader to know the date of any of these little poems. But some private reasons determined the author to add, that most of them were written many years age, and that the greatest part of the Minstrel, which is his latest attempt in this way, was composed in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight.
PREFACE TO THE MINSTREL
The design was to trace the progress of a Poetical Genius, born in a rude age, from the first dawning of fancy and reason, till that period at which he may be supposed capable of appearing in the world as a Minstrel, that is, as an itinerant Poet and Musician; – a character which, according to the notions of our forefathers, was not only
James Hay Beattie had a scientific knowledge of music, and, with the assistance of the Rev. Dr. Laing, had superintended the building an organ for himself. In one of our author's letters, 8th June, 1791, is the following passage:
"The organ of Durham cathedral was too much for my feelings; for it brought too powerfully to my remembrance another organ, much smaller, indeed, but more interesting, which I can never hear any more."
See, too, Beattie's letter to Blacklock, p. xv. of this memoir.