Its peared in 1770, and procured him high reputation. design was to expose the sophisms of his countryman, David Hume. Later inquirers have said that in many respects he misunderstood the principles of the sceptical author against whom he wrote; but if so, he only followed the track which that author himself had marked out. So far as Hume's principles were correct, so far did even he misapprehend their character. All his conclusions from them imply precisely that sort of application the incorrectness of which Beattie established. It was against the entire system that Beattie wrote; and the friends of Hume have no right to shelter his mistaken developments under the correctness of one or two of his leading principles. At the time when he wrote, evangelical truth was little valued in the Scotch Church, and was only preserved in some quarters by means which he would have scornfully condemned, as belonging to the enthusiasm and fanaticism of a former age; and while too many of the Clergy were only the humble followers of men like Robertson and Blair, the literati were becoming increasingly sceptical, and, while rejecting religious Calvinism, advocated the doctrines of a rigid philosophical necessity. Unhappily, Beattie did not embrace the purer views of the Scottish Establishment; but neither would he undertake to teach them. His opposition to scepticism, and his defence of revealed religion, as earnest and eloquent as it was undoubtedly sincere, produced, in that day of jealousy of service merely professional, a more decided impression, as proceeding from a writer who was not a Clergyman, and not, therefore, supposed to be bound to advocacy by his stipend, as though it were the retaining-fee of the Barrister. In 1771 he first visited London, where his name had already been enrolled among the citizens of the republic of letters. Not long after the University of Oxford, in acknowledgment of the value of his writings, conferred on him the honorary degree of (LL.D.) Doctor of Civil Law. The King, (George III.,) always impressed with the sacredness and importance of religious truth, and the dangerous tendencies of infidelity, socially as well as individually, admitted him to a private interview; and subsequently a pension was bestowed on him. Some years afterwards, on again visiting London, another interview was accorded, in which he was received with great kindness. No one ever saw more clearly what must be the harvest of infidelity, or felt more deeply the necessity of the diffusion of truth and piety, for the well-being of a country, than did "the good old King." The later portion of the Doctor's life was shadowed by heavy trials. His wife became insane, and was obliged to be placed under restraint. James Hay Beattie, his eldest son, a youth of the highest promise, both from natural and acquired endowments, whom he had himself trained, and who had become his companion and friend,—whose talents were such that, when only nineteen, he had been admitted to be his father's assistant as Professor,-died of consumption, in his twenty-second year. Six years afterwards (1796) his younger son died, in his eighteenth year. After this he seemed capable of scarcely any exertion; and after lingering a few years in inactivity, he died at Aberdeen, in 1803, aged sixtyeight. The poetry of Dr. Beattie evidently belongs to what we have ventured to call the transition school. Possessing little of that inspiration of passion which characterizes the poetry of our own day, and which in mere imitators becomes a repulsive rant and bombast, there is in it, at the same time, a true and powerful natural feeling, in which the classical school of the last age was chiefly deficient, and the absence of which is felt even amidst the often splendid imagery, and the fluent ease, melody, and harmony, of the diction and verse of Pope himself. Beattie's poetry is decidedly classical, his versification is always regular, and the subjects on which he writes, though truly poetical, may more fitly be said to belong to an imaginative intellect then to the imagination itself, in energetic exercise, upon bold and aspiring wing, exciting itself to heat and passion by its own expatiations. Beattie is always calm and recollected. Usually pensive and serious, his pictures, while correctly delineated, have the colouring of the medium through which they are seen. He brings feeling to the object, and describes it, as in such a state of feeling it appears to him the object evidently does not itself produce the feeling. In such serious subjects, therefore, he is most at home. His best poetry is furnished by them. When his own feelings are quiet, his descriptions, though correct, become tame. They have the topographical correctness of some architectural drawing of the front of an intended building, but little or no pictorial beauty. He is seldom playful, and is, when fanciful, very regularly so. His translations will not be popular with general readers, as having little to excite interest; but they will always repay the thoughtful, especially if by reading aloud the beautiful melody of the verse is fully brought out. Perhaps there is no poet better calculated to aid in forming a correct taste for both good verse and good poetry, of the more solid, regular, and elegant class, than Beattie. As a specimen of his power in translation, the "Pollio' of Virgil may be taken. Pope's is of course superior. We say of course; for Pope's is not a translation, but an imitation; and instead of the comparatively low theme of a Roman Consul, the fire of Isaiah is borrowed, and the richer, glowing imagery of Scripture, to celebrate the glorious triumphs of the promised Messiah. Beattie confines himself to the subjects of the elegant Roman poet, and furnishes strains of not less elegant English verse, though these will always appear to disadvantage after the loftier numbers of the English Scripturist. On common grounds of comparison, however, the lines of Beattie will be found not inferior to those of a writer, who, with all his sparkling brilliancy, was (for many years, and till a new and better order of composition began to appear in Goldsmith and Cowper, followed by Crabbe and Rogers, who directly connect us with those whom we may term our own poets) the tamer of English verse, and the author of its insipidity. "To thee, auspicious babe, the unbidden earth Shall bring the earliest of her flowery birth; The blossom'd bean, and ivy's flaunting spray. Spring from thy cradle fragrant flowers shall spread, Perhaps the best of Beattie's lyrical compositions is the one which now enters into most school-books. We refer to his "Hermit." Every one remembers the animating stanza with which it closes. There are no anapasts in the language more beautiful : "And darkness and doubt are now flying away, So breaks on the traveller, faint and astray, See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending, On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are blending, And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb." In one of his "Odes he beautifully teaches a lesson of incomparable value: "Ye sons of luxury, be wise: Know, happiness for ever flies The "Minstrel" has from the beginning taken high rank in English poetry. On the whole, it is the best instance of the modern employment of the Spenserian stanza, the full power of which, as affording room for the expansion of some single idea or sentiment, Beattie well understood and ably realized. To quote from it is almost like presenting a brick as the specimen of the house. We will give two, however, that VOL. XI. Second Series. 2 A have often been extracted. The reader whose taste is what it ought to be, will gladly refer to the whole : "O how canst thou renounce the boundless store And all that echoes to the song of even, All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, "And yet poor Edwin was no vulgar boy, Deep thought oft seem'd to fix his infant eye. And now his look was most demurely sad; The neighbours stared and sigh'd, yet bless'd the lad: [The readers of these occasional papers are respectfully referred to our "Literary Article "in the present Number. Some of our poetical correspondents will there find the information they have requested.-Ed. Y. I.] MEMOIR OF COUNT ZINZENDORF. THE principles on which the Count had resolved to act, were fully stated in some letters to the Cardinal de Noailles. He stated that his religion was founded solely on the Scriptures, which revealed the disease of mankind, and cure. The divine truths here made known he believed, and took them as the rule of his life. He quoted particularly the texts, "Ye must be born again; "Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt;" "Ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your bodies |