TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND BEILBY PORTEUS, D. D. LORD BISHOP OF LONDON, ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL, &c. &c. &c. MY LORD, As soon as I formed the resolution of attempting to write the life of Dr Beattie, I determined to request permission to inscribe it to your Lordship; because I well know the high value he justly set on your friendship, and how much it would have gratified him to think, that his name should be joined with that of the Bishop of London. Your Lordship well knew Dr Beattie's merit as a Philosopher and a Poet, and his worth as a Man and a Christian. If in this attempt, therefore, to delineate his character, I am so fortunate as to gain, in any degree, your approbation, I shall look upon my work with no ordinary degree of complacence. I embrace, with the greatest satisfaction, and with peculiar propriety, this opportunity of expressing my respect for you; as it was to Dr Beattie's kind partiality that I owed my first introduction to your Lordship, and the beginning of that friendship with which you have ever since been pleased to honour me. I am, My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient, And faithful humble Servant, Edinburgh, 24th March, 1806. WILLIAM FORBES. INTRODUCTION. MR MASON prefaces his excellent and entertaining Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Gray, with an observation, more remarkable for its truth than novelty, that "the lives of men "of letters seldom abound with incidents. A reader of sense and "taste, therefore," continues he, "never expects to find, in the "memoirs of a philosopher or poet, the same species of entertain"ment or information which he would receive from those of a "statesman or general. He expects, however, to be either in❝formed or entertained. Nor will he be disappointed, did the "writer take care to dwell principally on such topics as charac"terize the man, and distinguish that peculiar part which he acted "in the varied drama of society." Keeping in view this rule of Mr Mason's, it is my purpose to give to the world some account of the late DR BEATTIE; a man, whose life, if it does not afford many striking incidents, yet furnishes no unuseful lesson, and no mean incentive, to men of genius, how obscure soever their origin may be, or unpromising their early prospects; as it shews the degree of celebrity and independence at which they may reasonably hope to arrive, by the exertion of those talents which they inherit from Nature, and a virtuous conduct in the society in which Providence has placed them. Before I enter, however, on this undertaking, I deem it necessary to offer some apology for my attempting it at all. I wish, indeed, that it had fallen to the lot of some other person better * Vol. II. p. 1. Ed. 12mo. qualified to do justice to the subject; yet perhaps I may be thought to possess some advantages in that respect, which are essential to the execution of a work of this nature. For as he, who attempts to write biography, ought to have had a near acquaintance with the person whose life and character he means to delineate; it is my pride to say, that during the long period of almost forty years, I was honoured with Dr Beattie's unreserved friendship, as well as intimate epistolary intercourse. By those means I enjoyed the opportunity of knowing him well, and of duly appreciating his merit as a poet and philosopher, in both of which capacities he eminently excelled. I have also been fortunate enough to recover much of his private correspondence with others. From all which I hope to be able to show, that the writings which he gave to the world, were but transcripts of his mind: and that he evinced his love of virtue and religion, as well as his refined and classical taste, no less in his private and unreserved communications with his friends, (some of them of high rank in life, as well as in the literary world,) than in those valuable works which he composed with more care for the public instruction. In order to exhibit to the reader a faithful portrait of the original, I propose to follow the example of Mr Mason in his life of Gray, by producing some of the most interesting of Dr Beattie's letters, and connecting them by a narrative, at proper periods, of the principal incidents of his life. By this method, he will, in no inconsiderable degree, be his own biographer. And those letters will more clearly show the genuine goodness of his heart, and the soundness of his judgment, than any laboured character of him that could possibly be drawn. This mode of printing the letters of men of eminence to their private friends, which of course were never meant to meet the public eye, has, I know, been condemned by some; but it has been well vindicated by others, particularly by Mr Mason.* "Letters of eminent persons, not written for publication," says * Life of Gray, Vol. II. p. 5. Ed. 12mo. |