LETTER CXIII.

DR BEATTIE TO THE REV. MR CAMERON.

Aberdeen, 22d February, 1776.

"The objections to the Essay on Truth,' which you hint at, have been often urged by the Edinburgh critics. The reasons, it is not difficult to discover, which make them particularly severe on that performance; but I have met with more candour and less prejudice elsewhere. Even in Edinburgh, there are many worthy and learned persons, who have done me the honour to approve what I did, with a sincere purpose to advance the cause of truth, and do good to society.

"Your good principles, and your good heart, will secure you against the sneers and sophistries of persons, who dislike religion out of prejudice, and are dissatisfied with the evidence of it, which they do not understand, because they have never examined it. Bear always in mind this truth, which admits of the most satisfactory proof: No person of a good heart understands Christianity without wishing it to be true; and no person of a

good judgment ever studied its evidence, impartially, and with a sincere wish that it might be true, who did not really find it so.'

In the course of the year 1776, the new edition, in quarto, of his Essay on Truth,' so long expected, made its appearance. Of this publication, by subscription, as the nature and original intention of it had been somewhat misunderstood, he had given an explanation, in a letter to Lady Mayne,* written soon after the subscription was set on foot. Various causes, chiefly his own bad health, had retarded the publication till now. But when at last the book did appear, it amply rewarded the subscribers, and the public, for the delay. To the 'Essay on Truth' he gave a preface, (dated 30th April, 1776,) in which he says, that "This new edition will, it is hoped, be found "less faulty than any of the former. Several in"accuracies are removed, unnecessary words and "sentences expunged, a few erroneous passages

* See p. 37.

"either cancelled or rectified, and some new-mo"delled in the style, which before seemed too "harshly, or too strongly expressed." "But, in "regard to the reasons and general principles of "this Essay, he had not," he says, "seen cause "to alter his opinion; though he had carefully

attended to what had been urged against them by several ingenious authors. Some objec"tions," he adds, "will perhaps be found obvi"ated by occasional remarks and amendments, "interspersed in this edition." He closes his preface, by mentioning an advertisement, prefixed by Mr Hume to a new edition of his 'Essays,' in which that writer seems to disown his Treatise of Human Nature, and desires that those Esays, as then published, may be considered as "containing his philosophical sentiments and principles."

In reply to this advertisement, Dr Beattie, after giving an account of the reasons which had at first induced him to publish the Essay on Truth,' goes on to say, "Our author certainly " merits praise for thus publicly disowning, though "late, his Treatise of Human Nature; though I

am sorry to observe, from the tenor of his de'66 claration, that he still seems inclined to adhere

"to 'most of the reasonings and principles con"tained in that treatise.' But if he has now at "last renounced any one of his errors, I con"gratulate him upon it, with all my heart. He "has many good, as well as great qualities; and "I rejoice in the hope, that he may yet be pre"vailed on to relinquish, totally, a system, which, "I should think, would be as uncomfortable to "him, as it is unsatisfactory to others. In conse

quence of his advertisement, I thought it right "to mitigate, in this edition, some of the censures that more especially refer to the Treatise

of Human Nature: but as that treatise is still "extant, and will probably be read as long at "least as any thing I write, I did not think it

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expedient to make any material change in the "reasoning, or in the plan of this performance."*

Besides the Essay on Truth,' the volume contains three other essays; On Poetry and Music, as they affect the Mind.' On Laughter and Ludicrous Composition.' 'On the utility of Classical Learning.' Subjects in themselves extremely interesting to every reader of taste, and all of which

* Preface to the edition in 4to of Dr Beattie's Essays, published in 1776, p. ix.—xiv.

he has treated in a very masterly manner.* And to the whole there is prefixed a list of nearly five hundred subscribers, containing the names of many of the most distinguished characters for rank and learning, both in the church and state; an honourable testimony to the merit of Dr Beattie, and highly creditable to the period in which he lived.

LETTER CXIV.

DR BEATTIE TO SIR WILLIAM FORBES.

Aberdeen, 2d August, 1776.

"Your manuscript is perfectly safe. I have read it through, and have written a few remarks (very slight ones indeed) on the first part of it. You have treated of some subjects that are highly important, and withal very difficult. That of Providence I have chiefly in my eye. You treat it with great accuracy and clearness; but you seem to me rather too anxious to get to the bot

* For some farther account of these Essays, see Appendix, [Y.]