A still life, and a vehicle of contemplative morality, has a charm that is inconsistent with the bold evolutions of heroic narrative. After having pourtrayed his young enthusiast with such advantage in a state of visionary quiet, it would have been too violent a transition to have begun in a new book to surround him with dates of time and names of places. The interest which we attach to Edwin's character, would have been lost in a more ambitious effort, to make him a greater or more important, or a more locally defined being. It is the solitary growth of his genius, and his isolated and mystic abstraction from mankind, that fix our attention on the romantic features of that genius. The simplicity of his fate does not divert us from his mind to his circumstances. more unworldly air is given to his character, that instead of being tacked to the fate of kings, he was one "Who envied not, who never thought of kings;" and that, instead of mingling with the troubles which deface the creation, he only existed to make his thoughts the mirror of its beauty and magnificence. Another English critic1 has blamed Edwin's vision of the fairies as too splendid and artificial for a simple youth; but there is nothing in the situation ascribed to Edwin, as he lived in minstrel days, that necessarily excluded such materials from his fancy. Had he beheld steam-engines or dock-yards in his sleep, the vision might have been pronounced to be too artificial; but he might have heard of fairies and 1 Dr. Aikin. their dances, and even of tapers, gold, and gems, from the ballads of his native country. In the second book of the poem there are some fine stanzas ; but he has taken Edwin out of the school of nature, and placed him in his own, that of moral philosophy, and hence a degree of languor is experienced by the reader. Soon after the publication of the "Essay on Truth," and of the first part of the "Minstrel,” he paid his first visit to London. His reception, in the highest literary and polite circles, was distinguished and flattering. The university of Oxford conferred on him the degree of doctor of laws, and the Sovereign himself, besides honouring him with a personal conference, bestowed on him a pension of £200 a year. On his return to Scotland, there was a proposal for transferring him to the university of Edinburgh, which he expressed his wish to decline, from a fear of those personal enemies whom he had excited by his Essay on Truth. This motive, if it was his real one, must have been connected with that weakness and irritability on polemical subjects which have been already alluded to. His metaphysical fame perhaps stood higher in Aberdeen than in Edinburgh; but to have dreaded personal hostility in the capital of a religious country, amidst thousands of individuals as pious as himself, was a weakness unbecoming the professed champion of truth. For reasons of delicacy, more creditable to his memory, he de clined a living in the church of England, which was offered to him by his friend Dr. Porteus. After this, there is not much incident in his life. He published a volume of his Essays in 1776, and another in 1783; and the outline of his academical lectures in 1790. In the same year, he edited, at Edinburgh, Addison's papers in the Spectator, and wrote a preface for the edition. He was very unfortunate in his family. The mental disorder of his wife, for a long time before it assumed the shape of decided derangement, broke out in caprices of temper, which disturbed his domestic peace, and almost precluded him from having visitors in his family. The loss of his son, James Hay Beattie, a young man of highly promising talents, who had been conjoined with him in his professorship, was the greatest, though not the last calamity of his life. He made an attempt to revive his spirits after that melancholy event, by another journey to England, and some of his letters from thence bespeak a temporary composure and cheerfulness; but the wound was never healed. Even music, of which he had always been fond, ceased to be agreeable to him, from the lively recollections which it excited of the hours which he had been accustomed to spend in that recreation with his favourite boy. He published the poems of this youth, with a partial eulogy upon his genius, such as might be well excused from a father so situated. At the end of six years more, his other son, Montague Beattie, was also cut off in the flower of his youth. This misfortune crushed his spirits even to temporary alienation of mind. With his wife in a madhouse, his sons dead, and his own health broken, he might be pardoned for saying, as he looked on the corpse of his last child, "I have done with this world." Indeed he acted as if he felt so; for though he performed the duties of his professorship till within a short time of his death, he applied to no study, enjoyed no society, and answered but few letters of his friends. Yet, amidst the depth of his melancholy, he would sometimes acquiesce in his childless fate, and exclaim, "How could I have borne to see their elegant minds mangled with madness!" He was struck with a palsy in 1799, by repeated attacks of which his life terminated in 1803. 66 THE MINSTREL; OR, THE PROGRESS OF GENIUS. BOOK I. AH! who can tell how hard it is to climb The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar; In life's low vale remote has pined alone, Then dropt into the grave, unpitied and unknown! And yet the languor of inglorious days Him, who ne'er listen'd to the voice of praise There are, who, deaf to mad Ambition's call, Would shrink to hear th' obstreperous trump of Fame; Supremely blest, if to their portion fall Health, competence, and peace. Nor higher aim Had he, whose simple tale these artless lines proclaim. The rolls of fame I will not now explore; His waving lart, though homely in array; and beard all hoary grey: While from his bending shoulder, decent hung His harp, the sole companion of his way, Which to the whistling wild responsive rung: And ever as he went some merry lay he sung. Fret not thyself, thou glittering child of pride, Nor him whose sordid soul the love of gold alarms. VOL. VI. EE |