X.

JAMES BEATTIE.

An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie, LL.D., late Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic in the Marischal College and University of Aberdeen; including many of his Original Letters. By SIR WILLIAM FORBES, of Pitsligo, Bart.

WHEN a man of humble condition and education who has cultivated literature under the pressure of many disadvantages, and perhaps distresses, comes before the public with a work which has cost him great labour, costs the purchaser but a moderate price, and communicates very necessary, or at least very useful and seasonable information, he may justly claim for the faults of his book the very last degree of forbearance which criticism can exercise, without surrendering its essential laws. But when a man of fortune, who had a liberal education, who has been intimate with many of the most distinguished individuals, both in literature and rank, for forty years, who would indignantly disown any wish to raise money on the grave of his friend, who knows that an ample memoir of that friend has already been given to the public, and who adopts the easiest of all possible modes of making up volumes, publishes a splendid work, he will naturally disdain to be under any obligation to the clemency of critics. We shall therefore feel perfectly at liberty to express our honest opinion on these volumes; and laying out of the question all the excellencies which the author doubtless possesses, we shall consider him simply in the character which he has assumed in appearing before the public.

We cannot but earnestly wish that the present epidemical disease in literature, the custom of making very large books about individuals, may in due time find, like other diseases, some limit to its prevalence, and at length decline and disappear. What is to become of readers, if the exit of every

man of some literary eminence is thus to be followed by a long array of publications, beginning with duodecimos, extending into octavos, and expanded at last into a battalion of magnificent quartos? This is reviving to some purpose the Theban method of attacking in the form of a wedge; and we do hope the curiosity, diligence, and patience of readers will at last be completely put to the rout.

This swelling fungous kind of biography confounds all the right proportions in which the claims and the importance of individuals should be arranged, and exhibited to the attention of the public. When a private person, whose life was marked by few striking varieties, is thus brought forward in two volumes quarto, while many an individual of modern times, who influenced the fate of nations, has been confined to a sixth part of the compass, it reminds us too much of that political rule by which Old Sarum, consisting of one house, is represented by two illustrious senators, while many very populous towns are not represented at all. If a professor of a college is to lie thus magnificently in state, what must be done for such a man as Mr. Pitt or Mr. Fox? And still more, what must be done after the exit of some persons who are at present acting their part in human affairs? The French Encyclopedie will be, in point of bulk, but a horn-book in comparison of the stupendous host of folios, which must come forth after the departure of Bonaparte and Talleyrand; provided, that is to say, that sufficient materials, in the way of paper, ink, &c., can then be obtained wherewithal to furnish out this mighty blazon of monumental history. And by the way, the makers of paper will do well to take the hint from us, and have their warehouses ready for the event which will happen sooner or later in their favour, though to the confusion and dismay of the most courageous and indefatigable readers. As to reviewers, the most industrious and incorruptible of all the servants of the public, they will then have the plea of absolute necessity for resorting to the practice of which they have sometimes been most unrighteously accused, that of reviewing books without inspecting them.

The method of constructing large biographical works out of an assemblage of letters, with here and there a page and paragraph between, for the purpose of connexion and explanation, has plenty of plausible recommendations. There is an appearance of great modesty; the compiler makes no

claims to the honours of authorship; all he is anxious for, is to display in the simplest manner, the merits, talents, and pursuits of his friend. That friend is thus made to present himself to us in his own person, and his familiar correspondence will disclose to us the internal qualities of the man incomparably better, as it is so often repeated to us, than any formal development of a biographer. The series of such letters, continued through half the length of life or more, will show the gradual progress and improvement of the mind. If some of them are trivial or common, in subject or style, even the smallest things said and written by eminent persons have their value; it is pleasing to observe how great minds sometimes unbend; and consoling to see in how many respects they are like ourselves. These are recommendations proper to be mentioned to the public; but there are others of which the biographer can silently take the advantage to himself, besides that extreme facility of performance which we have hinted already. One of these is impunity. There is little to be attacked in such a book, except what its author has not written; or if he is directly censured for introducing some of the things written by the person who is the subject of the book, the partiality of friendship is a plea always at hand, and a feeling always accounted amiable. Another is a fair opportunity for the biographer to introduce himself very often, and without the direct form of egotism; since the probability is, that not a few of the letters were written to him, and contain of course, many very handsome things. His modesty professes to hesitate about their insertion; but yet they must be inserted, because they show in so striking a light, the kind disposition of his friend.

Such handsome things, we have no doubt, were amply deserved by Sir W. Forbes, and even those more than handsome things which he informs us he has omitted in printing the letters. The indications of a sincere affection for Dr. Beattie, are very conspicuous; and we attribute it to a real partiality of friendship, that he has made this work much larger than we think can be of service to the instruction of the public, or the memory of his friend. The memory of that friend was unquestionably too dear to him to have permitted the insertion of one letter or line, which he did not sincerely believe would give the same impression of the writer, which Sir William himself was happy to cherish. It is there

fore unfortunate, that the reader should feel, at the close of the book, that he would have been more pleased with both - Beattie and his biogropher, if it had come to a close uch sooner.

y

The parts written by Sir W. Forbes, are in a style, percuous, correct, and classical; generally relating however particulars, which required no great effort of thought. ny of these particulars are most unnecessarily introduced, lead into details which are extremely tiresome, not exting even the analysis of Dr. Beattie's writings. It had ely been enough to have stated in a few sentences, the cts of his several performances, and then, if the reader ned those objects of importance, he would take an opporof consulting the books themselves. The notes cona large assemblage of biographical and genealogical rds. When a new acquaintance of Dr. Beattie is mened, it is deemed proper for us to be informed of his page, his connexions, his residence, his offices, his accomments. In several instances a letter of little interest is eded by a long history of still less, for the purpose of aning that letter intelligible, by detailing some transaction hich it relates; as in that part of the book referring to he union of two colleges in Aberdeen. Sir William is sufficiently a citizen of the world, we have no doubt, to wish his book may be read in each part of the kingdom; why was he not enough a citizen of the world, to be aware how small a portion of the kingdom can feel any concern in this piece of history? If he thought all these matters would magnify the importance of his principal subject, he is so far mistaken, that the reader is tempted to quarrel with that subject, on account of this crowd of appendages. The reader feels in this case, just as Sir William would do, if some one of his friends of high rank, whom he would be very glad to receive in an easy quiet way, would never come to visit him for a day or two, without bringing also a large troop of footmen, postillions, cooks, nursery-maids, and other inhabitants of his house, kitchen, and stables. We will not suppose it was his formal purpose to make a very large book. Nor could it be his ambition to display writing talents, as the subjects would have been unfortunately selected for such a purpose; and indeed we do not accuse him of ostentation as an author. Perhaps it is no great vice if he exhibits a little of it as a man. But

we have felt a degree of surprise that he should not seem to be aware of the impression which would be made on the minds of his readers, by his adding, at the end of almost every note relating to one or another distinguished personage of Dr. Beattie's acquaintance, " And I also had the honour of his friendship." This occurs so often, that we have felt that kind of irritation which is excited when a man, that we wish to respect, is for the tenth or twentieth time doing or repeating a foolish thing in order to intimate his importance. We persuade ourselves that this feeling arises from our right perception of what would have preserved Sir William's dignity; perhaps however we deceive ourselves, and the feeling springs from envy of his high fortune, for we doubt if we were ever summoned to wait on a man of such extensive and illustrious connexions before.

Previously to the insertion of any of Dr. Beattie's letters, a succinct account is given of his life, from his birth, of humble, but very respectable parents, till his twenty-fifth year, when he was appointed professor of moral philosophy and logic, in Marischal college, after having passed through the offices of parish-clerk and schoolmaster in the neighbourhood of his native place, and assistant in a respectable school in Aberdeen. This rapid advancement, by means of merit alone, is in itself sufficient to evince both uncommon ability and industry. We are informed that the passion and the talent for poetry were very early awakened in his mind, and in one of his letters to a friend, in a later period of his life, he acknowledges that his "Minstrel" is substantially a description of what had been his own mental character in his youth. A prematurity of faculties appears conspicuous through the whole course of his earlier life, and when he was fixed at Aberdeen, those faculties were extended to the utmost, in the society of a number of distinguished men, such as Campbell, Reid, Gerard, Gregory, and many others, with whom he familiarly associated, and from that time maintained an intimate friendship as long as the respective parties lived. An entertaining account is given of these literary friends forming themselves into a society for philosophical discussion, to which the common people gave the denomination of the Wise Club, in which the first ideas were started of some of those theories which were afterwards unfolded at large, in books that have obtained a high rank in the philosophic