BEAT-TIE, JAMES. 



BEAUFORT, CARDINAL. 



spirits eonxraUl with hii own; for on the 17th of the same month we 

 find UM Earl of Hertford communicating to him * design by WUh.rt 

 and others to win or slay the ordinal, could they secure bit majesty'* 

 protection and support. 



Beaton WM haughty to all ; but to the reformer* be wai particularly 

 oppressive. In UM beginning of 1545-44 he held a visitation of hii 

 diooase, and had great number* brought before him, under the act 

 which bad pawed the parliament in 1542-43, forbidding the liege* to 

 argue or ditpute concerning the senw of the holy Scripture*. Con- 

 Tictions were quickly obtained ; and of thoae convicted five men were 

 hanged and one woman drowned ; aome were impriioned, and other* 

 were banUhed. He next proceeded to Edinburgh, and there called a 

 council for the affairs of the church ; and hearing that George Wishart, 

 an eminent reformer, wai at the house of Cock burn of Ormiston, Beaton 

 instantly moved the sheriff of the county to have WUhart apprehended, 

 which being done, WUhart wai carried over by the cardinal to St. 

 Andrew*, and shut up in the tower there. The cardinal continued to 

 act with a high hand towards the reformer*, and particularly with 

 respect to WisharL He called a convention of the clergy at St. 

 Andrews, at which WUhart wu condemned for heresy, and adjudged 

 to be burnt a sentence which was passed and put in force by the 

 cardinal and hU clergy in defiance of the regent, and without the aid 

 of the civil power. The cardinal afterwards proceeded to the abbey 

 of Arbroath. to the marriage of his eldest daughter by Mrs. Marion 

 Ogilvy of the house of Airly, with whom he had long lived in con- 

 cubinage, and there gave her in marriage to the eldest son of the Earl 

 of Crawford, and with her 4000 merks of dowry. He then returned 

 to St. Andrews, where, on Saturday, 29th Hay 1546, he was put to 

 death in hU own chamber by a party of reformers, headed by Norman 

 Leslie, heir of the noble house of Rothee, who, we find, had on the 

 84th April 1545, given the cardinal a bond of ' manrent' (or admission 

 of feudal homage and fealty), and who had a personal quarrel with 

 the cardinal. The death of Cardinal Beaton wax fatal to the eccle- 

 siastical oligarchy, which, under him, trampled alike on law and liberty. 

 Three works of the cardinal's are named ' De Legationibus Suis;' 

 ' De Primatu Petri ; ' and ' Epistoto ad Diversos.' 



BEATTIK, JAMES, a poet and metaphysician of the 18th century, 

 was born at Lawrencvkirk, in the county of Kincardine, Scotland, Oct. 

 25, 1785. His parents kept a small farm, and were esteemed for a 

 more than ordinary degree of cultivation and intellect. James received 

 bis first education at the village school. He entered the Marischal 

 College, Aberdeen, in 1749 ; and after completing his course of study 

 was appointed in 1753 schoolmaster to the parish of Fordoun, at the 

 foot of the Grampians, six miles from Lawrencekirk. In this solitary 

 abode hU poetic temperament was fostered by the grand scenery which 

 surrounded him, and his works evince the zeal and taste with which 

 he studied the ever-changing beauties of nature. He attracted the 

 favourable notice of a neighbouring proprietor, the celebrated Lord 

 Monboddo, with whom he ever after maintained a friendly intercourse. 

 In June 1758 be was elected usher to the grammar-school of Aberdeen, 

 and in 1'fiO, it seems rather by private interest than in consequence 

 of any dutiuction which he bad then attained, he wan appointed pro- 

 fessor of moral philosophy and logic in the Mariscbal College. 



His first and chief buninee* was to prepare a course of lectures, the 

 substance of which, as they were remodelled by long study and fre- 

 quent revUion, was given to the world in his ' Elements of Moral 

 Seieooe.' HU first poetical attempts were published in London in 

 1760, and received with favour; but most of the piece* contained in 

 this collection (which U now very rare) were omitted by the authors 

 maturer judgment in later editions of bis works. Some will be found 

 in the Appendix to Sir William Forbes's ' Life of Beattie.' The same 

 Udt censure wu passed by the author upon bu ' Judgment of Paris,' 

 published in 1765. In 1762 be wrote hU ' Essay on Poetry,' but it was 

 not published, with other* of bU prose works, until 1 776. 



In 1767 lirmttie conceived the notion of composing hU ' Easay on 

 Truth,' written avowedly to confute the moral and metaphysical doc- 

 trine* advanced by Hume. HU motive* for engaging in this task are 

 fully detailed in a long letter to Dr. Blacklock (Forbes's ' Life,' voL i, 

 p. 129), and they do credit to hU sincerity and courage. If Beattie 

 could not quite attain his own wiah of being " animated without losing 

 U* temper," something must be conceded to bis desp feeling of the 

 Importance of the subject, in dispute. The Essay ' was reooived with 

 much anger by Mr. Hume and his fri-nds, as a violent and personal 

 attack ; and that bcattic s seal might r. quire some tempering we may 

 conclude from knowing that an intended preface to the eooud edition 

 (published early in 1771) was cancelled by the advice of some of hU 

 beet friends. His work appeared in May 1770 under the title, Essay 

 on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, in opposition to SophUtry 

 and HosptMem.' The Eawy on Truth ' was only the first part of an 

 iXe)d*d dUeuun* on the evidences of morality and religion. Habitual 

 ill health, and an avowed dislike to severe study, prevented Dr. Beattie 

 from computing bis design. 



TJ* > to* canto of the 'Minstrel,' which had been commenced in 



6. bat laid Mid* on account of ill-health and more pressing avo- 



toom, was published anonymously in 1771. It was most favourably 



"a by the public, and warmly praiaed by Gray, whose coalmen- 



d*** * 1 " * T valuable becaoM accompanied by a Utter of 



tent* cnliostn. In the some yew Beatti* vUited London for tb* 



first time since be had been known as an author, and received distin- 

 guished and flattering notice from Dr. Johnson and the best literary 

 society of the metropolis. 



In 1773 Beattie again visited London, and owing to the powerful 

 interest which wu exerted on his behalf, he obtained a pension of 

 200A. The king (George III.) received him with distinguished favour; 

 snd the University of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree 

 of D.C.L. During this visit, Sir Joshua Reynold* painted and pre- 

 sented to him the well-known portrait, which contains the allegorical 

 triumph of Truth over SophUtry, Scepticism, and Infidelity. In the 

 same autumn the chair of moral philosophy in the University of 

 Edinburgh becoming vacant, it wu offered to Dr. Beattie, but he 

 declined it for the sake of peace and quiet. At thU time he was 

 engaged in finishing the second book of the ' Minstrel,' which was 

 published in the following spring. 



Several eminent persons, with some of Beattic's persons! friends, 

 wen desirous to induce him to take orders in the English church, 

 and more than one living was pressed upon his acceptance. In 1774 

 he received the offer of a living worth near 5001. per annum, from 

 Dr. Thomas, bishop of Winchester. Reattie took those proposaU into 

 serious consideration, but eventually he refused them, mainly on the 

 ground that hU acceptance might gire s handle to the opponents of 

 revealed religion for asserting that the ' Essay on Truth ' wu written 

 for the sake of preferment. 



The 'Essay on Truth' wu re-published in 1776, with three other 

 essay? : ' On Poetry and Music, as they affect the Mind ; ' ' On 

 Laughter and Ludicrous Composition ; ' ' On the Utility of Classical 

 Learning.' These were followed at intervals by other essays and 

 dissertations, chiefly taken from his academical lectures : ' Disserta- 

 tions Moral and Critical, on Memory and Imagination, on Dreaming, 

 on the Theory of Language, on Fable and Romance, on the Attach- 

 ments of Kindred, and Illustrations of Sublimity,' 1783; 'Evidences 

 of the Christian Religion,' 1786; 'Elements of Moral Science,' vol. i. 

 containing 'Psychology and Natural Theology,' 1790; vol. ii. contain- 

 ing 'Ethics, Economics, Politics, Logic, and a Dissertation on the 

 Slave Trade,' 1793. But he appears to have engaged in no new inves- 

 tigations or studies; and his letters explain the cause of thin to hnve 

 been ill-health, and consequent disinclination to labour, aggravated by 

 mental depression, and a considerable share of domestic disquiet, pro- 

 duced by an hereditary disposition to insanity in his wife. His life 

 passed until 1790 without marked events, in the discharge of bU 

 academical duties ; varied in his long summer vacations by not 

 unfrequeut visits to London, and to many perrons eminent by their 

 talents or rank, who sought his society for the sake of his powers u a 

 companion, as much as for bis reputation. In 1790 be suffered an 

 irreparnble loss in the death of his eldest son at the age of twenty-two, 

 a young man of great promise ; and his declining health received 

 another shock in 1796 in the unexpected death of bis only surviving 

 son after a week's illness, in the eighteenth year of hi* nge. Ho said, 

 in looking on the corpse, " I have now done with the worlil," and hn 

 never again applied to study of any sort. The closing years of his 

 life exhibit a melancholy scene of gloom and distress, bodily and 

 mental. He was struck by palsy in April 1799, and after one or two 

 subsequent attacks, expired August 18, 1803. 



In the relations of private life, and in his public duties as a teacher, 

 Dr. Beattie was most estimable ; and he commanded, in an unusual 

 degree, the esteem and affection of his pupils, as well as of a largo 

 circle of friends. It is honourable to him, that long before the abolition 

 of the sUve trade wu brought before parliament, Beattie wu active 

 in protesting against that iniquitous traffic; and he introduced the 

 subject into bU academical course, with the express hope that such 

 of bis pupiU u might be called to reside in the West Indies would 

 recollect the lessons of humanity which he inculcated. 



Of his writings, the ' Minstrel ' U that which now probably is most 

 read. It is not a work of any very high order uf genius ; but it 

 exhibits a strong feeling for the beauties of nature ; and it will pro- 

 bably long continue to hold an honourable pliicc in the collections of 

 minor poetry. Beattie's metaphysical writings have the reputation of 

 being clear, lively, and attractive, but not profound. The ' Essay on 

 Truth ' wu much read and admired at the time of its publication, 

 but bu fallen into comparative neglect, with the doctrines against 

 which it wu especully directed. 



(Life of Dr. Btatti,, by Sir W. Forbes.) 



i I TFORT, CARDINAL. Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester 

 and Cardinal of St. Euaebius, wu a son of John of Gaunt, duke of 

 Lancaster (father of Henry IV.), by his mUtress Catherine Swyufoni, 

 whom bo subsequently married. HU children by this woman, all horn 

 before wedlock, were legitimated by the name of lieaufort in the 

 twentieth year of the reign of Richard II. We are unable to state the 

 exact year of Cardinal Beaufort's birth ; but it was probably about the 

 year 1370. He studied at Oxford, Cambridge, and Aix la-Chapelle. 

 In 1897 he wu created bishop of Lincoln ; became chancellor of the 

 University of Oxford in 1399; and in 1404 succeeded the celebrated 

 William of Wyckham u bishop of Winchester. In the parliaments of 

 1404 and 1405 he officiated u lord chancellor, an office which he filled 

 four times during his life. The bishopric of Winchester wu then, as 

 at present, one of the richest endowments in the Engluh church ; and 

 Beaufort, from habit* of frugality according to some writers, from 



