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siti's ; De Primatu Petri ; and Epistolcc ad dicei'sos. We 

 have said that he was at the head of the civil judicature of 

 the kingdom, being, in his capacity of Lord Chancellor, 

 principal of the College of Justice or Court of Session. We 

 now add, that in his time two remarkable alterations appear 

 to have been made in the customs of that court, and both 

 manifestly derived from the papal tribunals, with which the 

 cardinal appears to have been very familiar. The first of 

 these was the custom (continued to this day) of the judges 

 of the Court of Session changing their name on their eleva- 

 tion to the bench, in imitation, no doubt, of the like custom 

 on elevation in the papal hierarchy. The first judges of the 

 court were indeed called lords of session, as the judges of 

 the previous court were called lords of council ; but the in- 

 dividual judges of the court of daily council were never de- 

 signated as the present judges of the Court of Session are, 

 nor were the early judges of the latter court so designated. 

 The first we have yet noticed bearing the present style 

 is James Balfour, parson of Flisk, whom we find called 

 ' My lord of Flisk.' (Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, January, 

 1566.) The other change we have to notice was the ap- 

 pointment of lords ordinary to sit in the outer house to hear 

 and determine causes; in conformity, perhaps, to a like 

 practice in the tribunals of Rome. It is almost certain that 

 there was no such distinction as an Outer and Inner House 

 at the first institution of the Court of Session : no trace of 

 any sucli is perceived in the documents of that time, but, on 

 the contrary, every thing tends to demonstrate that all the 

 judges sat only in the council house; but soon after the 

 cardinal's time an outer house appears. 



BEATS, in music (a term always used in the plural), 

 are the pulsations, throbbings, or beatings, resulting from 

 the joint vibrations of two sounds of the same strength and 

 nearly the same pitch ; that is, of two sounds differing but 

 little, if at all, in intensity, and which are almost, but not 

 exactly, in unison. When two organ-pipes, or two strings 

 sounded together, are nearly, but not accurately of the 

 sa;ne pitch, i.e. are not in perfect tune, they produce th rob- 

 bings that may be compared to the rapid beating of the 

 pulse ; and to these, Sauveur, the discoverer of the pheno- 

 menon, applied the term battemens, or beats, which has 

 since been adopted by all writers on the subject. 



Dr. Smith has, in his Harmonics, entered fully into the 

 subject of beats, and founded hureon his well-known system 

 of temperament. [See TKMPKUAMENT.] In his ninth pro- 

 position he says, that ' if a consonance of two sounds he 

 uniform without any beats or undulations, the times of the 

 single vibrations of its sounds have a perfect ratio ; but if it 

 beats or undulates, the ratio of the vibration differs a little 

 from a perfect ratio, more or less, according as the beats are 

 quicker or slower.' His experiment in demonstration of 

 this is practical, easy, and satisfactory. ' Change,' says Dr. 

 Smith, 'the first string of a violoncello for another about as 

 thick as the second. Then screw up the first string, and 

 while it approaches gradually to a unison with the second, 

 the two sounds will be heard to beat very quick at first, 

 then slower and slower, till at last they make a uniform 

 consonance without any beats or undulations. At this junc- 

 ture, either of the strings struck alone, by the bow or 

 finger, will excite large and regular vibrations in the other, 

 plainly visible ; which show that the times of their single 

 vibrations are equal.' For the vibrating motion of a musical 

 string puts other strings in motion, whose tension and quan- 

 tity of matter dispose their vibrations to keep time with the 

 pulses of air propagated from the string that is struck; a 

 phenomenon explained by Galileo, who observes, that a 

 heavy pendulum may be put in motion by the least breath 

 of the mouth, provided the puffs be often repeated, and keep 

 time exactly with the vibrations of the pendulum. ' Alter 

 the tension,' continues Dr. Smith, in pursuing his experi- 

 ment, 'of either string a very little, and the sounds of the 

 two will beat again. But now the motion of one string 

 struck alone makes the other only start, exciting no regular 

 vibrations in it; a plain proof that the vibrations of the 

 strings are not isochronous.' And while the sounds of both 

 are drawn out with an even bow, not only an audible but 

 a visible beating and irregularity is observable in the vibra- 

 tions, though in the former case the vibrations were free 

 and uniform. Now measure the length of either string 

 between the nut and bridge, and when the strings are per- 

 fect unisons, mark, at the distance of one-third of that length 

 from the nut, one string with a speck of ink. Then place 

 the edge of the nail on the speck, or very near it, and press 



the string, when, on sounding the remaining two-thirds 

 with the other string open, a uniform consonance of fifths 

 will be heard, the single vibrations of which have the per- 

 fect ratio of 3 to 2. But on moving the nail a little down- 

 wards or upwards, that ratio will be increased or diminished ; 

 and in both cases the imperfect fifths will beat quicker or 

 slower, accordingly as that perfect ratio is more or less 

 altered. 



Dr. Young remarks of Beats, that they furnish a very 

 accurate mode of determining the proportional frequency of 

 vibrations, when the absolute frequency of one of them is 

 known ; or the absolute frequency of both, when their pro- 

 portion is known ; for the beats are usually slow enough to 

 be reckoned, although the vibrations themselves can never 

 be distinguished. Thus, if one sound consists of 1 00 vibra- 

 tions in a second, and produces with another acuter sound a 

 single beat in every second, it is obvious that the second 

 sound must consist of 101 vibrations in a second. (Young's 

 Philosophy, i. 390.) 



In tuning unisons, as in the case of two or more pipes, or 

 strings, the operator is guided by beats. Till the unison is 

 perfect, more or less of beating will be heard, as the sounds 

 more or less approach each other. 'When the unison is 

 complete,' observes Sir John Herschel, ' no beats are heard : 

 when very defective, the beats have the effect of a rattle of 

 a very unpleasant kind. The complete absence of beats 

 affords the best means of attaining by (rial a perfect har- 

 mony. Beats will also be heard when other concords, as 

 fifths, are imperfectly adjusted. (Herschel on Soiintl.) 



Dr. Smith, in the learned work of wlrich we have here 

 availed ourselves, gives some useful practical rules for 

 tuning by means of beats, the substance of which will be 

 found under the head of TUNING. 



BEATTIE, JAMES, a poet and metaphysician of the 

 18th century, was born in Scotland, at Lawrencekirk, a 

 village in the county of Kincardine, Oct. 25, 1735. His 

 parents kept a small farm, and were esteemed, not only for 

 their honesty, but for a degree of cultivation and intellect 

 not common in their station. James Beattie received his first 

 education at the village school. He entered the Marischal 

 College, Aberdeen, in 1749 ; obtained a bursary, or scholar- 

 ship, and other honours ; and after completing his course 

 of study was appointed, August 1, 1753, schoolmaster to the 

 parish of Fordoim, at the foot of the Grampians, six miles 

 from Lawrencekirk. In this solitary abode his poetic tem- 

 perament was fostered by the grand scenery which sur- 

 rounded 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 pro- 

 prietor, the celebrated Lord Monboddo, with whom he ever 

 after maintained a friendly intercourse. In June, 1758, ho 

 was elected usher to the grammar-school of Aberdeen ; and 

 in 1 7CO, it seems rather by private interest than in conse- 

 quence of any distinction which he had then attained, he 

 was appointed professor of moral philosophy and logic in 

 the Marischal College. 



II is first and chief business was to prepare a course of 

 lectures, the substance of which, as they were remodelled 

 by long study and frequent revision, was given to the world 

 in his Elements of Moral Science. His first poetical at- 

 tempts were published in London in 1 760, and received with 

 favour ; but most of the pieces contained in this collection 

 (which is now very rare) were omitted by the author's ma- 

 turer judgment in later editions of his works. Some will 

 be found in the Appendix to Sir William Forbes's Life of 

 Beattie. The same tacit censure was passed by the author 

 upon \\isJudgmentofParis, published in 1765. In 1762 

 he wrote his oMOgron Poetry, which, however, he retained a 

 long time in manuscript, until it was published, with others 

 of his prose works, in 1776. The Minstrel was commenced 

 in ] 766 ; but during that year all his pursuits, except those 

 which were compulsory, were interrupted by a bad state of 

 health. June 28, 1707, he married Miss Dun, daughter of 

 the rector of the grammar-school at Aberdeen. 



During this year he conceived the notion of composing 

 his Essay on Truth, written avowedly to confute the moral 

 and metaphysical doctrines advanced by Hume, which at 

 that time were supposed to be making numerous converts; 

 and which, perhaps, derived as much of their popularity 

 from the fashionable acceptation and high repute of their au- 

 thor, as from the arguments on which they rested. Beattie's 

 motives for engaging in this task will be found fully de- 

 tailed in a long letter to Dr. Blacklock (Forbes's Life, vol. i. 



