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312 



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Beaton, 

 Beattic. 



all the workmen and servants, to the number it is 

 said of 1.50, with so little noise, that the cardinal 

 was not awaked till they approached the door of his 

 chamber, which be immediately secured. Being pre- 

 vailed upon to open it, by a promise, that no violence 

 should be offered to his person, they rushed in with 

 drawn swords, and put him to death. His body, it 

 is said, was shown to the populace at that window 

 from which he had lately, with a barbarous joy, be- 

 held the death of the innocent Wishart. 



Thus fell this eminent prelate, who was not more 

 distinguished by his rank, than odious by his vices. 

 Endowed with great abilities, he raised himself to 

 the highest station ; but his ambition was unbounded, 

 and his pride insupportable. He was the favourite 

 of the regent, Duke of Albany, and of James V.; 

 and so entirely did he gain the confidence of every 

 person whom he served, and so artfully did he ma- 

 nage his ascendancy over them, that his own influ- 

 ence was never diminished. Bred to business, he 

 was but little acquainted with the learning and con- 

 troversial writings of the age ; but he had studied 

 politics at the court of France, and was well ac- 

 quainted with the temper and influence of all the no- 

 bility of his own country. He took into his own 

 hands the management of the affairs of the kingdom, 

 both civil and ecclesiastical ; and he often treated the 

 ambassadors of foreign states with all the supercilious 

 demeanour of an arbitrary monarch. Bent upon the 

 execution of all his schemes, he scrupled not by what 

 means he gained his end ; and he frequently sowed 

 the seeds of discord among his enemies, that he might 

 reap security from their dissensions. Devoted to the 

 church of Rome, he promoted her cause by the 

 most cruel and sanguinary measures ; and though the 

 manner of his death cannot be justified, it spread an 

 universal joy among all the friends of the reforma- 

 tion. He amassed great wealth, which he be- 

 queathed to his natural children. To each of his 

 three sons he left a valuable estate, and his three 

 daughters obtained marriages in three families of 

 distinction in Scotland. Had his virtues been equal 

 to his abilities, and his life suitable to his high rank, 

 he would not have fallen by the hand of an assassin, 

 nor would his character have stained the page of his- 

 tory. He is an eminent instance of the union of great 

 talents with great vices ; and his life, as well as his 

 death, may teach a valuable lesson to mankind. See 

 Buchanani Hist. lib. xiv, xv. Robertson's Hist. 

 vol. i. p. 96. Biograph. Britannica, vol. ii. p. 37. 

 (a. F.) 



BEATTIE, James, an excellent poet and es- 

 sayist, was born on the 5th of November 1736, in the 

 parish of Laurencekirk. Kincardineshire, Scotland. 

 J lis father kept n small retail shop in the village of 

 that parish, and at the same time rented a small farm 

 in the neighbourhood, in which his forefathers had 

 lived for many generations. The poet's mother was 

 left a widow when young Beattie was only ten years 

 of age ; but the loss of a protector was happily sup- 

 plied by his brother David, who sustained him in his 

 school education, till he obtained, by his promising 

 abilities, a bursary or exhibition at Marischal college, 

 Aberdeen. Here he studied Greek, under Professor 



Black well, author of two works, entitled, the Court Beatri*. 

 of Augustus, and the Life of Homer ; a man grie- 

 vously infected with the pedantry of Lord Shaftes- 

 bury's style, but possessed of considerable learning, 

 and meriting mention in Beattie's life as the first who 

 encouraged his early genius. Having taken the de- 

 gree of master of arts, at the end of four years atten- 

 dance at the university, our poet filled the humble 

 situation of schoolmaster in the neighbouring parish 

 of Fordun. His employment here did not preclude 

 him from that slight attendance to the study of divi- 

 nity which the preparation for holy orders requires 

 in Scotland, nor from occasionally cultivating his 

 muse. Never did poetical talent ripen so slowly as 

 with Beattie. Till the age of 25 he wrote indifferent 

 verses; and within ten years from that period, he was, 

 excepting Goldsmith, the purest and most majestic poet 

 of his own time. Yet his early and indifferent pro- 

 ductions, which he transmitted to the Scottish Maga- 

 zine, gained him a little local celebrity. Mr Garden, 

 a Scottish lawyer of some taste and ingenuity, after- 

 wards Lord Gardenstone, and at that time sheriff of 

 Kincardineshire, afforded him a sort of patronage, 

 and introduced him to the tables of the gentry in that 

 neighbourhood; an honour not often extended to the. 

 humble teacher of a parish school. In 1757> a va- 

 cancy occurred in the grammar school of Aberdeen, 

 and Beattie stood competitor. He was foiled by a 

 candidate who surpassed him in the minutiae of Latin 

 grammar, but though unsuccessful, he retired with- 

 out disgrace; and a vacancy in the same school soon 

 after occurring, he was appointed successor without 

 a trial. In this new situation his reputation extend- 

 ed with the sphere of his acquaintance ; he became 

 known by his conversation and talents, among a dis- 

 cerning community ; and at 24 years of age, we find 

 him obtaining, through the reputation of those abili- 

 ties, the professorship - of moral philosophy in the 

 Marischal college of Aberdeen ; a place in which he 

 became the associate of such eminent men as Dr Reid, 

 Dr Campbell, and Dr Gregory, who then graced the 

 university. In 1760, he published a small collection 

 of poems, the most of which he was afterwards 

 ashamed to print, in company with his Minstrel. He 

 actually bought up and destroyed as many copies as 

 he could find of this unhappy volume in the days of 

 his established fame. In 1763, he made his first visit 

 to London, but he seems at that time to have been 

 unnoticed and unknown. In 1766, he married a Miss 

 Dunn, a woman of some beauty and accomplishments, 

 but with whom his union proved an abundant source 

 of domestic misery the dreadful malady of an here-t 

 ditary madness, which at last made it necessary to 

 confine her, for a long time showed itself equivocally 

 before it came to a crisis, in the caprice of her dispo- 

 sitions, and the inquietude of her temper. In 1770, 

 he published his Essay on Truth ; and. iu the follow- 

 ing year, the first part of his exquisite poem the Mhi- 

 strcl. 



During the summer of the latter year he paid a 

 second visit to London, which he renewed in 1773. 

 During this last visit he was made a doctor of laws 

 by the university of Oxford, and obtained the king's 

 warrant for a pension of 200 a-year. The.honours 



