This was followed, in 1783, by a volume of "Dissertations on Memory and
Imagination, Dreaming," &c. In 1786 he published a little treatise on
the "Christian Evidences," which he had shown to Bishop Porteous in
London, two years before, and been recommended by him to give to the
world. Beattie himself preferred it to all his writings, in "closeness
of matter and style." In 1790 and 1793, appeared two volumes on the
"Elements of Moral Science," containing an abridgment of his lectures on
Moral Philosophy and Logic. He wrote also, in the "Transactions" of the
Royal Society, Edinburgh, a paper on the sixth book of the "AEneid", and
contributed a few notes to an edition of Addison's works.

His wife long ere this had been separated from him by her malady. By her
he had two sons, James Hay, named after the Earl of Errol, and Montague,
after the celebrated Mrs Montague. The history of both was hapless.
James Hay, who gave high literary promise, and was still more
distinguished by his amiable disposition, after having been appointed to
be his father's successor in the chair, died in 1790, at the age of
twenty-two, of a consumption. Beattie felt the blow deeply, and
published, soon after, the life and remains of the precocious youth. Our
readers must all remember the exquisite story of his teaching him the
idea of a Creator by sowing his name in cresses in the garden. The loss
of Montague, also a youth of much promise, by a rapid fever in 1796,
completed the prostration of the poor father. It was the case of Burke
over again, but worse, inasmuch as Beattie, a weaker nature, was
sometimes driven to seek oblivion in the cup, and as sometimes his
reason reeled on its throne, and he went about the house asking where
his son was, and whether he had or had not a son. He retired from all
society--lost taste for his former pleasures, such as music, which he
had once relished so keenly--was seized, in 1799, with a paralytic
affection, which deprived him of speech--and languished on, ever and