anon visited with new assaults of the same malady, till at last, on the
18th of August 1803, the gifted, amiable, but most miserable "Minstrel"
breathed his last. He now lies beside his two dear sons in the
churchyard of St Nicholas, Aberdeen, a graceful Latin inscription from
the pen of Dr James Gregory of Edinburgh distinguishing the stone which
covers his ashes.

Beattie was of the middle size, of slouching gait, and common-place
appearance, redeemed by two fine dark eyes, which, melancholy in repose,
gleamed and glowed whenever he became animated in conversation. He had
warm affections, a tender, shrinking, sensitive disposition, was a kind
parent, an attached friend, truly pious, and could be charged with no
fault, save an irritability of temper, which grew upon him with his
misfortunes and infirmities, and, latterly, that occasional excess to
which we have alluded, which sprung rather from dotage and wretchedness
than from inclination, and in which he was far more to be pitied than
blamed.

Of his pretensions as a philosopher we shall say nothing, save that he
has now no name, and is held rather to have struck at and all about
Hume, than to have smote him hip and thigh. His essays are exceedingly
agreeable reading. Cowper relished no book so well, but they can
scarcely be called either profound or brilliant. They soothe, but do not
suggest--they tickle, but do not tell us anything new. It is as a poet
that his name must survive, and the paean of reception which saluted him
in his "Essay on Truth," entering on stilts, should have been reserved
entirely for the "Minstrel," with the meek harp in his hand.

Much has been said of the effect of fine scenery upon the development of
genius. And as this is the theme of one-half of the "Minstrel," we must