The Poetical Works of James Beattie
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PASTORAL X. 92
GALLUSTo my last labour lend thy sacred aid,O Arethusa: that the cruel maidWith deep remorse may read the mournful song,For mournful lays to Gallus' love belong.(What Muse in sympathy will not bestowSome tender strains to soothe my Gallus' woe?)So may thy waters pure of briny stainTraverse the waves of the Sicilian main.Sing, mournful Muse, of Gallus' luckless love,While the goats browse along the cliffs above.Nor silent is the waste while we complain,The woods return the long-resounding strain.Whither, ye fountain-nymphs, were ye withdrawn,To what lone woodland, or what devious lawn,When Gallus' bosom languish'd with the fireOf hopeless love, and unallay'd desire?For neither by th' Aonian spring you stray'd,Nor roam'd Parnassus' heights, nor Pindus' hallow'd shade.The pines of Mænalus were heard to mourn,And sounds of woe along the groves were borne.And sympathetic tears the laurel shed,And humbler shrubs declin'd their drooping head.All wept his fate, when to despair resign'dBeneath a desert-cliff he lay reclin'd.Lyceus' rocks were hung with many a tear,And round the swain his flocks forlorn appear.Nor scorn, celestial bard, a poet's name;Renown'd Adonis by the lonely streamTended his flock. – As thus he lay along,The swains and awkward neatherds round him throng.Wet from the winter-mast Menalcas came.All ask, what beauty rais'd the fatal flame.The god of verse vouchsafed to join the rest;He said, "What phrensy thus torments thy breast?While she, thy darling, thy Lycoris, scornsThy proffer'd love, and for another burns,With whom o'er winter-wastes she wanders far,'Midst camps, and clashing arms, and boisterous war."Sylvanus came with rural garlands crown'd,And wav'd the lilies long, and flowering fennel round.Next we beheld the gay Arcadian god;His smiling cheeks with bright vermilion glow'd."For ever wilt thou heave the bursting sigh?Is love regardful of the weeping eye?Love is not cloy'd with tears; alas, no moreThan bees luxurious with the balmy flow'r,Than goats with foliage, than the grassy plainWith silver rills and soft refreshing rain."Pan spoke; and thus the youth with grief opprest;"Arcadians, hear, O hear my last request;O ye, to whom the sweetest lays belong,O let my sorrows on your hills be sung:If your soft flutes shall celebrate my woes,How will my bones in deepest peace repose!Ah had I been with you a country-swain,And prun'd the vine, and fed the bleating train;Had Phyllis, or some other rural fair,Or black Amyntas been my darling care;(Beauteous though black; what lovelier flower is seenThan the dark violet on the painted green?)These in the bower had yielded all their charms,And sunk with mutual raptures in my arms:Phyllis had crown'd my head with garlands gay,Amyntas sung the pleasing hours away.Here, O Lycoris, purls the limped spring,Bloom all the meads, and all the woodlands sing;Here let me press thee to my panting breastTill youth, and joy, and life itself be past.Banish'd by love o'er hostile lands I stray,And mingle in the battle's dread array;Whilst thou, relentless to my constant flame,(Ah could I disbelieve the voice of fame!)Far from thy home, unaided and forlorn,Far from thy love, thy faithful love, art borne,On the bleak Alps with chilling blast to pine,Or wander waste along the frozen Rhine.Ye icy paths, O spare her tender form!O spare those heavenly charms, thou wintry storm!"Hence let me hasten to some desert-grove,And soothe with songs my long unanswer'd love.I go, in some lone wilderness to suitEubœan lays to my Sicilian flute.Better with beasts of prey to make abodeIn the deep cavern, or the darksome wood;And carve on trees the story of my woe,Which with the growing bark shall ever grow,Meanwhile with woodland-nymphs, a lovely throng,The winding groves of Mænalus alongI roam at large; or chase the foaming boar;Or with sagacious hounds the wilds explore,Careless of cold. And now methinks I boundO'er rocks and cliffs, and hear the woods resound;And now with beating heart I seem to wingThe Cretan arrow from the Parthian string —As if I thus my phrensy could forego,As if love's god could melt at human woe.Alas! nor nymphs nor heavenly songs delight —Farewell, ye groves! the groves no more invite.No pains, no miseries of man can moveThe unrelenting deity of love.To quench your thirst in Hebrus' frozen flood,To make the Scythian snows your drear abode;Or feed your flock on Ethiopian plains,When Sirius' fiery constellation reigns,(When deep-imbrown'd the languid herbage lies,And in the elm the vivid verdure dies)Were all in vain. Love's unresisted swayExtends to all, and we must love obey."'Tis done: ye Nine, here ends your poet's strainIn pity sung to soothe his Gallus' pain.While leaning on a flowery bank I twineThe flexile osiers, and the basket join.Celestial Nine, your sacred influence bring,And soothe my Gallus' sorrows while I sing:Gallus, my much belov'd! for whom I feelThe flame of purest friendship rising still:So by a brook the verdant alders rise,When fostering zephyrs fan the vernal skies.Let us begone: at eve, the shade annoysWith noxious damps, and hurts the singer's voice;The juniper breathes bitter vapours round,That kill the springing corn, and blast the ground.Homeward, my sated goats, now let us hie;Lo beamy Hesper gilds the western sky.EPITAPH FOR A SHERIFFS MESSENGER;
WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED AT THE PARTICULAR DESIRE OF THE PERSON FOR WHOM IT IS INTENDED
Alas, how empty all our worldly schemes;Vain are our wishes, our enjoyment dreams.A debt to nature one and all must pay,Nor will the creditor defer her day;Death comes a messenger, displays the writ,And to the fatal summons all submit.An earthly messenger I was of yore,The scourge of debtors then, but now – no more.Oft have I stood in all my pomp confess'd,The blazon beaming dreadful at my breast;Oft have I wav'd on high th' attractive rod,And made the wretch obsequious to my nod.Pale shivering Poverty, that stalk'd behind,His greasy rags loose fluttering in the wind,And Terror, cudgel-arm'd, that strode before,Still to my deeds unquestion'd witness bore.Dire execution, as I march'd, was spread;My threat'ning horn they heard – they heard and fled.While thus destruction mark'd my headlong course,Nor mortals durst oppose my matchless force,A deadly warrant from the court of heavenTo Death, the sovereign messenger, was given.Swift as the lightning's instantaneous flame,Arm'd with his dart, the king of catchpoles came.My heart, unmov'd before, was seiz'd with fear,And sunk beneath his all-subduing spear;To heaven's high bar the spirit wing'd its way,And left the carcass forfeit to the clay.Reader! though every ill beset thee round,With patience bear, nor servilely despond;Though heaven awhile delay th' impending blow,Heaven sees the sorrows of the world below,And sets at last the suffering mourner freeFrom famine, misery, pestilence, and me.June 28th, 1759. Mont. Abd. Ford.TO MR. ALEXANDER ROSS,
AT LOCHLEE, AUTHOR OF THE FORTUNATE SHEPHERDESS AND OTHER POEMS IN THE BROAD SCOTCH DIALECT
O Ross, thou wale of hearty cocks,Sae crouse and canty with thy jokes!Thy hamely auldwarl'd muse provokesMe for awhileTo ape our guid plain countra' folksIn verse and stile.Sure never carle was haff sae gabbyE're since the winsome days o' Habby:O mayst thou ne'er gang, clung, or shabby,Nor miss thy snaker!Or I'll ca' fortune nasty drabby,And say – pox take her!O may the roupe ne'er roust thy weason,May thirst thy thrapple never gizzen!But bottled ale in mony a dizzen,Aye lade thy gantry!And fouth o'vivres a' in season,Plenish thy pantry!Lang may thy stevin fill wi' gleeThe glens and mountains of Lochlee,Which were right gowsty but for thee,Whase sangs enamourIlk lass, and teach wi' melodyThe rocks to yamour.Ye shak your head, but, o' my fegs,Ye've set old Scota93 on her legs,Lang had she lyen wi' beffs and flegs,Bumbaz'd and dizzie;Her fiddle wanted strings and pegs,Waes me! poor hizzie!Since Allan's death naebody car'dFor anes to speer how Scota far'd,Nor plack nor thristled turner war'dTo quench her drouth;For frae the cottar to the lairdWe a' rin South.The Southland chiels indeed hae mettle,And brawly at a sang can ettle,Yet we right couthily might settleO' this side Forth.The devil pay them wi' a pettleThat slight the North.Our countra leed is far frae barren,It's even right pithy and aulfarren,Oursells are neiper-like, I warran,For sense and smergh;In kittle times when faes are yarring,We're no thought ergh.Oh! bonny are our greensward hows,Where through the birks the birny rows,And the bee bums, and the ox lows,And saft winds rusle;And shepherd lads on sunny knowsBlaw the blythe fusle.It's true, we Norlans manna fa'To eat sae nice or gang sae bra',As they that come from far awa,Yet sma's our skaith;We've peace (and that's well worth it a')And meat and claith.Our fine newfangle sparks, I grant ye,Gie' poor auld Scotland mony a taunty;They're grown sae ugertfu' and vaunty,And capernoited,They guide her like a canker'd auntyThat's deaf and doited.Sae comes of ignorance I trow,It's this that crooks their ill fa'r'd mou'Wi' jokes sae coarse, they gar fouk spueFor downright skonner;For Scotland wants na sons enewTo do her honour.I here might gie a skreed o' names,Dawties of Heliconian dames!The foremost place Gawin Douglas claims,That canty priest;And wha can match the fifth King JamesFor sang or jest?Montgomery grave, and Ramsay gay,Dunbar, Scot,94 Hawthornden, and maeThan I can tell; for o' my fae,I maun break aff;'Twould take a live lang simmer dayTo name the haff.The saucy chiels – I think they ca' themCriticks, the muckle sorrow claw them,(For mense nor manners ne'er could awe themFrae their presumption)They need nae try thy jokes to fathom;They want rumgumption.But ilka Mearns and Angus bearn,Thy tales and sangs by heart shall learn,And chiels shall come frae yont the Cairn —– Amounth, right yousty,If Ross will be so kind as share inTheir pint at Drousty.95THE END1
"At his leisure hours he cultivated the muses. A journal kept by him, as well as some specimens of his poetry, are still in the possession of his descendants. This last circumstance is the more worthy of being noticed, as it proves that Dr. Beattie derived his poetical turn from his father." – Bower's Life of Beattie, 1804, p. 2.
2
According to Bower, Beattie was supported at college by the generosity of his brother David, who accompanied him to Aberdeen, when he first quitted Laurencekirk to commence his course at the University. "The peculiar mode of their conveyance to Aberdeen is a matter of very trifling moment. It may not be unacceptable to some, however, to be informed, that they rode on one horse; and at a season of the year not the most agreeable for undertaking a journey (when good roads were unknown in Scotland) of thirty English miles." —Life of Beattie, 1804, p. 17.
3
Life of Homer, Court of Augustus, &c.
4
Bower's Life of Beattie, 1804, p. 89.
5
Ibid. p. 100.
6
Lord Gardenstone was himself a votary of the muses, though his verses are now forgotten. As a satirical poet he is far from contemptible.
7
Robert Arbuthnot, Esq., Secretary to the Board of Trustees for Fisheries, Manufactures, and improvements in Scotland, who resided chiefly at Peterhead, where he carried on business as a merchant; a person of considerable taste and learning. He was nearly related to the famous Dr. Arbuthnot, the friend of Pope and Swift.
8
Sir William Forbes says it "had a rapid sale." Mr. A. Chalmers, however (Poets, vol. xviii. p. 519), doubts if it was ever published for sale, except in Beattie's Poems, 1766, in the Advertisement to which we are told that it "appeared in a separate pamphlet in the beginning of the year 1765." I have been unable to meet with the original edition.
9
I have been told that the poem consisted originally of only four stanzas, and that the two beautiful ones with which it now concludes were added, a considerable time after the others were written, at the request of Mrs. Carnegie, of Charlton, near Montrose. This lady, whose maiden name was Scott, was authoress of a poem called Dunotter Castle, printed in the second edition of Colman and Thornton's Poems by Eminent Ladies.
'Pentland Hills', for which Beattie wrote The Hermit, was an air composed by Mr. Tytler, of Woodhouselee, in imitation of the old Scottish melodies.
10
On one occasion, I have been informed, she took some China jars from the chimney-piece, and carefully arranged them on the top of the parlour door, in order that when Beattie opened it, they might fall upon his head.
11
Beattie's Verses were printed in the Aberdeen Journal, together with an introductory letter in prose also by him, signed "Oliver Oldstile." The writer of the Life of Ross, in that pleasing compilation, Lives of Scottish Poets, 3 vols. 1822, says: "The author of both productions was generally understood to be Dr. Beattie; and they have remained so long ascribed to him without contradiction, that there can be little doubt of their being from his pen." Part iii. p. 107. There is no doubt about the matter; Beattie owns them in a letter to Blacklock. – Forbes's Life of Beattie, vol. i. p. 153. ed. 1807. The Fortunate Shepherdess is a poem of great merit: to the second edition of it (and I believe to all subsequent editions) Beattie's verses are prefixed.
12
Dr. Reid.
13
Dr. Campbell.
14
Mr. Hume, who at an early period had been the patron of Blacklock. Long before the date of this letter they had ceased to have any intercourse.
15
"O how canst thou renounce the boundless storeOf charms which Nature to her votary yields!The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields;All that the genial ray of morning gilds,And all that echoes to the song of even,All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,And all the dread magnificence of heaven,O, how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven!""I have often wished," says Beattie, in a note on Gray's letter, "to alter this same word [garniture], but have not yet been able to hit upon a better."
16
See p. xv.
17
At a subsequent period, after the king had granted him a pension, he received two offers of church preferment in England – the one from Mr. Pitt, of Dorsetshire, of a living in that county worth £150 per annum, the other from Dr. Thomas, Bishop of Winchester, of a living in Hants, valued at £500 a year – neither of which he would accept. In the letter wherein he declines the second noble offer, he thus expresses himself:
"I wrote the 'Essays on Truth' with the certain prospect of raising many enemies, with very faint hopes of attracting the public attention, and without any views of advancing my fortune. I published it, however, because I thought it might probably do a little good, by bringing to nought, or, at least, lessening the reputation of that wretched system of sceptical philosophy, which had made a most alarming progress, and done incredible mischief to this country. My enemies have been at great pains to represent my views, in that publication, as very different: and that my principal, or only motive was to make a book, and, if possible, to raise myself higher in the world. So that, if I were now to accept preferment in the church, I should be apprehensive that I might strengthen the hands of the gainsayer, and give the world some ground to believe that my love of truth was not quite so ardent, or so pure, as I had pretended.
"Besides, might it not have the appearance of levity and insincerity, and, by some, be construed into a want of principle, if I were, at these years (for I am now thirty-eight), to make such an important change in my way of life, and to quit, with no other apparent motive than that of bettering my circumstances, that church of which I have hitherto been a member? If my book has any tendency to do good, as I flatter myself it has, I would not, for the wealth of the Indies, do any thing to counteract that tendency; and I am afraid that tendency might, in some measure be counteracted (at least in this country) if I were to give the adversary the least ground to charge me with inconsistency. It is true, that the force of my reasonings cannot be really affected by my character; truth is truth, whoever be the speaker; but even truth itself becomes less respectable, when spoken, or supposed to be spoken, by insincere lips.
"It has also been hinted to me, by several persons of very sound judgment, that what I have written, or may hereafter write in favour of religion, has a chance of being more attended to, if I continue a layman, than if I were to become a clergyman. Nor am I without apprehensions (though some of my friends think them ill founded) that, from entering so late in life, and from so remote a province, into the Church of England, some degree of ungracefulness, particularly in pronunciation, might adhere to my performances in public, sufficient to render them less pleasing, and consequently less useful."
18
So Beattie names the figures in one of his letters; but Sir William Forbes tells us they are supposed to mean Sophistry, Scepticism, and Infidelity. The worthy Baronet proceeds to observe:
"Because one of these was a lean figure and the [an] other a fat one, people of lively imaginations pleased themselves with finding in them the portraits of Voltaire and Mr. Hume. But Sir Joshua, I have reason to believe, had no such thought when he painted those figures."
Surely Sir William had never read all the letters which he printed in his Life of Beattie, for in vol. ii. p. 42, octavo ed., we find the great painter writing to our poet as follows, in February, 1774:
"Mr. Hume has heard from somebody that he is introduced in the picture, not much to his credit; there is only a figure, covering his face with his hands, which they may call Hume or any body else; it is true it has a tolerable broad back. As for Voltaire, I intended he should be one of the group."
This fine picture is now at Aberdeen, in the possession of Beattie's niece, Mrs. Glennie.
19
When Beattie was in London, in 1773, and when it was doubtful whether government would ever make any provision for him, his friends there set on foot a subscription for this work. "It was a thing," says he, in a letter to Lady Mayne, January, 1774, "of a private nature entirely; projected not by me, but by some of my friends, who had condescended to charge themselves with the whole trouble of it: it was never meant to be made public, nor put into the hands of booksellers, nor carried on by solicitation, but was to be considered as a voluntary mark of the approbation of some persons of rank and fortune, who wished it to be known that they patronized me on account of what I had written in defence of truth," &c. Prefixed to the volume is a list of nearly five hundred subscribers, among whom are many distinguished characters in church and state.
20
A spurious edition of his Juvenile Poems, with some which he never wrote, from Dodsley's Collection, was put forth in 1780. This volume he disowned in a public advertisement.
21
Perhaps it was not printed till the beginning of the following year. In a letter to Beattie, dated Feb. 1st, 1779, Mrs. Montagu says, "I was much pleased with your pamphlet on Psalmody."
22
He was born in 1768, and was named after James Hay, Earl of Errol, our author's early patron.
23
Writing from Edinburgh, 28th May, 1784, to his niece, Miss Valentine (now Mrs. Glennie), Beattie describes the sensation caused in that city by the performances of Mrs. Siddons. He says that he met her at the house of Lord Buchan; that he played to her many Scotch airs on the violoncello, with which she was much gratified; and that "she sung 'Queen Mary's Complaint' to admiration, and I had the honour to accompany her on the bass." – Forbes's Life of Beattie, vol. ii. p. 324, octavo ed.
I am informed, by the incomparable actress in question, that the quotation just given contains an utter falsehood, which, when Forbes's Life of our author first appeared, in 1806, she read with astonishment. She remembers perfectly having been introduced to Beattie at Lord Buchan's, but she is quite certain she did not sing either Queen Mary's Complaint or any other song; and she observes, that if she had sung to his accompaniment, the circumstance would have been so striking that it could not possibly have escaped her recollection.
Qy. Has Beattie's letter been mutilated, the person who transcribed it for the press having by mistake omitted some lines? and do the words "she sung," in the concluding sentence, refer to some other more musical lady, and not to Mrs. Siddons?
24
He was so named after Mrs. Montagu. From one of Beattie's letters, dated 1789, it appears that she had made a handsome present of money to her godson.
25
I possess a copy of it which bears the following inscription:
"To William Hayley, Esq.,in testimony of the utmost respect,esteem, and gratitude, from J. Beattie1st January, 1796."On one of its fly-leaves the ever-ready pen of Hayley has written the subjoined sonnet:
TO DOCTOR BEATTIE, IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OFHIS VERY INTERESTING PRESENT"Bard of the North! I thank thee with my tearsFor this fond work of thy paternal hand:It bids the buried youth before me standIn nature's softest light, which love endears.Parents like thee, whose grief the world reveres,Faithful to pure affection's proud command,For a lost child have lasting honours plann'd,To give in fame what fate denied in years.The filial form of Icarus was wroughtBy his afflicted sire, the sire of art!And Tullia's fane engross'd her father's heart:That fane rose only in perturbed thought;But sweet perfection crowns, as truth begun,This Christian image of thy happier son."26
It was afterwards published for sale in 1799. I extract from it a jeu d'esprit – one of those pieces which Beattie printed, in opposition to the advice of Sir William Forbes and some other grave friends.
THE MODERN TIPPLING PHILOSOPHERSFather Hodge96 had his pipe and his dram,And at night, his cloy'd thirst to awaken,He was served with a rasher of ham,Which procured him the surname of Bacon.He has shown that, though logical scienceAnd dry theory oft prove unhandy,Honest Truth will ne'er set at defianceExperiment, aided by brandy.Des Cartes bore a musket, they tell us,Ere he wished, or was able, to write,And was noted among the brave fellows,Who are bolder to tipple than fight.Of his system the cause and designWe no more can be pos'd to explain: —The materia subtilis was wine,And the vortices whirl'd in his brain.Old Hobbes, as his name plainly shows,At a hob-nob was frequently tried:That all virtue from selfishness roseHe believ'd, and all laughter from pride.97The truth of his creed he would brag on,Smoke his pipe, murder Homer,98 and quaff,Then staring, as drunk as a dragon,In the pride of his heart he would laugh.Sir Isaac discover'd, it seems,The nature of colors and light,In remarking the tremulous beamsThat swom on his wandering sight.Ever sapient, sober though seldom,From experience attraction he found,By observing, when no one upheld him,That his wise head fell souse on the ground.As to Berkley's philosophy – he hasLeft his poor pupils nought to inherit,But a swarm of deceitful ideasKept like other monsters, in spirit.99Tar-drinkers can't think what's the matter,That their health does not mend, but decline:Why, they take but some wine to their water,He took but some water to wine.One Mandeville once, or Man-devil,(Either name you may give as you please)By a brain ever brooding on evil,Hatch'd a monster call'd Fable of Bees,Vice, said he, aggrandizes a people;100By this light let my conduct be view'd;I swagger, swear, guzzle, and tipple:And d – ye, 'tis all for your good.David Hume ate a swinging great dinner,And grew every day fatter and fatter;And yet the huge hulk of a sinnerSaid there was neither spirit nor matter.Now there's no sober man in the nation,Who such nonsense could write, speak, or think:It follows, by fair demonstration,That he philosophiz'd in his drink.As a smuggler, even Priestley could sin;Who, in hopes the poor gauger of frightening,While he fill'd the case-bottles with gin,Swore he fill'd them with thunder and lightning.101In his cups, (when Locke's laid on the shelf),Could he speak, he would frankly confess t' ye,That unable to manage himself,He puts his whole trust in Necessity.If the young in rash folly engage,How closely continues the evil!Old Franklin retains, as a sage,The thirst he acquired when a devil.102That charging drives fire from a phial,It was natural for him to think,After finding, from many a trial,That drought may be kindled by drink.A certain high priest could explain,103How the soul is but nerve at the most;And how Milton had glands in his brain,That secreted the Paradise Lost.And sure it is what they deserve,Of such theories if I aver it,They are not even dictates of nerve,But mere muddy suggestions of claret.Our Holland Philosophers say, GinIs the true philosophical drink,As it made Doctor Hartley imagineThat to shake is the same as to think.104For, while drunkenness throbb'd in his brain,The sturdy materialist chose (O fye!)To believe its vibrations not pain,But wisdom, and downright philosophy.Ye sages, who shine in my verse,On my labours with gratitude think,Which condemn not the faults they rehearse,But impute all your sin to your drink.In drink, poets, philosophers, mob, err;Then excuse if my satire e'er nips ye:When I praise, think me prudent and sober,If I blame, be assur'd I am tipsy.