coat, said, with some earnestness, It could not be mere chance; for that somebody must have contrived matters so as to produce it.-I pretend not to give his words, or my own, for I have forgotten both; but I give the substance of what passed between us in such language as we both understood. So you think, I said, that what appears so regular as the letters of your name cannot be by chance. Yes, said he, with firmness, I think so. Look at yourself, I replied, and consider your hands and fingers, your legs and feet, and other limbs; are they not regular in their appearance, and useful to you? He said, they were. Came you then hither, said I, by chance? No, he answered, that cannot be; something must have made me. And who is that something? I asked. He said he did not know. (I took particular notice, that he did not say, as Rousseau fancies a child in like circumstances would say, that his parents made him.) I had now gained the point I aimed at: and saw, that his reason taught him (though he could not so express it) that what begins to be must have a cause, and that what is formed with regularity must have an intelligent cause. I therefore told him the name of the Great Being who made him and all the world; concerning whose adorable nature I gave him such information as I thought he could in some measure comprehend. The lesson affected him greatly, and he never forgot either it, or the circumstance that introduced it."

After the loss of this highly-gifted youth, the

only tie which bound Beattie to the world was his second son, who though far inferior to the deceased in learning, was endowed with no ordinary talents. * Just as our author was anxiously forming plans for his future establishment in life, Montagu was unexpectedly carried off by a fever of only a few days continuance, in the eighteenth year of his age. Beattie thus communicates to Sir William Forbes the intelligence of his death:

"Aberdeen, 14th March, 1796.

"OUR plans relating to Montagu are all at an end. I am sorry to give you the pain of being informed, that he died this morning at five. His disorder was a fever, from which at first we had little apprehension; but it cut him off in five days. He himself thought from the beginning that it would be fatal; and, before the delirium came on, spoke with great composure and Christian piety of his approaching dissolution: he even gave some directions about his funeral. The delirium was very violent, and continued till within a few minutes of his death, when he was heard to repeat in a whisper the Lord's prayer, and began an unfinished sentence, of which nothing could be heard but the words incorruptible glory. Pious sentiments prevailed in his mind through life, and

"I have been assured by those who were intimately acquainted with both, that of the two brothers, Montagu was in many respects the superior.'

Bower's Life of Beattie, 1804, p. 210.

did not leave him till death; nor then I trust did they leave him. Notwithstanding the extreme violence of his fever, he seemed to suffer little pain either in body or in mind, and as his end drew near, a smile settled upon his countenance. I need not tell you that he had every attention that skilful and affectionate physicians could bestow. I give you the trouble to notify this event to Mr. Arbuthnot. I would have written to him, but have many things to mind, and but indifferent health. However, I heartily acquiesce in the dispensations of Providence, which are all good and wise. God bless God bless you and your family.

"He will be much regretted; for wherever he went he was a very popular character."

Such an effect had this fresh calamity on the intellectual powers of Beattie, that a few days after Montagu's death, he experienced a temporary but almost utter loss of memory respecting him. Having searched every room in the house, he would say to his niece, Mrs. Glennie, "You may think it strange, but I must ask you if I have a son, and where he is?" she then felt herself under the painful necessity of calling to his recollection the sufferings of Montagu, the mention of which never failed to restore him to reason. Often with tears he would declare himself thankful that his children were in the grave, exclaiming, in allusion to their mother's malady, "How could I have borne to see their elegant minds mangled with madness!" On viewing the

dead body of Montagu for the last time, he said, "I have now done with the world."

The following passages from two of his letters, written about this period, are deeply affecting. He tells the Rev. Dr. Laing, 10th April, 1796:

"I hope I am resigned, as my duty requires, and as I wish to be; but I have passed many a bitter hour, though on those occasions nobody sees me. I fear my reason is a little disordered, for I have sometimes thought of late, especially in a morning, that Montagu is not dead, though I seem to have a remembrance of a dream that he is. This you will say, what I myself believe, is a symptom not uncommon in cases similar to mine, and that I ought by all means to go from home as soon as I can. I will do so when the weather becomes tolerable."

To Sir William Forbes he says, 17th of the same month:

"I have been these many days resolving to write to you and Mr. Arbuthnot, to thank you for your very kind and sympathetic letters, but various things have come in my way to prevent it. I need not pretend a hurry of business, for every body knows I am not capable of any. A deep gloom hangs upon me, and disables all my faculties; and thoughts so strange sometimes occur to me, as to make me 'fear that I am not,' as Lear says, ' in my perfect mind.' But I thank God I am entirely resigned to the divine will; and, though I am now childless, I have friends whose goodness to me, and other virtues, I find

great comfort in recollecting. The physicians not only advise but intreat, and indeed command me, to go from home, and that without further delay and I do seriously resolve to set out for Edinburgh to-morrow."

Though Beattie never from henceforth engaged in any kind of study, he still found some enjoyment in books, and still derived some pleasure from the society of a very few of his oldest friends. He almost entirely ceased to correspond even with those whom he most valued; yet when he happened to receive a letter from any of them, his spirits were always excited for the rest of the day. Music, in which he had once delighted, had become disagreeable to him since the loss of his eldest son.* A few months, however, before Montagu's death, he had occasionally played an accompaniment while Montagu sung: but now, when prevailed on to resume his favourite violoncello, he was always dissatisfied with his own performance; "my fingers," he writes to the Rev. Dr. Laing, 5th June, 1798, "have not strength to press down the strings."

James Hay Beattie had a scientific knowledge of music, and, with the assistance of the Rev. Dr. Laing, had superintended the building an organ for himself. In one of our author's letters, 8th June, 1791, is the following passage: "the organ of Durham cathedral was too much for my feelings; for it brought too powerfully to my remembrance another organ, much smaller indeed, but more interesting, which I can never hear any more."

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