AN ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JAMES BEATTIE, LL.D. LATE PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND LOGIC IN INCLUDING MANY OF HIS ORIGINAL LETTERS. IN THREE VOLUMES. BY SIR WILLIAM FORBES OF PITSLIGO, BART. ONE OF THE EXECUTORS OF DR BEATTIE. SECOND EDITION. VOL. I. Earum rerum omnium vel in primis hic fructum a me repetere prope EDINBURGH: PRINTED FOR ARCH. CONSTABLE and Co. Edinburgh; LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, T. Cadell and W. DAVIES, 1807. ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL, &c. &c. &c. MY LORD, As soon as I formed the re solution of attempting to write the Life of Dr Beattie, I determined to request permission to inscribe it to your Lordship; be cause I well know the high value he justly 229910 vi set on your friendship, and how much it would have gratified him to think, that his name should be joined with that of the Bishop of London. Your Lordship well knew Dr Beattie's merit as a Philosopher and a Poet, and his worth as a Man and a Christian. If in this attempt, therefore, to delineate his character, I am so fortunate as to gain, in any degree, your approbation, I shall look upon my work with no ordinary degree of complacence. I embrace, with the greatest satisfaction, and with peculiar propriety, this opportunity of expressing my respect for you ; as it was to Dr Beattie's kind partiality |