TRANSLATION FROM STATIUS.
THIRD in the labours of the disc came on,
With sturdy step and slow, Hippomedon;
Artful and strong he poised the well-known weight
By Phlegyas warned, and fired by Mnestheus' fate,
That to avoid, and this to emulate.
His vigorous arm he tried before he flung,
Braced all his nerves and every sinew strung,
Then with a tempest's whirl and wary eye
Pursued his cast, and hurled the orb on high;
The orb on high, tenacious of its course,

a True to the mighty arm that gave it force,

Mr. Gray forgot, when he displaced, by the preceding stanza, his beautiful description of the evening haunt, the reference to it which he had here left:

Him have we seen the greenwood side along,
While o'er the heath we hied, our labour done,

Oft as the woodlark piped her farewell song,
With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun.

In the early editions the following lines were added, but

the parenthesis was thought too long:

There scattered oft, the earliest of the year,

By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;
The redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground.
Paventosa speme. Petrarch, Son.

This lady, the wife of Dr. Clarke, physician at Epsom, died April 27th, 1757, and is buried in the church of Becken harn, Kent.

THE

POETICAL WORKS

OF

JAMES BEATTIE, LL.D.

The Life of Dr. James Beattie.

DR. JAMES BEATTIE was born at Laurencekirk, is the church. The delicacy of his health requirin the county of Kincardine, Scotland, on the 25th ing amusement, he found, as he supposed, all that day of October, 1735. His father, who was a amusement can give in cultivating his musical tafarmer of no considerable rank, is said to have had lents, which were very considerable. But there a turn for reading and for versifying: but, as he died in 1742, when his son James was only seven years of age, he could have had no great share in forming his mind.

is reason to think that his hours of relaxation were too few, and that the earnestness with which he dissuaded his son from excessive study, arose from his repenting that he had not paid more attention to the exercises which promote health.

James was sent early to the only school his birthplace afforded, where he passed his time under the The only science in which he made no extraorinstruction of a tutor named Milne, whom he used dinary proficiency, and to which he even seemed to represent "as a good grammarian, and tolerably to have a dislike, was mathematics. In this, inskilled in the Latin language, but destitute of taste, deed, he performed the requisite tasks, but was as well as of some other qualifications essential to cager to return to subjects of taste or general litea good teacher." He is said to have preferred rature. In every other branch of academical stuOvid as a school-author, whom Mr. Beattie after-dy, he never was satisfied with what he learned wards gladly exchanged for Virgil. Virgil he had within the walls of the college. been accustomed to read with great delight in In 1753, having gone through every preparatory Ogilvy's and Dryden's translations, as he did Ho- course of study, he took the degree of master of mer in that of Pope; and these, with Thomson's arts, the only one attainable by students (except Seasons and Milton's Paradise Lost, of all which of medicine) in any of the universities of Scotland. he was very early fond, probably gave him that The first degree of bachelor is not known, and taste for poetry which he afterwards cultivated with that of doctor of laws or divinity is usually beso much success. He was already, according to stowed on application, at any time of life after his biographer, inclined to make verses, and among leaving college, without the necessity of keeping his school-fellows went by the name of the Poet. terms. Mr. Beattie, therefore, at this time techAt this school he made great proficiency, by nically finished his education, and had a profession unremitting diligence, which, he was sensible, was to seek. He had hitherto been supported by the the only stock he could command; and he appear-generous kindness of an elder brother; but he was ed to much advantage on his entering Marischal anxious to exonerate his family from any farther College, Aberdeen, in 1749, where he obtained the burden. With this laudable view, there being a first of those bursaries left for the use of students, vacancy for the office of schoolmaster and parishwhose parents are unable to support the entire clerk, to the parish of Fordoun, adjoining to Lauexpenses of academical education. Here he first rencekirk, he accepted the appointment August 6, studied Greek under principal Thomas Blackwell, 1753. There can be no doubt that he performed author of the Inquiry into the Life and Writings the duties of this situation with punctuality, but it of Homer; Letters concerning Mythology; and was neither suited to his disposition, nor advanMemoirs of the Court of Augustus; a teacher, tageous to his progress in life. The emoluments who, with much of the austerity of pedantry, was were very scanty, the site remote and obscure; and kind to his diligent scholars, and found in Mr. there was nothing in it to excite emulation or graBeattie a disposition worthy of cultivation and of tify the ambition which a young man, conscious as patronage. The other professor, with whom Mr. he must have been of superior powers and knowBeattie was particularly connected, was Dr. Alex- ledge, might indulge without presumption. He ander Gerard, author of the Genius and Eviden- obtained in this place, however, a few friends, parces of Christianity; Essays on Taste and Genius; ticularly Lord Gardenstown, and Lord Monbodand other works. Under these gentlemen, his do, who distinguished him with encouraging noproficiency, both at college and during the vaca- tice; and his imagination was delighted by the tions, was very exemplary, and he accumulated a beautiful and sublime scenery of the place, which much more various stock of general knowledge he appears to have contemplated with the eye of a than is usual with young men whose destination poet. His leisure hours he employed on some