gait," a certain refinement. A schoolmaster At Fordoun, Beattie enjoyed the society from the obscure hamlet of Laurencekirk in of the singular Lord Monboddo, author of Kincardine, the son of a small retail shop- the forgotten work entitled Ancient Metakeeper, Beattie was not only Nature's poet, physics. From that retired village Beattie but Nature's gentleman; no vices, no im- was eventually transplanted to Aberdeen, prudences, disfigured his beautiful but in- and raised from his occupation as a schoolfelicitous career. In the ivy-covered cottage master to the Professorship of Moral Phiin which his youth was reared, he had im- losophy, a rare transition, but one which bibed early lessons of a piety which strength- the result proved to have been justified by ened with his years; and of a courtesy which the great merits of the humble poet and at once gladdened his humble home, and schoolmaster.

accorded well with the refined society of the It was owing to the introduction of a starry hemisphere of "the Blues." By the friend, whose acquaintance he formed at banks of the rivulet, or burn, fringed with Aberdeen, that Beattie first knew Mrs. wild roses, which dashed by his humble Montagu. One can hardly picture her to home, was matured that poetic temperament one's mind in the cultivated but frigid atwhich was singularly rewarded by admiring mosphere of an Edinburgh coterie, surroundcontemporaries. In the parish-school of ed by philosophers speaking broad Scotch, Laurencekirk was his first love for the clas--discoursing with Presbyterian ministers; sics awakened; and here he acquired, among but so it was, for the name of Gregory stood his young companions, the name of "the high in the list of her honored friends, and Poet." But his storehouse lay in that love- in his delightful society she first learned to ly scenery of his fatherland,—there, writes estimate the modest worth of Beattie. No his friend and biographer, Sir William personal acquaintance took place, however, Forbes," he had a never-failing resource;" until the poet visited the metropolis. He and in the seclusion of a deeply wooded was in his thirty-seventh year in 1771, and, glen were his first essays in poetry conceiv- it seems, strange to say, was, even at that ed and written. mature age, wholly ignorant of those charms It is not easy to imagine the violence of and splendors which our capital affords. He the transition to the polished circles of Lon- was soon initiated into some of its most don; Beattie had, indeed, when he first agreeable resources, passed several days entered these tabooed precincts, attained with Johnson, visited Garrick and Armsomething like a position in society. He strong, and formed with Lyttleton a friendbegan life as a village schoolmaster in the ship that only ceased with their lives. obscure village of Fordoun, at the foot of Beattie must have been, at this period of the Grampians; and here he also fulfilled his life, a most interesting, not to say capthe office of precentor, or parish-clerk. tivating, personage. We have talked of his Around him there was no society, excepting "slouching gait," and we may conceive, with that of an honest, and, in Scotland, not little difficulty, the effect of his Scottish illiterate peasantry; and of the parish cler- accent and idiom. But let us remember gyman, where he found a more congenial those features as depicted by the pencil of converse but he communed there with na- Reynolds,-sharp and expressive, and im ture, and was happy. In after-times his parting that undefinable idea of refinement heart revealed those simple scenes and which many handsomer faces want! Let haunts:us recall his black and piercing eyes, "with an expression of sensibility bordering on melancholy" when in repose, but brightening into animation when he addressed those whom he loved. He afterwards--I grieve to say it of any poet-grew corpulent; but By an accident, however, he was drawn at this time he carried with him to those from his obscurity. One day, Mr. Garden, levées of talent a spare person, and the rare afterwards Lord Ganestoun, who happened qualities of a mind which I shall briefly to be living in that neighborhood, discover- characterize.

Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down,
Where a green grassy turf is all I crave,
With here and there a violet bestrown,
Fast by a brook, or fountain's murmuring wave.

ed the poet in his favorite glen, writing. His imagination was, perhaps, subserviMr. Garden was a man of discernment and ent to his taste. The cultivation of his kindness; he took the young schoolmaster mind had been carried almost to what huunder his protection, and the subsequent man nature can conceive of perfection, his fate of Beattie was determined. chief acquirements being in moral science.

As a professor, he was revered; as a friend discharged a sacred duty in securing to them and companion, fondly cherished. In lite- the Harleian Manuscripts bequeathed to her rature he held an eminent place. The by her father and grandfather, and placing deepest piety, a true sensibility and gentle- them in the British Museum. Her temper ness, and a humility sincere as it was rare, was cheerful, her disposition liberal: let one softened and elevated all his mental attri- little anecdote, the best tribute to her mebutes. mory, be given. When Dr. Beattie visited As the poet joined in the chequered socie- her at Bulstrode, he was surprised, one day, ty of those gay saloons, all, but especially at being summoned to speak with the duchthe sympathetic fair, might remark that he ess in private: he obeyed. The duchess was not happy. A cankering care pursued then, with infinite delicacy, regretted the him. His wife erst Miss Mary Dun, whom great expense to which he must have been he had married for love was deranged; put in visiting England, and requested that indeed, so wayward had been her temper, he would accept what she called a "trifle," that the open outbreak of her disorder was a note for a hundred pounds. Beattie almost a relief to her sorrowing husband. declined her proposal, but was gratified, and He had watched her in every stage of that not, as a weaker man would have been, harrowing malady, and then, finding all pained, by the well-meant and munificent remedies hopeless, he endeavored to procure offering. And few persons could, perhaps, her every alleviation. Their union was not have performed the delicate part of a benechildless, but two sons, perhaps mercifully, factress so well as the Duchess of Portland. died long before their father. Her countenance is described as being full

Suffering under this silent sorrow, Beattie of sweetness and intelligence; her person, first visited London, where all home troubles of dignity. "I found her," says Miss Burseem, in the busy haunts of men, so imper- ney, very charming, high-bred, courteous, tinent, where few, perhaps, knew, fewer sensible, and spiritual; not merely free cared to know, that he had a wife, and from pride, but free from affability-its where any loss that does not affect the most mortifying deputy." maintenance of an establishment is talked Long lingered many of these famed guests of so lightly. At all events, people should in the saloons of Montagu House, but, by put off their sorrows till the end of the sea- degrees, death thinned their ranks. First, son; grief is quite out of place while the in 1773, we hear of Mrs. Montagu's "state opera lasts. So think people now, and so, of health being very indifferent; she comin all probability, thought they then. plains of a feverish attack, which had But whilst the minstrel, courted and in- haunted her the greatest part of the sumvited, sits at Mrs. Montagu's dinner-table, mer." Is, then, the empress of all heartsor wanders amid the less exclusive evening the star of the west-the good, the erudite, meetings of "the Blues," there enters a lady, the still gay, still blessed one, hastening to before whom the doors are thrown wide her last home? No, she is only heart-sick open, and the lofty name resounds from for the death of her friend, Lord Lyttleton. mouth to mouth, and the hostess advances Next-it is true, many years afterwards, in even to the very vestibule to welcome her 1785-we find Dr. Beattie recording the guest, and the exclamation, "My dear ma- virtues of the great duchess. She, too, is dam, you do me much honor!" falls from gone. The splendors of Bulstrode are centhe lips even of the Queen of the Blues. tred in her funeral. Her cabinet of curiThe flattered stranger is "the great Duchess osities beholds her no more. "I had flatof Portland," as she was called,-the female tered myself," writes Beattie, "that great Mecanas of her day. Inheriting from her ornament of her sex would have lived for father, the son of the minister Harley, a many years;" but he was mistaken. He noble estate, that of Bulstrode in Bucking-lived to mourn over the death of Mrs. Monhamshire, from her mother, Lady Henri- tagu at a good old age-fourscore. etta Cavendish, the only daughter and years before a failure in eyesight had made heiress of John Holles, duke of Newcastle, writing very painful to her, but her vivacity, a princely fortune,-married, in early life, to and a singular charm of manner, are said to the Duke of Portland, this lady devoted her have been retained to the last. Her long days to literature and virtù. Her house and one might suppose, happy life, ended was the resort of the really great: she spared with the century. The year 1800 saw her neither time nor money in forming her cele- not. She expired in 1799, having lived to brated collections; whilst to the public she see many flourishing and younger trees felled

by death before her. In March, Dr. Beattie closed her cloudless career. Her intellects sorrowed for her; in April, a stroke of palsy remained unimpaired, and deafness seemed took away his speech for eight days. Death the sole inconvenience which old age hovered over his couch long, but forbore to brought to her. There are those who restrike the final blow until the month of June, member still chatting with her in her room 1803; for a year previously he had been in Clarges Street, all around her in much altogether deprived of the use of his limbs. disorder, and even dirt; but the old, deThis was not all: that sensitive and delicate caying trunk still firm, seemingly. She mind had been broken down by domestic was not, however, immortal, and the year sorrow and it is believed, not being denied 1805 closed her career. And, perhaps, by Sir William Forbes, that the pious, the whilst the ink with which we record that gentle, the heaven-aspiring minstrel, solac-event is not dry, it may be remarked that it ed, or strove to solace, those inward cares with wine. "I never," says his biographer, saw him so much affected by it as to be unfitted for business or conversation,"-a sad admission.

Mrs. Carter still existed: most of her contemporaries were gone. Mrs. Montagu, during her own decline, had touchingly written to her old friend that "her sight was now almost entirely gone, but that one of its latest uses would be to write to her." But now this communication was silent, that hand was cold. Surrounded, however, by friends who loved her, Elizabeth Carter

is not very probable that we shall see in our days such women again. They were beings of a high stamp, indeed, coined with no alloy of littleness or envy. They had none of the perversity nor daringness of the esprits forts; and whilst their minds were masculine, their manners were gentle. Long, long will it be before the "Blues" can look for another such a queen; and could she, and would she, arise, where could she look for such subjects as those who thronged at the bidding of Mrs. Montagu to Portman Square?

From the Edinburgh Review.

LAMARTINE'S HISTORY OF THE GIRONDINS.

Histoire des Girondins. Par M. A. DE LAMARTINE: Paris, 1847. 8 vols. 8vo.

PUBLIC expectation could not fail to be writings, together with the personal associgreatly raised, when it was announced that ations which belong to religious and liteM. de Lamartine was employed in writing rary sympathies, have throughout the vicisthe history of some of the most remarkable situdes of politics enabled him to continue men, by whom one of the most remarkable in friendly relations with the party most periods and parties of the French Revolu- opposed to the Revolution and its results. tion was most distinguished. Little doubt The Faubourg St. Germain regarded him I could exist that the labors of such a writer as a man whose conclusions and votes would produce a striking and attractive work. But there were some who expected that M. de Lamartine's history would still more interest, and possibly instruct his countrymen, by offering a view of the Revolution very different in its political bearing from that, in which it has been the tendency of recent writers to represent, and of the French public in general to regard it. Though an adherent of the existing dynasty and institutions, though in fact at present a member of a liberal opposition, fet M. de Lamartine's attachment to the Church of Rome and the romantic character of his

were mischievous: but whose writings and speeches were calculated to serve their cause, by fostering a spirit opposed to the democratic tendencies of modern France. They trusted that, even if he did not venture openly to assail the principles of the Revolution, and defend the ancien régime, a sentimental and imaginative writer could not tell the tale of those times without exciting sympathy in behalf of those who had fallen victims to their devotion to the altar and the throne, and arousing indignation against the cause that was soiled by the irreligion and atrocities of the Commune

and the Jacobins. They hoped that while | Revolution with the greatest vigor, and the massacres of September, the various followed out its principles with the sternest horrors of the Reign of Terror, and the determination to their most extreme conenormities of Lyons and Nantes, would be sequences. Even the party whose forportrayed with fearful distinctness, the tunes he has made the nominal subject of poetical historian would depict in the most his narrative are too pale a type of rebrilliant colors the chivalrous constancy publican enthusiasm and energy to satisfy of the aristocracy, would exert his tragic his daring fancy. From first to last, the powers in describing the sufferings and cou- principal personage of the drama is Robesrage of the Royal Family, and immortalize pierre. On him the reader's attention is in glowing narrative the heroic deeds done gradually concentrated more and more, as in La Vendée. on the living emblem of the Revolution, of The opposite party agreed in expecting its principle, of its energy, of its moral very much the same results from the pencil grandeur, and of the excesses by which that of M. de Lamartine. Never were general grandeur was chequered; and with his fall anticipations more signally disappointed. the narrative ends as with the cessation of The tale of the victims of the Revolution all that could give an interest in its story. is told with pathetic splendor by M. de The appearance of a work of a character Lamartine every incident of suffering, and tendency so absolutely the reverse of every act of courage, elicits his generous all that had been anticipated from the ausympathy. But his heart is with the Revo-thor, while its literary merits surpassed lution throughout all its phases. While even the most favorable expectations, he marks and condemns its crimes and ex- could not fail to create an extraordinary cesses with strict justice, his master feel- sensation in France. No work that has ings are a deep conviction of its paramount appeared in our day seems to have created necessity and rectitude, and a patriotic such a ferment in Paris. The Royalists, pride in its triumph over domestic as well and all who, without being actually supas foreign foes. He has no regrets for the porters of the ancient dynasty and order of ancient institutions of France, but sees in things, are more or less opposed to the their downfall the triumph of the first prin- spirit of the Revolution, shrank at the ciples of justice and reason. His imagina- deadly wound inflicted on their feelings and tion, instead of lingering amid the ruins of their cause by what they had deemed a monarchy and feudality, contemplates with friendly hand. The Christian poet seemed evident predilection of the visions of the to carry away religion and sentiment from republic. Far from branding the Revolu- their ranks into those of their opponents. tion with a general character of irreligion, The adherents of the Revolution hailed on account of the excesses of the mob or of with joy and gratitude the unexpected acsome few crazy fanatics of infidelity, he is cession of a new and potent ally. Disrather disposed to regard the whole move- countenanced by Conservative opinion, and ment as one of a religious nature, having denounced by his old friends of the Fauits origin in a deep, dim, but sincere deter-bourg, M. de Lamartine has been rewarded mination to realize the spirit of Christianity by the general acknowledgments with which in the arrangements of society and the in- his countrymen have received his vindicastitutions of government. The opponents tion of the national character, and his of the Revolution he judges with mild for- justification of the spirit which the Revobearance; but he still judges them, in order lution has made the spirit of the French to condemn them as men who withstood the people. right. The very sympathy which he ex- Independently, however, of these advenpresses and excites in behalf of the Royal titious causes of a momentary notoriety, Family by the minute description of their the History of the Girondins is a work that sufferings, their affection, and their pa- possesses solid claims to a more durable tience, renders more damaging to the royal and extensive reputation. We cannot recause the stern impartiality with which he ceive it as a satisfactory history of the criticises their acts, delineates their cha- period of which it treats. In fact the racters, and denounces their misconduct, as author, though he has given it the name of the main cause of the calamities in which a "history," is content that it should be both themselves and their country became classed in a humbler category. "As for so fatally involved. The real heroes of his the title of this book," he says in his prestory are the individuals who promoted the face, "we have only adopted it for want of

any other word to designate a narrative. though," he (( says, we have not encumberThis book has none of the pretensions of ed the narrative with notes, with references, history, and must not assume its dignity. and with pièces justificatives, there is not It is an intermediate work between history one of our statements which is not authorized and memoirs. Events occupy in it a sub- either by authentic memoirs, or by unpubordinate place to men and ideas. It is full lished memoirs, or by autograph corresof personal details. These details are the pondence, which the families of the principhysiognomy of characters: it is through pal personages have been pleased to conthem that the latter impress themselves on fide to us, or by oral and trustworthy inforthe imagination. Great writers have al- mation collected from the lips of the last ready written the chronicles of this memo- survivors of this great epoch." The conrable epoch. Others will ere long write sequence of this indisposition to encumber them. It will be doing us injustice to com- the story with the ordinary proofs of hispare us with them. They have produced, torical accuracy is, that when we get beor will produce, the history of an age: we yond the most familiar incidents, we never have produced nothing but a study of a know the value of a single statement that is" group of men, and of some months of the made; for instance, whether it is derived Revolution." from most intelligent and impartial witnesWith this scheme of his work before him, ses, or from the most discredited and heated M. de Lamartine has not thought it neces- partisans; whether it is capable of being supsary to give a detailed record of all the ported by a reference to some indisputable events of the period. He assumes that and acknowledged authority, or rests enhis reader has already acquired this know- tirely on the private conversation or letter ledge from other sources. Relying on this of some survivor of the Revolution, whose he has not, as he tells us, scrupled in some good faith or judgment it is possible that instances to heighten the effect by neglect- particular circumstances may have led M. ing the exact order of time. It is much to de Lamartine to over-estimate. This is a be regretted, however, that such omissions fault peculiarly to be regretted in an auand inversions are accompanied by more thor, whose poetical reputation lays him serious defects, which impair our confidence open to the imputation of not being much in the accuracy of the narrative, and conse- in the habit of investigating closely, or quently in the justice of the views based weighing accurately, the evidences of hisupon it. The intermediate position be- torical facts: and the very character of tween history and memoirs which the au- whose work suggests the suspicion that he thor would assume for his work is one which, may have been ready to take on insufficient unfortunately, possesses the claims of nei- evidence any striking statement that would ther, as an authority concerning matters of heighten the effect of his narrative, or bear fact. Its statements are not given, as in out the view which he has formed of the memoirs, on the author's personal know- character of some remarkable individual. ledge; nor are they drawn, as in a trust- M. de Lamartine promises that, after a worthy history, from original accounts of a while, in case any of his statements should known and authentic character. Incidents, be assailed, he will support them by a mass which give an entirely new aspect to some of proof. We would impress on him of the principal persons, and to some even that this is a duty, which, even withof the most important events of the period, out any call of self-defence, it is incumbent are stated on the authority of no published on him to discharge, in order to stamp on work, or accessible record (in which case the very face of his history those outward the authenticity or value of the statement and visible signs of conscientious and labocould have been tested), but simply on rious truthfulness, which can alone invest it that of private documents, which the reader with permanent utility and reputation. has no means of examining for himself,-of But accuracy, unfortunately, is not one conversations with unnamed individuals, the of M. de Lamartine's qualifications for trustworthiness as well as the effect of whose writing history. Those who are most conevidence we are obliged to take entirely on versant with the events of the Revolution credit from our author. We have not the accuse him of frequent exaggeration. Imislightest distrust of M. de Lamartine's as- tating a habit of the ancient historians, surance that he has made a most scrupulous which is not permitted by the present canons investigation into the statements from which of historical propriety, he does not scruple his narrative has been prepared. "Al- to embody his own conception of the feel