Canongate Church, in Edinburgh, he was elected its minister. In this station Dr. Blair remained eleven years, discharging with great fidelity the various duties of the pastoral office, and attracting general admiration for the chaste eloquence of his pulpit discourses. In 1754 he was transferred from the Canongate to Lady Yester's Church, and in 1758 was promoted to the High Church of Edinburgh,—the most important ecclesiastical charge in the kingdom. Hitherto his attention was devoted almost exclusively to the attainment of eminence in his own profession; but in 1759 he delivered a course of Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres with such success that the University instituted a rhetorical class under his direction, and the king founded a professorship, to the chair of which Dr. Blair was appointed. In 1763 he published a Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, which, though much overrated, evinced critical taste and learning. In 1777 appeared the first volume of his sermons, which were received with great favor and had a very extensive circulation. In 1783 he resigned his professorship, and published his celebrated Lectures on Rhetoric, which have been a text-book in most of our colleges for half a century. The latter years of his life he spent in literary leisure, giving to the public three more volumes of sermons, and in the summer of 1800 began to prepare an additional volume; but he did not live to complete it, his death occurring December 27 of that year. He had married in 1748 his cousin, Miss Bannatine, by whom he had a son and a daughter; but he survived them all. Although the sermons of Dr. Blair have not the popularity they once enjoyed, they are still very pleasing compositions of the kind: but they are rather didactic treatises than sermons. They are written with great taste and elegance, and, by inculeating Christian morality, without any allusion to controversial topics, are suited to all classes of Christians.2 But it is by his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres that Dr. Blair is now chiefly known; and they are deservedly popular. Though not equal to Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric in depth of thought or in ingenious original research, they are written in a pleasing style, convey a large amount of valuable information, suggest many very useful hints, and contain an accurate analysis of the principles of literary composition in almost every species of writing, and an able digest of the rules of eloquence as adapted to the pulpit, the bar, or to popular assemblies. In short, they form an admirable system of rules for forming the style and cultivating the taste of youth; and the time will be far distant, if it ever arrives, when they shall cease to be a text-book in every well-devised course of study for a liberal education. 1 The question as to the genuineness of Os- 2 Dining with a select company at Mrs. Garsian, or, rather, of the poems which Mac-rick's, Dr. Johnson said, "I love Blair's Serpherson attributed to that traditionary per- mons, though the dog is a Scotchman, and a sonage, has been placed in its true light by Presbyterian, and every thing he should not Sir James Mackintosh (History of England, be. I was the first to praise them. Such was vol. i. 86, 87), who remarks, however, that "no my candor" (smiling). Mrs. Boscawen.—“ Such other imposture in literary history approaches his great merit, to get the better of all your them in the splendor of their course." But prejudices." Johnson. Why, madam, let us the searching investigations and keen analysis compound the matter: let us ascribe it to my of Mr. Laing, in his History of Scotland, had, candor and his merit."-Croker's Boswell, before Sir James wrote, stripped these poems of all their pretensions to genuineness. viii. 76. ON THE CULTIVATION OF TASTE. Belles-lettres and criticism chiefly consider man as a being endowed with those powers of taste and imagination which were intended to embellish his mind and to supply him with rational and useful entertainment. They open a field of investigation peculiar to themselves. All that relates to beauty, harmony, grandeur, and elegance; all that can soothe the mind, gratify the fancy, or move the affections, belongs to their province. They present human nature under a different aspect from that which it assumes when viewed by other sciences. They bring to light various springs of action, which without their aid might have passed unobserved, and which, though of a delicate nature, frequently exert a powerful influence on several departments of human life. Such studies have also this peculiar advantage, that they exercise our reason without fatiguing it. They lead to inquiries acute, but not painful; profound, but not dry nor abstruse. They strew flowers in the path of science; and, while they keep the mind bent in some degree, and active, they relieve it at the same time from that more toilsome labor to which it must submit in the acquisition of necessary erudition or the investigation of abstract truth. The cultivation of taste is further recommended by the happy effects which it naturally tends to produce on human life. The most busy man, in the most active sphere, cannot be always occupied by business. Men of serious professions cannot always be on the stretch of serious thought. Neither can the most gay and flourishing situations of fortune afford any man the power of filling all his hours with pleasure. Life must always languish in the hands of the idle. It will frequently languish even in the hands of the busy, if they have not some employments subsidiary to that which forms their main pursuit. How, then, shall these vacant spaces, those unemployed intervals, which more or less occur in the life of every one, be filled up? How can we contrive to dispose of them in any way that shall be more agreeable in itself, or more consonant to the dignity of the human mind, than in the entertainments of taste, and the study of polite literature? He who is so happy as to have acquired a relish for these has always at hand an innocent and irreproachable amusement for his leisure hours, to save him from the danger of many a pernicious passion. He is not in hazard of being a burden to himself. He is not obliged to fly to low company, or to court the riot of loose pleasures, in order to cure the tediousness of existence. Providence seems plainly to have pointed out this useful purpose to which the pleasures of taste may be applied, by interposing them in a middle station between the pleasures of sense and those of pure intellect. We were not designed to grovel always among objects so low as the former, nor are we capable of dwelling constantly in so high a region as the latter. The pleasures of taste refresh the mind after the toils of the intellect and the labors of abstract study; and they gradually raise it above the attachments of sense, and prepare it for the enjoyments of virtue. So consonant is this to experience, that, in the education of youth, no object has in every age appeared more important to wise men than to tincture them early with a relish for the entertainments of taste. The transition is commonly made with ease from these to the discharge of the higher and more important duties of life. Good hopes may be entertained of those whose minds have this liberal and elegant turn. It is favorable to many virtues. Whereas to be entirely devoid of relish for eloquence, poetry, or any of the fine arts, is justly construed to be an unpromising symptom of youth, and raises suspicions of their being prone to low gratifications, or destined to drudge in the more vulgar and illiberal pursuits of life. DELICACY AND CORRECTNESS OF TASTE. The characters of taste, when brought to its most improved state, are all reducible to two,-Delicacy and Correctness. Delicacy of taste respects principally the perfection of that natural sensibility on which taste is founded. It implies those finer organs or powers which enable us to discover beauties that lie hid from a vulgar eye. One may have strong sensibility, and yet be deficient in delicate taste. He may be deeply impressed by such beauties as he perceives; but he perceives only what is in some degree coarse, what is bold and palpable; while chaster and simpler ornaments escape his notice. In this state taste generally exists among rude and unrefined nations. But a person of delicate taste both feels strongly and feels accurately. He sees distinctions and differences where others see none; the most latent beauty does not escape him, and he is sensible of the smallest blemish. Delicacy of taste is judged of by the same marks that we use in judging of the delicacy of an external sense. As the goodness of the palate is not tried by strong flavors, but by a mixture of ingredients, where, notwithstanding the confusion, we remain sensible of each; in like manner delicacy of internal taste appears by a quick and lively sensibility to its finest, most compounded, or most latent objects. Correctness of taste respects chiefly the improvement which that faculty receives through its connection with the understanding. A man of correct taste is one who is never imposed on by counterfeit beauties; who carries always in his mind that standard of good sense which he employs in judging of every thing. He estimates with propriety the comparative merit of the several beauties which he meets with in any work of genius; refers them to their proper classes; assigns the principles, as far as they can be traced, whence their power of pleasing flows; and is pleased himself precisely in that degree in which he ought, and no more. It is true that these two qualities of taste, delicacy and correctness, mutually imply each other. No taste can be exquisitely delicate without being correct, nor can be thoroughly correct without being delicate. But still a predominancy of one or other quality in the mixture is often visible. The power of delicacy is chiefly seen in discerning the true merit of a work; the power of correctness, in rejecting false pretensions to merit. Delicacy leans more to feeling; correctness, more to reason and judgment. The former is more the gift of nature; the latter, more the product of culture and art. Among the ancient critics, Longinus possessed most delicacy; Aristotle, most correctness. Among the moderns, Mr. Addison is a high example of delicate taste; Dean Swift, had he written on the subject of criticism, would perhaps have afforded the example of a correct one. PREPARATION NECESSARY FOR OLD AGE. A joyless and dreary season will old age prove, if we arrive at it with an unimproved or corrupted mind. For this period, as for every thing, certain preparation is necessary; and that preparation consists in the acquisition of knowledge, friends, and virtue. Then is the time when a man would especially wish to find himself surrounded by those who love and respect him,-who will bear with his infirmities, relieve him of his labors, and cheer him with their society. Let him, therefore, now in the summer of his days, while yet active and flourishing, by acts of seasonable kindness and benevolence, insure that love, and, by upright and honor. able conduct, lay the foundation for that respect which in old age he would wish to enjoy. In the last place, let him consider a good conscience, peace with God, and the hope of heaven, as the most effectual consolations he can possess when the evil days shall come. JAMES BEATTIE, 1735-1803. "We drew our childhood's first poetic pleasures from Beattie's Minstrel.”—Mrs. Browning. JAMES BEATTIE, a much admired poet and a distinguished moral philosopher, was born in Lawrence Kirk, Kincardineshire, in the northeast of Scotland, on the 20th of October, 1735. His father, who was poor, died when the poet was only ten years old; but his elder brother kept him at school till he obtained a "bursary" (a kind of benefaction for poor scholars) at the Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he remained four years. Having received his degree of A.M. in 1753, he took a small school at Fordoun, near his native village. Here he employed his time chiefly in studying the classics, and in composing various small poetical pieces, which appeared from time to time in the Scot's Magazine, and drew him more and more into notice, until, in 1758, he was appointed usher in the grammar-school at Aberdeen, and in two years after he was elected Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic in the Marischal College. He immediately prepared a course of lectures for the students, and in 1761 published a small volume of poems, consisting chiefly of those which had already appeared anonymously in the Scots Magazine. In 1765 he published his poem The Judgment of Paris, which has but little merit. In June, 1767, he married Miss Mary Dun, daughter of the rector of the grammar-school at Aberdeen. In the same year he began to prepare his celebrated Essay on Truth, which appeared in 1770; and so much interest did it excite that in less than four years it went through five editions and was translated into several foreign languages. Its chief aim was to refute the skeptical writings of Hume, or, in Dr. Beattie's own words, "to overthrow skepticism and establish conviction in its place." In 1771 he gave to the world the first book of his celebrated poem The Minstrel. It was received with universal approbation. Honors flowed in upon him from every quarter. He visited London, and was admitted to all its brilliant and distinguished circles; and Goldsmith, Johnson, Garrick, and Reynolds were soon numbered among his friends. On a second visit, in 1773, he had an interview with the king and queen, which resulted in his receiving a pension of two hundred pounds per annum. In 1774, Beattie published the second book of The Minstrel, the success of which quite equalled that of the former. A new edition of his Essay on Truth appeared in 1776, together with three other essays,-on Poetry and Music; on Laughter and Ludicrous Composition; and on the Utility of Classical Learning. In 1786 he published his Evidences of Christianity; and in the year following appeared his Elements of Moral Science. In 1790 he lost his eldest son, 1 A very able article on this essay may be found in the Edinburgh Review, x. 171. 2 In the early training of his eldest and beloved son, Dr. Beattie adopted an expedient of a romantic and interesting description. His object was to give him the first idea of a Supreme Being; and his method, as Dr. Porteus, Bishop of London, remarked. "had all the imagination of Rousseau, without his folly and extravagance." had happened. 'Yes,' said I, carelessly, on "He had," says Beattie, "reached his fifth 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: some thing 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 |