Beattie Ancestry Scotland

James Beattie, (1735-1803). Poet and philosopher. He was born on 25 October 1735 in Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire, the son of a shopkeeper. He was educated at the village school and in 1749 he matriculated at Marischal College, Aberdeen. Between 1753 and 1758 Beattie taught at the village school at Fordoun, before becoming a master at Aberdeen Grammar School; he was unexpectedly appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen in 1760, a post he held for 30 years. He became a close friend of JAMES burnett, Lord Monboddo, and was a frequent visitor to London, where he enjoyed a high standing in literary and political circles. In his latter years Beattie was incapacitated by rheumatism and was awarded a state pension. He died on 18th August 1803 in Aberdeen. His biography was written by Sir William Forbes'in Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie, LL.D.

Beattie first came to public attention as a poet through the publication of his long poem The Minstel, written in two books in 1771 and 1774. It is in Spenserian stanzas and Beattie described it as 'a moral and serious poem'; it follows, in fashionable, high-flown Augustan tones, a poetic visionary's symbolic journey from chaos to a true understanding of art. His other works, parodies and satires in the style of Alexander Pope, have been long forgotten, though his epistle 'To Mr Alexander Ross' was often anthologized in the 19th century. His reputation as a poet has also been tarnished by his support for the ossian poems by James macpherson.

As a philosopher Beattie enjoyed some success in his day for his attack on David Hume, in Essay on Truth (1770), a work that has long been discredited by metaphysicians. His other philosophical works are, principally, Elements of Moral Science (1790-93), Dissertations, Moral and Critical (1783) and The Evidences of the Christian Religion Briefly and Plainly Stated (1786), all of which echo Beattie's interest in religion and its application to philosophy. In 1779 he published his Scoticisms, Arranged in Alphabetical Order, Designed to Correct Improprieties of Speech and Writing, which was produced originally for his students, who had 'no opportunity of learning English from the company they kept', but which is also an indication of the desire of many of the intellectuals of Beattie's period to speak correct, Augustan English.

Works: Original Poems and Translations (1760); The Judgement of Paris (1765); Poems on Several Subjects (1766); An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770); The Minstrel, 2 vols. (1771-4); Essays on Poetry (1778); Scoticisms, Arranged in Alphabetical Order, Designed to Correct Improprieties of Speech and Writing (1779);
Dissertations, Moral and Critical (1783); The Evidences of the Christian Religion Briefly and Plainly Stated, 1 vols. (1786); Elements of Moral Science, (1790-93).

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