James Beattie |
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Beattie, son of a
shopkeeper, was born on 25 October 1735 in
Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire. He studied at Manschat College, Aberdeen, then was a schoolteacher in Fordoun until 1758, when he became a master at Aberdeen Grammar School. In 1760 he was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy at the
University of Aberdeen, and held the post until 1790, when rheumatism caused his retirement on a state pension. He was a distinguished intellectual figure of his day, a supporter of James Macpherson in the Ossian controversy, and an opponent of David Hume's philosophy; which shows that he had quite a knack for choosing the wrong side. He published a dictionary of Scoticisms, as an aid to correct usage for those Scots had "no opportunity of learning English
from the company they kept".
He died on 18 August 1803 in Aberdeen.
AC
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. (1771-2); 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, 2 vols. (1786); Elements of Moral Science, 2 Vols. (1791-93). A. Dyce, ed., The Poetical Works of James Beattie (London, 1831); R. S. Walker, ed., James Beattie's Day-Book, 1773-1778 (Aberdeen, 1948); R. S. Walker; ed., James Beattie's Diary (Aberdeen, 1948).
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