less respectable, when spoken, or supposed to be spoken, by insincere lips.

"It has also been hinted to me, by several persons of very sound judgment, that what I have written, or may hereafter write, in favour of religion, has a chance of being more attended to, if I continue a layman, than if I were to become a clergyman. Nor am I without apprehensions, (though some of my friends think them ill-founded,) that, from entering so late in life, and from so remote a province, into the Church of England, some degree of ungracefulness, particularly in pronunciation, might adhere to my performances in public, sufficient to render them less pleasing, and consequently less useful.

"Most of these reasons were repeatedly urged upon me, during my stay in England last summer; and I freely own, that, the more I consider them, the more weight they seem to have. And from the peculiar manner in which the King has been graciously pleased to distinguish me, and from other circumstances, I have some ground to presume, that it is his Majesty's pleasure that I should continue where I am, and employ my leisure hours in prosecuting the studies I have begun. This I can find time to do more effec

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tually in Scotland than in England, and in Aberdeen than in Edinburgh; which, by the bye, was one of my chief reasons for declining the Edinburgh professorship. The business of my professorship here is indeed toilsome; but I have, by fourteen years practice, made myself so much master of it, that it now requires little mental labour; and our long summer vacation, of seven months, leaves me at my own disposal, for the greatest and best part of the year: a situation favourable to literary projects, and now become necessary to my health.

"Soon after my return home, in autumn last, I had occasion to write to the Archbishop of York on this subject. I specified my reasons for giving up all thoughts of church-preferment; and his Grace was pleased to approve of them; nay, he condescended so far as to say, they did me honour. I told his Grace, moreover, that I had already given a great deal of trouble to my noble and generous patrons in England, and could not think of being any longer a burden to them, now that his Majesty had so graciously and so generously made for me a provision equal to my wishes, and such as puts it in my power to obtain, in Scot

land, every convenience of life, to which I have any title, or any inclination, to aspire.

"I must, therefore, make it my request to you, that you would present my humble respects, and most thankful acknowledgments, to the eminent person, at whose desire you wrote your last letter, (whose name, I hope, you will not be under the necessity of concealing from me,) and assure him, that, though I have taken the liberty to decline his generous offer, I shall, to the last hour of my life, preserve a most grateful remembrance of the honour he has condescended to confer on me; and, to prove myself not altogether unworthy of his goodness, shall employ that health and leisure which Providence may hereafter afford me, in opposing infidelity, heresy, and error, and in promoting sound literature, and Christian truth, to the utmost of my power."

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Although secrecy was thus enjoined, at the period when the correspondence respecting the living took place, yet it is right that the name of the Right Reverend Prelate, who made this

most generous offer to Dr Beattie, should not be longer concealed, now that both are dead. Dr Thomas, at that time Bishop of Winchester, was the person, whose letter to Dr Porteus I now subjoin.

LETTER C.

THE RIGHT REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER TO THE REV. DR PORTEUS.

Farnham-Castle, 24th July, 1774.

"It is now, I think, three weeks ago since I wrote to you. I then suggested a conversation that passed between us at Chelsea, relating to Dr Beattie, and my disposition to shew him some mark of my esteem and good-will.

"I have a living now vacant, of five hundred pounds a-year, in Hants, and I wish that you would sound him, with secrecy, upon the subject, and let me have a line from you as soon as you can. The living has been vacant a month; and I shall have no rest till I can dispose of it."

The transactions which I have here related, respecting the Edinburgh professorship, and the church-preferment offered to him in England, form a somewhat remarkable period in the life of Dr Beattie, as they evinced the fixed resolution he had taken, and from which he did not deviate, of continuing, during the remainder of his days, at Aberdeen. We find him, indeed, paying occasional visits to Edinburgh and London, during the summer months of the Collegevacation. But these visits seem to have had no other object than his amusement, and the enjoying, occasionally, the society of his numerous friends at both places. He was likewise constant in his visits every summer to Peterhead,* a place

* Peterhead, a small town in the county of Aberdeen, situated on the most easterly promontory of Scotland; famous for a Chalybeate spring of the nature of the waters of Tunbridgewells, and for salt-water baths of admirable construction, which draw thither a considerable resort of fashionable company during the summer season, some in search of health, and others of amusement. But it is chiefly to the industry, the sobriety, and prudence of the inhabitants, that Peterhead, from being