ch were confessedly his, there are no less
than seventeen in Mr. Evans's collection of Ballads, of which a writer
in the Quarterly Review[1] some years ago expressed his suspicion that
they were from the pen of Mickle. It has been found on inquiry, that the
suggestion of this judicious critic is fully confirmed. One of these has
lately been brought into notice from its having formed the groundwork of
one of those deservedly popular stories, which have lately come to us
from the north of the Tweed. It is to be wished that Mickle's right in
all of them were formally recognized, and that they should be no longer
withheld from their place amongst his other poetical writings, to which
they would form so valuable an accession.

FOOTNOTE
[1] For May 1810, No. VI. The title of the Ballads are Bishop Thurston,
and the King of Scots, Battle of Caton Moor, Murder of Prince
Arthur, Prince Edward, and Adam Gordon, Cumner Hall, Arabella
Stuart, Anna Bullen, the Lady and the Palmer, The Fair Maniac, The
Bridal Bed, The Lordling Peasant, The Red Cross Knight, The
Wandering Maid, The Triumph of Death, Julia, The Fruits of Jealousy,
and The Death of Allen.

* * * * *

JAMES BEATTIE.

James Beattie was born on the 25th of October, 1735, at Laurencekirk,
in the county of Kincardine, in Scotland. His father, who kept a small
shop in that place, and rented a little farm near it, is said to have
been a man of acquirements superior to his condition. At his death, the
management of his concerns devolved on his widow. David, the eldest of
her six children, was of an age to assist his mother. James, the
youngest, she placed at the parish school of his native village, which
about forty years before had been raised to some celebrity by Ruddiman,
the grammarian, and was then kept by one Milne. This man had also a
competent skill in grammar. His other deficiencies were supplied by the
natural quickness of his pupil, and by the attention of Mr. Thomson, the
minister of Laurencekirk, who, being a man of learning, admitted young
Beattie to the use of his library, and probably animated him by his
encouragement. He very early became sensible to the charms of English
verse, to which he was first awakened by the perusal of Ogilby's Virgil.
Before he was ten years old, he was as well acquainted with that writer
and Homer, as the versions of Pope and Dryden could make him. His
schoolfellows disti