'W[ordsworth] was introduced to The Minstrel by his teacher, Thomas Bowman ... during his schooldays at Hawkshead. De Selincourt emphasizes its influence on the juvenilia [quotes Minstrel I st.32 lines 3-8 featuring "clanking chain," and "owl's terrific song," and Wordsworth's uses of these features in The Vale of Esthwaite (1787)]'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
[Marginalia]: marginal and text pencil annotations throughout, all relating to different uses of language e.g. p. 3 after the end of the text is the ms note 'Scotch - Ever so many people/ Eng. a great many people';p. 63 after the text 'The offer is here supposed to be not mine, but made by another' is the ms note 'To look out of the window/ To look out at ---' p. 69 next to the text 'A prospect for the pocket.-A perspective' is the ms note 'a spy-glass'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Drummond Erskine Print: Book
[On hot summer afternoons Carter took shelter in the shaded parts of Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens] 'In the latter I remember to have passed one afternoon in a very pleasant way. I sat in a quiet, well-shaded spot, where I had the benefit of a cool atmosphere, and read once more Dr Beattie's "Minstrel" - a poem which pleases me now quite as much as it did then. It is one of the poems of which I am never weary; from which circumstance alone, were there no other evidence, I should be led to infer that it is true poetry - the poetry of the heart no less than the imagination.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
?While in this state I read the "Letters" of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and some of Dr Beattie?s and Mr Hume?s ?Essays?, together with part of Dr Beattie?s ?Essay on Truth?.?
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
?While in this state I read the "Letters" of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and some of Dr Beattie?s and Mr Hume?s ?Essays?, together with part of Dr Beattie?s ?Essay on Truth?.?
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
'Epitaph' 'Part of an inscription for amonument to be erected/by a gentleman to the memory of his lady' 'Farewell my best beloved! Whose heavenly mind...'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Molineux group, including Mrs Molineux
'What are you reading? I am waiting for an account of "Waverl[e]y" from you. - The principal part of my reading in addition to Mathematics &c has been "the Exiles of Siberia", "Hoole's Tasso['s] Jerusalem", "Oberon" translated from the German by Southeby, "Beatties Minstrel", Savage's poems, Fenelons "lives of ancient Philosophers" and "the Miseries of Human life" 2 vols. If there is any of these that you have not seen - and want my sentiments about - you shall have them in my next'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Unknown
'Looked over, by a cursory perusal, Beattie's "Essay on Truth"...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
'Read over Beattie's "Elements of Moral Science"--a miserable work...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
Letter to MIss Ewing August 10 1778 '? I resume my wonted pleasure of contemplating the calm bosom of my own lake, the purest of mirrors, exhibiting a prospect awfully solemn and wildly magnificent; while the mountain tops seem sleeping on its surface. ?In truth, I am a strange and wayward wight/ Fond of each dreadful, and each gentle scene"'
.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Letter to Miss Ewing November 14 1778 'I have cut all the leaves out of a great old goose of a book, and there I have placed those pretty pictures in regular succession; with Miss Ourry?s, and Mrs Sprot?s; cousin Jean?s letters, which I value much for the vein of original humour that runs through them, are there too: so are some of Beattie?s poems. You can?t think how diligently I peruse this good book. Watts on the Passions is not dearer to you; for, warm as he is in your workbag, do you think your paper bag of epistles can ever lift its head in competition to my great book?'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Uvedale Price, 30 December 1826, in response to his remarks on the description of a storm in George Robert Greig's The Subaltern:
'There is undoubtedly a new combination of striking circumstances in your Capture of St Sebastian [...] I cannot however allow that sulphur is only mentioned in [italics]Homer[end italics] when I find this expressive passage in Petronius Arbiter [slightly misquotes two lines from the Satyricon, followed by further relevant quotes from William Chamberlayne, Pharonnida (III canto 3); Beattie, The Minstrel, I v.54, and Shakespeare's Tempest I.2.203-204]
[...]
'After some searching, I have only found "the alarming impression of the storm, while yet collecting, on all animals" mentioned in Chatterton's Excellent Balade of Charitie, -- which I am sure you must think poetically excellent [quotes line from verse 5] [...] but here the cattle have had a more ordinary indication of the aproaching storm [i.e. falling rain] than your awful circumstances of close oppressive heat, praeternatural stillness & silence'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'At 7 [...] I read the History of England and Rome -- at 8 I perused the History of Greece and
it was at this age that I first found real delight in poetry -- "The Minstrel" Popes "Iliad"[,]
some parts of the "Odyssey" passages from "Paradise lost" selected by my dearest Mama and
some of Shakespeares plays among which were "The Tempest," "Othello," and a few historical
dramatic pieces constituted my studies! -- I was enchanted with all these but I think the story
interested me more that [sic] the poetry till "The Minstrel" met my sight [...] The brilliant
imagery[,] the fine metaphors and the flowing numbers of "the Minstrel" truly astonished me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
'Adam Smith, Sir [-] informed me, was no admirer of the Rambler or the Idler, but was pleased with the pamphlet respecting the Falkland Islands, as it displayed in such forcible language, the madness of modern wars. Of Swift, he made frequent and honourable mention, and regarded him, both in style and sentiment, as a pattern of correctness. He often quoted some of the short poetical addresses to Stella, and was particularly pleased with the couplet,
Say Stella, - feel you no content,
Reflecting on a life well-spent?
Smith had an invincible dislike to blank verse, Milton's only excepted. "they do well", said he, "to call it blank, for blank it is". Beattie's Minstrel he would not allow to be called a poem; for he said it had no plan, beginning or end. He did not much admire Allan Ramsay's "Gentle Shepherd", but preferred the "Pastor Fido", of which he spoke with rapture'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Adam Smith Print: Book
'Beattie's book is, I believe, every day more liked; at least, I like it more as I look more upon it.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Such was his sensibility, and so much was he affected by pathetick poetry, that, when he was reading Dr. Beattie's "Hermit" in my presence, it brought tears into his eyes'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'Doctor Beattie, author of the celebrated book on Truth, was much the Subject of Conversation, the whole company concurring in the Praise of so able and useful a Writer; Here is much ado about nothing cries Doctor Goldsmith why the Man has written but one Book, and I have writ several. So you have Doctor replies Mr Johnson but there go many Halfpence remember - to one Guinea'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Dr Johnson, Mrs Thrale, Oliver Goldsmith and others Print: Book
'[italics] My [end italics] Daughter Susan a Girl of seven Years old - said to me yesterday when we had done reading - I like this Book prodigiously Ma'am; the story of the Earthquake was very dismal, and that of the Dwarf very comical; 'tis better Sport to hear of such Things than to read that stupid Book about [italics] Sympathy & Poetical Language [end italics] written by the Man there with a [italics] Woman's [end italics][ Name - Doctor [italics] Betty [end italics] as you call him - She meant Dr [italics] Beattie [end italics] whose book Mrs Cumyns - her Governess had been foolish enough to put into her hands'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Susan Thrale Print: Book
