James Beattie - The Poetical Works of James Beattie

James Hay Beattie had a scientific knowledge of music, and, with the assistance of the Rev. Dr. Laing, had superintended the building an organ for himself. In one of our author's letters, 8th June, 1791, is the following passage:

"The organ of Durham cathedral was too much for my feelings; for it brought too powerfully to my remembrance another organ, much smaller, indeed, but more interesting, which I can never hear any more."

See, too, Beattie's letter to Blacklock, p. xv. of this memoir.

Roger Bacon, the father of experimental philosophy. He flourished in the thirteenth century.

See The Spectator , No. 47.

Hobbes was a great smoker, and wrote what some have been pleased to call a Translation of Homer.

He taught that the external universe has no existence, but an ideal one, in the mind (or spirit ) that perceives it; and he thought tar-water a universal remedy.

Private vices public benefits.

Electrical batteries.

Bred a printer. This was written long before Dr. Franklin's death.

Dr. L., Bp. of C., is probably the person here alluded to. He was a zealous materialist.

He resolved Perception and Thinking into vibrations , and (what he called) vibratiuncles of the brain.