Beattie wrote numerous prose dissertations and essays, one of which was in
answer to the infidel views of Hume--_Essay on the Nature and
Immutability of Truth, in Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism_. Beattie
was of an excitable and sensitive nature, and his polemical papers are
valued rather for the beauty of their language, than for acuteness of
logic.
_William Falconer_, 1730-1769: first a sailor in the merchant service, he
afterwards entered the navy. He is chiefly known by his poem _The
Shipwreck_, and for its astonishing connection with his own fortunes and
fate. He was wrecked off Cape Colonna, on the coast of Greece, before he
was eighteen; and this misfortune is the subject of his poem. Again, in
1760, he was cast away in the Channel. In 1769, the Aurora frigate, of
which he was the purser, foundered in Mozambique Channels, and he, with
all others on board, went down with her. The excellence of his nautical
directions and the vigor of his descriptions establish the claims of his
poem; but it has the additional interest attaching to his curious
experience--it is his autobiography and his enduring monument.
Pages:
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590