No university in wide Britain can be named with Aberdeen, in point of the wild romantic grandeur of its environs, if we include in these the upper courses of the two rivers which meet beside it and Byron Hall. Macintosh, as well as Beattie, have owned the inspiration which the scenery, still more than the scholastic training of the Northern Metropolis, breathed into their opening minds. In 1753, having cultivated assiduously every branch of study taught at college except mathematics, for which he had neither taste nor aptitude, Beattie took the degree of A.M. He had hitherto been supported by the kindness of his brother David, but now he was to look out for a profession for himself. The situation of parish schoolmaster at Fordoun falling vacant, he determined to apply for it; and on the 11th of August 1753 he was elected to the office. Fordoun is situated a few miles to the north-east of Laurencekirk, and is surrounded by similar scenery. A series of gentlemen's seats extend, at brief intervals, from Brechin to Stonehaven, along a ridge of bare and bold mountains, and overlooking a fair and rich plain, so that thus the neighbourhood of Fordoun includes a combination of the soft, the beautiful, the luxuriant, and the nakedly-sublime, which must have fed to satiety the eye and heart of this true poet. Otherwise, the situation could not be called eligible. The salary was small, the society at that time indifferent, and the sphere limited. There were, however, some counter-balancing advantages. Near the village resided Lord Gardenstown, who met Beattie in a romantic glen near his house, with pencil and paper in his hand--entered into conversation with him--found out that he was a poet--and gave him the "Invocation to Venus" in the opening of Lucretius, to translate, which he did on the spot, and thus removed some doubts Lord Gardenstown had entertained as to whether his poetry was actually his own; and, besides, Lord Monboddo, a remarkable man, alike in talent and eccentricity; and both vied with each other in their patronage of the poetical _dominie_ when he had undisturbed leisure for study and solitary communion with nature. On the whole, perhaps, the future "Minstrel" was happier as a parish schoolmaster than in any part of his after life; and perhaps often, in more brilliant but less easy days, would revert with a sigh to the simple school and the stream which murmurs past the small kirkyard of Fordoun.