The essay appeared in 1770, and became instantly popular, passed through five large editions in four years, and was translated into foreign tongues. Hume smiled at it in his sleeve, but attempted no answer. Burke, Johnson, and Warburton, who must have seen through its sounding shallowness, pardoned and praised it for its good intentions, and because its author, though a champion rather showy than strong, was on the right side. Flushed by its success, Beattie, in 1771, revisited London, and obtained admission to the best literary circles--sate under the "peacock-hangings" of Mrs Montague--visited Hagley Park, and became intimate with Lord Lyttelton--chatted cheerily with Boswell and Garrick--listened with wonder to the deep bow-wows of Johnson's talk--and as he watched the rich alluvial, yet romantic mountain stream of thought, knowledge, and imagery that flowed perpetually from the inspired lips of Burke, perhaps forgot Gray and Glammis Castle, and felt "a greater is here." These men, in their turn, seem all to have liked Beattie, although the full 'quid pro quo' of praise came only from Lord Lyttelton, who vowed that in him Thomson had come back from the shades, much purified and refined by his Elysian sojourn! Beattie, we fear, was a little spoiled by the flatteries he received from Lyttelton and that peculiar clique which circled round him; and hence his prejudice in their favour, and the praise he reciprocates, are enormous. "Lord Lyttelton," says a writer, "is his private friend, and him he always calls the 'Great Historian,' though he is obliged to give his lordship's name afterwards, to let his readers know of whom he is speaking! From his letters it might appear that all the literary talent, all the taste, and all the virtue of the country, were confined to his circle of friends--Lord Lyttelton, Mrs Montague, Dr Porteous, and Major Mercer." In 1773, he again visited London, and the climax of his renown seemed to be reached, when the University of Oxford gave him the degree of LL.D.--when three different times he refused the offer by bishops and archbishops of promotion in the English Church--and when (oh, brave!) he was admitted to an interview with their Majesties, complimented on his "Essay on Truth" by good old George III., who was much better qualified to judge of an essay on turnips, and gifted with a pension of £200 a-year. About the same time he was urged to apply for the Professorship of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh, which he declined to do, apparently from a terror at the thought of coming so near David Hume--a terror which strikes us as exceedingly ludicrous, when we recollect that, most pernicious as were Hume's principles, he was in private as harmless, good-natured, and ('Scottice') 'sonsy' a being as lived.