Record

CollectionGB 0231 University of Aberdeen, Special Collections
LevelItem
Ref NoMS 30/2/570
TitleRobert Arbuthnot to James Beattie from Edinburgh
Date23 August 1788
Extent1 Item
Administrative HistoryRobert Arbuthnot [1728-1803] was a member of a distinguished Jacobite/ Episcopalian family. He was brought up and later owned Haddo-Rattray House, north of Peterhead. He was a merchant and then a banker in the firm of Arbuthnot and Guthrie, which failed in 1772. He then moved to Edinburgh where he bacame secretary of the Board for the Encouragement of Manufacturies and Fisheries in Scotland. He befriended Beattie after Beattie moved to Aberdeen in 1758, and became for some years his principal poetic adviser and promoter. He negotiated on Beattie's behalf and often in conjuction with Sir William Forbes, with the booksellers over several of the publications
DescriptionEncloses letter to James Sibbald about Addison edition. [Sibbald was the Edinburgh bookseller who published jointly with Creech the four volume edition of Addison's papers (Edinburgh 1790).] Arbuthnot does not believe Creech is giving it serious thought. Could Beattie therefore write a preface to Addison for Sibbald? Is James Hay Beattie finishing his didactic poem? Wonderful performance which should be published
Access StatusOpen
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