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<rdf:Description rdf:about="https://calm.abdn.ac.uk:443/archives/record/catalog/MS%2030/1/357" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
  <dc:title>To William Laing from Aberdeen</dc:title>
  <dc:description>Thanks for letter of 24 January and stomach pills which suit him better that the last ones. Laings speaks more favourably of the new edition of the Minstrel than it deserves. The cuts may be fashionable but they are miserable performances for all that. The printing of the book is pretty well but too microscopical for Beattie's eyes. Sorry to hear of Arbuthnot's great loss [his second son, John, captain of the Royal Artillery, born 1762, died at Curaçao in 1796]. Beattie lately met a literary curiosity at a sale of books - the very first edition of Paradise Lost in ten books printed in 1669.Beattie sent an unlimited commission for it, but got it for twenty-five pence.  </dc:description>
  <dc:date>1 February 1797</dc:date>
</rdf:Description>