Summary: Written in 1748-49 and probably abandoned by March 1749. Gray sent ll. 1-57 of the fragment in a letter, dated 19 August 1748, to Thomas Wharton. First published, entitled "Essay I", in Mason'sMemoirs (1775), 193-200.
References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), item GrT 8, 79; Sutton (ed.), Location Register (1995), 414
Contents: Transcript of ll. 58-107, untitled, in the hand of Thomas Wharton, following a letter by Gray, containing ll. 1-57, to Wharton, 19 August [1748] (see MS 0010).
References: Smith (ed.), Index (1989), 79; Sutton (ed.), Location Register (1995), 414; Ellner, June, "Re: MS 30/44, James Beattie papers". E-mail to the editor, 20 December 2006
Contents: Transcript in the hand of James Beattie, entitled "An Essay on Education and Government" and annotated in his hand "This beginning of an ethical play is finished in the Author's highest manner. He began it in the year 1748, as appears from a letter to one on his friends inclosing a part of it. In that letter, he entitles it, "An Essay on Education and Government, or rather, on the necessary alliance of them to produce the external happiness of mankind." He relinquished the prosecution of this work on the publication of M. de Montesquieu's Esprit des Loix: a book which he highly admired; and which he said had forestalled the principal things he meant to advance upon the subject. And yet we see, from what he has here left, that he differed from the Baron in one material point, viz, the influence of soil or climate on national manners."