When just fourteen he went to school at Clarencefield Academy in Dumfriesshire, and during his stay there of six years, under the rector, Mr. Thomas Fergusson, attained a competent knowledge of Latin, Greek, and French.
I danced with "Doigt," wrestled and fenced with Roland, read to a rich dotard in the evenings, and sat up night after night to make up for lost time, and then took a walk on the Calton Hill as a substitute for sleep; but even then, when surrounded by gay and brilliant companions, I never forgot my religious duties, and the God whom I remembered in my youth has not forsaken me in my old age.
[3] He remained in Edinburgh for two years after taking his diploma, living chiefly 'out of his inkhorn', teaching, lecturing, translating, and conducting a small private practice.
At the end of 1824 he entered upon a medical practice at Worthing (the salubrity of whose climate he recommended in a pamphlet published in 1858), but left it in the following March to again accompany the Duke and Duchess of Clarence to Germany.
On this occasion, at Göttingen, he made the acquaintance of Blumenbach, of whom he says: Though I have been in company with some of the prime spirits of the age, I have met none from whose conversation I have derived so much solid and original information.
[4] Early in 1826 for the third time he formed one of the suite of the Duke of Clarence on a German visit, and ingratiated himself with Charlotte, the Queen of Wurtemberg and Princess Royal of Great Britain.
[4] In 1827, Dr. Beattie was admitted a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, London, and established himself in Hampstead, where for eighteen years he enjoyed an extensive practice.
Scotland Illustrated passed through several editions, and elicited the acknowledgement from its publisher, Mr. Virtue, 'that the prosperity he had attained was mainly owing to Dr. Beattie's literary assistance'.
In 1833 Beattie speaks of Campbell as coming to take up his quarters at Rose Villa, Beattie's cottage at Hampstead, where on former occasions he had experienced much benefit, and adds: 'These visits in after life were frequently repeated, and whenever he found himself relapsing into a depressed state of health and sprints, "Well," he would say, "I must come into hospital," and he would repair for another week to "Campbell's Ward," a room so named by the poet in the doctor's house'.
[5] In 1845 Beattie's wife died, and soon afterwards he gave up regular practice as a physician; but he continued for the rest of his life to give medical advice to clergymen, men of letters, and others without accepting professional fees.
In 1846 he published, for instance, a memoir of his friend Bartlett for the benefit of the artist's family, which raised £400, and through his influence with the prime minister obtained a pension of £76 a year for his widow.
[5] Beattie's only strictly professional work, unless we include his pamphlet on Home Climates and Worthing, was a Latin treatise on pulmonary consumption, the subject of his M.D.
This was a great shock, and may have accelerated his end; but he bore the loss with manly fortitude, and all he said in reference to it (to a writer in the Medical Times) was that "he should be obliged to give up his charitable donations to the amount of £300 a year'.