in the writing of English he had, long before the appearance of his 'History,' prepared a translation of Marcus Aurelius, the manuscript of which belonged to Lord Brougham. Later and more exhaustive methods of research have deprived Robertson's History' of most of its historical value. But its sobriety, fairness, and literary character give it a permanent interest to a student of the evolution of historical composition. Its judicial temper is illustrated by the fact that while Walpole, Hume, Birch, and Lord Chesterfield detected in it a partiality to Mary Stuart, Tytler, in his learned Historical and Critical Enquiry' (1759) and Whittaker in his Mary Queen of Scots Vindicated' (1788, 3 vols. 8vo), attacked Robertson with much venom in the Jacobite interest. Cadell and Millar cleared upwards of six thousand pounds by the publication. Robertson received 6007.

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Preferment and sinecures were not long withheld from the fortunate author, whose success surprised no one more than himself and his more intimate friends, such as Carlyle. In April 1759 he was appointed chaplain of Stirling Castle. In April 1761 he was translated from Lady Yester's chapel to the Old Greyfriars, Edinburgh, and in the following August he was appointed one of his majesty's chaplains in Scotland. In 1762, upon the death of Dr. John Gowdie, he was Appointed to the dignified post of principal of Edinburgh University. On 26 May 1763 he was elected moderator of the general assembly, the administration of which he continued to direct with a firm hand for upwards of sixteen years. As a manager of the business of the general assembly, he acquired an influence greater than any moderator since Andrew Melville. By him were laid the foundations of that system of polity-the independence of the church as opposed to a fluctuating dependence upon the supposed views of the government of the day, the exaction of obedience by the inferior judicatories, and the enforcement of the law of patronage, except in flagrant cases of erroneous doctrine or immoral conduct-by means of which peace and unity were preserved in the Scottish church until a new principle was established by the assembly of 1834. Despite a zealous and able opposition, Robertson's statesmanship, skill as a debater, and high character gave him paramount influence over 'the moderates, and rendered his power over all parties irresistible. An additional honour was conferred upon Robertson on 6 Aug. 1763, when the post of historiographer for Scotland (with a salary of 2001. a year), which had been in abeyance since the time of

George Crawfurd [q. v.], was revived in his favour.

Meanwhile Robertson deliberated as to the subject which should next employ his pen. Blair and Chesterfield recommended the 'History of England.' Hume advised the composition of Lives' in the manner of Plutarch. Walpole suggested the History of Learning' or a 'History of the Period of the Antonines.' The historian himself was attracted by the pontificate of Leo X, until he heard, through Bute, that the king was desirous of seeing a history of England from his pen, and that the government were anxious to put every source of information at his disposal. But this project fell through with the retirement of Bute, and Robertson's choice, which finally alternated between a History of Greece' and a 'History of Charles V,' decided for the latter. In 1769, ten years after the completion of the 'History of Scotland,' there appeared The History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V, with a view of the Progress of Society from the subversion of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the sixteenth century' (London, 3 vols. 4to; Philadelphia, 1770; 2nd ed. 1772, 4 vols. 8vo; 6th ed. with corrections, 1787; 10th ed. 1802). For this work Robertson obtained 4,500%., a larger sum, probably, than had ever been paid for a work of learning. Shortly after its appearance Walpole thought fit to retract some of his former praise, and Dr. Johnson (who preferred Goldsmith as an historian) remarked: 'I would say to Robertson what an old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils, "Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out." "Nevertheless Charles V' is generally and justly regarded as Robertson's masterpiece. It rendered the author's fame European. Hume promptly sent it to France to be translated by Suard. Il me fait oublier tous mes maux,' wrote Voltaire; je me joins à l'Europe pour vous estimer.' C'est le compagnon constant de tous mes voyages,' wrote Catherine II of Russia, of the three heavy quarto volumes, and in token of her appreciation she sent Robertson a gold snuff box richly set with diamonds.

Robertson's Introduction to his 'Charles V,' a descriptive estimate of the dark ages (700-1100 A.D.), was one of the first successful attempts in England at historical generalisation on the basis of large accumulations of fact. So good a judge as Hallam considered it a marvel of penetration. Thomas Carlyle, as a boy, was delighted and amazed' by the new vistas that it opened.

At any rate it amply illustrated the value Robertson set upon general ideas in history, while its accompanying disquisitions on such subjects as the origin of the feudal system and the nature of Frankish land tenures proved his aptitude for scholarly methods of work. But the efficiency of Robertson's power of generalisation was unfortunately marred by his religious preconceptions and by defects both of sympathy and research. Dr. Maitland subjected the 'Introduction' to a minutely critical analysis, and effectually confuted such conclusions as that the power to read and write was rare among the mediæval clergy, or that books and classical learning were little known or despised, or that, during the middle ages, the Christian religion degenerated into an illiberal superstition (MAITLAND, Dark Ages, 1844, pp. 1-122). The History of Charles V' has also grown obsolete in the light of subsequent explorations. In the German portion it has been superseded by Ranke, and in the Spanish by Rosseeuw-St.-Hilaire, Stirling-Maxwell, Mignet, and Prescott. Prescott's account of the emperor's life after his abdication' (1856) was printed in 1857 as an appendix to an edition of Robertson's work (London 2 vols. 8vo, since reprinted).

In writing his Charles V,' Robertson found it necessary to postpone a full treatment of the discovery of the new world, which he resolved to reserve for a separate History of America.' This appeared in London in 1777, 2 vols. 4to (2nd ed. 1779, in French, Paris, 1778; 5th ed. with corrections, 1788, 3 vols. 8vo; 10th ed. 1803, 4 vols. 8vo, with continuation from 1652, by David Macintosh, 1817; many editions also appeared in America; a translation into Spanish was stopped by the government of Spain after two volumes had appeared). Its vivid descriptions and philosophical disquisitions on aboriginal society captivated the literary world, while the outbreak of the American war lent the book pertinent public interest and rendered it more popular than either of its predecessors. Keats, who read it with enthusiasm many years after, owed to it the suggestion of his famous simile of 'Cortez and his men.' The American war prevented the author from completing a history of the North American colonies: 'I must wait, he said, for times of greater tranquillity.' Robertson's account of the discovery of the New World was severely criticised for its inaccuracy and faults of omission by Southey in his History of Brazil;' but Stirling justly said that the story of Columbus was told by Robertson with a grace which compensates the defects of a narrative of which the

meagreness and inaccuracy are to be ascribed to the want, not of diligence, but of materials (Life of Prescott' in Encycl. Brit. 8th ed.) That he did not lack diligence is shown by the collection of books, mostly in Spanish, and many of them annotated, which passed from Robertson's library into that of Jonathan Toup [q.v.], at whose death they were sold by Leigh and Sotheby, 10-15 May 1786 (Cat. in Brit. Mus.)

In his sixty-eighth year the perusal of Major James Rennell's Memoir on the Map of Hindustan' (1783) set Robertson again to work, and within a year, encouraged by Gibbon, he brought out his Historical Disquisition concerning the Knowledge which the Ancients had of India; and the Progress of Trade with that country prior to the discovery of the Passage to it by the Cape of Good Hope, with an appendix' (London, 1791, 4to; Philadelphia, 1792, 8vo; 2nd ed. London, 1794, 8vo). The book concluded with a wise hope that the account of the early and high civilisation of India, and of the wonderful progress of its inhabitants in elegant arts and useful science, may have some influence upon the behaviour of Europeans towards that people.'

This was Robertson's last literary effort. In August 1777 he had been elected a member of the Royal Academy of History at Madrid, and a similar honour was accorded him by the Academy of Sciences at Padua (1781) and the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg (1783).

In 1779 Robertson's house in Edinburgh was attacked by a protestant mob, because he had procured the rejection of a formal remonstrance which the general assembly had been invited to make against a bill for the removal of penalties from Scottish catholics. In the following year he withdrew from the general assembly, but he retained until 1792 his post as principal of Edinburgh University, to which his name and fame were sources of strength. After swaying the general assembly for so many years, he found the guidance of the Senatus Academicus a comparatively easy task. Dissensions were unknown during his principalship of thirty-one years. During the first years of office he annually delivered a Latin address to the students, his topics being 'Classical Learning,' 'The Duties of Youth,' and The Comparative Advantages of Public and Private Education.' He also established the library fund (1762), and promoted the scheme for giving new buildings to the university (1768).

His later years were varied by occasional visits to London and to Lennel, the home of

his favourite daughter, Mrs. Brydone. In 1792 he had the gratification of hearing from his publisher, Strahan, that, if we may judge by the sale of your writings, your literary reputation is daily increasing.' In the same year he removed from the principal's lodgings to Grange House, near Edinburgh, where his friend Dugald Stewart frequently visited him in his favourite haunt-the orchard-and was led to compose that memoir of the principal which has been so often praised and so seldom equalled.' He died there of jaundice on 11 June 1793 (Scots Magazine, 1793, p. 308).

Robertson's wife, Mary Nisbet, although a woman of little cultivation, proved an excellent helpmeet. She died on 11 March 1802, leaving issue three sons, William, James, and David, and two daughters: Mary, who married Patrick Brydone, F.R.S. [q.v.], and Eleonora, who married John Russell, clerk to the signet.

The eldest son, William, born in 1754, a member from 1770 to 1799 of the Speculative Society, to which he contributed essays upon Roman History' and 'The Effect of Climate upon Nations' (Hist. of Speculative Society, Edinburgh, p. 101), was admitted advocate on 21 Jan. 1775, chosen procurator of the church of Scotland in 1779, took his seat on the Scottish bench as Lord Robertson on 14 Nov. 1805, resigned in 1826, and died on 20 Nov. 1835 (BRUNTON and HAIG, Senators; Gent. Mag. 1836, pt. i.)

The second son, James, distinguished himself under Lord Cornwallis in the Carnatic, and became a general in the British army.

The third son, David, became a lieutenantcolonel, raised the first Malay regiment in Ceylon, and married in 1799 Margaret, daughter of Colonel Donald Macdonald, governor of Tobago, and heiress of Kinloch-Moidart, whereupon he assumed the name of Macdonald.

Robertson exemplified a robust form of Christianity, free from the least suspicion of morbidity. His vigorous hostility in youth to Whitefield (in opposition to his intimate friend John Erskine) was characteristic. While distrustful of enthusiasm, he became an avowed optimist of the eighteenth-century type, and none of his contemporaries philosophised upon defective data with greater dignity or complacency. He had no metaphysical faculty, and little dialectical agility. He was, indeed, a great talker, but in his talk (as to some extent in his writings) he was frequently imitative; and Alexander Carlyle recounts his fondness for skimming his friends' talk and giving it back to them in polished paraphrase.

Robertson's attachment to Hume and his cordial amity with Gibbon do honour to all parties. Gibbon spoke of Robertson as a master artist,' and his casual allusions to his rival (as when he compares the retirement of Diocletian with that of Charles V) are invariably complimentary. In return, as Stanhope remarks with pained astonishment, Robertson expressed to Gibbon the hope that the Decline and Fall' would be as successful as it deserved (STANHOPE, History of England, vi. 312; cf. Robertson to Gibbon, 30 July 1788, in GIBBON'S Misc. Works). In point of style the superficial resemblance between the two historians is considerable, the narrative of both being encumbered by lengthy periods, compact with long Latin words and sonorous antitheses. But Robertson lacked the humour, suggestive cynicism, and commanding sense of perspective which gave Gibbon immortality.

In Robertson's as in Gibbon's domestic life, pomposity was but skin-deep. Cockburn speaks of the happy summer days which he and Robertson's grandson, Jack Russell, spent at the principal's country house. The historian would unbend in order to devise schemes to prevent the escape of the boys' rabbits, and would share with them, in defiance of Mrs. Robertson, the spoils of his orchard. He was a pleasant-looking old man, with an eye of great vivacity and intelligence, a large, projecting chin, a small hearing-trumpet fastened by a black ribbon to a buttonhole of his coat, and a rather large wig, powdered and curled. He struck us boys, even from the side table, as being evidently fond of a good dinner, at which he sat with his chin upon his plate, intent upon the real business of the occasion. This appearance, however, must have been produced partly by his deafness, because when his eye told him that there was something interesting, it was delightful to observe the animation with which he instantly applied his trumpet; when, having caught the scent, he followed it up, and was leader of the pack.' Brougham adds that the historian, who always wore his cocked hat, even in the country, had a stately gait, a slight guttural accent in his speech, which gave it a peculiar fulness, and he retained some oldfashioned modes of address, using the word 'madam,' and adding 'My humble service to you,' when he drank wine with any woman. He was very fond of claret, and remonstrated with success on one occasion when Johnson proscribed it.

Of the portraits of the historian, that by Sir Joshua Reynolds is described by Brougham

and entitled 'Proceedings relative to the Peerage of Scotland from 16 Jan. 1707 to 20 April 1788;' the work has been found of great service in conducting the elections of the representative peers in Scotland. In August 1787 he had, with his fellow deputy, taken possession of the new general register house, and was instrumental in moving the records thither from the two vaults under the court of session, called the 'Laigh Parliament House' (October 1791).

At Robertson's suggestion searches were made in the state paper office in London for ancient records of Scotland which had been removed by Edward I. In August 1793 Thomas Astle [q. v.], the antiquary, and a trustee of the British Museum, discovered among the Harleian manuscripts (No. 4609) a curious index of Scottish charters; shortly afterwards a transcript on vellum of certain deeds relative to Scottish history (mainly of the reigns of Robert I, David II, and Robert II, together with a few instruments of earlier date), constituting the most ancient Book of Scottish Record now known to exist,' was found in the state paper office in London and removed to Edinburgh. To stimulate the discovery of other records of early Scottish history, Robertson published from a manuscript found at Wishaw in 1794 (and anterior to the Harleian draft discovered by Astle), 'An Index drawn up about the year 1629 of many Records of Charters granted by the different sovereigns of Scotland between 1309 and 1413, most of which records have been long missing, with an introduction giving a State, founded on authentic documents still preserved, of the Ancient Records of Scotland which were in that kingdom in 1292,' Edinburgh, 1798, 4to. Shortly after the conclusion of this laborious task Robertson set to work upon The Records of the Parliament of Scotland,' of which he had at the time of his death completed one folio volume, printed in 1804. Robertson's suggestions in the Reports' to the parliamentary commissioners appointed to inquire into the state of the records have been largely acted upon by successive deputy keepers.

6

of Charters; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn);
Notes and Queries, 1st ser. vii. 101; Brit. Mus.
Cat.]
T. S.

ROBERTSON, WILLIAM BRUCE (1820-1886), divine, third surviving son of John Robertson, factor on the estate of Plean and Auchenbowie, Stirlingshire, by Margaret Bruce, born Kirkwood, was born at Greenhill in St. Ninian's parish, Stirlingshire, on 24 May 1820. He was educated at the village school of Greenhill and at home, under the tutorship of his elder brother, James, who became minister of the united presbyterian church at Newington, Edinburgh. Robertson matriculated at Glasgow University in 1832, and distinguished himself specially in the Greek class under Sir Daniel Keyte Sandford [q. v.]; but, owing to his youth, he studied moral philosophy and natural philosophy at the Andersonian University, Glasgow, instead of completing at once his arts course. In 1836 he became tutor in the family of Captain Aytoun of Glendevon, taking the winter sessions at Glasgow University. From 1837 to 1841 he was a student at the Secession Theological Hall at Edinburgh. While there he became acquainted with De Quincey, by whose advice he went to Germany, entering in 1841 Halle University, where Tholuck was his chief professor. In the following year he travelled through Switzerland and Italy. Returning to Scotland, he was licensed as a preacher in the spring of 1843 by the presbytery of Stirling and Falkirk, and shortly afterwards was called to the secession church in Irvine, Ayrshire. He was ordained in this charge on 26 Dec. 1843, and it was his first and last pastorate. In 1854 he published a collection of hymns for use in his Sunday school, including among others his well-known translation of Dies Ira.' Meanwhile, the secession and relief churches were joined in 1847 to form the united presbyterian denomination, and Robertson continued his connection with it. A new church was built for him at Irvine in 1861 and called Trinity church. His health broke down in 1871, and under medical advice he spent a year at Florence and on the Riviera. He returned to Irvine in 1873. But he was compelled to accept the assistance of a colleague in February 1876. After a two years' visit to Florence he resigned his charge. He took up his residence at Bridge of Allan, making

[Life prefixed to the 9th edit. of Robertson's Hist. of Greece, Edinburgh, 1839, 8vo; Scots Mag. April 1803; Fasti Aberdonenses, ed. Anderson (New Spalding Club); Preface to Index

the Luther celebrations took place, in November 1883, he again visited Germany. He died at Westfield, Bridge of Allan, on 27 June 1886.

Robertson was more famous as a pulpit