deliberative weight, has for ever se- Such were some of the merits, and some of the actions, of this eminently endowed personage, who is now no more. If there were faults in the character, which, in the opinion of some, cast a shade on its many shining qualities, this is but the lot of man. To detect faults is more easy, and less profitable, than to emulate virtues : "and in a life so active, and so conspicuous, it were strange if there were not many things to provoke resentment, and some to incur censure. If, however, there were faults, these are not for us to canvass. They are now before that Judge, in whose presence the greatest must stand, and to whom he must render a solemn account of all his actions. leads This awful consideration me unavoidably to the mention of one particular more in the history of the deceased, which is too important to be omitted on the present occasion: I mean, that seriousness of religious impression, that feeling of accountableness to a supreme tribunal, so unequivocally manifested in the interesting and emphatic language in which he has spoken (in his last melancholy document) of the mercies and chastening of his God. There is too often reason to lament that such impressions have been weakened, if not effaced, by the government of the society, and the election of fellows. The provosts, however, had, for a series of years, assumed a veto in all cases, and in the election of fellows the direct power of nomination, even in opposition to the suffrages of all the remaining electors. This unwarrantable usurpation was not permitted long to survive the appointment of lord Fitzgibbon to the office of vice-chancellor. At a visitation, held in the August of 1791, it was made the subject of judicial inquiry, and pronounced by the vice-chancellor, with the concurrence of his covisitor, the archbishop of Dublin, to have been a gross violation of the charter. And by this means, a final stop was put to abuses, corruptions, and oppressions, of which none, who had not a melancholy experience of those times, can form any conception. It is but justice, however, to the memory of Dr. Young, to state, that by him was the legality of these extraordinary claims first brought regularly into discussion ; and that an argument on this subject, which would have done honour to the ablest and best informed legal understanding, had been drawn up and published by him in the year 1790. distracting distracting agitations of political collision, and by the habits of a profession, whose object is, for the most part, rather the exercise of a gainful ingenuity than scientific acquisition of truth. That the combination of these causes, although operating in the present instance with peculiar force, yet failed to produce on his mind this unhappy effect, will be best proved by the recital of the words in which he has himself expressed his religious sentiments :-" I earnestly entreat for pardon of my sins from the mercy of Almighty God. I am truly sensible of, and grateful for, the many blessings which, through his mercy and goodness, I have enjoyed in this world; and bow, as becomes me, with resignation, to such afflictions as have been visited upon me, hoping, through the mercy and mediation of my Redeemer, his blessed Son, for salvation in the next world." Are these the feelings of a Christian, or not? And these, it must be remembered, are not the mechanical and momentary effusions of a mind startled into an artificial piety at the nearer view of approaching dissolution, but the calm and deliberate breathings of the heart, at a time when the* enjoyment of unimpaired health and unabated vigour might be supposed to preclude all apprehensions of death; and when the full posses sion of wealth, power, and every other object of worldly pursuit, might be supposed not less to preclude every cause of dissatisfaction with life. Perhaps there was no one period at which he had apparently better reason to expect, or stronger inducements to desire, a continuance of life, than that very period at which he seems to have been thus anxious to set his house in order in preparation for death. But the high value he set upon the belief and the hopes of a Christian, may be inferred yet further, from the anxious solicitude with which he entreats, that the same sources of consolation, and the same springs of virtuous action, which he describes as having ministered so effectually to his support and direction, should be secured for the guidance of those for whose happiness he felt in common with his own. After much excellent advice, respecting the education and conduct of his children, he concludes with expressing his most earnest desire, that the utmost care should be taken " to instil into their minds, from their earliest years, the principles of morality and the Christian religion; and, above all other, the precepts of the same, a love of truth and justice, which" (he adds) they will find the best inheritance that I can transmit to them." 66 Particulars of the Life and Character of Dr. William Robertson, from his Memoirs, written by Professor Dugald Stewart. WILLIAM Robertson, D. D. late principal of the university of Edinburgh, and historiographer to his majesty for Scotland, was the son of the reverend William Robertson, minister of the old Gray The chancellor's will bears date from the month of December 1800. Friars church, and of Eleanor Fitcairn, daughter of David Pitcairn,esq. of Dreghorn. By his father he was descended from the Robertsons of Gladney, in the county of Fife; a branch of the respectable family of the same name, which has, for many generations, possessed the estate of Struan in Perthshire. He was born in 1721, at Borthwick (in the county of Mid Lothian), where his father was then minister; and received the first rudiments of his education at the school of Dalkeith, which, from the high reputation of Mr. Leslie as a teacher, was at that time resorted to from all parts of Scotland. In 1733, he again joined his father's family on their removal to Edinburgh; and, towards the end of the same year, he entered on his course of academical study. From this period, till the year 1759, when, by the publication of his Scottish history, he fixed a new era in the literary annals of his country, the habits and occurrences of his life were such as to supply few materials for biography, and the imagination is left to fill up a long interval spent in the silent pursuit of letters, and enlivened by the secret anticipation of future eminence. His genius was not of that forward and irregular growth, which forces itself prematurely on public notice; and it was only a few intimate and discerning friends, who in the native vigour of his powers, and in the patient culture by which he laboured to improve them, perceived the earnests of a fame that was to last for ever. The large proportion of Dr. Robertson's life, which he thus devoted to obscurity, will appear the more remarkable, when contrasted with his early and enthusiastic love of study. Some of his oldest common-place books, still in his son's possession (dated in the years 1735, 1736 and 1737) bear marks of a persevering assiduity, unexampled perhaps at so tender an age; and the motto prefixed to all of them (Vita sine literis mors est) attests how soon those views and sentiments were formed, which, to his latest hour, continued to guide and to dignity his ambition. In times such as the present, when literary distinction leads to other rewards, the labours of the studious are often prompted by motives very different from the hope of fame, or the inspiration of genius; but when Dr. Robertson's career commenced, these were the only incitements which existed to animate his exertions. The trade of authorship was unknown in Scotland; and the rank which that country had early acquired among the learned nations of Europe had, for many years, been sustained en-. tirely by a small number of eminent men, who distinguished themselves by an honourable and disinterested zeal in the ungainful walks of abtract science. His studies at the university being at length finished, Dr. Robertson was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Dalkeith in 1741; and in 1743 he was presented to the living of Gladsmuir, in East Lothian, by: the earl of Hopetoun. The income was but inconsiderable (the whole emoluments not exceeding one hundred pounds a year): but the preferment, such as it was, came to hin at a time singularly fortunate; for, not long afterwards, his father and mother died within a few hours, of each other, leaving a family of six daughters and a younger son, in such circumstances as required 1 every aid which his slender funds lution, seemed to rekindle the fires enabled him to bestow. Dr. Robertson's conduct in this trying situation, while it bore the most honourable testimony to the generosity of his dispositions, and to the warmth of his affections, was strongly marked with that manly decision in his plans, and that persevering steadiness in their exccution, which were characteristical features of his mind. Undeterred by the magnitude of a charge which must have appeared fatal to the prospects that had hitherto animated his studies, and resolved to sacrifice to a sacred duty all personal considerations, he invited his father's family to Gladsmuir; and continued to educate his sisters under his own roof, till they were settled respectably in the world. Nor did he think himself at liberty, till then, to complete an union which had been long the object of his wishes, and which may be justly numbered among the most fortunate incidents of his life. He remained single till 1751, when he married his cousin, miss Mary Nisbet, daughter of the reverend Mr. Nisbet, one of the ministers of Edinburgh. While he was thus engaged in the discharge of those pious offices which had devolved upon him by the sudden death of his parents, the rebellion of 1745 broke out in Scotland, and afforded him an opportunity of evincing the sincerity of that zeal for the civil and religious liberties of his country, which he had imbibed with the first principles of his education; and which afterwards, at the distance of more than forty years, when he was called on to employ his eloquence in the natonal commemoration of the revo of his youth. His situation as a country clergyman confined, indeed, his patriotic exertions within a narrow sphere; but even here his conduct was guided by a mind superior to the scene in which he acted. On one occasion (when the capital of Scotland was in danger of failing into the hands of the rebels), the state of public affairs appeared so critical, that he thought himself justified in laying aside, for a time, the pacific habits of his profession, and in quitting his parochial residence at Gladsmuir to join the volunteers of Edinburgh: and when at last it was determined that the city should be surrendered, he was one of the small band who repaired to Haddington, and offered their services to the commander of his majesty's forces. A The duties of his sacred profession were, in the mean time, discharged with a punctuality which secured to him the veneration and attachment of his parishioners; while the eloquence and taste that distinguished him as a preacher drew the attention of the neighbouring clergy, and prepared the way for that influence in the church which he afterwards attained. sermon, which he preached in 1755, before the society for propagating christian knowledge, and which was the earliest of all his publications, affords a sufficient proof of the eminence he might have attained in ́ that species of composition, if his genius had not inclined him more strongly to other studies. This sermon, the only one he ever published, has been long ranked, in both parts of the island, among the best models of pulpit eloquence in our language. It has undergone five editions; editions; and is well known in some parts of the continent in the German translation of Mr. Ebeling. At the age of near forty years, on the first of February 1759, appeared Dr. Robertson's History of Scotland, which was received by the world with such unbounded applause that, before the end of the month, he was desired by his bookseller to prepare for a second edition. From this moment the complexion of his fortune was changed. After a long struggle, in an obscure though a happy and hospitable retreat, with a narrow income and an increasing family, his prospects brightened at once. He saw independence and affluence within his reach; and flattered himself with the idea of giving a still bolder flight to his genius, when no longer depressed by those tender anxieties which so often fall to the lot of men, whose pursuits and habits, while they heighten the endearment of domestic life, withdraw them from the paths of interest and ambition. In venturing on a step, the success of which was to be so decisive, not only with respect to his fame, but to his future comfort, it is not surprising that he should have felt, in a more than common degree, "that anxiety and diffidence so natural to an author in delivering to the world his first performance." "The time" (he observes in his preface) which I have employed in attempting to render it worthy of the public approbation, it is perhaps prudent to conceal, till it shall be known whether that approbation is ever to be bestowed." During the time that the History of Scotland was in the press, Dr. Robertson removed with his family from Gladsmuir to Edinburgh, in consequence of a presentation which he had received to one of the churches of that city. His preferments now multiplied rapidly. In 1759 he was appointed chaplain of Stirling castle; in 1761, one of his majesty's chaplains in ordinary for Scotland; and in 1762 he was chosen principal of the university of Edin burgh. Two years afterwards, the office of king's historiographer for Scotland (with a salary of two hundred pounds a year) was revived in his favour. The success of the History of Scotland, and the applause which followed its publication, determined Dr. Robertson to undertake another work, the subject of which gave occasion to a variety of opinions among his friends. By some he was recommended to write a series of lives in imitation of Plutarch, by others the history of learning; the history of Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the two Antonines, was also pointed out to his consideration; and by the booksellers it was proposed, and terms were offered to him, to write the history of England. All these propositions he declined, and determined on the History of Charles V. which he completed and published in 1769. After an interval of eight years, from the publication of Charles V. Dr. Robertson produced the History of America: a work which, by the variety of research and of speculation that it exhibits, enables us to form a sufficient idea of the manner in which he had employed the intervening period. This work also was received with the applause of the learned and best informed read |