Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/46

182 friend of Dr Robertson, might hare contributed to alter his views with regard to the writing a history of England ; but he acknowledges his inability to discover any certain or positive reason for the interruption of its execution.

Eight years after the publication of Charles V., (1777,) Dr Robertson produced the History of America, a work which fully maintained the author's high reputation, and procured him a repetition of all those gratifying marks of both public and private approbation which had attended his former works. One of these was his election as an honorary member by the Royal Academy of History in Madrid. This learned body at the same time appointed one of its members to translate the work into Spanish, and a considerable progress was made in the translation, when the jealousy of the Spanish government interfered to prevent it from proceeding any further.

The reputation of Dr Robertson, however, did not rest alone upon his writings. His powerful and persuasive eloquence had gained him an influence in the General Assembly, which intimately and conspicuously associated his name with the ecclesiastical affairs of the kingdom. He introduced and established a system of subordination throughout the various gradations of ecclesiastical judicatories, which had not been before exerted, and the neglect of which had given rise to many unbecoming scenes in the settling of ministers; scenes deemed at once highly derogatory to the dignity of the supreme court, and subversive of all order in the church government of the kingdom.

Of his eloquence, a part of his fame, as his biographer remarks, which must soon rest on tradition only, the latter thus speaks: "I shall not be accused of exaggeration, when I say, that, in some of the most essential qualifications of a speaker, he was entitled to rank with the first names which have in our times adorned the British senate." This is high praise ; but when it is recollected who he is that bestows it, there is little reason to doubt its justice.

In his preface to his History of America, Dr Robertson had mentioned his intention of resuming the subject ; and it is known that, but for the colonial war, which was now raging, he would have commenced a history of the British empire in that continent. Having abandoned this design, he looked out for some other subject worthy of his pen. Mr Gibbon recommended to him a history of the Protestants in France, a subject which has since been illustrated by Dr M'Crie, and several other persons suggested the History of Great Britain, from the Revolution to the Accession of the House of Hanover. It appears from a letter to Dr Waddilour, dean of Rippon, dated July, 1778, that he had made up his mind to encounter the responsibilities of such a task: but he very early abandoned it, in consequence of a correspondence with his friend, Mr James Macpherson, who, three years before, had published a history of the same reigns, and whose feelings, he found, must be severely injured by his attempting a rival work. As he was now approaching his sixtieth year, it is probable that he was by no means eager to commence a new subject of study. His circumstances, too, were independent; he had acquired fame sufficient to gratify his most ambitious hopes : and thus were removed two of the greatest incentives to literary exertion. His constitution, besides, was considerably impaired by a long, sedentary, and studious life ; and he probably conceived that, after having devoted so large a portion of his existence to the instruction and entertainment of others, he had a right to appropriate what remained to himself.

In the year 1780, he retired from the business of the ecclesiastical court of which he had been so long an ornament, but still continued to discharge the duties of his pastoral office, and that with a diligence, always exemplary, which increased rather than diminished with his growing infirmities.