Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/47

Rh As long as his health permitted, he preached every Sunday, and continued to do so occasionally till within a few months of his death. In regard to his style of preaching, his nephew, Lord Brougham, in his Lifa of the Principal, contained in his "Lives of Men of Letters and Science who flourished in the time of George III.," gives a very interesting account of it from his own personal knowledge; and in particular of a sermon which he heard Dr Robertson preach on November 5, 1788, the celebration of the centenary of the Revolution.

Notwithstanding his resolution to write no more for the public, the Principal was accidentally led to the composition of another work. In perusing major Rennel's "Memoirs of a Map of Hindostan," he began to inquire into the know- ledge which the ancients had of that country, solely for his own amusement and information. His ideas, as he himself remarks, gradually extended, and became more interesting, till he at length imagined that the result of his re- searches might prove amusing and instructive to others. In this way he was led to publish 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 Cape of Good Hope," which appeared in 1791 in quarto. He had in the meanwhile enjoyed several years of good health and honoured leisure, dividing the time which he could spare from his clerical duties between the amusement of reading and the enjoyment of the society of his friends. Immediately, however, on the termination of the above self-imposed labour, his health became materially affected. Strong symptoms of jaundice showed themselves, and laid the foundation of a lingering and fatal illness. At an early stage of this disease, he was impressed with the belief that his death was not far distant; but, like his great contemporary Hume, he contemplated its approach, not only without terror, but with cheerfulness and complacency. In the latter part of his illness he was removed to Grange House, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, in the vain hope that he might be benefited by the free air of the country. He was still, however, able to enjoy the beauties of the rural scenery around him, and that with all the relish of his better days. Early in June, 1793, his increasing weakness confined him to his couch; his articulation began to fail, and on the llth he died, in the seventy-first year of his age.

Dr Robertson's talents were not precocious. The early part of his career was wholly undistinguished by any remarkable pre-eminence over his contemporaries; but his mind, though silently and unobtrusively, was yet gradually advancing towards that high intellectual station in which it first attracted the attention of the world. He did not, with that ill-judged precipitancy by which authors have often seriously suffered in their reputation and fortunes, come unfledged before the world. As already remarked, he wisely refrained from stepping into the arena of literary competition until he was completely accoutred for the contest, and the success he met with was one result of this prudence and forethought.

The friendship which subsisted between Dr Robertson and Mr Hume is, perhaps, next to the genius of these great men, the circumstance connected with them most deserving of our admiration. Though both struggling forward in the same path of historical composition, there were not only no mean jealousies in the race, but each might be seen in turn helping forward the other, and a more interesting sight than this cannot readily be conceived. The letters of Mr Hume to Dr Robertson are full of amiable feeling, and of that light, cheerful raillery, in which the historian of England so much delighted to indulge, and which contrasted so pleasingly with the gravity and dignity of his writings. "Next week," he says, in one of these letters, "I am published, and then I expect a constant comparison will be made between Dr Robertson