Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/423

 sphere Robertson was aided by the counsels of Cosmo Innes and Hill Burton, and supported by his official superiors, the Marquis of Dalhousie and Sir J. Gibson Craig. Among his duties were the arrangement and selection of such records as were of special value, their publication in a manner similar to that of the series published under the direction of the master of the rolls in England, so far as the meagre grants to Scotland permitted, and the answering constant inquiries into all branches of Scottish history. The last duty, performed with kindly courtesy and keen intelligence, took up much of his time. Always diligent, and working perhaps somewhat beyond his physical strength, Robertson edited in 1863 the ‘Inventories of Jewels, Dresses, Furniture, Books, and Paintings belonging to Queen Mary,’ and ‘Concilia Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ’ in 1866, which are among the best publications of the Bannatyne Club. The ‘Concilia’ is Robertson's chief work; for, besides collecting the whole extant record sources for the history of the councils of the church of Scotland prior to the Reformation, he filled the notes with such copious stores of learning as to make them almost an ecclesiastical history of Scotland during the period. An article on ‘Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals’ in the ‘Quarterly Review’ for 1849 gave further proof of his fitness to undertake a complete ecclesiastical history of Scotland. His contributions to ‘Chambers's Encyclopædia’ on topics of Scottish history, civil as well as ecclesiastical, were valuable results of original research. He died on 13 Dec. 1866, soon after completing the ‘Concilia.’ He was survived by his wife, two sons, and two daughters. To his wife Queen Victoria granted a pension of 100l. a year, in consideration of Robertson's ‘services to literature, and especially illustrative of the ancient history of Scotland.’

[Memoir prefixed to editions of the Abbeys and Cathedrals of Scotland, Aberdeen, 1891; personal knowledge.] 

ROBERTSON, JOSEPH CLINTON (1788–1852), joint compiler of the ‘Percy Anecdotes,’ born in London in 1788, was a patent agent in Fleet Street, the business being carried on until 1892 as ‘Robertson & Brooman.’ Robertson founded the ‘Mechanic's Magazine’ in 1823, and edited and largely wrote it until the year of his death. He gave evidence before the House of Commons committee on patent law in 1849. His chief title to remembrance rests on ‘The Percy Anecdotes,’ 20 vols. London, 1821–3, 12mo (subsequent editions 1830, 1868, 1869, and various American editions). The volumes, which came out in forty-four monthly parts, were professedly written by Sholto and Reuben Percy. Reuben was Thomas Byerley [q. v.], and Sholto was Robertson. The so-styled ‘brothers Percy’ met to discuss the work at the Percy coffee-house in Rathbone Place, whence their compilation derived its name. Sir Richard Phillips [q. v.] afterwards claimed that the original idea was derived from his suggestion to file the anecdotes which had appeared in the ‘Star’ newspaper over a long series of years. The ‘Percys’ did little more than classify a collection of anecdotes formed upon a similar plan. The same collaborators commenced a series of ‘Percy Histories, or interesting Memorials of the Capitals of Europe,’ but this got no further than ‘London,’ 1823, 3 vols. 12mo. Robertson also started as ‘Sholto Percy,’ in 1828, an abridgment of the ‘Waverley Novels.’ He died at Brompton on 22 Sept. 1852.

[Gent. Mag. 1852, ii. 548; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. vii. 214, 3rd ser. ix. 168; Allibone's Dict. of English Lit. s. v. ‘Percy, Sholto;’ Halkett and Laing's Dict. of Anon. and Pseudon. Lit. iii. 1884; Blackwood's Mag. xi. 605; Percy Anecd. in Chandos Classics, with pref. by Timbs, 4 vols. 1868; Brit. Mus. Cat.] 

ROBERTSON, PATRICK, (1794–1855), Scottish judge, born in Edinburgh on 17 Feb. 1794, was the second son of James Robertson, writer to the signet, who died on 15 April 1820. His mother's maiden name was Mary Saunders. He was educated at the high school of Edinburgh, and was called to the Scottish bar on 27 May 1815, along with his friend John Wilson [q. v.], afterwards better known as ‘Christopher North.’ He soon obtained a practice, both in the court of session and before the general assembly. In January 1838 he defended the Glasgow cotton-spinners before the high court of justiciary at Edinburgh. On 29 Nov. 1842 he was chosen dean of the faculty of advocates. He was appointed an ordinary lord of session in the place of Lord Meadowbank in November 1843, and took his seat on the bench as Lord Robertson. In 1848 he was elected by the students lord rector of Marischal College and university of Aberdeen, and received the degree of LL.D. He died suddenly, from a stroke of apoplexy, at his house in Drummond Place, Edinburgh, on 10 Jan. 1855, aged 60. He was buried in West Church burying-ground, Edinburgh, on the 15th of the same month. A marble tablet was erected to his memory in St. Giles's Church. 