Book Description

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ACCOUNT THE LIFE AND WRITINGS or WILLIAM ROBERTSON, D.D. SECTION FIRST. From Dr. Robertson's Birth Till The Publication Of His History Of Scotland. 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-Friars' Church, and of Eleanor Pit- caim, 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 aera in the literary annals of his country, the habits and occurrences of his life were such as to supply few materials for biography; and Sc. Vol. i. a 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, perce...