Notes and Queries, Number 170, January 29, 1853

Notes and Queries, Number 170, January 29, 1853 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.

This work, so often quoted, is familiar to every antiquary; but as the name of the intelligent and laborious editor does not appear in any of our biographical dictionaries, a short sketch may not be unacceptable to our readers. William Robertson was born at Fordyce, in the county of Banff, in the year 1740. Having gone through the usual course of elementary instruction in reading and writing, he entered the Latin class at the grammar school of his native parish; a seminary then, as now, of great celebrity in the North of Scotland. Among his schoolfellows he contracted a particular intimacy with Mr. George Chalmers, afterwards Secretary of the Board of Trade; so well known by many elaborate and valuable commercial, historical, and biographical publications. The connexion between the schoolboys, originating in a similarity of taste and pursuits, was strengthened at a subsequent period of their lives by the contributions of the intelligent Deputy Keeper of the Records of Scotland to the local and historical information of the author of Caledonia, so honourably recorded in that national work. He completed his academical studies at King's College, Aberdeen, where he was particularly distinguished by his proficiency in the Greek language, under Professor Leslie. He was then apprenticed to Mr. Turner of Turnerhall, advocate in Aberdeen; but had been little more than a year in that situation, when Mr. Burnett of Monboddo applied to Professor Leslie to recommend to him as his second clerk a young man who had a competent knowledge of the Greek language, and properly qualified to aid him in his literary pursuits. The Professor immediately mentioned young Robertson; and Mr. Turner, in the most handsome manner, cancelled his articles of apprenticeship. During his connexion with Mr. Burnett, he accompanied him in several visits to France, on taking evidence as one of the counsel in the great Douglas cause. On his first visit there, he went with him to see the savage girl, who, at that time, was creating a great sensation in Paris; and, at his request, made a translation {102}of M. Condamines' account of her, to which Mr. Burnett wrote a preface. In the year 1766 he was appointed Chamberlain to James, Earl of Findlater and Seafield, on the recommendation of Lord Monboddo. In 1768 he published, at Edinburgh, The History of Greece, from the Earliest Times till it became a Roman Province, being a concise and particular account of the civil government, religion, literature, and military affairs of the states of Greece, for the use of seminaries of education, and the general reader, in 1 vol. 12mo. At this period, having caught a portion of the jealous nationality of the multitude, he published a political jeu d'esprit entitled A North Briton Extraordinary, by a young Scotsman in the Corsican service, 4to., 1769: designed to repel the illiberal invectives of Mr. Wilkes against the people of Scotland. Some of the popular objections to the Union reiterated by the young Scotsman having been found in the characteristic discussion between Lieutenant Lesmahagon and Matthew Bramble on the same subject, in The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker, the authorship was on that account erroneously attributed to Dr. Smollet, who had then discontinued an unsuccessful opposition to Mr. Wilkes in the The Briton. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 42785
Author: Various
Release Date: May 24, 2013
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Bell, George, 1814-1890