This determination closes the first chapter of his life; the second, from 1304 to 1314, is occupied by his contest for the kingdom, which was really won at Bannockburn, though disputed till the treaty of Northampton in 1328; the last, from 1314 to his death in 1329, was the period of the establishment of his government and dynasty by an administration as skilful as his generalship. It is to the second of these that historians, attracted by its brilliancy even amongst the many romances of history and its importance to Scottish history, have directed most of their attention, and it is during it that his personal character, tried by adversity and prosperity, gradually unfolds itself. But all three periods require to be kept in view to form a just estimate of Bruce. That which terminated in 1304, though unfortunately few characteristics, personal or individual, have been preserved, shows him by his conduct to have been the normal Scottish noble of the time. A conflict of interest and of bias led to contradictory action, and this conflict was increased in his case by his father’s residence in England, his own upbringing at the English court, his family feud with Baliol and the Cornyns, and the jealousy common to his class of Wallace, the mere knight, who had rallied the commons against the invader and taught the nobles what was required in a leader of the people. The merit of Bruce is that he did not despise the lesson. Prompted alike by patriotism and ambition, at the prime of manhood he chose the cause of national independence with all its perils, and stood by it with a constancy which never wavered until he secured its triumph. Though it is crowded with incidents, the main facts in the central decade of Bruce’s life may be rapidly told. The fall of Stirling was followed by the capture and execution of Wallace at London on 24th August 1305. Edward hoped still to conciliate the nobles and gain Scotland by a policy of clemency to all who did not dispute his authority. A parliament in London ( 16th September), to which Scottish representatives were summoned, agreed to an ordinance for the government of Scotland, which, though on the model of those for Wales and Ireland, treating Scotland as a third subject province under an English lieutenant, John de Bretagne, was in other respects not severe. Bruce is reputed to have been one of the advisers who assisted in framing it; but a provision that his castle of Kildrummy was to be placed in charge of a person for whom he should answer shows that Edward not without reason suspected his fidelity. Challenged by the king with the bond between him and Lamberton (according to one account discovered by the treachery of John Cornyn, with whom a similar engagement had been made or attempted), Bruce secretly quitted London, and on 10th February 1306 met by appointment, in the church of the Friars Minor at Dumfries, Cornyn, whom he slew at the high altar for refusing to join in his plans. So much is certain, though the precise incidents of the interview were variously told. It was not their first encounter, for a letter of 1299 to Edward from Scotland describes Cornyn as having seized Bruce by the throat at a meeting at Peebles, when they were with difficulty reconciled by the joint regency.

The bond with Lamberton was now sealed by blood and the confederates lost no time in putting it into execution. Within little more than six weeks Bruce, collecting his adherents in the south-west, passed from Lochmaben to Glasgow and thence to Scone, where he was crowned by the bishop of St Andrews on 25th March, the bishops of Glasgow and Moray, with the earls of Lennox, Athole, and Errol, being present. Two days later Isabella, countess of Buchan, claimed the right of her family the Macduff’s, earls of Fife, to place the Scottish king on his throne, and the ceremony was repeated with an addition flattering to the Celtic race. Though a king, Bruce had not yet a kingdom, and his efforts to obtain it were till the death of Edward I. disastrous failures. In June he was defeated at Methven by Pembroke, and on llth August he was surprised in Strathfillan, where he had taken refuge, by Lord Lorn. The ladies of his family were sent to Kildrummy in January, and Bruce, almost without a follower, fled to Rathlin, an island off Antrim (Ireland). Edward, though suffering from his last illness, came to the north in the following spring. On his way he granted the Scottish estates of Bruce and his adherents to his own followers, Annandale falling to the earl of Hereford. At Carlisle there was published a bull excommunicating Bruce, along with another absolving Edward from the oath he had taken to observe Magna Charta and the other charters on which the English constitution rests. Elizabeth the wife, Marjory the daughter, Christina the sister of Bruce, were captured in a sanctuary at Tain and sent prisoners to England. The countess of Buchan was confined in a cage at Berwick and another of Bruce’s sisters, Mary, in a cage at Roxburgh. The bishops of St Andrews and Glasgow and the abbot of Scone were suspended from their benefices and sent as prisoners to the south of England. Nigel Bruce, his youngest brother, was beheaded at Berwick, Christopher Seton, his brother-in-law, at Dumfries. The earl of Atlιole was sent to London and hanged on a gallows 30 feet higher than the pole on which the head of Wallace still stood. Two other brothers of Bruce, Thomas and Alexander (dean of Glasgow), met the same fate at Carlisle. There were many minor victims, but the chronicler of Lanercost notes that the number of those who wished Bruce to be confirmed in the kingdom increased daily. While thus wreaking his vengeance Edward himself was summoned by death at Burgh-on-the-Sands, on the Solway,

on 7th June 1307. By his dying wish the inscription “Edwardus Primus, Scotorum Malleus, Pactum Serva was put on his tomb. In a moment all was changed. Instead of being opposed to the greatest, Bruce now had as his antagonist the feeblest of the Plantagenets. Quitting Rathlin (after a short stay in Arran), Bruce had before Edward’s death attempted to take Turnberry and Ayr, but had failed, though he defeated Pembroke at Loudoun Hill. No sooner was his father dead than Edward II. recalled his banished favourite Gaveston. After wasting the critical moment of the war in the diversions of a youthful court, the new king made an inglorious march to Cumnock and back without striking a blow, and then returned south to celebrate his marriage with Isabella of F rance, leaving the war to a succession of generals. Bruce, with the insight of military genius, seized his opportunity. Leaving Edward, now his only brother in blood and almost his equal in arms, in Galloway, he suddenly transferred his own operations to Aberdeenshire. In the end of 1307 and again in May 1308 he overran Buchan, where at Inverury on 22d May he defeated its earl, one of his chief Scottish opponents. Then crossing to Argyll he surprised Lord Lorn in the Pass of Brander and took Dunstaffnage. In 1309 a truce, scarcely kept, was effected by the pope and Philip of France, and in 1310, in a general council at Dundee, the clergy of Scotland—all the bishops being present—reoognized Bruce as king. The support given him by the national church in spite of his excommunication must have been of great importance in that age, and was probably due to the example of Lamberton. The next three years were signalized by the reduction one by one of the strong places the English still held,—Linlithgow in the end of 1310, Dumbarton in October 1311, Perth by Bruce himself in January 1312. Encouraged by these successes, he made a raid into the north of England, and on his return reduced Butel (in Galloway), Dumfries, and Dalswinton, and threatened Berwick. In March 1313 Sir James Douglas surprised Roxburgh, and Randolph surprised Berwick. In May Bruce was again in England, and, though he failed to take Carlisle, he subdued the Isle of Man. Edward Bruce about the same time took Ruther-glen and laid siege to Stirling, whose governor, Mowbray, agreed to capitulate if not relieved before 24th June 1314. Bruce’s rapidity of movement was one cause of his success. His sieges, the most difficult part of mediaeval w τ arfare, though won sometimes by stratagem, prove that he and his followers had benefited from their early training in the wars of Edward I. We know that he had been specially employed by that king to prepare the siege-train for his attack on Stirling. By the close of 1313 Berwick and Stirling alone remained English. Edward II. felt that if Scotland was not to be lost a great effort must be made. With the whole available feudal levy of England, a contingent from Ireland, and recruits even out of jails—for murderers were pardoned on condition of joining the army —he advanced from Berwick to Falkirk, which, he reached on 22d June. After a preliminary skirmish on Sunday the 23d, in which Bruce distinguished himself by a personal combat with Henry de Bohun, whom he felled by a single blow of his axe, the battle of Bannockburn was fought on Monday the 24th; and the complete rout of the English determined the independence of Scotland and confirmed the title of Bruce. The details of the day, memorable in the history of war as well as of Scotland, have been singularly well preserved, and redound to the credit of Bruce, who had studied in the school of Wallace as well as in that of Edward I. He had chosen and knew his ground,—the New Park between St Ninian’s and the Bannock, a petty burn, yet sufficient to produce marshes dangerous to heavily-armed horsemen, while from the rising ground on his right the enemy’s advance was seen. His troops were in four divisions; his brother commanded the right, Randolph the centre, Douglas the left. Bruce with the reserve planted his standard at the Bore Stone, whence there is the best view of the field. His camp-followers on the Gillies’ Hill appeared over its crest at the critical moment which comes in all battles. The plain on the right of the marshes was prepared with pits and spikes. But what more than any other point of strategy made the fight famous was that the Scots fought on foot in battalions with their spears outwards, in a circular formation serving the same purpose as the modern square. A momentary success of the English archers was quickly reversed by a flank movement of Sir Robert Keith. The Scottish bowmen followed up his advantage, and the fight became general; the English horse, crowded into too narrow a space, were met by the steady resistance of the Scottish pikemen, who knew Bruce told them truly that they fought for their country, their wives, their children, and all that freemen hold dear. The English rear was unable to come up in the narrow space or got entangled in the broken ranks of the van. The first repulse soon passed into a rout, and from a rout into a headlong flight, in which Edward himself barely escaped. Like Courtrai and Morgarten, Bannockburn marked the momentous change from mediaeval to modern warfare. The armed knights gave place to the common soldiers led by skilful generals as the arbiters of the destiny of nations. In the career of Bruce it was the turning-point. The enthusiasm of the nation he had saved forgot his late adhesion to the popular cause, and at the parliament of Ayr on 25th April 1315 the succession was settled by a unanimous voice on him, and, failing males of his body, on his brother Edward and his heirs male, failing whom on his daughter Marjory and her heirs, if she married with his consent Soon after she married Walter the Steward.

The last part of Bruce’s life, from 1315 to 1329, began with an attempt which was the most striking testimony that could have been given to the effect of Bannockburn, and which, had it succeeded, might have altered the future of the British Isles. This was no less than the rising of the whole Celtic race, who had felt the galling yoke of Edward I. and envied the freedom the Scots had won. In 1315 Edward Bruce crossed to Ireland on the invitation of the natives, and in the following year the Welsh became his allies. In autumn Robert came to his brother, and they together traversed Ireland to Limerick. Dublin was saved by its inhabitants committing it to the flames, and, though nineteen victories were won, of which that at Slane in Louth by Robert was counted the chief, the success was too rapid to be permanent. The brothers retreated to Ulster, and, Robert having left Ireland to protect his own borders, Edward was defeated and killed at Dundalk in October 1318. On his return Bruce addressed himself to the siege of Berwick, a standing menace to Scotland. While preparing for it two cardinals arrived in England with a mission from Pope John XXII. to effect a truce, or, failing that, to renew the excommunication of Bruce. The cardinals did not trust themselves across the border; their messengers, however, were courteously received by Bruce, but with a firm refusal to admit the bulls into his kingdom because not addressed to him as king. Another attempt by Newton, guardian of the Friars Minor at Berwick, had a more ignominious result. Bruce admitted Newton to his presence at Aldcamus, where he might see the works for the siege going on by night and day, and was informed that Bruce would not receive the bulls until his title was acknowledged and he had taken Berwick. On his return Newton was waylaid and his papers seized, not without suspicion of Bruce’s connivance.

In March 1318 first the town and then the castle of Berwick capitulated, and Bruce wasted the English border as far as Ripon. In December he held a parliament at Scone, where he displayed the same wisdom as a legislator which he had shown as a general. The death of his brother and his daughter rendered a resettlement of the crown advisable, which was made in the same order as before, with a provision as to the regency...

and by a victorious march towards Constantinople. But before Robert had reached the capital he was summoned back by Gregory VII., his suzerain, to rescue him from the emperor Henry IV., by whom he was being besieged in Rome. After capturing and sacking the city in May 1084 and conducting Gregory to a place of safety in Salerno, Guiscard resumed his operations against Alexius, defeating the united Greek and Venetian fleets, and raising the siege of Corfu in November 1084. While still engaged in active warfare he died of pestilence at Cephalonia on 17th July 1085. He was succeeded in the dukedom by his younger son Roger Bursa, whose son William died without issue in 1127. Guiscard’s eldest son was Marc Bohemond (q.v.).

In 1838 Roberts made a long tour in the East, sailing up the Nile, visiting Luxor and Karnak, and afterwards making his way to the Holy Land. He thus accumulated a vast collection of sketches of a class of scenery which had hitherto been hardly touched by British artists, and which appealed to the public with all the charm of novelty. The next ten years of his life were mainly spent in elaborating these materials. Many Eastern subjects were painted, and an extensive series of drawings was lithographed by Louis Haghe in the superb work, Sketches in the Holy Land and Syria, 1842-49. In 1851, and again in 1853, Roberts visited Italy, painting the Ducal Palace, Venice, bought by Lord Londesborough, the interior of the Basilica of St Peter’s, Rome, Christmas Day, 1853, and Rome from the Convent of St Onofrio, presented to the Royal Scottish Academy. His last volume of illustrations, Italy, Classical, Historical, and Picturesque, was published in 1859. He also executed, by command of the queen, a picture of the opening of the Great Exhibition of 1851,— a laborious and rather uncongenial task. In 1839 he was elected an associate, and in 1841 a full member of the Royal Academy; and in 1858 he was presented with the freedom of the city of Edinburgh. The last years of his life were occupied with a series of views of London from the Thames. He had executed six of these and was at work upon a picture of St Paul’s Cathedral, when on 25th November 1864 he was seized with an attack of apoplexy and expired the same evening.

The quality of Roberts’s work is exceedingly equal and uniform during his whole career. The architecture, which is so prominent a feature in his paintings, is introduced with great picturesqueness and an easy command of its salient points, but with little care for the minutiae of detail. His art was conventional, essentially scenic and spectacular in character, showing effective composition and an unerring instinct for broad general effect, but destitute of that close adherence to nature, that delicacy and truth of tone and colour, which are becoming increasingly characteristic of the productions of the English school. Something of the scene-painter appears in all his works, and his certainty and speed of execution were undoubtedly founded upon his early practice for the stage.

A Life of Roberts, compiled from his journals and other sources by James Ballantine, with etchings and pen-and-ink sketches by the artist, appeared in Edinburgh in 1S66.

The causes of his success as a preacher are obvious. His fine appearance, his flexible and sympathetic voice, his manifest sincerity, the perfect lucidity and artistic symmetry of his address, and the brilliance with which he illustrated his points would have attracted hearers even had he had little to say. But he had much to say. No sermons were ever more compact. They were the utterance of a full, vivid, and penetrating mind. He was not, indeed, a scientific theologian; but his insight into the principles of the spiritual life is unrivalled; and for men approaching the truth from the same side as himself he is an invaluable guide. His own lonely and independent struggle had taught him where foothold was secure, and had enabled him to throw light on many a forgotten stepping-stone of truth. As his biographer says, thousands have found in his sermons “a living source of impulse, a practical direction of thought, a key to many of the problems of theology, and above all a path to spiritual freedom.” In his hands spiritual facts assume an aspect of reasonableness which is irresistible. Religion is felt to be no longer a mystery for the exercise of professional minds, nor an extravagance suitable for enthusiastic temperaments, but an essential of life for all, and in line with the order of things in which we now are. For his sermons obtained their large circulation partly because they were new in kind. They marked the transition from the period in which religion was treated as a series of propositions to that in which it is presented as an essence penetrating the whole of human life. The accusations of heretical and dangerous teaching which were persistently brought against him, though possibly not so malignant as he himself supposed, were certainly more mischievous than the teaching against which they were levelled. Few men have ever more perfectly understood the spirit of Christ, and few have so fully made that spirit their own.

Robertson’s literary remains include five volumes of sermons, two volumes of expository lectures, on Genesis and on the Epistles to the Corinthians, a volume of miscellaneous addresses, and a Key to ‘In Memoriam.’ Robertson’s Life has been written by Stopford A. Brooke. (M. D. )

ROBERTSON Thomas William (1829-1871), English dramatist, was born on 9th January 1829. As a dramatist he had a brief but very brilliant career. It is not too much to say that he was the most successful and distinguished writer of plays in his generation. The son of a provincial actor and manager, chief of a “circuit” that ranged from Bristol to Cambridge, Robertson was familiar with the stage from his childhood; but it was not till the last seven years of his life that he made his mark. He was never, as he admitted himself, very successful as an actor. He tried his hand also at writing plays, and a farcical comedy by him, A Night's Adventure, was produced at the Olympic under Farren’s management as early as 1851. But this did not make good his footing, and he remained for some years longer in the provinces, varying, his work as an actor with miscellaneous contributions to newspapers. In 1860 he went to London with the intention, it is said, of making his living by journalism and light literature. He edited a mining journal and contributed to it a novel afterwards dramatized with the title Shadow Tree Shaft. He wrote a farce entitled A Cantab, which was played at the Strand in 1861. Then, in 1864, came his first marked success, David Garrick, produced at the Haymarket with Sothern in the principal character.. It was not, however, till the production of Society at the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1865, under the management of Miss Marie Wilton, afterwards Mrs Bancroft, that the originality and cleverness of the dramatist were fully recognized. Play-writer and company were exactly suited one to another; the plays and the acting together—the small size of the playhouse being also in their favour—were at once recognized as a new thing, and, while some critics sneered at the “cup-and-saucer comedy,” voted it absurdly realistic, said there was nothing in it but commonplace life represented without a trace of Sheridanian wit and sparkle, all London flocked to the little house in Tottenham Street, and the stage was at once inundated with imitations of the new style of acting and the new kind of play.

Robertson, although his health was already undermined, followed up Society in quick succession with the series of characteristic plays which made the reputation of himself, the company, and the theatre. Ours was produced in 1866, Caste in 1867, Play in 1868, School in 1869, M.P. in 1870. For twenty years there probably has not been a week, hardly a night, in which some one of Robertson’s plays has not been produced somewhere in Great Britain,.

and still they show no sign of abating popularity. The masterly stage-craft is undoubtedly one of the elements in this remarkable conquest of the play-going public; the purity and generous morality of the plays another; the dialogue—which is always bright and clever, without any straining after or indeed much attaining to wit—a third; the humour, distinctness, and typical representativeness of the characters a fourth. That there is more art and individuality in the plays than critics at first were willing to admit is clear from the fact that none of Robertson’s numerous imitators have succeeded in catching his happy knack. Another proof of something like genius—dramatic genius if not literary genius—is the skill with which he repeats the same idea with such variations that each time it is as fresh as if it were new. Again and again his situations owe their point to the contrast between generous kindness of heart and sordid worldliness, or between the ardent trustful affections of youth and the cynicism of disenchanted middle age. Pleasant sunny brightness and ingenuity within a narrow range constitute Robertson’s distinction rather than breadth or fertility or striking brilliancy of wit. He knew his powers and worked steadily within them, not striving to go beyond. With the exception of David Garrick and Home, written for the Haymarket, and Dreams for the Gaiety, all his well-known plays were written for the Prince of Wales Theatre, with which his distinctive style of comedy is identified. Unhappily he did not live long to enjoy his success, but died in London in February 1871.

ROBERTSON William (1721 -1793), an eminent Scottish historian, born at Borthwick, Midlothian, on the 19th September 1721, was the eldest son of the Rev. William Robertson and of Eleanor Pitcairn. He received his early education at the school of Dalkeith,—at that time one of the best in Scotland; but at the age of twelve he was removed to the university of Edinburgh, where he soon manifested that sustained ardour in the pursuit of knowledge which he preserved throughout his long life. On his commonplace books, written when he was a mere youth, he always inscribed the motto: Vita sine literis mors est. He was from the first intended for the ministry; when twenty-two years old he was presented to the living of Gladsmuir in East Lothian, and almost immediately afterwards he lost both his father and his mother, who died within a few hours of each other. The support and education of a younger brother and six sisters then devolved upon him, and, though his income was only £100 a year, he sheltered them all in his house and “continued to educate his sisters under his own roof till they were settled respectably in the world” (Stewart). Robertson’s inclination for study was never allowed to interfere with his duties as a parish minister, which he rather increased than diminished: “it was his custom during the summer months to convene on Sunday morning the youth of the parish of Gladsmuir half an hour before the commencement of the regular service of the church, and to employ that time in explaining to them the doctrines of the Catechism.” His attention to his pastoral duties and his power and distinction as a preacher had made him a local celebrity while still a young man.

His energy and decision of character were brought out vividly by the rebellion of 1745. When Edinburgh seemed in danger of falling into the hands of the rebels he laid aside the pacific habits of his profession and joined the volunteers in the capital. When the city was surrendered he was one of the small band who repaired to Haddington and offered their services to the commander of the royal forces. Such a man could not remain in obscurity, and in the year 1751, when not quite thirty years of age, we find him already taking a prominent part in the business of the General Assembly. On the first occasion when he spoke (in seconding a motion by John Home for the suspension of certain presbyters who had refused to take part in an unpopular settlement) he was listened to with great attention, but his words had so little immediate effect on the assembly that on a division he was left in a minority of eleven against two hundred. A young mart might well have been daunted by such a defeat, but his energy and self reliance refused to yield. His great oratorical power, at once lucid, cogent, and persuasive, had made an impression on men’s minds, and within so short a period as one year, when he again advocated his principles in connexion with what is known as the Inverkeithing case, he carried the house completely with him, and with the deposition of Thomas Gillespie secured a triumph for the policy he had adopted. From that moment his influence in the councils of the Scottish Church as leader of the “moderate party” was for many years nearly supreme (compare Presbyterianism, vol. xix. p. 685). The production of Home’s tragedy of Douglas on the Edinburgh stage (1757) afforded Robertson another occasion for displaying that union of courage and caution which formed a marked feature of his character. Although the influence of moderatism was now visibly in the ascendant, there was still enough of the older spirit of Scottish Puritanism left to take alarm and raise an outcry against a stage play written by a minister and witnessed by many clergymen who were the author’s friends. One of these, the famous Dr Alexander Carlyle, was prosecuted before the synod for having gone to the theatre, and he tells us in his Autobiography that he purposely contrived to exclude Robertson from the post of moderator because “his speaking would be of more consequence if not in the chair.” This testimony is the more noteworthy as Carlyle shows throughout his memoirs a grudging and unfriendly tone when speaking of Robertson. The latter, indeed, was able to render his incriminated colleague great service on this occasion, not only by his talent as a speaker, but by reason of the detached and unassailable position which his customary prudence had led him to take up. He never went to the play himself, he said, but that was not because he thought it wrong but because he had given a solemn promise to his father never to do so. He could not therefore join in censuring other clergymen who were held by no such vow as he had made: “it was sacred to him, but not obligatory on them.” Carlyle was acquitted and Robertson had the credit—which he perhaps somewhat too constantly aimed at and generally secured—of standing well with all parties, of advocating the claims of culture and liberal sentiment without giving ground to their opponents for attacking his personal conduct and character.

But during all this period of prominent activity in the public life of Edinburgh Robertson was busy with those historical labours which have given him a permanent place in British literature. He had conceived the plan of his History of Scotland as early as the year 1753; in July 1757 he had proceeded as far as the Gowrie conspiracy, and in November of the following year David Hume, then residing in London, was receiving the proof-sheets from Strahan and making friendly but searching criticisms on the work in letters to the author. Till he had finished his book Robertson had never left his native country; but the publication of his history necessitated a journey to London, and he passed the early months of the year 1758 partly in the capital and partly in leisurely rambles in the counties of England. He returned on horseback in company with Alexander Carlyle and other Scotsmen, riding all the way from London to Edinburgh in about eighteen days.

The success of the History of Scotland was immediate and splendid, and within a month a second edition was called for. Before the end of the author’s life the book had reached its fourteenth edition; and in the opinion of some it remains Robertson’s greatest work. It soon brought him other rewards than literary fame. In 1759 he was appointed chaplain of Stirling Castle, in 1761 one of His Majesty’s chaplains in ordinary, and in 1762 he was chosen principal of the university of Edinburgh. Two years later the office of king’s historiographer was revived in his favour with a salary of £200 a year. His income greatly surpassed the revenue of any Presbyterian minister before him and at least equalled that of some of the bishops when Episcopacy was established in Scotland. It is the more surprising therefore that this moment of exceptional prosperity should have been chosen by some of his most valued friends to advise him to forsake the Scottish for the English Church and try for preferment south of the Tweed; and the surprise becomes wonder when we learn that those friends were Sir Gilbert Elliot and David Hume. The imprudence, to say nothing of the questionable morality, of such a step would seem too glaring to allow of its recommendation by any honourable well-wishers. Perhaps no man was more fitted than Robertson to measure and reject such injudicious advice, and he probably never gave the matter a second thought. He remained at home among his own people.

The rest of Robertson’s life was uneventful to a degree even surpassing the proverbial uneventfulness of the lives of scholars. He was casting about for another historical subject in the very year in which his first w τ ork appeared, and he was wont to consult his friends on the choice of a period with a naïveté which shows how little the arduousness of historical research was then understood. Hume advised him to -write a history of Greece or else lives in the manner of Plutarch. Dr John Blair urged him to write a complete history of England, while Horace Walpole suggested a history of learning. It must be recorded to Robertson’s credit that he showed a preference from the first for the subject which he ultimately selected, The History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. He took uncommon pains with the work and devoted to it ten consecutive years of labour. It appeared in three volumes quaιto in 1769. In 1777 he published his History of America and in 1791 his Disquisition concerning the Knowledge which the Ancients had of India, which concluded his historical labours and appeared only two years before his death, which occurred near Edinburgh on the 11th June 1793. His fame had long been European, and he left no rival in the field of historical composition save Gibbon alone.

For an adequate appreciation of Robertson’s position in British literature, and more especially of his rank as an historian, we have to consider the country and the age in which he was born and his own personal qualities and limits.

Considering the small size and poverty of the country, Scotland had made a more than creditable figure in literature in the great age of the Reformation and the Renaissance. Its scholars, civilians, and professors of logic and philosophy were welcomed wherever learning flourished, except, perhaps, in England. All Europe could not show a more brilliant writer and publicist than Buchanan, and “the best romance that ever was written” (the words are Cowper’s) was produced by a Scottish contemporary of Shakespeare, viz., the once famous Argeηis of John Barclay. But the early triumphs of Scottish genius were all won in a foreign if familiar idiom, the common language of the learned; and when Latin retreated before the growing importance of modern tongues the Scots had no literary vernacular on which to fall back. For a century and a half (1600-1750) a Scottish writer to be read was forced to use a foreign language,—Latin, English, and even occasionally French. As Burton has well remarked, this alone was sufficient to account in a large measure for the literary barrenness of the country. There was unquestionably another cause at work,—the fervent religious zeal with which the principles of the Reformation had been embraced: neither science, literature, nor art could obtain much attention from men who regarded them all as “deceitful vanities,” leading the mind away from the one thing needful. In a small and sparsely peopled country, without wealth, commerce, or even politics in the larger sense, theology became a too absorbing and unique mental stimulus. This was, we may say, proved by the fact that as soon as the union with England opened a wider scope for Scottish energy and enterprise the theological temperature immediately fell,—a change witnessed with natural alarm by the more zealous clergy. “The rise of our too great fondness for trade,” writes the Rev. Robert Wodrow in 1709, “to the neglect of our more valuable interests, I humbly think, will be written on our judgment” (Buckle, vol. ii. p. 301). The growth of wealth stimulated the growth of the other great factor of civilization, that of knowledge, and by the middle of the 18th century, just at the time when Robertson was planning his History of Scotland, a wide spirit of inquiry was abroad. Scottish intellect had risen from the tomb in which it had lain entranced for more than a hundred years. The Scottish contribution to British literature in the last half of the century is distinctly superior to that produced in the southern portion of the island. In philosophy and political and economic science the balance is immensely in favour of Scotland. Robertson was therefore no inexplicable prodigy—an “obscure Scotch parson” writing “like a minister of state,” as it pleased Walpole and the London fops to regard him. He lived in a society far more propitious to high literary work than could be found in London or the English universities.

The connexion between philosophy and history is closer than appears at first sight. The study of man and his faculties, even ontological speculations as to the nature and origin of the universe, lead by a logical sequence to a consideration of human evolution in time, that is, to history. The coincidence of philosophical speculation with historical achievement so repeatedly manifested cannot be accidental. The topic cannot be developed here; but from the days of the Attic historians, who lived in an atmosphere electric with speculation, to the Hegelian historical school of Germany, the higher planes of history are found in near proximity to loftier peaks of philosophy. Hume, wonderful in all things, was perhaps most wonderful in this, that in him the two characters of the philosopher and the historian were completely united. He did not only, like Kant and Hegel, speculate about history; he wrote it. Again, we must admire the peculiar fortune of Robertson: he lived during many years in close contact and intimacy with the greatest philosophic genius of his age, perhaps of modern times.

Of the three great British historians of the 18th century two were Scotsmen. The exact place of Robertson with regard to his two friends Hume and Gibbon, and to such historians as the rest of Europe had to offer, presents a question of some nicety, because it is complicated by extraneous considerations, so to speak, which should not weigh in an abstract estimate, but cannot be excluded in a concrete and practical one. If we regard only Robertson’s potential historic power, the question is not so much whether he was equal to either of his two friends as whether he was not superior to both. The man who wrote the review of the state of Europe prefixed to the

History of Charles V., or even the first book of the History of Scotland, showed that he had a wider and more synthetic conception of history than either the author of the Decline and Fall or the author of the History of England. These two portions of Robertson’s work, with all their shortcomings in the eye of modern criticism, have a distinctive value which time cannot take away. He was one of the first to see the importance of general ideas in history. He saw that the immediate narrative of events with which he was occupied needed a background of broad and connected generalizations, referring to the social state of which the detailed history formed a part. But he did more than this. In the appendix to the view of Europe called “Proofs and Illustrations” he enters into the difficult and obscure question of land tenure in Frankish times, and of the origin of the feudal system, with a sagacity and knowledge which distinctly advanced the comprehension of this period beyond the point at which it had been left by Du Bos, Montesquieu, and Mably. He was fully acquainted with the original documents,—many of them, we may conjecture, not easy to procure in Scotland. It must have been a genuine aptitude for historical research of a scientific kind which led Robertson to undertake the labour of these austere disquisitions of which there were not many in his day who saw the importance. Gibbon, so superior to him for wide reading and scholarship, has pointedly avoided them. It need hardly be said that many, perhaps the majority, of Robertson’s views on this thorny topic are out of date now. But he deserves the honour of a pioneer in one of the most obscure if also important lines of inquiry connected with European history. On the other hand, it must be admitted that he showed himself only too tame a follower of Voltaire in his general appreciation of the Middle Ages, which he regarded with the mingled ignorance and prejudice common in the l8th century. In this particular he was not at all in advance of his age.

The neglect and gradual oblivion which are now overtaking the greater part of Robertson’s historical work are owing to no fault of his. He had not and could not have the requisite materials: they were not published or accessible. Justice requires that we should estimate his performance in view of the means at his command, and few critics would hesitate to subscribe to the verdict of Buckle, “that what he effected with his materials was wonderful.” His style, whether of narrative or disquisition, is singularly clear, harmonious, and persuasive. The most serious reproach made against it is that it is correct to a fault and lacks idiomatic vigour, and the charge is not without foundation. But there can be no doubt that, if Robertson’s writings are less read than they formerly were, the fact is to be attributed to no defects of style but to the growth of knowledge and to the immense extension of historical research which has inevitably superseded his initiatory and meritorious labours. (j. c. mo.)

Roberval was one of those mathematicians who, just before the invention of the calculus, occupied their attention with problems which are only soluble, or can be most easily solved, by some method involving limits or infinitesimals, and in the solution of which accordingly the calculus is always now employed. Thus he devoted some attention to the quadrature of curves and the cuba-ture of surfaces, which he accomplished, in some of the simpler cases, by a method of his own, called by himself the “Method of Indivisibles”; but he lost much of the credit of the discovery as he kept his method for his own use, while Cavalieri published a similar method of his own. Another of RobervaΓs discoveries was a very general method of drawing tangents, by considering a curve as described by a moving point whose motion is the resultant of several simpler motions. His own description of his method may be translated as follows :—“General rule. By means of the specific properties of the curve, which will be given, examine the different motions of the tracing point at the place where you wish to draw the tangent; the direction of the tangent is that of the resultant of these motions.” He also discovered a method of deriving one curve from another, by means of which finite areas can be obtained equal to the areas between certain curves and their asymptotes. To these curves, which were also applied to effect some quadratures, Torricelli gave the name of Robervallian lines. Between Roberval and Descartes there existed a feeling of ill-will, owing to the jealousy aroused in the mind of the former by the criticism which Descartes offered to some of the methods employed by him and by Fermat; and this led him to criticize and oppose the new geometry which Descartes introduced about this time. As results of RobervaΓs labours outside the department of pure mathematics may be noted a work on the system of the universe, in which he supports the Copernican system and attributes a mutual attraction to all particles of matter; and also the invention of a special kind of balance which goes by his name (see Balance, vol. iii. p. 266).

Such had been the life of the future republican leader up to 1788, when he took part in the discussion as to the λvay in which the states-general should be elected, showing clearly and forcibly in his Adresse à la Nation Artésienne that, if the former mode of election by the members of the provincial estates was again adopted, the new states-general would not represent the people of France. Necker also perceived this, and therefore determined to make the old royal bailliages and séné-chaussées the units of election. Under this plan the city of Arras was to return twenty-four members to the assembly of the bailliage of Artois, which was to elect the deputies. The corporation claimed the right to a preponderating influence in these city elections, and Robespierre headed the opposition, making himself very conspicuous and drawing up the cahier or table of complaints and grievances, for the guild of the cobblers. Although the leading members of the corporation were elected, their chief opponent succeeded in getting elected with them. In the assembly of the bailliage rivalry ran still higher, but Robespierre had already made his mark in politics; by the A vis aux Habitants de Campagne (Arras, 1789), which is almost certainly by him, he secured the support of the country electors, and, though but thirty years of age, poor, and without influence, he was elected fifth deputy of the tiers état of Artois to the states-general.

When the states-general met at Versailles on 5th May 1789, the young deputy of Artois already possessed the one faculty which was to lead him to supremacy: he was a fanatic. As Mirabeau said, “That young man believes what he says; he will go far.” Without the courage and wide tolerance w τ hich make a statesman, without the greatest qualities of an orator, without the belief in himself which marks a great man, nervous, timid, and suspicious, Robespierre yet believed in the doctrines of Rousseau with all his heart, and would have gone to death for them; and in the belief that they would eventually succeed and regenerate France and mankind he was ready to work with unwearied patience. While the constituent assembly occupied itself in drawing up an unworkable constitution as the grand panacea, Robespierre turned from the assembly of provincial avocats and wealthy bourgeois to the people of Paris. However, he spoke frequently in the constituent assembly, and often with great success, and was eventually recognized as second only to Pétion de Villeneuve—if second to him—as a leader of the small body of the extreme left,—the thirty voices, as Mirabeau contemptuously called them. It is hardly necessary to examine minutely Robespierre’s speeches and behaviour before 1791, when the death of Mirabeau left the way clear for the influence of his party; but what is noteworthy, as proving the religious cast of his mind and his belief in the necessity of à religion, is that he spoke several times in favour of the lower clergy and laboured to get their pensions increased. When he instinctively felt that his doctrines would have no success in the assembly, he turned to the Jacobin Club, which had consisted originally of the Breton deputies only, but which, after the assembly moved to Paris, began to admit among its members various leaders of the Parisian bourgeoisie. As time went on, many of the more intelligent artisans and petits commerçants became members of the club, and among such men Robespierre found the hearers he sought. They did more than listen to him: they idolized him; the fanatical leader had found fanatics to follow him, and their ultimate supremacy became merely a question of time. As the wealthier bourgeois of Paris and deputies of a more moderate type seceded to the club of ’89 the influence of the old leaders of the Jacobins (Barnave, Duport, Charles de Lameth)diminished; and, when they themselves, alarmed at the progress of the Revolution, founded the club of the Feuillants in 1791, the followers of Robespierre dominated the Jacobin Club. The death of Mirabeau strengthened Robespierre’s influence in the assembly; but in May 1791 he proved his lack of statesmanlike insight and his jealous suspicion of his colleagues by proposing and carrying the motion that no deputies who sat in the constituent could sit in the succeeding assembly. The flight of the king on 2lst June and his arrest at Varennes excited Robespierre’s suspicions, and made him declare himself at the Jacobin Club to be “ni monarchiste ni républicain.” But the vigorous conduct of Lafayette and the National Guard on the Champ de Mars on l7th July 1791 terrified him, for he believed that he was a predestined victim, until he was succoured by Duplay, a cabinetmaker in the Rue St Honoré, and an ardent admirer of his, in whose house he lived (with but two short intervals) till his death. At last came his day of triumph, when on 30th September, on the dissolution of the constituent assembly, the people of Paris crowned Pétion and himself as the two incorruptible patriots.

On the dissolution of the assembly he returned for a short visit to Arras, where he met with a triumphant reception. In November he returned to Paris, and on 18th December made a speech which marks a new epoch in his life. Brissot, the dme politique of the Girondin party which had been formed in the legislative assembly, urged vehemently that war should be declared against Austria, and the queen was equally urgent in the hope that a victorious army might restore the old absolutism of the Bourbons. Two men opposed the projects of the queen and the Girondins,—Marat and Robespierre: Marat opposed them for statesmanlike reasons (see Marat), and Robespierre on humanitary grounds and because as a follower of Rousseau he disliked war. This opposition from those whom they had expected to aid them irritated the Girondins greatly, and from that moment began the struggle which ended in the coups Pétat of 3lst May and 2d June 1793. Guadet accused Robespierre of superstition in believing in a providence, and declared that, as the people’s idol, he ought to ostracize himself for the good of his country. Robespierre persisted in his opposition to the war, and the Girondins, especially Brissot, attacked him so violently that in April 1792 he resigned the post of public prosecutor at the tribunal of Paris, which he had Held since February, and started a journal, Le Défenseur de la Constitution, in his own defence. It is noteworthy that during the summer months of 1792, in which the fate ,f the Bourbon dynasty was being sealed, neither the Girondins in the legislative assembly nor Robespierre took any active part in overthrowing it. Stronger men with practical instincts of statesmanship, like Danton and Billaud-Varenne, who were not afraid of blood, and who dared to look facts in the face and take the responsibility of doing while others were talking, were the men who made the 10th of August and took the Tuileries. The Girondins, however, were quite ready to take advantage of the accomplished fact; and Robespierre, likewise, though shocked at the shedding of blood, was willing to take his seat on the commune of Paris, which had overthrown Louis XVI., and might check the Girondins. The strong men of the commune were glad to have Robespierre’s assistance, not because they cared for him or believed in him, but because of the help got from his popularity, his reputation for virtue, and his influence over the Jacobin Club and its branches, which spread all over France. He it was who presented the petition of the commune of Paris on lβth August to the legislative assembly, demanding the establishment of a revolutionary tribunal and the summons of a convention. The massacres of September in the prisons, which Robespierre in vain attempted to stop, showed that the commune had more confidence in Billaud than in him. Yet, as a proof of his personal popularity, he was a few days later elected first deputy for Paris to the national convention.

On the meeting of the convention the Girondins immediately attacked Robespierre; they were jealous of his popularity and knew that his single-hearted fanaticism would never forgive their intrigues with the king at the end of July, and would always be opposed to their plans for raising the duke of Orleans to the throne. As early as 26th September the Girondin Lasource accused him of aiming at the dictatorship; afterwards he was informed that Marat, Danton, and himself were plotting to become triumvirs; and eventually on 29th October Louvet attacked him in a studied and declamatory harangue, abounding in ridiculous falsehoods and obviously concocted in Madame Roland’s boudoir. But Robespierre had no difficulty in rebutting this attack (5th November). All personal disputes, however, gave way by the month of December 1792 before the great question of the king’s trial, and here Robespierre took up a position which is at least easily understood. These are his words spoken on 3d December: “This is no trial; Louis is not a prisoner at the bar; you are not judges; you are—you cannot but be statesmen, and the representatives of the nation. You have not to pass sentence for or against a single man, but you have to take a resolution on a question of the public safety, and to decide a question of national foresight. It is with regret that I pronounce the fatal truth; Louis ought to perish rather than a hundred thousand virtuous citizens; Louis must die, that the country may live.” This great question settled by the king’s execution, the struggle between Robespierre and the Girondins entered upon a more acute stage, and the want of statesmanship among the latter threw upon the side of the fanatical Robespierre Danton and all those strong practical men who cared little for personal questions, and whose only desire was the victory of France in her great struggle with Europe. Had it been at all possible to act with that group of men of genius whom history calls the Girondins, Danton, Carnot, Robert Lindet, and even Billaud-Varenne would have sooner thrown in their lot with them than with Robespierre, whom they thoroughly understood; but the Girondins, spurred on by Madame Roland, refused to have anything to do with Danton. Government became impossible; the federalist idea, which would have broken France to pieces in the very face of the enemy, grew and flourished, and the men of action had to take a decided part. In the month of May 1793 Camille Desmoulins, acting under the inspiration of Robespierre and Danton, published his Histoire des Bmssotins and Bmssot devoile;

Isnard declared· that Paris must be destroyed; Robespierre preached insurrection at the Jacobin Club; and on 3lst May and 2d June the commune of Paris destroyed the Girondin party. For a moment it seemed as if France would avenge them; but patriotism was stronger than federalism. The defence of Lyons only exasperated the men who were working for France, and the armies who were fighting for her, and on 27th July 1793, when the struggle was practically decided, the convention elected Robespierre to the committee of public safety.

This election marks an important epoch, not only in the life of Robespierre, but in the history of the Revolution. Danton and the men of action had throughout the last two years of the crisis, as Mirabeau had in the first two years, seen that the one great need of France, if she was to see the end of her troubles without the interference of foreign armies, was the existence of a strong executive government. The means for establishing the much-needed strong executive were found in the committee of public safety. The success of this committee in suppressing the Norman insurrection had confirmed the majority of the convention in the expediency of strengthening its powers, and the committee of general security which sat beside it was also strengthened and given the entire management of the internal police of the country. When Danton, who had been a member of the committee from April to lθth July 1793, left it Robespierre was elected; and it was not until then that he became one of the actual rulers of France. Indeed the committee was not finally constituted until the l3th of September, when the last two of the “great” twelve who held office until July 1794 were elected. Of these twelve at least seven, Carnot, Billaud-Varenne, Collot d’Herbois, Prieur (of the Marne), Prieur (of the Côte d’Or), Jean Bon Saint-André, and Robert Lindet, were essentially men of action, all of whom despised rather than feared Robespierre owing to his supposed timidity, and were entirely free from his influence. Of the other four Hérault de Séchelles was a professed adherent of Danton; Barère was an eloquent Provençal, who was ready to be the spokesman to the convention of any view which the majority of the committee might adopt; and only Couthon and Saint-Just shared Robespierre’s political enthusiasm for the regeneration of France by the gospel of Rousseau. It is necessary to dwell upon the fact that Robespierre was always in a minority in the great committee in order to absolve him from the blame of being the inventor of the enormities of the Terror, as well as to deprive him of the glory of the gallant stand made against Europe in arms.

After this examination of Robespierre’s position it is not necessary to investigate closely every act of the great committee during the year which was pre-eminently the year of the Terror; the biographer is rather called upon to examine his personal position with regard to the establishment of the Terror and the fall of the Hébertists and Dantonists, and then to dwell upon the last three months in which he stood almost alone trying to work up an effective counterbalance to the power of the majority of the great committee. The Terror was the embodiment of the idea of Danton, that it was necessary to have resort to extreme measures to keep France united and strong at home in order to meet successfully her enemies upon the frontier. This idea was systematized by the committee of public safety, or rather by two members of it acting for the majority, Billaud-Varenne and Collot d’Herbois, without much consideration as to who were to be the victims. With the actual organization of the Terror Robespierre had little or nothing to do; its two great engines, the revolutionary tribunal and the absolute power in the provinces of the representatives on mission, were in existence before he joined the committee of public safety, and the laws of the maximum and of the suspects were by no means of his creation. The reason why he is almost universally regarded as its creator and the dominant spirit in the committee of public safety is not hard to discover. Men like Carnot and Billaud-Varenne were not conspicuous speakers in the convention, nor were they the idols of any section of the populace; but Robespierre had a fanatical following among the Jacobins and was admittedly the most popular orator in the convention. His panegyrics on the system of revolutionary government and his praise of virtue led his hearers to believe that the system of the Terror, instead of being monstrous, was absolutely laudable; his pure life and admitted incorruptibility threw a lustre on the committee of which he was a member; and his colleagues offered no opposition to his posing as their representative and reflecting some of his personal popularity upon them so long as he did not interfere with their work. Moreover, he alone never left Paris, whilst all the others, except Barere, were constantly engaged on missions to the armies, the navy, and the provinces. It has been asserted that Robespierre, Couthon, and Saint-Just took upon themselves the direction of “la haute politique,” while the other members acted only in subordinate capacities; undoubtedly it would have suited Robespierre to have had this believed, but as a matter of fact he was in no way especially trusted in matters of supreme importance.

After this explanation it may be said at once that Robespierre was not the author of the overthrow of the Dantonists and the Hébertists, though he thoroughly agreed with the majority and had no desire to save them, the principles of both parties being obnoxious to him. The Hébertists were communists in the true meaning of the word. They held that each commune should be self-governing, and, while admitting the right of a central authority to levy men and money for the purposes of the state, they believed that in purely internal matters, as well as in determining the mode in which men and money were to be raised, the local government ought to be supreme. This position of the Hébertists was of course obnoxious to the great committee, who believed that success could only be won by their retention of absolute power; and in the winter of 1791-95 it became obvious that the Hébertist party must perish, or its opposition to the committee would grow too formidable owing to its paramount influence in the commune of Paris. Robespierre shared his colleagues’ fear of the Hébertist opinions, and he had a personal reason for disliking that party of atheists and sansculottes, since he believed in the necessity of religious faith, and was too much of a gentleman not to detest their imitation of the grossness that belongs to the lowest class of the populace. In 1792 he had indignantly thrown from...