unfortunately not much valued at first. Must we confess it,the absolute truthfulness, the requiring of evidence for every step, the highest qualities in the editor of such a work, were not in great repute in Scotland. Our older historians, from Fordun and Boece down to Leslie and Buchanan, were great inventors, after a classical model, and were at no loss to supply facts to support their principles; and later writers of national antiquities were hardly more to be depended upon. Chalmers, the most industrious, is sadly wanting in accurate scholarship. Pinkerton, the most learned, is so full of prejudice, and so violent in expressing it, that truth is lost in the rage of words. Lord Hailes was a better guide, but his Presbyterian leaning, and a somewhat foolish fear of being scorned as superstitious, kept him from working out and using the imperfect relics of Church history and law, from which Joseph Robertson has derived such important aids for history. All these things were against us when Robertson began his labours, and even in the present day we have writers making a gainful trade of family history, who are capable of colouring and even suppressing documents; and industrious and quite honest amateur collectors founding on 'family tradition'-which means the drawing-room scrap-book-and Abercromby's martial achievements!'

Leaving Aberdeen, Robertson spent some years in Glasgow, still as editor of a newspaper-the Constitutional;' but finding time to continue his Spalding Club works, and to edit for the Maitland Club some books of a similar nature, or requiring the same qualities in an editor. At Glasgow he found time too to contribute to the Quarterly Review a paper on the ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland, which greatly pleased the critical taste of Mr. Lockhart, the editor, and which is a good specimen of the author's style and of the careful way in which he arrays his facts and proofs and inferences. Like others of his works, this paper, now printed separately, has become the handbook' for the subject. Robertson was gradually becoming known even while cultivating studies so severe and little popular; and when he came to Edinburgh to take charge of the Courant newspaper, he was received very cordially among a little band of students and fellow-labourers in the field of historical antiquities. The meetings of the Society of Antiquaries were attractive to him, and gave him opportunities of bringing forward some of his rare learning and accomplishment. He had his recreations too, and he enjoyed the rare intervals of freedom that broke the hard work of everyday life as much as he had of old enjoyed a school holiday at Udny. It was in the fine autumn of '53 that he spent a week with some friends in the north, who were leading the rough half-pastoral life of a

shooting-lodge. Robertson had not visited that part of the country before, but he soon showed that he knew its history well, and could enjoy its remarkable beauty. The youngest of the party were not too wild for him in their rambles in the old forest and in the rocky gorges of the river. He ran and climbed and swam with the most active. But when the seniors wanted quieter occupation, he was ready. They all knew the picturesque ruins of the Abbey in the glen, but what a charm was added to them when Joseph Robertson recalled the foundation and endowments of the monastery by kings and bishops, and taught his pupils to find the farms bestowed in their charters, and the pools where the monks had special grants of salmon-fishing! How genially he described the peaceful life of the old monks, --their labours of the field, the mill, the river; their building, their gardening, their studies, their church-service! He told how they had got a Papal Bull to give them the right, and then worked iron out of those hills, where none is found now, though there are traces of the slag round the smelting-pits of those old miners. The party returned with quite a changed idea of monastic life. Another day he led the same party away over some miles of heather to a remote moorland loch, in the midst of which stands an ancient strength, once the head castle of a great earldom. It was known to be of Edwardian architecture, and that was one attraction for Robertson. While they ate their luncheon on the green bank of the loch, he told how the Countess of Athole had been besieged there by the Regent, Sir Andrew of Moray, and of Edward III.'s marvellous march with men-at-arms-heavy cavalry-through the fastnesses of Athole and Mar to relieve her. But the castle had another interest, for it was shrewdly suspected to be built upon piles driven in the lake; and Robertson enlightened his friends with descriptions of cranogues and lacustrine dwellings, then little known. There was no time for the investigation that day, and when he was gone the spirit and interest flagged.

In the summer of '61, he was on a more exciting adventure. It was then that the tumulus of Maes-howe, beside the great circle of Stennes, was opened; and there, says Mr. Farrer, the keen eye of Mr. Joseph Robertson discovered the first of the Runic inscriptions.' So, a year or two later, he was of the exploring party that discovered the remarkable sculptures on the walls of the caves at Wemyss.

But we have gone too fast. As editor of the Courant, he discharged his duty with strict conscientiousness; but the labour of editing a newspaper three times a week bore heavily even upon his buoyant spirits; and when his friends saw a possible opening for him in the Register House, he

caught eagerly at what had been one of his earliest wishes, although the emolument was much less than his editorial salary. Towards the end of the year 1853 he received the appointment of Searcher of Records for literary purposes, or, as the office was afterwards authoritatively named, Curator of the Historical Department. The office was given him by Lord Aberdeen's Government, and indeed at his Lordship's personal suggestion. The duty was perfectly to his taste, and he took to his new occupation with all his heart. In a short time he had the good fortune to serve under a chief who appreciated his qualities, and knew how to turn them to account.

When Sir William Gibson-Craig came to the Register House as Lord Clerk Register, he was struck with the talents and learning of Robertson, and almost at once employed him in preparing his great scheme of Record publications. Now commenced the busiest and the happiest time of Robertson's life. In virtue of his office, he had to make the vast stores of original records under his custody accessible to all students, and this he did in no formal or niggard manner. He sympathized with all intelligent study, and was delighted to serve as a guide to the right sources of information. He was free from the petty jealousy which sometimes makes a keeper of records unwilling to have his stores made public. He despised, and could hardly conceal his contempt for men who hide historical documents for fear they might lose value by being known. The new duties thrown upon him by the Lord Register were equally agreeable to him. He took pleasure in arranging the materials of a great collection of national MSS., to be printed by Sir Henry James's process of Zincography, a new and more intelligent Anderson's Diplo mata, and he planned and looked forward to superintending the publications which should illustrate from records all the great eras of our history. He gathered materials which should throw new light on the War of Independence; the constitution fixed by Bruce; the reigns of our Stuart kings, so full of noble designs seldom accomplished; the Reformation time, and his own peculiar era of Queen Mary, where every point is disputed, and waits the settlement of records. Later still, he had the whole field marked out, the records that would be most useful, the editors to use them. Collections were to be made for the great civil war under Charles I., which has been made history in England, but not here. He dwelt upon the growth and progress of political study, the definite shaping of the constitution, and social changes which mark that period. He had not much sympathy with the Covenanters and Puritans in church matters, and it was more as a Scotchman than as a religionist that he took pride in the resistance to Laud, which brought matters to a crisis

in both countries. He was a hearty patriot and politician, though no partisan, and, with all his feeling for remote antiquity, he thought the living and earnest interest of political students should not be postponed indefinitely, while the scattered fragments of an earlier state of society are collecting for curious antiquaries. Robertson threw all his energies into the discharge of these double, but not inconsistent duties,-the assisting of the living student of history, the preparation of materials for the future historian. His temper was almost imperturbable; and the most exacting, even the most ignorant inquirer, never put him out of humour by his interruptions.

On the other hand, it often happened that two or three friends, working on kindred subjects, met in his room and communicated their difficulties. Then ensued pleasant disputes, and then shone forth Robertson's accurate knowledge and marvellous memory. His precision was not offensive, there was so much gentleness and modesty in his manner. These qualities, with the ready use of the historical stores in his custody, soon reached beyond the circle of his friends, and made his room the haunt of most students of history and scholars worthy of the name. But indeed he had not been long in his office when his accomplishments were discovered by all sorts of people. He never went into questions of abstract law, and with some real, and a little affected modesty, left them to the professed lawyer. But for disinterring an old historical honour like the dukedom of Chatelherault, the agent was fortunate who secured the assistance of Robertson. When Edinburgh and Dublin strove for precedency, Robertson arrayed the proofs of ancient sovereignty of his native capital with a zeal and affection that many might share, but with a learning all his own. If deer-loving lords disputed about their rights of forest, the learning of vert and venison,' not to be found in our lawbooks, was to be dug out of old charters by Joseph Robertson. Parishes, and even counties, having an ill-defined march, came to Robertson, who could point to a record that made matters plainer, and saved a lawsuit. In the vexed questions of decima incluse, or informal valuations of tithes, many a poor minister sought his aid, and obtained it without a fee. The clergy of his own (the Episcopal) Church took counsel with him in revising their canons and constitutions.

According to his view of duty, Robertson's labours were not limited to mere office attendance. They involved extensive researches for English and Foreign scholars, and a correspondence of great variety. His correspondence, indeed, was getting only too extensive. If a local historian was at a loss for a bit of charter-learning, he applied without hesitation to the Curator

of the Historical Department. Mr. Burton, the historian of Scotland, compared his views and conclusions with those of Robertson; and he himself has told us that ‘if you had a casual discussion with Robertson on some obscure point, you were sure to receive from him next morning a letter full of minute and curious erudition concerning it. He was ever ready with his help.' The most learned antiquaries of the Celtic Church in Ireland were in constant communication with him about their common subject of study. If an English historian required to cross the Border, Robertson was sure to be his guide among the clashing factions of his country, which none but a Scotchman can quite understand. Foreign scholars, interested in the period when Scotch and French history run into one, or in the antiquities of the Roman Church, which is not limited by national boundaries, applied to Robertson in their difficulties. While he was corresponding with the Dean of Westminster about the history of the Coronation Stone of Scotland and of Britain, and with the Comte de Montalembert about the early Christianizing of our islands, the most learned Dr. Reeves took his assistance for his history of St. Columba and the family of Iona; and such was his obliging nature, such his zeal for historical literature, so freely did his stores of knowledge overflow, that men of eminence in all departments who had once consulted him counted upon his friendship, and not in vain.

His official place of work in those days was that noble hall added to the Register House of the Adams in Mr. Thomas Thomson's time, who bestowed all his taste in its arrangement. It contains the proper historical records of independent Scotland. In one press are the original registers of Parliament, from the reign of Robert Bruce; in another, the records of Privy Council; a third contains the quaint antique rolls, and the books of accounts of the great public officers from the earliest period of such registers; a fourth, the register of the Great Seal, the foundation of our land rights, to which no other country has anything simile aut secundum.

It was there that Mr. Robertson used to receive visitors and all who wished his help and guidance among the records which he knew so well. It was there he was seen to advantage. There was never a crowd; but among the best and most learned of his own city were occasionally to be found distinguished English scholars and historians, and now and then a French or German savant. His own usual chair was directly under a picture of Mr. Thomas Thomson. It was impossible for one who knew both men not to think how the great record scholar, the historical antiquary of the last generation, would have welcomed and valued his follower, who walked in his steps, who