102 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 170. 



of M. Gondammes' account of her, to which Mr. 

 Burnett wrote a preface. In the year 176G he 

 was appointed Chamberhiin to James, Earl of 

 Findhiter and Seafiekl, on the recommendation of 

 Lord Monboddo. In 1768 he published, at Edin- 

 burgh, The History of Greece, from the Earliest 

 Times till it became a Roman Province, being a 

 concise and particular account of the civil govern- 

 ment, religion, literature, and military alTairs 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 Cor- 

 sican service, 4t,o., 1769: designed to repel the 

 illiberal invectives of Mr. Wilkes against the peo- 

 ple of Scotland. Some of the popular objections 

 to the Union reiterated by the young Scotsman 

 having been found in the chai'acteristic 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. SraoUet, 

 ■who had then discontinued an unsuccessful oppo- 

 sition to Mr. Wilkes in The Briton. 



In 1773 Mr. Robertson married Miss Donald, 

 only child of Captain Alexander Donald, of the 

 89th, or Gordon Highlanders. In the year 1777 

 he received his commission from Lord Frederick 

 Campbell, the Lord Clerk Register of Scotland, 

 as colleague of his brother, Mr. Alexander Robert- 

 son, who had been appointed one of the Deputy 

 Keepers of the Records of Scotland some years 

 before. He was now in a situation completely 

 suited to his wishes, and entered on the duties of 

 his office with the utmost enthusiasm. It very 

 early occurred to him, that many ancient records 

 of Scotland, which had been removed by Edward I., 

 might still be recovered ; and he suggested to Lord 

 Frederick Campbell, who was as enthusiastic as 

 himself in everything tending to throw light on the 

 early history of Scotland, that searches ought to be 

 made in the State Paper Office in London for the 

 purpose of ascertaining whether some of the earlier 

 records might yet be found. Lord Frederick 

 Campbell entered warmly into his views, and the 

 success with which the search was made may be 

 ascertained by consulting the Preface to the Index 

 of Charters. 



The Reports to the Parliamentary Commis- 

 sioners appointed to inquire into the state of the 

 records, with the suggestions made by him, and 

 which have been so ably followed up since his 

 death by the late Thomas Thomson, Esq., Deputy 

 Clerk Register, were considered of such import- 

 ance as to merit a vote of thanks of the Select 

 Committee, which was transmitted to him along 

 with a very friendly letter from Mr. Abbot, then 

 Speaker of the House of Commons, afterwai-ds 



Lord Colchester. He commenced tl>e laborious 

 work of printing The Records of the Parliament of 

 Scotland, in which he made considerable progress, 

 having, previous to his death, completed one very 

 large folio volume. 



Between the years 1780 and 1790, in conse- 

 quence of a strict Investigation Into the validity 

 of the claims of several persons to peerages in 

 Scotland, Mr. Robertson was much employed In 

 inquiring into the state of the peerage, both by 

 those who made antl those who rejected such 

 claims. This circumstance naturally led him to a 

 minute acquaintance with the subject; and In- 

 duced him to publish, in 1794, a quarto volume, 

 entitled Proceedings relative to the Peerage of 

 Scotland from I6th January, 1707, to 20th April, 

 1788 : a work which has been found of the 

 greatest service in conducting the elections of the 

 representative peers of Scotland. 



In 1798, at the request of Lord Frederick 

 Campbell, he published an — 



" Index, drawn up in the Year 1629, of many Records 

 of Charters granted l>y the different Sovereigns of 

 Scotland, between 1309 and 1413 (which had been 

 discovered by Mr. Astle in the British Museum), most 

 of which Records have been long missing; widi an 

 Introduction, giving a State, founded upon Authentic 

 Documents still preserved, of the Ancient Records of 

 Scotland, which were in that Kingdom in 1292." 



The object of this publication was to endeavour 

 to recover many ancient records, which there was 

 much reason to believe were still In existence. 

 The labour which he underwent in preparing this 

 volume for the press, and in transcribing a very 

 ancient quarto manuscript, written on vellum, 

 which was found in the State Paper Office, was 

 very great. Every word of this ancient vellum 

 MS. he copied with his own hand, and it Is printed 

 along with the volume of the Records of the Par- 

 liament of Scotland. The preface, Introduction, 

 notes, and appendix to the Index of Chai-ters, 

 show, not only the great labour which this work 

 required from him, but the extensive Information 

 also, on the subject of the ancient history of Scot- 

 land, which be possessed. 



At a general meeting of the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgli, held Jan. 28, 1799, he was elected a 

 member, and placed in the literary class of the 

 Society. He died March 4, 1803, at his house, 

 St. Andrew's Square, Edinburgh, In the sixty- 

 third year of his age. Elginensis. 



COWPEB, OR COOPKB. 



In the midsummer holidays of 1799, being on a 

 visit to an old and opulent family of the name of 

 Deverell, in Dereham, Norfolk, I was taken to the 

 house of an ancient lady (a member of the afore- 

 said family), to pay my respects to her, and to drink 



