280 ROBERTSON. 



vades it, the enlarged views of polity in which it 

 abounds, the sober and rational, but bold speculations 

 with which it is variegated, and the constant references 

 to authorities which accompany it, place it above the 

 works of antiquity, deficient in all these particulars, 

 altogether wanting in some of them. The skilful and 

 striking delineations of individual character which are 

 mingled with the narrative, but never overlaying it, and 

 the reference to the histories of other countries which 

 is introduced wherever it became necessary or in- 

 structive, forms another high merit of the work. But 

 it is as a history, and a history of Scotland, that its 

 execution must mainly be regarded, and in this it is 

 truly a great performance. It is difficult to admire 

 sufficiently the graphic power which the historian 

 displays in bringing before us the rude and stormy 

 period he has chosen to describe the strange mixture 

 of simple barbaric manners in some classes with arti- 

 ficial refinement in others of poverty in the country 

 with splendour at court, and among the chiefs of 

 great crimes with striking virtues the morality of 

 unprincipled and ferocious men with the vehement 

 religious opinions of fanatics the spectacle of a nation 

 hardly half-civilized, barely emerging from a rude state, 

 conducted by rulers, and disputed by factious leaders, 

 with all the refinements and corruption of statesmen 

 bred in the Italian courts. In the great staple of all 

 historical excellence, the narrative, it has certainly 

 never been surpassed. There is nothing obscure or 

 vague, nothing affected or epigrammatic, nor is any 

 sacrifice made of the sense to the phrase ; the diction 

 is simple and pure, and soberly, if at all, adorned ; but 



