260 ROBERTSON. 



so congenial to his mind, at once argumentative and 

 rhetorical ; and all this study produced not one written 

 line, though thus unremittingly carried on. The same 

 may be said of the ten years he passed in constant 

 study from 1743, the beginning of his residence in a 

 small parish, of very little clerical duty, to 1752, when 

 we know from his letter to Lord Hailes he began his 

 first work. But, indeed, the composition of his three 

 great works, spread over a period of nearly thirty years, 

 clearly evinces that during this long time his studies 

 must have been much more subservient to his own grati- 

 fication than to the preparation of his writings, which 

 never could have required one half that number of years 

 for their completion. 



Translations from the classics, and especially from 

 the Greek, of which he was a perfect master, formed a 

 considerable part of his labour. He considered this 

 exercise as well calculated to give an accurate know- 

 ledge of our own language, by obliging us to weigh 

 the shades of difference between words or phrases, and 

 to find the expression, whether by the selection of the 

 terms or the turning of the idiom, which is required 

 for a given meaning ; whereas, when composing origi- 

 nally, the idea may be varied in order to suit the dic- 

 tion which most easily presents itself, of which the 

 influence produced manifestly by rhymes, in moulding 

 the sense as well as suggesting it, affords a striking and 

 familiar example.* His translationshowever, were not 

 wholly confined to their purpose of teaching composi- 



* I may mention that both he and his son, the Judge, prescribed 

 this exercise to me, and, among others, made me translate all the 

 ' History ' of Floras. 



