ROBERTSON. 295 



a monosyllable. Possibly " descend " was unnecessary ; 

 " come down " would have been sufficiently sustained. 

 The technical words "lie-to "and "ahead" were in 

 like manner necessary, because there is ridicule attached 

 to speaking of a ship " stopping," or one being before 

 another, as on the road ; besides that these phrases have 

 been imported from nautical language, and are now 

 naturalised on shore. 



The effect which the passage adverted to is calcu- 

 lated to produce on readers of understanding and of 

 feeling was once remarkably seen by me, when I made 

 my illustrious and venerated friend Lord Wellesley 

 attend to it. He told me next day that he had never 

 been so much moved by any modern writing ; that he 

 had shed tears while he read it, and that it had broken 

 his rest at night. 



If the word dramatic has been applied to this nar- 

 rative, it has been advisedly chosen ; because no one 

 can doubt that, with the most scrupulous regard to the 

 truth, and even to the minute accuracy of history, this 

 composition has all the beauties of a striking poem. To 

 judge of its merits in this respect, I will not compare 

 or rather contrast it with the Histories of Oviedo, or 

 Herrera, or Ferdinand Columbus, or even with the 

 far better composition of Dr. Campbell, or whoever 

 wrote the history of the discovery in Harris's ' Bibli- 

 otheca Itinerantium,'* nor yet with the ambitious but 



* This work, in two folio volumes, contains some admirable his- 

 torical pieces. Burke's ' European Settlements ' is veiy much 

 taken from it. I refer to the edition of 1740, by Dr. Campbell, 

 whose acquaintance Dr. Robertson appears by his ' Letters ' above 

 cited to have had great pleasure in making when he visited London. 



