ROBERTSON. 315 



different principles. With his colleague, Dr. Erskine, 

 leader of his antagonists in the Church, he lived upon 

 terms of uninterrupted friendship, as that great pres- 

 byter feelingly testified on preaching his funeral 

 sermon. With Mr. Hume his intimacy is well 

 known. His political principles were those of a mo- 

 derate Whig, a Whig of 1688, as he used to express 

 it ; but no man held in greater contempt the petty 

 mano3uvres of party. Horace Walpole has thought 

 fit to record a dialogue as having passed between them, 

 in which he makes the Principal say, " You must 

 know, sir, that I am a moderate Whig ;" and himself 

 answer, " Yes, Doctor, a very moderate Whig, I'll 

 engage for it" a sneer not likely to have been risked 

 by such an amateur with such an artist. What the 

 great historian intended by using the word " moderate" 

 plainly was to guard himself against being supposed 

 to enter into the squabbles of faction, and partake of 

 its blind fury in a degree unsuited to his station. 

 On religious matters he ever expressed himself with 

 solemnity and warmth. While he was wishing well 

 to liberty in France, before the excesses that profaned 

 its name, and indeed before the revolution broke out, 

 he was deploring the irreligious tone of French litera- 

 ture : " Really," said he, " one would think we were 

 living under a new dispensation." Of American 

 independence he was the warm friend ; but Washing- 

 ton's character was far more to his mind than 

 Franklin's, of whose violence and contempt of revealed 

 religion he had formed a very unfavourable opinion. 



His manner was not graceful in little matters, though 

 his demeanour was dignified on the whole. In public 



