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Untitled Article
Mr . Robertson soon after left Ireland , and went to London ^ His Treatise excited attention ; it passed under a review in all the periodical publications ; extracts from it were inserted in
the newspapers . The notice which it attracted produced inquiries after its author ; several gentlemen \ xx the metropolis received him with great cordiality , and generously contributed to his support . The writer of this recollects being informed by a friend , that a Nobleman connected wiih Administration at this
time , waited on Mr . Robertson , expressed in handsoirte terms sentiments of respect for his worth and abilities , and added , that they should be glad to have the aid of such a pen . Mr . Robertson ' s reply was , " Give me truth , give me truth , my Lord , and I will write . " He heard no more from the Peer .
In the year 1767 he presented one of his books to his old AlrncL Mater ' , the University of Glasgow , and received in return a most obliging letter , with , the degree of Doctor in Divinity . In the year 1768 the mastership of tlie free gramxnar ^ school at Wolverhampton , in . Staffordshire , became vacant ; and its patrons , the Worshipful Company of Merchant-Taylors / unanimous ] jvappointed him to it .
But this appointment , though honorable to his benefactors , was not very lucrative to himself . Thisis best explained by his own account of his situation * In a letter , dated in September 1769 , he writes : " I am here in a very strange way . The salary is 701 . ^ year , but there is a pension of 401 . paid out of that to an old gentleman who resigned the school upon that
condition , ten years ago , and is now in as good a state of health as a man of eighty can be ; so that there remains but 301 . for me , loaded with the wages of school-servants , school-firing , window-mpney , and other taxes , which in all come to about 7 l , a year , without any emolument of any kind . So that my necessary expences have been five times as much as the salary . "
In a subsequent letter , dated 1770 , he recovered in some degree from the disagreeable apprehensions he had formed ; for , writing to a friend , he says— " Your concern forme makes you imagine , that I have abandoned and lost a great deal of this world . Indeed , according to the common estimation of things , your conjecture is right . But I assure you , that * I weighed the matter long ago ; and many things which are of
show and consequence in the general Opinion weighed very light in my scale , when set against others which were to me of infi- * nitely greater mornejit- For the last three months J have beett much afflicted with the gout ; so that pain and business have filled up all my time . However , I thank God , I go on pretty well , arid find my health improve as the . weather grows warm , so that I am in hopes I shall have a tolerable summer . I make
Untitled Article
223 Rev . W . Robertson , D . D .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1806, page 228, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1724/page/4/
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