RUSSELL, William, a very popular historian, the eldest son of Alexander Russell and Christian Ballantyne, was born in the year 1741 at Windydoors, a farm-house in the parish of Stowe and county of Selkirk. Most of the parish is within the limits of the county of Edinburgh. At an early age he was sent to school in the neighbouring village of Inverleithen, well known as a delightful place of summer resort. Here he acquired an elementary knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages; and private study afterwards enabled him to supply many of the deficiencies of his early education. In 1756 he was removed to Edinburgh, in order to be instructed in writing and arithmetic; and after having attended to these branches for about ten months, he was bound an apprentice to the bookselling and printing business for the term of five years. While engaged in this occupation, he discovered the utmost ardour in literary pursuits; nor was his situation unfavourable to the acquisition of useful and elegant knowledge.

After the completion of his apprenticeship, he published a select collection of modern poems, which was favourably received. The first edition we have not seen; the second bears the subsequent title: “The select Poems of our most celebrated contemporary British Poets: viz. Dr Akenside, Mr Gray, Mr Mason, W. Shenstone, Esq. Mr W. Collins, Lord Lyttelton, Mess. Wartons, Mr Blacklock, Mr Beattie, Mr Ogilvie, etc. Vol.I. Second edition, with additions.” Edinb. 1764, 12mo. He afterwards congratulated himself on having contributed to extend the popularity of Gray and Shenstone in the northern part of the kingdom. It may be mentioned as a proof of his classical taste, that at this early period of life he entertained the highest admiration for the sublime odes of Gray, which he was accustomed to recite in a wild and enthusiastic manner. In the year 1763, while employed as a journeyman printer, he became a member of a literary association, denominated the Miscellaneous Society, which was composed of students and other young men anxious to exercise their talents and to improve their taste. This juvenile society included other individuals who afterwards rose to distinction. Among these we find Sir Robert Liston, who was employed in several important embassies, and Mr Dalzel, who became professor of Greek in this university.

About the same period he made an attempt to adapt Crebillon’s Rhadamisthe el Zenobie to the English stage. The manuscript was submitted to the inspection of his two friends Liston and Dalzel; who, after a very careful perusal, stated not a few objections to particular passages, though they do not appear to have condemned the entire performance. This tragedy was at length offered to Garrick: but Murphy’s Zenobia was at that time in rehearsal; and if the merit of Russell’s play had been more conspicuous, it probably would not have been accepted. In 1764, he issued proposals for publishing a second volume of his collection of poems, which however did not make its appearance. With the view of arranging his materials, he now retired to the country, and about this period of his life he maintained an epistolary correspondence with Lord Elibank, Dr Ogilvie, and Mr Dalzel, by all of whom he seems to have been regarded as a young man of promising talents. In the course of the ensuing year, Lord Elibank, who was himself a man of literature, invited him to his seat in the county of Haddington, where he spent the greater part of the autumn, and had an opportunity of conversing with many distinguished individuals. To this nobleman he seems to have looked for favour and protection. The hope of obtaining preferment through his influence, had induced him to relinquish his original employment; and in the mean time he continued to prosecute his studies, particularly in the departments of history and polite literature.

Having resided with his father till the month of May 1767, he proceeded to London in quest of honour and emolument. But his high hopes were speedily blasted; and after having in vain waited for advancement through the influence of Mr Hume, Lord Elibank, General Murray, and Governor Johnstone, he was under the necessity of contracting his views, and engaging himself as a corrector of the press in the great office of William Strahan, afterwards printer to his majesty. To find himself thus placed in a situation so inadequate to his expectations, must have cast a temporary gloom over his mind; but the freshness of youth, added to the natural vivacity of his mind, would have enabled him to support even greater disappointments. In some brief notices found among his papers after his death, he mentions his expectations of preferment through the interest of these individuals; but he does not aver that his hopes were founded on their promises. The disappointments of human life may very frequently be traced to the unreasonableness of our expectations.

In the year 1769 he quitted the employment of Mr Strahan, and was engaged as overseer of the printing office of Brown and Adlard. During the same year he published an “Ode to Fortitude,” which was immediately reprinted at Edinburgh by his former masters, Martin and Wotherspoon. His “Sentimental Tales” appeared in 1770; and from this time he contributed to the periodical publications many essays in prose as well as verse. In 1772 he published a collection of “Fables, Moral and Sentimental,” and “An Essay on the Character, Manners, and Genius of Women, from the French of M. Thomas.” In 1774 he produced an octavo volume under the title of “Julia, a Poetical Romance.” Of this work, which is founded on the Nouvelle Heloise of Rousseau, neither the plan nor the execution can be commended. In the estimate of his literary character Russell dissented from the public opinion: his historical works, which have met with a very favourable reception, he considered as greatly inferior to his poetical works, which have been totally neglected. But his friends certainly had no reason to regret that the collective edition of his poems, which he long meditated, never made its appearance. On the death of Hume he produced an elegy which occasioned a sarcastic effusion from another poet. Mickle, who abhorred the scepticism of Hume, and who believed himself to have been materially injured by Smith, concludes his verses with this stanza:

For him shall Russell rant and rave

In hobbling rumbling lays;

And Smith in barbarous sleepy prose

Shall grunt and croak his praise.

Russell is the author of the verses on the death of Dr Armstrong, subscribed W. R. and dated from Gray’s Inn, Sept. 10, 1779, which are commonly printed with the poems of that classical writer. Before this period he had apparently relinquished his connexion with the printing-office, and had entirely devoted himself to the pursuits of literature. His “History of America,” published in numbers, was completed in the course of the same year. This work was received with some degree of favour; hut the splendid merit of Dr Robertson’s history precluded all competition. During the same year, 1779, he likewise published, in octavo, the first two volumes of“The History of Modern Europe; with an account of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and a View of the Progress of Society from the fifth to the eighteenth century. In a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son.” Their reception was so favourable as to exceed his most sanguine expectations. His studies experienced a temporary interruption in 1780, when he embarked for Jamaica in order to recover some money, due to him as the heir of his brother James, who, after a residence of several years, had died in that island. He after[7:19:526]wards resumed his historical labours, which were occasionally interrupted by his love of poetry. In the year 1783 he published “The Tragic Muse,” a poem addressed to Mrs Siddons. To address verses to a player has been considered as beneath the dignity of the literary character. It would be a crime, said a periodical writer, to sacrifice genius on such an uninteresting occasion: we have more dignified subjects for the poetic Muse than an individual whose excellence is only a dazzling meteor, and must be forgotten in a few years at most. Players have sometimes been extravagantly extolled, particularly by grateful or aspiring poets who have written for the stage, and it will doubtless be granted that a poet may easily find a more dignified theme: but supreme excellence in any ingenious art seems to be no improper subject of panegyric; and so rare and difficult are the fleeting attainments of a great actor, that it may be considered as a generous exertion of poetic talent to rescue them from oblivion.

The three volumes which completed the History of Modern Europe made their appearance in 1784. From the manuscript notices to which we have already referred, it appears that in the composition of each of these five volumes he spent about twelve months. This work, which is the chief foundation of his reputation, possesses great merit as a popular view of a very extensive period of history. The author displays no inconsiderable judgment in the selection of his leading incidents, and in the general arrangement of his materials; and he seems to have studied the philosophy of history with assiduity and success. His narrative is always free from languor; and his reflections are conveyed in a lively and elegant style. It is however to be regretted that he should have adopted the useless expedient of exhibiting his work as a series of letters from a nobleman to his son: every reader is sufficiently aware that Dr Russell did not belong to the order of nobility; and the frequent recurrence of “my dear Philip,” is too apt to remind us of Lord Chesterfield. This work has very often been reprinted, and it still continues to maintain its original popularity. Russell closes his history with the peace of Paris in 1763. A continuation, extending to two volumes, was added by the late Dr Coote; and another writer has continued the narrative to the death of William the Fourth.

In the year 1787 he married Isabella Scott, a lady of Eskdale, to whom he had long been attached, and in whom he found a pleasant and intelligent companion. He now entered upon the occupation of a comfortable farm at Knottyholm, in the parish of Canonby and county of Dumfries. He fixed his residence in an elegant cottage, delightfully placed on the brink of the Esk, and at the distance of about five miles from the town of Langholm. This may well be described as “a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills.” A more beautiful tract of pastoral country than that which extends for about twelve miles along the banks of the river, it would not perhaps be very easy to mention. Here he spent the remainder of his days. In this neighbourhood there were several intelligent individuals, with whom he lived in habits of intimacy. Of these the most conspicuous was the late Mr Maxwell, who was eminently distinguished for his scientific skill in music. ^[1. John Maxwell, Esq. of Broomholm was born in the year 1726. In July 1754 he succeeded to an estate which has now belonged to the family for more than two centuries. His father was William Maxwell, his mother was a daughter of Scott of Wool in Selkirkshire. By his wife, Wilhelmina Malcolm, he had nine sons, of whom only one now survives. Her father was minister of Ewes, and the grandfather of the late Sir John Malcolm. Mr Maxwell was for many years a justice of the peace and a deputy lieutenant of the county of Dumfries. He was a remarkably handsome man, about six feet high, and possessing a pleasing address. Broomholm, two miles from Langholm, and three from Dr Russell’s place of residence, stands in a delightful valley near the junction of the Esk and Tarras, and is surrounded by extensive and lofty woods. He published, but without his name, “An Essay upon Tune; being an Attempt to free the Scale of Music, and the Tune of Instruments, from Imperfection.” Edinb. 1781, 8vo. Pp. 290. The ingenious author died in the month of March 1806, at the age of seventy-nine years and ten months. He had a brother named Walter and a sister named Mary. She was the wife of Mr John Little of Langholm, and the mother of the late Colonel Little, so highly distinguished in the wars of India. ]

He had now acquired the reputation of a very popular historian; and in 1792 the university of St Andrews conferred upon him the degree of LL. D. Academical honours have sometimes been more unworthily bestowed. The very favourable reception of his last publication had induced him to retrace his steps; and during the following year he published at London, in two volumes octavo, “The History of Ancient Europe; with a View of the Revolutions in Asia and Africa. In a Series of Letters to a young Nobleman.” In the composition of this work, he professes to have been peculiarly studious to found his facts on original authorities, and to clear the narrative of unimportant events. He seems however to have allotted too many of his pages to the poetical details of the Trojan war. This production partakes of the peculiar merits of his modern history; but as the author did not live to complete his design, it never attained to the same popularity. Of these two volumes, the greater proportion relates to the history of Greece; and the same ground has recently been trodden by Dr Gillies and Mr Mitford. Dr Coote, having afterwards been induced to supply what he had left deficient, published “The History of Ancient Europe; in a Series of Letters from a Gentleman to his Son: intended as an accompaniment to Dr Russell’s History of Modern Europe.” Lond. 1815, 3 vols. 8vo.

Dr Russell did not long survive the publication of his last work. A stroke of palsy suddenly terminated his life, on the 25th of December 1793, after he had completed the fifty-second year of his age. His remains were interred in Westerkirk churchyard, where a plain mural stone distinguishes his grave. He left a widow, who died a few years ago, and an only child, a daughter, who still survives, and continues to reside at Knottyholm.

He had engaged in various projects which he did not live to execute. Besides two complete tragedies, entitled Zenobia and Pyrrhus, he left in manuscript “An Analysis of Bryant’s Ancient Mythology,” and the following unfinished productions. 1. The Earl of Strafford, a tragedy. 2. Modern Life, a comedy. 3. The Love-Marriage, an opera. 4. Human Happiness, a poem, intended to have been completed in four books. 5. An Historical and Philosophical View of the Progress of Mankind in the Knowledge of the Terraqueous Globe. 6. The History of Modern Europe, part iii. from the peace of Paris in 1763, to the general pacification in 1783, including an Account of the American War, and of the European Transactions in the East Indies. In a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son. 7. The History of England from the beginning of the reign of George III. to the conclusion of the American War. In the composition of the last of these works Dr Russell was engaged at the close of his life. It was to be comprised in three volumes octavo; for the copyright of which Mr Cadell had stipulated to pay him seven hundred and fifty pounds. (x.)