with the old: that this change would
require the cancelling a great many sheets; that there were scattered
_passages through the volumes founded on your theory._" What an interview
was this of Andrew Millar and David Hume! truly the bibliopole shone to
greater advantage than the _two theoretical historians_! And so the world
had, and eagerly received, what this critical bookseller declared
"required the new printing (that is, the new writing) of a great part of
the edition!"

When this successful history of Scotland invited Robertson to pursue this
newly-discovered province of philosophical or theoretical history, he was
long irresolute in his designs, and so unpractised in those researches he
was desirous of attempting, that his admirers would have lost his popular
productions, had not a fortunate introduction to Dr. Birch, whose life had
been spent in historical pursuits, enabled the Scottish historian to open
many a clasped book, and to drink of many a sealed fountain. Robertson was
long undecided whether to write the history of Greece, of Leo X., that of
William III. and Queen Anne, or that of Charles V., and perhaps many other
subjects.

We have a curious letter of Lord Orford's, detailing the purport of a
visit Robertson paid to him to inquire after materials for the reigns of
William and Anne; he seemed to have little other knowledge than what he
had taken upon trust. "I painted to him," says Lord Orford, "the
difficulties and the want of materials--but the booksellers will out-argue
me." Both the historian and "the booksellers" had resolved on another
history: and Robertson looked upon it as a task which he wished to have
set to him, and not a glorious toil long matured in his mind. But how did
he come prepared to the very dissimilar subjects he proposed? When he
resolved to write the history of Charles V., he confesses to Dr. Birch: "I
never had _access to any copious libraries_, and do not pretend to _any
extensive knowledge of authors_; but I have made a list of such as I
thought most essential to the subject, and have put them down _as I found
them mentioned in any book I happened to read_. Your erudition and
knowledge of hooks is infinitely superior to mine, and I doubt not but you
will be able to make such additions to my catalogue as may be of great use
to me. I know very well, and to my sorrow, _how servilely historians copy
from one another_, and how little is to be learned from reading many
books; bu